Fitness Business School – Scaling Success with Holly Rigsby

Full Transcript

Welcome to the Fitness Business School podcast, the show for fitness business owners who
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Pat Rigsby here with another episode of the fitness business school and today we have a very special guest, the specialist of guests, right? We have my wife, Holly. So Holly, welcome to the show.

Thank you for making me the specialist guest. There you go. So we’ve done a few episodes with people who are part of our team, because I think one of the maybe underappreciated things about the business that we have, is we have this really all star team of contributors that have all had their own successes along the way. It’s not just people. Executing a plan, but they’re successful coaches, business owners, entrepreneurs, leaders in their own right. And so I thought it’d be fun to bring you on and talk about some of your own coaching journey that, also is really started to play a big role in what we do with business owners.

So how’s that sound? It sounds exciting. Exciting. All right. So, for those listeners or viewers, since we’re doing this on video too, that, that don’t know about the business that, that you’ve owned separate of the things that we do with fitness business owners. Can we talk a little bit about that journey?

Yeah, I launched a fitness product for moms back in 2007 and it was very simply a downloadable ebook. And the reason I created this was because the majority of my clientele at the gym were moms and I found that I was booked solid. So we’re searching for a better way to leverage my time, and we decided to bundle up all the things that I was doing in the gym and create an online product that would help busy moms called Fit Yummy Mummy.

And when I first launched that, it was really exciting to see how many moms were raising their hand and finding this to be something super helpful to them to help reach their goals. And because nobody had really known how who I was back then I decided to create an online community to be able to coach them and guide them as they’re getting started and as a way to help prevent my inbox from being slammed with questions.

And little did I know that back then that, that decision would lead to the heart of what I have to offer for my coaching for moms. It really was something that kind of took off after that and we found ourselves. Having a great time being able to coach moms online. So 2007, just like yesterday, right?

Since then, you’ve done a little bit of everything with moms. You’ve had over 25 different individual products. You’ve had everything. thing from DVDs of the month and streaming subscriptions to print newsletters, to bundles and DVD products. You’ve had online community, you’ve spoken at big events, you’ve held your own in person live events.

You’ve, man you’ve been featured in magazines. There’s been a lot of stuff that’s gone on with you on this little journey. What a snapshot. Just thinking back on all the things that I have experienced and been able to share all exclusively online is pretty amazing. Yeah. I think that when I started to just try to unpack what we were doing, sharing the coaches journeys and how all of them had these really successful businesses and had their own experiences and just being able to use that knowledge and that track record to.

To coach other owners There were a few things that I think that you did in your journey online probably through trial and error probably just Continuing to tinker with things. I mean you’ve probably run I’m sure somewhere close to a hundred online challenges. And for those people who run challenges in offline space, they know how tough it is to keep people engaged, to to facilitate people’s forward momentum.

People start these six week challenges and half of them drop off by week three or four. So one of the things I think you’ve done, that’s been very unique and has translated so, so well to the business owner kind of space is how you’ve been able to provide some accountability and connection to guide people forward and get them to execute and implement, even though you’re not with them in person three days a week like somebody may be in a gym setting.

So talk about how you figured some of that out. Like you said, trial and error. I started doing transformation challenges back in the day. Like when Craig Ballantyne was doing his for turbulence training and kind of following that similar 12 week format. And my mom’s really enjoyed it because it gave them structure.

It gave them a deadline. We were all sharing something together, but looking back and knowing how I run challenges and stuff today, 12 weeks was a really long time. So a couple of different things that I did to make sure that I kept as many moms engaged as possible was I let them know what to expect up front.

They knew this is what i’m committing to We go through the whole goal setting process digging into the why so and telling them You are going to face along the way. This is not going to be a smooth ride from point A to point B. You’re going to hit those points where you’re going to feel like giving up and I’m here to make sure that you don’t.

And we talk about how to strategize that when those times happen. And the accountability that comes with it, I think, was key and it wasn’t just, all right, here, go do your workouts and we’ll see how you do by the end. I was constantly checking in with my mom’s, giving them different opportunities to be able to check in throughout the week.

