When new fitness boot camp owners or people who are considering starting a boot camp ask me for advice, one of the things I tell them is that they need to learn as much as they can about how to start a boot camp successfully, but in order to be successful they also have to know where they want that business to go.
“I want to be successful” is not a plan. It’s not even a goal, because it has no measurable criteria. If you go into business with only the vaguest idea of a plan, you will waste a great deal of time, energy and resources working things out as you go. You may even fail and fail quickly.
There has never been a better time to start a fitness boot camp business, but you don’t just need to know how to start a boot camp, you need to have a step-by-step plan in place to reach very definite goals. Every day needs to be spent following at least one of those steps, or you risk losing very important momentum.
I want to share with you some ideas and points that to consider in order to create a path to success with your new boot camp business.
How much do you plan to earn in your first year?
Some people might say, “I have no idea how much I’ll earn” but they’re looking at it the wrong way. Revenue isn’t something you wait to see. Revenue is something you plan to see. The steps you take to build your business should be based on what you set as your first year’s revenue goals.
It doesn’t matter what dollar figure you set; you can reverse engineer a plan to make that amount. Many new boot camp earners make $100,000 their first year and it’s because they broke it down into monthly, weekly and daily sales goals. How much do you have to bring in to make $100k a year? A little over $1,900 per week. That’s just $385 a day if you’re counting five days per week. Knowing that makes it a lot easier to set daily and weekly steps that get you there. (more…)
When you’re starting a boot camp, you have a number of tasks in a number of different areas, including your physical facility, marketing, staffing and your daily operations. Sometimes it can really help your mindset and your progress if you can identify a handful of top priorities for right now, to keep yourself from getting overwhelmed or bogged down with details that can wait.
Here are five things you need to accomplish in your first month if you’re starting a boot camp.
Focus your marketing efforts on the three most important client funnels.
80% of your new clients are going to come from three channels: Facebook, your email list and client referrals. It’s especially important in the beginning that you focus your efforts on these. One of the best things about this list is that they’re all free, which can be important when you’re operating on a start-up budget.
So how do you maximize the potential of these channels?
Start posting relevant content regularly to your Facebook page. At least one post per day. The most important posts are usable content that your followers will share and that help set you up as an expert, progress pictures that your clients’ friends will comment on, and any low-barrier offers that you have going on.
On your Facebook page, invite followers and visitors to sign up for your email list. Entice them with an opt-in page that rewards them with a free fat loss report, workout video or other valuable download. When new clients or customers using a low-barrier offer come in to your boot camp, always get their email addresses and add them to your list. Ask people to sign up for freebies and valuable content whenever you post a YouTube video, share a blog post or hand out your cards or flyers. (more…)
This year’s Fit Body Boot Camp World Conference was no surprise; it was dynamic, packed with practical information, exciting, motivating and inspiring.
If you weren’t able to make it to the Fit Body Boot Camp World Conference, I want to share with you some of the things that you would have taken away from the conference and used to go back to your fitness boot camps pumped, informed and focused. If you’re just starting a boot camp, these points should be printed out and taped somewhere that you can see them regularly.
Find a mentor or coach or more successful friend and then ask and learn.
Don’t try to figure everything out on your own, especially if you’re just starting a boot camp. Successful people, especially Fit Body Boot Camp top earners, are happy to share what they know with people who are willing to listen.
Whether you need to learn how to become a fitness marketing powerhouse or how to find, hire and train your staff, ask questions and then listen to what people who have already mastered these things have to teach you. You’ll save years of trouble and financial struggle just by taking advantage of other people’s experience.
Do at least one thing every day to move yourself closer to your goals.
Every day that you stand still is a day wasted. Don’t tell yourself that you’ll work on making the most of the three best sales funnels at some point. Work on one of them today. Don’t tell yourself that you’ll come up with a fitness info product once you’re making more money. Start brainstorming ideas this week. Don’t decide that you’ll give those windshield flyers another week to pay off, try another strategy right now. Have a list of goals and then list out some steps to reach those goals, then do at least one of those things every single day. (more…)
We talk a lot at Fit Body Boot Camp about the incredible value of having an email list and working it for maximum results. But we don’t talk as much as we probably should about how to start a fitness boot camp email list from the ground up. After all, most personal trainers aren’t all that experienced in marketing and as new boot camp owners, they need some guidance in getting those names before they can start building their business.
Luckily, building an email list isn’t as hard as you may think and no, you shouldn’t fall for some fly-by-night company offering to sell you a list. Those lists will be full of people who have been spammed to death, people who aren’t even a little bit interested in getting fit and people who changed their email addresses six years ago. It’s not that hard to get your own list going and I’m going to give you some very simple steps that will show you how to start a fitness boot camp email list and what to do with it to start making money and growing your boot camp business.
