Choosing The Right Business Coach - Pat Rigsby

I think that's the way with all significant decisions. And there's plenty of data to substantiate this. There's plenty of information out there that'll tell you that people that are going to make a purchase from the moment that they indicate an interest in that, the average time between that and the actual purchase for like 80% of them is over like 90 days. Yeah, we're trying to get everybody to decide like 90 seconds.

What's up, fitness friends? Welcome back to the Future of Fitness podcast and interview series. This is your host, Eric Melson. And we're on episode number 145. Pat Rigsby is back. I love talking to Pat. Great guy, huge insights, very well experienced. And uh, you know, we got into a really interesting topic. Um, you know, how to find a coach, how to find a business coach. I I've always had a mentor, at least for the last 15 years of my life. Um, always had a business coach, always had a mentor. I'm always looking for people who I believe can get me to the next level in the direction I want to go in. You know, within the fitness industry, Pat was uh got in early as far as a business coach uh within the fitness and health industry. He's obviously built a great name for himself. If you haven't yet, go to his uh his website at patrixby.com and sign up for his email newsletter because it's amazing. It's really good. Um but nowadays there's a lot of business coaches out there, right? There's a lot of uh there's a lot of noise in the market. There's a lot of people who are preying on uh people's struggles within the fitness industry, and we we dive into that and hit it head on. You know, what are these people doing? Why are they doing it? And uh, I think we named some names possibly as well. So we're not scared to do that. But how do you choose a business coach, right? Do you have to be a great athlete to be a great coach? Do you have to be a great business person to be a great coach? That's a great conversation. How do you choose one? How do you sort through the BS and uh and what does it all mean? And how can you find people to help you get to the next level? And we talk about all that, and it's super important, especially if you put as uh high a value on mentorship as I do. So really enjoy the episode. Uh before we do that, I want to thank uh Edgest. Edgest. Uh I just noticed uh I was going through some stuff that uh whoever this person is left a really nice review on Stitcher, and I want to say thank you by reading it. It says, uh, essential listening for Fit Pros. I absolutely love this show. Eric is extremely likable, and the guests, my thank you, and the guests are always full of incredibly value information like Pat. Topics are wide-ranging, so it's not always your typical fitness content. It will open your mind to much greater possibilities. Thank you so much for going and leaving that review. If you haven't yet, please go to whatever whatever you listen to to these podcasts, right? iTunes, Stitcher, um, Spotify, uh, I use Castbox and uh leave a nice review. Subscribe to the channel, go to YouTube as well, subscribe there. Uh, we really appreciate it. It goes a long way. And uh we are slowly yet steadily building our audience here, and it's awesome. And I love hearing from everybody as well. So uh feel free to reach out to me. Um today's podcast is brought to you by ElitGymInsiders.com. If you are within the fitness industry, if you are a gym owner or if you're looking to just get connected with people, go to EliteGym Insiders.com. Uh, fill out the application. I will uh personally look over the applications and let you into the group. We have about 400 fitness professionals in the Slack community. It's Slack, you have to get used to that if you're not uh used to it, but it's well worth your time. Um we're about to uh roll out our August partner, and I'll give you a hint. It's a digital marketing agency who is extremely good. And uh, we're gonna have a special offer for people, uh the first 10 people who take us up. And all you have to do is go and join the free community, and you'll start getting uh deals like that. We're gonna roll out one every month, and uh it's gonna be awesome stuff you really need, like business coaching, right? Um nonprofit organizations, uh educational products, anything that is relevant to the fitness industry that you'll benefit from that we've already vetted. So great insights. Go to elitechiminsiders.com, get connected with other people, ask questions, um, get discounts. It's just a no-brainer, right? So go once again, elitechiminsiders.com. Without further ado, let's get on to a great episode with Pat Rigsby, episode number 145. Enjoy the show. Thanks for tuning in. And we're live. The man Pat Rigsby is back. Welcome, Pat.

Hey, I'm excited to be here, man. Uh yes, night, nice that we get to get back together after the other podcast episode going to vintage status, I guess.

Yeah, yeah. I was just so for listeners, I was uh I was just researching it, like, what was the episode number that I did with Pat? And I looked back and it didn't have an episode number. So it was before I started numbering my episodes, which probably when I was in the mindset of like, I don't know how long I'm gonna do this, but 145 episodes later, uh, here we are with Pat again. So um you can check it out. It is, I think it's called uh the episode name was Coach Cell Create. Okay. And uh it was great. But uh a lot of water under the bridge since then, man. What uh what are you up to nowadays?

You know, it's uh it's summer around here, so it's that uh wonderful blend of you know hanging out with the family and some and some fun stuff going on professionally. But it's uh I I think it's a it's it's a great little window of time where I get to feel very, very pleased with kind of shackle me to it every hour of the day.

Yeah. What is your what is your average day look like? Oh gosh.

