Systems, systems, systems. That's all I ever really seem to be talking about these days whether it's to my staff at my London personal Training Studios, my mentoring students or the members of my Personal Trainer Success Community. I must admit, at the moment I must be sounding like a scratched record (CD for you younger readers) to many of them as I'm never more than a sentence or two away from saying "You should have a system for that!" It's true though... they should. And so should you! See, I don't know a single person in the fitness industry who's earning 6 figures or more who doesn't operate his or her business by a systems approach. Not a one. On the other hand, practically every single struggling personal trainer I've ever met seemed to be stuck in a 'make it up as I go along' mindset that had them reinventing the wheel with every single task in their business with every single client, every single day. No wonder they're not getting anything done and moving forward. They're stuck in a kind of business 'groundhog day' where the same thoughts, feelings and actions are repeated time and time and time again without end. And the only thing that can rescue them from this incessant timewarp... is systems! Now, don't get me wrong. I've not always been a systems guy. Like most personal trainers I pretty much woke up and made my day up as it went along and, like most most personal trainers I pretty much only did the appointments that were in my diary and very little else. It was the classic case of working IN your business and not ON it. Then I started to systematise parts of my business that were often repeated. Stuff like standardising my program cards, creating new client induction paperwork, setting a telephone script, standardising my nutritional approach and so on. Even these small changes started to pay dividends and I soon found myself operating more professionally and with more time on my hands to work on... more systems : ) Over time my systems have grown to include both online and offline advertising protocols, TV and press protocols, writing protocols, telephone protocols, consulting protocols, assessment protocols, coaching protocols, training protocols, blogging protocols, web design and optimisation protocols and much more besides. Now, every one of my team are trained (via protocols and systems) to deliver MY systems to THEIR clients in exactly the same way as I laid down in the company standard operating procedures manual. This means that the client experience is greatly enhanced, results come much, much faster and clients are happier than ever with their results. It also means that I don't have to worry about whether or not a new coach can get a result with the clients I give her, she just follows the systems and Voila! results appear : ) Wouldn't you love that for YOUR business? Wouldn't you love to know that without a shadow of a doubt, everything that contributes to the client experience of working with you has been thought out, written down and fine tuned to such a degree that, like me, you can comfortably offer double your money back guarantees on fat loss? (or whatever service you provide) You can only operate at this level with a system backing it up or, believe me, you'd go broke in no time. But where should you start? What kind of things could (and SHOULD) you systematise? Well, the short answer is EVERYTHING but here's a few more specific ideas to get you going. 1. Your voicemail - Leave a great message that's warm, welcoming and directs people to a page on your website where they can download your latest report while they wait for your call. 2. Your telephone script - Don't make your calls up as you go along. You'll make mistakes that way and lose people. Instead, have a script that you follow that walks people through a 'soft' consultative approach designed to get them to meet with you rather than to sell. 3. Your consultation script - Again, leaving your consultation process to chance is like leaving money on the table. Have a script that you use EVERY TIME to talk about the client, their wants, their needs, their timeline, their budget, your role as their coach and how you can help. This'll WOW! them far more than you'll ever believe possible. 4. Your assessment system - Prior to training, have an assessment protocol that you take the client through. Perform it the same time every time and give them a written report that outlines their findings. 5. Your programming System - Have you got a standardised way of writing and presenting your clients' programs? If not you're missing out! The real expertise that your client pays for is not the 'babysitting' during the hour of your training but the program itself. Standardise this protocol and ensure that it has wow factor by adding photo's, adding links to video demonstrations and more. 6. Your Nutrition system - Do you have a systematised approach for teaching sound nutritional approaches to your clients? Do you find yourself repeating that same advice over and over? I used to spend more time explaining my nutritional principles than almost anything else so I created my Elimination Diet Nutritional Advice which is now given to every client AND has been downloaded by over 43,000 other people on the web. This one act has created a secondary revenue stream worth THOUSANDS to me every year. 7. Your Article Writing and Blogging - Do you have a system that you use to create articles each and every week for your website, your blog and the ezine directories? I don't mean just sitting down to write and hoping for inspiration, I mean an actual system that you can follow step by step to create valuable profile-building content? If not, you need one and quick! Writing is one of the most valuable things you can do for your business and without a system you're building your business on hope and guesswork. Not good. Create a system that takes you step by step through writing, submitting and promoting every single piece of valuable content in your head. 8. Your Time Management System - Do you have set times of day and days of the week set aside for different tasks you need to complete? For example, I no longer work with clients on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On these days I spend the first 2 hours writing articles and posts (FYI it's 9:26 Tuesday morning as I write this so I'm on schedule). From 10am to 12 noon I'll be working on one of my 'projects' which will be either an online product or an offline course of some description. From 12 til 1pm I'll take lunch. From 1pm til 2pm I'll write or rewrite another module of my mentoring program and from 2pm til 4pm I'll deliver mentoring to 2 different groups then take some time off to train, read and spend some time with my family. Knowing what my week looks like IN ADVANCE means that I can judge how long my projects will take and what assets I may need to speed them up. 9. Your Advertising System - What ads and promotions are you going to run in March 2010? Do you know? Do you know what you're running in December and where you'll be running it? If not then you don't have a strategy for your ads and so you'll probably wind up jumping at every 'opportunity' that magazines and newspapers call you up with and instead of 'compounding your interest' with ads that go out in sequence, you'll lose your impact by making stuff up at last minute. Simply design your year out in advance so that you know where your ads are going to, when they're going out, what they're saying, what artwork or copy you need and when it's needed by and your marketing will be ten times more impactful. (This includes online ads and PPC too!) 10. Your Training System - You know what you're weak in and what's holding you back from being the superstar you really could be, right? Set in place a strategy for learning new skills over the course of the year. Plan out courses, home study and even book purchases to tie in with making you better in these areas and commit to studying them rather than reading or training when you feel like it and your knowledge, skills and abilities will soon stand out head and shoulders above your competition. Work at being the best coach you can be, not just the best marketer. Don't be fooled into thinking that these 10 areas aren't fitness marketing related. They ALL are! In fact, marketing is about every single thing you do to attract, serve and keep your clients and there's no better way to do that than what I've suggested here. Most personal trainers and fitness professionals don't want to hear that. They want an SEO 'quick fix' or a sneaky pay-per-click tactic that they can use to double their traffic but in reality, being on page 1 of google and getting more traffic through your website doesn't mean a thing if what the client actually buys - you and your services- isn't up to scratch. Systematising yourself and your business is truly one of the most powerful client attraction strategies you can employ to grow a fantastic business that clients will love and that you'll love being part of. So get to work today. Make a commitment to work on at least one new service daily until you have every component of your business systematised then sit back and watch the clients roll in : ) To your success! Dax Moy Fitness Marketing Made Simple P.S - Tomorrow I'll be sharing a simple system creation template you can use to build any system in ultra quick time : ) P.P.S - Don't forget to leave me a comment! : ) What about you? What do you think?

Tags: dax moy fitness marketing personal trainer training, personal trainer fitness marketing dax moy