Fitness Business School – Lessons and Truths – Ep 1

Full Transcript

Hey, Pat Rigsby here and in today’s episode, as well as the next couple of episodes, I want to go over a few lessons that I’ve been reflecting on lately that I’ve learned over my almost 20 years in this industry. So we’ve got a lot of ground to cover. 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 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.

Over the next two or three episodes. I wanted to share some things that I’ve found to be truth. Since I started in this industry. Gosh, I, I mean, I, I got my first certification when I was 20. I am fast approaching 50 as we record this and have worked in both the, the university’s setting and the, the private sector really ever since. And there are just some things that, that I think have, have kind of shown up to be truths time and time again. And I want to walk through some of those over the next couple of episodes, because I know they’ve helped me a bunch and I think they will help you too. So the, the first one that I, that I jotted down is being willing to invest in yourself. You know, I, I think we all need to invest in retirement. We all need to save money. And honestly, small business owners are probably pretty bad about that stuff when they’re starting out, because they’re pouring all their money back into their business.

But you know, of all the things I’ve invested in easily, the biggest winner is me investing back in myself, my own education, my own development because it’s the one that I’ve had the most control over. And a lot of times it’s as, as simple as books. In fact, my mind in my mind book looks are the best, right? Where else can you get, you know, 20, 30, 50 years of someone’s experience distilled down into four or five hours at a cost of like 10 to $20. So investing in yourself really pouring into yourself is that, that, that kind of gift that keeps giving. The next thing I wanted to touch on is saying that it’s okay if someone’s not a fit, this took me a long time to figure out, you know whether it be a, a client who might not be a, a, a fit for your business or a team member, it may look good on paper, but may not be great for your culture or a business partner, or just, you know, those other people in your life. That that may not always be people that are rooting for you and lifting you up. And you know, just because somebody might be a, a decent person doesn’t mean they’re always the right person to surround yourself with. Next up what you put out. I found through years to be pretty much what you get back. If you’re grouchy the people around, you become more grouchy. If you’re happy, you’re gonna get more smiles in return.

You’re going to really kind of get the type of energy, the, the type of support that you are putting out there. So if you want people to, to help you go help first, I mean, all this stuff is really common sense, but you’d be amazed at how, how much I see people drift from this. You know, I talk to business owners by the dozen most days, and, you know, people, they, you know, they get so myopic, they get focused on getting a new client or generating leads or whatever else. And they, they forget about this idea that, Hey, I can go out and help somebody else. And if I help enough people, then ultimately I’m probably gonna reach my goals too. You know, so next up, and this kind of goes back to the invest in yourself. The, the next thing up, I think that is critical that we miss as business owners is paying yourself first. You know, it’s your business, you are the one taking the re the risk, the responsibility you need to get paid. But most of the time business owner is just take what’s left. Most of the time business owners will go out and they will, you know, cover the bills, pay the rent, take care of their team, buy equipment, invest in marketing, and then they’ll just get by and not pay themselves. But the problem is we are, are building a business that in a lot of cases, if it’s a service business, a small single location kind of service business, it, it’s not gonna have the type of sale value when you want to exit.

Then, you know, if you had a big software or company or you know, something like that, it’s not gonna have that same type of resale value or, you know, exit value when you, when you want to get out. And if you are not paying yourself, if you’re not taking money along the way, you know, you’re, you’re kind of banking on this pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. It’s just not gonna work out the way, way that you want. In fact, the way that I always kind of talk about it is there are cash out businesses and cash flow businesses, and most small service businesses are cash flow businesses, where you need to be paying yourself and, and taking money as you go. And then, you know, investing that money in the other investment mechanisms that are gonna provide you that ROI over time, whether it be stocks or real estate or whatever your interests are. And then they are a couple maybe softer things or philosophical things that may not be as tactical as that, that, that I’ve wanted to share. One is just the acceptance that no one’s coming to rescue you as a business owner. You’ve got to rescue yourself. We have to be okay with the, that we chose this, we took this on ourself. We said, look, I’m not going to choose the route of a simple, basic, predictable salary with 401k and retirement. And, you know, and those things obviously have some risk too, but we’ve, we’ve essentially bet on ourselves. And so, because of that, nobody’s coming to rescue you. You have to do it. You have to take responsibility.

There are others in your life. And hopefully I’m one of those that can help you, but you have to be willing to help yourself. And along those same lines, your mindset matter is far more than your tactics, because there are a lot of different tactics that work. I’ve seen. People build great businesses through online paid ads. I’ve seen people build great businesses without ever spending a penny on paid advertising. I’ve seen people build wonderful businesses that are really kind of low, low cost bootstrapped you know, profitable bit, bit simple businesses. And then I’ve seen people do great things with more complexity, multiple locations, bunches of employees, the tactical stuff that, you know, I, I think that can go a bunch of different directions, but if you don’t have the right frame of mind, if you’re not determined to succeed, you’re gonna struggle.

But if you are determined to succeed and you are committed and willing to focus, you’ll find a tactic that works eventually. And then the other thing that matters more than tactics is the relationships that you have relationships matter far more than tactics. Tactics are gonna change over time. I mean, I’ve seen people get clients off of Craigslist and MySpace, and I’ve seen people build, you know, pretty solid businesses off of Groupon and living social and people fill up challenges, hosting a Facebook ad to a Woofoo form. And all of those tactical things kind of passed, you know, a past in time and moved on to, to new ways to get clients. All that stuff is you know, it’s temporary, right? It’s just one, one step along the journey, but if you’re focused on building relationships, that’s gonna be something that works indefinitely. That’s one of those things that that’s relatively timeless. And then finally, you know, maybe the, the most important one to, to touch on as we wrap up this episode is being, being at peace with the fact that there are a lot of things that you are just not in control of, but you do control how you respond to them, right?

We may be dealt some pretty ugly hands from time to time, but how we respond to things, how we, you play those hands that is up to us. So I’ll be back with a couple more episodes talking about some, some lessons I’m reflecting on looking back over my journey in this business. Hopefully this was good for you. And I can’t wait to share more in the next talk.

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