How To Be A Successful Fitness Pro. A Post By Pat Rigsby

We all have the same 24 hours in a day and the same 7 days in a week. So why is it that some top producers seem to get mountains of things accomplished while others seem to never move closer to their goals?

Well, first I’d suggest that those high achievers have a clear picture of what they are trying to get done.

Secondly, I’d say that they value their time more than most and make sure that they are getting a significant return on the time they invest in activities.

And finally I believe that the successful plan their day to make sure they move closer to their goals.

While this isn’t specifically a goal achievement program, I strongly suggest that you spend some time deciding exactly how you want your business to look in 6, 12, 24 and 36 months. Once you have that clear picture of your future, then making decisions on how to spend your time becomes much easier. It essentially boils down to this:

Is this going to move me closer to or further away from my goals?

If the activity is going to move you closer to your goals, then you should do it. If it’s going to move you farther away, then don’t do it.

As you evolve in your fitness business endeavors you’re choices on activities will often be:

Which activity will move me to my goal more quickly?

But you need to know what your goals are. Do you?

Once you’ve decided what your goals are, achieving them becomes easier.

You essentially need to find the fastest and most direct route to the goals that you want to achieve.

This seems pretty simple, right?

Then why don’t most people live their lives this way?

Well, most of us are bombarded with so many distractions every day that the direct route is no longer obvious. So much of our attention gets diverted and so many people promise us the quick fix that keeps us on the right path that we’re usually prevented from achieving our goals.

The other problem is that we see the latest ‘fad’ and soon have a different goal that takes all of our focus away from our initial goal.

So here’s what I suggest that you do: Get very clear on what you want. Once you’re clear, work backward from where you want to be to where you are. If you are not sure of the steps in between, the easiest way to develop a path to follow is to model someone who’s achieved what you want to achieve. Learn the steps that they took and build them in to your plan.

The approach that I’ve had the most success in using backward planning is to set 3 types of goals:

Long Term Goals (12-36 months away)
Medium Term Goals (3-12 months away)
Short Term Goals (1 Day to 3 months away)

The short term goals all lead to the medium term goals and the medium term goals lead to the long term goals. Everything is interconnected.

With this approach daily planning becomes simple. I need to perform activities that move me closer to my short term goals. If they don’t move me closer to those goals I need to try to eliminate those activities.

So here exactly how I suggest that you do your daily planning:

On Sunday identify the tasks that you need to accomplish during the upcoming week to keep you on track to achieve you short term goals.

Each night spend 10 minutes planning the upcoming day. This will allow you to ‘sleep easy’ knowing that you are going to accomplish what you need to. Make sure that you have at least one ‘core task’ that no matter what, you will get accomplished in the upcoming day that will move you toward your goal. At the same time you should evaluate what you were able to accomplish during the day that’s coming to a close and whether the decisions you made moved you closer to your goals or took you farther away.

In the morning review your task list for the day. Allocate all your energies to accomplishing at least one ‘core’ task that will move you closer to your short term goal. If you’re booked with clients or designing programs all morning, get up a bit earlier or block off 30 minutes to make sure that you can accomplish a high return activity.

Review your goals and task list at least once during the day to make sure that you stay on track. By reviewing your goals too (and not just your tasks) you’ll be more likely to stay motivated.

A few tips to make sure that you get the most from your planning:

Always do your planning the night before.

Accept the fact that you’re not going to get everything that you want to done each day. That’s not an excuse so you don’t do anything.

Pledge to accomplish at least one task that moves you closer to your goals each day. Small, incremental improvements add up quickly.

Recognize that all actions move you closer to or farther from your goals as a fitness pro. Make note each evening of the activities that are moving you farther from your goals and track to see if patterns become apparent. If you’re spending 2 hours a day on e-mail but don’t have time to market, then you’ve seen a pattern that you need to change.

Dedicated to your success,

Pat Rigsby

Efficiency For Fitness Pros. A Post By Pat Rigsby

Like you, I have a lot of responsibilities. A number of business obligations including lots of phone calls, managing projects, writing, travel and any number of other things that go into building several businesses simultaneously. So below I’ve shared 4 steps I use and a few other random tips for fitness pros that I think can also help you get more done. Here you go:

 
Step One: Evaluate - Each night before I go to bed, I evaluate the day that is coming to a close before planning the next day. I wait as late as possible so my mind is clear when I go to bed. I look over the task list I created the evening before and see what I got done.

Did I miss or fail to complete anything important?

Do I need to follow up on anything?

Does anything need to carry over to the next day?

Is there anything that can be eliminated or delegated?

(This takes about 2-3 minutes total.)

 
Step Two: Plan - As soon as I’ve reviewed the previous day, I start planning the next day. I check out my Google Calendar and add any commitments listed there to my task list. Then I look at anything from the previous day that needs to be carried over and any task or activity that I know I need to get done the next day.

Once everything is listed, I’ll review my goals ( I keep a list of goals and I’d recommend you do too) briefly and then ‘star’ the top three tasks that aren’t just scheduled calls or appointments that I’m committed to. These might be something like writing sales copy or a blog post, creating a module for a program or contacting someone about a project idea.

With the 3 starred items I will block off time on my calendar to get those tasks completed.

(This takes about 2-3 minutes total.)

 
Step Three: Review - Each morning take 1-2 minutes to review the day ahead. This helps me prepare for the day ahead and get in the right frame of mind. For example:

If I know that I will be writing copy, I’ll make sure I have my notes on my desktop to review or any other sales letters I want to review available. Basically, when the time comes to be able to jump right into the task and not spend 15 minutes getting focused.

(Like I said – 1 or 2 minutes maximum for this.)

Step Four: Execute 25 On / 5 Off - My workday is blocked of in 30 minute increments. Most calls are scheduled for 30 minutes and if there is a chance one will take longer, it’s scheduled for an hour.

Ideally, calls will be done in 25 minutes so I have 5 minutes to catch up or prep for the next block of time.

For writing, work on projects, etc. – same thing. They get 30 minute blocks of time.

