I have learned what I’m about to teach you so many times the absolute hardest way possible. I’ve proven to myself that it doesn’t work the other way.

Statistics have shown me, proven it to me, and yet nothing… NOTHING… is a better lesson than a painful one.

You can have 4 or 5 projects to do, but some are highest priority.

Let’s say you juggle all of them for a month, doing a little and making a little progress – or getting some of them done but not with great quality. You’re just checking the box off on posting social media, for instance. You don’t really know what you’re doing or how to use your insights or call to action.

Then none of the things you’ll do in a month change your revenue.

If you’re in charge of revenue that’s a problem.

How to Prioritize by Numbers

If you instead have a project that once created is going to earn you $997 every time you selling and you’re going to sell 10 of them a week… it becomes obvious you should spend 100% of your time on getting that finished, right?

If you don’t know how to create an offer that is irresistible for your customers, you should spend time learning it, creating one, practicing presenting it. Because if you present an offer that is between $2500 and $7500 for a “best year” package and you sell 10 of those over Black Friday specials and New Year sales time, you can significantly add to your bottom line. Should you spend time on that?

Structure Creates Freedom

This system lets you evaluate ideas, realities, risks, and probabilities. You can do the projects yourself, delegate them, ditch them or work with your team on them. Some things you’ll want to shelf and look at again later to see if it is a good time.

Step-by-Step Prioritizing time to build your fitness business

Here’s how it works. If you imagine you’ve got five projects that could take your time today.

1. You want to create a course.
2. You want to create a new training package for one-on-one clients.
3. You want to develop a new presentation. (To apply to speak at conferences or to speak to groups of your target market) and then use it to pitch the media and local or national groups – today it doesn’t matter).
4. You have a video blog to create.
5. You have social media posts to schedule for the week.

If you created the course, you’d never get the social media posts done. If you do the social media and video blog (vlog) you never get the course, presentation or new training package done. And then you do it all over again weekly. Your time between sessions and meetings is so little you can’t do it all.

How do you decide what to do first? You write down… because if you put it on paper… and by write, I don’t mean you actually do it in pencil but I do find that works best for me. A keyboard also works.

You ask these questions:

What impact this will have on your business?

How much revenue will it bring in, by when?

How much will it cost? When will the expense occur?

What is the benefit to doing it? For instance, if you’ve got creating a video, blog or podcast on your list. It is the place where you have an opt ins, where you boost content and gain email subscribers. It provides social proof by giving your current social media channel a highlight, increasing views, letting prospects get to know you.

How much time will it take? To start, on an ongoing basis.

Whose time will it take? (there’s your cost… how much is your time worth – and that’s not zero or how much will you have to pay someone to do your podcast set up, editing, show notes - $100 per episode?)

Course Example

Let’s say you’re creating a course. You can do that in a weekend if you’re recording. The editing will take another day or more. Adding the pieces to a website or uploading to thinkific or kajabi, will take half a day, creating a product, writing the copy, will be tasks you want to consider.

Even in doing the project analysis for time, cost, benefit, risk, you will be advancing that project by asking key questions. You’ll be determining how much of the project you can and want to do and what you need to hire.

Don’t Forget Personal Relationships

While you’re doing your business on a spread sheet, don’t forget your personal relationships. This one doesn’t cost you money, but it does cost you if you want it and you don’t delegate your own time and energy to it.

I’ve been on the other end of the phone and heard, “Do you know how many employees I have? Do you know how many times my phone rings?”

Answer: I know there’s only one me. There’s only one me and you. Or there was. I’ve been multitasked. A project never done, never full attention. You know the absolute difference once you’ve been the one, right?

Life and Business Co-Exist

This podcast and the coaching & consulting I do is about creating both the life and the business you love. You want freedom as much as you want revenue, and many people honestly would trade money for freedom if they’ve created businesses that painted them into a corner.

You can build both at the same time. You’ll have to make tradeoffs but if you look up and you don’t have a relationship and want one, look at what was on that yellow legal pad of notes every day and what wasn’t.

Really No Time to Build Your Fitness Business?

Do you really have no time to build your fitness business? Or are you chasing after the things that keep you busy, make you feel productive, instead of actually finishing things that matter?

What things can you delegate to someone else and what have to be you?

Immediate impact once finished come first.

