Coach, Create, Sell - Pat Rigsby

I don't think anybody ever wakes up and says, man, I just want to be a number. But I think that whenever we get kind of technology in our hands, we try to find ways to almost make people feel that way. Most everybody that has become my client is originated through some sort of online communication. So I'm not denouncing that at all. It's just there actually has to be communication, not just broadcast.

Hey Fitness fans, welcome back to the Future of Fitness Podcast and Interview Series. This is your host, Eric Melzone, and we're on episode number 55. And I get to talk to Pat Rigsby. So Pat has been in the fitness industry for a long time. He's worn a lot of hats. He's been a CEO of multi-million dollar companies. And now he is a business coach, an author, and a speaker. And a little bit of reflection from me on this was that one of the greatest unexpected benefits of starting this podcast series was that I get to interview people and I get to learn so much. Imagine you get to grab people from the industry and sit them down for 30 minutes and ask all the questions that you want to ask. And uh it's just really cool. I learned so much, especially from someone who like Pat, who I believe is a few years ahead of me and what I want to be doing as well. It was just, it was just awesome. And I learned a lot of things from him, and I'll tell you what they are in in just a few moments. But first of all, I want you to consider taking some action and checking out the Modern Fitness Pro uh closed Facebook group. You know, as a date of recording this intro, which is uh April 17th, the discussions that are happening within there right now are amazing, and you don't want to miss it. Uh it's just really for the betterment of the industry, and it's going places, and it's really exciting. So go check it out. It is the Modern Fitness Pro Closed Facebook group. It is by application only. And if you're accepted, you'll be part of that conversation with over 2,000 fitness professionals from all over the world, and it's growing every day. So uh what did I learn from Pat? Well, one thing that's amazing is that he's been writing a daily email to his email list for 12 years straight. But that's okay. 12 years straight, seven days a week. He hasn't been. Uh, it's amazing. And every day uh I ask him what he does in his days that really make sure they push his deal forward. Um and he does three things. He wants to make sure he touches on three things. Number one, uh wants to make sure they coaches coaching somebody uh most likely on the fitness. Number two, he wants to make sure he's creating content every day. And number three, you want to make sure that he's selling it in some way, either moving someone up an escalation ladder, uh, new clients, whatever it is. Those are three things that he focuses on, then he outsources everything else. And it's a great place to be. It's it's one of those uh spots that you've got to earn to get there, um to have all these things working for you, and then uh what's that flywheels turning or your business turn? So it was really exciting. And uh yeah, I hope you get a lot out of this. I certainly did, like I said. And without further ado, this is episode number 55. This is Pat Rigsby. Enjoy the show. Hey fitness fans, welcome back to the Future of Fitness Podcast and Interview Series. And today I have the man, Pat Rigsby. I tracked him down, got him on the show. Really excited to have him here. And uh Pat, thanks for coming on.

Man, my pleasure. I'm excited to be here. Uh looking forward to chatting and really kind of digging into some of this stuff.

Awesome. So for those who who don't know you um within the industry, um, tell us a little bit about your story, who you are, uh what you do, and and who you serve uh within the industry.

Who I am, gosh. I uh I'm I'm one of these guys, I guess, that's been around doing this for a while. I I was a college baseball coach, college, college strength coach for the first kind of iteration of my professional life. Um ended out getting into the private sector, opening one business, had some success there, opened a second business and went well. So started sharing what was working with some other fitness professionals. And man, what felt like a blink of an eye, um, you know, 25 businesses later, franchise organizations, equipment companies, coaching organizations, product-based stuff. Um you name it, a little bit of everything in every corner of the fitness industry, and then um into 2014, 15, like beginning of 15, sold all of that and just said, okay, I'm gonna focus on building what I call my ideal business and just serving the the fitness or wellness entrepreneur that wants to have more impact, earn a better income, enjoy and enjoy life as a business owner, instead of feeling like they're owned by their business. And since then, I've just been coaching people on those very things.