And as they did, we’re either celebrating their wins or we’re troubleshooting. And I think that’s the other cool part about doing it as a group, because if when somebody struggles, And this is going back to also being proactive to let them know that they will struggle, and the way to get through the struggle is to talk about it, to raise their hand, ask for help.

That’s why they invested in me to be their coach. When we would run into those opportunities to troubleshoot, we’d share what the obstacle was and the steps that we took to overcome that. So it we were creating this toolkit along the way. And The moms would learn from one another that number one, they’re not alone in those struggles.

And number two, coming up with ideas that maybe they hadn’t thought of before. So it became this really cool shared experience. And I remember in the beginning I thought the motivation was, I’m going to finish this yes with results, but I also have this cash prize. I found that was like a lot of the focus for a lot of online challenges back then.

And with, after the first couple challenges, I realized what was different was my moms weren’t so necessarily, they didn’t care what the prize was. They cared about the fact that they got to do something with me, with fellow moms. and that they were getting better throughout the journey. And all ties back to my whole theme of the joy is in the journey.

And I really found that insight, that aha moment for my moms really helped me to begin to adjust the way that I was presenting challenges, facilitating them, and organizing them because it really was more about the shared experience and going through something together and being able to enjoy that.

Yeah, it’s, obviously I’m very biased, but it’s something in our coaching business that, that it’s, team Rigsby at this point, right? It’s it, so many people will say we’ve got coaches that, that’ll help you do this and that, and they’ve never really done it. They’ve never coached people.

They’ve never had to problem solve and troubleshoot, and they’ve not gone through these experiences. They’ve just hired people to. Execute a checklist. You’ve had over 35, 000 customers. You’ve had thousands of people who’ve gone through your, been part of your online community.

You’ve had thousands of people who’ve gone through your challenges. That’s a lot of aggregated knowledge, a lot of aggregated experiences that we’ve used in you’ve taken that and how to help people succeed in the journey and make progress. And now you a captain the ship that we have with this win the week thing.

So talk a little bit about how you’ve taken some of the things you’ve learned and helped to guide business owners using some of these same concepts and principles with this win the week approach we have. I look at it like this. It’s a matter of saying here’s how this works. Here’s what we expect from you.

And I find myself saying the same things to fitness business owners as I do to my moms. This is about, you just have to show up. Just show up, put in the reps. It’s okay if things are messy or, a little bit of a struggle at first because you’re going to get better at this. And knowing that we’re here for you week after week and guiding you along the way, encouraging you along the way, and being available to help you when you feel like you might be stuck or feel a little bit overwhelmed, that we help to diffuse that.

And that it’s okay to take it one week at a time. Cause I think we all of us get into trouble because we have these big lofty goals and then we overwhelm ourselves because we overcomplicate the process to get there. Whereas with win the week, we’re like, yes, we can set this target. We have a direction that we’re headed, but we don’t have a crystal ball.

We don’t know how things are going to unfold. Four weeks from now, all we can do is take it one week at a time. And by focusing on wins earned lessons learned, we can make adjustments. We can ask better questions, get better help and be able to set the goals for the upcoming week. So that way we’re continually making forward progress.

And I think what I’ve been, what has been reflected back to me a lot with the fitness

business owners is that This feels doable and it really minimizes the stress that we tend to put on ourselves when we are striving to make forward progress. Yeah. In hindsight the way that you were able to do this with your online community, almost out of at least your perceived necessity, it foreshadowed the way that things are working today.

I think at the time giving people a program, even though it was a really well structured program and not particularly complicated to follow. It was 15 minute workouts, the meal planning wasn’t super complex, and so it was designed to be doable. But still people having access to the knowledge, the information, the programming wasn’t enough.

So you created a community to facilitate the execution of this. You had challenges to create a little bit more of a cohort, a structure to facilitate this. And now I think that we see that information is abundant. I mean there’s so much stuff that people can do. There’s so many tactics they can deploy.

There’s so many marketing things that they can run and even though there’s more access to this stuff than there’s ever been, it’s not like there’s people always making more progress. I don’t even know if more, a higher percentage of business owners are making progress. More people are because they’re more in the industry, but as far as a percentage of people that have businesses being better year after year, I don’t know that percentage has improved and it’s the same thing.

