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Quad vs. Hip Dominant

March 15, 2011 By Pat Rigsby 3 Comments

Pat here. When I was coaching college baseball, I recognized early on that successful programs were built on 2 things:

Great Coaching
Great Recruiting

You might be ok if you were really proficient at one but not the other – but you’d never be great.

In fact – some of the best teachers of the game I encountered didn’t win nearly as frequently as the guys who might have been 10% worse as teachers – but were much better recruiters.

When I left coaching and went into business I quickly found a lot of similarities.

If you want to run a great business you need to be proficient at training and at marketing / selling.

If you neglect either you’ll really limit your success.

With that in mind I periodically ask friends of mine that are at the top of the profession to share insights on training. Some ‘gurus’ may try to tell you that being a great trainer isn’t important…being a great marketer is all it takes.

Bullshit.

Being a great trainer or coach is the foundation of a successful fitness business and Mike Robertson is living proof. Mike, along with his partner Bill Hartman, own one of Men’s Health’s Top 10 Gyms in the U.S. and their primary driver is delivering a great service. This leads to great retention, tons of referrals and it makes all other marketing much more effective.

So you can look at this guest post one of two ways. You can view it as a training post – and it’s a great one. Or you can view it as a fitness marketing post – because if you become a better trainer or coach, your marketing just got a lot easier.

OK – here’s Mike:

Fitness Marketing Success: Do You Like Being Pushed Around?

November 9, 2010 By Pat Rigsby 14 Comments

A Guest Post on Fitness Marketing By Paul Reddick

Let me ask you a question:

Did you get into personal training as a career because someone told you to do it?

I’ll bet your answer was NO.

I’ll bet again that you got into personal training because you were inspired to help others through your passion for training. Maybe a certain person inspired you? You’re probably thinking of them now.

Going further back… I’ll bet you became an expert in your particular area of training because that type of training inspired you.

I’ll bet, one last time, that your expertise comes very easy to you, feels like second nature, and the learning and doing of that expertise is enjoyable and gets you results.

Where am I going with this?

Why when it comes to training you followed a path that inspired you but, when it comes to fitness marketing you are following methods where people are TELLING you what to do.

You’ve probably been told to:

Do Facebook Fan Pages
Film Youtube videos
Set up SEO sites
Become a blogger
Write ebooks
Make 10,000 products
Use email marketing
Post to Twitter 50 times a day
Write articles
Post on forums

Fitness Marketing Using Radio Transformation Contests

October 13, 2010 By admin 8 Comments

A Guest Post On Fitness Marketing By Ben Warstler

Over the past 3 years I’ve run several successful Radio Transformation Contests leading to dozens – probably hundreds – of new clients and what I’m sure adds up to six-figures worth of business. Oh, and I’m in a town of about 3200 in Vermont, so if it works here, then it will likely work where you are too. Here’s my blueprint that you can model:

Step 1: Contact local radio stations and offer a spot in bootcamp to personalities (we used the morning show) for free in exchange that they talk about your program on air (their experiences). OR you can offer to pay for a satellite broadcast at your bootcamp location. (You could hold a bootcamp open house or client appreciation event).

Sidenote- offer them free bootcamp first and don’t mention the idea of free advertising until you are in negotiations. They may have another idea and listen to their ideas first rather than expecting free air time. But if you can get them to talk candidly about your program and their experiences, that is better than any advertising commercial you can ever make.

Step 2: After getting to know the radio personalities in your bootcamp, offer the idea of a transformation contest. You can say something like this:

Fitness Marketing Strategy. Does This Really Work?

September 23, 2010 By admin 6 Comments

A Post On Fitness Marketing Strategy By Pat Rigsby

I LOVE hearing about fitness pros taking our tools, system and fitness marketing strategies – applying them and turning them into clients and money.

There isn’t much better.

You may remember my Fundraiser Promotion spurned from my days as a baseball coach. Just take a look at this string of messages from Bootcamp Blueprint member Andy Perkins about his results with that single promotion:

Andy Perkins March 27 at 9:52am

Hi Pat –

I just wanted to send you a quick email and say thank you for the fundraising content on the bootcamp blueprint. I launched my first fundraiser this morning and within 10 minutes of everyone leaving camp I had a phone call from a camper saying that they had someone who wanted to join. Since then I have had 3 more, making it 4 new leads in 3 hours. It’s amazing how powerful it is, all I did was hand out some flyers at the end during the cool down and tell them what we were doing.

Andy

The X Factor For Fitness Business Success

August 2, 2010 By admin 12 Comments

What Is The X Factor For Your Fitness Business?

If you really want to know the thing that allows some people to enjoy success in their fitness business while others settle for mediocrity – it’s really pretty simple.

Drive.

If one of your clients wants to lose weight, it’s more about their want, desire and willingness to stick to your program than it is about having any magic system.

If you want to build a six or seven figure fitness business, it’s more about your hunger and willingness to do what most won’t than it is about the latest greatest fitness business marketing fad or client getting system.

The truth is – a lot of different approaches will work…

…If you will.,/p>

I can look back and see this clearly hold true in pretty much any success I’ve ever had and for all the successful people I’ve known.