Awesome. So in 2015, when you made that, that's a that's a huge shift in your life, right?

Yeah, yeah.

Yes. Yeah, it's a huge shift. Uh was there a catalyst or something that that you just woke up one morning being like, this is the direction I want to go? Or what what changed?

Well, there were definitely kind of those um the those turning point moments where you know you think, hey, is this really what I intended to be doing when I built all this, or did it and or is it just kind of taking on a life of its own? And then points where you, you know, I'd I'd look up and I'd say, man, um do I feel like I own this and I'm steering this, or I'm owned by this and I'm just kind of along for the ride? And and I thought, you know, I I mean, if I've been able to build this sort of organization that uh is an umbrella for a lot of different things, I should be able to build something that with a little more focus that is uh maybe a more direct line to where I wanted to go. And so um, you know, I mean it took a little bit of while a little bit of time to make that shift and uh you know and and kind of sell off and and evolve and start anew, but I I kind of look at my professional life as version 1.0, version 2.0, and now we're on to 3.0. And uh hopefully with each round I've gotten a little bit smarter and I know I'm enjoying it a whole lot more, you know?

Yeah. Yeah. You know, I I find too, and I'm interested in in finding out who these people are for you, but most great business coaches or coaches in general value coaching in their own life, right? Do you have, I'm sure you have, but who are some who have been some of the mentors that you've had along the way?

Um man, there there have been so many. Uh starting with a gentleman named Bob Morgan, who was the head baseball coach at Indiana University, who kind of took me under his wing when I was a young head coach. Uh guys like Roy Williams, who is a big kind of marketing advertising guy down in Austin, Texas. I learned a lot from him. Uh certainly learned a lot from guys like uh Dan Kennedy and Jay Abraham. Um I I've been in mastermind groups and coach uh a coaching client of uh man, any number of people. I don't know that there's been a point that I've not been one or the other um in my professional life. Uh and it kind of bounces between sometimes being in a mastermind group for maybe a broader experience uh or hiring a coach to specifically improve in in one area or another. I mean, last year I knew I wanted to do a little more with books and build a platform there, so I basically hired the guy who was the business person behind building Jim Rohn International. And it's like, man, hey, they sold five, six million books. There's probably something I can learn here, right? Yeah. Um, so so I yeah, I'm I'm a lifelong student, if you will, and pretty much an avid reader, too. And then you know that the beauty of that is you can be mentored by hundreds of different people through reading, and they don't necessarily ever know who I am, but I know I've learned a lot from them.

Yeah, that's a good that's that's a really good point. Um I'm for a lot of people too, you know, I'm I'm actually at a point, this is you know a bit of a selfless question. So I'm considering you know, a one-on-one business coach versus a mastermind group. Where do you see the value in both? And and do you ever steer people in one direction or the other due to specific reasons?

Yeah, I I think that one-on-one coaches are awesome when you know kind of the areas that you specifically want to focus on and improve. Um like for me with the book, book side of stuff, or times that I've wanted to do more on developing a speaking platform or something like that, those were very clear times to me that hiring a coach was a great plan. Um when I've looked for just kind of overall business improvement, uh, a lot of times I think the mastermind environment has been great for me because in some cases I don't know what I don't know, right? So other people asking questions open my eyes to a lot of things that maybe I wouldn't have thought about otherwise. So if I know the specific benefit benefits I'm trying to get, I think one-on-one is awesome. But if I'm just looking for kind of well-rounded, holistic improvement, I think a mastermind environment has a lot to offer.

Awesome. Yeah, that's great insight, and I appreciate that. That helps me. So, you know, with the the people that you're working with, what when they're building their ideal business, what what's the biggest, some of the biggest challenges or the the things that inhibit them from getting started?