It’s like access to Information isn’t the differentiator. It’s what you do with it and being overwhelmed with all of the things that you could do being feeling like the weight of the world’s on you because you have to sustain the business that you have to pay the bills. Figuring out and implementing all this new stuff.

It, I don’t know that I’m surprised that it’s challenging for people to do, but you’ve been able to lead what our team does with this win the week approach and take the same things that you’ve proven over. I don’t want to make it seem like we’re old, but it’s, well over 15 years of, evidence of proof that this kind of facilitated approach works So you’ve done that you mentioned something that I smiled about because I remember years ago you saying my mom’s my mom’s and I would always say they’re people Like they’re just like the business owners.

They’re people they have lives. They’ve got You know, they have careers and responsibilities and kids and goals and dreams and challenges and you’ll find they’re all the same. So what, like what kind of unifying things between both groups have you seen to be true? Wow. That’s a great question to be able to ask it like that.

Cause I was already, I was ready to say something, but I would say that there is the, there is a common fear of I’m not doing enough. And I think that’s where our coaching really helps to reassure them because we’re breaking down the big and we’re helping to celebrate those small steps along the way that they tend to not even recognize.

And that we’re juggling a lot of responsibilities all at once, and it’s really difficult at times to discern what’s most important to help move me forward when I have all these other important things going on. And helping to guide and highlight what is truly important right now. And give permission to say no to everything else.

That no is not forever. It’s just for right now until we take care of these things first. Cause I love how you, cause I’ll reflect what you say too. It’s about sequence not simultaneous. And oftentimes my mom’s fitness business owners, everybody’s trying to do things simultaneously. So giving them permission to say, it’s okay for me to do it one thing at a time and to do it in an order that feels good.

That allows me to make that forward progress. Yeah. I think that, I think that intuitively, like fitness business owners understand the idea of, Things compounding because that’s what they do with their clients, right? The workouts compound over time. The, you come in, you have this sense of accomplishment.

You complete a workout. You used to have your little marker for that with the moms, the OSG earned, right? You’ve earned this. sense of accomplishment for the day. But over time, that’s how we accrue these victories, whether they’re small. Body composition milestones that we’re hitting, or we’re even becoming this new, better version of ourself because this is who I am.

I’m the type of person that does things this way. I’m the type of person that lives this way. And I think that we get that as a business owner and what we do with clients, but it works for us too. And so few business owners. are patient enough and willing to persevere through that approach and say, okay, I’m going to win this week and then win the next week and win the next week.

And I have some momentum. I am stacking up these wins one by one. Then you look up at the end of the year and your business is up 25%. Your work hours are down 20%. You’ve taken vacations. You’ve been able to go coach your kids t-ball team. It’s a really powerful approach that I think you figured out with moms a long time ago, but it’s it’s exciting to see you be able to help business owners have an appreciation for how this can affect their lives too.

So some similarities between what you’ve been able to do with

I’m not going to ask you what the differences are because man, that could probably take a whole episode by itself, but what have you enjoyed about getting to work with fellow business owners and share not Your process and your experience, but you’ve obviously had a ton of success in your own business.

So just some of that journey. I would say that the most exciting thing to see is that they are able to wow themselves that the small steps are the significant steps. And that by really taking a step back, especially with the whole concept of marketing, because I think that was something I was going to be prepared to talk about, that if I would have known the things that I know now, back when I was a fresh new business owner, I would have completely changed the way that I approached and took care of marketing.

Nowadays, today, to just go Find a way to simplify explaining what they’re doing and why, I think has really made a big impact. Because, like you said, information is out there. You can, buy a book, buy an online course, go on YouTube, learn all this stuff, but taking action is where the magic happens.

So when I’m able to coach fitness business owners on marketing and being able to reframe it in a way that clicks with them, then they’re able to go take action and they come back every single time and they’re like, it worked. And I’m like, yeah. And then I’m scratching my head going only if I had myself to coach myself back then.

