Fitness bootcamps are becoming enormously popular for a number of reasons. People can train with a friend or friends, at a time that’s convenient for them and they can even make new friends. Being part of a group also helps keep attendance rates high, and of course a well-run boot camp is fun and very effective in delivering fast results.
If you’ve been in the personal training industry for any length of time, you’re probably not earning what you want to earn just with a handful of one-on-one clients. If you’ve heard what many boot camp owners are making for the hours they work, no wonder you’re looking into starting a series of boot camps of your own. I didn’t even mention you can kiss your boss goodbye!
You can earn more, and spend the rest of the day doing what you want to do.
Location
Typically, most people think of boot camps as being held outdoors. There are a few advantages, specifically you don’t have to pay rent and you have no overheads. That’s great, until it snows or rains and your 6am class has to work out in the dark. There’s always the possibility the local authority that runs the park may changes its rules.
The alternative is to lease or sub-lease space. Sub-leasing can be the most advantageous choice for those starting their first boot camps. Why? Because you don’t have to invest a lot of money.
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So you want to start your own fitness business. Congratulations on making a wise decision that means you’ll be doing something you love, for as long as you want to do it, with the potential to make a lot of money.
Now, where do you begin?
Find the Right Property
The first thing you’ll probably want to consider is a property. Depending on where you are, you may have already seen a suitable property that’s in good condition and doesn’t need a ton of money spending on it.
Hopefully the property will be owned by a decent landlord, with lease terms that won’t keep you awake every night worrying about the air conditioning or the roof caving in.
Hire a real estate attorney who can look over the terms of any lease before you sign on the dotted line, after you’ve decided how long a lease you’ll be comfortable with.
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It doesn’t matter if you’re starting a personal training business or a fitness boot camp, you’ll need a solid business plan that includes an effective marketing plan if you want to get on the fast track to success.
Learn everything you can about marketing. Find out what works for you and concentrate on putting your plan into place so everybody - you, your staff and your clients, will always know what to expect.
Set Goals for Your Business
Your business plan must include goals. Where do you want your business to be in 12 months, three years and in 5 years?
Only you know how much time and effort you want to dedicate to your business. Many small-business owners end up working seven days a week without a break and that isn’t good. Hence planning well ahead means you can take much needed time off without feeling guilty and you should also be able to take a vacation.
How much money do you want to be earning in five years time? If you can set a realistic goal and work towards that financial goal, you’ll find that instigating an effective business plan will help spur you on.
Finding and utilizing a number of effective marketing techniques will be key to your success. By planning, you can experiment. By setting goals, you’ll be able to drop those marketing techniques that are not working and concentrate on those that are. Therefore, you must always be aware of where your referrals are coming from and which convert the best.
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There are many hard working, talented, and dedicated trainers who are quite happy clocking in and working for someone else every day of their lives. I’m sure a large number of them have at one time or another considered starting a fitness boot camp business. For the majority the biggest problem is raising the capital, but one of the biggest advantages of starting a Boot Camp Business is you don’t need an enormous amount of money to get started.
You can treat the fitness industry like a normal J.O.B., or secure your financial future by looking beyond the one-on-one training sessions by starting your own boot camp business in just a matter of weeks. No more working long hours, six days a week and taking only a small percentage of the profits – you can have it all!
Be honest and ask yourself what are your goals are in life. Some will say they just want to be able to pay their bills each month. Fine - there are plenty of jobs in the fitness industry for those people, but if you’re ambitious, have the tenacity and will to succeed, and want to pay off your mortgage in five years rather than dragging it out for 30, then starting your own Boot Camp Business will be the ideal solution.
Working six days a week also means you have very little time for your family and/or loved ones. I don’t know too many spouses/lovers/girlfriends that will put up without ever seeing you in daylight, or those who wouldn’t love some weekends away and at least one good vacation each year. Living with someone who falls asleep exhausted as soon as their buns touch the couch is another reason why relationships fall apart. You’ll be starting your own Boot Camp Business for those you love as much as you, so get them involved.
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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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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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In order to have a thriving fitness business you’ve got to be an excellent trainer AND an excellent salesperson as well. If you’ve been in sales you know the most difficult part is closing, and it’s no different when selling personal training.
I’ve come across lots of excellent trainers who have no clue about the psychology of selling and how to close, so I’m going to explain the most effective way of closing most fitness clients without ever having to sit down or waste hours of your time.
If you get five or six people coming through the door every day looking for fitness training, you certainly don’t want to spend six hours a day dealing with people who end up making excuses and coming up with the same run of the mill objections.
Knowing how to sell personal training and how to sell fitness effectively gets easier, and for many of us who already “get it” closing rates can be anywhere from 90% to 100% and it will only take a few minutes every time.
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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…)
