10 Things You Need to Know Before You Become a Beachbody Coach

I’ve been a Beachbody coach for almost five months now and it’s been a fun ride! During these past few months I’ve learned a lot about how the coaching program works. Here’s a few things I think everyone should know before signing up to the coaching program. Who knows, maybe it will help you make a decision either YAY or NAY!

OK, so here’s what you need to know . . .

1. You MUST own a website or blog. Preferably a website or blog that is about YOU and your fitness journey. And I’m not talking about free blogging platforms like Blogger, Tumblr, WordPress.com, etc. I’m talking about a website that YOU own and have 100% control over. For more information check out this post: What About Free Blogging Platforms?

Yes, Beachbody gives you two websites when you sign-up to be a coach, but how are people going to find these websites? Guess what? These are the same two websites that every other Beachbody coach has! You need to stand out from the crowd. A great way to do that is to start blogging about your fitness journey from Day One. Even if you don’t think you want to build your business right away, a blog is a nice asset to have. You can use it as a personal journal, to share with family and friends, and as a way to generate some passive income via affiliate marketing.

2. Who is your upline coach going to be? The Internet is packed full of Beachbody coaches that are more than willing to help you but only ONE can be your official upline coach. Something to keep in mind when you’re interviewing different coaches is how are THEY going to help YOU? Are THEY growing their business the same way that you want to grow YOUR business? What’s their story? Is it similar to yours? Do they have a niche? Are they going to teach you how to sell products? Or just recruit new coaches? Are you more interested in doing one more than the other?

Unlike corporate America, you get to choose who YOU work with in this business. It has to be a person that you TRUST and RESPECT! Make sure they are at least AS committed to their business and will help you reach YOUR goals. Of course, you can’t expect someone to do all the work for you, but if a coach won’t take the time to make you feel comfortable with your decision BEFORE you sign up do you think they will make you feel comfortable AFTER you sign up?

3. The Beachbody business isn’t just about recruiting more coaches. You need to sell products otherwise no one makes any money! Of course, making money shouldn’t be your top priority but is often a natural side effect when people make a connection with you and start asking questions. Some of your customers may eventually decide to become coaches but if you spend 100% of your time finding new coaches you’re not going to make any sales! UGH!

4. Growing a team of coaches is OPTIONAL (but highly recommended). Yes, if you’re serious about building a business you will be more successful with a team of coaches working under you but that’s also going to require more time on your part. If all you want to do is use the coaching program for affiliate marketing purposes that’s fine. Beachbody doesn’t require you to build a team or charge a penalty if you don’t recruit more coaches.

Honestly, I originally joined for the 25% discount and thought it might be fun to use the affiliate program because I was already blogging about my experiences with P90X. Then I started getting a few customers who started asking me about the coaching program and it all kinda fell into place. Now I find the whole process FUN, REWARDING, and very ADDICTING!

5. Don’t expect someone else to build your business for you! A lot of people sign-up under the most successful coach they can find with the expectations that this successful coach is going to do all the work for them. Often times they are disappointed because even though a lot of people are getting signed up under them it doesn’t guarantee success.

This amazing coach could place 20 coaches underneath you in a month, but you still need one active personally sponsored coach in each leg of your downline to be an Emerald Coach. Also, most successful coaches utilize what’s called a Far and Wide placement strategy to build their downline. What this means is that they will only add coaches to one side of your downline. So if you want to take full advantage of all the volume points that are accumulating on your team, it’s YOUR responsibility to build up a team coaches on the opposite side.

I *HIGHLY* recommend joining under a coach that is actively adding coaches to his/her downline using the Far and Wide placement strategy. While some work is definitely required on your part, joining under this type of coach is going to help you accumulate the most team volume points. Before you sign-up under a coach you definitely need to ask them where you’re going to be placed in their downline. It’s YOUR business–you need to know! If they aren’t implementing the far and wide strategy or they refuse to share where you’ll be placed in their downline that might be something to think about.

