046 Leon Rudge: 10 Steps To Implementing A Digital Fitness Strategy

Today we're learning from Leon Rudge, the Director of Digital Experience at Life Fitness on the 10 steps to implementing a digital fitness strategy. We've had double digits of expert guests provide so much value over the past 40+ shows in this category of digital strategy and tools, but on today's show we're going laser and concise to extract the 10 powerful steps that club owners, operators, and trainers can build from the ground up when they look at the actual technologies in our space that will support growing both the bottom line and the customer journey and experience for members.

Be sure to explore all the different resources and white paper links from Leon in the podcast today and if you've been enjoying the series, leave us a five star review for the podcast; it helps the show reach more intelligent and proactive fitness leaders like you. You can also ask myself, Bryan O'Rourke, Leon, or any of the previous guests who've been on the show a question by simply typing in your question in the review box.

In an industry that seems to be fairly static, and at times even paralyzed by the over information about fitness technology, what are the practical and on-the-ground steps that fitness leadership can take to successfully implement a digital fitness strategy?

The answer to that question and much more takeaways for club owners, operators, and fitness pros in this episode with Leon Rudge.

About Leon Rudge

Leon Rudge is the Director of Digital Experience at Life Fitness. He is part of a global team of digital technology experts who work hard every day to understand how they can bring more clarity, insight and experience to the fitness industry, their customers and their exercisers. Leon Brings over seven years of deep experience in the fitness industry.

Listen To Episode 046 As Leon Uncovers

• Why leon believes there is so much confusion about digital technology from vendors and operators
• The 10 Steps To Implementing A Digital Fitness Strategy
  • 1. Raise Awareness
  • 2. Create Your Digital Team
  • 3. Asset Discovery
  • 4. Member Centricity
  • 5. Destroy Your Own Business
  • 6. Create Your Vision
  • 7. Create Your Strategy
  • 8. Create Your Digital Core
  • 9. Communicate the Vision
  • 10. Do It Again
• How Leon grew his skills in digital marketing and what that gave him to now serve the fitness industry
• Why Leon believes the fitness industry has become "too static"
• Why Leon sees it's most important in the age of technology to fail fast, learn fast and fix fast as you move forward
• The value of autonomy and giving yoursefl the permission to fail when it comes to driving tech solutions
• How to identify the "quick wins early" in in asset dicovery
• Why the new entrants listen firstand build second
• Why the fitness indsurty has been slow to the omnichannel aspect for retargeting ads across social and Google
• Understadbning Leon's term "Thinking Like An Exerciser"
• Deliniating the custmer journey vs. the customer experience
• The paradigm of owning vs. sharing the value in digital fitness

Top 3 Takeaways From The Show

• Leon shares that digital is a massive revenue generating category but it's important not to get too hung up on this fact in the early months of your journey. You'll need to learn before you can earn. If you put earning first, you will blind yourself to the fact that you're actually just trying to understand how to fundamentally change the way you interact with your members, and they interact with your business. You'll figure the revenue models out soon enough after you've done the deeper work and the ten steps towards implementing a digital fitness strategy.
• In terms of digital health and fitness, Leon sees a confused industry but even worse, he sees a number of companies capitalizing on the confusion. This compounded confusion he sees slowing the adoption of digital tech our space and leaving us vulnerable to disruptive new market entrants. What we must do as an industry is seek clarity about what technologies will serve why we do and how we want to do it. Getting clear on the customer journey and experience before ever selecting a piece of technology will help operators and owners transcend this confusion.
• When it comes to creating a successful and sustainable digital fitness strategy in the club, knowing more about your digital self than you ever have before is an important context. Operators and trainers must to create a culture of being able to fail fast, learn fast, and fix fast to innovate and thrive in the digital world. It's important to remember that it's okay to fail in the digital world, but you've just got to fail quickly. I always encourage operators owners and trainers to start small, then test, measure, and learn to iterate fast.

Power Quotes From Leon

"We've got some great minds in this business, dedicated people that have worked in the industry for decades, but the members are changing, societies changing, everything's changing and some of the things that we put in place aren't necessarily always going to be right." - Leon Rudge on the Fitness + Technology Podcast

"In terms of digital health and fitness, I see a confused industry but even worse, I see a number of companies capitalizing on the confusion. The compounded confusion is slowing the adoption of digital tech our space and leaving us vulnerable to disruptive new market entrants." - Leon Rudge on the Fitness + Technology Podcast

Resources Mentioned From Leon

• Leon Rudge on Linkedin
• Life Fitness on Facebook
• Life Fitness on Twitter
• LIfe Fitness on Instagram
• Life Fitness on the web
• Life Fitness White Paper
• Robert Dyer's FTP Episode
• Jamie Cole FitConnect FTP Episode
• The Lean Startup Method
• Rapid Application Development
• IHRSA Technology
• IHRSA facebook
• IHRSA Twitter
• IHRSA YouTube

Thanks To Our Outstanding Sponsors

• Bryan O'Rourke and his family of companies including Vedere Ventures, Integerus Advisors, and many more. If you are looking for unmatched guidance, capital, insights or a great speaker or facilitator, Bryan and his partners are the go to resource for your organization. To learn more visit bryankorourke.com
• The Fitness Industry Technology Council, your non-profit resource for reliable technology information supported by forward looking brands who are seeking to drive increased technology adoption in the fitness industry. Make a difference and join FIT-C at fittechcouncil.org today
• Check out Bryan and his partner Robert Dyer's recent book "9 Partnership Principles: A Story of Life Lessons" which is available now on Amazon.com

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