When I became a Baseball Coach, the two previous coaches at that University had been a former Major League All-Star and a legendary high school coach that had made the jump to coaching at the collegiate level.

Both struggled in the job I was about to take – and both had tons more experience, credentials and resources.

I was 23 and I can look back and count on one hand the number of people that expected me to be even modestly successful – and that’s including myself

But the fear of failure drove me tirelessly. With less experience, worse facilities and poorer resources than virtually everyone we competed against – I was able to be successful because I was willing to do what others wouldn’t.

When other coaches were vacationing during the summer, I was working.

When they were home, I was recruiting.

While they were comfortable, I was hungry.

Really, I was just unwilling to fail and it drove me constantly.

Personal Training Business: 3 Things You Need To Know

May 27, 2010 By admin 14 Comments

Personal Training Business Success. A Post By Pat Rigsby.

By now you may know that Nick and I, along with Brian Grasso and Sara Nylander, launched a youth fitness & athletic development franchise called Athletic Revolution.

Personal Training Business: 3 Things You Need To Know

We’ve been very deliberate with our expansion (we have 7 locations so far) because we are committed to building the premier youth fitness & athletic development franchise in the world – and we can’t do that haphazardly

Because we spend a lot of time focusing on building Athletic Revolution the right way, we put a lot of thought into what goes into a successful fitness and personal training businesses. While I can’t share the details of everything we’ve uncovered as some of it is proprietary and exclusive to AR franchisees – I can share the key components that go into any successful personal training business.

To build a successful personal training business, you need:

Understanding The Difference Between Activity and Achievement For Fitness Professionals

May 19, 2010 By admin 9 Comments

A Post On Achievement For Fitness Professionals By Pat Rigsby

If you’re like most trainers or coaches – between training clients and managing your personal training business you are likely working 50, 60 maybe even 70 hours a week or more.

The problem with most fitness professionals is not a lack of willingness to put in long hours and work hard.

It’s the way they are spending their time.

Most are training clients for the bulk of their work day – which is totally fine. But they are also the bookkeeper, janitor (if they own a facility), marketer and veritable jack-of-all-trades when it comes to running their business. So let’s put some math to the way most trainers spend their time.

If I ask most trainers or coaches what they earn per hour the typical answer is $50-75 per hour.

Unfortunately, this is usually not the case for most fitness professionals.

Fitness Marketing: You Don’t Have To Do Everything

May 2, 2010 By admin 10 Comments

Fitness Marketing Tips From Pat Rigsby

I just got back from a few days in Dallas at the Dan Kennedy Super Conference where I got to pick up a few ideas on everything from copywriting, fitness marketing to franchising. I also got to spend some time with fitness industry colleagues Curtis Mock, Chris Bachelor, Craig Ballantyne and Scott Colby.

But some of my most enjoyable time in Dallas was Saturday morning when I got to spend some time with King Hoover.

King is a long time customer and friend that has been part of our original Trainer’s Inner Circle program and is currently a Bootcamp Blueprint & IYCA member. He’s also one of the most humble and kind gentlemen I’ve met.

King started off our conversation almost apologetically, saying that he was a little upset with himself for not implementing all the great fitness marketing strategies we’ve provided in the Blueprint.

I had to laugh a little.

King’s built a great business in Fort Worth, Texas and he’s had his own syndicated radio show, he’s on TV and he’s about as media friendly as anyone I’ve met.

And he’s probably the best networker I know.

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Filed Under: Fitness Marketing Tagged With: Fitness Marketing, fitness marketing strategies

Making Your Fitness Business Viral In Four Steps

April 29, 2010 By admin 7 Comments

Fitness Business: How to go viral

Step One: Your Marketing Message – Your “message” is what you communicate to your existing and future clients –and this can sometimes have an impact on what your clients say about you and your fitness business.

The areas to improve in your message are Your Brand, Your Sales and Marketing Materials, and Your Values.

Your Brand

Your brand is your identity as company in the eyes of your clients. Branding is a big topics so for now, it’s important to know that you can, and should, improve your brand, but that doesn’t mean you should change it frequently.

In fact, once you have a good brand message, you should stick to it. If you change your brand around all the time, the “branding effect” will be greatly minimized if not totally eliminated.

Further, make sure that all of your fitness business marketing materials include your brand – as it will become your business identity and be what is conveyed when people spread the work about you.

So what is your brand?

Fitness Marketing Without Spending a Fortune

April 26, 2010 By admin 14 Comments

A Post on Fitness Marketing on a Budget By Pat Rigsby

burn money Fitness Marketing Without Spending a Fortune

One of the most common questions I get goes something like this:

“How can I fill up my schedule without spending a fortune on ineffective advertising or direct mail?”

What they really mean is:

I don’t have enough clients. Can you help?

Well, the better question is what did I NOT do in the past few weeks to cause me not to have as many clients as I want? I guess what I’m saying is the answer lies in your own actions. Every day you get to decide whether you’re going to work on your fitness business or just complain about the problems within your business.