Fitness Business School – Build a Better Business By This

Full Transcript

Hey, Pat Rigsby here and in this episode. I wanna talk with you about how you can build a better business by being personal.

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

One of the things that I think I probably have gained the reputation for in my time as being a business coach is making things pretty simple, or at least making observations about things that are very simple, that a lot of people perhaps overcomplicate or overlook. And, you know, I, I think there is a real benefit to being more personal in your business. And that may be the simplest piece of this puzzle at all, because for a lot of us, I mean, the business is called a personal training business. And, you know, I, I was reminded of this multiple times over during the past couple of weeks because we’ve been hosting mastermind groups. So we, we did what, what we call our boardroom group first. And that’s our group of maybe more advanced business owners, business owners that are a little further along. And then we did our business growth mastermind group a couple weeks later.

And that’s kind of the broader audience. We have some business owners that are a little more early stage, and we’ve got some business owners that have, you know, multiple locations and really robust businesses. But you know, in that time it was clear that when people were struggling, a lot of the times just being a little more personal would solve the issue. And I, I, I had to laugh because at the, at the second meeting at the business growth meeting, you know, we were sitting around after dinner and basically what we did. We, we had the meeting in an Airbnb. We did that for both of these. Then we brought in a private chef to cook dinner. And so everybody could come to the meeting and just stay and, and mingle and ask questions of the coaches in an informal session and connect with one another. And, you know, and it was a really great bonding experience, a great way, people to get comfortable and, you know, maybe ask questions in a more private environment.

But what I had to laugh about was, you know, I was sitting around with three or four of the members of the coaching group. And they, you know, one of them who had been in a variety of other kind of coaching mentorship type of programs, and, you know, had been to events, she said she was really caught off guard and a little bit confused by the fact that we went around the room and asked people what their biggest issues were, what the number one takeaway they needed to be successful leaving the meeting, like what did they need to get out of this meeting to, to really move forward and improve their business? What would make them feel like this was a win for them? And so would give them, you know, this platform to ask their own questions, address their own unique needs. And that was really kind of foreign to her. She, she was expecting just, you know, lecture after lecture and saying, this is the only way to do things, and this is how, how you need to operate. And it would just be essentially one way conversations.

And I think from my perspective, I just in instinctively don’t think of the, at, as coaching. I think of that as lecturing, I think of that as instruction perhaps, but not coaching. And for me, coaching takes on a more personal kind of feel, even group coaching, right? It’s about the, the person that is the, the recipient of the information, the person that you are trying to help become better. And in fact, I think that’s the coach’s job is to help somebody go from where they are, to where they aspire to be. And we do that with every possible tool available to us, you know motivation, accountability, experience, our education, all of that. And you know, it, it’s not group exercise where you just stand in front of the room, mic’d up to some choreographed playlist and do a workout. And if people wanna follow along, they can. And that’s how I’ve always seen coaching.

And I think that it’s not that the other stuff doesn’t have value. It’s just, for me, personal has always been a differentiator and making it about the individual and being able to adapt to them. In fact, that’s in many ways you know, that was a driving force as to why I sold my stake in a couple franchises because I wanted to help people build their ideal business, not just being an extension of my ideal business, but, you know, I think personal, if, if it applies for me in that coaching environment, it applies for you in that coaching environment. I think that any time that you can make the experience about the person you are connecting with it is going to be an accelerant in strengthening that relationship. It’s going to be a, a way to get better buy-in to, to get greater compliance. It’s going to be something where you are showing people that you are interest in them, not just trying to be interesting. And I, I think that’s something that a lot of people miss the boat on and being interesting may sell some stuff, but I don’t know how helpful it is in actually serving the people that you sell to.

And so that’s, I mean, being personal, I think is a really powerful, differing differentiator when so much of what’s going on is one size fits all. Everybody’s the same. That doesn’t mean we don’t wanna create leverage and create, you know, systems and processes. What it means is there has to be the ability to adapt within those, to the individual and where they are in and what their needs are and what their stage of the journey is kind of what season they, you know, they’re, they’re experiencing on their own. So I think the personal piece of this is a really big deal. And in fact, I encourage clients to make marketing more personal. Now, obviously, you know, part of marketing is leveraged, leveraged work, right? Whether you run an ad and you’re trying to create leverage by paying to get greater distribution to that ad, or the way I send an email newsletter, I send an email newsletter to, you know, 60,000 individuals, but they’re all individuals, they’re each reading this for their own reasons, looking at it through their own lens, their own world view their own needs, their own goals. And, you know, so I try to write with that in mind that I’m writing to an individual 60,000 times over I’m, I’m creating this podcast, knowing that you’re probably not listening to it in a huddle of other people.

You’re listening to it by yourself for your own reasons and your own needs. And hopefully it helps you inch forward towards where you wanna go. But one of the fun things about making the, your marketing more effective in is if you can infuse some personal interaction, you’re gonna be better off I coach clients to have basically two types of conversations, relationship building conversations, and conversion conversations, because I think all, all conversions, all sales happen through conversations, but not every conversation is designed to lead to a sale. Sometimes a conversation is just simply designed to accelerate a relationship, because the think about the, the nature of most online marketing that we’re taught, right? It’s Hey, go put something out there, cast this big net and get an audience. Whether they’re following you on Instagram or subscribing to your email newsletter or joining your free Facebook group or whatever it is. But if you wanted to really move that relationship faster, there would be an individual conversation. You would talk to that person and learn about them and see what their dreams and goals are and what they feel like standing between where they are and reaching those dreams and goals.

And you’d just get to know backstory. You’d get to know why they’re doing what they’re doing. A and the other variables that, that are part of their life, because let’s face it. Our businesses don’t operate in a vacuum. And so I try to coach people to have these relationship building conversations. And if you’re doing that 1, 2, 3 times a week, though, sure. The, the long kind of long tailed follow up process is going to yield clients over time. But if you want to, to get people to, to make decisions more quickly, and if you want people to be able to know that, Hey, this person’s a great fit for me. Well, actually we be interested in them actually make it personal. Let them know that this isn’t just one size fits all, let them know that they’re important and valued and appreciated and just be interested. And if you do that, this kind of personal approach, whether it’s what I was talking about with a client, who’s already a client and making sure that there’s, you know, the, the personal piece of that, that I think, you know, I’ve, I’ve made that paramount in what we’ve done in every mastermind that I’ve run since 2007, there’s always been a platform for each individual to get the help support they need not making it just one way conversations, because frankly, if somebody’s gonna travel to Louisville, Kentucky, or Orlando or anywhere else, we’ve held meetings, I owe it to them to make this about them, to give them what they need to make that trip worthwhile.

And I take that you know, as a personal responsibility, and I think you should, too. I think that when somebody trusts you to be their teammate and helping to reach their goals, you should take that as a personal responsibility and give them the, the, you know, know the time and attention necessary to do that. And yeah, we need to make it a profitable mechanism to give them that time and attention, but that doesn’t change that that’s our differentiator being personal in the marketing process, being personal in the selling process, being personal in service delivery, the coaching process. If you do those things, you’re gonna have a better business. You’re going to be the kind of unicorn in your market. You’re gonna stand out from the crowd and build a business. That really is a Category of one.

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