Fitness Business School – An Investing-Based Approach

Full Transcript

Hey Pat Rigsby here. And in this episode, I want to talk with you about taking an investing based approach to growth. So let’s get started.

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.

So today I want to talk with you about taking this concept that you borrow from the investing world called dollar cost averaging and applying that to business growth. See, one of the things that I think has helped me maybe as much as anything that I’ve done professionally is being willing to look outside of our industry and the way that it’s kind of incestual and everybody kind of just does the same thing in learn from other fields. In fact, when I got into the, the entrepreneurial world and started my first business, I borrowed most of the concepts that I use to be successful in that business. From my time as a college baseball coach, whether it be the recruiting process that helped me when it came to marketing and selling or the coaching process or the team and staff building process, the way that we crafted systems and develop team members. I borrowed almost all of that from the baseball world.

Well, the thing since then that I think has stuck out to me is I don’t really study a whole lot of people that are doing things in the fitness industry, as far as business stuff. In fact, you know, at this stage of my career being maybe a little more seasoned than most more, more often than not a lot of the people doing business coaching now, or people who were clients or customers or franchisees of mine at some point or another. So they may be barring some of the things that I share with you here, but, you know, it’s been really useful for me to, to really learn in two ways to learn from the clients that I served, have constant conversations in any given week to, to, to really see what’s happening with them, the challenges they’re facing, the things that are working and using that to, to help me improve what I’m doing and then learning outside of the fitness industry, taking concepts that, that make sense in other fields and other industries and applying them to what we do.

And so what I wanted to share with you today is this idea of dollar cost averaging. And to really simplify that from the investment world, I’m sure there’s somebody out there who can do a much better job articulating it than me. In fact, there are probably thousands of people who can, but it’s basically investing the same amount of money month after month. And not really trying to time the market, not trying to say, well, Hey, stocks are cheap right now, so I’m going to buy or the stock market’s going up. So I better jump in. And instead it’s just saying, okay, month after month or week after week, I’m going to invest a consistent amount. And over time that’s going to yield the best outcome. I’m going to be able to, to really take advantage of the, the averaging nature of this, the, the lows and the highs and trust that things over time are going to compound. And it’s going to grow in my favor. Well, in my mind, marketing functions, almost the exact same way.

And in truth, people behave in our industry in almost the exact same way when it comes to when it, when it comes to marketing the way that people behave when it comes to the stock market, right? You’ll see so many people just try to ride a wave and while everybody else is doing this, so I’m going to jump in, everybody’s running ads to a challenge. So I’m going to run ads to a challenge, but when things slow down, they just shut it off. Or when an ad’s not working, instead of saying, okay, I’m going to be consistent. I’m going to keep marketing 365 days a year. Then, you know, they, they, they kind of take this opposite approach and cumulatively, maybe they’re actively marketing 60 days a year, right? So they’re leaving over 300 days that they’re not building relationships, that they’re not planting, that they’re not really growing the people that they potentially can serve the people that they’re reaching. And they’re, they’re just missing out time and time again. And we see this especially right now, because, you know, as of late, it doesn’t seem like Facebook ads are maybe converting as well as they might’ve converted a year ago. It doesn’t seem like the market is nearly as apt to jump onto a training offer is they would have been you know, in really early 2020 or throughout 2019.

But the thing about it is if you were still building your audience, if you’re still marketing, if you were still making offers, you know, when we get to the later stages of 2021, when we move into 2022 and beyond, Hey, you’re going to have a bigger audience of people that you reach consistently without having to pay to connect with each time, right? So people that are on your email list or in your private Facebook group, people that you are connecting with day after day, or at least week after week now, you’re not having to pay $5 every time you want to connect with them like you would, if you have to only connect with them through paid advertising. And then if you were, or making consistent offers, and maybe, you know, a year ago, you could have made an offer and gotten 20 people to join your challenge or front end offer or whatever else. And if you made that same offer, now maybe you get five or six, maybe things have really tapered off that much in your market with what you’re offering, but still, you know, those five to six people over time compound. And if you’re still getting five or six people and not just putting the brakes on your marketing efforts, well, over the course of the year, you know, we’re going to be talking about 60 people, 70 people, 75 people that, you know, if they’ve got a lifetime value, like a lot of my clients have of, you know, at least a couple thousand dollars over the life of that relationship. I mean, we’re talking about a six figure swing, not to mention the potential referrals, the potential reviews you can get the way that those people can multiply.

So if you think that, Hey, now is the time to put the brakes on marketing because the market is not great. You’re really missing out on this concept that we can borrow from the investing world. You’re always going to be better off if you were consistent marketing throughout now, does that mean you run the same ad forever, even if it stops working? No. You just commit to always being in the mode of prospect generation, you commit to always being in that mode of going, going, going every time after new perspective clients. So hopefully the, the takeaway is straightforward. Hopefully the takeaway is very simple. There’s never a good time to stop marketing. It doesn’t matter if the market goes up or down, if clients are less responsive or more responsive, if ads are more expensive, it doesn’t matter.

Now that may be the time for you to pivot in the ad you’re running or the offer you’re making, or even the platform you’re using. But you need to be in this pursuit of new leads over time. Because the way that I see this is those leads are assets. Now, your accountant wouldn’t define them as assets, but they’re business building assets. That once you have permission to follow up with somebody, once you’ve connected with them, and they’ve said, Hey, I’m willing to give you my time and attention to learn more about what you do, how you can help, how you can potentially assist me in solving my problems in reaching my goals. Well, as soon as you have that person’s attention, you can follow up with them in perpetuity and well, the competitor is paying three, five, $10 every time they’re trying to reach them. You’re doing it for pennies because you’re seeing it sending an email, or maybe you haven’t in a private Facebook group. So this is a long-term strategy that yields massive results. In fact, it’s really probably been one of the hallmarks of my business. And I think it can be every bit as effective for you Is it’s been for me to put this investing approach into the way that you’re building your business.

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.

Just go to TestDriveFLA.com to get started.