Um you know, most of the people in our industry, and I'm sure you've experienced this too, they they come into our industry from a position of enjoying the topic, right? Enjoying the thing we're delivering. They enjoy fitness, they enjoy wellness, they enjoy being in the gym. Traditionally, people who are entrepreneurs and own businesses, that's not their their point of entry, right? I mean, you don't sit on the back deck and grill burgers and say, hmm, I'm gonna open a McDonald's or a bunch of things, right? You're not you're not in in the like sitting on the back patio with clippers and like giving $5 haircuts to people and saying, Man, I should really open a sport clip. So that it's not the same point of entry. And so because of that, I think a lot of the time um people default to what they're comfortable with, what they're good at. So they they really immerse themselves in the training side of it, they really immerse all of their efforts when it comes to continuing education in the training side of it, and try to justify that by saying, well, look, if I'm a better coach, I'm gonna be a better business owner. People are gonna come to me, they're gonna refer me business. When in reality, I mean, we got to wear both hats, right? Yes, we have to provide a service. I don't care if we're doing it in person or online, we have to provide a real meaningful service to somebody. We're gonna help them go from where they are to where they want to be, but we have to figure out how to do it profitably. We have to figure out how to do it at scale, if that, you know, I mean, if we're trying to expand and we got to figure out how to do it without creating what I I know personally, a success that I didn't particularly enjoy after a while. Like where you look up and you're like, man, by all these external measures, we're knocking it out of the park. But internally, I feel like I'm just you know, I'm just swallowed up by this whole thing. And and I see business owner after business owner kind of fall in that same trap. Either they they aren't making enough money for what what they're contributing, or they're they've got kind of golden handcuffs, and yeah, I'm making money, but I'm working constantly, I don't get to go on vacations, I don't get to um step away to coach my kids' little league team, or have much time for myself. And the reality is, I mean, they they don't know a way out because they they only know what they've done, right? Um, so so for me, a lot of times it's just helping them engineer kind of a new plan and cope them along the way and course correct as we go until we get to a point where they they feel like, man, this is kind of what I signed on for in the beginning.

Yeah, awesome. Yeah, I've as you're saying all this, I'm like, God, that that was me. That was me. That was one of my clients. You know, it's it's uh it's universal. So I walk us through maybe a sample process, you know, um, without using names, of course, of clients, but what is what does that process look like? What's the granular aspects of that?

So when I coach somebody, typically I want to spend some time with them one-on-one, ideally in person or worst case scenario, um virtually, and I want to get to know them as a person, right? Like I want to know what their values are, kind of what lights them up. I want to know all of it because it's really easy in the era we we kind of live in now to just throw tactics at somebody. I mean, tactics are there, there's no shortage of that. Go around this Facebook ad, do this sort of thing for marketing. But I want to know kind of what makes them tick and why they're doing this in the first place. Once we do that, I I can ask better questions. I can say, okay, well, tell me what success is to you, and we can get past that default answer. Well, I want to have 200 clients or 200 members, I want to have a gross revenue of $40,000 a month, or the all those kind of generic things that people default to giving as their answers because they're assuming that if I hit these benchmarks, all this other cool stuff comes with it. I'm gonna have more income, I'm gonna have a better quality of life, all these things that are kind of weighing on me now will be gone. So I want to know what they're expecting those things will lead to because those are really what success looks like.

Right.

And once we figure out those things, then my job is to say, okay, let's play to your strengths, let's figure out who you want to work with, what you're best at doing, and then let's create a roadmap from where you are today to reach that point of what success actually is to you. And maybe that's making $150,000 a year in personal income and taking three weeks of vacation and being able to coach your daughter's soccer team. Maybe it's to feel like, man, I I just want to have kind of a normal schedule and have three employees. Maybe, you know, I mean, I've got clients that have franchises with over 100 locations. Maybe it's building up this scalable business and selling it. Um, but we got to get clear about where we're trying to go. I I mean it's it's very cliche, but it's kind of like a GPS, right? I mean, you've got to plug in a destination before you can start moving.

