Are You Missing Out on a Small Fortune?
By Pat Rigsby
If you’re like 99% of fitness pros, you’re letting a small fortune slip through your fingers.
In fact, the question isn’t whether you’re making some of these mistakes…
…it’s whether they’ll just hold you back from reaching your ultimate goals or they’ll cripple your business entirely.
But today I’m going to give you the solutions to these mistakes 99% of fitness entrepreneurs make, so be sure to study what I cover.
I’ll also share a few takeaways from successful fitness entrepreneurs just like you that have allowed who have doubled, tripled or even quadrupled their business in as little as 12 months.
You ready?
Mistake #1
Are you just like everyone else?
At this point almost all fitness businesses look alike.
And that’s Mistake #1:
You Have No Unique Position In The Market
It’s a deadly mistake to allow yourself to look like everyone else.
Bootcamps and group training all look alike, from the pricing to the style of marketing that they do
Everyone says they get results for their clients…as if someone would say they didn’t.
If you can’t explain how you’re different without using clichés or the same tired things that everyone else is saying, then why should people choose you over all the other options they have available to them?
Let me tell you how they’ll decide…if they don’t come from a referral (who probably has the same difficulty explaining why you’re different) then they’ll decide on price.
Not good…unless you’re the cheapest option.
You need to clearly define what makes you unique.
Not only why people should choose you, but how to strategically position yourself in the market so that your ideal prospects are magnetically attracted to you.
Almost all fitness professionals struggle with this.
They never dial in their own specific position in the market and end out looking like the YMCA, trying to cater to everyone, but actually attracting no one.
It’s a crying shame.
So many fitness entrepreneurs settling for being average when they could be so much more.
Here’s your quick fix to not having your own Unique Position in the Market:
Ask yourself…
Who do you LOVE to train?
Who can you be the best in your market at serving?
What would your best clients say about you if they described why they train with you?
Why should people choose you…in 15 words or less?
Answer these 4 questions and you’ll have a good start to determining what sets you apart in the market and how you can begin shaping your ideal position to start attracting the clients you want.
Mistake #2 – The Business Crippler
Do you have a steady flow of qualified prospects coming into your business each and every month?
If you don’t – that’s Mistake #2:
A Lack Of Systematic Lead Generation
This is a deadly mistake, but it’s one that happens all too often.
I speak throughout the year and when I ask fitness business owners in the audience how many leads they got the previous month, the answer usually is way too low or they say they don’t know…which is even worse.
Most fitness entrepreneurs – maybe even you, think of marketing as a series of one shot attempts.
A FB ad one month. Maybe a speaking gig the next. Then they go to a health fair or a networking meeting the next.
And every time there is real urgency because you need new clients today.
But that’s just not the way success happens.
If your client wanted to get lean, a single workout today wouldn’t do the trick, would it?
Consistently doing the right things is the only path to success – and Lead Generation is no different.
You need to strategically choose the right Lead Generation Strategies for your strengths, your ideal market and your business goals.
You need to know how many leads you need to get each month to reach your goals and you must have a clear path to get those leads.
You basically want your own customized marketing funnel that you use to find, nurture and convert prospects into high paying, high quality clients.
Here’s your quick fix to not having your own Lead Generation System in place:
Choose the 2 things that you’ve done in the past that have had the most success in bringing in the type of clients you what into your business.
Once you’ve selected those 2, start executing them each month and tracking the number of leads that come from them.
Next, start making offline and online networking a priority and capture contact information from everyone you speak to.
Set up a follow up system for all the new prospects that you’re adding to your database, combining a mix of personal outreach and autoresponders.
Do these 4 simple things and you’ll be on your way to having a solid Lead Generation System in place.
Mistake #3 – The Biggest Fitness Business Hurdle
When you generate a new lead, do you have a system for turning that lead into a paying client?
Most fitness entrepreneurs don’t…and it costs them tens of thousands of dollars each year.
Most fitness business owners take a haphazard approach to sales and might close well with referrals but struggle with everyone else.
It all comes down to the System…and that’s problem #3:
No Sales System
I learned the value of a Sales System all the way back when I was a College Baseball Coach and I was trying to convince recruits and their parents to choose our program & school over all their other options.
When it comes down to a decision that’s going to cost tens of thousands of dollars and dramatically impact a young person’s life I had to put my best foot forward every time – so I quickly started employing a Sales System so that each athlete and their family got the best impression possible of what we had to offer.
The same type of Sales System allowed my first personal training business to grow to over 400 clients in a town of just 23,000 because everyone on our staff could sell effectively.
Now I routinely see clients double, triple and even quadruple their businesses in just a year because they have a systematic approach to converting prospects into clients.
