You may have been in a bookstore recently and bought a cup of coffee from a famous name coffee shop while you were in there. That coffee company has subleased space from the bookstore company. What a great idea, adding a complimentary business to an existing business. People pop in for a latte and maybe buy a book – or the other way around. There is an obvious advantage for both businesses.
Could you do this with a starting fitness business and what would be the advantages?
Subleasing Space (more…)
It’s important that before you go off and sign a franchise agreement with some random fitness franchise that you’ve been eyeballing, read the advice that this blog has to offer because it can save you from investing in a franchise that doesn’t have your personal interests at heart.
It’s been said that franchise businesses have a five times higher success rate than small private businesses because most people already know, like and trust franchises due to the marketing that they invest in their business. The lesson here? Franchises beat small businesses in terms of success rate.
Whether you’re looking to join a food franchise or start a fitness franchise, the success rate is a lot higher when you go the franchise route. The reason being that franchises usually start with their own locations to prove the concept, create the systems, and craft an operations process so that they can sell their model to people who are looking to open a small business.
The issue with most fitness franchises is that not all of them start off with a proof of concept. They will instead, go to market with just their idea of what the business should be without proving it. This is a huge red flag for personal trainers because if you’re looking for fitness business opportunities and the fitness franchise you’re looking into hasn’t taken the time to prove their business concept, then you’ll more than likely end up as a test subject and not a successful franchise owner.
That’s only one tip you should be aware of...
Here are some other things you should think about before taking the fitness franchise plunge.
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No we’re not talking about bloating and water retention here – we’re talking about how to keep the clients you’ve already spent a lot of time and money recruiting - Fitness clients retention that is. And that’s the key. Marketing is time-consuming and expensive and if you hate the closing process it only makes sense to do everything you can to keep the clients you already have coming back.
There’s always going to be a certain amount of natural attrition, if a member moves out of the area for example, but if people turn up irregularly and then disappear completely, you’re going to have to find out why.
Fitness Business Retention
Relationships with Clients
From the start of your fitness boot camp business you should always be building solid relationships with clients. By getting to know them and showing an interest they are more likely to be honest with you, instead of sliding away and refusing to answer your phone calls. If you’re getting a large percentage of clients who don’t renew, then something’s up and you need to know the reason.
Send a friendly email containing a well constructed but short questionnaire, that also offers a limited time coupon with a deep discount if they do renew. Leave a space for comments and take careful note of all the responses and take action. You’re boot camp sessions are too strenuous, some haven’t seen results they were hoping for, they’d rather do Pilates – whatever – these are all things that you can address – especially if you see a common thread.
Do whatever it takes to get those clients back into the fold. Offer Pilates sessions; offer a free personal consultation with the client so she will achieve the results she wants. Those few minutes can ultimately save you a lot more time and money required to market and recruit new clients. (more…)
If you’re terrified of and don't know how to sell personal training, try this exercise. Next time you strike up a conversation with a stranger in a restaurant or supermarket line ask them if they’ve ever considered personal training or joining a boot camp. Steering the conversation toward that question shouldn’t be as hard as you think because you look incredibly fit, happy and healthy and they will naturally be curious as to how you do it.
Now ask why they haven’t joined a boot camp or seriously thought about personal training, and make a mental note of the excuses. These are the objections you will encounter all the time when you reach the point of closing a potential client. Get used to these standard objections because you’re going to have to work on ways to overcome them. I strongly recommend that you take a look at The Close Clients system as it is the best complete how to sell personal training system out there. The most common objections boil down to just a basic few: (more…)
It doesn’t matter what business you want to start or have already started, finding the right marketing strategy is going to be the way to get paying customers through the door, and fitness business marketing is no different.
You can’t be All Things to All People
You can learn a lot from looking at all kinds of advertising when planning a marketing campaign for your fitness business. Big name advertisers concentrate on one thing only when they set out to create a television ad for example. Let’s say it’s a new kind of whitening toothpaste. The company may also make mouthwash, toothbrushes, shampoo, and soap and just about everything else you can find in a bathroom, but they concentrate on one item only to get their message across.
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One of the most important aspects of starting a fitness business is marketing.
If nobody knows you exist, you’ll be closing the doors in no time at all.
In the beginning you probably won’t have many clients. Some fitness professionals manage to create a following while working for someone else and those clients will follow if he opens his own facility but it’s rarely an adequate number to pay the bills and make a profit.
A monthly budget should be set aside for marketing for at least your first year of business and factored into your startup costs. You should also concentrate on targeting your advertising towards the market you wish to attract, so it’s going to take some research to discover where you will get the most bang for your advertising buck.
It’s also expedient to monitor the responses you get from all your marketing campaigns. If you’re using newspapers or magazines including a coupon from which you can monitor the source will be very helpful. Groupons and coupons that can be used with smart phones are gaining rapidly in popularity.
Of course you will probably start a FaceBook page and a blog for your fitness business and you can also code any coupons and special offers accordingly. The best way to get attract new members initially will be by offering freebies and coupons.
Now, let’s say you’re a few months down the road and you have a growing clientele, how can you use your new clients to generate business for you and why should you?
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Building a website for your fitness business can be a daunting task if you’ve never done it before. Its actually a lot easier and cheaper today than it used to be before WordPress came along, but there are still so many things to remember and rules that must be followed to keep the search engines happy, especially Big Brother Google.
Domain Name
Finding a good domain name these days is difficult but if you’re starting your own fitness business and you’re using your own name that can be a lot easier. Make sure your domain name is relevant and easy to remember, .com is still the extension to go for.
Choosing a Host
You’ll need a host with great customer service 24/7 and one with a good reputation with secure servers, backup and minimal downtime. (more…)
When you first start out as a fitness trainer, the chances are you’re only going to start out with a couple of clients. Obviously the best way to build your client base is to get referrals. Word of mouth is the cheapest and most effective marketing you can ever hope for but it’s probably not going to build your business fast enough to give you a decent income for the first few months.
Time to start marketing your fitness boot camp, so what are the most effective and cheapest ways to do that?
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Okay you’re fitness PRO, not some marketing whizz. The truth is that most fitness professionals have little or no clue about how to go about how to market a fitness business. They think that having their credentials on the wall with a photo of them doing a smiling oily pose is going to entice everyone to sign up with them. Wrong. You have to get prospects in the door first, and secondly they don’t care too much about what you look like, it’s what they hope to look like after they’ve used your services!
It’s all about the prospect.
As everyone in this industry knows, the best (and cheapest) leads are referrals, those prospects who lift the phone because their friend, co-worker, colleague – whatever - has gone from being a blob to a babe. See where we’re going here? People want proof.
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