Fitness Business School – How Have You Evolved?

Full Transcript

Hey, Pat Rigsby here. And in today’s episode, I want to ask how have you evolved? 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’re in the middle of a couple tweaks with one of our programs and, and we’ve just made some upgrades with another. And the number one thing that I think about when we’re trying to improve programs or change things or whatever else is trying to pair off the things that aren’t helping the people we
serve move towards their goals and only asking people to give their time, attention, resources for things that make a difference, that that help.

Now that sounds super simple and it’s just really rooted in common sense, but she’d be amazed at how much fluff goes into most businesses, on things that just don’t move the needle. And, and we find those things periodically, and I’m sure that the case holds true with you. I mean, there was a point
where I wrote like operations manuals for the franchises and some licenses that I was involved in. And what I recognized very quickly was any of these manuals that I put together, people didn’t read ’em because they not only were on average, not avid readers, but these things probably read a little bit more like a textbook than anything that might be engaging and maintain their attention. However, people are quick to watch video. So if I’m going to teach something, a
lot of times you probably have to deliver it in the format that the the person that you’re trying to teach is gonna consume.

Again, common sense. But I think a lot of people are slow to those changes. And I remember early on in our gym experience having a, a welcome packet. It was like 22 pages long and most people barely opened it, right? Like I, nobody was getting through it in detail. So, man, we’re printing this thing. It’s costing us a decent amount of money in printing costs. And ’cause we’d print it and it’d be glossy cover and spiral bound and all this stuff to try to
look professional, but it’s man, and then they just throw it on a shelf somewhere or, even potentially in the trash or whatever. So it’s like, how do we pair things down and just give people what they need when they need it? And I enjoy that kind of continual, this is never done mentality.

I think one of the big mistakes business owners make and why they struggle, and frankly why most of the people that have kind of competed in the business coaching for fitness professional market that I’ve encountered in all the 18 years that I’ve done this, I mean, 90% of them aren’t still in it. There are more
now than there have ever been, but they, most of them have come around in the last three or four years, and most of the people who are around 10 years ago don’t still do it. Most people who are around, almost none of the people who were around 15 years ago still do it. And some of this is just a, an unwillingness
to evolve, an unwillingness to adapt. And when you hear about small businesses failing and everything else, some of this is being undercapitalized, some of this is just purely financial, but a lot oft his is just not willing to adapt to the market, what the market actually wants, how the market is, is
demanding that they need to be served.

And when I say demand, they’re demanding it with their money. They’re not gonna spend it with people who are not providing the things that they want. So for me, I’ve always kind of seen this as a puzzle to be solved. I think that I relatively curious about these things, like how can we do this better? What’s next?
What are people needing? What are they missing? How has consumer behavior changed and continually trying to catch up with it, get ahead of it depending on where we already are. But I would say that businesses that, that I see in the fitness industry, there are a lot more of them that if I say, give me three things that are different about your business than they were 18 months ago they’d be hard pressed to come up with anything meaningful.

Their prices are the same, their fulfillment looks the same, the stuff they’re providing to clients and the other 1 65 looks the same. And you may think, well, hey,
that’s okay because I see some of these other businesses that they’re the same too. And to an extent that may be true, but if we look at so many of the businesses that have gone extinct, I mean, whether it be big box retailers or even the malls that the a a lot of those business were anchors for if we see the
blockbusters of the world, anything like that, not being willing to adapt. I mean, we have these acute kind of rest in peace blockbuster type of EE events and, and those are the extreme end of it. But then the flip side is the, the death by a thousand cuts, right?

If you don’t evolve and things that that helped you get 10 clients a month, three years ago are now helping you get six clients a month. What do we have to do differently if you were retention, the, if you continue to do things the way that you used to do ’em, and your retention used to be at 97% month
over month, and now it’s at 94 those kind of incremental things change because, let’s face it, expenses are typically higher than they were 3, 4, 5 years ago for almost all of us. Whether it be cost of labor or the amount that we’re paying for software or what landlords are commanding for rent,
like cost of gone up. And so if we’re not evolving and adapting, we’re not even keeping the same profit margins we might’ve had then. So the, the question that I would have for you, or the thing that I would issue to you to, to learn more about would be like, where can you evolve?

What’s next? What’s the next thing that you can do to improve? We’ve even really made this enough of a priority that for our clients, and we’ve even extended this out to Virtual Fitness Mastermind, which is in our membership site that costs $7 a month, we will take them through our ideal business client assessment
where they can just kind of see where they are and determine what their next right move or collection of moves are. Every 90 days or so to know, okay, well what’s the next thing that I need to change? How do I need to evolve next to, to keep improving, to stay in front of the crowd? Because if
you’re not adapting, if you’re not evolving, I mean, you’re falling behind and, and it’s kind of the worst falling behind in my opinion, because it’s that kind of covert, almost invisible falling behind, because on a daily basis, you don’t notice it on a daily basis.

There is no visible degradation of the business, but it, it’s this small incremental losing ground to the market, losing market share, losing profit. And you look up and instead of having that business that you always dreamed about, you are behind. And, and it’s not even quite the business that
you had 2, 3, 5 years ago, and it shouldn’t be that way. If you’re gonna put in that time that, that effort, use it wisely. Use it intelligently and, and build the business that you want to operate. Be willing to change, be willing to adapt and evolve. Learn from what the market’s telling you. Learn from what you know
clients are looking for. I mean, let’s face it, client behavior has changed so much since I started in this industry. There were, there was no social media to speak of way back then. There were no iPhones, there was no DoorDash or Uber or whatever else that things have evolved a great deal, and it’s happened step by step.

And so the consumer behavior, we would think, yeah, the, a lot of the outcomes they want for themselves, they still wanna feel better about themselves, they still wanna look better. They want things to be convenient. A lot of those things haven’t changed, but a lot of their expectations on how things are
delivered and how things are done, they have changed. The way they communicate it has changed. And you can’t be somebody who’s so tethered to the past that you’re like, well, it shouldn’t have, and people don’t need to behave this way and and rail against it. You kind of need to live in the world as it
operates now and say, okay, how can I best serve the people in the way that they’re living their lives and pursuing their goals today? How can I evolve and adapt to that? Because if you do, you’re always gonna be relevant.

You’re always gonna be able to find opportunities to stay one step ahead. You’re always going to be able to sell something that not only delivers a result, but it’s something that people want. It’s an offer that people are excited about taking part in. So if you want to be better first look back and say, how have I
evolved? How have I adapted? Maybe you’ve done wonderfully. Maybe you’ve done a great job and your business has really sprung forward. But if not, use that as an indicator that, hey now’s the time, now’s the opportunity to put my business under the microscope. Whether you use our I ideal
business client assessment or some other mechanism to say, where are the opportunities for me to move forward, be better, and finally have the business I want. Do that. And you’re gonna have a better business.

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.