Keep Clients Happy and Leads Flowing with Josh Riggs

Keep Clients Happy and Leads Flowing with Josh Riggs

Many coaches begin their journey with a deep desire to help people transform their lives, but turning that passion into a sustainable business is a different story. Few exemplify this transformation better than Josh Riggs—a gym owner, COO of Aria CRM, host of the Gym Owners Guild podcast, and a best-selling author.

His journey into fitness entrepreneurship started in familiar territory: personal training on the side, renting space at a local gym, and trying to balance that with a full-time job. After taking the plunge to coach full-time, the gym he was renting at was scheduled to shut down. Josh pitched a five-year plan to the owner and took over the space, despite having no upfront capital or experience. That marked the beginning of his entrepreneurial path.

Simplifying Business: Three Areas for Improvement

Josh describes his early business education as trial by fire. Each obstacle became an opportunity to solve one problem at a time. He developed what he calls a “boots on the ground” methodology: attack an issue head-on, identify the sticking point, study it in depth, and implement a focused solution. This iterative process became the cornerstone of how he operates across all his ventures.

His framework for simplifying business problems revolves around three areas: fulfillment, sales, and the team. When something is off, he isolates the issue into one of these categories. From there, he uses a practical prioritization model: identify which problems can be fixed quickly, which will yield the highest impact, and which require minimal disruption to existing systems. That becomes the focus.

Josh emphasizes the importance of taking time to think deeply about the business. Momentum and constant action are often rewarded early on, but they can cloud objective thinking. To make meaningful progress, he regularly pulls away from day-to-day operations to review data, evaluate pain points, and rethink strategy.

When evaluating whether a change is worth implementing, he looks for a minimum 20% improvement—either in increased profit, time saved, or improved productivity. This benchmark helps him filter out unnecessary tweaks that will not move the needle enough to justify the effort. It is also a way to protect his personal bandwidth, which he believes is one of the most critical, yet often overlooked, assets an entrepreneur has.

Building ARIA CRM: Automation Without Losing Humanity

This focus on time, systems, and personal energy ultimately led to the development of ARIA CRM, a platform tailored to the needs of gym owners and fitness professionals. Rather than replacing human connection, ARIA is built to preserve it.

He makes a clear distinction between automation and systematization. By automating the repetitive, data-driven tasks that bog down staff, it gives them more time to engage clients with intentional, personal touchpoints. Anything that touches a client’s experience should be systematized—structured enough to be repeatable, but still led by humans.

For example, rather than sending automated birthday messages, ARIA alerts staff so they can send personal notes themselves. Coaches are reminded when a client hits a milestone, not to trigger a generic message, but to write something authentic.

The Power of the 90-Day Journey

Josh is a firm believer in having a strategic 90-day customer journey in place from day one. He sees this as one of the most influential factors in client retention. ARIA supports this by assigning tasks to coaches throughout a client’s journey: from personalized messages to handwritten notes and check-ins. These prompts are tracked, ensuring accountability without stripping away authenticity.

Content Creation as a Journal, not a Funnel

Outside of operations, Josh has also embraced content creation, albeit with an unconventional purpose. Rather than using it purely as a lead-generation tool, he treats his podcast, books, and posts as a form of documentation. Content creation became a way to process lessons learned, reflect on challenges, and create a resource for others navigating similar paths. As it turned out, that authentic, low-pressure approach has ironically attracted a community of gym owners and coaches who appreciate his transparency.

For gym marketing, however, he takes a more strategic approach. Everything is created with a highly specific client avatar in mind, down to naming the fictional ideal client, defining her age, background, and motivations. This clarity enables him to create content that feels like a one-on-one conversation rather than a generic broadcast. His posts are focused on celebrating client success, rather than positioning himself as the expert. This builds social proof and community engagement without coming off as self-promotional.

Solving the Two Big Problems: Leads and Revenue

When it comes to the big problems gym owners face—namely, not enough leads and not enough revenue—Josh helps them drill down into the numbers. He encourages understanding customer acquisition cost (CAC), cost of fulfillment, and retention metrics. Pricing, he argues, should be grounded in both the market context and those numbers, not just aspirational value. Once those figures are in place, the rest becomes a matter of sales velocity and scalable operations.

Client retention, in particular, remains a top priority. He believes the majority of client churn can be mitigated with a solid onboarding and early engagement process. A structured 90-day journey dramatically reduces the chances of someone dropping off. Without it, many gyms experience churn rates above 6%. He advises aiming for 3–4% for small group or hybrid coaching models.

What’s Next for Josh?

With everything has built, Josh still has his sights on the next phase: stepping out of day-to-day operations entirely. While he still handles sales for his gyms, he plans to transition that role to a general manager, freeing him to focus on building systems and helping other gym owners avoid the pitfalls he once faced.

His long-term mission is to improve the business side of coaching so more gyms stay open and more lives are transformed. He sees each gym he supports as an amplifier—every additional month that gym stays open means more people getting healthier, more communities being impacted, and fewer coaches burning out.

Whether it is through software, mentorship, or simply sharing his journey, Josh Riggs is reshaping how fitness professionals think about growth—not just in terms of revenue, but in building a business that actually works.

This material was recently covered in the Business of Coaching Workshop, a series designed to help coaches grow their businesses by mastering key principles like trust, pricing, and delivering value. Each session dives into actionable strategies to build better client relationships and drive success. Want to take your coaching practice to the next level? Join us for the next workshop—it’s free.