I’ve seen a lot of training businesses grow to 200+ clients and EVERY one of them had an effective sales system. Do you?
Here’s your quick fix to not having your own effective Sales System:
- Develop a questioning process that allows you to build rapport, learn about the prospect’s goals and gives you the opportunity to build value in your program.
- Create a Systemized Sales Presentation that offers an Alternate Choice Close for the Prospect.
- Follow the same questioning and presentation each time you are with a prospect – don’t improvise.
- Track your numbers and if they’re not what they should be, practice the system. If they don’t improve – adjust your system.
This simple approach will move you a long way toward having an effective Sales System in place and dramatically improve your close rates.
Now once fitness entrepreneurs have the selling process dialed in…they have some new challenges.
If they have any degree of success in generating more clients, they’re quickly overwhelmed and feel like they’ve lost any sense of freedom that they ever had.
Their business owns them.
They feel like slaves to their clients and their training schedule.
And that’s Mistake #4…
…Not having a Systematic approach to running your business.
Your goal as a business owner should be to get maximum results from minimum effort.
That comes from having and employing systems.
It doesn’t matter whether you intend to be a one-person operation for life or you aspire to have a team of coaches and administrative professionals – systems are the difference between a business and a job.
In fact, the best example of how a lack of systems can be a real anchor that I can personally relate to is the difference between my dad’s small auto repair business and my current business.
My dad has been in business for over 30 years…and his business looks almost exactly like it did 30 years ago.
He has a little help…one employee (he’s had as many as 3 at a time.)
If he gets sick, wants to take time off or gets hurt…his business suffers.
In fact, a couple of years ago he was severely burned while working on a car and was reduced to doing primarily administrative work for almost a month and his income dropped by over 50%.
Fortunately for him, he’s good with money and has no debt and lots put away, so if he had to close up shop tomorrow he’d be fine.
But what if he were 30 years younger, had no savings and a family to support.
Then what if something went wrong?
He doesn’t have the infrastructure to operate without him being the star of the show.
Not even close.
And we didn’t take a single vacation growing up once he’d started the business because he couldn’t get away.
Probably not the lifestyle you hoped for when you started your business, right?
Well, the answer is pretty simple:
Implement systems so that your business can operate without you if needed.
And even if you want to be a small operation – you still want those systems so that you always do things as efficiently as possible. If a process you’ve followed has worked well – repeat it.
With anyone I’ve worked with I’ve drilled the need for systems home and helped them create processes that give them the lifestyle and income they want from their business…all things that we sought when we decided to work for ourselves.
While the quickest path to implementing effective systems is plugging in those that have already proven to be successful, here’s your quick fix to if you want to do it yourself.
First, list out every task that you have to perform on a repeated basis in your business. Everything from assessments to taking out the trash.
Next, choose one of those tasks, perform it and document what you did step-by-step.
If you have an admin, they can follow you through it and document it for you.
Then review the documentation of the task and tighten it up. Make sure it makes sense. Once you’ve done that – test it by having someone follow your checklist and try to perform the task.
Finally, based on their performance, refine the system so that it yields the outcome you wanted.
This simple but straightforward approach to system development will give you the core systems you need to run your business in a documented format in a short time and lay the foundation for you to finally have a true business instead of a job.
Mistake #5 – Settling For Minimum Wage
Most fitness business owners settle for earning what I consider ‘minimum wage’ from each of their clients.
In my world ‘Minimum Wage’ is defined as the basic price of your core offering.
If you charge $150 per month for group training and all your clients invest with you each month is $150…that’s minimum wage.
And it’s also Mistake #5:
Not Maximizing Client Value.
There are only 3 ways that your business can make more money:
- Increase the number of clients
- Increase the amount each client spends each month.
- Increase the number of months that client is with you.
If your average client spends $150 per month with you and they stay for 6 months…that’s $900 in Client Value.
But let’s say that we strategically increase their average spend to $200 per month and they stick around just 3 more months…that’s $1800.
Double the Client Value.
How do we do that…we’ll the things that we work to implement in Accelerator Members’ businesses are:
Maximizing retention through:
- Selling longer programs
- Maximizing client experience & results
- Renewing clients before their contracts expire
- Building unmatched relationships with those clients
Maximizing Monthly Client Value through selling:
- Supplements
- Nutritional Coaching
- Workshops
- Ancillary Programs
- Personal Training Add Ons
And a host of other profit maximizers.
Coupled with strategic positioning in the market it’s easy to see a 50-100% in Client Lifetime Value.
So that’s your fix – start implementing several of those strategies.
You’ve seen the 5 Critical Mistakes that I routinely see fitness entrepreneurs make…and some simple solutions that can help you fix them.
