A Fitness Business Guest Post by Dan Go

What is up my friends!  I hope you are having an amazing time growing your business.

I literally came up with this idea when I saw this commercial:  Jabbawockeez for Pepsi Smash

It just freaking dawned on me that these guys have built a business that was born out of their MTV’s America’s Best Dance Crew championship and they have evolved that into an actual entertainment business…. that can be duplicated and self sustainable without ever having to do another break dancing move ever again.

I remember I came down to Vegas one time for a bachelor party (for their amazing shows and family entertainment of course) and I was talking to one of my club promoter friends and she told me that the Jabbawockeez were charging XS nightclub (at the Wynn) $20,000 to do a 5 minute dance appearance.

20 G’s for a 5 minute performance… WOW!!!

The nightclub director rejected the deal saying that he could get Jamie Foxx to show up there for free but that’s not even the point of this story.

It’s not even about the fact that they can command that type of money and get away with it for 5 minutes of dancing.  Heck, I’ll dance naked standing on my head for 10 minutes for that amount of $$$.  Well maybe I wouldn’t but….

The whole point is….

These guys wear masks on the faces and nobody would know if they were the actual Jabbawockeez or not.

They could teach their dancers their entire system, give them a cut of the profit and make money while they are sleeping….without ever having to do another funky robot impersonation ever again.

But they probably wouldn’t stop there.  They could and probably will (if they are smart) take their act Nationally to each and every major entertainment town in North America and have 5-10 simultaneous dance shows going on at one time.

They can literally duplicate themselves… sit on their butts …and never have to work a freaking day in their life ever again.

Now I’m not saying for you to wear a Jason mask while you are boot camp training or personal training.  That’s not the point and that’s kinda scary anyhow.

But what I am saying is that you need a systematic way of training people so you can duplicate yourself and plug anyone else in to do the job for you.

At times we can be stuck on the belief that your clients are there because they want to train with you and you alone.  And that could be right in very small cases.  But if you are getting results with your clients regardless of your personality… then you can always systematize your training system get someone else to provide the results you provide for your clients.

And you do have a system for training right?

I’m sure you do.

Put all of your systems down on paper and use the Dan Kennedy delegation steps I outlined in 7 Secrets to Outsource your business….and life.

Before and to a small extent even now I’m stuck on the, “If I leave my clients to someone else they will all leave and I’ll have to start all over“

I have 3 boot camps running, I’m training 8 hours in my one Women’s boot camp and have recently got 2 hours trained by another trainer.

My other two boot camps are taken care of by other trainers and I’m working getting the other 8 hours I’m working taken care of by March/April to focus fully on the marketing.

Here’s a little story…

I had a corporate bootcamp that loved to train with me.  They even asked me if I would train them forever and even back then I would tell them that I probably won’t be doing this forever.

It was averaging 15-20 people per class so it was good money at the time.

Then the time came where I was expanding my Women’s boot camp business and needed to focus fully on making it as big as possible because of the sheer potential I saw in it.

So I had to make the decision to either drop it or delegate it out to someone else and split the profits.  I tell you…I was so close to just letting it go without getting compensated because I feared that they would hate the new trainer and spill negative feedback about my business.

But then I b*tch slapped my inner child and said…

“Whatever!  I’m gonna force myself to delegate this boot camp out and whoever stays can stay and whoever leaves can leave! I’m sure whoever leaves I can replace them anyways“

Not exactly in those words… I deleted a lot of expletives but you get the point.

So I did it.

I made sure I got the right person into the job (someone experienced that I felt would excel at the job) and taught him my system of working out and made sure he did it that way.

I also used Chris Mccombs’ and Starbucks strategy of placing “Secret shoppers” in the camp to ensure things were done correctly.

Sure they didn’t like it at first.  Some complained.  But that will happen when you change things.

Change happens and people will complain.

Then something magically happened.  After the 2nd round of boot camps everyone was coming around and started to like him.  I was getting a little jealous but happy at the same time.

Now fast forward to today… I still have the same amount of campers in the camp.  And the 90% of the regulars stayed on.  And I’m able to make money while training another different boot camp at the same exact time.

And they love the new trainer.  I don’t think they even want me to come back.  But anyways…

The goal of every business owner is to get out of the technicians role and into the role of the entrepreneur. So you gotta systematize your fitness system and have other people train it…  that’s the only way to grow and make $$$ and have a life at the same time.

So if this is your goal… I would do it in these baby steps:

1.  Ask yourself when training a client if what you are doing can be replicated.

And if it can’t then scrap it.

You don’t want client A at 5:45pm getting a different workout then client B at 7pm.  It’s just not good for business.

Ask yourself if what you are doing can be done by a teenager if trained properly.  If it can then do it.  If not then scrap it.

You gotta create systems that can be replicated by people of the lowest skill possible.

Not that you want those people but it’s gotta be simple to understand.

*Mind you I’ve done this with boot camp training.  Groups and boot camps are much easier than one-on-one personal training/rehabilitation but you can still do it.*

2.  Create the process of your training system.

Everything you would do… put it on paper… or better yet Google Documents.  Google Doc’s rocks!

• Actual training system from beginning to end.
• First time member orientation
• First time member sales
• Contract signing
• Handling contracts/Administration
• Anything else you do…. systematize it.

( Don’t forget to use the Dan Kennedy Delegation process as outlined in the blog post 7 Secrets to Outsourcing your Business and Life. )

3.  Let go of only a couple hours at a time of your training business.  Take baby steps.

I have 2 corporate boot camps being trained by 3 good trainers.

I have 3 boot camp times 9am, 5:45pm and 7pm running Monday’s, Tuesday’s and Thursday’s.  I have recently gotten a good trainer to teach my Monday’s and Thursday’s at 7pm.

Do it little by little. Bit by bit.  Do this so you won’t scare away your members and do let them know that eventually you will not be training anymore.

If they ask why then I say, “Because I need to focus on the business full time.”  It’s honest, it’s true.

It’s also good because you gotta feel comfortable doing it.  It’s like learning how to swim for the first time.  The first day you dip your toes in.  Then your legs.  Then your whole body.

Then you swim.

4.  Once you have gotten all of your “technician” hours replaced find something more productive to do to replace the time saved by not training.

Become a master at marketing your business because this will put the food on the table.

Of course if you are using Market Annihilator and you have your site at the top of Google then you probably won’t even have to worry too much about marketing.

Probably just tweaking systems, improving conversion rates and sales systems.

With the help of Chris’s coaching I’m using most of my free time (and his knowledge) to develop an info product to create another source of income.

But that’s just me.  I also play video games too (if you are on PS3 add me Gofitness) and I like to workout, go out with friends and long walks on the beach

Becoming a ‘Duplication and Delegation Ninja’ can add not only tons of money to your bank account, but tons of free time to your life

Whatever you do with your free time make sure at least you are doing one thing a day to bring in new clients, prospects and moving forward in your business.

That’s it for now!  Hope you enjoyed this blog post.  If you haven’t already…you gotta join Market Annihilator to put your fitness marketing on Autopilot… letting websites suck in clients for you on a automated basis… usually the first client can pay off the entire cost of the program.

Click to Check out the Market Annihilator

Peace out!

Dan Go runs boot camps in Richmond Hill and is a Richmond Hill personal trainer

Check out his Toronto Fat Loss Blog

Be sure to leave Dan a comment below about his post and any duplication strategies that have been working well for you.