Step 1: Create and offer a free report, nutrition plan, mini-workout or other gift and advertise it on your website, your Facebook page, on Twitter and Google+ and everywhere else that you’re visible. Make it something relevant, something that provides real value, but keep it short and simple. Then let people know that you just need their email address and you’ll get it right to them. Now you have a list of people who are obviously interested in getting fit and healthy, so that means they’re more likely to be interested in your fitness boot camp, as well.
Step 2: Send them your free gift, but also deliver other great content to them on a weekly basis. This could be pre/post workout recipes, best ab exercises, an article on boosting metabolism or whatever you like. I would also strongly suggest you sign up for FitPro Newlsetter, which looks like a great fitness magazine, already contains great new content every month and you can also add your own content to it. It’s a great plug and play solution for high-value content. (more…)
Many people make the mistake of focusing on the wrong selling points when it comes to fitness boot camp marketing. Too often, they focus on features and pricing, which is fine when you’re selling an espresso machine or a car, but it misses the mark when it comes to selling fitness boot camp programs.
The reason for this is that fitness boot camp marketing isn’t about selling your facility, your sound system, your juice bar or your pricing. It’s about selling your solutions to the client’s problems. It’s about selling your means of getting them to their goals.
Your prospects might think some of the features of your boot camp are nice or that your monthly fees are competitive, but what will sell them is the conviction that your program is their best chance to reach their goals, and fast. That’s the focus of your fitness boot camp marketing.
What’s really cool about being a Fit Body Boot Camp owner is that the very nature of our program makes that job so much easier than with any other fitness business. The fact is that we have the solution, we’re known for having the solution and there’s plenty of research that says it’s the right one.
If you haven’t seen it yet, we’ve just uploaded an awesome new explainer video on the Afterburn Workout. In it is pretty much every single point you need to sell virtually every prospect that walks through your doors. This is because it’s loaded with all of the ways that Fit Body Boot Camp is the solution people are looking for.
As you’ll see on the video, all of the most recent fitness research proves without a doubt that endless hours of standard cardio are essentially useless in the battle to burn fat. 9 out of 10 people who call you on the phone, message you on Facebook or answer one of your emails are going to tell you that their #1 goal is to lose fat. 9 out of 10 will also tell you that they go to the gym and run on the treadmill for hours or that they knock themselves out in Zumba class four nights a week and yet they can’t lose the fat. (more…)
No, Walt Disney wasn’t in the fitness business, but I dare anyone to say that they know of a businessman who was better at creating a brand that was recognizable all over the world, in any language. Disney World and Disneyland may have gone through some transformations and expansions since Walt passed away, but Disney will always be Disney and it will always dominate the amusement park field. No one can touch it. So I think there is something very important that Walt Disney could teach you about how to start a boot camp.
He would teach you that you need to focus on doing one thing and doing it better than anyone else, anywhere.
Think about the other amusement parks in the US. Busch Gardens, Six Flags, Knott’s Berry Farm or a bunch of regional, nameless parks you can’t think of off-hand. What are they known for? How many iconic images or names do you associate with them? Yet, say “Dumbo Ride” or “fireworks” and everyone knows which parks you’re talking about. Disney.
Disney Parks have rides, shows, restaurants and hotels, but they do one thing and they do it better than anyone else: they create magical family memories. When you walk into any other amusement park, you think, “Wow, cool rides!” When you walk into Disney World or Disneyland, you think “Magic!”
So how do you translate what Walt Disney and what he did with the Disney Parks into you and how to start a boot camp that emulates his success? You do one thing and you do it better than anyone else.
This is what has made Fit Body Boot Camps the fastest-selling fitness business in this country. We do one thing. We don’t do Zumba, we don’t do Pilates and we don’t run a social club. We do killer workouts that deliver maximum results in minimal time. We do this at a price that people can afford and we do it in a supportive, motivating and even entertaining way. Boom. That’s what we do.
Even if you’re not a Fit Body Boot Camp franchise owner, you can still take your cue from Walt when it comes to how to start a boot camp that becomes known for doing one thing and doing it better than anyone else in your area. (more…)
You’re not going to do everything right when you’re starting your boot camp business. You’re going to make mistakes, just as I have and just as every other successful boot camp owner I know has done. Nobody’s born knowing how to start a fitness boot camp business. That’s one of the purposes of the annual Fitness Business Summit – to allow very successful people to share what they’ve learned so that others can avoid many mistakes and do some things right from the beginning.
One of the most popular speakers at the Summit has been Corporal Sean Francis and one of the most popular talks he’s given was about working with what Bedros calls the 95/5 or the 5% Rule. What that boils down to is focusing your time, energy and attention on the things that are priorities in your business and also working as much as possible within your zone of genius, doing the things that you love the most and are best at. This is the key to constant growth of your boot camp business.