Yeah, I love that. One of my mentors along the way is Chris Cooper. Um, he's in the the CrossFit world and owns the the two-brain business group. And he would have, yeah, he had to start with what's your ideal day? What does that look like? And literally paint a very detailed picture. Like what time do you wake up? You know, what's the first thing you do in the morning? Who do you talk to? What is everything? And then that that is essentially what you're right. That's your GPS. And I think it's, you know, us all great coaches can identify that that's the real deal. That's what you want, right? Um We talked a little bit before this recording, Pat, about things that don't change, you know, that the standards that don't change throughout time, you know, even though technology is advancing and marketing has different options. Give us some insight into that. What's your thoughts behind the things that don't change?

And and Yeah, I mean, philosophically, I I've always believed that you build a business around the things that that are going to be there 10 years from now, 15 years from now, and then we use innovation and technology to better kind of put those things into action. So, what do we know isn't going to change? Well, people want personal attention, people want to feel special, they want to feel appreciated. That's not gonna, I mean, that's been the case for 100 years, and it's gonna be the case for a hundred more, right? Um people enjoy being part of something bigger than them. So being able to provide a community, that's not going away either. People are always going to want to improve their health, improve their fitness, their vitality, their quality of life. I mean, you can look at advertisements from the turn of the 20th century and see people wanted those things. So that's not going away either, right? Um I think that people wanting to feel connected. So any sort of connection-based marketing, relationship-based marketing, um, be it before somebody's your client or continuing on after they are, yeah, we may use different technology to engage somebody, but they're always going to want to feel connected and feel like they're important to you and they're being heard, and what you're saying is specifically applicable to them. Like, I don't think anybody ever wakes up and says, Man, I just want to be a number. I want to be kind of anonymous in the crowd. Yeah. And but I think that whenever we get kind of technology in our hands, we try to find ways to almost make people feel that way. Everything becomes a volume thing or an automated thing. And trust me, I mean, I've been the beneficiary of most everybody that has become my client has originated through some sort of online communication. So I'm not denouncing that at all. It's just I think that there actually has to be communication, not just broadcast. Um I think that being like the need for specialists or the desire for people to have a specialist for them is not going to change, right? I mean, in fact, I think that as we move forward, people will want more specialized solutions, not less, because they're not so bound by geography to get their solution. Um I think that the need to differentiate matters more than ever, and it's only going to continue to grow because there's more noise and there's more information available to people than ever before. So that's not going away. And then ultimately, um, you know, I I think the common sense stuff like people want value and convenience, that's not going away either, right? I mean, everybody wants things more conveniently. Everybody wants fair value for the investment of their time and money. So we have to consider those things. It's not necessarily, hey, how much money can we extract from somebody, is how much value can we exchange in a relationship where everybody feels like they're coming out ahead.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's it's interesting when you you mentioned that specialization, you know, uh, especially in the online world. I have this conversation daily, like with somebody, like every day. You know, when I get the opportunity to talk to somebody who's a leader in the industry, and I talk to people in coaching, um, you know, I'm like, you gotta narrow your niche, narrow, narrow, narrow. And it just seems becoming it's no longer a secret or a um, you know, it's if this may happen. It's like, okay, no, this is happening, and it's gonna only gonna get even more and more specialized.

And uh yeah, it's it's it's I I think a lot of people in our industry assume that they can get away without being narrowed because they mistakenly think that they're not narrow locally. They think, well, okay, I have a lot of different types of clientele in my gym. What they're forgetting is they're narrowed locally by geography. Like so they are already niched down or niched down locally by hey, can can I get to you within 10 minutes? Yeah. So we're just trading that one way of narrowing our audience. For another way of narrowing our audience. And maybe that's I work with a specific demographic, or I work with a type of person that a specific type of message resonates with. But I mean, we're already doing it. It's just a lot of people ignore it because they're I mean, they're kind of oblivious to the fact that, yeah, man, I mean, I'm I'm not, no matter how good you are at what you do, uh you're in California, I'm in Kentucky. I'm not coming three days a week. Right? So I mean, it already happens. It's just when we go online, we have to find a different way to make it happen.