It’s the glass ball vs rubber ball analogy. Some things will never be done. But some things can’t wait until some day to be nurtured. So, when you’re evaluating cost, evaluate all costs. Relationships, money, and what fills you up most. You may decide it’s a sense of accomplishment that fills a void in you, or you may decide it’s a relationship. There’s no right or wrong answer but getting it down on paper will tell you so you can see it very clearly. Life is short. You can spend the time you have to do only the most important things.

Time to Build Your Fitness Business By the Numbers

If you, for instance create that course, then it’s done. Of course, you’ve got to market it forever, but you can’t, and you can’t earn a cent until at least the concept of it is finished. I by the way, highly recommend creating and marketing the course before you build it. The course you imagine someone needs is not necessarily the course anyone wants. You could waste time money and energy if you don’t create it with the money already earned and listening to exactly what they’re willing to pay for.

Social Media

The impact of getting that social media posting done this week? Could be big… but if it’s not bringing in revenue then you’ll do better delegating that with specific systems someone else can follow using your style guide (I’ll link to it in the show notes). Once you have the course done your social media posts can then tease exactly what your clients should know, feel and do for you.

I talk about systems in The Health and Fitness Professionals Guide to Social Media Marketing (published by Healthy Learning). As much as you might think a social media book is outdated by the time it’s written – as I told my publisher before I agreed to write it – it’s really a book about your entire marketing system. And it’s never been more needed today.

If you feel like you’re just throwing up posts to keep up or copy and you don’t have a system and strategy? Pick it up. Start connecting revenue with social activity.

Branding for fitness professionals right now can’t be an afterthought.

How is your brand fitness? Your brand health? Are you standing up and standing out compared to the thousands of trainers, fitness instructors, health coaches and yoga teachers who have flocked online since mid-March 2020?

This episode is brought to you by the Flipping 50 Specialist. Your choice for hormone balancing exercise for women in menopause.

That intro was not meant to make you panic. My guest in fact is here to share tips about how to brand yourself and stand out.

My Guest

James Patrick­­­­­ is an award-winning photographer, bestselling author, entrepreneur coach, podcast host and public speaker based in Phoenix, AZ. He is the founder of FITposium, an annual conference guiding fitness entrepreneurs to grow their careers. James has received a bevy of awards for his work as a photographer, marketer and entrepreneur. Leveraging his diverse experience, James has presented on stages cost-to-coast in the United States and has been interviewed for numerous TV, radio, magazine, newspaper and podcast features. James Patrick’s mission is to create art and opportunity for others.

Questions and topics we discussed:

Many of our listeners are recreating businesses, some are students realizing their dreams of fitness careers, personal training, gym ownership … is changing. They’re forced to market differently. Everyone is online, yes customers, but also competition – which are not only other trainers, classes, but anything taking customer’s attention.

Let’s talk about branding for fitness professionals.

From the basics… how do you define branding?

To put it in your own terms… what is your brand as a photographer?

What are components of a brand?

How do you stand out – that’s the question for a lot of trainers?

How do you stand out without changing who you are, feeling fake?

What would be the top 2 o 3 things a fitness professional wants to have to help build a brand?

What exercise do you have that can help identify a unique brand strategy?

Do you have a question we didn’t answer?

photo credit: James Patrick

What are your questions on today’s topic: branding for fitness professionals?

Leave them in the comments.

Fitnessmarketingmastery dot com/brandingyou

Connect with James:

jamespatrick.com

james@jamespatrick.com

Instagram: @jpatrickphoto

Facebook: @jamespatrickphotography

LinkedIn: jpphotography

If you can’t get fitness clients and it’s keeping you from pursuing your passion, this is for you. Whether this is post-or mid pandemic or it’s after, you’re going to have to generate sales to have customers to grow a business.

On the other end of the phone, the biochemist who wants to teach others how to cook healthy said,

“I’ve never been good at self-promotion or being pushy”

Stop right there. In two minutes of our 20-minute session this health coach wanna-be had told me more than he knew. If even 2 of these are true for you, I’ve got an episode you need to hear:

• You believe that you’re being self-promoting
• You probably are
• You believe you’re being pushy
• You probably are

It’s your belief and your own relationship with sales, salespeople, marketing and marketers that puts you in a position where you can’t get fitness clients. It may be your relationship with the title of personal trainer or health coach. Do you have a “real job” now and believe that this thing you want to do doesn’t qualify or you can’t make money doing it?

