Fitness Business School – 3 Powerful Leverage Points

Full Transcript

Hey, Pat Rigsby here and in today’s episode I wanna talk with you about what I consider my three most powerful leverage points and how I use them to grow my business. Let’s get started.

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One of the things that I think has helped me in this kind of pursuit of building my ideal business is, is finding leverage points, finding things that allow me to get more bang for the buck, so to speak. And so I thought I’d go into the, the three areas of leverage points that I lean on and explain how I use those in a really like practical, tactical way. So you might be able to apply some of this in your own world. So the first is the, the assets that I create. Now, these are not balance sheet type of assets, but like if I write an email for the day or with this podcast that, that you’re listening to now, you know, how am I going to recycle that in different ways with the emails I may distribute those in, you know, in, in Facebook groups, I may distribute those on various social media platforms. I may plug them into autoresponders. I may update them and edit them and reuse them again if I really like the thought, but maybe I have a better way to say it, or even a, a, an updated way of approaching whatever topic I was addressing originally.

And then with books, I’ve bundled some of the, the emails up and created books from those with old products, I’ve recycled old products and used them as lead magnets. I’ve used them to trigger conversations in Facebook groups to get people to, to, to indicate that they’re interested in a particular topic that that might start a potential sales conversation. I’ve used old products to, to do just an enormous amount of list building. You know, we’ve used some of Holly’s business to consumer stuff from her fitness for mom’s offerings to share with, with, with clients. I mean, whether it be, you know, products that she sold, I mean, we recycled one nutrition, like, like a cookbook recipe guide that we sold 30 or $40,000 worth of. And we’ve kind of made it a white label thing that our clients can use as a lead magnet in their own business. We’ve taken templates of, of workouts or sales pages or emails and shared them. And, you know, there’s so many things that I’ve been able to create where I’ve not had to start at a blank page and, and just go from scratch. I mean, I’ll have assets that I’ve created 2, 3, 5, even 10 years ago, that when I’m meeting with a client I’m able to recycle, heck I I’m doing some consulting work with an organization.

Now we needed a royalty based agreement for somebody contributing intellectual property. I was able to just go pull something from publishing that I’ve done in the past. So when you’re thinking about your business, what can you recycle workouts that you’ve done? Can you recycle those in, in certain ways marketing pieces that you’ve created scripts that you’ve written, anything that you’ve done? I mean, did you film a bunch of workout videos during the pandemic? Can you bundle those things up, use those as a lead magnet? Can you bundle those things up and sell those to the, the, the audience that you have that doesn’t come into your facility? So many things that you can do, but that’s one of the, the ways that I think I’ve been able to save a lot of time, have more impact and, and really get more things to the finish line is, you know, I’m not staring at a blank page. So that’s number one, number two, when it comes to the, the leverage points that, that have really helped me you know, relationships and, and that’s a broad category. But if, if you think about the relationships that, that, that I’ve had, like all the people who coach on my team now were clients first pretty much anybody that, like, if I’m gonna publish somebody to, to market some of their intellectual property, they were a client first people that I’ve had relationships within the industry, people that have either come to speak at events that I’ve done collaborated on products with you know, I mean, so much of that, you know, they either began as clients or they began. We just, you know, would connected industry events. You know, and, and if I look I’m working on a really cool project Nutrition OS with Dr. Rousell. Mike has been a friend for ages and ages in the industry that, you know, we just met through mutual people, kept those relationships going.

I’ve done various things with guys like Eric Cressey or Mike Robertson, or Pat Beith that in some cases, you know, Eric and Mike were franchisees when I had a franchise. But you know, I, I leaned on them for various things in other ways. And heck we created early on you know, me and those two guys created a, a, a product, gosh, probably all the way back in 2009 or something. If I look at all the, the, the collaborative stuff that I’ve done, there was a preexisting relationship. It’s never come from, like somebody cold messaging me on LinkedIn. It’s never come from somebody just coming and positioning a, you know, a, a, an offer to me, there’s always been kind of this, Hey, I’m gonna talk to somebody. I know we’re brainstorming ideas. This is what we came up with, or I have an idea, or that person has an idea, share it with one another. And we already have a lot of that intangible stuff taken care of. So that working relationship’s much easier. So for me, a lot of that’s staying in touch with people because, you know, an idea may come 3, 4, 5 years from now that, you know, I don’t ever wanna be the person that only calls when there’s, there’s some business thing at stake, or, you know, there there’s something I need or something I’d like to accomplish. Like, I want to continue to nurture those relationships and be helpful to, to other people. And then if there’s something I, I throw out there because I came up with an idea or vice versa, I always wanted to be warmly received because they know that I’ve got their best interest at heart. So a lot of this is giving and helping with no specific expectation of return.

Now that may not seem like a, a leverage point, but I, I have found for the past two decades really you know, as long as that’s kind of my way of operating, Hey, I’m gonna help people. I’m going to be, be generous and try to contribute to other people’s success. It, it, it’s a little, like my daily emails that I send, you know, it’s continually planning relationship seeds. And if you have enough good relationships where you’ve added enough value to other people’s businesses to their lives, then you never have a shortage of things that come back as potential opportunities. And in all honesty, the hardest part is vetting, right? Like saying no to things that, that are probably really good opportunities, but you just don’t have the bandwidth for. The other thing about the relationship stuff for me is, you know, I’ve created leverage by not continually having to be in this constant chase because we have a lot of repeat and long term business. I mean, I’ve got people that have been clients 2006, 2007, some people that are active in programs now, now that it’s been, it’s not always been like an unbroken thing, but I’ve, I, I have had some people who’ve had an unbroken professional relationship with me for a decade plus, which is pretty tough to do considering I sold my stake in a business that those people might have had a relationship with. And when I started a new business, you know, during that first month, a lot of those people, you know, gravitated to me. And so even through transitions, having that kind of unbroken relationship is you know, that’s a, that is a truly unique, really unique thing. And it comes from, you know, building those relationships and making sure that people recognize that you care about them as more than a transaction.

