What Can Sunglasses Teach You About Running A Fitness Business?

 

A Post On Multi-Layers For Your Fitness Business

 

A couple of days ago I was reading and thinking about what makes a fitness business successful, and I came across an article about Luxottica, a pretty amazing company that most people have never heard of.

But maybe you’ve heard of some of these companies that offer their own premium brands of sunglasses:

Ray-Ban

Oakley

Bulgari

Dolce & Gabbana

Salvatore Ferragamo

Prada

Burberry

Chanel

Polo Ralph Lauren

Tiffany

Versace

Luxottica makes all of them and about a dozen others.  They own Ray-Ban and Oakley and work under license with the rest.

But if that wasn’t’ enough, they also own LensCrafters, Pearle Vision and Sunglass Hut. So their eye doctors are the ones telling you that you need a new pair of glasses, their sales people are ones helping you choose them, and their factories are the ones making the glasses.

Basically, if there’s money to be made in the sunglasses market – they’re getting a piece of the action.

So how can you apply this in your business – here are a few ideas:

Niche Programs – Each of the different brands that Luxottica owns or manufactures for has their own audience.  You could create different programs for your fitness business that each target a different group of people.  Women’s only camps, mom specific programs, youth programs and corporate programs are just a few of the different options you could offer.

Different Packaging – The common approach is run 2, 3 or 4 day per week programs.  What about these 4 ways you could be packaging your expertise:

• Fitness Coaching Programs – I’ve talked about these in previous posts, but basically you’re meeting with a group once per week for 4-8 weeks teaching them exercise and nutritional strategies they can do at home.  This type of program is a great downsell from semi-private training or bootcamps.
• Workshops – You could run a workshop once every month or two that would appeal to both your clients and non-clients.  Everything from nutrition to kettlebells are great topics for workshops and can bring you in thousands (or tens of thousands) in additional revenue each year.
• Bootcamp To Go – B.J. Gaddour just did a great module teaching Bootcamp Blueprint members how to take what they’re currently doing in their camps and packaging it as a ‘home study’ program for people that either can’t afford the cost of camp or live too far away to attend regularly.
• Weekend Camps - This is something we’ve primarily taught in the youth fitness and sports performance market, but it can work for adult programming too.  Here’s an easy way to do it: Pick something that would be a great workshop – training with bands or kettlebells are great examples.  Turn it into a six week camp and sell it for $99-129.  The camp meets for one hour each Saturday or Sunday for six weeks and you teach them a more in depth version of what they’d learn in a one day workshop.

Co-Branded Programs – Other organizations ranging from YMCA’s to Homeowner’s Associations are great targets to create a co-branded program with.  You provide the services and give them part of the proceeds for providing a location and marketing it to their audience.  I’ve run several camps with YMCAs where they did everything other than me providing the service and kept between 25-40%. I coached and took home 60-75%.

Corporate FItness Programs – I won’t go into them too much as Corporate Guru Greg Justice will be sharing some strategies on running successful corporate programs next week – but this is a great way to add another profit center leveraging your network and expertise.

Information Products – There’s a right way to do this and a wrong way.  The right way is how my buddies Eric Cressey and Mike Robertson do it.  They simply take the things they’re doing effectively in their businesses and packaging them so people that can’t come work with them in Boston or Indy can still benefit.

I’ve just scratched the surface, but you’re getting the picture.  When Luxottica produces sunglasses they are constantly looking for other ways to distribute them, other markets that want what they offer and other ways to add revenue.

When it comes to fitness, fat loss or sports performance – you should do the same.

By the way – if you can think of any ways to get a piece of the action that I missed, do me a favor and share them below.

Dedicated to your fitness business success,

Pat

Related posts:

1. My New Sunglasses and Your Personal Training Business