6. Success takes TIME and WORK. So pack your patience. You can invest more money up front to save time and catapult yourself to Emerald status rather quickly but don’t expect to start living off your Beachbody income right away. The nice thing about this business is that your success depends 100% on what YOU decide to do with your time. It doesn’t depend on anything else. Some coaches start earning $200 checks every week within a few months while it takes other coaches two years to make $200 TOTAL. A lot of people join the coaching program thinking that money is just going to start falling from the sky and eventually quit when they discover that success requires work.

You don’t start P90X and expect to see a huge transformation within the first couple weeks do you? The same goes with the coaching program. You don’t need to invest lots of money into the coaching program (heck the minimum requirement is $14.95/month) but you may need to invest more time than you think. Don’t give up after a month, two months, three months, a year. Be patient and keep working at it!

7. The best time to start is NOW. Everyone says they’re going to wait until they have more TIME but when does that EVER happen? If you’re already doing a Beachbody workout program and sharing your success with friends and family that’s all the time it takes! Yes, recruiting new coaches and teaching them the ropes requires MORE time and effort but you can tackle that part when you’re ready. Here’s the thing, YOUR upline coach and the coaches he or she has signed up will continue to build their business whether you decide to or not. You might decide to wait a few months to focus on coaching and in that time NUMEROUS coaches can be added to your downline EVEN IF YOU DID NOT PERSONALLY SPONSOR THEM. You will start benefiting from these coaches and the work they do after YOU personally sponsor two active coaches and become Emerald. If you wait two months you’ll end up getting placed UNDER the coaches that joined before you. Would you rather help them or have them help YOU?

8. If you decide to GROW your business it WILL cost more than the $14.95 monthly fee listed on the Team Beachbody website. You will need a club membership which costs $38.87 every 3 months. You also need to be actively selling or purchasing at least $50 worth of products every month. THESE EXTRA FEES ARE NOT REQUIRED TO EARN COMMISSIONS ON SALES. Only if you want to GROW your business and qualify for the customer lead program and earn team volume points. For more information read this post: How Much Does it Cost to Be a Beachbody Coach?

9. There is plenty of room for growth in this business. There are currently a little over 30,000 coaches and Carl Daikeler, the CEO of Beachbody, had a goal to reach 1 million coaches within the next 10 years. I have no doubt that Carl is going to reach his goal! I hear people voice concerns because they think there are already TOO MANY Beachbody coaches.

Well, if you take a look at the numbers that Beachbody gives us, only 54.4% of coaches earned a commission check in 2009. What that means is that roughly half of the coaches just joined to get the 25% discount on products (or didn’t work hard enough to get a commission check). On top of that only 8.7% reached Emerald status, which means that there are only about 3,000 coaches that are actively working on building a team of coaches. Is it hard to reach Emerald? NO! It took me four months but some coaches reach Emerald status in less than 30 days. When you think of how many people are out there seeking solutions to their weight and health problems, 3,000 coaches is just a drop in the bucket. So, if anyone tries to tell you that there are too many Beachbody coaches they obviously don’t know much about the business!

10. You shouldn’t become a coach if making money is going to be your primary focus. If you focus 100% of your efforts on making money you are not going to be successful. Yes, coaching is a great opportunity to earn some part-time or full-time income but it is only a direct result of helping people transform their lives. If you are not committed to helping other people you’re probably not going to have a lot of fun being a coach and it will just seem like a lot of work. But if you get totally pumped when you talk to people about P90X or other workout programs the work will be FUN.

I don’t want to push the coaching program on you if it’s just not your thing. Coaching isn’t some weird scam or pyramid scheme. It’s real life! It’s a way for us (happy Beachbody customers that are proof the products work) to be compensated for driving business to Beachbody. Which we were already doing anyway before we became coaches. For free!

If you’re thinking about becoming a coach and want to talk with me more about it please CONTACT ME. It doesn’t matter if you’re a stay-at-home-mom, internet marketer, college student, or whoever! My team has it all! I’d love to discuss the specifics with you, help you get started, get your website going, and put you into my very successful team of coaches where we can all benefit from each other’s passion and ambition!