It, to be fair, like we, we’ve talked about so many of the things that you’re able to accomplish and so much of what you did well and the successes and the moms that you impacted. But I think, You probably fell prey to the same things that these owners fall prey to the hey There’s information out there and this thing sounds exciting and using this platform or taking this approach is Interesting, but it’s overwhelming there’s not a step by step way that you can weave it into your weekly process and so Things that you probably could have executed at a really high level if you had this win the week approach for you at the time died on the vine.

That’s some of the, I think that’s some of the most powerful stuff that we get as a coach. It’s not just the wins, right? It’s the, you talked about the wins earned, lessons learned. You had some of your own bumps in the road along the way that were lessons that allowed you to be better in helping these business owners maybe avoid some of the potholes that you ran into.

Do you want to, is there any of that, an example of that that you’d want to share? So that’s a fun question because I started. My online business so long ago what I see a lot of fitness business owners struggle with today is social media Everybody thinks oh I can go online get insta famous. I’ll get clients.

I’ll do all this and they realize Very quickly that’s not how it works But then they keep going back to those same social media tactics and i’m like that’s not the right approach So when I think back to my experience I mean Looking at what I had to do to get It As an online business owner to get attention, get awareness, nurture people, and eventually convert them to clients was a lot different than what it is today because It was like the hard work of creating a blog, and you would post on the blog, and not just post on the blog, then you would have to find other ways to advertise to get your blog post picked up on other sites.

So it took a lot of work to do that, and then I remember that we transitioned from, Just blogging to and YouTube was always there if I can just say that YouTube if there is any social media platform to do it’s YouTube because that is evergreen So I started I remember starting YouTube and having a lot of great videos out there.

That was also awesome then Facebook came around There’s Facebook lives and Periscope. And then all these other social media platforms started to pop up. So if I can turn that into something that I had to figure out and overcome, it was not being tempted by all the shiny objects. And Thinking that one platform is going to be better than the other.

I have to be on all platforms. I have to figure all platforms out. It’s a matter of being able to make a decision about what is the best platform for me, become an expert in that platform and be consistent because that’s where you gain the traction. But it’s really hard to do that. When there’s all this information out there and you can overwhelm yourself.

There’s just not this simple framework of do this first, then

do this. Like I know I had to figure out a lot of things over the years, but I see that’s something that people struggle with today because of Hey here, go buy this Instagram course and you can earn a lot of money on Instagram, getting all these clients.

And it’s not that simple. It takes dedication. It takes consistency. It takes hard work. So I think whatever path you choose when it comes to that, you have to understand what you’re committing to upfront. And I think that’s why things like your, accountability approach with moms works so well because the same thing held true there.

There were new workouts coming out from all these different professionals, month after month, there’d be all these different things and that all have wonderful VSLs or sales pages, promising, incredible results with little effort and little time. And it’s hard to maintain focus. But I think that the same thing that you just shared as your experience with marketing is the same thing that we spend so much of our time.

Now, maybe, may, maybe more than 50 percent of our time now helping people pair things down and saying simple and consistent is what’s going to win out. And I don’t know that you’d be as effective in leading people in that area. If you hadn’t experienced some of what you just, Some of what you just said, so you’re, I know I’m talking a lot about the work that, that we’re doing with business owners now.

And frankly, that probably takes up. more of your work hours than the work with moms. But we’d probably be doing that piece of it a disservice. You’ve scaled that back and get, but still get to spend some time in a very practical way coaching moms. And so you’re, you still have kind of your test kitchen for the things that you’re, teaching business owners.

So do you want to talk a little bit about what you do there? Absolutely. So if you recall way back in the day when I launched my Fit Yummy Mummy product back in 2007, I created Google group and that was the start of the community. And over the years I’ve changed platforms a few times. But what kept moms coming back was this safe place, this feeling of I’m home.

That has always been in existence. I have most recently changed platforms to circle and it’s been one of the best changes ever since I’ve feel like I’ve tested every platform out to be able to connect with my moms. and maintain that private space where they can come that’s safe as well as deliver those online resources.

And I have members that have been with me since 2007 that are paying members of this membership site because it has become such an integral part of their lives. It is the favorite part of what I continue to do as far as coaching when it comes to my business. You’re right, I’ve scaled back a lot of what I used to do in the past, but this is the heart of My coaching and my passion and that allows me to translate a lot of this other stuff that we talked about with to fitness business owners so my online community I it’s filled since I’ve been doing this for so many years.

