The ONLY way for your fitness business to succeed — long term…
[ADVANCED] Creating The Ultimate Advantage Over Your Competition
Its important to get cash in the bank now. To get leads now. To fill up your timeslots now.
I get that.
However, you also need to look to the future. To plan forward.
To have foresight.
The ultimate sign of a business that last decades — is long-term planning.
Now, I understand, you can’t plan all the specifics so far in the future…
But the ONE THING you can plan for — and I advise you to — is your Competitive Advantage.
Because at the end of the day, other fitness businesses are offering metabolic workouts.
The others are offering nutrition plans.
They’re also giving mindset coaching (or soon will).
They can also run 6-week challenges.
They can also guarantee results.
They can copy your landing pages and Facebook ads.
But what’s the ONE thing they won’t be able to copy?
That’s what I’m revealing here.
There are many different ‘advantages’ you can base your business on.
Most fitness pros however, are instructed to choose the WRONG advantage.
By ‘wrong’ I mean they choose UNSUSTAINABLE advantages.
They choose tactics or strategies that work well in the short term (i.e. they bring fast cash and bodies through the door).
But they fail in the long term.
You want a sustainable strategy.
So, what are the options?
Well, most professionals pick the most obvious — the Price Advantage.
They try to be cheaper than everyone else.
I hope you realize that’s a car crash waiting to happen. A race to the bottom.
A price advantage LOOKS like it works short term. People come through the door, money in your hand.
But what are the long-term COSTS?
– Prospects who aren’t committed to long-term change — so they don’t ascend to back-end memberships.
– You spend a long time on phone calls chasing these prospects who never stick to their word.
– You’re forced to haggle and feel bad for having respectable prices.
– If you DO turn them into clients, they drop off after 3–4 months.
(Yes, the biggest cause of low retention for fitness pros is their PRICING… not their service… think on that one for a minute!)
So Price Advantage isn’t sustainable.
Next is Brand Advantage.
They “BRAND” everywhere.
Make 100 pieces of content a day.
Dominate the search engines.
Like a desperate Gary Vee wannabe on ‘roids.
Great… but it leaves you very exposed.
Because all it takes is a company with more funds and time than you, and they’ll pay more for billboard space, pay a bigger SEO agency,
And they’ll brand harder than you.
With ease.
So that’s effective…but not sustainable. Its something you can DO… but not something to depend on.
The next advantage fitness pros try to get (because they’re often taught to by well-meaning — but ultimately clueless ‘marketing pros’) is the…
==> “Cheap Lead” Advantage!
“Use FB Ads to get cheap leads! I’ll get you leads for under £2!” The Facebook ‘experts’ claim.
(the ‘experts’ who were working in McDonalds a month ago but they stumbled on a $47 course from Udemy on how to be an Ads Agency Owner Overnight. Yeah, I said it.)
Getting cheap leads on FB CAN be cool. But overall… if you depend on it as your “golden ticket to riches” you’re gonna crash and burn.
Here are a couple reasons why:
❌ No leads on FB will stay cheap.
The platform is increasing its average ad costs month upon month.
❌ Cheap leads cost you more time.
Its EASY to get a random person to give you a phone number with a FB ad.
But every tried calling that person? Not as easy to get them to pick up the phone.
(Reminds me of my single days getting girls’ phone numbers only to realize they were fake the next day 😓)
❌ Dependency on ONE lead source can be fatal
What if you’re ads account is shut down?
That’s your entire lead flow … your ‘golden ticket’ ripped to shreds. In seconds. You’re done. How are you going to keep flooding your gym with new clients now?
So again, recognize these advantages but do not DEPEND on them.
Now… here’s what you came for …
The REAL Sustainable Advantage.
The way to bullet-proof your business is to create an ECONOMIC ADVANTAGE
By setting the game up in your favour.
Here’s how you do this:
By building the strongest BACK END systems.
Notice how all the short-term dangerous advantages are based on the Front End? They’re about getting leads or making sales is in easier, cheaper, faster ways?
But the front end is like the tip of the iceberg, exposed…
What you don’t see is the other 95% lurking under the water.
That’s the back end of your business, and where EVERY successful business owner builds for the real advantage.
Here’s how to create an economic advantage:
1. Instead of chasing the lowest cost per lead and cost per sale… ask how could you pay the MOST for a lead or a client… and STILL profit?