Um you know, an average day such a thing. You know, there's probably three days a week, it probably looks like you know, get up somewhere probably around six, maybe slightly before six, just kind of organically. Um I will get up and kind of do a little bit of writing stuff, do a quick workout. Um and then usually like during the school year, it'll be time to help some people get get things moving for school. Uh during the summer, I will shift into um answering emails and responding to some stuff. I'm not one of those folks that says, hey, I'm only gonna check email for this period of time, or I would never check it in the morning. I'm pretty good about not just reacting to things. I can take a glance at email and um just kind of be aware of what I have in front of me rather than uh feeling like I have to play hot potato with it in response. So um, you know, I do most of my strategic type of work, work on the business type stuff before 11. And then from about 11 till three, it's usually the interactive stuff. So coaching calls, um, talking to prospective clients, doing interviews. Um and then somewhere between three and four, I kind of shift out of work mode, take a take an intermission for a few hours, and then maybe somewhere later in the evening, if uh everybody's into a movie or something else and it's not particularly engaging to me, I may put my phone for a little bit, but it no matter what, at the end of the day, I'll uh plan the next day. I'll take three minutes of inventory of today and plan tomorrow. Um, that's probably three days a week, the days that maybe there are no clients in town, no mastermind meetings, no travel, anything. Uh so that's probably the norm. And it's a it's a nice rhythm for me because about the time that I'm, you know, I may be losing a little bit of steam in the middle of the day, I start to do the interactive stuff and that energizes me. And I, you know, I get a lot of enjoyment out of spending some time with other people. I'm definitely not an internet marketer that is averse to interaction.

Yeah, no, definitely not. I mean, you're out there. Um you're always you're always putting stuff out. Yeah, it's interesting. I I think there's commonalities between people who um you know who are successful within the entrepreneurial space. It's always always a morning routine, right? The heavy thought-laden work tends to start in the morning, right? Um and then everything, you know, as it gets more and more tactical, it sends tends to move later in the day. Um I I tend to find that um sometimes on days that I I have a hard stop, like let's say I gotta be doubt of here, you know, ready by to go by 1 a.m. or 1 p.m., right? Something like that. The amount of work I can get done in a four to five hour window is incredible. You know, I wonder like, well, why don't I just structure all my days like this? Why don't I just give myself a hard stop? You know, one, and then I gotta get all this stuff done. And then the interesting thing too from that is that um I found a great value as well as the um just taking a few minutes to plan the next day the night before.

Yeah. I I I lucked out with that. I I was exposed to that very early in my adult life. I went to a Franklin Quest seminar before it was even Franklin Quote Covey, um, and kind of learned that habit in 1994. And it's been really part of my my life ever since. And man, every once in a while, you know, I've I've found myself drifting a little bit. Uh, and it's always been because I was not being diligent with the planning stuff, because it's the difference between you proactively deciding how you're gonna use your time and your resources, or you kind of just reacting to what comes your way, and and that one little five-minute kind of session, uh it it probably adds 50% value to my upcoming day.

Yeah. That's crazy, right? It's just the return on investment is huge. I mean, last night I because when you're maybe towards the end of the day, your head's spinning, you got a lot of things in your mind, but you're you're just mentally fatigued, right? So if you just write down the things that you know you didn't get done or maybe you want to get to the next day, next morning you just have so much clarity and you're able to get get right to it. When uh when people ask you what you do, and here's here's why I'm gonna ask this question, give you some context, is I travel up to Canada quite often, right? And uh when you go across the border, they ask your passport and they ask you, you know, what what do you what are you doing here and all that good stuff, right? Um always makes me nervous. I'm never doing anything wrong, but I always get nervous, right? I've always they always make me feel like I'm doing something. But anyway, so I uh they ask, you know, what do you do? I'm like, well, I uh I uh uh podcast host, a consultant, um, you know, a marketer. And and the more you stumble, the more they're like, all right, we got more questions for you guys, right? So now I just like I just consultant. I'm a consultant, right? And it's clear when people ask you what you do, what do you what do you say? I I tell them consultant.

Okay um because that's something they they may not even know what a consultant does, but they've at least heard that before. Yes. So it's something they can kind of wrap their head around. Whereas if if I were to say, like what I do, I feel like is more coaching than consulting. Um I think if I say business coach, that's not something that they've heard as often. So they don't, you know, uh they they may try to dig a little bit deeper with that. I I mean, for years I couldn't even explain to my parents what I do, right? Uh when I founded a franchise, that was something they could at least wrap their head around because they knew what franchises were, and then I screwed that up and sold all that, right? So, hey, the one thing you guys get that I do, I'm done with.

I'm not doing it anymore.

Yeah.

So uh consultant would be what I would tell somebody who I didn't really want to dive deep into the conversation. Yeah. Um and then for somebody that I'm happy to get some depth in the conversation, I'd probably tell them coach.

Yeah. And what is what is uh so let's let's go into that, man. And when when did you start business coaching? How long ago do you think that was?

Um it was uh the end of 2005, beginning of 2006.

Okay. So 13, 14 years, right? And yeah. And was it specific to the fitness industry?

It was, it was. I um had had two fitness facilities at that point, and they had both done pretty pretty well um in markets that probably wouldn't traditionally be fitness hotbeds, small towns, one was a town of 23,000, the other one was a town of about 50,000. Um, and both of them did really, really well. And um, so I had a few people regionally ask, well, what are you doing? Can you teach me to do that? And so did a little bit of that stuff, but it was almost um running exactly parallel. I had been exposed to some of the online or internet marketing type of stuff like Ryan Lee was doing, Eric Ruth was doing within the industry. Um so I collaborated with Eric Ruth, and basically Eric served as like the publisher, and we used my intellectual property, and I launched my my first course called the Personal Training Money Machine. Um, we we created it in 2005. We didn't launch it until 2006. So that launch um gave me a little bit more of a platform to take on a few more clients, and then throughout 2006, there were you know another product and then my first kind of membership program.

