Fitness Business School – The Simplest Business Growth Metric

Full Transcript

Hey, Pat Rigsby here and in today’s episode I want to talk with you about the simplest metric to grow your business. 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 to the end of this episode because we have a brand new special offer exclusive for listeners. So stay tuned.

If you’re like most fitness business owners. You probably are somebody who didn’t just. Instinctively gravitate to being a numbers person, right? Like you’re more of a people person. You’re more of a in the jam on the floor, connect with other people type of person. And that doesn’t mean that nobody listening to this, nobody who gets into business is a numbers person, but I will say there are far more people who get drug to tracking their numbers and being on top of their numbers, kicking and screaming than people who just.

That’s what they jump into the minute that they open a business and they’re excited about it. But, there, there are a number of numbers that can be useful in helping you grow your business, but I want to give you what I consider probably the simplest one. And it is a. A number that I don’t think too many people track.

It’s a number that most people don’t think a great deal about, but the simplest number I’ve seen drive business success is how many guests you have. Now, when I’m thinking about a guest, it’s basically anybody who comes in and experiences is what you do. And it doesn’t really have to be specific to, Somebody in on a 28 day front end offer a 14 day trial.

It could be a guest of a client. It could be a walk in. It could be anything, anybody who is your guest that is coming through your front door. And if somebody is stuck, if somebody is stagnant, if somebody feels like their business is not going where they want to go, my first thought would be, how can you get more people through the front door?

Because. Every time that I’m in an environment where I get to talk to business owners and I have the opportunity to ask the question related to how do you do when you have people through the front door? The answer is almost without exception, almost universal. They’ll say if they come in, then we usually keep them.

And some people are great at that. Tracking that number of, Hey, are the people who come in, we convert 77%. And some people are just making the assumption because that’s what they feel is happening, which is obviously less accurate and who knows what it means. But I think that. There, there’s definitely some truth to the fact that probably in most fitness businesses, at least half of the people who come in as a guest end up joining some sort of program, whether it’s a short term program or long term program.

And that’s a pretty, pretty important number then, right? If you want to get 50 clients in the upcoming year, Then you basically need two people to be a guest in your facility each week for the next year. That’s, but that’s a pretty simple target to hit. That is something of a leading indicator of business growth.

And there’s so many different ways that you can do it, right? There are dozens of different ways that you can get somebody to come through your front door. So why is this such a good number, a good metric to use? I’m going to tell you my take on it, why it’s better than people filling out an application or people opting in for a lead magnet or whatever else is a leading indicator because somebody who is starting a fitness program, the biggest Obstacle is usually not the fee.

Now, I’m sure there are some people who will disagree with that. And I guess it depends on what their fee is, right. And who they’re marketing to. So I’m not going to say that it’s completely inaccurate, but. People spend money on all sorts of stuff, and most fitness businesses that I see don’t charge so much that the amount of money that they would charge for their least expensive program is so out of line with what the people walking through the door are spending money on that it’s just sticker shock that they would never consider spending that much disposable income on something that Was important to them.

I don’t think that’s usually the biggest obstacle. Usually the biggest obstacle is going into an uncomfortable environment that is unfamiliar. That’s a little bit intimidating and scary that you have preconceived beliefs or expectations about the might invoke. Self image issues or previous negative experiences.

There’s a lot of internal emotional kind of baggage that comes with this and a lot of trepidation that people have. And then also the fact that most fitness businesses are asking for some degree of a meaningful commitment. Everybody wants to say you’ve got to be committed and it’s a lifestyle or whatever else that.

Until somebody may feel prepared to make something of a commitment, they may be hesitant to walk through that door because that’s their belief. This is what’s going to be asked of me, or this is what people are going to say. I need to do if I’m committed or serious or whatever. So if you can get people through the door.

You’ve gotten them over what I would consider a much bigger hurdle than whatever the cost of a front end offer might be, because odds are they, most of the people who’ve come through your door will spend what it costs for one of your front end offers on all sorts of other. Things that go into self care image or whatever else people spend more than that amount of money on skincare and getting their hair styled and all this other stuff, people spend more than that amount of money on clothes and shoes and all sorts of different things.

So I don’t think that amount of money for the initial program you might offer to get somebody in is usually the obstacle. It’s usually all these other things. So if you want to generate more business, if you want to get more clients, get more revenue, place a little more emphasis on just what can you do to get people through the front door?

How can you lower the friction? How can you deploy more tactics that guests and make it easier for them to come in, make it more inviting. How can you maybe lower some of that initial commitment or fear of commitment in their mind? And so it’s easier for them to make that initial visit. I think if you spend a little bit more time on that, you’ll get them through the front door.

And if you get them through the front door, even if the percentage of those who are guests, And convert to clients goes down a little bit from what you’ve experienced in the past. It’s still going to be dramatically better than the percentage of people who join based on a sales page or a phone call or an application or an ad.

So if you want more clients in the upcoming year, get more guests through the door. That’s the simplest metric for business growth.

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.