The Fitness Industry Is Obsessed With Being Liked

There’s a moment in Dragons’ Den that happens almost every episode.

Someone walks in with a business that does what hundreds of other businesses already do, or what some of the bigger businesses could do quite easily. No clear difference, no problem they solve better, no moat.

And the Dragons say no, EVERY time.

And that’s not even because the people aren’t passionate about their business, but because they don’t really have a business.

‘There’s nothing defensible’, is something you’ll hear Peter Jones say quite frequently.

I just don’t think the fitness industry has learned this yet.

There’s this belief floating around that everyone can be a coach, everyone will find clients, get qualified, set up Instagram, post consistently, and 20 to 30 people will materialise wanting to pay you.That was maybe true in 2016. It’s not true now.

The market is saturated with coaches who look identical, have the same content, the same language, same template.

The issue on the back of this is that instead of solving this problem, and standing out? The fitness industry is absolutely obsessed with being liked. Instead of communicating differently, or solving specific problems? Coaches just want engagement, likes and the warm fuzzy feeling of posting what everyone else is posting.

But like me snoozing my 4:30 gym alarm and turning on my electric blanket - It might feel nice and warm in the moment, but it’s not that helpful long-term.

Content becomes about performance - not sharing thoughts, but sharing what will get engagement. And this works - for a bit. It gets likes, it might get shares - maybe a few hundred followers. None of them become clients though.

It takes real bollocks to suddenly stop caring about engagement (or only engagement) and start focusing on the business

But it’s the only way a coaching business can be sustainable