But 30 minutes is actually 25 minutes of uninterrupted work and 5 minutes of either getting out of my chair & stretching / moving or some quick stuff like responding to an email or two. No heavy mental lifting. I’ll set the timer for 25 minutes and when the buzzer goes off, set it for another 5.

It’s incredible how much you can get done in 25 minutes if you have no interruptions. I can often write an entire blog post or 2 newsletters in that time frame. But that’s the key – no interruptions.

No checking email.
No checking Facebook or Twitter.
No unscheduled phone calls.
No surfing the internet.
No interrupting yourself to go get a drink, use the bathroom or anything else that will pull your focus away from the task at hand.

Over time you’re going to get a great idea of exactly how much you can get done in this amount of time. Once you have a rough idea of this, that’s when things get easy.

Then you can break up the stuff you need to get done into 25 minute blocks and big projects no longer seem overwhelming.

For me, it’s almost a contest – a race against time to see how much I can get done in 25 minutes.

Maybe for you making 10 Business of the Week calls takes 1 Block but writing a client email newsletter takes 3 Blocks. Just break it down and schedule it.

This approach has been great for me and I think it will be great for fitness pros too.

With that in mind, here are a couple of other tips to get more done:

• The first hire any fitness professional should make is a personal assistant. You should try to delegate the $10 tasks that are taking up some of your time and spend your time on the high return stuff. Besides – hiring an assistant is easier than hiring someone to train or coach. You can use your network or Craigslist and find a number of solid prospects for an Admin. Asst. position and free up a lot of your time to do the higher return stuff.
• Schedule everything. As far as I’m concerned, if it’s not scheduled – it’s not important. Block off time to spend with your family. Time to read or study. Time for your own training. If you schedule time for clients, then you should be scheduling time for you too.
• Hold yourself accountable. Our Franchisees and Mastermind members do a Friday Check-In to the group to share what they got done during the past week and believe me, no one wants to be the slacker. You can list things out on Sunday of each week and review them the following Sunday, find an accountability partner or if you can join one of our programs or franchises and work with us for your accountability?
• Set specific goals and be accountable. This is big for me. I want a target to shoot for at all times.

Alright – there you go: my simple solution for Fitness Pros to get more done.

A Post On Getting Referrals By Pat Rigsby

As fitness business owner we all want more referrals. They’re the easiest prospects to sell, they are more likely to refer others and they’ll stay longer and pay more while they’re clients.

Unfortunately, referrals aren’t as easy to come by as they used to be. In years gone by all you had to do was offer up a prize or reward and your current clients would line up to send you new clients for a chance to win what you were offering or a crisp $50 bill.

It’s not quite that easy any more.

You can still be a referral driven business, but you need to set the stage to make that happen. Here’s a primer to get you started.

Referrals can be broken down into two categories:

1. Incentivized
2. Inspired

Inspired Referrals are the Viral payoff for giving your clients an extraordinary experience.

Inspired Referrals will come by making sure you and your team treats everyone like close personal friends, you deliver the results the client initially came to you for and make your clients feel like your facility is their home away from home.

In fact, a training business that excels in those areas alone can build a great client base with a fraction of the marketing cost typically associated with business growth.

Incentivized Referrals, however, can give your business a great boost too, especially as you’re still positioning yourself as the premier training solution in your community.

But in general, you can’t expert to build a business solely from incentivized referrals.

Unfortunately, most of the talk about referral marketing only focuses on incentivized referrals and the short-lived fireworks they can provide.

Don’t get caught up in the hype and think that alone will carry you.

So remember, the first thing you should do is focus on Extraordinary Service, and Client Experience. Once you are in a process of gradually improving those things, then add in Incentivized Referral programs in any of the following ways:

1. Point of Sale Referrals
2. Contests
3. Rewards
4. Gift Certificates / Gift Cards
5. Bring-a-Friend

Just remember that when you “bribe” your clients (let’s be honest, that’s what you’re doing here), you need to help make the experience fun for your clients and those that they refer. Referring shouldn’t be your clients pitching or hard selling your business. It should be education, shared positive experiences and an opportunity to experience what you do with as little risk as possible.

So that’s it – a simple formula for Referrals Made Easy that will send you new business month after month.

]]> http://fitbusinessinsider.com/referrals-made-easy/feed/ 0 http://fitbusinessinsider.com/big-ideas-for-growing-a-training-business/ http://fitbusinessinsider.com/big-ideas-for-growing-a-training-business/#comments Tue, 27 Mar 2012 21:04:27 +0000 admin http://fitbusinessinsider.com/?p=7642

A post on Growing A Training Business by Pat Rigsby

Oven the past few weeks we’ve had a couple groups of Mastermind Members in town, held a live event and hosted a Fitness Revolution franchise training.  Every chance I have the opportunity to spend time around elite fitness professionals like I recently have, I get a flood of ideas and thoughts about growing a training business.

With that in mind I thought I’d share some of them with you.

Know What You Need & Get It – Every successful training business needs to have certain processes and systems in place.  First you need to know what those processes and systems are – then you need to get them in place in your business.  If you don’t know what you need – talk to someone like me to fill in the blanks or model someone who is where you want to be.  Once you know – create the systems yourself or lean on products, coaching or a total solution like Fitness Revolution if you don’t want to create them or you want to fast track the process.

Burying your head or procrastinating on this will prevent you from ever having a great fitness business.

Live In Their Experience - If you want to be more effective in selling training or in growing your training business through maximizing the value of each client relationship, you’ve got to put yourself in their shoes.  You need to know what keeps them up at night.  You need to know what their day looks like.  You need to speak their language.  If you do this, being the best and most complete solution for them will become far, far easier.

Coaching Is The Ultimate Accelerator – Why do big box health clubs suck?  Well, there are a number of reasons, but the big one for me is there is no coaching.  If people don’t have a plan to get them to their goals, they may fumble around like they’re looking for something in the dark and accidentally get there – but the odds aren’t great and they’ll probably give up before they have success.  Coaching solves this and provides a road map to follow and accountability to keep people on track.  This is crucial for you to convey to your clients and it probably is something you should keep in mind for yourself.

One Is A Terrible Number – If you’re growing a training business, the number ‘one’ is your enemy.  Having only one lead generation strategy.  Having only one option to offer to prospective clients.  Employing only one revenue stream.  Being a one person operation.  All of them are potential roadblocks to success.

Meet People Where They Are – This hold true in marketing where you need to be where your ideal prospects are located. It holds true in the service you provide, by being willing to adapt and customize the way you present what you offer to address the prospective client’s wants and needs.  It holds true in coaching where you need to adapt your solution to help people where they really are, not where you think they should be.  This one is so important that our entire Fitness Revolution business model hinges on it.  Instead of being a one-size-fits-all offering like virtually all other franchises, we built our business to meet quality fitness pros where they are and work closely with them to move them to where they want to be.  You should do the same.

Think BIG – The most successful trainers and coaches I know all think differently than the rest.  They all think much bigger.  They think about doing big things, not ordinary things.  They set big goals.  They take big actions.  Big achievements don’t begin with little dreams.

Be A Better Listener – If you want to sell more, listen more intently to what your prospects are saying.  If you want to add revenue streams to your business, listen to what your clients are really asking for more help with.  If you want to grow, listen to your network and they’ll reveal a surprisingly large number of opportunities.  If you really pay attention instead of just waiting to talk, business becomes much easier.

You’ve Got To Be A Little Obsessive – Growing a training business into your own little fitness empire requires you to be a little obsessive.  Not to the point where you ignore the other important things in your life, but obsessive about getting better each and every day.  Most business owners don’t do this.  They essentially just go to work every day like they’re an employee and not a business builder.  If you want a great business, you need to get a little better every day – and that requires you to be somewhat obsessive to the details and obsessive about improvement.

Avoid Average – The average business owner – fitness or otherwise – starts a business because they hate their current job and want to do something they think they like to pay the bills.  This is average.  Don’t be average.  Hating your job is no better of a reason to start a business than disliking your current significant other is for marrying someone you don’t know.  If you want to build a great business you’re passionate about building something great.  Because you have a passion for what you do.  Those types of thoughts should drive you… not avoiding a job you hate.

Stay One Step Ahead – The fitness pros who are growing a training business to the highest level are relentless is their quest to improve.  There is zero complacency.  They’re always improving.  Always looking for another edge.  Staying the same isn’t ever even a consideration.

Education Is An Investment, Not An Expense – *Every* single one of the top pros in the industry either benefit from Coaching or Masterminds.  But they view education differently than everyone else too.  Most people see the fees for Coaching or a Mastermind as an expense.  “That’s too expensive!”  The top .1% simply look at it as an investment.  If they invest $5000, they do it fully expecting to make 10X, 20X… maybe even 30 or 40X that back in return.

So there are some big ideas to help you in growing your training business.

They’re just a few of the things I see in the people we work closely with that I feel are critical for success.

Also – if you’re interested in working with us more closely through our coaching offerings, email me directly at patrigsby@gmail.com and we’ll see what might be a good fit.

Let me know what you think below.

Dedicated to your succes,

Pat

A Post About The Benefits Of A Fitness Newsletter By Pat Rigsby

With the launch of Sam’s new fitness newsletter this week, I wanted to share my thoughts on newsletters and the role they could play in your business.

A fitness newsletter is a fantastic fitness marketing tool for building relationships.  It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about developing relationships with people you just met through networking or cultivating relationships with the clients you currently have – a newsletter is a must have part of your marketing arsenal. In short, a fitness newsletter:

• Is a perfect way to build value in your expertise for members of your network.
• Allows you to stay connected with your current clients outside of their sessions.
• Is a great way to educate your network in the different things you offer and share new offerings with your client base.
• Is a simple way to increase referrals.

How does a fitness newsletter build value in your expertise?

By delivering consistently solid information into your network’s inbox each week you can become the trusted expert in their eyes.  For non-clients, you can become the person that they look to for sound advice and lean on when they decide to invest in their health and fitness.

It also keeps you at the top of their mind so that when fitness related topics or opportunities arise, you’re the first person they think of.

If you deliver quality information on a consistent basis – you’ll soon be seen as the expert.

How does staying in contact with your current clients through fitness newsletter benefit you?

There are a few ways, for example:

• You can educate them on topics that you don’t have time to cover in sessions or in camp.
• You can add one additional ‘touch’ per week – a critical thing for group training based businesses.
• You can offer public recognition for everything from goals achieved to referrals given.
• You can help keep clients compliant by staying in front of them outside of sessions.

If you’re providing good information, there is zero downside to contacting your current clients outside of sessions – and having something that you can do on a consistent basis will pay dividends fast.\

How can a fitness newsletter make you more money?

That’s the big question, right?  Here are a few ways that sending a weekly newsletter will increase your bottom line:

• You can stay in front of your prospects so that you’re basically soft selling them into becoming clients.  Remember – when someone opts into your list or you add them to your network, they may not be ready to come on board as a client… yet.  By positioning yourself as an expert that they can trust – they eventually will.
• You can ask for referrals from your current clients through the newsletter and highlight those who have recently referred to you.
• You can sell solutions like Personal Trainer Foods or Prograde.
• You can announce new programs that you’re offering.
• You can announce things like your interest in public speaking or running corporate programs to your entire network at once.
• You will enhance retention.
• You can be affiliates for infoproducts or sell tools like bands or foam rollers without inventorying them.

Basically, your newsletter can help you get more clients, help you generate more revenue per client and help you keep those clients longer.  The only 3 ways that you can grow your business.

Why is a fitness newsletter a such a powerful marketing tool?

Your newsletter is very targeted marketing that does not feel like marketing to your clients and prospects. For them it is a value added service that they don’t have to pay for. Every week you are demonstrating the range of your vast knowledge and expertise. Your newsletter shows people how much you care. It offers you the way to keep them informed of every single service, offer, and news worthy item, every single week.

Pretty powerful, right?

Should I use a pre-made fitness newsletter like Sam’s?

