The Fitness Business School – Being Client Centric

Full Transcript

Hey Pat Rigsby here, and in this episode of the podcast I want to talk with you about really making sure that your business is client centric. You know, really all along I felt like that was the foundation of any sort of sustainable, successful business in the fitness industry. But now more than ever, that’s going to be at the forefront. So I want to spend some time talking with you about that today.

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All right, let’s get into it. So one of the things that I’ve spent a lot of time talking about over the last several years is building a client centric training business. And to me that’s one of those wonderful kind of recession-resistant or you know, almost kind of permanent type of components of a business that if you’re doing this well, it’s going to make you more resilient than almost anything else that you can do as a business owner. So when you’re thinking about building a client centric business, I mean that’s a timeless concept. It’s not something that, you know, Hey, we’re going to latch onto this fad or this is some new technology or this is a trend that’s happening. I mean, we’ve seen so much of that in the fitness industry. I mean, yeah, sure, we’re talking a lot about people kind of building these hybrid business models moving forward or trying to anticipate the trends that are going to happen as we move forward as an industry. But the reality is, is client centric is going to be the foundation or root of any successful business, you know, over the next five months, next five years and beyond.

So what does that actually look like and how can we use that in a practical sense? Well, the first thing is we have to understand that, you know, your business is about the client. It’s what do they actually want? It’s not just about a workout. So often in the fitness industry we’ve kind of drifted into this you know, almost this, this model of just hosting workouts and everything else is kind of window dressing, right? You would run a group training session at 5:30, 6:30, and you know, 9 in the morning you might run a lunchtime thing and then run three more sessions in the evening, and you know, that’s the majority of your business. You try to kind of populate those sessions, but everything else is secondary. And the reality is if you’re client centric, it’s more than just hosting workouts. You’re not just the, you know, the celebrity on stage in your facility, you’re the person who is taking responsibility for really caring for the client and the results they want to achieve and you know, and that probably merits a little bit of attention before we move forward.

What do your clients actually want? You know, I think that so much of what we talked about in the fitness industry is clients, you know, they want to lose, they want to lose weight, they want some body composition change, they want to lose inches. And well, I believe that’s true very much. Or you know, the, the flip side, if you hear trainers talk about it while they want to move better and you know these things that I think maybe the trainer wants for the client more than the client wants himself. The reality is I believe that clients essentially are coming to you because they’re not happy with their life as it is and they want to be happier. And they believe that maybe whatever that, that goal that they’ve indicated to you, they believe that when they hit that benchmark, they’re going to be happier. But I think most of us understand that you know, that’s not a surefire path to somebody being happier and not getting there isn’t a sure fire path for somebody not being happier. And let me, let me elaborate on that for a second.

So if somebody comes to you because they’re happy, they’re unhappy and they want to be happier and they assume losing 20 pounds will get them there, or maybe they, they’ve got a rough patch in their relationship, or maybe you know, their self esteem is down and they’re, they’re thinking, well, Hey, if I lose this weight, I’m going to feel this way where the reality is they want to feel that way and they don’t need to wait around to start being happier. They don’t need to wait six weeks or eight weeks or 12 weeks to see a number on a scale to start being happier. They can be happier just by coming in and having a sense of accomplishment and by being part of a community and by being made to feel important and know that somebody is rooting for them and somebody is on their team and they’re, you know, they’re there with you every step of the way because a lot of times that’s the part of this that’s missing from their life. They don’t feel important. They don’t feel validated. And you can provide that for somebody in their first training session. Sure. You may not be able to help them lose 20 pounds during that session, but you can certainly make sure that they’re happier when they leave then they were when they arrived. So you know, that’s kind of the foundation of being client centric.

