Separating The Winners From The Losers

Last week Alwyn Cosgrove, Nick Berry and I were discussing Fitness Riches and all agreed that at $37 it was perhaps the most underpriced business-building resource available today. Where else can you get valuable insight from almost 20 highly successful fitness pros about the most crucial areas of their business?

We all agreed that the price should be raised but we wanted to give everyone one last chance to order at the original price...so they had several days to order before the price went to $49 - still a huge bargain.

So after ordering the book for $37 a trainer e-mails me to tell me that he doesn't think the book is underpriced at all. He thought that he should get more than "vague generalities"...which, I assume, meant that he should have a personalized business plan created and implemented for him.

Let's take a moment to look at this - there were 17 fitness professionals that contributed to this book. Conservatively, lets say that each of them would charge $100 / hr. for their time (very conservatively - good luck getting Alwyn, me, Eric Ruth, Nick or most of the others on the phone for $100 / hr.) So if each of the contributors spent one hour putting together their contribution - it's $1700 (minimum) worth of their time.

Now if these fitness pros would've delivered this same material in a 1 hour presentation at a seminar, what would that seminar be worth? Bedros Keuilian is charging $200 for 10 speakers at 1 hour per talk in his upcoming Fitness Business Summit.

So maybe it's the delivery format? Who knows.

But let's say that you take one idea from Fitness Riches...maybe you implement Alwyn's approach to semi-private training which is discussed at length in the first chapter. Let's say you currently charge $60 / session for 1 on 1 training, but now - by implementing this one strategy you can train 2 people at $40 / session (or three - but let's be conservative.)

Say you trained 15 sessions per week:

15 X $60 = $900
$900 X 50 weeks (2 weeks vacation) = $45,000 yr.

Now you train those same 15 sessions per week - but using the "Cosgrove Approach":

15 X $80 = $1200
$1200 X 50 weeks (2 weeks vacation) = $60,000 yr.

Hmmm...maybe I'm not much of a mathematician - but I think that's a $15,000 return on a $37 investment.

Yep - not underpriced at all.

See - I feel very strongly that if you by a book, a CD series or attend a seminar and you can't improve 1% or learn 1 thing - that is ENTIRELY your fault - not the materials fault. You just have to put your ego to the side and be willing to learn. Look around at your fellow fitness professionals - who are the most successful - the people who think they know everything or those who continually strive to improve?

My prediction - if you're bitching about making an investment in a $37 e-book - you probably have hit your ceiling as far as improvement goes - and that ceiling isn't very high.

If you want to grow, improve and "climb the ladder" in this or any other industry - you must continue to invest in your education. Ask Alwyn, Ryan Lee, Craig Ballantyne or Jim Labadie what they spend on education. I know my tab is upwards of $20,000 / yr.

Ever heard of Tom Venuto of "Burn The Fat" fame? He only has the most successful fitness e-book in history (among several hugely successful products.) On the surface it would seem he doesn't need to learn anything else - he already knows what it takes to be TREMENDOUSLY SUCCESSFUL - but guess what - Tom's purchased a couple of my products and I have no doubt those are just a couple on many that he invests in to keep himself ahead of the pack.

So if you're serious about being successful - understand that continual growth and education separates the winners from the losers.