Fitness Business School – We All Have Hybrid Fitness Businesses

Full Transcript

Hey Pat Rigsby here. And in this episode we’re going to talk about the fact that we all have hybrid fitness businesses. Now the real question is, are you going to have a good one? So let’s get started.

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Hey, Pat here and in today’s episode I want to talk with you about hybrid training businesses or hybrid fitness businesses, however you’d like to define it. See, we act as if this is some, you know, massive shift that we’re moving into this kind of new uncharted territory when the reality is, um, pretty much all of us had been operating a hybrid business for a while. But let me kind of give you some context so you, you understand what I mean. You know, the days of having a business relationship with somebody that is exclusively offline in our industry, they, they seem to have passed quite some time ago.

Now. I don’t know about you, but for me until the pandemic hit, you know, there were a number of businesses locally that I might have an exclusively offline relationship with, restaurants or retail stores, that type of thing. But for training businesses, for the most part, people have been accepting registration online for a while. They’ve had private Facebook groups. They’ve been doing different things like registering for challenges to taking payment virtually or having people fill out their, uh, their, their agreement virtually. There’ve been a number of things that people have been integrating into their business to make it more convenient to serve their client really through an online component. And, you know, this is, this isn’t abnormal. I think more and more businesses have moved this way. I mean, we see so many restaurants using things like DoorDash or Uber Eats. You know, most businesses, if you can’t connect with them in some way, shape or form from your smart phone, they become, um, almost obsolete in some ways, whether it may be, uh, checking prices at Home Depot before you ever show up at the store or, um, you know, something as simple as making through something like open table for, uh, dinner reservations for the upcoming weekend.

So we all have a hybrid component and really all hybrid is, is the blending of offline and online to serve your clients. Now the question really is, are we going to do this at a high level? Are we going to deliver what we do at a really high level? Now, so many of the people listening into this podcast, they, they’ve worked tirelessly to build a training business that provides great results and hopefully an extraordinary experience for their clients. They’ve studied just almost endlessly to be able to assess better, to be able to program better, to be able to coach better. They’ve, you know, they’ve outfitted their facility with good equipment. They’ve painted and cleaned to make sure the atmosphere was inviting. Um, they’ve even made sure the parking lot was well lit to ensure people felt safe. All of this is, you know, to, to provide a better experience for their clients. But if we’re not adapting, if we’re not evolving, then we’re gonna probably be behind the curve because if our clients perceive part of a good experience to be staying connected with you for the 165 hours that they’re not in the facility and we’re not delivering on that and we’re, you know, not really leaning into that in constructing that or choreographing that in the same way that we have the end facility experience, we’re missing out.

So what kind of things should we be thinking about to maximize this hybrid experience? Well, the first is, you know, what’s convenient for your client? If they want coaching, if they want programming delivered to them on the days that they’re not able to come into the facility, is it convenient for them to get a high quality coaching experience that will keep them moving towards their goals? Um, is there a way for them to stay connected and be part of a community? I don’t mean a Facebook group with cut and paste recipes and memes. I mean truly feeling connected where they know they’re part of something bigger. They feel like they’re part of a strong community that’s making them better. And also allowing them to contribute to make others better. Do they feel cared for? Is there an individual connection that’s between your business, be it you or one of your coaches and the client. So the client feels important that they’re not just another number of facing the crowd, a transaction. There’s somebody that is actually under your businesses care.

See so many training businesses – and frankly a lot of the ones that are going to struggle as we move into kind of this next stage of business – they’re the businesses that are really transactional and they’re essentially hosting workouts in the same way that big box health clubs might, um, give people access to equipment. You know, a lot of small training businesses have simply given people access to workouts. There wasn’t any coaching, there wasn’t any, um, connection. There wasn’t any, uh, kind of partnership in moving somebody from where they are to where they aspire to be. Well, an effective and successful hybrid business is going to have that kind of personal connection and then kind of interwoven with that there’s probably going to be some sense of accountability. Now that accountability doesn’t have to be um, micromanagement. It’s not like the, the client is an employee of the business, but what it does mean is we’re checking in to make sure the client’s staying on track, that they’re moving towards their goals because really it’s not enough for them to just be accountable for three hours a week. There are probably some other things they need to be doing, whether it’s just nourishing their body or being physically active or working on recovery or mindset. I mean a simple check in asking somebody how they’re doing so they know somebody else’s paying attention and as a partner in this journey that’s going to go a long way. And these are all things that we can do with an online component.

Now, online doesn’t mean we have to have the most high tech software. I think what a lot of people have learned through the last few weeks is having something as simple as zoom, just to share a video camera and being able to text message somebody and having a Facebook group can provide a really, really extraordinary experience in the same way that you don’t need the most sophisticated equipment or the greatest technology to deliver a workout in person. But you certainly need some basics and you need a real focus on care and concern for the person that you’re serving. Right? I mean, let’s face it, I know that so many of us have grown to understand in the past few weeks that a lot of what people are leaning on us for our hope and help and you can provide that through a blend of offline and online.

Now, what does that look like for you in practicality? Well, it could be any number of things. I mean, for years I owned training businesses where we had a hybrid component where we would design a program for somebody and then just support them online in far cruder methods than we have available today to make sure that we were facilitating their success in implementing that program. And maybe they’d come in and meet in person once a month, maybe they’d come in twice a month, maybe they’d come in once a week, but the rest of the, the training wasn’t supervised in person and we were able to do that and reach double the number of people we could have reached if somebody had to be in two or three times a week in person at a specific place in time. So the opportunity to reach more people and serve more people that way works the opportunity to be connected with people when they’re not in the gym. Those two or three hours a week with you, that works the option to serve people who are in your geographic market.

Again, another thing that can work, whether it’s people you have relationships outside of your city, um, people that have moved away, friends of your clients. Now you know, I live in Louisville, Kentucky. I could have a facility here and somebody who lives in Los Angeles or Miami could be a member of my facility. The barriers are down. The walls had been removed. How we want to build the business is up to us. There’s not going to be a one size fits all way to approach this. No different than there’s not a one size fits all way to approach offline training in general. We have people that run in home businesses, we have people that sublease or are independent contractors in other facilities. We have people that have big training facilities and do group training. We have people who do semi-private or one-on-one. There are so many different options available and there are so many options available.

If you’re going to be delivering a hybrid type of model or services, well really the choice is, okay, what do we want the experience for our client to be and what are we excited about providing? And you know, over the next few weeks it’s probably worthwhile to to start thinking about that and figuring that out. And if you do that, I think you’re going to be ahead of the game because so many people in today’s landscape are being reactive or they’re thinking about just kind of band-aiding their way through the current situation, hoping things are going to go back to what they were before and the reality is they’re not so understand that you already have a hybrid business. Understand you’ve probably had one for a while because it’s probably been a while since you’ve been scheduling somebody’s next appointment in your appointment, like paper appointment binder and it’s probably been awhile since you didn’t have some sort of way for people to be connected in a Facebook group. So you know if those days had been gone, the evolution is going to continue so you just have to decide, okay, how do I want to better serve my clients with all the tools that are available to me and all the things that are going to be more convenient and fulfilling to them.

Thanks for listening. I’m giving away a bundle of my bestselling books, the ideal business formula, the fitness entrepreneur handbook in the path. All you have to do is go to patrigsby.com/podgift to get it. Also, make sure to subscribe to The Fitness Business School with Pat Rigsby so you don’t miss an episode and you get yourself on the fast track to creating your ideal business.