The internet is allowing modern trainers, coaches, and nutrition coaches an excellent way to reach the entire world like never before.
But if you’re relatively new to the game and don’t have the required experience yet, meaning, years of actual work and hundreds of successful client stories, you need to be focusing on your signal rather than your noise.
With social media, a lot of trainers get this confused and it ultimately buries them.
They spend money on things like marketing and advertising and getting “likes” or “followers”, and they don’t spend money on things that make their actual product or coaching service any better, such as the various continuing education opportunities out there today.
You trying to make noise but not standing out from the pack is going to cost you a lot of money in the long run and will likely gain you a following, but not a true community (or any customers for that matter).
Newsflash: The attention that great coaches receive isn’t because they know how to market.
It’s because they have been in the business for a long time, used the time and money they have to properly educate themselves, stayed positive when things went down, and consistently got their clients great results.
Once you’re in the game working AM to PM and getting people great results you won’t need to find the spotlight because the spotlight will find you.
These actions are what create the signal that is heard amongst the noise in this cluttered industry.
Create a signal by being great at what you do, all the noise will follow.
Getting Started
Once you have developed the knowledge required to stand out from the pack in your marketplace then you’re ready to start moving through up the ranks of being considered an “online expert”
There are multiple ways in which you can become an expert very quickly which will immediately increase your reach and audience.
I’m going to give you a handful of strategies that I think are the best bets for fitness entrepreneurs, but, I want to say first that you should only do one of these at a time.
The hungry entrepreneur who wants to do everything ends up doing nothing, and in turn, stays hungry in a more literal sense.
Pick one or two, CRUSH THEM, and then move forward systemically from there.
Although the strategies I am about to discuss are in fact strategies, they could also be classified as skills.
Skills like these can very much be a business all by themselves that you build out from there.
Plenty of successful fitness entrepreneurs do a combination of these tactics, but, start with only one (it should also be your best strength as well).
#1: Write A Book
The moment you write a book on a niche topic you become an expert in that field.
You can literally say:
“I wrote the book on that topic!”
As a #1 best selling author on Amazon, I can tell you that it is one of the fastest and most effective marketing strategies you could ever do.
The very designation of being a published author (or better yet, a best-selling author) gives you instant credibility that separates you from the crowd because everybody else thinks its some daunting lifetime task.
And if you create a Kindle you can put active links right in your book that lead customers your way even faster.
You get paid for them buying the book, and then you get them to opt-in with their e-mail once they have purchased the book with a free offer. It doesn’t get any better than that.
Don’t overthink this.
You don’t need a traditional publisher, all I used was Microsoft Word and Amazon. Done and done.
Write a book on your niche topic, don’t over complicate it, don’t think it has to be 300 pages, and put a hard deadline on yourself to get it done.
You would be amazed at how fast you can write a book (I have written many).
#2: Take YouTube Seriously
YouTube is the second most popular search engine in the world right after Google, beyond this, YouTube videos show up in Google searches when people try to find products or services.
So, in a way, it’s #1 as well since they are so intertwined.
If you know how to rank well in Google and YouTube via SEO tactics (which co-founder here at Create Freedom, Kevin McClelland, is unbelievable at) then you can build a solid following which will net you three massive wins:
#1: Customers and prospects will find you through Google and YouTube searches directly, which means you can spend less on ads and allow your SEO strength to get customers for you on auto-pilot.
#2: Establish yourself as an expert. Many YouTube personalities have reached stratospheric heights because of how much of a connection they can build with their audience through video. That facetime with your customer turns them into raving fans.
#3: Create passive income through the various monetization options YouTube offers for their high-performers.
Kevin has built a course in the Create Freedom Academy on YouTube specifically that I couldn’t recommend more for every fitness entrepreneur out there because it was these skills that we used to build Hockey Training to such a massive and successful company.
YouTube can easily be your full-time career and in my opinion is a true “must” for fitness entrepreneurs if they want to make it big.
#3: Start A Blog
Obviously, blogging is something I am very passionate about because it has allowed me to demonstrate my expertise in a very calculated, organized way through several different niches.
I won’t touch on this
#4: Start A Podcast
Personally, this is where I think I shine most.
I can write ok, and I guess I’m half-decent on video – but I feel I am at my absolute best when I am podcasting.
Podcasting is very similar to YouTube in the sense that there are many monetization options up to the point where this can be your full-time job as well – if you hit it big in podcasting then you are also hitting in big in the bank account, mark my words on that one.
Even though podcasting is already very popular, I think it’s only ever going to get more popular from here.
People in modern times have absolutely no attention span whatsoever, so, long form video content and/or blogging can sometimes miss a chunk of your audience.
But, podcasting is something someone can do whether or not they are multi-tasking or paying close attention – it’s a “catch all” medium to communicate with your audience.
They don’t have to sit in one place and read or watch, instead, they are free to move on about their day and have your beautiful voice come through their headphones.
Beyond this, a podcast really allows you to stand out as a major expert in your field.
Why?
Because it’s like having a 1-on-1 conversation with your prospect every time they tune in.
Your episode could be 10 minutes long or 2 hours long, it doesn’t matter, you are speaking directly to them and demonstrating without a shadow of doubt that you know exactly what you’re talking about.
Then, at the end of each episode you can have a very clear call-to-action about “if you want to learn more, you can go…”
They already “opted in” to listen to you so they were kind of on board, then, you got them to know/like/trust you during the hour you spent together, now they love you and are ready to act on your call-to-action at the end.
Very powerful, it’s like an educational sales page but without being slimy at all. Everyone wins.
Final Thoughts
The above four strategies are all very effective ways for fitness entrepreneurs to start separating themselves from the pack and become a true leader in the fitness world.
Are there other strategies?
Of course.
But from my experience in this world these are the ones you should be hedging your bets on for now and the future.
Pick one or two, dominate them, and move forward in a calculated way from there – and if you want help every step of the way to remove all the landmines on your way to becoming known as the best in your field, get some support from the Create Freedom Academy.
Dan Garner
Kevin McClelland
