The BIG 4s on How to Run a Successful Bootcamp:
Hi guys! It’s Travis here today. How are you? One thing you may notice about me, I’m pretty old fashioned. Not into fancy things and prefer having a good old conversation with someone than sharing it via social media. Which is kind of ironic considering I run courses in both Social Media and Training Clients Online.
I’ve gotten a bit better recently but when I first started running Bootcamps, I was super old school. I thought running a Bootcamp was just about the Bootcamp Workout. Clients come to Bootcamp, I’ll provide an amazing workout and then my clients go home and enjoy their day! And better I make my Bootcamp Workout, the better the Trainer I am and the more my business will grow…
I was wrong… “The Workout” is actually the smallest part of a Bootcamp! Most people that come to a Bootcamp don’t really care about what the workout is. What they want is 4 things, which I call “The Big 4”
1) Support
2) Motivation
3) Accountability
4) Community
Take a look at your current clients now. My guess is, most of them that have been training with for a while – don’t NEED you for the exercise. They could train on their own if they really wanted too… BUT… if they did train on their own they wouldn’t have your support, motivation, accountability or community and that’s what keeps them coming!
Once I realised this I started to put so much more effort into the “Big 4” and the easiest way to provide this is Online Challenges via a VIP Facebook Group. e.g. no sugar challenge, hydration challenge, sleeping challenge (I win this one every time), recipe sharing challenge, walking challenge, accountability challenge… etc etc!
I could go all day on these challenges (they are actually my specialty), but to simplify it – let’s use the “walking challenge”. Super simple idea, for 1 week (or however long you decide) your clients need to track how many ml’s they walk each day, they then “comment” it on a Facebook post in your Group! At the end of the week whoever walked the most ml’s is the “winner”!
If you look at this challenge: You as the Trainer did pretty much nothing, you didn’t walk, you didn’t track their ml’s, you didn’t provide a track. All you did is make a FB post…
BUT…. what you actually did is…
1) Provide support: Because you’re going to “like” everyone who commented and say “good work”… So they know that someone actually cares
2) Provide motivation: These clients probably wouldn’t have just gone and walked a heap of km’s for the fun of it.. but because it’s a “challenge” / “part of the program”.. They are motivated to do it
3) Provide accountability: Because if a clients doesn’t provide how many km’s they walked… You’re going to tag them and ask “what’s up?”… So they know, wow, I better actually walk or Trav will notice and I don’t want to let him down!
4) Provide community: I could do all of the above for a single person… but that would be super boring… BUT if there’s 5, 10, 15, 20 other people doing the challenge at the same time… It is SO much more fun!
These are some of the reasons why I believe EVERY TRAINER should have some form of an online program! You can see how even if all you did was provide a walking challenge once every 3 months it would add so much value to your clients and it takes like ZERO time for you as the Trainer… AND you can be a complete technological dunce as long as you know how to make a post on Facebook – you can do this challenge!
Join our Free Community Facebook group, we have 6000+ trainers there, and we share tips, workouts and ideas to grow your bootcamp on a daily basis. Let me know what you think in the comments below and also remember to get our 5 Tips to Grow your Bootcamp here.
What do you think? Do you agree with the information I’ve just shared with you? Do you believe in the power of social media but don’t know how to use it for your business? Let me know in the comments down below.
