I feel as though we are experiencing an evolution within S&C for strength coaches. There are a lot more coaches who are taking on roles outside of the weight room to find ways to supplement their income through education or training.

Quick classification of consumer-based businesses. B2B is business to business and B2C is business to consumer. This is an important thing to know if you are looking to supplement your income. If you are B2B, you are looking to sell your services to other coaches and they will try to replicate your system or framework. If you are B2C, you are trying to train people directly. A lot of time I hear coaches wanting to sell their services but lack a clear vision of what kind of business they want to run. 

We need to discuss which is which because a lot of times strength coaches don’t have a good plan for what they want to do. You should, you are going to get destroyed in a world that is solely focused on their product and trying to sell it. Sales is not about who has a better product or what serves a specific need better. Sales is about knowing who you are, and what you do, and relentlessly trying to get people to buy that. 

It starts with what you want to do. Do you want to work with coaches and educate them? You are B2B then. You will need to market yourself to coaches and how you can solve their problems and help them do something they cannot do without you. If you are looking to train people in person or remotely, you are B2C. You will have to market yourself to potential customers on how you get them results they cannot get from someone else or without you. 

From there it is about going to work on your actual business. Avoiding the pitfalls of doubling down on what you already but really committing to understanding how to build a business. You will have to put on different hats. One being a manager – building systems, having quality control, and making sure you are hitting your targets each week/month/year. You will have to put on your entrepreneur hat – learning to market, learning to sell, and most importantly learning to close. There is software to manage this. There are books to learn this. There endless resources to grow a business, find them and do it.

You will need to figure out how to develop a brand that clearly articulates what you are selling and how you plan to help. Start with the people you know, would they buy something from you, and why? If they are unwilling to buy something from you, you may need to reorient to the opposite business structure. You may need to show how invaluable you are and market yourself better. Either way, you will get a master class on sales and that will be key.