Most people’s marketing is an attempt to pay less and less for a lead, or to acquire a sale. And thats great, you should aim to pay less.
But you should also be prepared to pay more and still be able to win.
==> Because the business that can afford to spend the most to buy a client will always win the market. [Dan Kennedy Wisdom-Bomb] 🔥
Set yourself up so you can afford to spend MORE than your competitors to gain that client.
That’s the secret to how I’ve grown gyms successfully:
I plan how to spend the most money to get the client,
And how I can wait the longest TIME…
You do this by:
1. Attracting quality prospects to PAY you for trials and short-term challenge offers.
This covers the cost of them being there, so you’re not waiting at a loss until they decide to join long term.
2. Build in INSTANT upsell and referral systems.
Don’t wait 21-days to sell the client more things.
Have convenient and useful services and products ready for them to buy RIGHT NOW.
If they’ve just joined your 6-week challenge, or 14-day kickstart program, what ESLE can you be offering them?
❓Meal plans?
❓Meal prep?
❓Supplements (even if its via an Amazon Affiliate link?)
❓Access to your Semi-private sessions?
❓A gift card to bring a friend (sell a £25 Gift Card for only £15
Then, how do you generate referrals? How can you turn one lead into TWO?
– Bring a friend to SPLIT the price of the FEO?
– Invite a friend for the first WEEK of the FEO on the house (and they only pay the full amount if they want to continue)
– Make it a condition of the program that they have to check-in on FB and share their progress?
You need to have systems dialled in for this. Stop leaving Upsells and Referrals up to chance. Because its your CORE revenue source.
Then, your ASCENSION systems.
We’re not interested in the £99 someone pays for a 4-week intro program.
And we TELL the client that.
We say we’re far more interested in creating a long-term relationship with them. Getting them long lasting results and keeping them as part of our fitness family.
And we’re VERY open and upfront about the fact that we’d love for them to enrol into our Back-end 6/12 month programs before the end of their FEO experience.
We don’t hold back.
– We make them a OneTime Early Bird Commitment offer to upgrade on the first day of the FEO.
– We invite them for a progress review / check in consult halfway through the FEO — and make another offer to ascend.
– And we give them the “Graduate offer” a special rate for joining long term thats only available to people that have completed (or are about to complete) the FEO.
And this offer must be taken before the final date of the FEO, or at maximum 10 days later. Or that offer is gone forever.
– Oh, and we KEEP following up for 3–6+ months AFTER they finish the FEO if they’ve not yet converted.
We don’t give up, because that prospect is holding our long-term revenue in her pocket.
=======
Most trainers are TOO excited about the £59 quid they get upfront, and are NOT LOOKING at the potential £1000 they could make from that client over the next 12 months — IF they dial in the upsell, referral and ascension systems to create their Economic Advantage.
Remember how you create an Economic Advantage in your area:
👉 Set up your business so that you can afford to spend the MOST to get the client… not the least.
The more I know I’m going to make when the cleint steps through the door…. the more I can pump into advertsiing and outspend my competitors.
And ironically… this achieves all the other advantages for me too.
✅ We have a stronger brand (women in the area see our ads on their newsfeed every single day for months upon months), because our ads NEVER STOP RUNNING.
✅ We can afford to charge LESS to the client on the FEO — we can give away more value, because we have a PLAN (a system) for recouping it on the other side of the initial transaction.
And we can outspend and outbid our competitors because they shudder at the sight of paying £20 an opt in.
Whereas we CAN pay that (we don’t pay that much for a lead…but if it gets to that we’re prepared and NOT worried).
Could you spend £20 for a lead and keep a smile on your face because your funnel is STILL profitable?
If not, then you haven’t established the Economic Advantage yet.
And you’ll keep running back to “quick fix” advantages like doing cheap deals or pumping out content that nobody gives a shit about.
Why do so few trainers do this?
First because they don’t know about it. You don’t get taught this in “marketing courses”.
Second because it requires SMART , strategic work.
Slashing prices is easy.
Making content is easy.
Doing cheap deals is easy.
But what Im suggesting here takes a lot more thought and planning.
So its best you get started on it, today
🙂
P.S.
Remember, all your competitors will see is your “Tip of The Iceberg”.
They’ll always copy that from you. They’ll model what they can see.
But they can’t see the UNDERBELLY of your iceberg — what happens AFTER the prospect comes in your door.
That’s where you win.
