I was in Indianapolis this past weekend at ACSM’s corporate building speaking at an invitation only workshop for fitness trainers hosted by two of my mastermind coaching clients, Dan Ritchie and Cody Sipe, both PhD’s and both allowed in the ACSM building in Indianapolis.
Funny because I’m a college drop out and if ACSM had any idea I was withing 100 yards of their building they’d have me arrested.
But it helps to know people like Dan and Cody – even though they had to sneak me in through the back of the building with a bag over my head.
The topic of the workshop was was something that most trainers never consider offering, or when they do offer it, it’s simply as an after thought with zero expectations to make any huge profits from it.
The topic? Training and Attracting the mature population, one of the FASTEST emerging markets in fitness.
See, most trainers look at it as senior training or 55 plus fitness, and they craft half hearted programs to “meet the needs” of this market place, but the truth is, 99% of all fitness trainers go about it all wrong.
Now, I’ll be honest, going into workshop I knew that my part was to teach multiple marketing and client attraction systems to the trainers in attendance. Like you, I was a little sketched out by the idea of training the mature market. I just thought it would be boring and as a trainer I might actually break them.
But I left that workshop totally blown away once I learned that even the mature market is still mentally young. Now, I’m not talking about the old folk in senior homes who are totally out of it, have practically zero mobility, and move around like zombies. That’s just one segment of this market place, I’m talking about you and me when we’re in our 60’s and 70’s and 80’s… would you want to be called a “senior” or treated any differently than today?
I bet not.
Not me anyway… I’ll be the same dude I am today, working out hard, living and thinking out of the box, active as hell, with just a slightly older body. And I’m guessing you’ll be the same, right?
And I can tell you that I sure wouldn’t want to be called a senior (hell, I probably still won’t be mature) and I most certainly won’t want to sit on a folding chair and do single arm curls with one pound dumbbells.
I want to train like I train now – like a machine!
Get my drift?
Now, this post isn’t about the mature population or anything like that. But I did want to give you a heads up about the newest emerging market and how they think.
What this post is about is two unorthodox ways to attract, sell, and retain clients. It’s about taking your fitness business to the next level without using the traditional methods of getting, selling and retaining clients.
See, Dan and Cody have a training facility in West Lafayette, Indiana. The average age of the members in their facility is 61 years old. When they first got onto my mastermind program their facility was bringing in about $31K a month, these days, in less than a year, they’re doing between $50K and $57K a month in personal training sales, with average new daily sales at about $5K a day and monthly EFT at $18K and rising.
ALL MATURE POPULATION. And all becuase they practice these THREE UNORTHODOX business systems in addition to the bad ass marketing, sales, list building, retention, and referral generation strategies and systems I’ve taught them.
After hearing both Dan and Cody speak I realized why their so successful. They bring the “IT” factor. And in fact all of my most successful mastermind coaching clients have this “IT” factor. Top athletes, business people, and anyone else in the top 1% of their industry have this “IT” factor.
It’s two things actually… Passion and Purpose.
Cody and Dan are mega successful in their training business not becuase they’re surrounded by people with ton of money, or their in a city like LA or New York where personal training is huge, but becuase they’re passionate about their market.
They know everything there is to know about their idea clients becuase they’re passionate this market space, genuinly care, and want to give them the best possible results. Dan and Cody are purpose driven and know everything there is to know about their target market…
– how they want to train
– what they want to achieve
– what trigger words to use to get them interested
– how to train them, push them, motivate them
– how to talk and interact with them
– how to design their facility to accommodate their clients
– how to dress to make their clients feel comfortable
Purpose and passion for a targeted market. They love what they do and the success follows. And people sense that passion and purpose in you and that’s what makes them want to do business with you.
My business is a perfect example of this. I’ve been asked to create products and programs for many different industries. I’ve turned them all down. I’ve been asked why I don’t teach marketing to massage therapist and yoga and pilates instructors.
It’s simple really… I don’t have the passion for other industries like I do for the fitness industry. And even in the fitness industry, I’m not about working with all fitness people. I don’t have the passion for yoga and pilates. My passion and purpose is for personal training and boot camps and those are the trainers I want to work with.
Far too often people chase the money instead of their passion and purpose and end of working their ass off just to make ends meet. Ask yourself this… if you could start all over again who would you train?
What are you most passionate about?
What’s your purpose here on earth?
What would you spring out of bed each morning to do?
Now do it and money and success with easily come.