Setting the Stage

You're at the beginning of your journey and you're in for an exciting and rewarding ride!

Having said that, you've probably already seen that things are more complicated than you predicted.

That's OK -- we're here to help.

Let's get started.

You may be new to the fitness industry, or at least new to running a fitness business. You've been honing your training skills and know you have an amazing service to offer, but you're struggling to get your name out there and grow a consistent clientele.

Perhaps you're renting space or working for a gym. You have big aspirations, but it's becoming clear that making money isn't as easy as you hoped, especially with the ever-changing conditions around the pandemic. Your main priority right now is simply making enough to keep yourself going.

The Challenges

You need clients and you know you could help them if they'd just give you a chance. The problem is you don't know how to find them.

You wonder who or what to listen to and if maybe this was just a bad idea, after all. You're doing a lot of work each day, but too many sales conversations end with the phrases “I just can't afford it right now" or “I have to think about it."

Other trainers seem to pick up clients easily but you're not, even though you KNOW you're a good coach.

What gives?

The clients you have are getting great results, but they're not telling their friends about you – and all the gurus you follow on Facebook say "word-of-mouth" is the best way to build your business.

The pandemic hasn't changed your challenges, but it's magnified them. You still need new clients, but you're unsure how to adapt your services from what you thought you'd be doing to what is required now. You may have even had to take a step back from where your business used to be.

The Path

The key to mastering this first stage is getting comfortable with selling your service.

A solid lead follow-up and sales process will go a long way. Working through your limiting beliefs concerning sales is crucial.

Look for opportunities to sharpen your skills, not only as a fitness professional, but as a business owner offering an important service. Soon it will be more natural for you to think about how you're solving a problem for someone, rather than feeling guilty about asking for money.

If you used to be comfortable but are struggling now due to your prospects changing needs, fears, and values around the pandemic, it's important to realize the fundamentals of your service are still the same.

You are there to help people.

You may need to apply what you do to a virtual service or another offering if people are reluctant to come into your gym.

Challenge your own limiting beliefs about different services. Especially your prospect's openness to them and work to improve your sales and lead follow-up process and service.

This is the first stage of refining your business, and you need to develop and utilize a consistent weekly operating routine to ensure the work you put in is focused and effective.

The only thing standing between you and building your business to the next stage will be execution.

The Milestone

Imagine finally being able to breathe a bit.

You can pay your bills. You develop some notoriety, and clients send a couple of friends your way. You find yourself getting into a groove by making some of your processes more consistent and you gain confidence selling your service. The extra money lets you continue educating yourself and keep the business growing. You're not out of the woods yet, but you are consistently hitting goals and realize you can make a go at this thing.

It's not that getting clients is exactly easy now, but getting them before wasn't easy either. You're now just better able to adapt to the current situation and you realize that if you don't, your business will fail. The difference is now you have processes in place that give you a foundation to work from.

Building to the next stage of your business is up to you continuing to follow this path.

 

 

Setting the Stage

You've been training or coaching long enough to have a handful of clients who love what you do.

If you're renting space, traveling to clients' homes, or working for a gym, you're probably thinking about going out on your own. By now you should be gaining confidence in your sales process. You're likely still far from your target income, and you know to get there you need to develop more business skills.

At this point, getting your marketing more effective is at the top of the list.

At times, you've felt like you were gaining traction, but it hasn't been consistent and you're not sure what to do or how to think about it.

You do know one thing, though: if this is going to be a long-term career, you need more clients.

It's likely that the pandemic has set you back and you may be having trouble figuring out how to adapt, or if you even want to. There may have been some times (likely during one of your many shutdowns) that you felt a bit of panic start to set in.

The Challenges

You just aren't getting enough clients.

You close sales more consistently when you do have the chance, but you need more opportunities. That means more leads.

The things you do that may have worked in the past still work sometimes, but it's unpredictable.

You're also not confident that your pricing is right. You feel you may not be charging enough, but you're still afraid to scare anyone away. That means you're training anyone who will pay you and at times you're even giving people discounts. The problem is, you're not thrilled to work with all of them, and you're too stressed out, busy, and confused about marketing to market to the clients you really want.

You would feel a lot better if you could attract clients on a regular basis and fill in those gaps in your schedule, instead of feeling like you have no control over when you'll get another client. You've got to learn how to get your marketing to "move the needle."

The Path

It's time to level up your approach to business and marketing.

Effective marketing requires that you clearly define your ideal client, your core offer, and what makes you unique in your market. This establishes your message, attracts the right prospects and allows you to be more organized with your follow-up and time management.

It's only then that you'll have the time and perspective to take a long-term view of your business and be able to set meaningful quarterly and annual goals. These goals will create the much-needed direction that will help you decide which weekly, daily, and monthly tasks are essential.

Planning some of those activities and consistently executing on those plans is the remaining piece. What you will then have is a cohesive and focused marketing plan that gives you control of your lead flow.

