A healthy and active lifestyle is a key ingredient of my own happiness and my drive to maximize happiness for me and the people around me. I've transformed my passion for fitness into a business, 4legsfitness.com, which helps me achieve financial freedom.  

Passive income for financial freedom 

In order to achieve my vision of financial freedom, my online fitness business needs to generate passive income. That is only possible if I automate as many of the necessary processes as possible. My direct client work is customized and "manual" but everything else is automated.

Here's how I did it.  

Automating my fitness business: 4legsfitness.com

All my processes are split into either core business or marketing execution, which includes content marketing and promotion.

I offer 4legsfitness.com services or products either online or offline. The underlying idea of 4legsfitness.com is that in everything I do I combine four areas that are essential to achieve a strong foundation of health and fitness: strength, endurance, nutrition, and recovery.

Offline includes one-on-one personal training, seminars, or courses. These are high-touch services, and where I want to spend my time. Online includes the sale of supplements with chosen partners I trust, accessories like t-shirts or hats that are drop shipped, online courses, or the Build Bullet-Proof Health online fitness program. 

I use a few tools to run my business:

• Shopify is where I host my website. People can discover my offerings and make purchases.

• Trainerize is an online coaching platform where I create and offer customized programs to my clients and can message with them and conduct regular check-ins

• Google apps like Gmail, Sheets, and Forms help me run my core processes

Then, I use Zapier to tie them all together. This is how my process works:

Zap 1: A new sale comes in 

A new sale in Shopify triggers a welcome email from Gmail to my new client. It includes a request to fill in a comprehensive client assessment questionnaire in a Google Form. They get a targeted email based on the product they purchased.

Zap 2: A new client fills out the assessment questionnaire

When a new form is submitted, it creates a new client account in Trainerize. They are assigned to me as the trainer. This Zap includes different Paths depending on the client's personal fitness goals and other variables. This allows them to be automatically assigned to the correct program and lets me know what services I should be offering through Trainerize.

Zap 3: Supplement purchases and order coordination

The sale of supplements from my store is also automated. I work with a third-party supplier of supplements, and this Zap sends order information from my store to a shared Google Sheet. Both of us get notifications and the order fulfillment is then executed by my partner.

Zap 4: Abandoned cart notifications

Only a portion of website visitors who add products to a shopping cart actually purchase. When someone leaves a full cart behind, Zapier notifies me, and I then send an automated email to this visitor with a discount offer, hoping to convince them to buy. It is also an excellent opportunity to start a conversation and build a relationship. After all, this visitor already showed an interest in one of my offers.  

Zap 5: Promoting my business

I produce regular blog articles that provide tips and information for people in my target audience. They all conclude with a call-to-action with conversion in mind. I want to promote my work on social media, but as a small business owner it is impossible to cover them all well. This is where automation comes in. I use Zapier to post from my blog to Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. 

What did I achieve with automation?

My business is complex. Quite simply, without automation, 4legsfitness.com would not exist. Handling my core business process and marketing without automation would be impossible for me to handle on my own. Zapier is what allows me to connect all the different apps and platforms that I am using for my business and define all the processes that span across these apps. 

Another key benefit of automation for my business is the reduction of errors. Once a process is clearly defined, I implement it using Zaps. After some testing and refinement, I go into production mode. After that, the Zaps reliably produce the same results every time. If I do this work manually, quite naturally errors occur, which can be time-consuming and expensive to fix, and could result in losing customers.

A further crucial benefit of automation is that it frees up my time to focus on the things where I can really add value, improve my offers, grow the business, acquire new customers, and have fun rather than executing mundane, repetitive tasks. 

Being a business owner in the fitness industry is tough. Without automation, I would have failed a long time ago. With it, every day I am coming closer and closer to achieving my vision of financial freedom to satisfy the happiness formula and continue to live the happy life. 

Related reading:

• Why you should create a brand community and how automation can help you do it

• How Zapier helped us save thousands of dollars on our marketing budget

• 3 ways to automate your personal fitness business

• How gym owners can automate client communication