Another big question.

In my mind, the answer is ‘no’ if:

• You love to write and you’re consistent about writing your newsletters on a weekly basis.
• You have ample time to write the caliber of newsletters that you want to deliver.

In my mind, the answer is ‘yes’ if:

• You want to automate a key component of your marketing efforts.
• You like ‘done for you.’
• Don’t love to write.
• Want to spend your time in other areas of your business – or want more free time for yourself.

If you do use a done for you solution, I think that the quality of content is key.  If you want to position yourself as an expert, then the newsletters have to be top notch.

As far as quality of content goes when it comes to the done for you newsletters out there, Sam’s is the only one I’ll vouch for.  There are a couple others that I’ve seen and don’t think are at the level you’d want to reflect you – and there are others that I’ve yet to see so I can’t share any opinion on at this point.

At this point, it’s pretty obvious that I’m a fan of newsletters.  Considering that I write one pretty much daily I should be, right?  We’ve actually worked on providing our own newsletter solution for quite some time but could never get the software or the overall product up to the level we felt was necessary to deliver to the market – and with the rapid growth of Fitness Revolution it just hasn’t been able to be our top priority.  So when we found out that Sam would be releasing a high quality solution that was up to the standards we were comfortable recommending – needless to say, we were thrilled.

So no matter what – hopefully you’ve seen the incredible value in delivering a weekly fitness newsletter.

Whether you take on the responsibility of creating one yourself or using a done for you solution – it’s a must.  And if you choose to use a done for you solution, this in the one we recommend:

Super Trainer Formula (Launches Tuesday at Noon)

Dedicated to Your Success,

Pat

A Post On Fitness Business Income Generation By Pat Rigsby

Since I’ve been on the business coaching and franchising side of things for fitness business owners, nothing has surprised me more than the number of business owners who fail to maximize the value of their personal network and their client base.

This is amazing to me because those same fitness business owners will spend piles of money to market to people that they have no prior relationship with.

The truth is, the biggest opportunity for an influx of income into your fitness business is right in your own database. When you make an offer to members of your personal network or existing and past clients, it’s not only easier to sell them something (versus new prospects off the street), but your business actually become more profitable because you don’t have nearly the cost of client acquisition.

The other benefit to this is that it really is providing a better, more complete solution for your existing clients and it’s helping those people in your network achieve their health and fitness goals.

A true win – win.

Your Fitness Business Database

What do you need to get started generating a surge of income for your business?

First, you need to create your Master Networking List.  This is a database of everyone in your area that you know.  You can start developing it by creating a spreadsheet and list the following people:

• Everyone in your cell phone that is local.
• Everyone in your email address book that is local.
• Everyone on Facebook that you actually know and lives locally.
• All of your clients, former clients and prospects.

List everything you know about them.  If you have any of the following, list it:

• Email
• Phone
• Occupation
• Birthday
• Address
• Hobbies / Organizations / Interests

Once you have this list started – and understand now that it’s never finished as you’ll be adding people each and every week (won’t you?) – here’s the next step…

Fitness Business Income Booster #1 – The Master Network Push

For all the members of your network – friends, family members, neighbors and more – you need to start reaching out and personally inviting them in to experience what you have to offer.

This is an easy one – but I’d bet it goes overlooked 98% by fitness pros trying to grow their business.

Send a personal email or make a personal call and let them know what you offer and invite them in for 2 weeks worth of free training. Here’s what will happen.

• Some won’t respond.
• Some will be polite, but they won’t be interested.
• Some will take you up on your offer and come in to try out your programs.
• A few will really be excited about your offer and become your biggest advocates.

Assuming that this list is a minimum of 150 people (except in rare circumstances, if the list is less than 150 people – you’re not trying), then you should be able to get through it in about 6-8 weeks if you’re contacting at least 3 people per day.

The added bonus to all this is that you’ll find doors opening for you based on this outreach.  Your friends will know people that can get you public speaking opportunities, PR opportunities and any number of other things.

Treat your Master Network like gold and focus on growing it – you may find that along with the referrals from your existing clients – that’s all you need to get the number of leads you want for your business.

Fitness Business Income Booster #2 – The Reactivation Campaign

You’d be surprised by how many past clients have no idea why they stopped using your services.  Or maybe they do know – but their reason for leaving was temporary. All they need is a reminder of why they liked working with you…and perhaps a special incentive to come back.

What could you do to reactivate past clients?

You could start with a simple email or personal card with copy something like this:

What else works well for reactivating past clients?

• A phone call from you the owner. People want to be treated like VIPs.  Make them feel appreciated and give them a special offer to come back.
• Invite them back to special client appreciation events. Make them feel like they’re still part of the community.
• Invite them to enroll in one of your Transformation Contests or attend a Charity Workout.  These are relatively small commitments compared to a longer term membership and might be just what they need to come back on board.

Fitness Business Income Booster #3 – The Triple Threat

The next Income Booster is a favorite of mine called the Triple Threat Money Maker.  It’s something we’ve used in our businesses – both training businesses and online businesses actually – and always enjoyed great success.

And the best part is that the Triple Threat Money Maker is super simple to execute – so you have no excuse not to put it into action asap.

Here’s What You Have To Do:

Step 1: The foundation of the Triple Threat Money Maker is raising your program rates.  You should be raising your rates periodically and there is no better time to do this than now as most fitness pros don’t raise their rates often enough. A rate increase of 5% is very reasonable – even conservative for group training or bootcamps.  For 1 on 1 or semi-private, adding $3-5 per session is easy and will virtually never be met with even a hint of a complaint.

Step 2: Notify your current clients that the rates will be increasing on the first of next month by whatever amount you determined was right – however, they can lock in at their current rate by committing to a 12 month membership (6 months is fine too if you’re only selling month to month memberships now).

Step 3: Contact all of your former clients in your fitness business and your prospects, and tell them about the upcoming rate increase.  Let them know that they can lock in at the current rates if they enroll in a 12 month program before the year’s end.

That’s it.

