Guest Post – Alwyn Cosgrove

This was first posted on Alwyn’s website and I thought I would share it with you. Alwyn kindly agreed, so here it is. It’s a bit different from the usual content but anyone that has seen my presentations will know that one of my opening slides encourages everyone to be open minded and look to other areas for training insights. People thought I was odd travelling to spend time with the Cirque du Soliel when I only trained athletes. They thought I was daft when I worked with ballet to look at transferable skills.

Challenge your belief system – read on…

If, at a seminar for fitness trainers, I asked what newsletters or journals they read on a regular basis – I think most would answer with one of the fitness profession newsletters or association journals. If I asked which websites they read most often – other than facebook — I’m fairly sure that it would be a “fitness” website. If I asked which magazines they read most often – it’s usually fitness magazines.

When I ask what they charge and why – it’s usually based on “what other gyms charge…” or “other trainers in my area”,  instead of a cost analysis and “step away” outcomes. We’re not looking outside of the fitness world for ideas.

Only reading or studying within your own field is a flawed approach because you simply cannot outperform your most common influences and your own mindset. You have to put new stuff in before you can get new stuff out.

Dan Kennedy uses the example of having 4 close friends or family members who are devout Catholics. In that situation, it would be very hard to truly be an atheist as you’re surrounded constantly by one point of view. You might not even question anything (or know that there is something to question) until you are exposed to new material.

Your own thinking is always going to be the average of your most frequent relationships, and influences within your own “world”. To change your thinking – you need to change what you put into your head, and who/what you surround yourself with.

The scary part is that your mindset and belief systems aren’t really built from anything other than the average of your experiences – or more likely – the average of the thinking and experiences of your five or six closest influences.

It’s hard to change belief systems when everyone around you is thinking in the same way. That’s why we need to look outside of the fitness field if we want to really elevate and change our profession.

It’s unlikely that you are going to reinvent the business concept in your industry when you only look within your industry for information (especially as when you think about it – it’s essentially an industry that’s really just looking back at you!). You need to create or establish different relationships and different input in order to change your thinking (one of the reasons why mastermind groups and coaching groups are so valuable). Without new ideas an opinions, growth never happens.

I can remember a top strength coach telling me that no product in the fitness profession could retail at more than $50-75. (Of course at the time, I agreed enthusiastically – after all it was one of the top names in our field!! He must be right).

But he wasn’t.

Because meanwhile you could purchase 12 30-min CD’s on “The speaking business” for $997.00, a course for the carpet cleaning business for $1497.00, an 8 -hour audio cassette program on buying mobile homes for $599.97, a home study course on plumbing for $8000.00 or a “martial arts school” marketing course for $2376.99

The coach’s perspective had been influenced by being too close to the fitness profession for too long. My perspective was being influenced by his, and so it continued, with my mindset being passed on to others also.

But there were several ideas outside of our  field that were game-changers. We were just thinking “incestuously” (another Dan Kennedy-ism) and looking at the average of what our field was already doing and trying to do more of the same. We should have been looking outside of fitness for new ideas.

Martial arts schools for example were charging 4-5x what trainers were charging (for group classes). They still charge more per month than pretty much any “bootcamp” business charges, despite being pretty close in terms of what is offered (instruction and training in a group setting).

And that’s just a difference on pricing. There are a ton of other factors that make up our services that we can change and improve just by looking outside our own little world.

For example – The “drive-through” window originally came as an extension of the ATM machine at banks – but the fast food industry saw the idea and used it (the first “drive-through” businesses were in fact banks!)

When Subway realized that “drive-through” wouldn’t work for them – they changed their image from “fast food” to healthy choices (and maybe even weight loss) and then they used Jared as their spokesman after seeing a Mens Health article on weight loss methods (where Jared was featured).

So fast food “stole” ideas from banking and Subway had an idea from Mens Health magazine!

We need to look outside our industry (whatever industry you are in) and continue to innovate and change the game.

Action Step: look at a completely different business and how they are generating leads, converting leads to customers and retaining customers and decide how you can use that idea in your business. what would an art gallery do? What would an auto repair shop do? A Vegas casino? A beachfront resort? A sports bar? A limo company?

That’s why we at Results Fitness are studying outside of our field.
Over the past couple of years we’ve been studying Starbucks, Zappos, (we’re in the Zappos Insights group), the Ritz Carlton, and Disney. Because of my travel schedule I’ve been taking notes on the way Virgin America is changing the game.
And Starbucks have literally reinvented themselves since Howard Schulz returned: