Here is the second part of the interview about with Fit Body Boot Camp Founder Bedros Keuilian.

You can check the 1st part of the interview and the audio of the full interview here.

Fernando: Very well! And for people out there that are looking into starting a business, starting a fitness business for that matter, what kind of support does the franchise, FBBC franchise owner gets from FBBC?

Bedros: Well, this task was a really big point and we made sure that we completely deconstructed every franchise out there that had royally screwed up and every franchise model that had been successful. And what we found was the ones that screwed up were the ones that typically ended up importing upon themselves and it was because one, the growth curve was way too fast compared to the level of support and service that they offered. And number two, the ones that failed, typically had no support and service at all. It was essentially survival of the fittest. So you can buy in to our brand and you can essentially start your personal training or boot camp business and good luck it was survival of the fittest and we did not feel that was a successful model. And so, we started completely backwards and said, “Well look, what we’re going to do is offer support from the get go. Instead of a do it yourself model where her go do this postcard mailing, here go do your search engine optimization display, here go pick up a website that way, go do the Google Places, go do your YouTube videos.” We said it’s not going to be do it yourself, we’re going to make it done for you. And the model of done for you does it where we generate the traffic online, we create the website for the personal trainers who are running these boot camps, we do the marketing support, we orchestrate Groupon events, we setup and optimize and do search engine optimization for YouTube videos and for websites in 20 keywords that are searched for, we setup their Google Places and essentially anytime any of our owners has a challenge or a question which inevitably when you’re in business you’re going to have a challenge or a question, we have the support line and of course you are the lead fitness business coach in Fit Body Boot Camp and so the buck stops with you. They reach out to you and when they do you give them direction and if you can’t give them the direction they need, it will simply escalate upwards to myself and we give them direction that they need. And as long as people reach out to the support system and utilize the strategies that we have and majority of them are done for you instead of do it yourself, they get to focus on what to do best which is delivering exceptional results and service to their clients and stimulating referrals and we’ll do their lead generation as it relates to whether it’s a group thing or online traffic or even pay per click management.

Fernando: Perfect! Yeah. I’m really glad that we’re able to help all these people because it’s very fulfilling and very satisfying to be taking those coaching calls every day with your help when they need to. So, aside from all these things that you just said, would you recommend Fit Body Boot Camp to push all trainers specifically not just any person who’re trying to, looking for a new business to start but personal trainers specifically because we know that personal trainers have been doing the one on one training and that’s one of the reasons why you think boot camp is so great that they can really maximize and deliver the same amount or even greater results to their clients but in a group setting, right? So what are your thoughts on that?

Bedros: Yeah. Well, that’s a good point. Look, I used to have five personal training facilities and every single one of them were one on one personal training. I did not have enough common sense to realize the power of leverage where I could have gone from one on one to one on many. And so, I thought I was cutting edge because I wasn’t doing one on one 60 minute sessions , I was doing one on one 30 minutes sessions and at that time I was cutting edge. And unbeknownst to me the most successful trainers were running small groups and big groups of personal training now called boot camps. And so, if the trainer’s really into doing that one on one training because they want to give that specific attention to that client and they want to address a very specific ailment and challenges that their bodies have then that’s totally awesome. The Fit Body Boot Camp is not right for them. In fact, any boot camp model would not be right for them. But if you really want to help the masses and your goal is to obviously grow a business where it can function without you being in there, you actually can take vacations, you have the right to get sick and kind of be bedridden for a couple of days at a time or you just get burnt-out and you want to sit at home for a while and make money, then a business that allows leverage like a boot camp is really the way to go. And so, what I recommended to trainers absolutely especially if their goal is to work with the masses and deliver fitness and fat loss results. But if it’s about working with Mrs. Jones who’s had a herniated disc and needs a very specific attention, odds are you stay focused on one-on-one training.

Fernando: Very Well. Thank you. Last question, where do you see Fit Body Boot Camp in 5 and in 10 years? What is the ultimate vision for the company?

Bedros: You know it’s funny. It’s hard for me to even picture it 5 or 10 years away because we’re so focused on the day to day things that we’re doing, we’re creating that iPhone app now that’s going to generate leads and obviously connect with more people. We’ve got a couple of Kindle books on Amazon now that are again sort of a lead generator for Fit Body Boot Camp locations. We’re creating the Fit Body Boot Camp Unstoppable Fitness Formula information product that again serves as a lead generator for your local Fit Body Boot Camp locations. And, we’re always in the trenches working and if you ask me even a year ago would I imagine that we’d have 200 locations by now and I would have said no. If you asked me to pick a guess where it would be next year, I would say “Gosh, I don’t know, we have 10 more locations.” We’re then blessed to have now 200 locations or so of Fit Body Boot Camp facilities and if I would guess where the next 5 years goes, I would just say let’s go back to our mission statement and our mission statement is something that we don’t have because we have a "vision" statement. And our vision truly is to affect 20% of the world’s population with health and fitness and wellness. And for that to happen, we need to deliver our service and we need to disseminate our message not only at local Fit Body Boot Camp facilities but we’ll want these owners to donate time to local schools. We’ll want to obviously use our Fit Body Boot Camp app, our iPhone app to then connect with Mrs. Jones or Mr. Jones because if even one Fit Body Boot Camp can influence a client who then goes home and makes a better dinner and breakfast for their family and gosh it might have affected 3, 4, 5 other people. And so really what I see is I’m not concerned on how many locations we’re going to have and I’m not concerned on the number of dollars that Fit Body Boot Camp would generate, that will all be a by-product of us meeting our mission which is by the year 2020 to have influenced or impacted 20% of the world population in some way towards health and fitness. And in 5 years time that will put, just a couple of years away from our goal, I’d like to see that we’re able to use 80% there.

Fernando: Perfect say Bedros! Thank you so much for taking the time, I know you have a very, very busy schedule and you have a call in 5 minutes and I really appreciate it.

Bedros: My pleasure, thanks for talking.

 

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Posted in Personal Training Business by Steve Hochman | 2 Comments