How to Professionalize Your Fitness Business in Just 5 Steps

When Are You Going to Get a Real Job?

Tom Breese

That’s what my Taid (grandfather in Welsh) says to me every time I meet up with him since leaving the Police. A phrase that I know many a fitness professional can resonate with, whose parents, family, and friends have uttered similar words.

Every time Taid said it, there was a sting, a twinge in the heart. It wasn’t just the words but the undertone that came with them. The implicit suggestion is that choosing a career in fitness was somehow ‘less than,’ or not a genuine profession.

It hinted that what I was pouring my passion, energy, and time into was just a fleeting phase, a stop-gap before getting back on track with a “real” job.

To many, the realm of fitness might appear as a world of mere physical exertion, counting reps, or giving motivational pep talks. But those entrenched in the industry know it’s much more profound.

Introduction

Every day, we are trusted advisors, therapists, and sculptors of not just bodies but minds and lifestyles. We carry the weight of responsibility to drive real change in our clients’ lives.

But more than the misperception of outsiders, Taid’s words rubbed raw because they unwittingly belittled the pride I felt in my vocation. While the rest of the world saw a ‘personal trainer’, I saw myself as a beacon of change.

I’d witnessed first-hand the transformation in someone’s eyes when they shed those stubborn pounds, got out of pain, or the gratitude in their voice when they overcame physical limitations.

To dismiss fitness as merely a hobby or a temporary gig is to overlook the powerful impact we have on people’s lives. It’s not just about getting in shape; it’s about instilling confidence, discipline, and a zest for life. It’s about the bonds formed, the mental barriers shattered, and the lifestyles redefined.

So, every time Taid’s words echoed in my ears, I held onto my truth. The fitness industry isn’t just a job; it’s a calling. And while not everyone might understand its depth and significance, those who’ve felt its transformative touch know its undeniable worth.

However, after being entrenched in the industry for so long, I know we are the masters of our own downfall.

We aren’t considered professionals because many in our field don’t act and think like professionals. Let me explain.

You Need to Professionalize Your Fitness Business

In the early days of my business, en route to a cricket match, I and my friend Mike found ourselves engrossed in a deep conversation that would fundamentally alter my business view. We were in the car, the rhythmic hum of the engine blending with the sprawling countryside outside.

Mike, a former professional cricketer and chief executive of a behemoth multi-million dollar pharmaceutical company, was a treasure trove of wisdom, and our chats always had a way of leaving an imprint.

Navigating the winding roads, I painted a picture of my fitness business’s aspirations. The untapped potential, the myriad pathways it could venture down, and my overarching vision for its future.

The horizon seemed vast, radiant with promise. But as my narrative unfolded, a restraint in Mike’s demeanor hinted at an unsaid nugget of advice, a kernel of truth he was holding back.

Drawing a slow breath, Mike broke his silence, his voice steady, carrying a weight of understanding.

“You need to professionalize your whole business,” he declared.

I stayed quiet, awaiting elaboration. Sensing my quest for clarity, he continued, “That’s your problem. Until you professionalize your operation, its potential is limited. The amount of money you make and your ability to have a positive impact on the world will be constrained.”

His words, succinct yet profound, hit home. They were the precise direction I hadn’t realized I was seeking. Amid the backdrop of green fields and cricket bats awaiting our arrival, Mike gifted me an insight that would become the North Star for my fitness business journey.

I’d never heard the term “professionalize your business” before, but it rang true. My business revolved too much around me, and nobody (including me) knew exactly what they were supposed to do to make it grow.

I had a vision, for sure, but I’d not built the reliable, predictable systems that would allow me to execute that vision. What Mike saw, and what I now know, is that even though I was doing okay as a business, I was heading straight into the white-water rapids that haunt most fitness businesses.

Navigating the White-Water Rapids of Fitness Business

Every ambitious fitness business faces the inevitable challenge of white-water rapids. Just like in a wild river ride, there are calm stretches where everything is smooth and predictable.

The waters are serene, the boat glides, and there’s a sense of peaceful control. This is where a fitness business quietly putters along, witnessing slow growth. Your services get noticed, and there’s a positive buzz around them. Everything seems idyllic.

Suddenly, the water’s pace picks up. The business finds itself in the midst of roaring rapids, representing surging demand. This could be seen as a thrilling phase, where everything is selling like hotcakes. Clients are delighted, word of mouth spreads, and it feels as if the business has hit the jackpot.

However, as anyone who has ever been in a raft during turbulent waters can tell you, navigating the rapids is perilous. Here, fitness businesses might overstretch – hiring too quickly, overspending on equipment, misdirecting funds towards ineffective marketing, or mismanaging customer relations.

The turbulent waters throw the business off balance. Clients start to notice you dropping the ball, inconsistencies in service quality, and a dilution in your brand message.

To stay afloat, prices might be dropped temporarily, increasing overhead while revenues dwindle. Perhaps a credit line is drawn upon, sleepless nights ensue, and personal lives get impacted. The raft, which was once cutting through serene waters with grace, is now at the mercy of a tumultuous river.

Many businesses don’t make it out of these rapids intact. They capsize, and despite having an amazing product and service, they find themselves sunk, grappling with debt and a tarnished reputation. Such an end seems inconceivable, especially when the journey began so promisingly.

Mike’s insights that day in the car echoed loudly as I reflected on my fitness business. My strength was in creating engaging fitness content and innovative programs, but I had been buried under administrative challenges for months.

The memory of our conversation was a lifejacket, a reminder not to let my business become another cautionary tale of the rapids. His emphasis on professionalizing operations was not mere criticism; it was a lifeline, pointing out the need to gear up, strategize, and skilfully paddle through the tumultuous waters of business growth.

How Can You Professionalize Your Fitness Business So That It Succeeds?

After that car journey with Mike, I began an earnest search for strategies to truly professionalize my fitness business. I scoured through countless resources, from books to seminars, seeking the right roadmap.

The fitness industry was rife with content about exercises, nutrition, and techniques. There were ample lessons on motivation, leadership, and client relationships. However, when it came to establishing a fitness business as a professional entity, there seemed to be a conspicuous void.

Certainly, there were numerous guides about marketing a fitness business, but where was the comprehensive manual on professionalizing a fitness venture, on navigating the white water rapids of scaling and growth?

It seemed strange. After all, our industry is built on precision. From counting reps to calibrating diets, we thrive on detail. So, why was there no detailed blueprint for creating a professional fitness business?

It wasn’t about lacking ambition or expertise in our field. As fitness professionals, we often hold a wealth of knowledge about the human body and mind. We understand discipline, determination, and the journey of transformation.

Yet, when it comes to business, many of us find ourselves lost in the tumultuous waters, unsure of how to remain afloat, let alone steer the ship with authority.

It’s no wonder that Mike’s words resonated so deeply. His counsel was not just about “professionalizing” in a superficial sense. It was a call to elevate our businesses to a level where we could amplify our impact, helping more people realize their health and fitness goals, and transform their lives.

By instilling systems, structures, and strategies, it wasn’t just about our personal success or even just about the business’s profitability. It was about scaling our reach, ensuring that every client who walked through our doors (or clicked on our website) received the best of us, the epitome of what the fitness industry could offer.

In doing so, we wouldn’t just be fitness trainers or gym owners; we would be change-makers in our community. Helping more people didn’t merely mean more clients or more revenue; it meant more stories of transformation, more lives positively impacted, and a larger legacy in the world of fitness.

Reflecting on this, I can’t help but think of my Taid.

I remember when he tried to use an iPhone once. After several failed attempts to make a simple call, he handed it back to me, jokingly admitting, “Maybe you’re the professional here.”

It was at that moment that I recognized a parallel. Just as my Taid struggled with the nuances of modern technology, I needed to master the complexities of professionalizing my business.

Perhaps, if I could navigate my business through the rapids of the industry, with the same skill and finesse I used to navigate a smartphone, my Taid would finally see me not just as his grandson dabbling in fitness, but as a true professional, steering a ship with purpose and vision.

The Road Map: How to Professionalize Your Fitness Business

Perhaps “professionalizing your business” is something you need to do too. Developing a series of systems and processes that allow your fitness business to run like a machine might be the step forward you’ve been looking for.

