Business, Building your Brand | Dr. Laura Miranda

Building successful brand in the fitness industry can be difficult. This is especially true for someone with no prior business experience. But, as long as you have the passion, it’s ok to take a risk and go for it. Fitness master Dr. Laura Miranda knows exactly what it takes to take a small idea and build a big brand around it. She has made it a point to try to educate others on how to establish brands of their own. Dr. Miranda believes, “Fit pros at every level should be aware of the following phases. This is the general progression you should aspire to do while you grow your brand. It will help you establish a sustainable business, and a deliver a lasting impact on the world.”  

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Step one –  Employee Phase. At this stage you are probably an employee of a gym or something similar. Use this “safe” time to learn the ropes of working with people.  Seek out all the education on the “what” and the “how” in the early stages as possible. Increase your knowledge. Perfect your technical skills. Attend conferences. Take continuing education courses like crazy. Work with as many different clients as as possible.  Work on your craft (train clients/treat patients) to live and to fuel your education.


    
Step two – Independent Contractor Phase. You’re getting close to outgrowing the corporate/chain gym game. It’s time to take your business to the next level and move on to being an independent contractor. This means working for yourself. You lose the “safety” that comes with a big box gym.  Yet, going out on your own will force you to gain new and valuable skill sets. You learn more about sales, customer service, client attraction and retention etc. But in preparation to move to step three and beyond, you must start expanding your reach. Collect the emails of clients and potential clients. Start sending out content in a newsletter.  Go get out there and take chances, think outside of the box, and don’t be afraid to fail. Actually, crashing and burning is a rule if you want to go to step 4. Go deeper into the “why” of all  the techniques and theories of movement that you learned in step one. What is your interpretation and unique expression on all that?  Continuously develop your unique identity and distinct voice in this oversaturated industry of fitness.  Enroll as many people in your mindset and your mission as possible. Keep asking yourself the following question. At the end of the day what is the ultimate impact that you want to have on the world with my skills?  


Step three –  Business Ownership Phase. Expand your “brand” beyond the “1-on-1” training model. Or even teaching group classes for someone else. Use  your unique skills to create a program that serves one specific niche in your area. You can even choose to create a product or service as well. This takes you into the world of being a business owner.   Educate yourself with business courses specific to the fitness industry. Learn the skills of online marketing, social media marketing, etc. Your business will serve more people. It will also help you make more money in less time. And it will start to set the stage for step four.  Continue building your brand and refining your message. Collaborate, network, and mastermind with as many of your colleagues as possible.  Find who is already successful at what you want to achieve and hire them as your coach.     


Step four –  Entrepreneurial phase. This is where you take what you know about changing people’s lives locally, and take it to a bigger scale. A global scale. But this phase is not for the faint of heart. You must be brave, you must have courage, and you must call on all your education and experience thus far. The cool thing, in my eyes, is that once you hit this phase of your career, there is far less competition. Most of your colleagues are stuck a few steps back. They are paralyzed in the mindset of being “too scared to change, too busy to grow.”     

Key “rules” to remember: 

Steps may have to be repeated based on life circumstances. The time it takes to move to a new step varies from months to years, and possible to decades. Steps are not finite; they may bleed into each other. 

Two common traits run through the most successful people in the world…


 1) They have failed more times than you will ever know or ever hear about. The failures were the training that they needed to learn how to become successful. They kept moving forward and kept discovering what didn’t work, until they found out what did.  


 2) They always believed that they would succeed. I see far too many people give up before achieving their goals and dreams. Even when the going gets rough, you must believe in yourself and your mission. This is the best way to stay on that journey towards greatness.  This in itself is a skill that must be practiced and perfected over time. But if you have the courage to foster an unwavering belief in yourself and your vision

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