Turn your passion into profit –Keeping fit

This week we continue our series on turning your passion into profit.  We’ll be looking at the fitness freaks. You’ve probably been around someone who is always counting calories, always watching the sugar level of everything they eat or drink. In addition, they know all the gyms around and are quite disciplined in their exercise routine. There is good reason to be concerned about keeping fit. It’s scientifically proven to prevent a number of diseases and generally aids a healthy lifestyle. I knew that the keeping fit mania is sweeping across Nigeria when I heard my 6-year-old son tell me that he doesn’t want to eat some kinds of food because he doesn’t want to be fat! Globally, the diet, health and fitness industry is a 75 Billion dollar business and If you’re someone who likes keeping fit and it comes naturally to you, then, you’re well placed to tap into this multi-million dollar industry.

Again, what you need to ask yourself is “How do I turn this passion into a business that people are willing to pay for? The second question is how do I make this business sustainable?”

There are a number of income streams that you can create in this industry, many with little start up costs.

• Do an exercise video. Using your phone or any video enabled device you can film yourself doing exercise routines. You can post this online or package them in a DVD format. There are many busy executives that this might appeal to. It further reduces the cost of enrolling in a gym or hiring a personal trainer. What you need to do though is to have various exercise routines that can engage potential users of this product. While shooting this video, remember to make this interactive, such that you’re speaking directly to potential users. One helpful site in this regard is www.jillianmichaels.com.
• Become a fitness coach/personal trainer. Whilst many people agree that they need to exercise regularly, they can’t just keep to the discipline that is expected to make this happen. You can position yourself to fill this gap. You can organise personal fitness sessions at clients houses at their convenience. You can also hold regular classes and ask people to subscribe. Some people prefer working out in a group, whilst others prefer a one on one session. Either way, you need to determine which one works for potential clients and match your offering to their needs.

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• Corporate fitness classes. Some organisations including schools, and businesses might want to offer a fitness session to their staff or students either as a differentiating facto or some form of staff package. You need to identify such schools /organisations and offer your services around these areas. You can schedule weekly or monthly sessions as the case may be and you offer them corporate discounts.
• Offer healthy recipes. Many people don’t know the amount of fat they have in their daily diet. So, even if they have a regular exercise routine, they might not meet their fitness goals because of the wrong kind of diet. You can package a diet schedule in such a way that clients are able to structure their eating habits so that they meet their fitness goals. You can give these recipes for free for people that sign up to your fitness class. Another way to monetise this is to come up with a formula, the way some companies have produced a “healthy bar” that people can carry around and snack on when they feel the need to eat. Still another way to monetise your passion and knowledge is to partner with some quick service restaurants to have your branded dishes on their menu as a strategy to cater for those that want to eat a more healthy diet.

There are still other ways to turn your passion of fitness and healthy living into profit with little start-up costs. The key as with all other passions is to develop your passion into a sellable skill and to turn this passion into a business with a scalable and sustainable business model at a price that people are selling to sell. You then begin to bring other partners into the fray who could help you in marketing and spreading the word.

I ask, what are you waiting for? Just start.

Oguche Agudah