Yeah. That's a really interesting point. And then I, you know, people are probably oblivious because they had no conscious choice. Like, okay, no, you you're a local market. That's it. This the conversation's over. That's uh God, that that just rang true with me, and you just you just hit a chord. I never thought about it that way. So you you have a large online presence, obviously, because that's where your business is focused. Um what are some of the things that maybe habits or intentional um rituals, things like that that you do with your business on a day-to-day basis that you know if you do these things that success has a good chance of following?

So the the first one um is I've written a daily email, newsletter, essay, whatever you'd like to call it, for 12 consecutive years without missing a day. Send this week. Yeah, yeah. And do I need to send daily? Probably not for the audience, but for me I do, because that's just kind of the hey, this is how I'm moving my relationships forward with the people that I serve and potentially serve. So that's number one. Um number two is man, I I want to coach people pretty much every working day. I'm coaching, every working day I'm creating, be it that email or or something else. And every working day I'm I'm trying to ascend somebody in the relationship. So I'm trying to sell something. Yeah um, and those things take on different kind of shapes, obviously. But I mean, that's kind of my my checklist every day. And if I didn't do one of those things, I'm like, you know, I didn't I didn't move the business forward the way I needed to. I didn't serve the people who have trusted me to help them get where they're trying to go well enough. Um so so I think those are like when we think about okay, what are my intentional behaviors or what are my areas of focus? There's not a day that goes by. I mean, I I use a paper planner and write it out because I've manually I write it out, and I've got my top three every day. And those three are always related to the things that I've just mentioned.

Right. So to do these things, these core pillars, do you how do you get rid of everything else?

I I don't know that I do get rid of everything else. It's just I accept that some things are just happening sequentially, right? And so I try to do the other stuff first. Like I do this first. I I write a newsletter first. I make my schedule for coaching available early on. So a lot of that's already taken care of, right? I I mean my my schedule's available. I'm reminding people of my schedule every week. I'm making sure that people know when they can connect with me. I've scheduled coaching days for my coaching groups well in advance. Um so so I block time off for everything. Um, in fact, my day pretty much is okay, I'm writing in the morning, uh, I'm working out, getting, you know, the physical component of my day to make sure I got something in in the morning. Um, I'm doing more kind of big picture or strategic work for my business probably before 11. And then typically from lunchtime on until 3:30, 4 o'clock, when it's picking kids up from school and stuff, is I'm connecting with people in a coaching setting or in a sales setting, or occasionally, you know, recording something like we're doing now. Um, so my day structure for the days that I'm not in a meeting with a mastermind group or going and speaking or something, I mean, that's pretty much what they look like.

Awesome. Yeah. And I think uh, you know, there's there's a lot of I've asked that question to a lot of people who are successful. And, you know, it's always a couple things, you know, one of two things. Either they hire virtual assistants to do everything else that they don't want to do, or they get everything done first thing in the morning. That's a priority.

And uh and well, I definitely lean on other people too. I mean, I I don't want to I I mean, I am very comfortable saying that there are far more things I'm not good at doing than the select few that I am good at doing.

Yeah.

Um, like I have never edited a podcast, I have never uh uh uploaded a video to YouTube. I don't currently, I have previously um put together sales pages or um even upload my email into InfusionSoft. Like I I'd rather write two emails than write one, upload it, test it, format it, everything else.

Yeah. So I have I have one more question for you, because this is called the future of fitness, right? What what do you see, you know, whether it be coming from technology or trends and specialization, or you know, I I don't want to I don't want to, you know, load this question too much, but what do you see for the next five to ten years for the future of the fitness industry?

