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Answer Upon - Financial Fitness - Client Attractions Strategies For Personal Trainers
I’m sure you remember sitting in your marketing class in college when your instructor blurted something about the Four P’s of Marketing. If you weren’t paying attention or perhaps missed class that day, here is a quick review. It’s really a simple concept that is still employed by many of the fortune 500 companies today.A Quick Review of the Four P’sMarketing strategies generally fall into four categories known as the four P’s: they are product, price, place (or distribution), and promotion. Most marketing managers (sometimes referred to as product marketing managers) have complete control of the product from manufacturing and distribution to marketing and promotions. The end goal, of course, is to make strategic decisions that center the four P’s around the target consumer group in order to communicate an effective value proposition and create a positive customer experience.The term "product" refers to the tangible, physical product itself. This includes the design of the form factor, the brand name, the features and functionality, quality, safety, packaging, the warranty, etc.When considering “price”, marketers must take a holi
You see, when prospects are faced with products that are all similar, the tendency is to go either with the cheapest or the one that looks the best. What does this mean to you? Well, your hourly rate had better match (or be cheaper) than that of your competition or you will need to spend more than your competitors in order for your materials to look better than theirs.
In truth, neither of these strategies is acceptable, at least, not in the long term. I mean, who wants to have their hourly rate determined by their competition? What if they drop their fees to undercut you? Will you drop yours again to match theirs? As you can see, this strategy is fl
The quickest and cheapest way to build traffic today is by writing articles. By writing articles on your niche topic, you build credibility in your market. Submit your articles to the hundreds of article directories and you will create a viral stream of steady traffic. Your articles are posted on websites all over the internet and will have a resource box with a link to your website. The more articles you submit, the more one-way, quality links to your site will be found by the search engines.When writing your articles, you want to make sure that you present the right impression for your business. If you write hogwash, your audience will immediately be turned off and never visit your site! Remember that one of your goals is to build your credibility. Here are four matters to consider as you prepare your material: Use a professional toneProofread for grammar/punctuation errorsWrite about what you knowOffer new and valuable information Developing the right tone for your articles will take some time. Just be sure that the tone fits your business. Read what others in your field are writing. Experiment wi
What would you say if I told you that you have the potential as a personal trainer to earn 40, 50 or even in excess of ?60,000 per year?
If you’re thinking ‘That’s impossible!’ then you’re right, for you the likelihood of reaching anything near these sums is impossible. You may as well stop reading this article right now and save yourself the bother of even contemplating the material.
If, on the other hand, you think to yourself ‘ Yes, that’s for me’ then read on and pay close attention, because what you read over the following pages is GUARANTEED to take you closer to realising your financial potential – BUT ONLY IF YOU ACTUALLY USE THE INFORMATION. You’ll get absolutely zero benefit if all you do is read this article.
You see, unlike many other ‘marketing experts’, I’m not going to tell you how to design your business cards, how to write press releases or how to ‘close the sale’ with your prospective client. At least, not yet anyway.
As interesting as some of this information may be, I regard all of it as being of little importance to the Personal Trainer who is trying to build his/her business. Why? Because in order to be able to use these marketing tools you need prospects who are receptive to them in the first place! Therefore, this article (and those that follow) aims to teach you how to develop the marketing skills to attract clients to your services, keep them long-term and create parallel revenue streams from your business that will bring in money even when you are not working.
Understanding your competition
Every month I have the great pleasure of lecturing to trainee personal trainers and sports therapists at one of the UK’s top training establishments. At the start of the lecture I often ask students ‘What makes you so special? What would make me, as a potential client, seek out your services?’ The answer always makes me laugh, not because of its content but because of the na?vet? of the response, ‘Well, I’m trained as a therapist, personal trainer, I can give nutritional advice and rehabilitate injuries. I’m an all rounder who can deal with almost any client that is presented to me’. Sounds good? Sure, but consider this; this person is part of a class of 20-30 individuals, a new class starts every 4-6 weeks and there are 18 training establishments around the country for this one company alone!
Let’s face it; competition for your services is fierce. In the above example we see that one company alone is producing over 2500 new trainers to the industry every year. All with the same training as you, same skills as you and many living and working in the same area as you. So you see, simply marketing yourself on the strength of your certifications is a fairly limited endeavour which is guaranteed to see your marketing material buried amongst that of your competitors, leading to frustration for you and confusion for your prospects.