Awesome. And you, I mean, we talked about recording. I mean, the when I first started in the fitness industry 10, 11 years ago, um it was hard to find a business coach, you know, one specific to the industry. I mean, you can find a business coach for a lot of different industries. Uh it's changed, right? I mean, there's there's a lot. I mean, there's a lot of high-end coaching, there's a lot of mastermind groups, there's a lot of um, you know, digital marketing groups. Um, you name it. I mean, there's a lot of people who I know who are only a couple years into the industry, but they're running a group, right? So yeah, go for it.

It's been a lot like the the industry it itself, right? The fitness industry, when um I was just getting into it, a personal trainer was far less common, especially outside of uh um really affluent markets, because almost everything was one-on-one. Um and if you go back just a little bit before that, I mean, they were really not common at all. Um so, you know, once fitness became well, fitness coaching, personal training became a little bit more mainstream. So about the time group training, boot camps, all that stuff started to really hit the scene with a lot of popularity, um, the number of business owners dramatically increased. And um, you know, so there was that explosion. And then so I think once Facebook advertising became a real thing, like it became a primary driver of a business. Um, you know, business coaches kind of followed suit, uh with almost that same exact kind of explosion. It was like, hey, there's just a few, and then next thing you know, there are um, man, it seemed like there are as many coaches as there are business owners. Um and it's it's a lot like the personal training industry in that there's some really good ones, and there are not so I mean, some that are not so good. There are some that have really done their homework and have a lot of personal experience, and then some that figured out how to run a Facebook ad into a sales call, and they call that coaching. So um, yeah, it's it it, I mean, I think that probably would be the case with any industry or profession that isn't regulated in any um really specific way. I mean, there there are lots of pros to it. I'll I'll be the first to admit I was um a beneficiary of the fact that you can kind of jump up the up the ladder pretty quickly in the industry. I mean, I was writing in you know the industry trade publications and speaking at the industry events and just you know a couple of years after starting a business, whereas if I would have gone into a more established profession, it might have taken me decades. Yeah. So, you know, there's some pluses with that, but then there's also um not a real traditional career path or a real traditional way to vet quality between people. Um, so you're you're kind of on your own to choose a trainer and on your own to choose a business coach.

Yeah. Do you think to use a sports analogy? Because I know you love sports. Um do you think you have to be a great athlete to be a great coach when it comes to business coaching? Do you have to have run a great business?

Well, I I would hope not because I I was a pretty successful college baseball coach. I was a pretty mediocre player. Um But you know, I I I think that you probably have to have um some track record of success. You don't have to have like this unbelievable track record of success. I mean, I've consulted with nine-figure companies, and I've never run a nine-figure company. Um but you know, I think you you have to have a way to have aggregated a lot of knowledge and information. Um I so can you help a business without uh having run a business of that magnitude? Sure. Can you do it without having uh a solid amount of practical experience and uh exposure to to knowledge and education and varied situations? Um probably not.

Yeah. Yeah. It's it's an is someone asked me that recently. It was um somebody who works at a one of the largest franchises out there, and uh it it made me think too. I mean, I um you know, the coach, one of my best coaches in sports was mediocre at best at at water polo, right? But he was one of the best coaches in the country. And uh he always he always mentioned that too. And um how would you, if you're a fitness professional, you're looking for a business coach?

Because I mean, I I've always said something before you jump jump ahead on that. Like but how many years, whether or not he was a great player, how many years did he play?

He played, I think he played through through college. So he probably played at least eight years, you know, seven years. Yeah.

So so plenty of experience. Yes. Um, and in many cases, because he didn't necessarily have uh you know an unbelievable level of talent, he may have had to deal with a lot of situations that somebody who was more talented at those younger levels didn't. Um you know, so the so I was a college baseball coach. The first coach in that program um was a borderline Major League Baseball Hall of Fame candidate. Like there are plenty of people still to this day arguing that he should be in the Hall of Fame. And he was a multiple-time All-Star, you name it. Um, my winning percentage was way higher than his. I mean, significantly. And I I mean, and I wasn't one one hundredth of the player he was. But, you know, I mean, I still think you have to have some experience because it's hard to have empathy and um and really be able to relate to people and serve them well if you haven't had experience. So that that's maybe the difference, right? Like, does somebody have to have run a 10, you know, a $10 million year company to help a $10 million year company? Maybe not, but they probably can't have had like six months of business experience and be a lot of help to that company.

Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Well, I think there's so many things why you go to a business coach, right? I mean, you go for experience, you go for a network, you go for um, you know, maybe a specific knowledge set that that person has. I mean, I look back, you know, using the coaching analogy again, is uh I had great coaches at at my gym. Um, and there was ones that were great athletes that I just assumed, well, I'll make them a coach because they're great athletes, right? As a CrossFitter. And, you know, you'd see them get up in front of, you know, a class and say, okay, today we're gonna work on muscle ups. And they just go and they grab the rings and they just, well, you kind of do like a this, right? And next thing you know, they're up on top of the rings. And people were shaking their heads like, what, but someone who had struggled, right, had done all the little work on the progressions, degressions, you know, things like that to get to that point and finally get their muscle up after like two years, they can coach it spot on and they can tell that story of like, listen, I remember when I was at your state, I remember that was a struggle, it was hard, right? But if you keep at it and you keep doing these things and I'm telling you to do, you'll see success. And I think that's you know, a huge part of it too, is you know, not only the experience, but I think a great coach has to have struggled at some point, right?

Yeah, I think the people that something came to very easily don't have a lot of patience or understanding of what the average person deals with. And you know, in the coaching world, we're typically dealing with somebody that may have an average level of performance, and that's why they're coming to get help. Yeah. Um, so so yeah, I I think there's a lot to be said for meeting somebody where they are instead of expecting them to make this kind of quantum leap to to where the extremely talented person is.

Yeah. And perspective too. I think you know, one of the biggest things that you see is for for entrepreneurs is you get so stuck in the weeds. You don't see the behaviors that are keeping you stuck. And you just need someone to take it from a different point of view to recognize those things. Because I I do it all the time. I'm like, oh, you know, why am I stuck in this specific area? Because I'm doing the same thing over and over and over again, but I just don't see it. And that's uh, I think that's a high value thing, is how ultimately what I've seen, all the great coaches I've had, they have empathy, right? They have some sort of empathy in in varying forms. My high school coach, he's a real jerk at times. Um sorry, Larry, love you, man. Um but uh the other thing is is they ask great questions. And that's that's really key too. If you if you're a fitness professional, you know, maybe that's set you back 10, 15 years. If you're how how would you how would you qualify a business coach? You know, if you're gonna get on a call, what type of questions would you ask somebody?

Um I would probably ask more about uh, you know, I would ask them questions that would be a little bit off the beaten path resume-wise. Like, you know, just you know, a hey, how did you get to where you are? A very open-ended question rather than, well, what qualifies you for this? And give me three, you know, give me three testimonials or case studies I can go ask. Well, am I really gonna give you bad ones? Um, heck, there are even people in our industry now that have like non-disparagement clauses in their contracts when they sign like business coaches. So nobody can go say anything other than glowing stuff about them.

So people you can do that?

I I mean, I I guess I don't know how enforceable it is, but I mean they probably have deep enough pockets to scare the clients, right? Um, but you know, I mean, I'd ask, okay, how did you get to where you were? What what kind of things do you think you learned along the way? I mean, I would want to know kind of what their journey has been like to know if they have the perspective that I'm gonna be able to connect with. Um, because one of the things that I've I found as a consumer of coaching is, you know, there are plenty of people that have knowledge that would be of use to me that they currently possess. But, you know, how do they communicate? How can you connect with them? Um, and so I would just probably spend a lot of time asking open-ended stuff to just get a feel for whether or not I was going to enjoy working with somebody because there are plenty of people that I've met in person that I've enjoyed learning from them through a book more than I've enjoyed personal interaction.

Yeah. Yeah, I can think of a few of those as well. Do you have a coach? Do you have a mentor? Are you working with anybody?

Uh man, right now I uh yeah, I'm doing some stuff in uh a coaching group with Michael Hyatt. Uh I've done some more recent masterminding with uh Dean Jackson, and then I'm in a group currently a small group with Kevin Nation. So there are three that I'm probably a little more focused on right now. Um I mean, I'm always trying to do something. Uh I I haven't done any big live events as of late. I tend to do better in like as a consumer in one-on-one or small kind of workshop settings than I do going to, you know, the the traffic and conversion type events or something.

Yeah. Yeah, I think that's a big thing too. And I when I look for um, you know, mentors along the way, I'm always interested to see who mentored them and who they work with as well. And I think a big question ask uh a lot of business coaches or whoever you choose to work with is what is, you know, what is that person's definition of success? Because you can ask, I I've never run uh a nine-figure business, right? Um, but I don't think that's success to me. You know, if anyways, I feel successful because I'm living a lifestyle that I want to live. And, you know, I know that's a big part of your messaging too, is you know, build the business that serves your lifestyle, right? Because that's ultimately that, you know, I find that if that's my value system, if if I if hey, you know, if I ask a business coach, be like, well, what's what's your measure of success? Um, you know, $10 million. I'd be like, well, that would be great. I'm sure it would give me a certain level of freedom, or it may not, it may completely ruin my life, my relationships, right? It's very possible, if not probable, that that would happen. I think that's a big point of it too, is does a coach or a mentor um share a value system with you?