I I mean I think that specialization and personalization are gonna matter more and more over time. Um, I think that accountability is probably gonna be a bigger piece of the puzzle because if we look at things in kind of an abstract sense, you know, I mean, overall the fitness industry probably hasn't had as much impact as we would like it to. I mean, there are plenty of people who join gyms and don't get the outcomes would like. Um, and then plenty of other people who never join a gym or never engage with a coach. Um I think that now that we've got so many customized solutions at our fingertips online, people won't default to just using things because they're local. They're gonna be looking for the best option for them. And then I also think that in an era where there is so much information and so much um access. I mean, you can go on YouTube and learn all sorts of things, you can see articles and work out, like you're never more than a couple clicks away from information. Yeah. But getting you to actually apply the information is a little more challenging. So I think that there's going to be more of a push towards things that provide more engagement and accountability. And you know, if I look, you know, I was part of kind of that first wave of fitness information marketing. I mean, at one point my wife had the top-selling fitness for moms product on the internet. Nice. Um, I mean, we were kind of immersed in that, and just the dissemination of information is not nearly as appealing to the customer as it was before. Now people they want it to be a two-way conversation. At minimum, they're looking to be part of a Facebook group to feel connected to other people, right? So it's it's only going to heighten. I mean, I could easily see people being incentivized through some sort of accountability, um, people being incentivized based on behavior change. Like, hey, if you come work out this many times, we will give you X amount of your fee back. Or um, you know, people demanding that, hey, I'm gonna hold you accountable to following your nutrition plan, or I'm gonna hold you accountable to showing up at the gym, maybe a little bit better than we do currently. So between the specialization and personalization and accountability, I think that most of the evolution will employ one or the other. Now, it may be there, may be all sorts of technology that ties to that. And I tried not to predict the future of technology because I mean, the iPhone was invented in 2007, right? I mean, think about how much the landscape's changed then. But I think those are going to be the things that a really like we can use technology to really take advantage of.

Yeah, yeah, I agree. I agree with all those things. And the accountability seems to be something that people are craving more and more. I think you're absolutely right. It's just uh, you know, if just for example, if you go online and you um you type fat loss tips, holy cow. Like you're inundated with so much information. You just need someone to like specifically tell you what to do and then hold you accountable to doing it. And it it may just be that simple, right? Um, this is great. Well, this is a lot of great insight, Pat. Where where do people find you? You know, if they're um, you know, if it is a professional that that you resonate with or anybody who wants to go to your blog or your your podcasts, where where do they find you?

You know, the the hub for most everything is really simple. It's at patrigsby.com. Cool. Um and that's gonna link out whether you want to connect via social media, you get the daily newsletter, you connect with my podcast, any of that stuff. Um, that's probably the easiest place to find all of it.

Awesome. Well, thank you. I uh I love talking to people who are you know taking leadership role within the community, and um I appreciate that you step up and you do it.

Uh man, I appreciate being here and uh connecting with you and hopefully sharing a few uh few things that might be valuable to the people uh paying attention here.

Yeah, absolutely. There is definitely a lot of value here. So, ladies and gentlemen, this is Pat Rigsby, and uh we'll talk to you next time.

Thanks.

Hey Fitness fans, don't leave yet. This is your host, Eric Malzone, and I want to personally thank you for your support and listening to the Future of Fitness Podcast and Interview Series. If you have a few minutes, I would greatly appreciate it if you went to iTunes and gave us a favorable rating. Uh, as well as go to our YouTube channel and subscribe there. That'd be fantastic. If you know of anybody who'd be a great fit for the show, as a guest, please hit me up at Eric at fitnessmarketingalliance.com. That's Eric with the C. Also, I have three questions for you. Number one, are you a fitness professional who's been in the industry for over seven years? Question number two, do you have an online revenue stream or multiple online revenue streams? Question number three, are you ready to break loose from your local market and take advantage of all of the opportunity out there in the online world? If you are, I want you to go to fitnessmarketingalliance.com forward slash mastermind. This will lead you to our level up mastermind group and all the information that you need to know. This is a group for high level thinkers within the industry who are ready to break free. So go check it out. It's fitnessmarketingalliance.com forward slash mastermind. Let us know if you have any questions. Thank you again for listening. I greatly appreciate your support. We'll keep it up from our end as well.