So what should we be doing? How do we differentiate ourselves from our competitors and create successful businesses that yield enough income to produce the financial freedom we desire? The answer lies within you!
THE ONE AND ONLY YOU
You are unique. This is a proven FACT. It is indisputable. Regardless of the training, lifestyle and education that another person receives, they will never be the same as you. They will never have your exact philosophies, your drive, your ambition, your life force.
Why then, with this uniqueness do we tend to gravitate toward the grey ‘sameness’ of our industry competitors when it comes to marketing ourselves? Why will 9 out of 10 trainers carry similar business cards, print similar flyers and write similar websites? Quite frankly, this is marketing suicide!
You see, when prospects are faced with products that are all similar, the tendency is to go either with the cheapest or the one that looks the best. What does this mean to you? Well, your hourly rate had better match (or be cheaper) than that of your competition or you will need to spend more than your competitors in order for your materials to look better than theirs.
In truth, neither of these strategies is acceptable, at least, not in the long term. I mean, who wants to have their hourly rate determined by their competition? What if they drop their fees to undercut you? Will you drop yours again to match theirs? As you can see, this strategy is fla
If you are planning to hold an event concurrent with an upcoming trade show exhibit, you need to start by evaluating your company goals and objectives for what you want to achieve in your trade show display appearance. Once you have determined why you are exhibiting, then you will need to match your trade show display with your event in order to seamlessly reinforce the same message. Your trade show event must be fully integrated into your trade show booth’s marketing message.This seems like common sense, but every so often trade show event planning goes haywire. A good example of a mismatched trade show event is holding an elegant black tie affair for your company’s computer engineers who live and work every day in sport shirts and jeans.Karla Krause-Miller, Director, Cappa and Graham, Inc., a professional event planning company in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, offers some important tips for trade show event planning:1. Decide what type of event you have based on your company’s marketing goals and sales objectives. Do you want to have a small, intimate gathering or do you want to have a free- for- all event where you’re not selec
As interesting as some of this information may be, I regard all of it as being of little importance to the Personal Trainer who is trying to build his/her business. Why? Because in order to be able to use these marketing tools you need prospects who are receptive to them in the first place! Therefore, this article (and those that follow) aims to teach you how to develop the marketing skills to attract clients to your services, keep them long-term and create parallel revenue streams from your business that will bring in money even when you are not working.
Understanding your competition
Every month I have the great pleasure of lecturing to trainee personal trainers and sports therapists at one of the UK’s top training establishments. At the start of the lecture I often ask students ‘What makes you so special? What would make me, as a potential client, seek out your services?’ The answer always makes me laugh, not because of its content but because of the na?vet? of the response, ‘Well, I’m trained as a therapist, personal trainer, I can give nutritional advice and rehabilitate injuries. I’m an all rounder who can deal with almost any client that is presented to me’. Sounds good? Sure, but consider this; this person is part of a class of 20-30 individuals, a new class starts every 4-6 weeks and there are 18 training establishments around the country for this one company alone!
Let’s face it; competition for your services is fierce. In the above example we see that one company alone is producing over 2500 new trainers to the industry every year. All with the same training as you, same skills as you and many living and working in the same area as you. So you see, simply marketing yourself on the strength of your certifications is a fairly limited endeavour which is guaranteed to see your marketing material buried amongst that of your competitors, leading to frustration for you and confusion for your prospects.
So what should we be doing? How do we differentiate ourselves from our competitors and create successful businesses that yield enough income to produce the financial freedom we desire? The answer lies within you!
THE ONE AND ONLY YOU
You are unique. This is a proven FACT. It is indisputable. Regardless of the training, lifestyle and education that another person receives, they will never be the same as you. They will never have your exact philosophies, your drive, your ambition, your life force.
Why then, with this uniqueness do we tend to gravitate toward the grey ‘sameness’ of our industry competitors when it comes to marketing ourselves? Why will 9 out of 10 trainers carry similar business cards, print similar flyers and write similar websites? Quite frankly, this is marketing suicide!
You see, when prospects are faced with products that are all similar, the tendency is to go either with the cheapest or the one that looks the best. What does this mean to you? Well, your hourly rate had better match (or be cheaper) than that of your competition or you will need to spend more than your competitors in order for your materials to look better than theirs.
