Fitness Business Success By Pat Rigsby
Something I learned back in my coaching days was that to be successful you either needed to be better or be different.
The ‘easy’ answer is to be better, but in reality it isn’t always so easy.
If someone has a more established fitness business, or has a bigger marketing budget they may be perceived as better.
And like it or not – for consumers, perception is reality for the most part.
My preference is to think beyond the obvious. To not settle for easy answers and not allow conventional wisdom to blind you.
Be willing to stray from the norm.
Forever, the status quo in the personal training world was:
- Train clients one-on-one.
- Sessions are an hour long.
- Client pay by the session or buy packages of sessions.
- Personal training was almost exclusively for the affluent.
Most of the successful fitness pros that I know have strayed from this norm by integrating some or all of the following into their businesses:
- Semi-private training.
- Group training or bootcamps.
- 30 minute one-on-one sessions.
- EFT billing and monthly payment plans.
- Options that are affordable to not only the affluent.
If you’re reading this blog, that’s probably old news for you – wonderful!
So take it up a notch.
How else can you improve / grow your fitness business by thinking beyond the obvious?
Steven Hope offers his clients the opportunity to buy a chance to win a year of training – raffle style – and probably doubles the revenue he’d normally generate from those sessions.
Steve Krebs used my fitness fundraiser promotion and generated 120 new bootcamp leads this month.
But that’s just using our industry as an example. Think outside of that.
Fed Ex borrowed the way banks processed checks and applied it to shipping – and revolutionized an industry.
Zappos took Nordstrom’s offline customer experience and applied it online to build an empire.
What can you do in your market – in this industry as a whole – that is different from the way it’s currently being done?
Think beyond the obvious and you might just be well on your way to building your own empire.
Do me a favor, share your favorite business idea, strategy or tactic – or just your favorite fitness business – outside of the fitness industry below.
Dedicated to your success,
Pat Rigsby
Pat Rigsby is a Co-Owner of the International Youth Conditioning Association & the youth fitness franchise Athletic Revolution as well as a fitness industry consultant serving thousands of personal trainers and fitness entrepreneurs. Sign up for his fitness business free newsletter to discover proven marketing, sales and business strategies, along with blog updates, news, and more! While you’re at it, follow him on Twitter.
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Consultations – just started offering this option a week ago using strategies learned from Jim’s Ultimate Sales Kit & Rocco’s Ultimate Consultation system, REALLY enjoy this.
Bootcamps – Super excited to lauch my first camps in 2010! Thanks for all the great content within BCBP & your blog Pat, Nick & Jim.
Have a most wonderful Christmas
Thanks, Jessica! Same to you and yours.
And great post, Pat. As I wrote in my newsletter, I keep my eye on Zappos, Disney, Apple and Amazon.
Just getting ready to head into our annual planning meeting for our training studio! I think the motto of the meeting will be “Think outside the box- get creative to get more $”
Thanks for reminding me!
I am a follower of all things Virgin (records, mobile, airlines, galactic, money, health, etc, etc). The customer experience is of the highest priority and they are always thinking outside the box. Branson is never afraid of expanding into new markets with new and better offerings. I really enjoyed reading Business Stripped Bare.
Wil
Great post Pat! Thanks.
All of my sessions are 55 minutes long because it allows me time to return calls fast or take a moment for myself before rushing into the next session.
I also have a 48 hour cancellation policy!
Jonathan
I have increased the value of the initial payment for training……..
New client folder with Assessment papers
Sample shake packet
Sample bar
Nutrition CD
T-shirt
Healthy for Life book
3 referral Gift cards for their friends
My private cell number on a special business card
On-line training username and password on the house
On-line nutrition coaching with my nutritionist on the house
All personal training clients get boot camp for FREE
Discounts on our supplements
Discounts on our massage and acupuncture
Discounts on all home training equipment
Discount at the local running store and bike store
Copy of our bi-weekly newsletter
Access to our private blog and discussion board
Every client gets benchmark gifts also such as gift cards to restaurants, vacations, night out in Chicago at the W
Celebrate everything…..
most food logs
best boot camp attendance
met short term, mid term, long term goal
1 yr, 2 yr, 3 yr and on anniversary as a client
Best thing I do is offer family members to train for a huge discount…..if you have a family you will have them forever.
I have three families that I have trained every member for 8 plus years…..kids come back every chance they can
great stuff Pat
I’d say, the combination of semi-private and session packages that offer different deals based on frequency rather than volume. Ever since I first “got my feet wet” at a health club, I’ve been conditioned to give the better deal based on buying more sessions, ie. a 20 pack, rather than a 10 pack. Then the biggest complaint amongst my trainer friends is their clients end up taking longer than expected to get through the package, which equals less pay days. I’ve had clients who have trained 4+ times/week paying the same as clients training 2 times per week at the same price. We all know training more frequently is going to equal faster results. If we have more clients getting faster results, we have more walking billboards. So it’s time to reward those who train more often rather then want to spread out a 20 pack over 3 months. My goal is to end the old fashioned package and base my rate on frequency. More people, more often!
I’ve been looking to more actively implement a blog.. I love your site Pat.. and notice it’s through WordPress… I just spent about 45 minutes reading through WordPress upgrades… any previous blogs I missed about linking that to a current website?
ive offered more value to my products , referral gifts for my clients, better context on my promotion ideas and currently working on how to get more campers in the summer, also launcing of fitness for the executives. thanks for all your great ideas.
@Andrew Voris -
Great ideas Andrew, thanks.
Andrew – great stuff!
Jeremy – AJ handles the blog ‘stuff’. I just do the writing;)
Happy Holidays!
Awesome tips Pat. Thanks for sharing. Does anyone have Steven Hope’s email address as I think his idea is rather interested so if he’s willing to give me some tips I’d like to contact him to learn more about how he carries it out.
If Steven or anyone else can let me know that’d be great. Thanks again Pat.
Kind of off-topic, but i am preparing to start a third round of boot camps with basically the same group of people. I have been using Craig Ballantyne’s TT bootcamps, which are great, i just want to switch it up. Can you recommend another set of workouts that i may purchase from the designer?
thanks for all the great advice!
Mike Jett