“Her name is Amy.”
Gym owner Ashley Kates has a name for her client avatar. In fact, she knows everything about Amy.
“I know how old she is, how many kids she has, where she shops, where she vacations, how often she purchased stuff from Amazon. Does she decorate for holidays? What is her hair like? It’s very, very, very specific,” Kates said.
Ashley runs a women’s-only gym in Lexington, South Carolina. StrongHER’s core services are PT, group coaching and nutrition coaching.
Kates doesn’t want every single client in the gym. She wants the right clients, and she’s done everything she can to set her business up to acquire them.
Some gym owners are scared to niche down like this.
I was.
When you’re desperate for clients and revenue, it’s common to try to appeal to everyone by offering everything. But it’s a trap. Vague, unfocused gyms attract fickle, flighty clients who are quick to leave. And they struggle with sales because they have way too many confusing options.
But here’s the reality: If you know the exact person you want to serve, you’ll be able to serve that person better and longer.
“What Does Amy Need?”
For Ashley, finding her niche helped her improve on a business that lacked structure a few years back.
“There was no member journey,” she recalled. “There was no starting point, no check-in point. There was no direction. It was as if you went on a hiking trip and you didn’t know where you were starting, where you were going to end up and how to tell if you were along the right path. It was very mish-mash.”
That changed when she got to know Amy—who came into focus during an Office Hours avatar workshop Kilo CEO Kaleda Connell presented to Two-Brain clients in 2023.
Amy gets a say on just about every aspect of the business; if Amy approves of something and it falls in line with StrongHER’s core values, it’s a go.
Creating an avatar “gave me a more clear direction of ‘who am I speaking to?’” Ashley said.
She continued: “Once I’d done the hard work of establishing the very nitpick details of my client avatar and then changing my branding to reflect that—even the words that I use, the images that I use on social media—my leads come to me already knowing who I am, what I do, and that I fit what they’re looking for.”
Here’s what extreme focus looks like in StrongHER’s data: a doubling of client count and average revenue per member.
Our larger data set confirms gyms that focus on a very specific niche are more likely to become great:
- They can charge more per client.
- They care deeply about their specialty and get clients results faster than anyone else.
- They keep clients longer.
- They have less competition.
Ignoring Distractions
Amy is also around to help Ashley screen out mistakes and stay on track—something that’s incredibly important for entrepreneurs who can generate 10 new ideas before lunch.
When a friend’s son wanted to join the gym, Ashley was tempted to offer something new. She had a meeting with Amy, so to speak, and reviewed the StrongHER mission.
“I thought, ‘Maybe I should let boys come because I have a skill,’” Ashley recalled. “And then I thought, ‘No, that doesn’t go with my core values, doesn’t go with my Amy, doesn’t go with my brand at all. That’s not who I am.’”
I wish I could have focused like that as a younger gym owner.
It took me years to learn how to stick to the path. But now that I’m focused, decisions are much easier, marketing and sales are smoother, retention is better, staff are happier, and clients are getting better results at my gym.
And that’s why Two-Brain mentors help clients determine exactly what to offer to whom—and we do this in the first six weeks of mentorship.
Presenting a clear, concise, valuable solution to a problem will result in wins. Vague blasts of options will result in confused prospective clients who bolt quickly if they even sign up at all.
Two-Brain mentors guide gym owners to create avatars and offers that reflect each unique fitness business, and they build entire client journeys that increase revenue and retention. These are custom models, but I’ll give you this quick exercise to get you started.
1. Imagine your perfect client—this could and probably should be a blend of your best members right now. Give the person a name and write down everything you can to describe this person. This is your avatar.
2. Write down the fitness problems this person has. Example: “Phil can’t get here after work. He’s got one hour at lunch including travel time to improve his cardio so he can keep up with his kid.”
3. Review your current service offerings. Are they the best solutions for your avatar’s problems? Do they help your avatar accomplish goals fast? If you answered “no” to either question, consider some changes to your offer.
Know Your Niche!
You don’t sell fitness programs. You sell results.
And you can’t produce the best results if you don’t know your perfect client like your best friend.
If you want to help more, charge more, sell more and keep members longer, figure out what group of clients you can serve better than anyone else. Then find those clients.
And if you need help doing all that very quickly, let’s talk: book a call.