It’s filled with plenty of workouts I have put the pressure on myself that I have to create all these new workouts and do this work out of the month And at one point I was just like this is not my ideal business anymore. And my mom’s don’t need any more workouts I They need the accountability to do the workouts that I have.

I have plenty of variety for them to choose based on where their, what their starting point is, what their goals are, what their preferences are, and now that they have access to this, to a library to go in there and pick what they want they tell me, we set up some goals, and then I just hold them accountable to be able to check in and make sure they’re following through.

Along with that, This because we know that getting results takes more than workouts. It’s really been more of a holistic approach, too. I teach and coach everything from morning routines to time management, productivity, planning your day, to finding ways to get in more enjoyment out of family time and the relationship with their husband and other relationships in their life.

So it’s really just a holistic approach. become this hub of Living your best life. That’s been a tagline that loop that we have thrown around out there And now that many of us are heading into our 50s. This is the defining decade So now it’s a matter of saying okay, we’ve got all this stuff.

Let’s find a simple way to implement So that way we can feel good about the progress that we’re making and make the most of each and every day. Man, defining decade. That’s a little pressure on me since I’m fast approaching 52. All right. Have that as your kind of hub. It’s a community that you’re making a big impact, but at this point you don’t need to necessarily.

Make such a wide impact. That’s more of a deep impact with fewer people. And then the work that you were doing with business owners that allows them to make their businesses better and help them, live a better life with their family. You’re getting a lot of reach that way. You’re checking each box as far as the difference you’re making and helping people live their best life.

, the only thing I guess I have left to ask is what’s next? What are you excited about? I think what I’m most excited about is I love how you just said it. It’s not about going wider, it’s going deeper. This is the year where I really feel like the changes that we’ve been making have allowed me as a coach to go deeper into that coaching level.

For my community of moms we’re instituting a framework that’s similar to win the week we call it the weekly boost and it gives moms this opportunity to be able to come in no matter what they’re working on to come together and share as well as. Offering monthly master classes. So we do a deeper dive on topics that are important to them.

I think that takes the pressure off of me to feel like I have to constantly create. Takes the pressure off of them to feel like they have to constantly consume. And it’s more about I’m providing something that is relevant to them, that they can then take and implement to put into action to enhance the results.

So on the flip side of that, when it comes to fitness business owners, it’s really looking at these opportunities that we’re now creating within the structure of how we coach that gives them that opportunity to go deeper into the coaching level. Because sure, we can give them the tools and the templates and they can go out there and edit things and send it out.

But we really want to take that coaching to the next level. So it really helps them to feel that deeper connection well, as well to us as coaches and really level up their business in the process. So lots of fun coaching on both sides. You’re excited about that. That’s I think that’s probably the right place for us to put a bow on this is, we started business together.

You worked in the first business in 2004 kind of part time, right when we started by 2005, this was, coaching was our full time thing. And to still be excited about coaching and to feel like, Hey, I want to go deeper into this and make a difference and have an impact.

I think that longevity, that durability and that passion, hopefully that’s what anybody who’s watching this podcast or listening to this podcast would want for their business. They want to. Yeah. I think at this point we have our ideal business. It’s lifestyle friendly. We’ve got, just as we’re recording this, we’ve got about a month of travel coming up to different places.

Get to spend a lot of time with family. We get to do things that we enjoy, but we’re still really excited about the business side of what we do too. And we get to do it together. I think. How can we do this podcast without talking about the fact that you and I work together more closely than we ever have?

And I’m enjoying it. You might have a different opinion. But I remember in the past, just to give context, that you hired Matt Sizemore to be the mediator. So when I would have to do something to grow my business, you could not tell me. What I need to do because I just was not in a good place to be able to listen to it.

So Matt would have to come and get on a zoom or a phone call and give me my marching orders. And I remember the day that I was like, we were over at 117 forest place court. And we had a small group come in. We’re sitting in the basement and these there, there were women, They’re like, Oh, this group, this coaching is great.