Well, that’s not exactly it…here are some details that we’ve used to make this work like crazy:

• Use a variety of means to contact your clients.  For our clients, we’ve sent letters and emails as well as making personal calls and in person notifications.  We wanted to make sure that all of their questions were answered and they were not only willing to make the long term commitment – but they were excited about it as they felt like they were getting a great deal.
• We used the same type of approach for former clients and unconverted prospects.   We sent letters, emails and made phone calls.  We’ve also even used voice broadcasts to remind people on the final day of the offer.
• It’s always worked best when we’ve intensified the push during the final days of the offer leading up to the deadline.  People are procrastinators so we always make sure that we hit everyone with a call during the final 48 hours and at least one email the last day.

With this approach you’re personal training business is going to make more money in 3 different ways and none of it is a short term boost:

• You’re going to get current clients to commit for 12 more months – which is longer than the membership lifespan of the average bootcamper.
• You’re going to get a surge of former clients and unconverted leads who don’t want to miss out on the deal – and they’re all committing for a 12 month term too.
• All your new clients – and the current ones that don’t want to commit – will be paying you more each month.

Not to mention that when you get the new surge of business you’ll have more people to get referrals from and make back end offers too…

So there you go – the Tripe Threat Money Maker – Income Booster #3.

Fitness Business Income Booster #4 – The Complete Solution

Offering upsells and back end sales to your current clients is simply trying to provide a more complete solution for the people you serve.  Whether that is giving them an opportunity to buy bands so they can workout on the road or offering them supplements (we recommend Prograde to address some of their nutritional needs – you’re simply better assisting them to achieve the goals that led them to you in the first place).

Nutrition is an easy solution to add on as it’s usually the biggest challenge you face when trying to keep your clients compliant.  The best solution we’ve found that you can add into your business to address making eating supportively easy for your clients is Personal Trainer Foods.

For you it’s great because it doesn’t require a significant investment of time or money and it doesn’t require any inventory.

For your clients it’s equally great as it addresses portion control and convenience – two big nutritional challenges to getting clients achieve their goals.

So with that, here’s how you can integrate Personal Trainer Foods as an upsell and a back end offer into your business.

Step 1: Enroll In The Program – To start offering this solution to your clients you need to enroll in the program so you can start selling products to your clients and receiving a commission for those sales.  If you want to enroll in Personal Trainer Foods program at no charge, you can do that here:

https://www.personaltrainerfood.com/signup.html

Step 2: Decide How You Will Promote The Products – We set up a few different systems to promote products to our clients.  We had structured offers at:

The Initial Point Of Sale
Periodic Assessments or Meetings
Special Events

If you’re going to follow the same approach, at the point of sale you might educate them about the importance of eating supportively and introduce the solution.

During your assessments you can educate the client on what they might do to accelerate their progress and support what they were doing during their training.

You can use a simple script like this:

“Ms. Jones, you’d like to accelerate your progress, correct?

We both know that when you’re training with me you’re working hard, you’re getting stronger and you’re steadily improving.

What that tells me is that it’s what you’re doing outside the gym / camp that seems to be holding you back.  I know that you’ve told me that you seem to struggle with eating supportively on a consistent basis breakfast, so what I suggest is that you try a nutrition program that a number of our clients have had great success with called Personal Trainer Foods.

This will ensure that you are getting the right portions of protein and produce in a convenient fashion and you’re getting even better results from all the hard work you’re putting in. How’s that sound?”

Step 3: Executing The Plan Every Time – This is the one that most people miss.  So many trainers say that they’re going to make back end sales to their clients – but most never do.
You have to build these processes into your business.  If you can build foam rolling into your training sessions, you can build a simple sales script into a meeting or assessment.

Step 4: Making It Part Of The Culture – For our Wall of Fame and Testimonial books, we not only posted the successes of the client (Ms. Jones lost 27 lbs and dropped 2 dress sizes), but we also shared how frequently they were meeting with their trainer or what program they were in and we shared what ancillary offerings they were using.

You can do things like that when you highlight your client or camper of the week / month, provide the solutions they are using as handouts or in newsletters and have links to your store in every newsletter, on your website and anywhere else you’re share online information.

A few other tips for more Back End Sales:

• Make it easy to buy.  Keep your laptop around so you can help the client make their initial order – or, if you can’t do that, keep initial order forms handy and process the initial order for your clients.
• Educate your clients.  Provide them with articles, offer good content in newsletters and educate them on the benefits of everything you do or endorse.
• Practice what you preach.  It’s much easier to endorse something you believe in enough to use yourself.
• Only sell what you really believe in.  I’d never tell you to sell something that you’re not 100% behind, so do your homework and pick the products you truly believe will help your clients.

There are 4 Income Boosters for your Fitness Business.

Start down the list and start generating more cash for your fitness business today.

Dedicated to Your Success,

Pat

A Post On Building Your Fitness Business By Pat Rigsby

Recently Nick Berry and I were asked to contribute a chapter to a book called “The Only Business Book You’ll Ever Need.” This was an incredible honor as a few of the other authors were Brian Tracy, Robert Allen and Harvey McKay, all New York Times Best Selling Authors. This book won’t be on the shelves for a couple more months, but I wanted to share an adaptation of our chapter with you as it definitely can help you build your business.  Enjoy this sneak peek.

As an fitness business owner, you essentially accept the fact that you’re trading the security that comes with a steady job for the opportunity that comes with owning your own business.  But what if we told you that security and opportunity don’t have to be mutually exclusive?  Our experience is that not only can you have the best of both worlds, but you can do it more quickly and easily than you probably imagine by creating multiple streams of income within your fitness business.

About the time we launched our first fitness business together, our “The Only Business Book You’ll Ever Need” co-author, the legendary Robert Allen, released his best selling book: Multiple Streams of Income, which served as inspiration for us as we embarked on building our new personal training business. We were opening this fitness business in a town of just 23,000 people in Central Kentucky, not exactly a perceived hotbed for personal training, so we knew from the beginning that we needed to have multiple ways of generating revenue if we wanted this venture to be a success.  So instead of simply relying on selling one-on-one personal training services like most people who owned similar types of businesses, we created a number of different revenue streams, including:

• One-on-One Personal Training
• Group Personal Training
• Weight Management Programs
• Sports Performance Programs
• Dietary Supplement Sales
• Smoothie Bar
• Workshops
• Corporate Fitness Programs

This approach quickly propelled us to a point where we had over 400 clients in a town where utilizing the typical approach to this type of fitness business might have yielded 1/10 that amount.

