Do you dream of standing in front of 40 eager boot-campers as they await your next instruction? Do you see yourself starting and building your very own boot camp family that is more like a tribe than a business?

Serious sweat, team-work, laughs and an awesome income and lifestyle to match – sounds like a pretty good way to roll to me.

The reality is that while boot camp is a really popular method of training in the fitness industry – there are very few operators out there who run a complete business.  Some are good at marketing, some at exercise prescription and delivery; others have awesome systems and safety procedures but very few are the full package.

Scott Williams and his team at Succeed Personal Development are the real deal and they have been awarded the Australian Personal Training Business of the Year for the last two years as proof that they have what it takes to build an awesome boot camp business.

If you haven’t heard of Scott before, he has been in the industry for over 15 years and 5 years ago he started his Boot Camp business with a $26,000 turn-over in the first year. Just five years later, his boot camp business is now clicking over $700,000 and he employees 15 other boot camp instructors – enough said?

So what Rick, what are you telling me this?

Good question.

I’m telling you this because I want to show you that a) boot camps are not that easy to run successfully over the journey if they are not set up properly and b) I am yet to meet anyone else who know boats (I mean boot camps) as well as Scotty does.

Now I was chatting to Scott the other day and he was telling me how he gets a bucket-load of emails from new and current boot camp operators looking for advice. Because he is only one man (even though I have never seen anyone work as hard as he does – like 14 hour days), he decided that he would put his already highly-systemised business into a easy to understand document so other boot camp operators can follow in his foot steps.

Some people think he is crazy because he is basically giving away the secret sauce to how he runs his business, but that is just the kind of guy Scotty is. He has a real passion for improving the standard of the fitness industry and this is a perfect example of that.

So for the last 6 months, he has spent his nights at his desk outlining his entire boot camp program into a written, systemised format and the result is BootCamp Basics. I have spent the last week devouring the program and all it’s bonuses and here are my five reasons my BootCamp Basics will take your business where it needs to go:

1) You Know It Works….Period.

Probably the number one reason why this program rocks is simply that it is written based on what works (and that is works for the best business in the land). Years of testing, refining and tweaking are going to be saved just by following the simple outlined explained in the program.

2) Everything Is Systemised To Make Your Life Easy

Some people think systems are boring but when I think systems, I think leverage and when I think leverage, I think time off (so I like systems). If you can think of it, Scotty has systemised it; safety and risk management, client screening, fitness testing, equipment, venue sourcing and availability, individual session outlines, 12 week program plans,  payment options, motivational techniques and session conduct.

3) You Find Out How To Tick The Biggest Box – Getting Clients!

Yeah, we all know that running a boot camp is a cool idea but filling is with clients is the scary part. In Bootcamp Basics, Scott explains what you need to do to successfully market your boot camp so you can tick this box and concentrate on the things that you are really good at.

4) It’s Full Of Ready-To-Use Documents For Your Boot Camp

One of the most overwhelming aspects of starting or building your own boot camp business is developing all of the necessary forms and documents. Scott used to get a bunch of emails about this as well, so he decided to include these into the program. Your service agreement, pre-exercise questionnaire, incident report form, fitness analysis report form, client need analysis and 12 weeks of boot camp session plans. Nice….

5) He Shows You How To Take It To The Next Level

So you’ve done the marketing, got the new clients, started you boot camp and have been operating successfully by following your new systems for a while now. I WANT MORE….. I hear you say. The final chapter of the program is all about growing your business – making more money from your current clients, how to hire new instructors and the best way to develop your boot camp business.

As you can see, this program has some really great benefits if you are thinking of starting your own boot camp or group training business or have already started and would like to give it a kick-start. I am an affiliate for BootCamp Basics so if you click through and purchase Scotts program I will make a little coin. But I would not promote this if I did not fully believe it is an awesome tool to help you build your boot camp or group training business (two of my coaching clients already have a copy I value it that much).

So if you spend your nights dreaming of standing in front of your 40 boot campers as they wait for the next instruction, head over to BootCamp Basics and get your foundations firmly set in place. You wont look back…

Cheers

Rick :-)

About the author: Rick Watson is the surfing, smiling personal training business guy who tells it like it is. He blogs, coaches and writes books for personal trainers but most of all he is a father and husband (with a healthy respect for road trips). If you like what you read and would be up for some daily banter, you can follow him on Twitter @ptbusiness or check out his Facebook page.

]]> http://ptbusinessinabox.com.au/5-ways-to-develop-your-boot-camp-business-mojo/feed/ 3 http://ptbusinessinabox.com.au/can-your-boot-camp-run-without-you/ http://ptbusinessinabox.com.au/can-your-boot-camp-run-without-you/#comments Tue, 10 Aug 2010 02:40:42 +0000 rick http://ptbusinessinabox.com.au/?p=1146

Scott Williams here, the CEO and founder of the current Australian Fitness Business of the Year www.succeed.com.au .

I know it has been a while since you have all heard from me and I do apologise, but in my defence I have been very busy with the birth of my second child.

