Fitness Business School – 4 Stages of Business – 04 – Scaling

Full Transcript

Hey, Pat Rigsby here an in today’s episode, we’re gonna cover part four in our series about the stages that businesses and business owners go through. So let’s get to it.

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

All right, so we’re here. This is the pinnacle. You’re at stage four, the scale, stage of a business. And honestly, I would be surprised if even 3% of the business owners in our industry ever get to this point. And that’s perfectly fine. I don’t want you to feel like, Hey, everybody needs to get to this point to be happy. It’s kind of like, some people can be really happy and successful graduating high school, and they can build a career around that. Some people need a bachelor’s degree, some people need a master’s degree, some people need like a doctoral or, some sort of post-grad degree. And that doesn’t mean that the right spot is that
top the pyramid in this kind of ascension plan. No, I mean, if you are stable and strong and that scale and optimize and you still want more, this is where this scale stage comes in. It’s for a business that first and foremost, you gotta have a business that runs without needing you on a constant basis. You know,
because it’s hard to go add other things to your plate until this one’s stable. In fact, when you see people open a second location or a third location or something, and it, and it kind of all implodes, it’s because they, they tried to be a stage four business, but they didn’t, they were trying to jump stage three.

They didn’t have the systems in place. They didn’t have a business that allowed other people to come in and contribute at really significant levels in every aspect of the business. Now, here, if you’ve got it right, your team and your systems are in place, they’re working well. If you are working in the business at all, it is a choice. It is not an obligation. And I see that a lot we see, a lot of the people that we consider maybe leaders in the industry, a lot of the people that might be,
the bigger names in the industry, they’re a little bit like this. They’re kind of the face of the business, and they may still be really passionate about getting in and coaching or they’re leading their team, but if they took a sabbatical, and a lot of them, they’re on the road a lot doing speaking and other stuff, and if they’re away, everything still probably goes, goes pretty well, right? Or, you may see people who have several locations, and it’s almost like they become a
district manager, if you will, instead of, the day-to-day operations people. So they may float between locations, but they’re not the ones training sessions. They’re the ones training their team and, and developing the, the marketing plan or whatever that, that they need to be doing in their respective
role. It can be somebody that franchised or licensed their business. Maybe they productized stuff and they’ve created an additional business around that. Maybe they’re like my buddy Doug Spurling, who’s reinvested in different areas, right? He’s, he’s put his money into, short term real estate to diversify his interest.

And I know a lot of people in our industry who’ve kind of taken that route. So when you read stage four, what you’ll recognize though is the percentage of
the business’ revenue that goes in your pocket is probably gonna drop, because in those earlier stages, you may have been being paid in part as like the manager salesperson. You may have been being paid as a trainer or coach, but now you’re just being paid as the owner. So some of that money is going to pay other people to fill the roles that you no longer play pay. But that’s fine. It’s totally fine because it creates the opportunity for you to keep scaling, knowing that you’re not
the limiting factor in this primary business. And, if you ever wanna sell your business, it’s certainly more saleable if it’s not built entirely around you. So, like I mentioned, you can certainly scale in a variety of ways and, I’ve certainly done a lot of this stuff and I’ve helped a lot of other
people do it, but, licensing, franchising, productizing, all things that I’ve done, at various points and multiple times, and you can reinvest some of your profits to build wealth in other fashions as well.

And, those are things that I’ve gotten into being an investor in other companies, being involved in things outside of the traditional core business. And, the only way that can work is if you’ve got a stable foundation to build on. And that’s really what a lot of this stage four is, is making
sure that you’ve got a, a business that kind of operates like a franchise quality business, even if it’s not a franchise. Now, the typical revenue at stage four, again is 40,000 plus for facilities. And, take that with a grain of salt. If you’re in a major metropolitan area, it’s probably more 20,000 plus for
solopreneurs or online businesses. And the, the biggest challenges, to solve at this stage are shifting from being involved in the day-to-day, probably as a manager, even at the previous stage to, you know, not meddling and not, not kind of knowing, okay, where, where’s my role?
And, and letting people do their jobs and do them well, and focusing more on being a leader and an owner and a mentor and, and a strategist. And then also determining how you wanna scale, because then we kinda we’re back. I don’t necessarily know if we’re back quite to stage one
because you’re a lot more educated and informed and knowledgeable, but you still have a lot of decisions to make. Again, like, how do I wanna do this next thing? What do I need to learn to be successful? So in this stage, the things we focus on, and this is more of what we do in our boardroom
group or, with private clients, and it’s refined the operational and financial systems and focus on leadership and development and build to operate without us, right? And to scale, choose the path to scaling or choose the route to wealth building, whether you’re gonna scale inside the fitness industry or try to build outside.

And that’s kind of the evolution. And what’s cool is, I’ve seen any number of people use their fitness business to serve as a vehicle to build some really cool things, whether it stays inside the industry, like franchising or certifications or licensing, or other educational platforms or outside the industry, like the real estate stuff I just alluded to. Man, there, there are so many opportunities and if you build things the right way, you can use this, this small
business that you’ve built originally around your passions around things that you really loved and cared about, and you were excited to go to work, to, to really be part of. You’ve used that to, to be the engine, to create all these other opportunities and to hopefully, create a livelihood
that makes you really happy.

So that’s it. Those are the four stages. Hopefully the, the tone of these four episodes, I is one where you don’t feel discouraged if you’re at any specific stage, because honestly, I, if you are a business owner, you certainly have earned my respect just because I know how hard that is and I know that how
much it asks of somebody. But also know that, odds are there is a pretty clear path forward. There is a recipe to go from where you are to where you wanna be, regardless of which of these stages you’re at. You just need to be willing to do the things that it takes. If you want to ascend to whatever stage you feel like is the best one for you, they’re what we’d call recipes or in my world, we kind of call ’em playbooks to ascend. And, and I’ve tried to give you a few ideas of the things we focus on at each stage to allow you to move to the next stage. So that maybe gives you some ideas and tells you what you need to do to get to
where you want to go. So if you happen to be at the scale stage, shoot me an email at [email protected].

I would love to know, and heck, I’d probably love to brainstorm with you about how you’re gonna scale and see if there’s anything that I can do to help. So that’s it. Hopefully you enjoyed this four part series about the four levels of business.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Fitness Business School. 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 leads and client?”

Well, I have an exclusive offer for you, and it’s gonna help you do just that.

As a listener of this show, you can test drive our Fitness Lead Academy coaching program for a full 30 days for just $1. FLA is a one of a kind program where you will get done for you marketing tools each and every month, plus coaching to help you execute everything you need to do to generate leads and convert them into clients.

It’s unmatched in our industry, and it’s gonna help you bring in the new business that you need, ultimately making you more revenue and personal income. Imagine having every tool template, add social media posts and script, you need all proven to convert and ready to use.

Plus you have access to coaching calls every week with the same people who run my ads and do my
marketing. So that I trust them because this is who I put my livelihood in the hands of.
Everything that you need to know to dial in your ads, to maximize your follow-up and convert
clients, you’re gonna have the tools and the coaching you need to be successful. You get all of this and
more when you join FLA.

And to help you succeed, I’m going to let you test drive FLA for 30 days for just $1. If it delivers for you, the way that I expect and more than pays for itself, you’ll likely wanna stay. If not, you’re out nothing. And you’ll have a library of proven tools and resources to keep.

To take advantage of this special offer – just email me at [email protected] and put TEST DRIVE in the subject line, and I’ll get you all the details.