The five areas we addressed to professionalize our fitness business were:

1. Core Message: This is essentially the heart of your brand. Understanding who you’re targeting is paramount. By narrowing down your client avatar, you can tailor your services, marketing, and communications to resonate with that specific group. This doesn’t mean you exclude others, but it does mean you have a clear vision of who benefits most from your offerings.
2. Business Infrastructure: This involves the backbone of your operations. For a fitness business:
   • Digital Infrastructure: A user-friendly website for new clients to find you, and training software to manage your clients.
   • Physical Infrastructure: Depending on your model, this could mean a well-equipped gym space, studios, or even a mobile setup for personal trainers traveling to clients.
   • Operational Tools: CRM systems, marketing software, customer service, scheduling software, and other tools to streamline your processes.
3. Sales Framework: While the fitness industry is about health and transformation, it’s still essential to have a structured sales process.
   • How We Enrol Clients: Leveraging personalized sessions to understand potential client’s needs and align with our offerings.
   • Pricing and Packaging: Ensuring transparent and value-driven pricing structures
   • Client Onboarding: Implementing a process where new clients are systematically onboarded, ensuring they feel valued and understood from the onset.
4. Marketing Framework (ATC Strategy): An integral part of growth for a fitness business. The ATC (Attract – Trust – Convert) framework is as follows:
   • Attract: Using lead magnets to draw potential clients in, akin to bees to a honeypot. These can be specifically designed solutions or resources that address particular problems or concerns.
   • Trust: Building credibility and fostering relationships through content such as blogs, videos, podcasts, and active social media engagement. This step is all about showcasing expertise and establishing reliability in the fitness domain.
   • Convert: Encouraging potential clients to take action. This can be through time investment, such as signing up for free classes or workshops, or through financial commitment, like enrolling in paid programs or purchasing fitness products.
5. Financial Health: Cash flow is the lifeblood of every business, especially in the fitness industry.
   • Cash Flow Management: Ensuring consistent inflow and wise spending.
   • Overhead Control: Being mindful of fixed and variable costs.
   • Investment: Whether it’s in new equipment, expanding services, or continuous learning, knowing when and where to reinvest.

These pillars provide a robust structure for any fitness business looking to professionalize and grow. By ensuring each of these areas is optimized and interconnected, your business will not only thrive but also be resilient to the challenges that come its way.

These five areas solved most of the problems that haunted my business. When we fixed them, our business began to run like a predictable, reliable, well-oiled machine.

These days I spend most of my time creating content, meeting with clients, and playing cricket. I have about five meetings each week with various members of my team. In those meetings we share necessary information and make plans that cause the business to grow.

This is a different life than the one I was living before we implemented these five playbooks in the business. Before professionalizing Strength Matters, I felt tired and trapped in my business. I didn’t have the flexibility and freedom that I now have to travel the world or play cricket whenever, wherever I want to.

Of course, the transformation did not come easily. It was hard. We spent thousands of dollars on outside consultants and countless hours trying solutions that didn’t work. But, in the end, it was these five steps that led to both peace of mind and growth.

Charting a Course: A Blueprint for Your Fitness Business Success

Every fitness business, whether it targets seasoned athletes or everyday athletes wanting to be healthier, thrives when it operates like a well-tuned machine — one that effectively attracts, engages, serves, and retains its clientele.

This guide is not only designed to transform your business, it’s designed to transform you into a person who knows how to build a successful fitness business that works. Once you know how to build a business, you can duplicate the process in as many businesses as you like.

Whether you’re a personal trainer, small studio owner, yoga instructor, chiropractor, gym owner, or anything else, every step you install from this playbook will make a positive difference in your bottom line, and in the results of your clients.

If you do not take the five steps that build a professional business, you will continue to struggle with the six reasons most fitness businesses fail. Those reasons are:

1. A failure to identify and prioritize economic objectives.
2. A failure to market your services with a clear message
3. A failure to sell in such a way that makes your client the hero of the process.
4. Delivering services that aren’t in demand or profitable
5. Bloated overhead because of inefficient management and productivity
6. A mismanagement of cash and cash flow

None of these problems necessarily spell doom. With the structured approach mapped out in this guide, you’ll have the tools to circumnavigate these issues adeptly.

