The Secret to a Successful Fitness Business

Before the woman in front of me even finished giving her order he started yelling at me to hurry it up and put in my order.

I asked the cook behind the counter for American cheese and peppers on my Philly cheese steak sandwich, but what I got was provolone cheese and no peppers. Welcome to Jim’s Steak on South St. in Philly…

…take your food, pay with cash (ONLY), and go stuff yourself in a corner and eat your cheese steak.Jim's Steaks South StreetI gotta admit, it was a really tasty cheese steak!

Philadelphia was the last leg of my east coast trip last week. The week started off with John Romaniello’s wedding in NYC where good times were had by all.

While I wasn’t able to get Craig Ballantyne out on the dance floor to show us the Canadian version of the running man and the robot, I did manage to get out there myself and cut a rug with a fellow Armenian, Mike Geary’s beautiful fiance, Nayri.

Then it was off to 5th Ave in Manhattan for my two day Mega Profits Mastermind meeting with 20 amazing and driven fitness pros. On day one, I shared the systems for building a massively successful fitness business, then on day two we ran “hot seat” sessions where I gave each person their specific action steps based on their business needs.

And then I was off to Philly from there where I was the Keynote speaker at the Member Solutions Business Conference. During my keynote, I talked about the 5 secrets to success and happiness which was something that the business owners in the audience really took a liking to.

Two things I shared with everyone in Philly was…

If you want a successful business and the feeling of personal satisfaction knowing that you’re contributing in a positive way to your community, then build your business on the promise of adding value and solving problems. 

Now, if you’re reading this, odds are that you are in the fitness industry which means that you are in the ideal position to add value and solve problems. However, so many fitness pros forget that fact and instead build their business on what I consider a shaky foundation of positioning yourself as a commodity.

In other words selling the actual “thing” that you do, in this case personal training, group training, or boot camps versus the value that your ‘thing” delivers which is the outcome or results that people are looking for. See, while other fitness pros sell training, the savvy fitness pro sells the outcome because they’re focused on value adding and solving problems.

And when you build your business with the focus on value adding and problem solving, you can’t be made into a commodity or be compared to other trainers in your area. So you can always charge a premium as long as you continue to deliver on your promise of outcome and results.
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The other thing I shared with the folks in the audience was giving yourself the “mental edge” to succeed and win.

See, there are only two reasons why people fail in life…

1. The thoughts that occupy your mind.

2. The people that you surround yourself with.

I believe that our thoughts dictate our actions. That’s a pretty simple one that anyone can agree with, right?

However what baffles me most is how so many people allow the thoughts in their head to get manipulated by the negativity around them.

Research has proven time and time again that your subconscious mind controls the bulk of your day to day thoughts. The negativity that you hear on TV, radio, or read about in the newspapers and news websites impact your day to day thoughts… and those thoughts influence your actions (or in some cases, lack of action) and cause you to fail.

The thoughts that occupy your mind determine success or failure.

Have you ever met a negative person with a happy life?

The other BIG factor in determining success or failure is your circle of influence – – the people who you surround yourself with.

Several years back we took a family cruise to Alaska. While walking by some crab fisherman I noticed that one of them had a five gallon bucket that was filled with a few cups of water and five crabs. As I looked into the bucket I noticed that one ambitious crab had climbed on top of all the other crabs and was reaching up for the rim of the bucket to hoist himself up and out to freedom.

I informed the crab fisherman that he was about to lose a crab… he reassured me that he wasn’t.
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As I watched this little crab reach up to win his freedom, several other crabs from the bottom of the bucket reached up and grabbed the ambitious crab by his legs and pulled him right back down to the bottom of the bucket.

As it turns out crabs instinctively do this.

That’s when it hit me like a ton of bricks…

We have crabs in our lives, too! And if you don’t cut the crabs out of your life or distance yourself from them then you’re going to suffer the same fate as our little crab friend did on that day.

Protect your thoughts.

Shake off the crabs in your life.

Add value to the lives of others.

And solve problems…

…that’s the undisputed formula for success and happiness.

Committed to your success,
Bedros Keuilian

P.S. If you have not seen the Mad Mitch “angriest personal trainer in the world” comic strip yet then check it out here. In the words of Michael Scott, you won’t be disappointed 😉