This is part two of a conversation between Tim Karajas and Dan on the Extension Fitness podcast.

Tim and Dan we explore how to improve retention by helping our clients and members build long-term exercise habits within your business. They talk about practical strategies and mindset shifts you can use to turn your customers into life-time exercisers.

We work so hard to increase retention rates in our business, but if you’re not building habits in your clients, you’re fighting a losing battle against human psychology. Today, Dan explores how to win that fight.

• Why making exercise laughably easy at the start is essential for building lasting habits.

• How identity-based motivation increases adherence to exercise and turns actions into lifelong behaviours.

• Why loss aversion is a powerful psychological driver—and how to use it to help clients stay consistent.

• How to apply the minimum effective dose to avoid burnout and ensure sustainability over decades.

• What mindset traits, like growth mindset and life-structure alignment, are common in people who succeed with long-term exercise.

1. Help clients design a starting exercise habit that feels so easy it's impossible to fail.

2. Ask clients to picture their worst possible week and build habits they can still stick to even then.

3. Reinforce identity-based language by helping clients move from “I exercise” to “I am an exerciser.”

4. Use loss aversion by tracking progress and helping clients see what they risk losing by stopping.

5. Check for alignment between a client’s stated values and their calendar—then help them close the gap.

Dan was recently interviewed by Tim Karajas on the Extension Fitness podcast. This is part one of a two part conversation between Tim and Dan.

Today, you’ll hear Tim ask Dan about whether there are clues he can pick up on when first speaking with a business owner that let him predict whether a fitness business will be successful.

Dan talks about the importance of being unique, how to test new ideas quickly, and the importance of designing your business around the life you want to have.

Tim finishes by asking Dan to distil what it takes to be successful in business down to three points.

• Why being different is more achievable (and more effective) than being better than your competition.

• How niching down—sometimes to an extreme—can unlock loyal client bases and long-term business success.

• What a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is and how to use it to test ideas with minimal risk and effort.

• Why quitting fast can sometimes be smarter than persisting with the wrong business idea.

• How Dan reverse-engineered his business to support the lifestyle he wanted as a dad.

• A simple 3-step framework for building a successful business through value creation, marketing, and value delivery.

1. Define a unique problem your fitness business solves and make that the centre of your offering.

2. Build a minimum viable product that looks complete from the outside but takes minimal time and cost to test.

3. Use feedback and traction (or lack of it) to decide quickly whether to evolve or abandon your business idea.

4. Focus your marketing on making your uniqueness obvious, not just your qualifications or features.

5. Deliver an experience so good that clients can't help but talk about it—make referrals effortless.

In this episode, Dan explores how successful fitness professionals are building multiple income streams. He covers real-world examples, lessons from failed ideas, and a repeatable framework to help you test your own.

Dan is joined by Bodie Webster from Intent Strength and Fitness, Jake Morgan from Habitual Strength and Conditioning, Aidan Dawson from CrossFit Access, Lucia Tennant from Formotion Physio, Scott Hook from Vasse Strength and Conditioning, John Quinn - an online course creator, Jade Webb from Sixty7Six Strength and Conditioning, Rob Dicey from the Chasing Better Group and Ben Luckens from Life’s Peachy Fit.

9 things you’ll learn in this episode:

1. Why building extra income streams early in your career is crucial for long-term success.
2. How to test ideas quickly using a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) approach without risking time or capital.
3. A simple way to rank ideas based on effort vs. return using a 2x2 matrix.
4. The most common mistake fitness professionals make when adding a new revenue stream.
5. How to avoid cannibalising your core business when launching something new.
6. Real examples of income streams fitness professionals are using, like retreats, apparel, online coaching, retail, and courses.
7. The benefits of 'psychic income' and why non-financial returns also matter.
8. Why personal connections often outperform paid ads when growing a new venture.
9. How to use Google’s '20% time' concept to build new streams without hurting your main business.

Your action steps:

• Start a list of all the income stream ideas you’ve had and add to it every week.
• Choose one idea that excites you and solves a real problem your clients have.
• Build an MVP in under six hours - no polish, just enough to test if it works.
• Allocate a weekly time block to your MVP project and protect it from distractions.
• Use early feedback to double down on what works, or cross it off and move on.

Today we’re talking about how to create better videos for your fitness business.

In the first half of the episode, you’ll hear Dan talking to professional videographer, Bruce Garrod from Gingerbeard Media. This was part of a webinar he ran for the business owners he mentors.

Bruce teaches us how to create better video content with our phones. He covers the fundamentals of filming, lighting, audio, framing, composition, camera techniques, editing tips and the tech needed to get the most out of your phone.

Then, in the second half of this episode, Bruce analyses your Instagram feed, as well as those of other fitness business owners and shares his advice for how to improve them.

Here's something very different from my usual stuff.

Here’s something I wrote for myself to help me ‘work out life’.

It helped me.

Maybe it can help you too.

I cover:

• The role of pain and suffering in life. How do I remove them? Should I remove them?
• How can I balance ambition with contentment? Striving with settling? Journey and destination?
• How can I balance work, productivity, time and money, to give me a ‘good life’.
• When I strip back the work I do, who am I?
• Do I use busyness and work as a distraction from the question of what I actually want to do with my life?
• What are the elements of a ‘good life’, and how do I get more of them?

In this episode, I explore how Jesse from Bloom Allied Health consistently converts short-term trial clients into loyal, long-term customers, sharing her proven strategies to double client conversion rates.

5 things you’ll learn in this episode:
- How Jesse consistently converts 30–50% of trial sessions into long-term paying clients—double the industry average.
- Three practical strategies to effectively turn short-term or trial clients into committed, long-term customers.
- Why shifting your client’s motivation from external referrals to internal goals dramatically boosts retention.
- The importance of offering flexible, affordable entry points to build client commitment without compromising premium services.
- How Jesse built an award-nominated business while balancing motherhood, lecturing, and research commitments.

Your action steps:
- Set clear expectations from day one that short-term sessions are just the beginning of a long-term journey.
- Ask deeper questions to uncover your client's real, personal motivations for engaging with your service.
- Provide financially accessible options that allow clients to remain involved beyond their initial sessions.
- Use future-focused language consistently to shift your client’s perspective toward ongoing commitment.
- Automate and systemise key business processes now to create freedom and flexibility in your future.

Listen now on The Business of Fitness Podcast: podfollow.com/the-business-of-fitness-podcast

In this episode, I explore how Grant Hancock built a thriving fitness business with a 167-person waiting list by uniquely positioning his services, overcoming burnout, and balancing growth with life priorities.

5 things you’ll learn:
- How Grant created overwhelming demand in a regional location with minimal competition.
- The hidden downsides of rapid business growth—and how to handle them.
- Practical strategies to use scarcity ethically in your business to boost demand.
- How Grant transitioned from burnout to a balanced business model that supports his lifestyle.
- The power of defining a niche to become a market leader, even in competitive industries.

Your action steps:
- Clearly define your ideal client and position your services uniquely to meet their needs.
- Regularly assess your pricing and adjust based on market demand rather than guilt or undervaluing your services.
- Implement a waiting list management system that regularly engages your audience through valuable content.
- Focus on building your business to fit your ideal lifestyle rather than letting growth control your personal time.
- Prioritise your wellbeing by creating non-negotiable boundaries around work hours and personal activities.

Listen now on The Business of Fitness Podcast: podfollow.com/the-business-of-fitness-podcast