I talk a lot about how most Fit Pros (and everyone else for that matter), would benefit tremendously from better money management.
When my wife and I turned our financial lives around, we did it on less income than we were making before. In fact, our income was at an all time high when we were at our lowest point in terms of debt.
Most people have a tendency to increase their spending as their personal income goes up. They say things to themselves like, “I’m making more money now so I should probably drive a better car.” That’s what we were doing without even realizing it.
With all of this said, there comes a time when you need to focus on increasing revenue. All else being equal, a business that does 500K in revenue can have much more profit than a gym that does 100K.
There are lots of ways to increase revenue. Here are some.
*Please note that some of these strategize are principle based while others are specific.
**Please also note that these strategies may not work for everyone. They are just ideas to get you wheels turning. Some you may want to apply immediately, some in the future, and perhaps some never.
Ultimately you have to do what’s ideal for you and your business, mission, and values.
Building relationships – This is principle based for sure. The more you can invest in relationships, the better you’ll do. People do business with people they know, like, and trust. Your relationships are a bank account. Too many withdrawals will result in the relationship being sucked dry. Invest in your clients, prospective clients, vendors, and your team.
Train more people – Duh! This might seem obvious but your income will be correlated with how many people you can help. Too many trainers/coaches are chasing different things while the low hanging fruit is to simply do what they already do on a larger scale.
Add a higher level service – You’d be surprised what people are willing to invest for a little more personal attention and accountability. Set up an exclusive nutrition accountability program for example and charge what makes sense.
Charge more – When was the last time you raised your rates? Are you continuing to add more and more value to your clients and business? Are you continually learning and implementing better ways to hold them accountable, provide a better experience, and ultimately help them get better results. If so, charge accordingly. My lawyer has no problem charging me $435 per hour!
Add streams of income – I’m a big believer that this should be done at the right time. I tried to add an online revenue stream when my brick and mortar wasn’t dialed in yet. It didn’t help. I didn’t have the focus or the bandwidth to do anything significant with it. Get really good at what you do best and then add services and products.
Create and sell a product – What have you accomplished that you can now help others do the same? You have special gifts and talents and have a unique perspective on things. The experience you’ve had (good and bad) can ultimately be used to help more people. I’d even argue that it would be unfair to keep it to your-self. If you don’t have an audience, perhaps you can partner with someone who does and create a win-win-win. You, your partner, and the customer can all benefit.
Train groups – When I used to do one-on-one training, I was able to make a respectable income. With that said, I was limited by the hours I had in a day. When one client cancelled or even went on vacation my personal income was significantly impacted. Depending on your ideal business, perhaps you can add semi-private, small group, or even large group. If you already train groups, adding some private training could be an additional revenue stream.
Sell supplements – I was reluctant to this idea for a while. I’m such a believer in hard work and eating natural foods. I was also turned off by so many fraudulent claims in the supplement industry. Then I realized that people are buying supplements anyway, most of them are deficient in certain nutrients, and there are some supplements mostly everyone should be taken. Adding supplements to our offering has proven to be very useful.
Deliver more value – Most trainers and coaches spend their time thinking about what they can do to be better. A better mindset would be to spend time thinking how to make the people you serve better.
Open another location – While this certainly isn’t for everyone, I’m thankful that we’ve been able to make multiple locations work. You would only consider this after you have one successful location with solid systems in place. An alternative to opening another facility would be to sub-lease another spot. For example, you might provide an early morning boot camp at a local park or gymnastics facility.
Hire another trainer/coach – When I started my business, like most I was a one man show. I quickly saw that I was the bottle neck of my company. Going back about 18 years, I had a training studio in my apartment.
I had a prospective client request a schedule I felt I couldn’t accommodate because. It was at the crack of dawn and I was still into hanging out late. The client actually suggested I hire another trainer to implement my training program. So that’s what I did. I made my first fire. I believe I charged $60 per session, paid the trainer $40, and literally made $20 while I slept.
While I made many mistakes both in hiring and developing trainers/coaches, I now know the power of the team.
It might be all on you at first. However, if you want to grow and/or achieve a big vision, you need a team who is sold out on the vision. It becomes more about accomplishing work with and through other people.
Keep score – My last point is to make sure you are keeping a pulse on your numbers. Whole gross revenue may feed your ego, it’s the net that feeds your family. Keep your costs in check and maintain a slow and steady approach. If you don’t know your numbers, it will be almost impossible to manage growth.
Which one of these, if any are you feeling like you should consider?
Stay Focused,
Billy
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