Is there any better way to grow your fitness boot camp business than a transformation contest? Well if you asked me that question I would say yes there is only one other way; word of mouth. But we shouldn’t rely on others to grow our business, if we want a serious business that is. So I would have to say for those wanting a serious business and want to grow beyond expectations, then a transformation contest is the way to go.

I get it that the idea of a transformation contest can be an overwhelming thought. How to set it up, how to get the word out, how to choose a winner, and how to reward the winner, but that shouldn’t shy you away from not doing one. I can honestly tell you that not doing a transformation contest would have left at least $18,000 (not counting the referrals I’m getting on a daily basis from those who joined because they heard about the contest)on the table. How would you feel if you had that money available to you but didn’t take advantage of it?

The main idea here is to take action and take massive action. Yes you have heard this before but you have to take calculated massive action. And I think that starts with generating killer relationships with your clients, so that they are dying to bring people into your program. Also making relationships with people that can create benefit to your business. For me it was two morning radio personalities that was my big ticket. I became close to them as friends over time but it all started when a client of mine actually contacted the radio station before I had the chance and mentioned that they should check out my program. Lo and behold I had one of the radio personalities at my camp later that week asking a ton of questions about the program and offering to do free advertising (they would talk about their experiences) in exchange for free membership. Of course I jumped at the idea.

Getting amazing results goes without saying but being able to have one of the personalities lose over 45 pounds was another feather in the camp for generating a stampede effect to our program.

Then came the transformation contest.

I had no idea what was in store. We had set all the items in place for it to be successful. We had a powerful story of emotion we used as the advertising (radio personality), we hyped it up a few weeks before launch, and we had the timing right where we launched it around the new year. The radio personality was also well known in the community and was a visible person, so the results spoke for themselves when others saw her. We had the recipe for it to be a great turnout. Little did we know what was in store.

The applications for the contest weren’t as impressive as the amount of sign ups we had. We had 55 contestants sign up for the contest, but only took 5. The constant updates on the radio and advertisement updates on the contestants drew people in wanting more. Our fitness bootcamp business doubled from 75 to 140 clients in one month time. We are now flirting with 160 campers mostly due to space availability (we could easily get 170). What’s even more impressive is the one location where I always had smaller camps and had a hard time getting numbers up doubled last session from 32 to almost 60, and shows no sign of slowing down. For July, which is a dead month in our industry, I have 21 on a waiting list. You can do the math, that will get our numbers up close to 180 next session, in freakin’ JULY!

If that isn’t enough to get going on a transformation contest, I must say there isn’t much else I can do for you. We are in the works for doing two a year next year they are so powerful. If you haven’t’ done a transformation contest yet, be sure to get it in gear and your business will grow like you never imagined. If you are serious about building a fitness boot camp business, this is a mandatory action. Now get to it.

Ben WarstlerBen Warstler is the owner of Groundbreaking Fitness, LLC in northeast Vermont and runs Ben’s Bootcamps, a six figure bootcamp business in two towns both smaller than 4,000 people. Ben is a coach with the Bootcamp Blueprint, a program designed to help other fitness professionals grow their fitness bootcamp business to the next level. Be sure to follow Ben on Facebook and Twitter.

Filed under: Fitness

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