Fitness Business School – Capture the Top Spot in Your Market

Full Transcript

Hey, Pat Rigsby here. And in this episode, I want to talk with you about how you can capture the top spot in your market. There are three different ways you can do it, and we’re going to cover them all in this episode.

Welcome to The Fitness Business School podcast – the show for fitness business owners who want to grow their income, increase their impact and improve their lifestyle. Be sure to listen til the end of this episode, because we have a brand new special offer exclusive for listeners. So stay tuned.

I think that all of us really want to kind of capture that top spot in whatever category we’re competing in. Right. I know when I was a college baseball coach, I wanted to win a national championship. I wanted to win my conference or our conference, I guess, you know, you always want to be, be recognized is the top in whatever category you’re competing. In. In fact, the guy who was widely regarded as possibly the best CEO of the last 50 or 60 years, Jack Welch set a goal. When he took over general electric, he wanted to be number one or number two in any of the categories or the divisions that GE was competing in. If they couldn’t be one or two in that respective category, he wanted to get out of that business. He wanted to sell off that division. Now, obviously, you know, the businesses that I coached, the businesses that I’ve owned, these are corporate giants. They aren’t huge, but I think the same mindset still applies. You need to be towards the top of your market.

You need to be recognized as number one or number two, you know, one of the most well-respected businesses in your area. If you’re going to succeed, if you’re going to thrive. And if you aren’t, you probably need to look in the mirror and say, okay, well, how do I get better? How do I redefine what I do? So there are three different ways that I’ve seen people climb to the top in their respective market. The first is being first. Now that seems kind of obvious, but if you think back to when the boot bootcamp surge really happened in the fitness industry, well, you know, adventure, boot camps really kind of took a lot of the market by storm. And so much of that was just, they were the first well-publicized or recognized bootcamp in their respective market. If you’re the first person in your market that does or offers a specific thing, you’ve got a huge advantage.

Now I know coming from a small town, if I think about people who make a lot of money in, in small towns, the ones that I’ve seen, the ones that I’ve kind of witnessed firsthand in the town that I grew up in, it’s often the people who take business concepts that they see in bigger cities and transplant to those smaller towns. You know, they’ll see a franchise concept or restaurant concept, something like that in a, in a bigger city. And they’ll basically just pull that and we’ll be the first to offer it in their market. And then those are the people who invariably do pretty darn well for themselves. So if you want to be first, it’s something you’re, you’re going to usually be better off. Now, the cool thing about it is if you’re in a smaller market, if you were in even a mid size market and you go see something that’s happened, putting in a big metropolitan area, you can pull that and transplant it to your market. So you don’t necessarily have to invent it from scratch. You just need to be the first in your respective area. So that’s, that’s option.

Number one, if we want to climb to the top in our category, option number two, pretty obvious, but being better than the competition. One of the things that I think that I’ve recognized along the way is no matter how crowded it is, there’s always room at the top. If you’re great at what you do, you can succeed. You can you, you can thrive as long as people know about it. Now, the goal is never to be referred to as that hidden gem. I am that, you know, that that secret just goldmine that people don’t know about about, we want people to know about us. In fact, we need people to know about us. So if you have the best service you deliver, the best result you create the best experience you can thrive no matter what, if you’re first or last to market, as long as people get to experience it, experience it as long as people are exposed to it. So that’s number two and number three, be different, right? And honestly, this is I’m sorry. One thing that I’ve always kind of gravitated towards because when you’re different, you’re, you’re basically just saying, okay, I’m going to build on market awareness. I’m going to build on a demand that is already there, but I’m going to approach solving the problem a little bit differently. I’m going to put a different twist on things. I’m going to do some things a little differently. I’m going to be perceived a little differently. I may target a slightly different market. So, so I can really be more specific to them.

Maybe I blend in a few new elements to what I’m doing. So you’re actually kind of becoming first in a new category in best in that category, but you’re doing it based on evidence that already exists in the market. So maybe if you’re first to use a new marketing channel, but you’re applying the proven principles that have worked in current or existing marketing channels. So now, you know, the same type of benefits, the first person who really kind of cracked the code with Facebook ads or figured out how to do Instagram stories or whatever else, if they’re taking ideas that, that have worked on other platforms and applying them there, they’re going to have a head start. In fact, they’re going to be really far out in front of competition.

So here’s a simple way that you can put some of what I just shared to use. Think about your competition. Then, then ask yourself the following, you know, where you first to market and if not, who was, and are you better than that business at doing the things that both of you do? If not, how be honest, you know, a lot of people there, they’re just not willing to be honest with themselves or they’re not self-aware. And so they don’t look at this objectively, are you better than them in marketing your business? Do you have a better location? Is the service you deliver better? Is the personal attention you deliver better is the experience you provide to clients better? If not, how why? If so, how? Right? I mean, let’s take a look in, look for opportunities to close that gap, or maybe to compete in a different way. Like the way that I always have approached this is try to make things kind of that, that proverbial apples to oranges. I don’t want to be the exact same as somebody. I want to maybe solve similar problems, but do them in a different way. So what could that mean? That that might be as simple as if everybody else is trying to cram as many people in a training session as possible. You cap your training sessions, you do something like small group.

Maybe if everybody’s delivering a service around fat loss or body composition or weight loss, well, maybe you’re doing it in a semi-private setting. Maybe you’re doing it in home. Maybe you’re doing it for a specific target market. You know, maybe it’s people who are you know, severely overweight, maybe it’s first-time exercisers. Maybe it’s experienced exercisers, but put your business under a microscope and, and set yourself up to be in that number one or two position. Because if you do, you’re going to have long-term success. That’s how you get word of mouth. That’s how you really become a destination for people and people no longer comparison shop. They’re not looking at the next shiny object because they recognize that you’re different. They recognize that you’re better. So if you’re looking to capture that top spot in your market, put those three different tactics to use, be first, be better or Be different.

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