Fitness Business School – Becoming the Only

Full Transcript

Hey, Pat Rigsby here and in today’s episode, I want to talk with you about becoming the only. Let’s get started.

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 to the end of this episode because we have a brand new special offer exclusive for listeners. So stay tuned.

We operate in a landscape where this kind of me to follow along clone of one another type of business becomes very common, whether it’s franchises that expand over and over. And there’s so many of them just within a mile of my house, a Club Pilates, a Cycle Bar, an F45, an OrangeTheory, a Planet Fitness, they are all around.

And that’s just like within a mile, but then there are plenty of people who are out there mentoring and just say. Hey, do what I do, borrow my ad, borrow my funnel, do the same thing I do and clone me. And to a point that works, I think that any of those can pull you to a level of some moderate level success.

And right up to the point that the market becomes saturated because Everybody’s following that same approach. And so it gets watered down and you become a commodity. But I think that where you can set yourself apart is when you become the only person who does what you do or can be seen through the lens that you’re seeing.

And that may seem. Like almost impossible to pull together, but let me explain and maybe it’ll make more sense. So when you are the only in your market, obviously That is How you differentiate yourself from the competition now the interesting thing about it is You may be the only bit, but it’s hard to lead with that sometimes.

But if you can articulate how you’re the only person who does what you do and is different from the rest, that’s how you’re going to attract loyal clients for really the long term. So how does that work? You think about each of us, you, me, anybody else listening to this. We’ve got our own set of experiences, right?

I talk at length about growing up, working in my dad’s garage, being the son of a small business owner, that type of business, a service business in a 4, 000 square foot building, that, that sort of thing. Definitely, in hindsight, provided me with a lot of insight on how small business owners think, then going into a coaching environment.

I talk a lot about my time as a college baseball coach and doing a variety of things at the university, piecing together and being a college strength coach to teaching at the university. And Those experiences and then running a sports performance facility and introducing training there to the baseball, the skill development.

And then my brief time running like a district of personal training departments in the biggest franchisee. Of Gold’s Gyms in North America and then starting a training business and then opening a health club and consulting and down the line. And I talk about these experiences because frankly, I am the only person on the planet that has my unique set of experiences.

And you are the only person on the planet that has your unique set of experiences. And so that is part of what goes into each of us being the only, and The more you can thread these experiences and your collection of strengths together, the more you can pair the skills and areas of interests that you have together, then the more you can become a market leader that just stands out from the competition.

If you look at the people that, that I’ve worked with in some way, shape or form along the way, people like Precision Nutrition or Perform Better or Cressey Sports Performance or whoever, if you trace it back, that’s who they are, right? They’ve combined some different things into becoming. Something that’s unique in the marketplace.

And that was, that, that was a real aha moment for me early on is okay. I’m not going to beat. Even as a college baseball coach, I recognized I wasn’t going to beat people by imitating people because I was never going to have the same resources or experience that my competition was, or at least I wasn’t anytime soon.

And I’d probably be out of that job long before that time would come. If I, before I could get that kind of experience. So it was like, what am I good at? What can I sell? What are the things that I can do to make this job and this program unique? And. I think that each of us can become the only person who does what we do in a certain market.

And it doesn’t mean that you have to be drastically different. I talk about my family and having a family friendly business and coaching my kids baseball team and vacations and going to Disney and different things like that too, in part. Because that’s part of the only thing, right? Like I’m trying to make it clear.

These are all the things that I bring to the coaching and consulting and the things that we may do together, because frankly, nobody else brings all those things. And I would guess that if you look around your local market, the same holds true for you. If you can combine all the different experiences you have and whether it’s the people that you’ve helped.

The format that you do things in the journey that you’ve taken, the things that you’re excited about and willing to continue to pursue becoming the best within, that’s how you can become the only, that’s how you can stand out from the competition. And it’s not that there isn’t some crossover or overlap with what you do and what somebody else does, because there certainly is in my case, but.

It’s just different. It, you can be, especially if you’re putting that out there in your marketing message or whatever else people are going to say, I kind of gravitate more to, to you than they do to these other people. Even if both of you are selling semi private personal training, they may gravitate to you more because of your journey.

Maybe they feel like it mirrors their journey more. Maybe they think you’ll have more empathy for them, or maybe they think that your priorities are similar to theirs. But I think that is one of the keys when we’re putting this together. Our goal isn’t to be the first or the cheapest, because those things, somebody is always the first at the next thing.

Somebody can always undercut you on price. Our goal is to be the only one. Who does what we do in the way that we do it. And if we can do that, then we are that category of one. We’re competing in a blue ocean in some ways. I’m certain there’s nobody else who coaches business owners the way that I coach them, bringing the things that I bring.

To that coaching or consulting or mentorship experience doesn’t mean anybody’s better or worse than me. It means they’re different. And if you want to stand out in your market, you’ve got to be okay with being different too. I understand there’s some safety in feeling like Do you’re the same because you’re like I this should probably work because other people are doing it But the reality is you soon become a commodity and you become indistinguishable from everybody else and there’s no real reason people should choose you And I don’t think that’s a win for anybody if you want To build your ideal business, start putting some thought into how you become the only one who does what you do.

Thanks for listening to this episode of The Fitness Business School.

Before you go, I have a quick announcement:

One of of the things that we’ve been doing with our current clients is taking them through this Ideal Business diagnostic and really what it is, this checklist that allows you to pinpoint exactly what your business needs next so you can keep improving, keep growing, and build a business that you love to own, one that pays you well, one that allows you to have the impact you wanna have and one that allows you to have a lifestyle that you truly enjoy.

In this diagnostic, we walk through everything and we do an evaluation and can instantly pinpoint what you need to do next to build that business that you want. I’m going to extend this opportunity to get on with either me or my team and take you through this evaluation and fix your business’s most vital needs fast.

So if we take you through this, you’re gonna be able to make those vital changes that you need to finally have what I call your Ideal Business. If you’d be interested in going through this entirely free, risk-free diagnostic with us and learn what you already have in place, what you’re doing well and where are your greatest opportunities for rapid improvement are just shoot me an email with diagnostic in the subject line to [email protected].

Again, an email to [email protected] with diagnostic in the subject line will get
you scheduled and take you through this evaluation to help you build the business you want.