Granted, in some ways, this is easier to do once your business is established and your income allows you to hire a full staff of trainers and other help. But there are a number of things you can do now, to not only get your business started on the right foot but also go into it with a 5% mindset that will help you at every level of success in the years to come. So I’d like to share with you two important things about how to start a fitness boot camp business using the 5% rule, with credit to Sean Francis for many of the ideas he shared at a recent FBS.
Hire an assistant as soon as possible.
An assistant may sound like an expensive luxury that a new entrepreneur can’t really afford. But one of the smartest things you can do, even as a start-up, is find even one person to take care of less important or less demanding tasks so that you can focus on the things you really need to do, like getting clients signed up for your new boot camp. The more you’re able to market your boot camp and sell new memberships, the sooner you can afford more help, like great trainers. You don’t need an executive assistant, at least not yet, so you can find plenty of people who would rather make halfway decent pay in a fitness center than make it in a fast food place.
Start creating systems for everything now.
Once Sean hired an assistant, he started following great advice that he’d gotten from the summit. He started creating systems for every single thing that needed to be done, whether it was answering the phones, entering new members into the computer or paying the bills. Then he taught those systems to his assistant so that he never had to deal with those things again. (more…)
There are any number of mistakes that new entrepreneurs can – and will - make when starting a fitness boot camp. Most of them are fairly minor things that can be counted as part of the learning curve. What you really want to avoid are mistakes that cost you serious money or growth in the beginning.
My years running Fit Body Boot Camps and working closely with both Bedros and the FBBC owners has taught me that there are two really significant and really damaging mistakes to avoid at all costs when you’re starting a fitness boot camp. It could take months or even years to make up the lost opportunities and revenue.
Trying to be a fitness generalist
There are all kinds of fitness generalists in your area. The last thing you want to do is be one of them. There are a couple of really important reasons for this. First of all, if you’re a generalist, you have to compete in a field of many. Some competition will be well-established in the community or have big national brand names. All of them will be offering the very same thing you’re offering, which is general fitness help. Do you really want to enter this market?
Secondly, finding a niche or specialty market (such as athletes, new moms or Baby Boomers) means two very important things to your bottom line: a) You can target your marketing, which makes it more effective and less expensive and b) people are willing to pay more for the services of a specialist.
Let’s say you identify your target niche as middle-aged women. When you approach them as a specialist in anti-aging and metabolism boosting nutrition and hormone balance through exercise and nutrition, you suddenly become much more valuable than Bob over at Big Box Fitness.
Don’t try to be all trainers to all people. Start out targeting a specific group of people who want and need your specific areas of expertise and you’ll spend less time marketing and your marketing returns will be much higher. (more…)
The big box gyms in your area are advertising two-for-one sign up deals and forty different types of classes. So how do you tailor your boot camp marketing efforts to compete with them?
You don’t.
You’re not a big box gym. You’re an awesome personal trainer and what you have to offer is something the big box gyms can’t: incredible results. People join gyms because they want to change the way they look and feel and most of them want that change to be dramatic and fast. The big box gym isn’t the answer.
Very few people who sign up for a big commercial gym will ever get anything close to the results they’re seeking. Most of them will drop out of the gym with very little to show for their money or their time. Those people are absolutely primed for an intense body transformation program. If you can offer that, you won’t need to spend much time on boot camp marketing – your clients’ results will do the marketing for you.
So how do you create a transformation program that really stands out and puts you in a whole different category from the big box gyms? I have five tips from boot camp owners that have used these programs to propel their businesses to the next level.
Promise results and then deliver. This may seem overly simplistic, but nothing will kill your success like mediocre results. Nobody posts on Facebook that they lost ten pounds in just six months. Nobody brags about the personal trainer who helped them carve an inch from their waistline and that was it.
We live in a culture that expects everything right now, if not sooner. Use your skills and expertise to deliver the most dramatic results in the least amount of time. Give your clients the workouts and the results of their lives and they won’t be able to keep quiet about it.
Offer something unique. Don’t just advertise that you’ll help clients lose fat or build muscle. The fitness businesses that have excelled are the ones that found a way to meet a unique need. One of the best examples of this is the Body for Life program, which many consider to be the foundation of transformation programs. Body for Life made itself unique by saying it was a program that would work for anyone of any age. Another good example is P90X. That program stood out and sold like crazy because it’s uniqueness was that it offered a hard-core intensity workout that could be done at home in a short amount of time, yet produce great results.
You have to have something unique to offer. It might be a baby-to-bikini transformation for new mothers or fat burning for Baby Boomers. Find it, market it and then deliver it. (more…)