Yeah, so so some of this too, like when you think about where a coach connects with their prospective client and how that journey goes, um, you know, some of those questions are already answered, but some of them like so what I see a lot of with people doing on Facebook, whether it's a fitness coach connecting with a prospective client or a business coach connecting with a prospective client, um, so many of the ads are just geared towards, okay, are you desperate right now? Um, if so, let's move forward. And there's not really any vetting process. It's just kind of almost late night infomercial kind of preying on desperation. Um, whereas I think that the better fit usually comes from a little bit more of a lengthy courtship, if you will, right? Uh I mean, for me, I I don't really want to run ads directly to try to get a client to cold traffic because I'd rather them get on my newsletter list. And so by the time we get on a conversation, like on a phone conversation, they feel like they have a pretty good feel for who I am, what I do, what I'm about. Um, and if they're completely unfamiliar with any of that, then I've probably failed in the lead up. So, you know, I and I think fitness businesses would be a little bit better served to take that route too, instead of just trying to catch this person at this moment of desperation and perfect timing. Hey, we're starting this challenge on Monday. Are you in or are you out? And, you know, just following up with them so they can see how your community is a little bit different. They can see um the way that you're maybe more attentive to clients than the gyms down the street. And I think that a lot of people see that kind of follow-up with a prospect as, hey, we're gonna chase them down until they buy, rather than, no, we're gonna position ourselves so that by the time we actually speak, they're pre-sold.

Yeah. And there's I think there's a very there's a lot of similarities. I think there's a ton between, you know, being a fitness professional and being a business coach. You could probably name 10 in the next 30 seconds if you wanted to. But you know, one thing I think in the part of the journey of the fitness professional too is at first they take any client. Right. Any client, right? Doesn't matter. You want you're within a 10 mile radius, I'll take you. Um, let's start now. Here's here's how I work. Uh eventually you start to learn that your business thrives when you're taking in the right clients. In many forms, like if it's a free call or you know, a free introduction session as a you know, whether you're a coach or a fitness professional, uh over time you start to realize like, I'm actually qualifying this person to be a client.

Yeah.

Who who I'd want to work with. And can I help them? That's the other thing, is more people are thinking, like, can I truly help this person? Do I understand their problems? And then you can move from there.

I mean, this coming to this industry from being a college baseball coach was arguably like the best blessing I could have had professionally, because it would have never dawned on me as a college baseball coach to try to get um, you know, somebody to sign a scholarship like within the first 30 seconds I met them. Right. It was, okay, we're going to get this pool of people identified as qualified prospects, people that might be able to be a part of our program. We're going to send them something to get them to kind of raise their hand and say, hey, I'm reciprocating this interest. We're going to follow up and talk, send them, you know, send them direct mail pieces, email, whatever, and try to get them to campus. And then at campus, like once they're at campus, it's kind of like that consultation or free session or whatever else. And at that point, you get to decide, well, hey, do we want to make an offer to this person? And is this a fit? And so there was that kind of process that you just didn't really think about circumventing. And so I just I guess intuitively just adopted the same process when I came to the fitness industry. And you know, I I think a lot of people in the fitness industry tend to want buyers to buy on their timeline. And sometimes it's just because they need money, right? So they need people to act now. Sure. And they try to ask somebody to to marry them before they've gone on a first date almost. Um and so, you know, I I feel pretty fortunate that that just never really dawned on me as an option because of what I'd been exposed to previously.

Yeah. Yeah. It's such a and the the uh dating marriage analogy is the best. You want to run us through that one. Why is that it's it's a good one. I love it.

So so when we think about the way that relationships work, uh, business relationships should probably work just like any other relationship. And so when I'm trying to think about like what do I want to do professionally, what do I want to do online? I start with like how would this go if I'm just building a relationship offline? And so if you were going to, you know, let's say you were seeking a significant other. That was an ultimate goal. We wanted that. Well, there's kind of a process, right? Like you're going to meet somebody somewhere. You're gonna probably need to be in an environment where those types of people are. Whether we're talking about, hey, I want to meet somebody at the gym or I want somebody with common interests, whatever else. I'm gonna put myself in this spot where there are people. Well, I mean, that's kind of marketing 101, right? And then you're going to start a conversation, and it's all gonna be really probably small talk in the beginning. It's gonna be really, really awkward if you try to jump ahead. And before you ask somebody what their name or phone number is, like you're asking them, you know, uh about hey, tell me about your family history because I want to make sure that we're gonna be able to have kids and are your parents divorced and yeah, do you know genetic issues? Like, yeah, it I mean, we don't jump into that up front, but then there's this, okay, I'm gonna connect with you and I'm going to ask permission to continue the conversation. Yeah, i.e., hey, can I have your phone number? Hey, would you like to get coffee sometime? Whatever. And we're gonna get permission to take that next step. And it's a logical step that we've been conditioned to kind of accept throughout the year. So if you met somebody in three minutes in the conversation, you said, Hey, you know what? Would you like to go to vacation on vacation for a couple weeks in California? Um, we're leaving tomorrow. I mean, that's that's probably jumping the gun. And most people would say you're a little creepy, right? So we follow this process, and then through every successive date, the there's more of a an understanding whether or not, hey, is this person a fit for me? Am I a fit for this person? Do we share values? Do we share interests? And ultimately you get to decide, hey, do we want to make this relationship a more significant, more committed one for the long term? Well, that's the way that marketing probably short. That's the way people are conditioned to make significant decisions. But we basically want to ask people up front, like, you know what? Hey, we're we're gonna have a wedding on Monday. Would you like to be a participant? You know, I mean, maybe we're getting ahead of ourselves a little bit. So, and and I think that's the way with all significant decisions, and there's plenty of data to substantiate this. There's plenty of information out there that'll tell you that people that are going to make a purchase from the moment that they indicate an interest in that, the average time between that and the actual purchase for like 80% of them is over like 90 days. Yet we're trying to get everybody to decide like 90 seconds. And that's not, frankly, as a as a seller of services, I probably don't want the person who's deciding in 90 seconds because it's probably a desperation kind of impulse thing that they're more likely to have buyer's remorse about. Yeah. I want the person who's made a really informed decision and said, look, of all the options available, that's the one for me. I want to be that guy.

