By Jonny and Yusef
When we first started Propane Fitness, it wasn’t really run like a business. It was more like two overworked fitness coaches emailing each other from our personal emails.We both had our own clients, and they were on different rates depending on when they’d signed up.
Each month, we’d argue about whether it was okay to increase the price by £5 a month, and we were billing clients manually.
Honestly, it was a mess.
How it all started at Propane
We were charging between £30 and £70 per client, and the idea of even increasing this by another £5 for online coaching seemed out of the question. The irony was that, since we were offering unlimited access to us with no real structure, the actual hourly rate probably ended up being far lower than what we were charging. But we didn’t feel that we could justify asking for more money. We were offering unlimited support, weekly calls and bespoke programming, and because we were new to coaching we were running every decision past each other. It was such an inefficient way to work.
How things are now
Fast forward a few years, and once we’d ironed out a few of those kinks in the process we were running a semi-automated group programme.
I remember seeing a transformation photo of a client, showing great progress. It felt like a weird moment, because Jonny and I had to check that he really was one of our clients as neither of us recognised him.
Just to be clear, this wasn’t because we’d been neglecting him – the coach that we’d hired to manage this group had been working with him very closely.
But unlike how we used to run our business, it was all achieved without any input from us. The business had created a system which delivered the product, and the client had been marketed to, sold to and coached without any of our conscious input. The best part was that the client himself was over the moon with what the programme had helped him achieve.
Yusef
Making a business run without you
It’s not like we were hanging out on the beach, or playing Call of Duty. We were still working on the business, but our focus had shifted to building systems that worked while we weren’t there, rather than just putting out fires all the time.
There is a lot of talk about building an online fitness business and you’ve probably seen loads of adverts about it. The truth is that running an online class, sending a few emails or coaching clients through whatsapp is not running an online fitness business.
A business isn’t a business until it can run on its own without you.
If you’re ready to build a group coaching business that is based on battle-tested systems, then book in a call with us and we can have a chat about how we can help make this a reality for you. You can also check out our free online training to find out more about growing your fitness business.