In truth, neither of these strategies is acceptable, at least, not in the long term. I mean, who wants to have their hourly rate determined by their competition? What if they drop their fees to undercut you? Will you drop yours again to match theirs? As you can see, this strategy is fl
Teamwork demands that all departments provide service to the internal customer who is on the front line serving the external customer. That means you are responsible for serving other team members and they are responsible for serving you. As a team member, you must remember that the key word to describe your relationship with others is interdependence. Others are dependent on you and you are dependent on others. We need each other to ultimately serve our external customers and to meet their specific needs.Here is an example that demonstrates the concept of interdependence and why it is important to work as a team in order to achieve customer service goals:A food server in a hospital delivers a tray of food to a patient (external customer). The food server is obviously the individual who directly serves the external customer and has the face-to-face contact. The food server says to the patient: “Good evening, Mr. Jones. We have a nice, warm tray of food for you.” The server then places the tray on the table by the bed. Mr. Jones takes the lid from the plate and discovers that all the food is mixed together - the peas, mashed potatoes and gravy
Let’s face it; competition for your services is fierce. In the above example we see that one company alone is producing over 2500 new trainers to the industry every year. All with the same training as you, same skills as you and many living and working in the same area as you. So you see, simply marketing yourself on the strength of your certifications is a fairly limited endeavour which is guaranteed to see your marketing material buried amongst that of your competitors, leading to frustration for you and confusion for your prospects.
So what should we be doing? How do we differentiate ourselves from our competitors and create successful businesses that yield enough income to produce the financial freedom we desire? The answer lies within you!
THE ONE AND ONLY YOU
You are unique. This is a proven FACT. It is indisputable. Regardless of the training, lifestyle and education that another person receives, they will never be the same as you. They will never have your exact philosophies, your drive, your ambition, your life force.
Why then, with this uniqueness do we tend to gravitate toward the grey ‘sameness’ of our industry competitors when it comes to marketing ourselves? Why will 9 out of 10 trainers carry similar business cards, print similar flyers and write similar websites? Quite frankly, this is marketing suicide!
You see, when prospects are faced with products that are all similar, the tendency is to go either with the cheapest or the one that looks the best. What does this mean to you? Well, your hourly rate had better match (or be cheaper) than that of your competition or you will need to spend more than your competitors in order for your materials to look better than theirs.
In truth, neither of these strategies is acceptable, at least, not in the long term. I mean, who wants to have their hourly rate determined by their competition? What if they drop their fees to undercut you? Will you drop yours again to match theirs? As you can see, this strategy is fl
Leadership is only sustainable when leaders consistently come up with good ideas – when they are dependable thought leaders. It follows then that leaders would be more effective if they knew how to manage creativity and innovation.Some of the tools for effective creativity management include:a) Develop the brief. Formulating a brief helps i) induce the problem solving state of mind, ii) creates structures with boundaries and limitations within which experimentation can take place and iii) enhances motivation.b) One tacit knowledge elicitation and lateral thinking technique is to use the five senses. This helps define problems and generate ideas along five different pathways, instantly increasing the quantity of ideas and further increasing the probability that quality ideas will be generated.c) Setting a clear goal. Goals and incremental targets produce more output than simply “do your best.” Prolific screenwriters that stick to goals produce more output and move along the learning curve much faster than those who simply wait for inspiration. Look at the untold number of people with unfinished manuscripts under their beds.d)
So what should we be doing? How do we differentiate ourselves from our competitors and create successful businesses that yield enough income to produce the financial freedom we desire? The answer lies within you!
THE ONE AND ONLY YOU
You are unique. This is a proven FACT. It is indisputable. Regardless of the training, lifestyle and education that another person receives, they will never be the same as you. They will never have your exact philosophies, your drive, your ambition, your life force.
Why then, with this uniqueness do we tend to gravitate toward the grey ‘sameness’ of our industry competitors when it comes to marketing ourselves? Why will 9 out of 10 trainers carry similar business cards, print similar flyers and write similar websites? Quite frankly, this is marketing suicide!
You see, when prospects are faced with products that are all similar, the tendency is to go either with the cheapest or the one that looks the best. What does this mean to you? Well, your hourly rate had better match (or be cheaper) than that of your competition or you will need to spend more than your competitors in order for your materials to look better than theirs.