No Fitness Pro Learned How to Market and Sell from a Degree or a Certification

I’ve worked with countless fitness pros who said this was their passion but it’s not what they went to school for. They’d say, I’m passionate about this, but they were passionate about their own fitness not necessarily teaching it to others. If you’re listening to this podcast and you’re confident you’re here to inspire, educate, motivate others to a healthier lifestyle then I believe you can.

You just may need to do some work first on yourself. Deal with your own beliefs, develop the skills necessary not just to teach exercise, or cooking or meal planning, but to persuade, and market and influence someone to actually spend time, money, and energy changing… something that we all resist. Change is one of the hardest things we do. The easiest first step is deciding to change. The rest is uphill.

What is marketing?

What is fitness marketing?

Do you become someone different when you’re marketing?

Or do you become more you, an individual who helps others, adds value and transforms lives?

Questions to ask when you can’t get fitness clients:

• Do you believe that you can help people?
• Why you?
• Why now?
• What transformation do you give them?
• What problem do you solve?
• Why you and no one else?
• How do you connect with them?
• How do customers find you?
• One instance of being in a group and not getting any sales does not mean you’re not good at it.

If you never asked, you never told someone this is what you do, did you even give them an opportunity to say yes.

Here’s what we often do and don’t even realize… you’re doing personal training, health coaching, or teaching cooking classes as a side hustle. When someone in the group asks what you do you tell them you’re a biochemist, or an engineer, or a legal assistant. They don’t even know you ARE a health or fitness coach. Because you didn’t share it. To them this is just a hobby for you. Until you talk about It first, you’re not even taking it seriously. Why should they?

Or you fall back on something else to boost your confidence. You mention your spouse and what they do. You mention the country club or look for ways to put yourself in a different

Do the personal work.

• Identify why you have a negative association with money or asking for money.
• Do you have a hard time telling people you’re a health coach or trainer?
• Do you know how you transform them?
• What examples do you have?
• Do you have a story of your own? How did your own life change?
• Are you your own ideal avatar?
• Are there more of you?
• Steve had no idea that he didn’t ever ask anyone to become a client. He said he spent an hour with each of them. But he never really had a plan when he spent that time with them. He likely showed them how to cook, talked about cooking. But he didn’t talk about a specific system or method that he uses. He didn’t have a specific plan for the session he had with them to discover why the person would want his coaching or even if they were qualified as a customer.

These kinds of sessions are called breakthrough sessions. But if you don’t know what is going to happen during that session, first and second and in the middle and last, it’s not going to be a very effective session.

My Own "I Can’t Get Fitness Clients" Mistakes

I’ve made this mistake before. I was so confident that I was a good listener and that I could help anyone by answering questions that I just let them run the session. I didn’t structure it. That meant that some of those appointments turned into clients and a lot of them did not.

It was random. For the most part, the people that became clients already had their minds made up they wanted to start before we met. The consult was just a waste of time.

When I gave structure to that consultation it became far more than a waste of time.

• I added a step before it ever happened so that I had qualified people on the call.

I wanted to know they were serious about continuing, they had to do something before they got there.

They had to go through a 10-day challenge participating every day, or they had to be a part of an audience where they were in a 10,000 coaching program or where they were being sold one.

They also fill out a 5-question form before they get on the call. The questions I ask make sure that they know this call is about deciding which package is the best next step.

• I knew exactly what I was going to say during those first two minutes
• I knew how I was going to plant seeds and specifically say words throughout the call
• I knew what I was going to say in the last few minutes

That’s called a breakthrough call and it’s something I teach my marketing fitness today coaching mastermind.

In order to do that:

You have to have a system, process, or method that is uniquely yours.

You have to know exactly who you want to help.

You have to have confidence in the transformation you provide.

You have to know that this is something your ideal customer wants and is looking for.

There’s no celebrity to this. You’re not a Kardashian promoting a watch-me, look-at-me channel. You have to legitimately have something that you believe will help people and improve the quality of their lives. They need to be looking for answers.

If you can’t get fitness clients right now:

• Look at your process of getting them. Are you even asking?
• In a logical, sequential way?
• Have you qualified the people you’re asking?
• Have you looked at your own relationship with selling and marketing?
• Are you experiencing imposter syndrome?
• Can you get rid of baggage around your old beliefs?

What if I told you the fitness marketing questions you were asking in January are the same questions you should be asking now. Surprised?