And that’s where things really started to take off.  Soon, health clubs and personal training business owners were seeking us out to consult and share some of the strategies that we’d successfully utilized so they could employ them in their own fitness businesses.  These consulting opportunities opened our eyes to the vast opportunities that were available sharing our systems and strategies through information marketing and business coaching.

Over the next few years we developed a variety of coaching programs, information products and seminars helping personal trainers grow their businesses.  Most recently we launched two separate personal training-based franchises, one targeting the youth fitness & sports performance market and the other targeting the adult fitness market. Both are among the fastest growing fitness franchises in the world.

Once we’d positioned ourselves as industry leading providers of business coaching and resources for fitness professionals, we would be presented with opportunities to obtain ownership in other business in the industry where our expertise would be of value.  Now, along with our business coaching and franchises, we also have ownership in a leading fitness certification organization, an equipment company, several niche fitness information-marketing fitness businesses and a handful of other businesses, collectively providing us well over 100 different income streams.

Now we teach thousands of fitness professionals around the world to employ the ‘multiple streams of income’ approach and how simple it is to integrate into a fitness business.  While you may not have an interest in building a fitness business that looks anything like ours, the ‘multiple streams of income’ approach will work in your fitness business too, perhaps even better than it’s worked in ours.   Really it simply starts by answering these two questions:

1. What ‘problems’ do your current offering(s) create?
2. What opportunities do your current customers / clients / patients present?

By answering those two questions you’ll easily be able to identify potential income streams for your business.  Let us give you examples of how we might have answered those questions in our personal training business.

What ‘problems’ do your current offering(s) create?

One-on-one personal training is potentially too expensive for many consumers so offering small and large group personal training allows those than can’t afford one-on-one personal training similar benefits while being available at a much lower price point.  Also, personal training focuses on the exercise component of physical improvement, but there are other factors than can impact someone’s success while trying to achieve fitness goals like nutrition, supplementation and recovery.  By offering weight management programs, supportive nutrition solutions though our ‘smoothie’ bar, dietary supplements and workshops, we can address the other factors that will help our clients achieve their fitness goals more quickly and easily.

What opportunities do your current customers / clients / patients present?

Many personal training clients are either business owners or business decision makers, so they can open doors to opportunities to provide corporate fitness programs or off-site weight management programs at their companies.  Additionally, many clients have children and / or are in positions of influence (teachers, school administrators, coaches, etc.) for the youth population and would see the benefit in, and help promote, youth fitness and sports performance offerings.

Hopefully you’re already getting some ideas for income streams you can develop based on those two questions.  Another great way to get ideas for potential income streams is to simply look at other businesses and see what they do.

Here are a couple examples:

Automotive dealerships don’t just sell cars.  They do repairs. They do preventative maintenance.  They offer financing. Some dealerships even provide things like detailing or car rental programs.

Amusement parks don’t just offer rides and attractions.  They sell food and refreshments.  They sell a variety of retail products from theme-related attire and toys to sun block and sunglasses that visitors might have forgotten to bring.  They also offer paid parking, photographs taken during guest stays, and many have their own hotels that guests can utilize during their visit.

There are thousands of businesses employing the ‘multiple streams of income’ approach, so learn from the successes they’re having so you can create your own.

Once you’ve determined some general ideas of what other problems you could solve for your clients or the opportunities that they could create for you and your fitness business, then you need to decide on the models for your income streams.

Basically there are five types of Income Models you can implement:

1. Service Based
2. Product Based
3. Coaching / Consulting Based
4. Information / Knowledge Based
5. Affiliate / Referral Based

Each of these Income Models has it’s own set of benefits and drawbacks and some may be more appropriate than others for your business, but you should have no problem choosing a couple that you can integrate into your business and add additional revenue – in some cases almost immediately.

So let’s take a look at each of these Income Models in greater detail.  We’ll share an overview of the model and an example of how we’ve integrated it into our own businesses.

Service Based – This is typically the easiest to add to a fitness business, as it often requires little set up and relies primarily on you or a staff member utilizing skills that you (or someone on your team) possess and will be of benefit to your clients and typically compliments your primary offerings. The upside to this type of Income Model is the ease of start up and integration into your personal training business.  The downside is that it’s time and skill intensive.

When we had our first personal training business, the easiest and most obvious Income Model for us to integrate was a Weight Management Program.  This program was basically a nutritional education program delivered by our staff members that helped our clients reach their goals faster and was the perfect compliment to the exercise based coaching that was our primary offering.

Product Based – Product based models are potentially very simple to integrate into your fitness business as well.  The upside to the product based Income Model is that it usually doesn’t require any special skill to offer products beyond some basic product knowledge and this model isn’t as time intensive as the others.

The first potential drawback to the product model is the fact that most products or similar competitors will be offered in other retail outlets so there isn’t as much price elasticity as with the other models.  The other drawback to the product model is that it usually requires an upfront investment for inventory.

Our initial use of the Product Based Income Model was through selling dietary supplements to our personal training clients.  Our clients were regularly investing in supplements to help them reach their fitness goals and often consulted with our staff when choosing what supplements to purchase, so it became obvious very quickly that we should carry our own line of quality supplements and direct our clients to purchase from us.  Not only were there financial benefits to this, but we also now could direct our clients to products that we knew and trusted.  A great win/win.

Coaching / Consulting Based – Coaching / Consulting Based Income Models are great if you’ve established a successful fitness business and are willing to share your business systems and knowledge with other entrepreneurs.  The primary benefit to this Income Model is that the potential financial upside of business-to-business coaching /consulting is typically much greater than providing services to consumers. The other real upside is that it allows you to leverage what you already know and do in your own business by sharing it with others.

