Fitness Business School – Sustainably Successful 2 of 3

Full Transcript

Hey, Pat Rigsby here. And in this episode I wanna talk with you about how I’ve been able to stick around for about 20 years as a business owner, as a hopefully relatively successful business owner. I talked about coaching the first episode. I’m gonna talk about consistency in this one, so 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 end 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.

So in the last episode, I touched on this kind of, I guess for lack of a less market-ish way to say it, this three part formula for how I’ve stuck around for two decades as a business owner in this industry, and really three decades as a coach, as a career coach, and how there’s been so much turnover.
There’s such a, a, a small number of people that were around when I first started coaching professionally as a business owner in the commercial side of things that are still around today. And there’s a lot of turnover. And I kind of chuckle a little bit when I think about the number of people who profess themselves to be coaching experts, coaching gurus. They’re the, the ones out there running Facebook ads promising to promising you the, the moon in 30
days. And, I’ve read this story before, right? And I know that three years from now, they will be nowhere to be found in our industry, and there’ll be another batch of people. Well, there are a number of people who will continue to succeed and impact people and make a meaningful difference.

And that’s something that I’ve always like aspired to, to do and I’ve kind of strive for it. And consistency really has been a real common thread throughout all of my thought process. Now, obviously, the way that usually gets talked about it, the way that consistency manifests itself with me is this idea of me sending a daily email for what’s fast approaching 18 years without missing a day. And I think that’s probably it’s representative of my mindset, but I think it goes so much deeper than that. I think that showing up daily and doing the work and hopefully being excited about the work some of the time, but then
still doing the work on the days that maybe you aren’t excited, not just showing up when you are enthusiastic about it, not just showing up when the stars align and you are motivated and you’re in the perfect environment and everything else.

I think that showing up and trying to, to make progress. And some days like to use a football analogy, some days maybe you’re just gaining one yard towards your goal. Well, other days maybe you’re gaining 10 or 20. I think that has been critical for me but it’s not just, okay, I’m doing this work to build my business. I’m sending emails, I’m running ads, I’m marketing, I’m leading team members, that sort of stuff. But it’s also being consistency is being
somebody that people can count on, showing up, not just when things are good, but being there when you know people need you and not necessarily letting your emotions or the circumstances dictate your behaviors and your actions. And for me, I know during the pandemic it is corny as this may sound, I remember distinctly talking to first Holly and then later our team and saying look, I don’t know exactly what we’re headed into, but if there’s anybody in this industry
who’s built for this, it’s me.

Like, I am very comfortable being kind of the calm in the storm, and I wanna be the person that helps people stay level headed and be more strategic and be adaptable. And with my set of experiences, the fact that we were doing online stuff dating back to 2004, the fact that Holly’s business
served thousands of women online for years and years and years, if people have to pivot to online, we’ll be fine. If people are running hybrid, that was our business model literally from like the third month in business, then that that’ll be a okay if people are dealing with, uh, adversity. We had just kind of come
out of the, the being neck deep in our son, Alex, having an autoimmune condition that was causing brain inflammation. And it was like, well, whatever’s gonna happen, I don’t know that it’s going to be more of a shock for us. And more, uh, of a distraction than that was because it was very much uncharted territory. There wasn’t something to plan, there wasn’t something that, that we could really draw from because it was such a
rare kind of condition. And, so I felt like, okay, I can be that sort of consistent person for people. And I think that that’s still the way that I’m going to forever look at my businesses. Yes, I wanna be very consistent. I mean, I’m, I’m the person who has, I, I stopped coaching college baseball in 2002, and there literally has not been a week since then. So we’re talking 20 years that I haven’t talked to at least one former player or one former like assistant coach of mine 20 years. So
we’re talking like a thousand weeks and there’s not been a single week that I haven’t had a conversation with somebody.

I mean, that’s kind of what I wanna be in the eyes of the people that, that I serve. And it’s okay, sometimes people come and go, sometimes they have changes in life. I want them to know that, hey, I’m here for them when they come back once a client, always a client, once a player, always a player.
And it’s a mentality that I think is a little bit foreign in our industry sometime, right? It, there, there’s a lot of talk for people about, Hey, I want people who are committed and there’s this subscription and it’s unbroken and people never leave. And it’s almost like if they leave the former people that were there, it doesn’t matter if they were there for three or four or five years, it’s like, hey, these people are invisible to me unless they respond to some reactivation campaign.
Whereas I think of ’em like, they’re still clients. I’m rooting for ’em every step of the way. I still pay attention to ’em on social media. I’m pretty bad about the social media stuff that I, that I do. I don’t follow people unless they’re a client a former client or a good friend. I unfollow just because I want my feed to be the people that I actually have relationships with. And so I don’t think it’s super surprising to me, but it’s definitely something I’m proud of that
people who worked with me years ago come back. I mean, some people who’ve been consistent throughout. But I’m actually recording this and in just a couple minutes, uh, a husband and wife that first were clients of mine in 2006 are going to be here for a half day consulting. I just had, uh, just yesterday as I record this I had a gentleman who was like, that same 2006, 2007 window became a client and he’s kind of been on and off again, uh, working with me
throughout that entire 16, 17 year span. And I think that has to do with consistency. I think it has to do with being somebody that people know are gonna be
there for them, rooting for them, and a dependable person they can count on. And then ideally I think that I want to be somebody who leads by example. And,
and the pandemic reminded me of that a lot in that I wanted me to be the person to our clients that I was hoping that they could be for their clients.
You know, that person that when all the world was kind of going to haywire, that our clients were the calm in the storm for the people that they served. And could be that kind of beacon if you would. So that’s the second piece of why I think I’ve been able to hang around for so long and have some degree of success. Notice I talked about coaching, I’ve talked about consistency. Next episode I’m gonna be talking about adaptability notice I didn’t say any specific marketing or sales tactic or whatever else. And it’s not that those aren’t important, but I think that without these, those are kind of temporary solutions to a much bigger thing. So I’ll be back in the next episode talking about adaptability.

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