Consider this guide your manual for professionalizing your operation. These five steps can be installed in the order presented in this guide, or in the order that will address your most pressing problems.

If you want, you can install each of these steps in six months, or you may decide to take a year or longer. With each step you address, you will see results in your bottom line.

Most people find that step one alone—rewriting your core message will help you find the focus you need to grow revenue and improve your morale. Step Two will cause even more growth, and so on.

You do not need to implement all five frameworks for your business to grow, but the more you implement, the stronger your business will become and the less you will feel tired and trapped inside the machine you built.

With that, let’s look at a visual metaphor that will help you make sense of the five steps and help you understand how a fitness business really works.

Now, to paint a picture: let’s go back to imagining your business as a raft navigating the white water rapids of New Zealand. Each of the five steps are the crucial paddles that steer, stabilize, and propel you forward, ensuring you don’t just survive but thrive in the exhilarating waters of the fitness industry.

Steer Your Fitness Business Through the Rapids or Get Swept Away

Navigating the fitness business terrain is much like steering through the tumultuous waters of white water rafting. Both endeavors demand precision, foresight, agility, and a robust understanding of the core components for success.

Let’s explore these five areas of professionalizing a fitness business in comparison to the five stages of white water rafting:

1. The Briefing (Core Message):
   • Rafting: Before embarking on a white-water journey, there’s always a briefing. The guide makes sure everyone understands the route, the potential challenges, and the ultimate goals.
   • Fitness Business: Your Core Message is that briefing. It outlines the path, the targets, and the vision. By narrowing down your ideal client, you’re prepping your team to recognize and cater to the primary clientele, ensuring everyone is on the same page about the journey ahead.
2. The Equipment Check (Business Infrastructure):
   • Rafting: Ensuring that the raft, paddles, and safety gear are in top condition is crucial. The gear must match the challenges of the route chosen.
   • Fitness Business: The infrastructure of your business is that equipment. Be it the digital platforms to reach out to clients, the physical spaces to train them, or the operational tools to manage the backend, every piece plays a role in ensuring the venture smoothly navigates the market’s currents.
3. Entering the Rapids (Sales Framework):
   • Rafting: As the raft approaches the rapids, strategies are applied. Decisions on which path to take, which waves to tackle head-on, and which to avoid are made in split seconds.
   • Fitness Business: This is your Sales Framework. Engaging potential clients, presenting them with tailored packages, and bringing them on board requires agility, foresight, and precision.
4. Navigating the Rapids (Marketing Framework – ATC Strategy):
   • Rafting: It’s not just about braving the rapids; it’s about doing so with style, flair, and technique. The way the rafting guide commands the team, gets everyone to paddle in sync, and uses the currents to their advantage determines how exhilarating the experience is.
   • Fitness Business: Your Marketing Framework is this manoeuvring. The process of attracting potential clients, building their trust, and then converting them is a dance, just like navigating the rafting course.
5. Safeguarding the Journey (Financial Health):
   • Rafting: An essential part of rafting is ensuring that there’s a backup plan, that safety measures are in place, and that the journey can be sustained without running out of provisions or energy.
   • Fitness Business: Financial Health is that safeguard. Ensuring a consistent flow of funds, being wary of overheads, and wisely reinvesting in the business is like making sure the rafting journey doesn’t end prematurely or in unexpected calamities.

Much like the thrilling adventure of white water rafting, guiding a fitness business to success requires a balance of preparation, strategy, and agility to adapt to challenges as they arise. By understanding and implementing these five areas, your fitness business is set not just to navigate but to thrive amidst the competitive currents.

The Rapids Provide a Decision-Making Compass That Guides Your Path

The vivid analogy of navigating through white water rapids became an insightful compass for making decisions that have steered my business forward. When we thought about expanding our team, I would reflect on how the new member would fit into our rafting journey.

Would their inclusion help in maneuvering through a challenging stretch (akin to opening up new avenues or revenue streams)? Would they bolster our momentum (akin to boosting sales)? Or would they perhaps weigh down the raft, making it harder to navigate and increasing the chances of capsizing?