You know, and then any number of people that, you know, we’re clients you know, 3, 4, 5 years ago that come back or people that were clients who come back and say, Hey, would you be interested in working with us in this other capacity? You know, those, those sorts of relationships yeah, so many people they get caught up in, well, Hey, I’m going to go sell this big program, this big package right now. And then they, they act as if that’s the end of that relationship. When in all honesty, it’s the beginning, right? Like you, you get somebody on as a client, you get somebody into your ecosystem. That’s the beginning. Like my goal would be to continue to work with the people that I work with until they retire, or I retire. Like I want to continue to try to be valuable in their world for as long as possible. And then the other leverage point for me when it comes to relationships is having an audience, right? So you know, at this point I’ve got 60,000 plus people that receive our emails and, you know I’ve got people in a free Facebook group. I’ve got people that listen to the podcast, and obviously there’s plenty of overlap between those, but you know, having that kind of audience creates leverage for me because I can send out offers for my stuff without necessarily having to go run paid ads. I can create other solutions or collaborate with people to develop other solutions that might make those people’s lives easier that might help them reach their goals faster. And, you know, by having that audience, I, you know, I, I save an enormous amount of time for market research for finding offers that convert all that sort of stuff, because I’ve got kind of the, this proving ground for things as well. And it makes the sales process infinitely easier because having that audience means I’m doing something one time, like writing an email, it’s getting a lot of distribution.

And it, it essentially pre-sales working with, with, with me and my team for the people who might be interested in, and in the same point, it it’s a vetting tool because the people that don’t like what I share in an email, or don’t like this podcast, well, I think I’ve done a pretty decent job of being me in the podcast and being me in the email. And so what somebody would get in interacting with me on a call or joining a program or coming to a live event is about as closely aligned with what they would hear on a podcast or what they would see in an email as with any single human on the internet. And so it saves me a lot of time because people basically get to lean in or lean away based on what they’re seeing. So I don’t have to do all this qualifying and vetting over the phone and have this really intricate sales process. It’s basically, I’m just gonna help you make some offers to help you more. And if you like it come work with us and if you don’t like it, it’s okay. I’m, I wish you the best and hope you find something that does work for you. So that’s the relationship side of us. We’ve got the leveraging assets, leveraging relationships. And then, you know, again, this is very simple when we think of it at this 40,000 foot level, but leveraging learning. One of the things that, that I think that I’ve been able to do in a really consistent way is leveraging my learning in a twofold fashion. Number one, if I go through a book or a course or attend an event, I kind of have this standing rule with myself to implement something from that within the first week, I have to implement something immediately because there are so many people that go to conferences and come away with binders full of notes, and then go back to doing exactly what they’ve always done, because they’ve got all these big ideas that don’t get implemented for me.

It’s like, I’m going to recoup my investment of money and time and said educational experience within that first week, I’ve got to implement something to, to, to make this a win for me. And it doesn’t have to be something that results in that kind of corresponding dollar amount, as much as maybe it could be creating a, a time savings. Maybe it could be making retention better, but something that’s going to yield in you know, a really positive outcome. So I think I leverage those events better than a lot of people or leverage books. Like I you know, I may not take the binder full of notes at the link everybody else does, but I’m pretty good at saying, okay, what are my 1, 2, 3 action steps that are gonna happen in the first 72 hours? So that’s, that’s one thing. And then the second thing is, you know, I kind of try to build this learning library of, you know, anything that I create, or if I read a book and I come away with a couple action steps, you know, I’m continually putting that in my library of how am I going to recycle it. And frankly, one of the ways that I don’t lose track of ideas is to share ’em here. Like I share ’em in emails, I share ’em on podcasts. I talk about them with clients because I wanna hardwire those things into everything that I do, because I, I think of this.

You know, we’re going through a period right now where the stock, market’s not exactly doing great. And I’ve always thought that, Hey, my best investment is investing back in me because if I make myself 10% better at selling than every selling opportunity I have from this point forward for the remainder of my career, I’m better. If I make myself a better copywriter by 5%, then everything that I write from this point forward gets 5% better, has 5% more impact. And I think a lot of people don’t think of it like that, right? They think of things like, well, Hey, I’m gonna go to this event and get this credential or whatever else. But I think man, if I become better at these things, it by, by learning something that gets again, I, you know, the, the way that I think of is like hardwired into my being then everything, when it comes to my output going forward improves. So that’s another way that I leverage learning. And so it’s a little bit of a hedge against always being reliant on other people, giving you the return on investment, right? Like I’m gonna continue to invest in the same types of things that I invest in, in the stock market or whatever else. But I know that, you know, whether there’s an economic downturn or not me getting better at things and making all of my output more valuable, well, that’s something that is always going to be a positive for me. So there are three Different Ways that I create leverage. And again, the top line, thinking that 40,000 foot view of, you know, Hey, leveraging your assets, leveraging your relationships, leveraging your learning. I, I don’t know that that’s revolutionary by any means, but I wanted To give you a few practical Ways that I actually do that. And it’s how I’ve been able to build a business that has worked year after year. Well, you know, I’m guessing working fewer hours than most everybody listening to this podcast and enjoying what I do on a, you know, a daily basis. So hopefully you can take some, some lessons, some insights away from that And make ’em work for you as well.

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