Today I want to talk to you about something really important, and it has to do with growing your fitness business.
Now it doesn’t matter if you own a CrossFit gym, if you own a personal training studio, if you own a fitness boot camp, or if you do one-on-one training at people’s homes. The number one thing for success, believe it or not, is not more marketing.
Shocking, I know, because I’m a fitness marketing expert, right? It’s not about sales, it’s not about building your email list—it’s not about any of that. You might even think it’s about getting more certifications, degrees and credentials under your belt, but it’s not.
You know the number one thing is? It’s about you.
It’s about you creating a category of one. It’s about you becoming the best fitness expert that you know can be.
So how do you demonstrate to your community that you’re the number one fitness expert out there? You look the part and deliver results. So let’s break those two things down, starting with delivering results.
Deliver the Results!
I hate to admit this, but far too many trainers have stopped delivering results.
Now you can blame it on the clients that aren’t following their prescribed nutrition programs. You can blame it on the way that the commercials are showing fast food and enticing your clients to come in and eat. I mean, how are you going to out-market those commercials?
But at the end of the day, if you’re not delivering the results that you promised them when they signed up, they’re not going to tell their friends about you. They’re not going to post on Facebook about you. They won’t spread the word.
The fact of the matter is, the number one way that you’re going to grow your business is through word of mouth.
See, I can show you every lead generation tactic and strategy under the sun to get leads into your business, and you can convert those leads into prospects—people who are curious about what you’re offering. But they’re never going to convert into a client if the community you serve isn’t beating the drums about you and saying how awesome and amazing you are.
If someone does not deliver results like helping their clients lose 20 lbs, 30 lbs, 50 lbs, even 100 lbs on a consistent basis then I say they’re not an awesome trainer. They may have the skills and the desire to be an awesome trainer, but being an awesome trainer encompasses a lot more than that.
If someone’s only good at one specific skill—say, teaching them how to work out and sweat up a storm for a 30 or 60 minute workout session, they’re not an awesome trainer. An awesome trainer is a good coach, a good motivator, someone who holds their clients accountable and teaches them how to eat right.
That’s what you should strive to become.
Don’t Be a Hypocrite
Some trainers are fat. That’s right, many trainers are out of shape and fat.
I don’t understand why, because if you’re going to be a walking, talking billboard for the service that you offer, then you should look the part. You are your own walking billboard, right?
You would never ever, ever see a dentist who goes, “Gee, I’ve puss coming out of one of my teeth, and I’ve got a loose tooth, and I need a crown on the other one.” You would never see that. Yet, we see trainers left and right who are out of shape by 20 lbs, 30 lbs, 40 lbs, 50 lbs, or more.
Now, I don’t know what’s going on in our industry, but I can tell you that if you look the part, you start to have more confidence to sell better and to market better. You gain the confidence to deliver better results.
And I’ll tell you what, I’ll go a whole ‘nother step higher and say that if someone is out of shape, they’re probably doing things that are sabotaging their business’s growth too. Think about that for a moment. The same things someone does to sabotage their own health and personal fitness are the same things that lead them to sabotage their fitness business.
So you might reach out to me or someone else and say, “How do I get more leads? How do I get more prospects? How do I convert them into clients? How do I grow a bigger email list? How do I set up a fan page?” None of that matters, man, unless you can get in shape, stay in shape, and be a walking, talking billboard for what you deliver.
Make sense?
So I hope this whole thing makes sense to you, because oftentimes I talk about marketing and sales and time management and productivity, yet I realize that our industry, at least a certain fraction of our industry, needs help. And they need help delivering results. You’ve got clients, now get on their case, be genuine, have a sit down with them and say, “What do we need to do to get that 30 lbs of fat off you that we’ve been trying to get off you for the last year and a half?”
My Challenge to You…
Now, with a lot of my coaching clients we have something we call the Man Up Challenge. Here’s how it works: you take the next 60 or 90 days and challenge yourself to improve in one specific area.
That’s the challenge I’m putting out there to you. I already know one area that you can improve in right away…
I want you to start creating actual human billboards, like walking, talking billboards who have undergone massive transformations. Not those who feel stronger, who can run faster, who can lift more, but visually you can look at them and go, “Holy cow, they put on more muscle and they lost a significant amount of weight.”
That’s my challenge to you.
Get them in awesome shape. Take the before and after pictures, try the Man Up Challenge for yourself, and get in amazing shape. You’ll see your fitness business turn around in record time.
Committed to your success,
Bedros