Fitness Business School – Growing Your Business During the Pandemic

Full Transcript

Hey Pat Rigsby here. And in this episode, I want to talk with you about three ways to grow your business during the pandemic. So let’s go get to it.

Welcome to the fitness business school with Pat Rigsby, the podcast for fitness entrepreneurs who want to make more income, have greater impact, and enjoy more freedom in their ideal business. If you’d like an accelerated route to these goals, email me at [email protected] and put BGA in the subject line and I’ll get you all the details about our business growth accelerator program.

On a weekly basis, I get to talk with dozens and dozens of fitness business owners about what they’re doing now, how their business is navigating the pandemic, things that have worked, things that maybe haven’t worked as well as they’d like. And there are these three ways, tactics, rules, whatever you’d like to call them, that I always come back to if you were trying to grow during less than opportune times and the first is being willing to sell to someone different, right?

The thought of only selling to that same person that you’ve always sold to can be a challenge during circumstances like the ones that we’re currently facing, because that market is really kind of shrunken down. It, it might be, you know, half the size of people who are interested in ready to buy in your local area right now of what it would have been 18-24 months ago. I mean, there are just people that may come back within the next six, eight, 10, 12 months and be prospects again. But right now they’re, they’re just kind of sitting it out and they’re waiting. They’re not ready to make a commitment. They’re not ready to, to join a program. So if the pool of people that you’ve traditionally sold to is smaller and, and this same thing would be the case. If a lot of new competition came into your market and was serving the same population you do. But if the pool of people you’re selling to a smaller, you have to find ways to expand that pool, to reach more people.

So an easy way to do that is to serve the same type of person, but expand out further geographically. And in that approach, you could use online training or a hybrid model where somebody doesn’t have to see you three times a week in person to have success. But if you’re doing online whether it be live or on demand, then you know, somebody might be able to live 30 minutes from you. And maybe they can only come in and see you once a week or even once a month in person, but you can still serve them from afar. So you can cast a wider net or, or expand the radius of who you serve.

The other thing that you could do is consider serving you know, someone different in that maybe there are people who want you to come in into their home and train one-on-one. Maybe there are people who weren’t necessarily interested in a group training environment, and that’s what you offer previously. But now you’re going to offer something more narrow and that’ll lead me into the second way to grow your business during challenging times. And that’s to sell something different. Now, these two kind of dove tail together, right? They they, they really work hand in hand because if you were selling something different, a lot of times is going to be to a different audience. The audience that wants to come in and train in a group environment is different than the audience who might want a trainer to come into their home and work with them two or three times a week. So offering something different, whether it be online hybrid in home training, one-on-one training, small group, instead of large group, or maybe offering something like nutrition, coaching as a standalone service for the people who want help with that, but may not be interested in going into a gym right now.

So having a different service offering is another way that you can really continue to grow, because you’re just not as narrow. And again, like I mentioned before but, but before we really kind of got into the tactical piece of this and gave examples in most markets, the biggest challenge isn’t that nobody’s training, nobody’s joining a gym. It’s just that, you know, let’s say that in January of 2020, our market was as big as robust as it’s ever been. There were more people interested in training in some way, online, offline groups. And my private one-on-one is there’s ever been well now, you know, that market may be 30%, 40%, 50% of what it was. It’s just a temporarily depressed market. So having someone different to sell to, or selling something different, there, there, there are ways to really kind of expand your reach and tap into either a broader audience or better serve the audience who may not be buying what you’re wanting to sell right now.

And then the third thing that you can do to grow during challenging times is just to take a different approach to selling. Maybe you’ve been reliant on selling through a consultation where you just sat down with somebody and sold an annual program. You sold a 12 month membership, or maybe you sold people into a challenge. And then into a long-term membership, maybe you have to take a different approach. Maybe you have to sell things that require less of a commitment. Maybe you have to alternate the ways that you’re making offers, because the only thing that you’re doing might be getting tired. People might’ve seen it too many times. So maybe you can’t just sell through a Facebook ad directly to an offer anymore. Maybe you need to move people from Facebook to an email list and make continual and varied offers there, but being willing to mix up the ways that you’re making offers the process you’re using the sale and, and really the format, right? Like what some of these buying are they having to make a long-term commitment, even though nothing that we’re experiencing right now is easy to forecast over the long haul. Well, by mixing this up, you’re going to see more people willing to take you up on what, what you’re offering.

So there you go. You’ve got the opportunity to sell to a broader audience, selling to somebody different, selling a different service or product, and then finally altering or changing the way that you’re going about selling the prospects that you do reach. If you put your business under a microscope and really start to think about these three ways that you can grow, even during challenging times, I think you’re going to unlock something that allows you to see an uptick and really start to finish the year as strong as you probably hope to when we started 2021. So put these into action.

Thanks for listening to this episode of The Fitness Business School. And before you go, I have a quick announcement. When I first connect with a fitness business owner, they almost always ask me, “How can I get more leads or how can I get more clients?” Well, I have an exclusive offer for you and it’s going to help you do just that. As a listener of this show, you can test drive Fitness Lead Academy for six full weeks for just a dollar. Fitness Lead Academy is a one of a kind program where you get done-for-you marketing tools and coaching to attract more qualified prospects and convert them into paying clients. Imagine having three marketing emails written for you each and every week for easy-to-deploy promotions provided to you that are proven to convert and they’re ready to use and proven ads and social media posts given to you each and every month as well. Plus you have access to three weekly live video coaching sessions to help you with everything from dialing in your brand to navigating things like building funnels and getting ads approved. You get all of this and more when you join Fitness Lead Academy. And to prove that FLA can serve you as your virtual marketing department and not only save you plenty of time, but also consistently bring you more leads and clients, you can get access to the entire coaching program for six full weeks. Again, for just $1. If it delivers for you in the way that I expect it will, you can continue on for just $199 a month. So basically, just one additional client each month and you’re ROI positive. And I’m sure that if you apply what we give you, you’re going to get more than just one additional client each month. And you’re going to likely save at least 10 hours a month to take advantage of this special offer. Just go to TestDriveFLA.com to try it out for six full weeks. If it’s not what you’re looking for, you can cancel it any time.

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