Yeah. Yeah. And also oftentimes with that point of desperation comes um unmanageable expectations, right? Like, hey, I need to turn this around in 30 days. Like, who like if someone comes to me in that situation, I usually I'm like, well, I'm not going to charge you anything, but let's let's get on a few calls and see if we can help. Right. Because that's just but that being said, which is a nice pivot into a different topic, slightly different topic, is there's a lot of people who will leverage those points now of desp, you know, being desperate into very high-ticket items, $10,000, $15,000. And people will leverage everything to get it. And that's that's something I think, I don't know. I mean, I'm sure it's been around forever, but it seems like it's more in the forefront now of the industry.

So the way that our industry operates now, it's very visible. It's out there like, hey, we'll add X number of people to your gym in X number of days. I mean, there's never a week that goes by that I don't get a couple LinkedIn invitations from people who that's their title. Um, and then there's constant Facebook ads kind of pummeling you with that sort of thing. And they're trying to find this person in a moment of desperation that feels like, hey, I need this, or else I'm gonna close the doors, or else I'm not gonna be able to pay the bills, or else my wife's gonna leave me because I'm working 90 hours a week and I'm not making any money or whatever. And the the way that it's being presented now and the way it's being delivered now is different. But man, even when I got into the fitness industry, there are a lot of these, they called themselves marketing companies, and they would come post up in health clubs and they would put a sales rep or more than one in the club, then market, and they basically would keep part of the the EFT they brought in. It might be 30%, it might be 50%. And so they basically, you were providing the service or the amenities, and they were gonna come in and hammer the market with low-priced offers. They were going to hard close everybody, and they they would come in and probably sell a decent amount, but they would have left a lot of scorched earth behind them. And more often than not, those gyms would end out closing sometime in the near enough foreseeable future because A, they never really learned anything that could be sustainable that they could go do on their own. B, the market now had been just chewed up and spit out. There was nothing left. Like they had a bad, like either somebody joined or they hated this gym. Yeah. And then, you know, the third side of it is it was just a band-aid, right? Like it was just a temporary fix that we got cash flow up a little bit, but we didn't really solve the underlying problem. And so it's been around. Um, but it was kind of like when the independent health club side of things really started to get overtaken by the franchise health clubs, that type of business model really kind of uh started to disappear, but it's been replaced in the personal training side with this, which is probably way better for the person providing it because they don't have to go post somebody up in somebody's gym or whatever else. They can do it all virtually and charge you know $10,000 or $15,000 to um, you know, kind of get you to act as your own uh hardcore sales guy. But it just, I mean, I can't tell you how many gyms come to me after the fact and they're on life support, or I'll talk to them and I'll say, well, wait, wait a minute. On you're this testimonial on this person's site, and it said that you added 110 members in 90 days. So why does it say on this inquiry forum that you have 65 members?

Yeah.

They're like, Yeah, they all left. And in fact, some of my other members left because they didn't like the new culture. Yeah. Yeah, we we get a lot of that, and it's like, man, if you can't do something that's sustainable, understandable. that there's probably some unsaid downside that's coming with the upside.

Yeah. I I remember uh, you know, my first the first time I ran a challenge in my gym, uh, that format. And I think it was 2014. Yeah. Right when it was kind of coming into the market. And I wasn't no, in no way in a point of desperation. I was just like, well, this sounds like a great format. Right. And it worked. Right. I mean, six-week challenge, 220 leads in like a week, uh closed 50 of them, which looking back was actually pretty bad percentage. But anyway. And then, you know, I'm like, well, this worked great, right? Got all these new people, people send up. So I did another one. And then I started getting, you know, old members. People have been there for five years, six years, pretty time be like, hey, this ain't cool. Right. Like everything you're doing right now, um, it doesn't feel the same. The community is shifting. It just seems like you're more focused on new members than you are retaining your old ones. Like, and it was thank God for those people, right? And because it's and then I I tracked the numbers. You know, uh nine months later I I had retained four percent of those people who who signed up. Four. Four percent. Now my gym traditionally ran over 95% retention rate, you know, sometimes 99%, right? For for months, months, months on end. So that was like a definitive culture shock. And I learned, right? So these things can be useful at times in the right circumstance as a tactic, but it can't be a full-on strategy.