Using the rapids as our guide, each decision became clearer, like choosing the right paddle stroke at a crucial bend. The essence of scaling a fitness business is all about choosing the right routes, making swift decisions when faced with surging currents, and knowing how to regain your path after being thrown off course.

This rafting analogy gave me clarity on where the potential pitfalls lay and which critical strategies needed sharpening to ensure a thrilling yet safe journey through the business waters.

Don’t Overload the Boat, Or Your Fitness Business Will Capsize

In the early stages of your fitness business, it’s just you on a serene stream with a single paddle. The waters are calm, and the path ahead is clear. This paddle symbolizes your initial marketing strategies, like referrals or word-of-mouth.

However, as the waters become more turbulent with growth, you need to adjust. Envisioning hiring your first admin assistant, is like adding another strong paddle to your raft.

While there’s a cost to this new paddle, it helps you navigate more efficiently and tackle the increasing rapids. The balance of your raft is maintained because, while you’ve added weight, you’ve also increased propulsion. Kudos! Your rafting team is expanding.

With the current getting stronger and challenges becoming frequent, you decide to store supplies, equivalent to setting aside six months of overhead for unforeseen contingencies.

Feeling secure, you then notice an opportunity: getting your own studio. Renting your own studio is akin to installing a rudder, giving your raft more direction and control. With you, your assistant, and a studio, your raft becomes a powerful trio, perfectly synced to make the best of the river’s challenges.

Recognizing more areas to grow, you might hire another coach, another dynamic paddle, propelling your raft forward with every sale. Their work ensures the raft’s balance isn’t thrown off: they add power when they bring success.

In this journey, you continue to equip your raft, adjusting for every challenge the river throws at you. The key is maintaining proportionality.

If you add too much weight without the right propulsion, you risk tipping. Likewise, having too many paddles with no balance can lead to spinning in circles.

Many rafting expeditions, akin to businesses, don’t prepare adequately. They either overload their rafts prematurely or don’t adapt quickly enough to the changing currents, leading to missed opportunities or, worse, capsizing.

Most businesses don’t falter because the market rejects their products or services, but because they lack a clear vision for navigating growth. Without the rafting journey in mind, they’re still on a river, but ill-equipped to harness its power.

Mishandling the rafting adventure can lead to getting stuck in a whirlpool or even toppling over. To ascertain why some fitness businesses sink, one can often trace back to certain missteps.

Fitness businesses often fail due to misaligned team objectives, unclear marketing messages, suboptimal sales strategies, non-profitable products and services, excessive overheads, or running out of essential resources.

This is why by visualizing your fitness business journey as a whitewater rafting adventure, understanding every rapid, every calm patch, and every turn, you can ensure not just survival but success. Navigate wisely, maintain proportion, and your business raft will conquer even the wildest rivers.

Beware of Looking Successful, Without Being Successful

In the world of fitness businesses, looks can be deceiving. Especially when it comes to start-ups that receive funding from external sources such as banks or family members. The thrilling experience of Whitewater rafting can draw parallels to this.

Imagine a novice rafter being handed the best raft and all the best equipment right from the start. They see their raft, inflated to its fullest, and mistake their readiness for the impending rapids.

This can be likened to a start-up fitness business owner seeing a bank account flush with loan money, leading to a false sense of security. Overconfidence kicks in, and they might spend impulsively.

Perhaps they hire an expensive branding firm that gives them an eye-catching design for their fitness business but does nothing for their actual customer attraction and retention.

They buy high-end workout gear with their flashy logo, which makes for great selfies but doesn’t enhance the workout experience for their clientele. And let’s not forget the state-of-the-art facility in a posh area, complete with lavish amenities more suited for leisure than a professional training environment.

Such choices equate to a white-water rafter who’s well-equipped but has no real knowledge of the river’s twists, turns, and rapids. All the gear, no idea. They have a shiny raft but lack the experience to use it wisely.

A real rafter knows that it’s not just about the raft’s appearance, but how it manoeuvres when met with challenges. Similarly, a wise business leader in the fitness realm understands that while appearances matter, they are secondary to substance and service.