The potential drawback to the Coaching / Consulting Based Income Model isn’t really a drawback at all. It’s more of a pre-requisite.  To ethically coach or consult you should have experienced some success in your own experiences. If you’ve successful gotten a certain type of client results over and over – and have a systematic approach that others can model, then this approach is very powerful.

We first employed the Coaching / Consulting Based Income Model by teaching other personal trainers and health club owners how we’d successfully built our personal training business.  This Income Model eventually merged together with the Information / Knowledge Based Income Model and evolved into our two franchises: Athletic Revolution International and Fitness Revolution International.

Information / Knowledge Based – In the Information / Knowledge Based Income Model you simply document what you know and do successfully and package it to be shared with others.  There are many advantages to this model.  Some of the biggest are the fact that you can develop information products to offer to people that normally couldn’t be your clients due to geographic constraints, so essentially the whole world is potentially your market.  There is great leverage with this type of Model too.  You can create a product once and sell it over and over again.  Typically the margins on offerings in this Model are very high too.

If there is any downside to this Income Model, it is that while your market is no longer limited by geography, the same goes for your competition.  When offering an information product or program you will be competing for your prospect’s attention with many more marketers than you would typically face when just selling products or services locally.

We began with the Information / Knowledge Based Income Model with two different offerings at about the same time. One of our offerings was directed to other fitness business owners sharing our systems, strategies and tactics for building a successful personal training business.  The other offering featured my wife, Holly, and was a consumer product called Fit Yummy Mummy, which was a fitness program specifically designed for moms.  In both cases, we simply packaged the things that we’d done successfully in our own fitness businesses and shared them with people who could benefit from the knowledge, but couldn’t work with us face-to-face.

Ultimately both of these initial products laid the foundation for new fitness businesses that have each become category leaders in their respective markets.

Affiliate / Referral Based – This Income Model is very simple to integrate into your fitness business as it basically just requires you to find a product or service that you can refer your clients to, which is complimentary to your offerings.  The upside to the Affiliate / Referral Based Income Model is the fact that it requires very little work on your part to generate additional revenue.  The ‘partner’ that you are referring business to will provide the service or product while paying you a referral fee.  The downside to this Model is that you are putting your relationship with your customer in the hands of someone else.  If they provide an inferior product or service, then you will suffer the ill effects of that. Therefore, if you employ this Income Model, be certain to only refer only businesses of the highest quality.

We initially utilized this Income Model by referring our personal training clients to a massage therapist.  The massage therapist provided a quality service to our clients that we did not offer and paid us a referral fee for every client we sent.  In addition to those benefits, the massage therapist also referred their clients to us for our services to make this a great reciprocal relationship.

By determining what problems you could solve for your clients or the opportunities that they could create for you and your fitness business and the income models you can employ to address them, you can not only add tens of thousands of dollars to your bottom line and better serve the people you work with, but you may also lay the foundation for new fitness businesses that enjoy even greater successes and profits than the one you have now.  We certainly have.

Dedicated to your Success,

Pat

A post on how to grow your fitness business by Pat Rigsby

There are hundreds of ways to grow your fitness business and we touch on plenty of them here at the Fit Business Insider. But sometimes when you want to get more clients, generate more referrals or increase your income it really boils down to taking action instead of just knowing what to do.

So with that in mind I wanted to help you grow your fitness business today by getting you to take action.

Step 1: Choose A Strategy For Fitness Business Growth

Like I mentioned, there are dozens of things you can do to grow your fitness business, but I don’t want to overcomplicate this so we’re going to limit the list to things that you can do which won’t cost much money, are relatively easy to implement and can be started immediately. Here are your options:

• Add an upsell at the Point of Sale
• Switch your month to month clients or clients that pay by check into 3, 6 or 12 month clients on EFT.
• Raise your rates 3-5%.
• Launch a Reactivation Campaign
• Add a Point of Sale Referral Request
• Launch an evergreen Referral Program
• Create a Joint Venture with another local business
• Collect Testimonials from your successful clients
• Launch a Transformation Contest
• Hold a 3 Day Promotion
• Hold a Workshop
• Create a Downsell Offer

Now it’s time to decide which strategy you’ll use over the next several days to grow your fitness business. Will you ask your new clients to upgrade to a bigger program or a special bundled offer? Will you initiate a joint venture with someone who can send you clients right away? Will you raise your rates?

Which strategy should you execute first?

That depends on what you already have in place, the assets you have available (database, space, time, etc) and what has the most potential upside for your particular situation.

Honestly, I don’t care. I just want you to do SOMETHING. Take action and reap some rewards. Then choose another one and do the same.

So pick one strategy and get started.

Step Two: Create Your Plan

Once you’ve decided which strategy you’re going to use, you need to develop your action plan. You need the details worked out, the timeline in order, specifics about any other people (like staff members or JV Partners) that might be involved and items / materials needed to execute the plan.

This plan is basically your outline for your new growth strategy – so make sure you’ve done your preparation.

Here’s an example:

72 Hour Promotion

Dates: January 25th – 27th

Offer: Launch of 6 Week Nutrition Coaching Program. During 72 Hour Promo the price will be $197. After the promotion it will be $297.

Needs: 3 Days Worth of Promotional Emails (4 emails in all). Flyers to be handed out in the facility. A dry erase board for internal promotion. Course materials. Course details (dates / times / description).

Other People’s Involvement: Other staff members should know details and be able to enroll clients.

Incentive to Buy: $100 off the program if purchased during the promotion.

That’s about it. You can certainly get more detailed, but that would be enough to build on.

Step Three: Produce The Materials

Whether it’s simple email broadcasts to your list, a form that clients can use to give you testimonials or new price sheets reflecting your increased rates – you’ll need to produce the emails, scripts, flyers, forms, content and whatever else is needed to execute your strategy.

