The Fitness Business School – Why I’m Not Doing a Cash Grab

Full Transcript

Hey, Pat Rigsby here and in this episode I’m going to talk with you about why I’m not trying to do a cash grab like so many other business coaches and gurus are in the industry right now. Let’s get to it.

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Hey, well welcome this episode and I just wanted to talk with you for a little bit about my mindset or my philosophy during the pandemic that we’re currently experiencing. And you know, maybe even potentially a little bit beyond that is as we start to come out of this and are able to get back into training facilities and see clients in person, um, I’ve taken a little bit of a different approach than a lot of the people in the industry, whether it be business coaches or gurus or whatever you’d like to call them. I’ve done kind of what I consider a relationship grab versus a cash grab. Now, so many of the people out there are, um, really kind of trying to tap into the fact that there’s obviously a big need, whether they’re doing it with ill intent and just preying on desperation or they feel like they really can solve a problem. You know, everybody’s got their own individual take and their own individual approach. I don’t necessarily have an opinion on all of them because there are so many people out there in the market right now, but I, I’ve thought about this from maybe a different perspective. I’ve thought about this throughout, um, really trying to consider where do I want my business to be 12, 18, 24 months from now? What do I want my relationship with the marketplace to look like? What do I want to help people accomplish? What kind of relationships do I want to have with clients? And I’ve seen an opportunity to really serve people in a time of need when maybe there was some confusion about how they, um, needed to transition to doing things online when there was some uncertainty as to whether or not they should sell or market during the, the situations we’re currently facing and really how they can retain their clients and protect the base that they have while simultaneously trying to get a little bit of a foothold on what things are gonna look like moving forward and how they need to position themselves to not only survive, but hopefully thrive as society kind of gets back to whatever the new normal is. And as the economy kind of resets and we figure out whether or not we’re going to be in an okay economic situation or we’re going to see, uh, any sort of prolonged downturn.

So, you know, it’s not like my business was in a position where it was, um, kind of running on fumes or life support. My business is secure and safe. My family has security. So from my perspective, giving away the online coaching specialist certification seemed like a timely and valuable thing to do to help people just gain a little bit of confidence in making this move to doing something that was pretty foreign to a lot of, um, professionals and business owners in our, in our market. And then, you know, I’ve put a number of options out there for people to work with me where, you know, there’s not really any financial investment upfront. Whether it be no payments on programs for a series of months or even if they do make a payment, it’s a significant reduction off of what we had been doing a few months back. And then even introducing a program that is, um, more or less a, uh, percentage based offering where, um, you know, my company only really makes money if we help somebody grow their business.

So, you know, I’ve taken that approach thinking with this mindset of, okay, would I rather try to make a cash grab today and, um, not really focus on these businesses being around and being healthy and everything else over the long haul or would I rather make a relationship grab and try to serve people when they’re facing adversity? Because a lot of times that’s when the strongest relationships are built. Now, I’m not going to suggest that everybody needs to take my approach, but I do think that as we are making our decisions, when we’re, um, you know, pricing our services or when we’re, um, working with our clients to keep as many of them paying and at least paying something, even if they can’t pay full rate or going out and connecting with new people.

You know, I think it’s important to think about two sides of this. What’s that person experiencing today and how can I serve them? That doesn’t mean we need to serve people for free. I mean, there’s a value exchange. For the most part, a lot of the things that I’m offering the value exchange is I’m happy to help somebody get results now and we can worry about my side of the value exchange, what I may receive down the road sometime when they’re in a more stable position. You have that option to do something like that. If cash flow is not, uh, an issue for you right now or um, you know, you can just make sure that you’re working with people in a, a fee structure that is palatable for them during the circumstances they’re facing. But each person that your connecting with, whether it’s a current client or a prospective client, they’re an individual with their own set of circumstances, their own challenges, their own fears and anxieties, their own frustrations. And you need to really kind of try to put yourself in their shoes and not just think about, okay, how can I get money right now to keep things afloat? Because if you think about how you can serve these people in the position they’re in right now and how are you going to be able to build a relationship that can last will beyond the next, you know, set of weeks or months and into, you know, that 12, 18, 24 month range. If you think about both of those two things, you’re going to be able to come up with ways to solve their problems and still meet many if not all of your financial needs and goals.

So that’s, that’s really kind of where I’m at with the the choices that I’ve made. Now again, there, there’s no way that I could tell each and every listener, Hey, this is exactly how you should approach this without getting to speak to you about your unique business and your unique circumstances. But I can say this that you know, if you take care of people, if you serve people well, more often than not, it’s going to play out in your favor. If you work with people and try to find a happy medium where you’re delivering a lot of value to solve the problems they’re facing today and really address the needs that they have right now, you’re going to have the opportunity to keep that person as a client long-term. And if that means that you’ve got to kind of manipulate your fee structure to be a little more favorable to them right now, sometimes that can work out. Now does mean that you don’t have your own bills to pay. Of course not. You need to make sure that you can sustain your business, but preying on people in times of desperation and trying to go, um, do some sort of cash grab when somebody is, um, you know, struggling I think is not a long-term path to success and frankly, it’s probably not congruent with why you got into business and what your values are in the first place.

So hopefully there’s some stuff to chew on, some stuff to think about that maybe can help you understand how you want to navigate this landscape moving forward. And when you see offers out there, you can probably get a feel for what somebody’s motives are and, um, whether they’re, um, trying to help and provide hope or whether or not they’re, um, trying to extract as much as they can as quickly as they can. So hopefully that helps you a little bit. I’ll talk to you soon.

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.