If you listen to some of the top fitness marketing and business education guru’s, they say there will be a dramatic fall in boot camps in 2016. Basing your business solely on boot camp will make it tough to continue growing your business and the amount of people training with you on a regular basis. In order to survive and continue growing your training business, you should be doing several things proactively over the course of 2016. Creating training and screening systems that separate your gym from the rest should be a top priority. After that is in place, something as simple as a class name change may help keep your training program separate from some of the trash boot camp training programs out there.
So why do some of the top fitness business pros feel that boot camps are dying?
With the quick rise in bootcamps over the past few years, competition has become very saturated for “boot camp” training. Two years ago, there were far less boot camps around. However, since then…boot camp programs have been popping up left and right. I’m sure you have several boot camps within your own community. I personally live in a town with 25,000 people and we have a minimum of 6 different boot camp programs to choose from within a 2-3 mile radius. Honestly, that’s probably less than what many of you reading this are dealing with on a daily basis.
It really makes a lot of sense to run boot camps or large group training. This form of training allows the coach to maximize their time, help more people, and make more money per hour worked. Those are all good things, so it’s no surprise that group training has been taking off recently. We’re all about working smarter, not harder…so group training allows a favorable environment for both the coach and person participating in the training. The coach gets to help more people and make more money, and the client gets to pay less for quality training.
Since there was such a huge rise in bootcamps, the top pros are predicting a big fall in the upcoming years. This too makes lots of sense. I’m sure you’ve heard it before, but….”All good things must come to an end.” We’re not saying that your group training classes or boot camps are going to suffer. However, this prediction should not be ignored. Your clients have a saturated market filled with several low cost providers to choose from. Why should they choose you?
The answer I hear all the time is….because my program is better. Why? Do your clients know why? Is it painstakingly obvious that you are different? It should be, otherwise you will to fall victim to your clients leaving to save a few bucks by switching to a lower cost provider in your area. We make it painstakingly obvious by using our Smart Group Training methods. We screen on day one. We rescreen again in 45 days. After that, we will continue to rescreen every 45 days. This method not only allows us to keep a constant eye on movement efficiency, it also helps keep our program separated from the rest of the crowd. By the time they may forget that we’re different, we’re rescreening them again. The screen/rescreen method helps keep your clients constantly informed that your program is different, along with over delivering with great programs and service along the way.
This is one thing that separates us from the crowd, but we’ve even taken it a step further. We have both changed our class names from “boot camps” to “large group personal training”. We’ve banned the word “boot camp” from our facilities. We’ve updated our online scheduler, we’re updating all of our online offerings to banish the term from the site, and we have even been taking it as far as getting our clients to quit using the term. If they know we don’t like the term, it helps us create the mindset that we ARE different.
We’re all about being proactive rather than reactive. We are setting our businesses and training programs different. The boot camp era will come to an end. With a huge rise comes a huge fall. So, don’t take the reactive approach and risk losing your clients to the low cost providers in your area. Start taking the action steps necessary to set yourself apart. Remember…when you are thinking of ways to set your program apart, it needs to be blatantly obvious that your program is different. It’s easy for us, as fitness professionals, to see the difference. However, it needs to be obvious to the average person that has little to no knowledge of training that you’re different. Think about what you’re currently doing and what your action plan will be to keep your gym, business, or training program at the top.
Be sure to reply below. Do you think boot camps will survive and continue to rise in 2016? Let us know your thoughts
Jared Woolever