It's important to stay disciplined as you develop these plans. It will be easy during busy and stressful moments to revert back to old habits. It is even likely that you will from time-to-time. When that happens, take a step back and think about your new processes, long-term goals, and what you really want your business to become. This will help you get back on track.

The Milestone

Once you refine your Ideal Client, Core Offer, and Market Position and apply those to your marketing you'll see your prospect list start to build. With a consistent lead-follow up process you'll be able to nurture those leads through your sales pipeline, schedule calls and consultations, and convert them into paying clients.

It's also time to think about a client management system to systemize client interaction and billing. You may also see a run of clients that have been left behind as their gyms have been forced to close. It's been tough, but the processes and long-term vision you now have in place have allowed you to be adaptable to these changing times.

You're more confident in your ability to bring people in, which is allowing you to stop negotiating and discounting prices. You've also learned that sometimes it feels OK saying no to prospects that may not fit your gym.

Your schedule is filling up and it's really paying off; clients are seeing success and your income is growing. That's exciting, but it's not the end of the journey. There are new challenges ahead and you probably won't have to wait long to see what they are.

 

 

Setting the Stage

You've faced significant challenges along the way and you're finally getting the hang of this business thing. Congratulations!

You have a consistent flow of leads, your schedule is full, and you may have started hiring a team. Training clients has become relatively easy but it's time to start focusing on the bigger picture.

Growth is on your mind and you have a lot of questions. Financially, things are pretty good, but changes still need to be made so you don't keep doing most of the work yourself. That means making your operations more efficient and figuring out how others can take some of your responsibilities. You don't want your name to be the only one on the Organizational Chart anymore!

You're also probably feeling the effects of the pandemic, not only in terms of clientele and revenue, but also how it's affected your training, staffing, marketing and sales processes. You know you're more capable of adapting to those changes, but you may be having some trouble clarifying exactly how.

The Challenges

You're finally making a decent income and the stress of "not being able to make it" has subsided a bit, but you now have a new challenge: time. There's just not enough of it.

You've been going hard for a long a while now and it feels like burnout may be on the horizon, if nothing changes.

Training certain clients feels like a chore. Everyone is leaning on you for motivation and problem-solving, and you're not quite sure who you can lean on for your own needs.

If that's not enough, you have no idea how you'll find time to teach anyone how to do the job you needed someone to do yesterday. You desperately need a vacation, but you're spending all your time trying to simultaneously run and grow the business and you don't feel like you can leave right now.

The pandemic has also made it feel as if the entire business you developed before the pandemic has to be rebuilt and you're not sure how, or if, that is going to work.

You're on a hamster wheel.

The Path

It's time to take control.

This will require one of the largest shifts of your journey so far -- the move from being a front-of-house "technician" to becoming a behind-the-scenes "manager."

It won't be easy, but developing a management skill set will fundamentally change the way you solve problems. You can't do everything yourself anymore and you have to learn how to get results through others. You'll do that by creating systems, developing staff, training them the right way, and holding them accountable.

At the same time, you'll learn to balance your marketing priorities while making sure your finances can handle any additional expenses. That means you'll also need to develop your financial management skills and be strategic with your decisions instead of throwing things at the wall to see what sticks.

You've spent most of your personal-growth time learning personal training techniques and philosophies but now it's time to learn about leadership, financial management, team building, and other important business skills.

Most importantly you must learn adaptability and agility. As the pandemic has shown, business owners who have those traits are best able to navigate through unpredictable times. They're able to optimize things like staffing, class times, additional services, and focus on different ways to help their clients that fit with the times.

A relentless focus on your Long Term Vision will steer you away from the shiny objects and keep you dialed in to building the business you want.

The Milestone

As you reach the end of this stage, you feel like the business has slightly loosened its grip on your time and life.

Maybe you finally get to take a vacation because you're confident your team can hold down the fort while you're gone. You're thrilled that clients are happy and still getting results while you're spending more time in your office and less on the training floor.

You may not have a lot of free time yet, but you're paying yourself like a business owner and reinvesting profits into the business. Your vision is taking shape, and you feel confident that you can keep moving forward.

You realize the foundation you built will always be there, even though circumstances may change and you understand how to use that foundation to recalibrate things such as your offers and finances. That way you'll always reflect current circumstances and keep progressing. That clarity also allows you to see that businesses just trying to force their way through old processes are failing.

Problems do keep coming up, though they're certainly different than the ones you used to have. They usually result from things other people need to do. At times it even feels like you take a step back for every step forward. That being said, you realize that however these problems feel in the moment, they are better problems then the ones you used to have.

 

 

Setting the Stage

You survived your first employee hires and things are running smoothly with your business and team.

You’re spending just the right amount of time on the training floor, and your business metrics look good.

Now that you’re drawing a nice income you might toy with the idea of a second location.

You may be getting some notoriety in the industry and local fitness professionals want to work for, or consult with you.

You think you almost have it figured out -- but there’s a nagging concern that you’re missing something.

It also may be possible that the pandemic has caused you to wonder what just happened to the business you thought you built! Have you gone from a business owner to just owning a job like you used to? There may be some big differences in how your business looks now as opposed to a year ago. Fewer clients, fewer staff, your own schedule, new offers, or something else entirely.

The Challenges

The old fear of being able to pay your bills may be gone, but bigger questions have come up.

“What is this business missing?”

“Can I afford to level up?”

“Can I afford not to?”

You realize there aren’t too many fitness businesses that make it to this level, so there are few that can offer advice.

It used to be easy to take risks because you didn’t have much to lose, but now people are counting on you and you’re struggling to balance just-go-for-it enthusiasm with a more calculated approach. It’s hard to give up day-to-day activities in the gym and your relationships with members are changing.

From here forward, your progress is dependent upon your development as a leader. This is especially true if you have less staff than you did a year ago. That would mean you’ve needed to take back some of the responsibilities you had been able to off-load before and are probably suffering some fatigue and motivation issues because of it.

You may have also started to worry about your finances again.

The Path

As you progress, improved self-awareness will become a critical component of your success.

You’ll have to see the value in being the orchestrator of your business instead of just the main service provider. You’ll spend most of your time hiring and coaching employees, making strategic decisions for the business, and investing in long-term solutions.

This is going to be challenging because you’ll have to give up some duties you enjoy and let others handle them, knowing they’ll need time and training to perform as well as you.

You’ll be tempted to jump-in and micro-manage, but you must resist or risk undermining your team. Toughest of all, you’ll have to keep your ego in check and remain open to learning from others, despite the success that got you this far.

As you come through the pandemic it’s important to remember that some of the challenges you are facing now are very similar to ones you’ve already gone through.

You’ve managed and trained staff, made tough financial decisions, adjusted your marketing and offers. Look for what’s familiar about your current situations and how you’ve dealt with them in the past. Having a good coach/mentor in your corner will help you do that and save you a lot of time and energy.

The Milestone

You have a solid team in place and a manager that oversees day-to-day activities.

You meet with this manager weekly and they give you all the information you need to make high-level decisions. Your freedom increases, allowing you a flexible schedule and time to take a couple of vacations each year.

You are able to spend as much time on the training floor as you like, and no more.

You know what growth looks like over the next 12 months, and you have a plan to make it happen. For the first time, your life doesn’t completely revolve around the business, and you start to wonder what that lack of worry means for your future.

You are also able to be strategic with how you are managing situations. You’re now able to effectively set priorities and stay focused on the most important. You are hiring for positions that can be leveraged most effectively and are trying to increase your revenue through your existing members first.

You realize the foundation you built will always be there, even though circumstances may change, and you understand how to use that foundation to recalibrate things such as your offers and finances. That way you’ll always reflect current circumstances and keep progressing. That clarity also allows you to see that businesses just trying to force their way through old processes are failing.

You’ve been through it before, now it’s time to get back to it.

 

 

Setting the Stage

By most accounts, you’ve created a successful fitness business. You have multiple employees who own their respective positions, a manager or management team that reports directly to you, and possibly multiple locations doing well financially. You have adapted to your ever-changing role as leader, and you focus on new business opportunities and maintaining a good work/life balance. You find yourself more concerned with retirement plans and investments than the latest training techniques. You feel like you have it all, but you know you continuously need new goals to stay engaged.

The Challenges

Most challenges tend to be internal. You’ll find yourself with fewer problems and might even break effective processes just to have something to fix. You might struggle with the fact that your business doesn’t need you to operate as much now and you don’t know what to do with your free time. You think about checking out completely, but doing so could still be detrimental to the business. You’re challenged to hold the management team accountable while fostering an environment of autonomy that allows them to develop new ideas to improve in-club operations. And there’s that question that’s been on your mind, and maybe you’ve even been scared to say it out loud... “What’s next?”

The Path

Your responsibilities now lie primarily in preparing for the future. Keep the vision muscles strong and prepare your management team for what might come. They’re the linchpin to success, and you need to stay focused on growing their capacities and abilities. This will consist of ongoing conversations, feedback, and coaching to nurture critical-thinking skills. It means fewer discussions of “what to do” or “how to do it,” and more about “why.” You’ll also need to spend time planning your work, such as an exit strategy or plans for new businesses in adjacent industries. To do this, guard your time wisely and continue investing in personal development.

The Milestone

You have a successful business, possibly more than one, that operates almost completely without you. You spend your days as you like, pursuing opportunities, traveling, and making plans for continued personal and professional growth. Life is exactly what you want it to be, and you may turn your focus to the social responsibilities of being in a blessed position. You mentor others, add value to the lives of those you love, and have a financial plan that will take care of you no matter what the future holds.