Well so I probably take as much blame for anybody as popularizing this front-end offer concept, right? Like kind of the test drive try before you buy thing. Because I I mean I was teaching in 2006 because there were so many like health clubs out there selling three-year memberships where they wouldn't even let you try out the gym more than a day. They'd give you a day pass, but really the whole time you were there they were trying to sell you. And so you know this this idea of a front-end offer um I felt like man I mean if I was going to buy a car I'd test drive it right I mean there's there's something to be said for reducing the risk. But what I've noticed over the last few years is people kind of threw the baby out with the bathwater and and instead of seeing a front end offer as a vehicle to build a sustained membership. So the only reason you're doing it is to get a long-term member and everything about it should be to get the right person in the door and to move them towards that longer term client. And you you saw a bunch of people feeling like hey I'm just in the challenge game now or I'm in the front end offer game and I'm just you know it's just a revolving door. And and it was even before the the barrage of six week challenges I mean we saw it with the group on people a lot. It was like they were running another group on and you know it I mean it's a tool anything where you can get somebody in the door to experience what you do if what you do is really good is is a is a tool worth using. But you have to remember why you're using the tool in the first place. It's to get this person to stick around. So maybe you're better off instead of having a hundred people come in and sticking 10 maybe you're better off getting 15 people to come in and maybe you still only stick 10 but you didn't alienate all the people who are there in the first place.

Yeah yeah that's a great point and it's like uh it's like a deadlift right is a deadlift good or bad uh it depends on the context right how are you how are you programming it and for who and why right it's just it's just a tool and that's one thing people don't realize is you know um you you can't just depend on that solely you have to have all the back end things and and so many times like you mentioned earlier it's like you know when people come looking desperately for marketing it's just it's it's some it's it's a symptom of something else man usually many things right there's an issue with client experience retention staff you name all of it and it's it's it's a big indicator of what may be going wrong um within their business. Now I don't know if you've heard Pat but there's a whole new model called a hybrid model.

I think I've heard something about it. It sounds really new it ironically enough we were selling something along those lines in 2004.

Yeah um but yes uh according to popular opinion it is now new yeah that's what I'm that that's one of the most interesting things and uh I laugh about all the time about the fitness industry is every there's there's just not a whole lot of real new ideas but everyone's taking things rebranding it I guess it goes with any industry rebranding it reframing it calling it their own and then running with it like this is the next big thing. And uh yeah so don't fall for that either people if uh if you hear that out there either.

And I think it yeah I mean it had a lot of merit for us having basically a a program that blended some in-person support and coaching with distance coaching or online coaching or whatever you'd want to call it um I mean my first training business was about 10 or 15 minutes from Fort Knox. So we'd have people that came in who were you know in military families and so they'd move and we'd try to continue to support them once they left, right? And so there was a big component of those people. There were plenty of people that we saw that they wanted some direction and um and and and some support and some coaching but they couldn't afford two or three times a week of training because most of what we did was in a one-on-one model. So that was another way to make it more cost effective and for us that actually preceded group training so group training tried to solve a lot of the same problems. Hey let's make coaching more affordable we were solving it in a different way actually before we launched group training we didn't launch group training until 2007 um and you know but we were doing the well maybe the end of 2006 and then we were but we were doing the supposed hybrid stuff like in 2004 almost from day one yeah and and you know the the another part of the statement that's being thrown out there is that group training is dead it's not I mean you I mean this is the most popular group training's ever been F-45 is a 2000 franchises in a matter of four years like F-45's huge Orange Theory is huge Fitbody's growing still like crazy the camp's huge there's still plenty of CrossFits out there doing well there um you know and then you've got all the the kind of single topic specialty type things whether it's um all the the boxing type facilities or Plotties type facilities and everything's done in a group environment I mean group training not only is as popular as it's ever been it's going to keep getting more popular because I I mean it's brought accountability and coaching to the masses instead of being something that was almost entirely exclusive to to the affluent.

Yeah. And it's it's an interesting thing and I I mean people would probably argue with this statement but you know coming from a cross-it background seeing the growth of the group class happen so quickly within my world the the need for community for people you know like classical social structures are breaking down a little bit right not a lot of people go to church on Sundays right not a lot of people meet in the you know even at the pub everything's breaking down and people are becoming more connected yet more isolated at the same time and I've seen that that if you can focus on community within within a gym and in in that group class environment you can build something really special. And uh you know it's it what we're talking about too reminds me of I've asked been asked a couple times in the last month like, okay, well what's the secret sauce you know to I'm like well I hate to disappoint you but there is no secret sauce. You master the fundamentals right you take care of your staff you build your community you focus on retention you do all these things and that's it.

You know maybe you get a you know a nice marketing tactic that that flows well for you and hits well but uh I don't think there's a secret sauce I mean you've got to be willing to do what it takes to to be better than the other people in the market if you want better results, right? I mean it's not it's not complicated but um you know it takes probably a little more focus than most people are are willing to put forth because it you know it's a little easier to spend all your time kind of chasing the next tactic that'll that'll create this surge than to simply say okay how can we develop our staff a little bit better? How can we make the people that that we're serving feel a little more connected and get a little bit better results um how can we communicate with our prospects a little bit more effectively how can we give back to the community a little bit more and you know but like if you were to dissect any successful business outside of the fitness industry they they may do one particular thing really well like the way that um you know Walmart was able to do what they did for for years is like hey we're just gonna be cheap and we're gonna be in um markets outside of major metropolitan areas and that allowed them to grow like crazy but those two things wouldn't have worked if there wasn't infrastructure if there wasn't like they were still selling mostly the same stuff that everybody else was selling so the quality wasn't any worse. So you know I mean you've got to still check all the boxes uh I mean you know it's I mean no matter what if you're talking about like we we talked about sports earlier if we're talking about football you're still gonna have to be able to block and tackle no matter what kind of offensive scheme you use. If we're talking about baseball you better catch the ball and throw the ball and throw strikes and all that fun stuff and basketball if I mean if you can't play defense and you can't shoot then I'm not really concerned with what system you have you're not gonna win. Yeah and that's kind of the the same thing here you can throw kind of your own twist on things to differentiate yourself but if you do the basics better than everybody else then you're probably gonna be in really good shape.