And I’m like, what’s wrong with me? I’m like missing out on this great coaching. And I remember writing a commitment that I will be open and I will let you be my coach. And I think there’s a really pivotal point. Cause now here we are, I don’t know how many years ago that was five, six, seven years, probably six or seven, six or seven.

And then there is an opportunity where you’re like, Oh, I was teaching time management to my mom. How to plan your day, and I remember you overhearing me, and you’re like, fitness business owners could actually benefit from those tips as well. So I got invited to come to teach on a Zoom, and it was well received, and then I got invited again, and again, and all of a sudden, I became a part of the team, which I loved being able to coach, but then the other part of this was like, like we share this together, like a lot of spouses, they can’t share work together, can’t talk about work, and it’s it’s a big part of what we do, and I don’t, it’s not something How can I say this?

It’s when we talk about work, it’s not like this chore that we have to, it’s I look forward to talking with you about it. I look forward to giving you updates of the different clients that I interact with. I look forward to asking you questions to help troubleshoot, to make sure if somebody’s stuck with something, what can we do to help them out?

So

it’s really been a surprising enjoyable process to be where I am here today and to be able to share it with you. So talk about ideal business. Yeah, the see, I think Matt was like the, EOS calls it like an integrator, right? Like he, he would that, or he was just my lead blocker or something.

Yeah, L Let’s face it, timing. Timing is everything, right? Like timing matters. People have to basically act when it’s their right time. We talk about that in a marketing sense. Very frequently. We say like the, like you can nurture the prospects and everything else, but the timing has to be right for them to join and commit and everything else.

And the timing was right. You, I think we’re very passionate about coaching and maybe not so much about, Hey, I need to go out and market and grow this business. I like the community of moms I have, but I want to do more coaching. I want to have more impact. And so there was a need and an opportunity.

And some of the things that, that, Business owners were, we’re probably sorely lacking were the things that happened to be like at the heart of your skillset and your experience. And it was the perfect marriage. Is that kind of a play on words or something? Yeah, it’s been fun.

It’s been something that I think breathes some new excitement into business. It’s allowed us to do some things that frankly, I don’t think that we could have ever done at this level if we would have just gone and hired out to say, Hey, go execute this kind of heightened accountability type program.

Cause there are people that are out there that do it to frankly charge three or four times as much as we do that don’t. deliver a fraction of this. And it’s not that their process is bad. It’s just that what you’ve done leading the win the week stuff that good. And it’s been fun for us, I think, but it’s also been just a win for everybody else who’s got to experience it.

Yay. Team Rigsby. Team Rigsby. High five. There we go. And that high five only plays because we’re doing a video podcast. All right we will wrap it up here and thank you not just for coming on the podcast, but for coming and making the team better, making our clients better and also coming on the podcast.

Oh boy. Look at that. Man we have the most popular picture of us ever is probably the one where I’m like looking at you like that. And now we’ve got a hug podcast picture. So we’re covering all bases. All right, guys, another episode of the fitness business show in the books. And who knows, maybe it’s one of the best ever team Rigsby episodes, right?

Thanks for listening to this episode of The Fitness Business School.

Before you go, I have a quick announcement:

One of of the things that we’ve been doing with our current clients is taking them through this Ideal Business diagnostic and really what it is, this checklist that allows you to pinpoint exactly what your business needs next so you can keep improving, keep growing, and build a business that you love to own, one that pays you well, one that allows you to have the impact you wanna have and one that allows you to have a lifestyle that you truly enjoy.

In this diagnostic, we walk through everything and we do an evaluation and can instantly pinpoint what you need to do next to build that business that you want. I’m going to extend this opportunity to get on with either me or my team and take you through this evaluation and fix your business’s most vital needs fast.

So if we take you through this, you’re gonna be able to make those vital changes that you need to finally have what I call your Ideal Business. If you’d be interested in going through this entirely free, risk-free diagnostic with us and learn what you already have in place, what you’re doing well and where are your greatest opportunities for rapid improvement are just shoot me an email with diagnostic in the subject line to [email protected].

Again, an email to [email protected] with diagnostic in the subject line will get
you scheduled and take you through this evaluation to help you build the business you want.