Things got off to a pretty rocky start for my little man, and he spent three weeks in intensive care and we nearly lost him on several occasions. Fortunately he decided to stay with us on this universe (thank god).

Anyway, after what has felt like an eternity (even though in total it has only been 10 weeks now), my Boot Camp business was really the last thing on my mind… hell it could have folded and to be honest I wouldn’t have given a shit!!!!

My post today is not only about perspective on life, but also the fact that if you set up your Boot Camp or fitness business properly, it will and should run itself.

A blessing in disguise, with having to go for so long off, but it really put my business model that I have designed to the test, and it stood up with flying colors. Not only has my Boot Camp business continued on, it has probably grown over the last 10 weeks (and I haven’t done a thing).

By the way, I am not going back to face to face teaching any more either!!!

A Bootcamp Business is simple to start: one person can do it.

A Bootcamp Business is easy to manage.

A Bootcamp can be started with virtually no up front investment: a couple hundred bucks will get you rolling and all the equipment you need.

A Bootcamp overhead is minimal: equipment that can fit in the trunk of your car and no costly lease.

As far as I’m concerned, Bootcamps are the simplest profit-producing, lifestyle-changing personal training business available today.

If your Bootcamp model is systemised and set up properly, you should be able to set one up, put a trainer in to take over that area then move to a new area and set another one up, and the system starts all over again.

So let’s recap some of my previous posts that will offer you some help (simply click on each to recap):

Boot Camp Marketing Idea #1 – Social Media

Boot Camp Marketing Idea #2 – Client Referrals

Boot Camp Time Management

These are only three basic tips that have really made a big difference to my business and because of these (and many more which I will post about over time here), I am now FREE from having to teach Boot Camp classes at all. I simply get my 13 trainers to do it all for me.

Which works just great for me as it now allows me the time to spend with my amazing family.

Like I said the scare of nearly losing your own child really does put life into perspective. I am just glad my business is set up to run itself….

Scott Williams

(nearly a full time family man and loving it)

A Guest Post by the owner of Australia’s Personal Training Business of the Year – Scott Williams

Hey all, welcome to PT Business in A Box and part two in my series of ways to increase cash flow into your Boot Camp business with little or no outlay from you. My name is Scott Williams and I own and run the current Australian Personal Training Business of the Year for the last two years running.

Over the course of the next few posts I am going to give you a series of very effective marketing ideas for your business that will increase your income with little or no cost. Here is the second of my biggest marketing ideas that have been the biggest money earners.

Total Outlay for this Marketing Idea: $0

Marketing Idea #2 – Client Referrals

OK, I know what you are thinking… I already know this, and yes I agree you probably do, but how many of you actually take any action when it comes to client referrals?? Seriously sit back and think about how often and how serious you are about doing this??

I do this pretty much on a weekly basis at all of my 22 Boot Camp locations, with over 400 people each week running around doing a Succeed Boot Camp here in Canberra, I can pretty much get all the people I need coming to me from client referrals (saves a hell of a lot of cash on advertising).

Hell I used to spend close to $10,000 every 12 weeks for letter box drops when we launched our new Boot Camp series. Yes that was very profitable for me, but I have got my business to the stage that if I look after my clients I already have in my bucket, they will go out and do the ground work for me… a very cool thing, I am now doing less marketing than ever before and making more money.

We used to run Newspaper ads, TV ads, radio ads, + other print media, I now do NONE of those, and we have the highest number of clients in our six years in the business on Boot Camp memberships.

What are the best ways you can get client referrals?

Firstly let me explain what you need to get – hopefully by now you have a good relationship with your graphic designer (you should really be training them). Go and see your designer and get them to design a kickass VIP One month FREE Boot Camp voucher that you can get printed up. Make sure they are business card size (easy to carry around). Here is what mine looks like:

Well in my experience as Australia’s leading fitness expert, the best ways to get these to work for you are:

• Hand them out to your clients to give to any friends or family they may have that might be interested in joining into Boot Camp

• Take them to any store that can give them out as a free gift to their clients as thank you for their business. I currently have my hairdresser, my real estate agent, my finance guy, accountant , massage lady, several beauty salons just to name a few that hand them out to their clients as a FREE gift. I even have a Real Estate agent that gives them out as a gift for when people buy or sell a house with him

• Just walk through the shops and hand them out for fun to people, you never know you might take you up on the offer

Now one thing to note here, be sure to reward the person that hands them out and gives you a referral. It doesn’t need to be much for them either. I mix it up but at the moment I give them either two weeks FREE themselves for the referral or a FREE dinner for 2 at a local restaurant

The same as last months post, this will only work if you have established Boot Camps already going and you can drop these people into a location at no extra cost to you. It would be a bit harder if you are just starting out as you would be minimizing the potential income coming in.

