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Starting from Scratch: How to Launch Your Fitness Business with Zero Budget

When we're at our live speaking events, we ask participants to submit their questions about building an online presence for their fitness businesses. We do this for two reasons: to make sure we're covering their questions in our presentation and to create future podcast episodes and blog posts from those questions. Recently, we received a question at the Orlando Mania event from someone named Hasten Scott. Hasten asked, "What do I do if I'm just starting out from zero? I have no money, no website, no Instagram or Facebook. How much do I need to get started?" Today, I'm going to answer that question for all of you and walk you through the four steps or actions you should take today if you're starting from scratch.

I'll show you the easy and effective ways to find and enroll more clients into your fitness-based business and how to streamline, simplify, and even automate the entire process. 

Step 1: Decide What You Want to Help People With

If you're a personal trainer, you might help people tone up, build muscle, lose weight, drop body fat, get active, run their first marathon, or decrease their marathon time. Maybe you're a posing coach helping people get on stage and place. Specialize in what you do and what you want to help people with. For example, you might help new moms lose their last 20 pounds or help marathon runners shave a minute off their total time. Specialization will come as your business grows, but for now, just decide what you want to help people with and get laser focused on creating content to target THAT person with THAT problem.

Step 2: Identify Why People Aren't Already Achieving Their Goals

Ask yourself, why aren't people already losing the weight? Or, insert whatever your end goal is from step 1.  What is stopping them from achieving their goal? 

Today we will use “losing weight” as I walk you through these steps.  What is stopping your ideal clients from losing weight successfully? What is so difficult for them that is easy for you? Here's a magic phrase: "If someone would just ___, they would lose weight and keep it off." Complete that sentence three times with three different answers. For me, it's:

1. Cut added sugar.

2. Do metabolic workouts three days a week.

3. Track the data.

These foundations are built from my experience and the years of working with clients. Your foundations might be different, but you need to have three core beliefs or teachings.

Step 3: Identify the Reasons Behind Their Struggles

For each of your three foundations, find the three biggest reasons why someone isn't already doing what you suggest. For example, if cutting added sugar is your foundation, reasons might be:

1. They don't know how to read nutrition labels.

2. They think all sugar is created equal.

3. They feel like they don't have anything to eat if it's not pre-prepared or pre-packaged.

You'll end up with nine reasons why someone isn't achieving their goal.

Step 4: Create Content Around These Reasons

Open up your social media pages and start creating content around these nine things. Explain what they need to be doing, why they're not doing it, and how you can help. Include a call to action (CTA) in every post. Encourage engagement and start DM conversations with those who interact with your posts. Approach these conversations authentically, offering help and understanding their struggles. This will naturally lead to inviting them to a consult call, where you can discuss how you can help them and enroll them in your program or service.

Keep it SIMPLE

Follow these steps, over and over again, and keep your business building as simple as possible.  I used this exact process to build my first online fitness business to multiple six figures.  I know the strategy works, and I help trainers just like you repeat the process each and every day.

Bonus Step: How to Handle Payments

Remember, when you're starting out, you don't need a website or a sales page. Show up on social media, create content, and have conversations. For payments, use Stripe, which is free. Charge clients through Stripe and deliver your workouts and nutrition plans via Google Docs and unlisted YouTube videos. As you grow, you can invest in platforms like My Client Connections, but in the beginning, keep it simple and focus on getting clients and making money.

This is exactly how I built my business to $100,000 without a website. Show up consistently, engage authentically, and offer value. You don't need a big budget or fancy tools to start making money and growing your fitness business.

Now, get to work!Be sure to tune int to Beyond the Sets and Reps for our next episode or  say hi inside our free Facebook group, Successful Online Fit Pros. Bye for now!

And when your ready, here’s how I can help:

30 Ways to Make $500 In Your Fitness Business By Next Week: https://www.standoutfitpro.com/30-ways    

90 Days Of Social Media Content For The Fitness Professional: https://www.standoutfitpro.com/90-days-of-content

Join our Facebook Group Successful Online Fit-Pro's where you will find a tribe of fabulous fitness trainers, done-for-you weekly content ideas, ways to start making money TODAY, content rewrites and much more: https://www.facebook.com/groups/fitprohangout

Apply For Free Coaching: Complete this 5 question application to see if you qualify for free coaching and business strategy with Brandi.