In truth, neither of these strategies is acceptable, at least, not in the long term. I mean, who wants to have their hourly rate determined by their competition? What if they drop their fees to undercut you? Will you drop yours again to match theirs? As you can see, this strategy is fl
Browsing through the internet I noticed all the pretty girls sporting items like facial cream, nice cars, clothing and even sitting atop bull dozers. With their silky thighs exposed and their beautiful hair glistening in the sun I learned that sells. It not only sells but it also catches our attention and motivates us to pull out our wallets.Why does sex sell? According to Doctor Richard Taflinger, “Sex is the second strongest of the psychological appeals, right behind self-preservation. Its strength is biological and instinctive, the genetic imperative to reproduction (Taflinger, 1996).”Sex sells because men have a deep biological urge to reproduce. By showing a beautiful woman in skimpy clothing we are telling men “if you buy this product you can get sexy woman like this”. The message is clear to us on a subconscious level even though we may not be aware of it consciously.Since the beginning of time men have been endowed with basic instincts of survival, reproduction and influence. Women are often symbols for a man’s success in life. The better looking the women the more the public associates her man as powerful, intelligent, influential
You see, when prospects are faced with products that are all similar, the tendency is to go either with the cheapest or the one that looks the best. What does this mean to you? Well, your hourly rate had better match (or be cheaper) than that of your competition or you will need to spend more than your competitors in order for your materials to look better than theirs.
In truth, neither of these strategies is acceptable, at least, not in the long term. I mean, who wants to have their hourly rate determined by their competition? What if they drop their fees to undercut you? Will you drop yours again to match theirs? As you can see, this strategy is flawed and should be avoided at all costs. NEVER let your competition determine your value.
What about paying for glossier, flashier marketing materials? That works right? WRONG! You can have the nicest looking, glossiest, all the ‘flashes bangs and whistles’ marketing materials and still never get the client response you desire. Why? Because ‘Image marketing’ simply doesn’t work. Not on the small scale anyway. Leave this stuff to the big gyms or you’ll be trodden underfoot by the running herd of new members they’ve just created – at a huge cost.
Quite simply, there will ALWAYS be someone out there with more money to spend on marketing than you so you’ll always be playing ‘catch up’ to someone with deeper pockets. Obviously, this isn’t a sound way to market your business. You’ll go broke in no time!
The answer to creating a memorable, client-winning marketing message lies within how you present yourself to your target market. You do have a target market right? If you don’t, you’re committing the first cardinal sin of marketing; failing to identify the end user of your service. This is like firing a shotgun from a hundred yards and still expecting to hit your target every time. Sure, you may hit the target on occasion but it’ll be a haphazard process that you won’t be able to reproduce. Conversely, having a specific market to aim your promotions at is like shooting with a sniper rifle. Every time you take a shot you know it’ll hit the right target and that, my friends is what marketing is all about!
You see, when you direct your efforts toward a specific target market you can do so much more than simply market your services. You have a great opportunity to establish yourself as a specialist. An expert. And let’s face it everyone prefers dealing with experts, even when the cost is higher. A good example of this is seen in the world of medicine. People will pay through the nose to see the top orthopaedic or heart surgeons because they perceive that the service they receive will be so much better and yield better results.
Why then should well-trained personal trainers settle for marketing themselves as ‘Personal Trainer’? This title tells your prospects nothing about who you are, what you do or how you differ from your competition. Instead the well trained fitness professional needs to capitalise on their strengths by marketing themselves as an expert in one area.
For example, if you have an established clientele of tennis players (or even have a strong background in the sport yourself) you could market yourself as a ‘Tennis Conditioning Specialist’. Doing so identifies you to prospects who may have never hired a ‘Personal Trainer’ to help them with their sports preparation. See the difference? Who would YOU rather hire?
If Tennis isn’t your thing you could just as easily create a niche for yourself in any of the following areas:
* Corrective exercise
* Performance enhancement
* Kinetic Chain Specialist
* Strength Conditioning
* Ante/Post natal fitness
* Back rehabilitation
* Core conditioning
* Golf conditioning
* Sports conditioning
* Or ANY area where you have specialist knowledge or interest
Now, I’m not suggesting you simply create a title and market yourself as an expert in an area. Doing so would be unethical and unprofessional and besides, you’d soon be found out by your client (I know of several PT’s who marketed themselves as specialists in various areas who were later caught out whe
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