Want To Do What I Do?

This week I’ll be spending a great deal of time on two separate projects.

The first is doing calls with almost 20 fitness entrepreneurs who have shown an interest in my Private Coaching and Mastermind Programs.

The second is filming the final parts of my soon to release Rapid Product Creation 6 Week Course.

That’s pretty much a microcosm of my business.

Probably 45% Coaching / Mastermind, 45% Products / Courses. The other 10% is strategy / advising / consulting for companies.

In truth – if I look at a lot of the fitness pros I admire the most – that’s a blend they have too. Boyle, Durkin, Cressey, Robertson…the list goes on and on of people who blend coaching with online.

So if that type of hybrid model appeals to you, here’s my (abbreviated) advice:

Step 1: Be Really Good At Coaching – I think this should be obvious, but it’s not. There are a lot of people selling fitness, sports performance and business information online that haven’t ever really coached. The may have sold stuff…but they’ve never built their livelihood on making someone else better.

Do that first.

Step 2: Figure Out Who You Want To Help – Don’t be a generalist…be a specialist. You can always expand, but online you need to target a smaller crowd than ‘everyone.’ Whether you realize it or not – you have a niche locally…it’s ‘people who live within 5-7 miles.’ So you need one globally too.

I’ve helped enough varied entrepreneurs to know that what I do would help people outside of fitness & sports performance…but by being a specialist for those crowds it was much, much easier to build my business.

Step 3: Find Out What They Want & Provide It – It’s not about what you want to offer or what you think they need. You have to meet them where they are physically, mentally and emotionally and be the bridge to where they want to go.

Here’s where I approach that differently than most…

I start coaching entrepreneurs who opt in for this email from day 1. From the first email, my goal is to coach them…whether they ever invest even $1 with me.

I feel that if I do a good job, they’ll trust me enough that when they want to get more involved coaching – they’ll come to me.

Most people – regardless of field – do the opposite.  They hold back.

They say ‘join this and you’ll get what you need.’ Then once you enroll in that program they say ‘this one is ok…but the really good stuff is actually in this next level’ and so on.

I prefer to instead overdeliver at each level so that someone feels like ‘if I’m paying $29.95 and get all of this…I can’t wait to see what I get for a couple hundreds dollars.’

Step 4: Create Relationship & Provide Simple Solutions – This is my business philosophy in a nutshell.

Create relationships first. I’ve talked about the concept of making ‘deposits’ into people’s ‘relationship bank account’. Do that as well as you possibly can.

Then provide them with simple solutions that solve their problems and give them what they want.

I do my best to do both – but don’t think you need to do it the same way I do. You need to play to your strengths to accomplish these same two goals.

I use writing and calls and face to face meetings to build relationships.

You do what fits you.  

I’m trying to provide simple solutions for entrepreneurs to allow them to build their Ideal Businesses…offline, online or both. Again – you decide what your offering.

Step 5: Stop Dreaming & Start Doing – You can’t have a different outcome until you start doing things differently. If you want an online component to your business..create it. Now. If you want to offer something new within your business – do it.

Using the online stuff as an example…I’d estimate that of the fitness entrepreneurs I’ve talked with who said they wanted to offer something online and develop that hybrid model…roughly 1 in 20 ever did.

What is really disappointing about that is that in so many cases, what they said they wanted to do and how they described what it would look like was better than the competing offerings on the market.

But those competing offerings were actually done and being sold…not just ideas.

So if having a hybrid model appeals to you – there is how you do it.

All the same stuff applies as with your offline business…you can’t just have a good solution, you have to go get people interested and sell it…but this is my approach for doing just that.