11 Things You MUST Do To Launch Your Fitness Business Into the Stratosphere In 2010
Hey Guys
Anyone else have feelings about this?
Tags: dax moy fitness marketing personal trainer training london bootcamp
Apologies that I've not been in here a lot the last few weeks but I'm taking my own advice and getting a lot of my projects off the ground fast so that I can chill out a little more as the year goes on in the knowledge that I've already sowed the seeds and can wait for the harvest, so to speak.
It got me thinking about what I've done already this year and what I still have to do and, importantly, what YOU need to be doing in order to make 2010 your best ever year in the fitness profession.
Without further ado, here they are:
#1 Reactivate Your Old Clients
It's always MUCH easier to reactivate a client who has had a relationship with you in the past than it is to attract a stone-cold member of the public off the streets yet, for some reason, trainers never seem to spend much time doing this.
This is without a doubt, the most important thing you could do this year, so do what needs to be done to make contact with every client that has ever worked with you before the month is out.
Make them an offer they can't refuse and, before you know it, you could DOUBLE your business and your income.
#2 Survey Your Clients And Customers
Conduct an 'ask' campaign for all your clients, customers, blog followers, Facebook friends and community members and ask them how you could improve your products/services/blog posts etc to help them achieve their results faster.
I did this last week and the feedback I got was amazingly valuable and has already resulted in several major changes to my products that will help them sell much more easily than they already do.
And all I did was ask.
Do the same. You definitely don't have all the answers. No one does.
Ask and ye shall receive.
#3 The More You Tell, The More You Sell
Get onto your website, look at your brochures, check out your flyers and see for yourself how much you're really telling your readers about what you can do for them.
Most marketing materials are seriously lacking in real facts about what the client experience is going to be and instead focus on the hype of marketing the products and services.
Don't make this mistake.
Go through your materials with a fine tooth comb and ask yourself if people would have all the information available to help them make the decision to say 'yes' to your offerings. If not, get the information in there... and
fast!
The more you tell, the more you sell!
#4 The More You Tell, The More You Sell Part Deux
With the information age, content is king yet most personal trainers don't write enough, blog enough, youtube enough or share their knowledge with their fans enough to truly make an impact.
Each day you're quiet is another day when you allow your fans to go out and look for their information from someone else.
If that someone else is pretty good at what they do and they're willing to speak to your fans more than you are, they win... and you lose the chance to help your people know, like and trust you enough to make the purchase that will pay your bills and give you the life you want.
Create content daily if you can, every other day if not but put SOMETHING out there for your fans and 2010 will be the year you launch your business to greater heights.
#5 Assemble Your Tribe
There are people out there who love you, love what you say, love how you say it and love what you stand for. The best thing you can do, both for you and for them, is to give them a place to hang out so that they can share the love and tell each other how right they are in their decision to love you.
I'm serious!
A little tongue-in-cheek but serious.
People love forming into groups, into tribes and gaining validation and support for their worldview. Give them that place.
A http://www.ning.com community is free, easy to start yet can deliver results out of all proportion to the effort required to set it up and maintain it.
Assemble your tribe TODAY!
#6 The More You Tell, The More You Sell Part 3
One of the best things you can do for your business is to talk about what you do to those who are interested in the solutions you provide.
Notice I said 'talk'.
Public speaking, no matter how terrifying you may find it, is without a doubt the most powerful and impactful client attraction you could ever apply.
Getting in front of a crowd of people who get to see, hear and experience your expertise, your knowledge, skills and abilities will sky-rocket your business, even if only to a handful of people a few times a year.
Book a talk at your local civic centre, town hall or church hall as soon as you can.
#7 Sell The FREE!
When done correctly, FREE is one of the most powerful client attraction strategies around.
After all, who can argue with free, right?
The trick though, is to create what I call 'paid free' where the free only refers to money, yet where you still have a price attached.
That price can be before and after pics, testimonials, blog posts, referrals, announcements on facebook, 100% adherence to your program or any number of other methods of payment.
As soon as the prospect stops 'paying' the agreed price, stop delivering the free service.
This is POWERFUL stuff and will fill bootcamps, PT, classes and therapy appointments faster than ever.
Sell the free!
#8 Create A Product That Your Tribe WANTS
Make 2010 the year that your own honest-to-goodness branded product comes onto the market and make it one that your tribe has repeatedly told you they want NOT what you think they need.
For example, my tribe has repeatedly told me they wanted a vegetarian cookbook to accompany the elimination diet so just yesterday I released it to them.
It's not a Dax Moy masterpiece, it's not my opus, my 'big thing' but still, my tribe wanted it and now they have it.
I went to bed after uploading it to the web and woke up this morning to $1000 in sales.Not lifechanging but not bad either and this will continue to make me money and help my tribe for years to come.
Create... something, and do it fast. Your tribe demands it and if you don't listen, they'll find someone who will.
#9 Create and OFFLINE Newsletter
The web has hypnotised me for the last few years.
The ease of use, low cost and immediacy of results made me forget that there are real people out there in my community that would love to hear my message yet didn't even know I existed.
I remedied that at the end of last year with a print newsletter, just 12 pages of articles in full colour distributed to 5000 homes in my community and the impact was stunning.
People now see my company as the only logical choice for PT in the local community, and your community see your business that way too when you produce something for them.
So do it!
#10 Attend Every Seminar, Workshop and Convention You Possibly Can For A Year
There's no getting away from this one. You will grow in direct linear proportion to the education you receive on your chosen field. The more you learn, the more you earn.
Workshops, conventions and courses bring your learning to life in ways that books can't even come close to as they translate concepts into actions much, much faster than reading alone.
Not only that, the networking is invaluable.
In fact, much of the money I've made over the last few years can be traced directly to chatting with other attendees at events.
Even if you think your budget won't stretch to attending events, do everything within your power to beg, borrow or steal a seat at every event you can for 2010.
I promise you, you won't recognise your business by 2011.
#11 Read At Least 1 Book A Week
In my book The MAGIC Hundred I say 'success is kept on the top shelf and the only way to reach is is to stand on the books you've read'.
It's so true.
Gaining new information, translating that information into knowledge and transforming knowledge into wisdom
is what changes lives and books are so readily available to us all that it'd be crazy not to use them better as tools to
building the future's we all dream of.
Read the books.
Read ALL the books.
My Amazon bill for 2009 on my tax return was £2677 and that doesn't include books bought in stores, online courses, ebook downloads etc.
I read over 135 books in 2009 and have read 13 already since 2010 began. That's cover to cover.
All I need to do is act on 1 idea from each book I read and my life's gonna change big style.
So will yours.
Read all the books!
So there you go. 11 things you MUST do in 2010 if you want it to be a massive year for you.
Don't hang around, don't 'think about it' and procrastinate.
Take action now.
By the end of today you could:
...Email all your old clients
...Survey your existing clients and fans
...Make a small, subtle change to even 1 page of your website or marketing materials
...Create a http://www.ning.com community
...Write a blog post or article
...Book a venue and set a date for a public talk
...Create a 'paid free' offer for your community
...Brainstorm ideas for a product your tribe has been asking for
...Start assembling a newsletter from all your old articles
...Sign up for a course, seminar or workshop
...Order a new book online
You COULD do all of this today y'know!
But even if you didn't, even if you did just a handful or even just one, you'd already make inroads into 2010 in the most powerful way possible.
So... will you do it?
Go on then! : )
To your success!
Dax Moy
Join my FREE community over at
http://www.personaltrainersucces.ning.com TODAY
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Simply an awesome post that every trainer, even everyone in business should read and implement.
Thanks