Be a Ferrari

This blog post is going to be one of those posts that just comes straight from the hip. You see the fitness industry is undergoing a rapid evolution right now and I fear many trainers are in danger of being left behind.

If you’re NOT making more than $100,000 a year in total revenues, you absolutely need to read and take note of the following:

Know Your Customer

You should be able to close your eyes and see the person you most wish to attract as a client. It should be one specific type or group of people. It doesn’t mean you can’t or won’t service other people with other goals but the specialist is always sought out and looked upon as much more valuable.

Under Promise and Over Deliver

Personal training has caught on, I think in my small city someone recently told me there are more than 26 gyms, personal training centres, bootcamps, etc all competing for customers. Additionally there are the main stream weight loss centres, rec department activities and support groups. If you’re going to not just survive but thrive you better bring something special to the table. Now more than ever service is an opportunity for the small entrepreneur, large business continues to cut corners, pinch pennies and reduce the customers feeling of being valued. They’ve painted themselves into corner they have no other option than to compete on price and push for volume, customer loyalty is at an all time low.

Find ways to increase the feeling of being appreciated and valued, this may even exceed results in the statistics of customer retention.

Be a Ferrari

Since the time I was a boy cars have been a commodity that generally involved price haggling, a commodity that on the right day of the month with the right ability to negotiate you could really save big. As time has went on dealerships have narrowed this ability to haggle more and more, and rightly so, with so much price fluctuation it must have been extremely difficult to really have accurate long term business planning. Now look at high end cars, there’s never been an ability to haggle, there’s never been compromise, they are and always have been expensive and if you didn’t like the price you didn’t buy because they were confident in the value they brought to the table.

Every truly successful personal trainer will find their own way to be like Ferrari, you don’t need to be the cheapest, you don’t need to worry about your competition’s price what you need to be is confident in what you bring to the table. If you can consistently deliver what you say you will you will find people willing to buy your service (within reason of course.)

Create Faster

I forget what book it was that I read an excerpt of a conversation with Ray Kroc. Someone was asking him if he was frustrated by other companies that copied or duplicated McDonalds. He responded, “no we simply create faster.”

I’ve faced everything from people stealing documents, copying my business, copying and pasting my website, marketing campaigns, even my fundraisers. It’s frustrating to say the least, and hard not to become emotional, but the truth is the answer is to be like Ray Kroc. Whether it’s dealing with competition or evolving economic conditions being able to “create faster” or rapidly evolve and adapt will be critical to your long term success. Success as a personal trainer is based on lifelong learning and the ability to create a unique selling proposition for your potential customers. Continually strive to offer something unique and you will never really have any competition.

Continually Give to Others

This may seem obvious, for without true compassion and giving it will be nearly impossible to consistently help your clients, but you mustn’t stop there. Give to others in your community, share your marketing successes with other businesses, communicate with other fitness professionals outside of your immediate area, form strategic partnerships and most importantly give us much of your wondrous fitness knowledge away as possible. Write articles, blogs and Facebook posts that enrich people’s lives and allow them to learn. Anything you do to improve someone else’s life always has a cumulative affect on your own it’s like being able to invest every dollar you every made in a totally secure high yielding investment.

Maybe if you’ve just finished reading this it all seems obvious but I challenge you to put that to the test, spend the next 30 minutes detailing each of these areas in your own business, what you are doing, how you are doing it, and any new idea on how you can make it better. I guarantee you will come up with one new idea that has the potential to dramatically change your business.