Complicated life situations can get you out of your track. Here’s how some of the top leaders deal with growing their business during challenging times.

2020 was a crazy year – one that either made you or broke you.

In the fitness industry, it turned into a survival of the fittest. Many businesses went out of work during the year, while others are still struggling to survive.

But it’s also the perfect time to study successful people, as there are those who managed to grow their businesses despite the tumultuous year.

I’m seeing fitness entrepreneurs that thrived throughout this period. And inside my Authority Network, there are 97 of them making six figures.

But what do they have in common?

In this article, we’ll take a look at the five essential lessons you can learn from my most successful clients. It’s what allowed them to reach a level of success most entrepreneurs only can dream of, especially during trying times.

But before we do that, I’ll explain a vital point of business that you need to keep in mind.

The Importance of Systems

If you’re building a business and want to impact people, you have to be able to build a system that gets results. That system must create value again and again while allowing you to leverage your time.

You want to be working smart, not hard. Do it the other way around and you risk burning yourself out. Worse, you may end up hating what you do. When that happens, you won’t be good to anyone, let alone your clients.

Think of it as going on a diet and choosing to starve yourself. It’ll work for a while, but eventually, you’ll blow out.

Stay focused and build a system that will provide constant growth.

The Five Lessons

Lesson #1. Take Action Despite Being Ready

The first thing to learn from the most successful leaders is that they took action despite being ready.

The 2020 crisis turned the average online personal trainer into much more than a program prescriber. It turned them into what I call the Netflix of the fitness industry, as they had to get valuable training insights and teachings from other areas like yoga, Pilates, and everything else that complemented their service.

The leaders were able to build their service as they went.

It’s the same type of people that come into our program and end up soaring like a rocket, as opposed to those that come in and don’t do anything.

Those other people procrastinate, thinking their program isn’t valuable enough. It’s because they associate value with logistics, with more stuff. But the reality is that clients only care about one thing – the result you’re going to get them. That’s what you should be charging for, not the logistics.

Meanwhile, the most successful leaders I work with honestly believe that the results they provide are worth the price. And they build up that system by looking at testimonials, re-evaluating what the results mean to their clients, and looking at how much a client typically spends.

They try to get better results related to time, money, effort, and energy spent. It’s how they come up with a price point that’s successfully tested on the market. Then, they lean into it and pursue that goal.

More importantly, they build as they go and are open to feedback.

That’s the essence of taking action despite being ready. As the saying goes, executing a good plan today is better than a perfect plan implemented tomorrow.

Lesson #2. Focus on What You Can Control

Successful leaders don’t play the victim. Instead, they are focused on what they can control.

Money is made in your mind, so if you play the victim, there will always be something else to blame. They’ll say there were lockdowns and gyms were closed, for example.

But other online coaches and personal trainers had their best months, even though they didn’t have a huge following or the fame that some influencers enjoy. In fact, many of my clients quadrupled their income during the lockdown.

How could that be?

Because they realised they were still viable. They concentrated on the results their clients wanted and leaned into that. More importantly, they went all-in with that belief system.

On the other hand, some people thought about how clients don’t want to use the gym or their services. They focused on the clients they lost and it distorted their way of thinking. This thinking took them away from focusing on the abundance.

You have to train yourself to focus on the complete opposite of what you do when you’re scared. Otherwise, all your energy will go into where your focus lies.

Remember that the most successful leaders chose to ignore what they couldn’t control.

Lesson #3. Get Rid of Nightmare Clients

Another thing the leaders did was cut out the distracting clients quickly.

They decided to get rid of clients who were always complaining, soaking up energy, and standing in the way of the impact and growth.

Whatever the circumstances, the client’s goals aren’t going to change. So if they weren’t fully committed to their journey before, they wouldn’t change now. If anything, their goals will become more important to them.

So those successful leaders chose to stop spending the time and energy on clients that were draining them of those resources. And once they cut those clients out, the leaders were ready to continue soaring.

This is a skill you need to get good at.

Any thorns in your side will cause issues as you go along, so you get rid of them. It’s as simple as that.

Lesson #4. Revenue Follows Impact

When you take a financial hit, you start thinking about the metrics. Worse, you start obsessing over revenue.

You start measuring your self-worth through how much money you make.

But if you change your approach and focus on impact, you’ll realise that revenue follows impact. This means that if you focus on making your program better, you’ll be adding more value to the market. Revenue and income will follow.

It’s the natural law of cause and effect.

When I give you a gift in the form of additional value, you’ll feel the need to give something in return, like recommending me to people. In other words, my gift brought me referrals, and those might end up joining my program.

So when times are uncertain, always shift your focus to impact and value. Focus on changing lives and let that define your self-worth.

However, don’t be overly altruistic to the point where you’re burning yourself out. You still need to know how to sell and how to ask for money.

It’s a never-ending loop of serving yourself and serving others, and you have to work on both elements, not just one.

Lesson #5. Believe in Yourself

A vital trait of the most successful leaders is they all believe in themselves.

The moment you stop believing in yourself is when you start being at risk. It’s the very moment your implementation starts going down, and your wealth will follow.

That’s why believing in yourself is crucial, and so is taking action without thinking. Because when you’ve got plenty of things going on, not thinking about it and just jumping into action can be vital.

However, it can also be the opposite – it could be necessary to think thoroughly before acting. It will depend on the context of the situation.

Either way, you’ll need to believe in yourself to make those choices. It might sound really simple, but the fact is my best clients shared that trait.

But what can help you believe in yourself more?

The most helpful thing is to be heavily resourced and stay around great mentors and ambitious peers. Don’t just rely on yourself when you can have that heightened energy level.

Sometimes, your efforts alone won’t be enough. You need group thinking, peer pressure, and especially the advice and guidance of someone experienced and already 10 steps ahead in the field.

Become a Confident Leader

These lessons from my most successful clients can be used to extract invaluable leadership principles. Now that you’ve learned what those principles are, ask yourself:

Which of them resonates with you the most?

What principle stood out for you?

Once you have a concrete answer, know that it’s probably the one that you should work on the most.

Bear in mind that all of these lessons are vital if you want to build yourself up to become successful and satisfied with your work.

I hope these five leadership lessons from my most successful clients will help you. Take care.

Ps. Whenever you’re ready there are 3 ways you can partner with me and my team to grow your fitness business.

1. Check out Fitness Business Growth Kit → Here

This is the entire end-to-end system for plugging into any fitness business. It’s a 8-week build out of business foundations, sales, client delivery, scaling, and a custom 30 day challenge. Lifetime access. But it’s an 8-week drive for the growth you’re ready for. 

2. Apply for Authority Network and Partner Directly With My Team → Here

Direct mentorship with me and my team started by assessing your current business strategy, assessing blindspots, fixing immediate weaknesses… 

And building new scalable foundations. Specifically to coaches and entrepreneurs looking to crack £10K months, get out of the gym, and grow online. 

3. Discover More About Power Room

I take on a specific group of already 6-figure fitness entrepreneurs and dial into their goals. Sometimes it’s more freedom, sometimes it’s a wealth machine, sometimes it’s both. 

This is limited, extremely private, and intimate. If you’re reading this and have reached a level where you’re above everyone else, apply here → Here