Entrepreneuring

What service do you provide?
Are you specializing in cardiac rehabilitation and/or exercise program development?
Who will be your clients?Are they elite athletes? Cardiac patients? Overweight children and adults?
What do potential clients think they need?
What potential problems can you solve for?
Why do you know these problems exist?
What geographical areas are your clients in, and what areas will you serve?
Who are the key people to whom the marketing will be geared?
Who provides a similar service, and how is it provided?
Why is your way of providing this service better than how the competition provides it?
What will be the source of payment for your services? Do funds exist?

2. Commit yourself to being a business

There is a ton of work that is involved with starting your own business.
You must be motivated to do all of the work that is necessary.
Know that good businesses don’t grow overnight, it will take a lot of time and energy. [7]

3. Define your business mission

Have a specific area that you want to provide service for.
Most of your time and energy should be put into marketing and providing your service to the niche market.

4. Create your business image

5. Identify your target market

Who exactly do you want to provide your service for (i.e., be specific regarding characteristics of your projected clients including: age, economic status, location, service/treatment needed).
Where will you find your clients?
Will they be referrals? If so, from whom and how? [7]

6. Define your niche

What is different about your service?
Demonstrate why your service is different and better than going to a health club or to a clinic or hospital.
It could be that you provide more knowledge and better consultation over a larger scheme of mental and physical fitness than a personal trainer or a health club along with being cheaper than going to a hospital as well as having a closer, more personal relationship.
As an exercise physiologist you have the knowledge based on your educational background to provide a service like no one else can.

Networking [8] is defined as: “To interact or engage in informal communication with others for mutual assistance or support.”
A large portion of your clients will likely come from referrals.
These referrals may come from other health professionals such as doctors, nurses, and physical therapists, psychiatrists, friends, clients, along with other exercise physiologists.
According to an article in Credit Union Executive Journal, [9] there are three main types of networks:

Individual, group, and the internet.
The individual network is made of friends, associates, peers, teachers, faculty members, mentors, conference speakers, as well as those mentioned above.
The group network is made of anyone who is involved with professional associations such as ASEP, even ACSM can be used as a networking tool for the entrepreneuring exercise physiologist.
The internet can also be a useful tool in networking utilizing chat rooms, search engines, World Wide Web sites, and dialogue groups as well as gaining information from online resources.

The key to networking is to look for networking opportunities (e.g., when attending seminars, ASEP conventions, or other meetings).
Let people know what you are doing, what your business involves. With this in mind do not just talk about yourself and your business Rosner recommends that when at functions to “listen twice as much as you talk.”
Ask questions to other professionals and show interest in what they are involved with. Otherwise you will most likely be seen as someone who is just trying to sell a product.
Also, there are four basic steps to functional networking [10] that are helpful if followed.

Principle: Create positive relationships with clients. Make sure that they know they are important to you and that you do value their relationship.
Process: Ask yourself and answer the following questions:

Place: Where does networking take place? Networking can take place just about anytime anywhere. Always be looking for an opportunities to converse and share information with professionals in common fields of practice. Common places to start networking are as listed before, meetings, conventions, seminars etc.
Practice: Just like anything else in order to become good at networking you are going to have to practice. Some tips given by Haggerty [10] to help you practice:

Always keep business cards with you.
Know how to respond when someone says “Tell me about yourself.”
Concentrate more on what you do and not what your job title is (e.g., saying that you develop exercise programs and provide consultation on lifestyle changes to overweight children, is more effective than just saying that you’re an exercise physiologist).
Always be looking for prospects. Just about anybody that you come into contact with is a prospect for networking.
Always smile and have fun. [10]

"...a profession’s credibility is decided by the public." -- Tommy Boone