Yeah. So uh one one final question for you. So when you look forward to the next 10 years do you see as far as like business coaching mentoring within the fitness industry do you see any significant shifts or changes or um bubbles that may break what what do you what do you think for the next 10 years?

I mean it'll be very much like um like like anything that's kind of the wild west right like certain people get weeded out and like there'll there'll be turnover because a lot of people jump into stuff because they think it's you know I mean it's easy money it's almost like too good to be true. And then they'll they'll move on and they'll pursue the next thing um or it won't have worked out the way that the high ticket program they joined thought it was like taught them that it was going to I remember meeting a guy who I thought was a really pleasant guy. He uh had no background in the fitness industry but he had joined one of those kind of almost uh like uh that I I guess a high ticket coaching school where we're just gonna teach you to go run Facebook ads and teach you to hard close and and so he decided to start running ads and trying to get trainers and he saw that I mean he wasn't gaining a lot of traction and so I saw he jumped over to like chiropractors and it kind of was so so and then I think he eventually found his way doing something with like solar businesses. And that's that's where a lot of this probably goes right like people are just gonna keep feeling around to they find a soft spot where they can make an inroad um so it'll shake itself out but there'll always be new people coming in um it would surprise me if it was as densely populated in 10 years as it is now because I think that um you know there will there will probably be uh maybe not to the extreme that the health club world went but there will be more growth of the franchise model and so that's gonna squeeze out kind of the bottom 20% of the the independence and so the franchise model they'll probably take a lot of the coaching in-house so you know I I think the market will will kind of shake itself out which I mean it may not feel great for a few people but to me that's kind of always a good thing because it's been our means of course correcting in the industry since we don't necessarily have licensure or a lot of outside governing um to to do some of that. So it becomes a little Darwinistic I guess um which you know I'm I'm not against really I think to be a successful business owner that's something to be earned right um we're you know we as business owners I feel like we're saying look we want something better and different than a traditional employee has so we need to be willing to do a little bit more and do some things differently or better than the typical employee might do. And so I'm okay with it being a little bit harder.

Yeah yeah I agree I think it's great and uh you know it's it's it's like the fitness industry is capitalism at its finest. It's like a free it's the free market model, right? Very much right now, right? Very much yeah and uh I don't I don't know I don't see it changing anytime soon. So Pat I know um you know as a data recording today is July 24th and I think we'll probably release this in the next two to three weeks but you're always putting new things out there as far as offers and services. What uh what can people look at what what how can you help people right now what are some of the things well really I I mean I do for the most part two things right I I help people build their ideal business.

So hey how do I build a business that serves who I want to serve it allows me to have the income that I want but also allows me to feel like I'm a business owner not necessarily owned by my business. So some flexibility I help people that want to work on that as a whole or in some cases we'll break out a part of it like lead generation to attract the right type of person or just recurring revenue growth because a lot of times that's like the first domino right like you can't hire help if you don't have revenue you can't um you you can't reinvest in the infrastructure of your business without cash flow. So um I mean that's it we we do some stuff very specific to those kind of segments of the business like lead generation or recurring revenue growth and then we do kind of the holistic um you know build your ideal business type of coaching.

Yeah awesome awesome well pat it's always a pleasure I appreciate you coming back on believe it or not we just talked for about an hour felt like it was 20 minutes.

So my pleasure and it's always good connecting and uh I I've enjoyed spending a lot of time with with you in conversations since that first podcast.

Yeah yeah it's awesome you guys can check him out well I'll put all the uh information in into the uh the notes for the show but it's patrigsby.com he's not hard to find and uh I would get on his email list uh it's awesome and uh make friends with him on Facebook because he posts a lot of inspirational stuff on a daily basis as well so keep up the great work Pat talk soon man all right see you man thanks a bunch hey fitness fans don't leave yet it's your host Eric Malzone and I have a quick favor to ask actually three favors so number one if you're a fan of our show I asked you to do something that takes under three minutes. Go to iTunes please and subscribe to our show. Please please please it means so much to us it's so important and then give us a favorable review. We would really really appreciate it and uh I can tell you how much it means it helps us out. So I know it takes two minutes of your day and uh it means a lot to us. So please do that. Number two, go to our YouTube channel or fitness marketing alliance and uh please subscribe to our YouTube channel there. Number three, if you like this episode or any of the episodes that we've released, share it on social. That's huge. That's a big deal for us. And we're we put a lot of work into these episodes uh trying to give you great actionable content uh for the fitness industry so that would mean a lot and that's it so we have some big plans coming up for this show. I'll be talking about that in the next couple episodes but thank you so much for listening. It means so much and uh if you have any questions please reach out to me. I'd love to hear from everybody. Eric E R I C at fitnessmarketingalliance com