But it’s also taking responsibility for the people who are inside your four walls. If they’re coming into the facility, are the people that are under your care. If you’re training them virtually, you have to embrace the fact that your responsibility is their results. And as an industry, I think we’ve passed the buck on that for the most part. We’ve said, well, how can that be our responsibility? And you know, they’re, what they do outside the gym undermines the things they’re doing here. Well, if you sat down with them and said, yeah, we can help you accomplish A, B, and C, you’re saying I’m your partner in this journey. I’m going to be your guide. And if once they’ve signed on the dotted line so to speak, you no longer are willing to play that role and you’re going to kind of hand all the responsibility back over to them. You know, that’s not being client centric at all. And to be honest, it’s not, it’s not the way that most businesses function. I mean, can you imagine ordering a meal and not having that meal delivered, like delivered to you or going to a restaurant and ordering something and then bringing out something completely different. More often than not, you’d complain about that you’d be upset about. You have this expectation that when you pay for something, you get that thing. And it’s not just a product, it’s not just a restaurant or a retail thing. If you pay your accountant to file your taxes, then you expect those taxes to be filed correctly. You know, if you get a haircut, you expect it to be the way you want it to be. And frankly, you don’t pay until after you’ve gotten the haircut in most cases, right?

So I think that we can take more responsibility for the client results than we have now. I’m not saying that you need to wait around and only be paid after somebody achieved a goal, but you can certainly do a lot more to help them achieve that goal than most fitness businesses do. And the last several weeks you know, I’m recording this in mid may. So most of the businesses that I work with still had been training people online for the last several weeks and the last several weeks, you know, people have spent more time connecting with their clients, holding their clients accountable, reaching out and just checking on their clients than they ever did when those clients were coming in the gym. And so I asked the other day during a coaching session, and I had about 35 coaches on the line, I said, well, why are you doing that? And everything was about, Hey, it’s a better experience for my clients and it’s helping to keep them on track and it’s helping to make them feel better. I’m like, well then why don’t we do that all the time? Remember we’re in the business of helping clients succeed. We’re not just in the business of hosting workouts. We’re not just in the business of renting access to equipment. We’re in the business of helping clients go from where they are to where they aspire to be. They’re trying to escape something right now. And that escape may seem like a really daunting word, but the reality is they are trying to escape some level of displeasure, discomfort that they feel like they need help to arrive at this new place. And that’s our job. We can’t lose sight of that.

And being client centric also means, you know, having this community connecting and partnering with people outside of the traditional training session. Now I’ve seen a lot of people do that in our industry lately. They’ve, they’ve hosted, you know, coffee with a coach or happy hours or comedy nights or trivia nights. They’ve done all that sort of stuff. And that’s, you know, that’s the type of thing that we can continue long after we’re allowed to train clients back in our facilities. And we can provide recognition for clients every day. Because honestly, if you help somebody feel like they won today and they had a simple sense of accomplishment today, there’s a much higher likelihood that they’re going to come back tomorrow. And if they stack enough of those one days together, then they’re going to hit those milestones. Bitter truth, those milestones probably will mean a lot less for them because the process, that journey has been so much more empowering for them. And it’s been such a more pleasant journey. I mean if you’ve ever really kind of set out to accomplish something really, really meaningful you know, the, the destination, sure, it’s great when you get there. It’s great when you accomplish some milestone, whether it was getting a college degree or accomplishing some sort of business objective or whatever else it might have been. But so much of your memories and so much of your enjoyment was about that process. And it’s the same way for our clients.

And then finally, the last thing that I would tell you about being client centric, and it’s never been more visible in our industry than it is right now, is don’t build around the tool. Don’t say, Hey, I’m a kettlebell gym or I, you know, I use this software or whatever else because the tool’s going to change. The tools have changed throughout the entire time there’s been a fitness industry. The in-gym tools and yeah, like, like everything. I mean, things go in cycles. Things that weren’t popular for some time are now popular again. It’s just like clothes or people moving back from the suburbs to the cities and all that stuff. Everything runs in cycles. But our, our goal here is to build around the person, not the tool, because it’s not about the process. It’s not about a particular product or program. It’s about a person. And if you can help this person feel better and go from where they are to where they want to be, you’re never going to have any problem growing your business. You’re going to have people out there being advocates for you. Your clients are never going to be leaving looking for that shiny object, that new business in town. But if you’re relying on, you know, this tool that was fancy and new and trendy last year, but it’s kind of old hat this year, or if you’re relying on just having a workout or something like that, you’re, you’re a commodity. And I don’t think any of us want to be that. None of us ever want to be viewed as obsolete. And one of the quickest ways that you can really kind of shift the focus and never fall into that trap is becoming clients central.

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.