For those who bootstrap their fitness business, starting small and learning the rapids of the industry might feel tough, but it’s often a blessing in disguise. They learn the rhythm of the river (market), understanding when to paddle hard and when to let the current do the work.

Having external funding like a loan can be a fantastic boost, akin to having a state-of-the-art raft. However, without the knowledge of how to navigate the treacherous waters of the fitness industry, it can lead to disastrous results, much like an ill-prepared rafter facing a tumultuous rapid.

Thus, while a smooth sail might look promising, it’s the skill and strategy behind the paddle that truly defines success in the fitness world.

Final Thoughts

In navigating the intricate waters of business, understanding the Whitewater rafting analogy provides invaluable insight. Just as a skilled rafter must adapt to ever-changing waters, so too must a business leader be adept at managing the ebbs and flows of their enterprise.

However, understanding these rapids is just the beginning. To truly master the art of business, especially in the fitness realm, one must dive deeper, adopting a systematic approach to growth and sustainability.

Reflecting on my journey, the profound transformation of Strength Matters from a mere concept to a thriving entity is nothing short of a testament to the power of professionalizing one’s business.

Before we anchored our operations in those five pillars, my daily life was a whirlwind of uncertainty and fatigue. Despite being engulfed in the world of fitness, my business stamina was waning.

It’s almost poetic how by prioritizing our Core Message, streamlining our Business Infrastructure, building a results-driven Sales Framework, mastering the ATC Marketing Strategy, and ensuring impeccable Financial Health, Strength Matters emerged stronger, fitter, and more agile.

Today, the rhythm of my professional life is harmoniously synced with my passions. No longer am I tethered to perpetual troubleshooting. Instead, I immerse myself in creating content, forging client relationships, and of course, indulging in cricket.

The satisfaction I feel isn’t just from the financial success or the freedom to pursue my passions. It’s in knowing that by professionalizing Strength Matters, we’ve created a blueprint for others in the industry.

A framework that paves the way for growth, resilience, and ultimately, the recognition that a career in fitness isn’t a mere ‘stop-gap’ but a legitimate, rewarding profession.

So, for those naysayers who question the validity of this industry, I smile, leaning into the success we’ve carved out.

The Black Belt Business System

In the following chapters of How to Grow Your Fitness Business, I’m going to introduce to you the Strength Matters Black Belt Business System.

Drawing inspiration from the discipline of martial arts, this White Belt to Black Belt system serves as a structured guide, helping fitness business leaders swiftly identify and address the current needs of their enterprise.

Just as a martial artist progresses through belts, showcasing increasing levels of expertise, your fitness business too can evolve, step by step, especially when you integrate the 5 essential steps to professionalize it.

At its core, this model is about pinpointing where you currently are on the revenue ladder. A White Belt signifies those still in the early stages, with revenues under $2,500 a month, while a Black Belt marks a pinnacle, representing businesses generating over $50k a month.

Each “belt” or stage on this ladder comes with unique challenges and needs, intrinsically tied to revenue. By recognizing your current belt, you can tailor your strategies, resources, and focus to precisely what your business requires at that moment.

Now, having understood the unchartered waters of your fitness business with our rafting metaphor, and equipped with the knowledge of needing to professionalize your fitness business, let’s embark on your Strength Matters Black Belt journey.

We’ll explain the Black Belt Business Ladder, dive into each belt’s intricacies, and outline a roadmap for ascending this revenue ladder, ensuring your business thrives, you have more flexibility and freedom, and you can achieve the lifestyle you envision.

Taid Today…

Fast forward to today, Taid, bless his heart, hasn’t changed much. Just last week, after I’d spoken at a major fitness conference in Germany, he asked me again “So, when are you going to get a real job?”

Now, I just smile. Some things never change, and maybe, deep down, I wouldn’t want them to. It reminds me of why I started, the passion I feel for this industry, and the journey I’m on.

Besides, every jest from Taid is a gentle nudge, pushing me further towards proving that fitness isn’t just a job; it’s a lifestyle, a mission, and yes, very much a “real job.”

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