For a Testimonial Request Campaign, here’s an example of the materials you might need:

• Testimonial form – online or offline
• Script to ask for testimonials to be used in person or on the phone
• Email to request testimonials

Step Four: Prepare Others To Do Their Part

If you are enlisting staff members, joint venture partners or clients to play a role in your strategy, you need to empower them to do their part. This means giving them the tools and training needed to execute the plan.

For example: If you were going to include photos or videos in this, then directions for your staff or any outline for the specifics / format would also be necessary.

If you are asking your clients to refer people – you need to not only incentivize your clients, but you also need to educate them on what a good referral looks like, provide them with marketing materials and tell them what steps to take to get a referral into your pipeline.

Scripts, tools, specifics about the plan and it’s execution are all necessary if you’re getting others involved.

Step Five: Launch!

This is the day you put everything into action.

Review your plan, make sure all systems are go and start bringing in new clients, getting testimonials or generating revenue.

Be sure that the fulfillment of anything you sell is in place. Refine your scripts and emails based on the feedback that comes in. Offer extra thanks or post-purchase reassurance for anyone that purchases or responds.

Be sure to track your plan and the results so you can improve on the plan and roll the strategy out again in the future or use the intelligence you gain to improve other strategies you implement.

That’s it – Plan it, do it, track it. Reap the benefits and move to the next strategy.

If you want to grow your fitness business, being proactive and regularly taking actions like these are a must. Use this plan to get you started and use the momentum and cash you generate to take your business to the next level.

Dedicated to your success,

Pat

A Post On Productivity For a Fitness Business Owner by Pat Rigsby

Like you, I’ve got a lot going on. We’ve got a number of rapidly growing businesses that I play a significant role in. I have a wonderful family that I am committed to spending quality time with. I have personal goals and things I enjoy that I need to have time for.

Because of those things I’m always looking for ways to be more efficient, more productive, and to make my time more valuable. So here are 24 productivity tips for the Fitness Business Owner that I think you’ll get al lot out of.

1. Plan your day ahead – I prefer planning it the night before.

2. Always work from a list. You should actually have different lists for different purposes. A ‘Goals’ list is for your big picture objectives. Your monthly list is a list you make at the end of the month for the month ahead. Your weekly list is for the upcoming week and your daily list is your weekly list broken down into daily tasks.

3. Planning a project will likely cut the time spent on the project by at least half. List every step from start to finish, organize by priority and sequence.

4. By now you know the 80/20 rule- 20% of actions account for 80% of results. With that in mind, get your most important stuff done first.

5. Think long term. Before starting a task or activity – determine what the long term benefits / consequences will be.

6. Set big goals. Be clear on them. It will make all your short term decisions much easier. Things either line up with your goals or not. If they do – act. If they don’t – omit.

7. Be willing to delay gratification and make short term sacrifices so you can enjoy greater rewards in the long term. Every successful person I know has taken that approach.

8. Average people do what gives them short term gratification. Great ones do what it takes to achieve long term goals even if it’s not as easy or fun in the short term.

9. Time is going to pass whether you use it to move closer to your goals or farther away. Only you get to decide how you use that time and where you want to be in the future.

10. Think about the consequences of your actions and behaviors. If you do that you’ll usually take the steps necessary to get where you want to go while those who ignore the ramifications of what they do won’t.

11. Review your list of tasks and projects regularly.

12. There will never be enough time to do everything you have to do. – What are my highest value activities? What can you and only you do, that if done well, will make a real difference? What is the most valuable use of your time, right now?

13. The things that matter most must never be skipped over for the things that matter least.

14. Continuous learning is a must for success. Make time for it. The need to grow and improve never ends.

15. Take responsibility and know that you and only you are the deciding factor in achieving your goals.

16. There is never the perfect time to get started, so start now.

17. Challenges are there to weed out the average. Keep that in mind when you encounter them.

18. One of the most powerful words in time management is NO! – You have no spare time, say no early and often to everything that isn’t high value.

19. If you don’t schedule it – that means you don’t see value in it.

20. Adding something new to your plate requires you to stop doing something old.

21. Do the most difficult task first, start it first thing in the morning.

22. Use time blocks. 25-50 minutes of no email, no phone, no distractions will get you to your goals faster than 8 hours of a normal workday.

23. Make every minute count. – Create a sense of urgency, an impatience that motivates you to get started.

24. Focus on getting things done now. Successful people get more done – and as you know…You Get Paid For Done!

There are 24 tips that have helped me and that I think will help you or any fitness business owner. If you have more to share – please add them below.

 A Fitness Business Post By Pat Rigsby

Why What Most Experts Tell You About Building A Fitness Business Is All Wrong And How You Can Take Advantage Of The Best Opportunity To Build A Successful Fitness Business In Our Industry’s HistoryThe REAL Truth About Running A Great Fitness Business

During this FREE No Holds Barred Fitness Business Teleseminar Eric Cressey, Mike Robertson and Pat Rigsby will reveal:

	The 3 critical mistakes fitness businesses are making that are KILLING their chances for success…and how you can avoid them…
	Why almost all Fitness Marketing Experts are all wrong about what it takes to build a great fitness business…
	The Blueprint for building businesses like IFAST (which has been recognized by Men’s Health as one of the Top 10 Gyms in the U.S.) and Cressey Performance (known as THE Destination for baseball players who want to reach their potential)…
	The critical factors that will separate great training businesses from the pack over the next 12 – 18 months…
	How a small group of fitness professionals have ‘Cracked The Code’ and built businesses that generate a steady flow of clients and have the systems in place to consistently provide results, profits – and freedom…and how you can too…
	Doing More Research. This is just another way of saying ‘you’re too lazy to do the real work.’ As I just mentioned, things don’t have to be perfect to get started, so the need for endless research before taking action is completely unfounded.
	Not Feeling ‘Worthy’ Enough. Not believing that you had enough education, knowledge, skill or experience can stop you before you get started, but the truth is that you can get experience without ‘doing’ and you can’t develop your skill without practice. Most every ‘expert’ I know felt this way at one point or another and still proceeded to take action.  So should you.

To get Instant Access to The REAL Truth About Running A Great Fitness Business, simply fill in the form below and click the red “Get Instant Access” button.