To give you an idea of how a marketing idea like this can work, here is a rundown of an average month of using my VIP cards for client referrals as a way to attain new clients:

Total number of VIP cards that were handed out : 200

Total number that was returned to me:                 13

Total number that completed the FREE month of sessions:                    13

Total number that have signed up to our 6 or 12 month Membership:      13

Total new sign up to the Succeed Boot Camps                        13

(around $5300 increase in revenue each, but x that by 12 months = $63,000 increased revenue)

I suppose you want to know what all of this cost for me to set up?

Actually it cost me NOTHING…. Yes that is correct NOTHING.

How did I get this happening for nothing? Easy…. I arranged contra deals for everything.

So I train the Graphic Designer, I train the printing company that printed up the business cards, + I either train all the businesses that hand out the VIP Cards, or I simply asked them if they wanted a FREE gift to give to their clients with no strings attached (not one said no)….

Not a bad profit for nothing….

So three things from this post:

1. Go out and set up contra deals with a designer and local print company
2. Get into a few shops and get them handing out your FREE month Boot Camp cards for you
3. Get your cleints handing them out and don’t forget to reward them for their efforts

Until next post, keep on doing what you love doing every day.

Scott Williams

CEO, Succeed Personal Development

Trainer, writer, family man

P.S: If you are reading this and really want to find out how to start a boot camp business or you already have one and want to know how to build a boot camp business, check out Scott’s new product.

Guest Post By The Owner Of Australia’s Personal Training Business of the Year – Scott Williams

Hey All,

Welcome to PT Business In A Box and part one in a series of ways to increase your cash flow into your Boot Camp business with little or no outlay from you.

My name is Scott Williams and I own and run the Current Australian Personal Training Business of the Year for the last two years running.

Over the course of my next few posts I am going to give you a series of very effective marketing ideas for your business that will increase your income with little or no cost. Here is the first of my biggest marketing ideas that have been the biggest money earners.

Total Outlay for this Marketing Idea: $0

Marketing Idea #1 – Social Media

Unfortunately most people are not up to speed with the benefits of Facebook at this stage. Most people think it is just a social site for people to catch up in other people’s lives and post up a few pictures here and there.

Well I learnt very early in the piece (from a marketing legend) in Gary Vaynerchuk and Chris McCombs that Facebook can be so much more.

So I decided to purchase Gary’s book (very glad I did), and look up and buy into Chris’s Marketing Program, I thought this really does make a lot of sense to use utilise Facebook as a marketing tool for my business.

From there all I did was post a calendar event (costs NOTHING – a good thing), onto Facebook.

I offered all people in my Boot Camp towns that contact me on facebook a FREE month of Boot Camp, no questions asked, no contract, no nothing.

Now obviously this will only work if you have an established Boot Camp already going and you can drop these people into a location at no extra cost to you. It would be a bit harder if you are just starting out as you would be minimizing the potential income coming in.

To give you an idea of how a marketing idea like this can work, here is a rundown of having an effective facebook account:

Total number of people that contacted me to register:                   114

Total number that actually turned up to the Boot Camps:                56

Total number that completed the FREE month of sessions:             43

Total number that have signed up a 6 or 12 month Membership:    13

Total that signed up to a new 12 week program:                           20

Total new sign up to the Succeed Boot Camps                      33

Since I ran this FREE marketing idea, 26 of the 33 have now all gone to 12 month memberships, which has given me an extra : $44 616 per year

Five of the other seven have also continued on a pay per Boot Camp basis, which also nets me around: $2300 every 12 weeks.

So when you add it all up, for ZERO outlay I have made over $50,000 from a calendar event I posted on Facebook that took me 5 minutes.

Not a bad profit for nothing….

Note:

Another thing that you should make sure you do is to add the emails of all the initial people that contacted you into your database. You never know when someone might wish to commence Boot Camp.

Since I posted this calendar event on Facebook, it gave me another 114 new potential leads. All of these people contacted me because they are interested in changing themselves in some way, shape or form, the time just wasn’t right for them.

I added all of these people to my email database, and since running this initial add I have had 6 or 7 people from that original list that never started now doing a Succeed Boot Camp (and loving it).

Now I know this doesn’t sound like much and you are probably saying “only 6 people big deal Scott”, but these 6 people have also referred 6 other people which also referred another 2 (I will post about referrals in another post). Do the math though, it starts to add up.

SO not only did the FREE marketing idea make me over $50,000 in the year (and still continues to do so), I now have others coming to Succeed as NOW is the right time for them to commence a fitness regime for themselves.

It obviously wasn’t the right time for them to start when I first posted the add on facebook for whatever reason, but they have now made a New Year’s Resolution and have contacted me to get them on board to our Boot Camp program.

So two things from this post:

1. Do a calendar event of Facebook and offer a FREE month, no questions asked.
2. Ensure you capture ALL email addresses from the enquiries into your database, because if you are sending out regular posts or information to your database, you never know when the time is right for them to start a fitness regime.

Until next post, keep on doing what you love doing every day.

Scott Williams

CEO, Succeed Personal Development

Trainer, writer, family man

P.S If you have any questions about this strategy or if you have already had a few experiences on Facebook building your business feel free to post up a comment.