Today’s post is a guest post from a good friend of mine Pat Rigsby. Pat is a fitness business genius and has helped us enormously at Champion PT and Performance. This article really resonated with me, as I am a big believer of constantly tweaking my systems. This goes for all my “systems” – my manual therapy system, my corrective exercise system, my program design system, and even all my personal and business systems. This concept was a big part of building out the Champion Performance Specialist systems. I’m constantly trying to improve myself everyday, and this article really put it in perspective for me. It’s like a snowball effect, slowly getting bigger and better over time. This applies to so much, not just a fitness business, like Pat uses as an exmaple. If you aren’t trying to get 1% better today, you are falling behind.
The Power of 1%
One of the biggest differentiators between the great business and the average ones is that the great ones keep improving. They kept evolving their training system and making it 1% better, over and over.
Someone who looks at their sales system or their assessment system may say “that doesn’t look that different from what I do.” But again – the great ones keep improving things, 1% at a time.
And if you look at their businesses, all the things that they do from their Initial Consultation to their Referral Systems to their Training System don’t necessarily look like something you’ve never seen before…they just do them all a little bit better than most everyone else.
That’s why the best businesses succeed…they take what works, they plug it into their businesses and they ‘plus it’ over and over…improving each component by 1% time and time again. And when it’s all said and done you have a business that has maybe 20 different components which are each 10-20% better (at minimum) than the competition. But because of the compound effect, this doesn’t make their business 10-20% better. Because every piece works synergistically with the others their improvement actually multiplies the improvement of the other areas.
It’s the difference between 100 clients and 400. The difference between $150,000 a year and $750,000.
If that seems hard to believe, here’s how a 20% increase compounded changes things, illustrated another way:
- 10 X 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 = 10,000,000,000
- 12 x 12 x 12 x 12 x 12 x 12 x 12 x 12 x 12 x 12 = 61,917,364,224
12 is only 20% bigger than 10, but compounded the difference is HUGE.
So how can you put this into action?
Model Success
That’s what you’re doing by reading this, so you’re already off to a good start. The best business owners I know may have invented a few things from scratch, but most of the components of their businesses were things that they learned from other successful fitness pros and businesses that they adapted, improved and made their own.
So study what’s working. Borrow from successful businesses. Model their success.
Implement
We all see dozens of good ideas…in products, at events, in Mastermind Meetings. But I’d guess most people actually implement about 2% of what they learn. The best businesses are living, breathing pictures of implementation. All the things people say they’re going to implement – the best ones actually do.
Remember – It’s not what you know. It’s what you do. You can say you’re a relationship business, but if you drop the ball over and over – you’re not. You can say you’re all about referrals, but if you don’t have referral systems in place that are working – you’re not.
The best implement. So should you.
Plussing
‘Plussing’ is a Walt Disney term for continually improving and it should be a regular part of your vocabulary. You may learn a referral system from someone and implement it, but you shouldn’t settle for it ‘as is.’ You should always be looking ways to make it a little more effective. We often talk about getting 1% better. This is getting 1% better in action. Improving your referral reward or the way you ask. Improving your internal language. Improving your training system. 1% at a time. This ‘plussing’ will eventually give you that 10-20% edge in every area that the best business owners have.
So that’s it. Your ‘all too simple’ way to build a powerhouse business. So put it into action and reap the same rewards that the industry’s best business have reaped.
Get Started Today, 1% At A Time
[Note from Mike] Here is your first step towards 1%. Start learning something new today. When I was just starting Champion PT and Performance, I sought out as much information as possible to assure I started in the right direction. I’m not a fan of making rookie mistakes when I can learn from the mistakes of others. One of the best resources I discovered was Pat Rigsby. Pat is a business guru, with a specialty in the health and fitness industry.
I asked Pat if he could offer anything special to my readers so they could start getting 1% better and he responded! Pat has a special offer to my readers to get his latest book, The Fitness Entrepreneur’s Handbook, for free.
I actually bought the book myself a couple of years ago for $20, haha, so you’re already doing better than me. In fact, this article of the Power of 1% is actually from that book!
But let me be clear, even if you aren’t starting a “fitness” business, this is a great resource for both personal development or if you want to start a physical therapy business. Especially if you want to try to creat a hybrid fitness / physical therapy model like Champion.
