Fitness Business School – Relationship Marketing > Facebook Ads

Full Transcript

Hey, Pat Rigsby here. And in this episode, I want to talk with you about relationship marketing. It’s not a topic that seems to get people as worked up as things like Facebook or Instagram, but it’s built more successful businesses than both of those combined. So 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 til the end of this episode, because we have a brand new special offer exclusive for listeners. So stay tuned.

Relationship marketing’s a funny thing. I think that in, in some ways people in the fitness industry kind of get the fact that relationships are a, a big part of what we do. Obviously it’s a very personal business, you know, hence the, the name, personal training , but you know, we, we get that. That’s what happens when we have a client, but we lose sight of the fact that, that, that probably is one of the best things that we can do to, to get clients is to focus on developing relationships. And you, you know, a, a good example of this is, you know, I’ve got this wonderful client longtime client who who’s become a friend that has built this incredible business that does probably, you know, 40, $50,000 a month, or maybe even a little bit more than that right now with no paid advertising with no traditional kind of sexy marketing tactics, all the, you know, Facebook ads and, and Instagram and everything else, it’s all been built on relationships. And he’s built just as, you know, as good a business as anybody.

And so we documented some stuff on, on how he grew his business and created a masterclass around it. And when I titled it relationship marketing, frankly, it didn’t sell nearly, like I thought it would because, you know, I was like, well, who, who doesn’t wanna figure out how to build a business without a bunch of Facebook ads? And . And so we, we re-branded it and kind of just said, Hey, how to build a business without Facebook ads. And, and it definitely picked up steam a little bit, but it was a reminder of how people miss the fact that, you know, if you want to have a relationship centric business, if you want to get clients in, have some loyalty to you and stick around and, and, you know, become advocates for your business, then it probably helps to be building relationships on the front end. Now I’ll, I’ll be the first to tell you that, you know, relationships that, that I’ve had have opened. So, so many doors for me, I’ve, I’ve built projects with any number of friends. I’ve had relationships that have opened doors to everything from writing for pub, like publications to licensing intellectual property, to doing public speaking.

You know, I think relationships that I’ve had with people who’ve created a opportunities for them as well to be involved in what we do, connect them with other people that might be, you know, might be, you know, a good fit for where they can share some of their expertise. And, you know, all of it, like if I were to look back, I would say that the, the majority of my business success has been built on relationships. And, you know, it it’s just like the simplest thing that people overlook. I mean, the, the, the big takeaway for me is always been, you know, what, build connections above all else, build connections. And, you know, it, it doesn’t mean, Hey, I’m gonna go network and try to extract value from an interaction as quickly as possible. In fact, the opposite is true. I think that, you know, you, you’ve got to take the time to meet people and cultivate a real relationship. You you’ve got to give and, you know, give people help, give them your time. And if you do that with some degree of consistency and some diligence opportunities will come, you, you don’t even have to force it. Sure. There, there are things where you can create awareness and, and, and maybe opportunities arise from that. But frankly, if, if you go treat people well and give of your time and your expertise opportunities will consistently present self.

And you know, if I look back, there are so many things that ha have gone, well, my way that I, I had zero expectations about, but I did know that that’s kind of how this sort of thing works, right? Like, I don’t think that you itemize a relate relationship, but I, I think that, you know, that if you plant enough seeds and, and you kind of nurture a bunch of relationships with, with, with good people, people who are, are, are pursuing bigger things, just like you are. And, and you’re genuine and giving opportunities are going to open up. You just don’t know where you know, and what’s cool is I see this happening with client of mine now, and friends of mine now, relationships that they’ve built, things that they’ve done well with over time have created new business opportunities, new revenue opportunities, opportunities to go out and, and maybe build their platform. You know, their, there are so many good things that happen when, when you’re out there building relationships, but it doesn’t happen if you’re not building those bridges before you ever wanna cross ’em.

So, you know, are you out there connecting with other people or are you just chasing transactions? Sure. There, there are plenty of who can teach you to set up a funnel or run an ad or something like that. But, you know, having done this for almost 20 years on the business coaching side of things, the, the number of people that enter a get and leave within three years, I, I mean, it outnumber the people who have any degree of longevity, like 30 to one, and it’s because they’re very transactional and either they, you know, they, they kind of get exposed for not deliver value or they move on to greener pastors. They’re never building relationships. So you know, I mean, lead sources come and go. I mean, at one point you may, you may find this hard to believe if you’re newer to the industry, but Craigslist was a lead source for personal trainers. Deal of the day sites have kinda lost their luster lead boxes and newspapers.

They were were drivers way back when, when I got into the fitness industry. Sure. I mean, Facebook ads are, are popular now, but they’re not nearly the, the driver for, for business that they were five or six years ago. I mean, none of these things are, are, are gonna have the longevity and will serve you better over time then building relationships. And, and guess what, it’s kind of the blue ocean in our world. It’s, it’s funny. I mean, all you have to do is go out and you know, be in some sort of interactive setting, like where you potentially could talk to other people at a coffee shop you know, at a retail store, anything like that, everybody’s kind of head down looking at their phone, they’re ignoring other people. You know, so actually being friendly is a competitive advantage age. I mean, as funny as that sounds, I mean, I’ve got one friend Jason who has done a, a fabulous job building a wonderful business by just having coffee with people.

And that’s opened just an insane number of opportunities for him so much that, that I hired a, him to come and speak to my coaching clients because it it’s a simple system, but it’s a system that will still work 10 years from now, when so many of the things that people are doing right now will be a distant memory. Now, the, the thing is relationships do wire consistent effort. They require nurturing, but what’s cool is your competition’s not gonna put the work in. So that’s the opportunity for you. It’s a lot less competitive to do that than to, you know, than, than to fight over social media ads. And everybody says the same thing time and time again. So you’ve gotta probably decide, Hey, do I want to just go do what everybody else is doing? And maybe get a fraction of the returns that people talk about in their ads when they’re touting it, or do I wanna build some relationships that’ll in the test of time and give me a competitive advantage for the next five, 10, maybe even 15 or 20 years, depending on how long you wanna be in business. Because if you build relationships, you’ll find very quickly that they’re gonna be the lifeblood of what you do.

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