Solving Problems: The key to building a thriving fitness business

Incase you prefer reading… here’s the video transcript

I had a meeting with a new client the other day and I asked them a question. I asked them what problem they were able to solve for their clients if they provided them their training and nutritional program and I was met with a blank stare. This seemed like a foreign concept to them and I was genuinely surprised. If I asked you this question, what problem do you solve for your clients, would you be able to answer it? In today’s video I’m going to talk about why this concept is incredibly important if you want to grow your fitness business. If you can solve people’s problems then that’s where success lies. Selling is all about solving problems. If you can become a problem solver then the money will follow. In a moment I’m going to show you how this works and then I’m going to give you some practical steps to show you how you can use this concept to get more clients.

Always add value to other people’s lives

No matter what you do in your fitness business you should always be adding value to other people’s lives. Your first focus should always be on how you can help someone improve their situation. The best way to add value to your clients is to help them solve their biggest problems and challenges. What does this mean? It means that people – for example your clients, will generally buy pain killers, not vitamins. In other words people will pay a lot more money to solve a problem than they will to gain a benefit. No matter what industry you’re in, people will pay more money to solve a problem – something that is causing them loss or pain, than they will to gain a benefit. Think about how many people will pay for a solution to a problem, rather than preventative measures. Think about how many people will put off servicing their car until something goes wrong, think about how many people won’t go to the dentist regularly to prevent a problem, but as soon as they get a tooth ache they book in right away. Selling is all about solving problems and money goes to the best problem solvers. Think about our industry, you’ll find a lot of people will seek out health and fitness professionals generally to solve a problem they have rather than to prevent a problem from occurring. Annoying right? Unfortunately this is simply human nature, so it’s time to embrace and start marketing yourself as a problem solver. When you create a product or service that solves problems or fulfils a need, then you’ll get paid.

Make sure you know who your ideal clients are

In order to do this effectively it’s really important you know who your ideal clients are and what their potential problems are so you can align yourself as the solution. We’ve talked about the importance of knowing who your ideal clients are in another video, so if you haven’t yet seen that video then definitely check that out. One of the biggest mistakes fitness professionals make is not knowing who their ideal clients are, and that video shows you how to avoid making that mistake, so definitely watch that one if you haven’t seen it yet. Now, one thing I want to make clear is that this is not necessarily a negative thing. So many people in the fitness industry are driven by their desire to help people for a positive reason. They want people to feel better about themselves, to be more confident, to be healthy and these are all really important and you can always position what you offer to accentuate the positive as well. However the most powerful way to sell whatever your offering is to position your product or service as something that can eliminate a negative.

How to add this concept to your marketing material

So let’s take a look at how to add this to your marketing material to help you generate more clients. So when you know who your ideal clients are, you want to enter the conversation that’s already going on in their head by stating the exact problem they’re experiencing. This might be the fact that they’re having trouble losing weight. Then the most powerful part of this, is to agitate the problem and discuss the implication of this problem. So what it will mean to them if they don’t lose this weight, and this will be something that they will feel on an emotional level. When people want to lose weight, there’s a reason behind it, either they don’t feel attractive to their partner, they can’t keep up with their kids, behind every person who wants to lose weight, there’s an emotional reason behind it and you need to tap into that so you can help them solve it. People want to find someone who understand them and who will be able to fix their particular problem.

Where can you implement this concept…

When you sit down to write the copy for your website, sit down and try and figure out what’s going on in their head. Get into the mind of your ideal client. Experience the world through their eyes, try and understand their fears and frustration and show them how what you have to offer is the solution they’re looking for. Simply remember when you’re trying to sell your product or service focus on solving a problem. It’s always important to promote the positives too but the most powerful way so sell what you’re offering is to position your product or service as something that can eliminate a negative. Once you start doing this, you’ll find that you’ll start attracting more clients and the task of marketing and selling will become a whole lot easier.

Action Steps to start implementing this concept:

1) Create how to-blog content. Think about some of the biggest problems your clients and potential clients have and create a blog post (or video) that gives them actionable advice that will help them solve a problem they’re having. Make sure the reader will walk away from the blog post with at least one thing they can do better!

2) Have a call to action in your blog posts which encourage people to sign up to your email database. Create a lead generation opportunity so you can contact them via email. As they say… the money is in the list.

3) Nurture your leads with emails based on their problems. Start sending emails to your list that are aimed to help solve their problems. We both know in the health and fitness industry that people get better results faster by hiring someone like you, but we first need to show them how they can start solving their problems and then align ourselves as part of the solution to their problem!

If you liked this post then make sure you hit the like button and share it with others in the fitness industry. This is a really important concept to understand so it might help your friends too. If you want more free training like this, then make sure you head over to thefitnessentourage.com and sign up to receive videos just like this one which will help you to build your client base. Thanks for watching, I hope you have a great day and I’ll see you again soon.