There’s a chance you might not have been asking questions, and just assuming you knew the answers back then. You might even have gotten away with it. But you won’t anymore. Now is not the time to assume, pretend, or just plow through with the same message you’ve always had.

If you’re still persuading them based on the need for fat loss and overall health, you’re missing the boat. The biggest obstacle now isn’t time. It’s actually fear for many. How are you overcoming that?

For Example

In this example, I want you to think about your ideal customer and the problem you solve for them. If you’re still working with “everybody” and you can solve every problem, this really isn’t going to help you. If you already have identified your customer, your process or method, and you know what transformation you get them this is for you.

Say you’re offering a program to start in fall.

It’s a weight loss session for your ideal customer whose been at home, been on the couch, been in the pantry, been stressed and gained that quarantine 15.

The mistake? Talking about your program.

What? Then how do they find out about it? you might be thinking.

I get it. But you don’t for instance jump on to a Facebook live or write a blog post titled, “Here’s why you should join my program.” No one is going to be motivated to tune in to that! You have to talk about the topic of your program, the problem that it solves.

You want to talk about questions your audience is already asking about that problem.

That’s the gold so that you can connect to them.

So, at the very root of a successful program is the fact you always build a program based on what your audience is telling you they want. The two big questions:

1. Are you asking?
2. Are you listening?

It’s really that simple. There’s no trying to figure it out or detective work. You ask. You listen. You build it. Then when you start talking about the problem, you understand it. When you start talking about the fact there is a solution you give them quick wins. When you tell them there is a more permanent easy solution, you reveal you have a program that would be perfect.

Start with Better Fitness Marketing Questions

The question isn’t, what’s your special going to be next month. If your marketing planning has been to list the discount you’re doing every month through the end of the year, it’s time to launch fitness marketing 2.0.

Have you surveyed lately? Why not let them tell you? Ask the simple question, what do you want right now? What do you need? How has your fitness changed since COVID began? If you could wave a magic wand what would you like to change about your fitness in 2 months?

Instead, what’s often so true of fitness professionals is the temptation to jump in to why your program is perfect and it’s the perfect time to lose the quarantine 15. Then you tell them everything they get, how many sessions, how many weeks, how much nutrition information, how many handouts. And you tell them the price.

Just features.

How to Find Better Fitness Customers

What you need is to have someone searching for answers find you. Or have a blog or video you create or the live you did feel like you read their mind! And here’s how you can do that. That is a warm lead.

Use a tool called Answerthepublic.com

You have a limited number of free searches daily. (based on IP address) So don’t mess around. Play with words first and then enter them. Narrow things down. By now if you’re listening to this podcast you know that weight loss is way too broad a topic. Ask as if you were the target market you want to attract. A weight loss program for a 60-year old woman is going to be different than for a post-natal mama or a 20 something bride, right? So, ask … how to lose weight before my wedding… how to lose weight after 60.

You type in terms and the search site basically spits out all the questions people are searching for about that topic.

The terms you type in might be wedding planning or after 60 instead of weight loss. Just an idea.

If you’re going to attract people who’ve gained weight to use our original example, you have to meet them where they are now. What do they think right now? What are they searching for online?

Better Fitness Marketing Questions

So, again you might think weight loss, but that is such a big topic, as you can imagine. COVID weight or quarantine 15 might be other terms to play with.

You’ll come up with a list of questions that you can use to tease a live Facebook session, a webinar, or a blog or podcast even before you release it. You may find others start adding questions too. Essentially, they’re telling you what they want and will be more likely to buy if you address them.

Say you identify 6 steps for losing weight in COVID. Whether you do a live video, or you blog.

Give them quick wins and answers to one or two of those things IN DEPTH, don’t hold back. For respect of their time you keep it to an hour or a short post and let them know that. Then let them know that the other 5 parts are equally important and you go into them in your program.

We can’t stand incomplete loops or missing pieces when it’s something we really care about. So that’s the time to link to your program. Need more support? You might like this.

How Many Questions Do You Need?

You can come up with 8-10 questions you’ll answer in a webinar or blog. If I’m launching a program I will use relative questions as prompts for short podcasts leading up to the program. And in every episode I insert the program as the sponsor of that episode. I’m growing my list no matter when someone hears it because if the program isn’t open, there’s a notification list so they’ll be first to know when it is open.

Resources:

Flipping 50 Fitness Specialist