Hey! How’s it going?

Lets start with you answering these 4 questions and then let me show how to fix the “no’s”

Do you sell supplements or made-to-order meals in your fitness business?

Is your fitness business making as much money as you feel it should?

Are your clients getting the results they are looking for?

Are you happy with what you are doing?

The answers to these  questions reveal a lot about your fitness business and the chances you have being successful long term.

As a fitness business owner myself, I know the frustrations that you have with members cancelling, clients not showing up for their sessions, and the biggest disappointment for me is when a client just gives up and doesn’t believe they can change their body.

If you are fitness professional, then you’re going to get a lot out of this blog because I am going to be revealing 3 profit centers that you may or may not be aware of.

But before I get into that, I want to describe exactly what a profit center is.

A profit center is a doorway in which revenue comes into your fitness business, while at the same time improves the customers experience, helps to sale another product or service, and forces your brand in your market.

As I said before, I am a fitness business owner myself.  My wife & I run a small bootcamp with 2 location in Mobile, Alabama. Now, Alabama is one of the fastest states for  reason. People around here are obese, don’t know how to eat properly, and would rather spend their money on pick up trucks and tree stands.

Now don’t get me wrong, I was born and raised in the South, and I love the South. But it gets really frustrating when you are trying to help someone and their priorities are not in the right place. I’m sure you feel the same way.

Needless to say, personal trainers and bootcamps in the South have a much harder time than other locations in the US. And this is not only my experience, but a statistical fact. On the other side of the coin, gyms in the South have statistically done very well.

The main reasoning is that gyms and health clubs typically have more profit centers than bootcamps or personal trainers.

So when my wife and I decided to open Victory Fit Camp, we decided to be a profit center rich fitness business. We have several profit centers working our business, but I am going to talk about our 3 most profitable.

Supplement Sales for a Fitness Business

When a new member joins your club, or a new client hires you to train them, they have a lot of expectations. Expectations that sometimes can be impossible, but never the less is what they want.  They may want to lose weight, get stronger, or just feel better. But no matter what their reason for joining your program or club, it all boils down to 1 thing…they want to look better.

When this new member joins your health club or personal training business, the next thing for them to do is go out and buy supplements and workout gear.

So let me ask you a question? Would you rather your clients buy their products from GNC or offline, or would you rather them give you their cold hard cash and improve your profits this year.

The truth of the matter is, if you don’t sale it do them, they are going to buy it somewhere else. And I don’t know about you, but I am not going to refuse to take someones money (most of the time).

So you may be curious as to what supplement line we carry in our fitness business. Before I tell you that, you better be very careful before you start to offer supplements to people in your fitness business. They are not all created the same and some are dangerous, if not deadly.

I’ve taken 2 GNC products that have almost killed me. One hospitalized me 3 different times, so I’m speaking from experience. You better be careful.

I was so nervous about selling supplements that for a moment I considered not even doing it…what a dumb decision that would have been. I was blessed enough to find a product that not only is endorsed and recommended by every pro sports association, but it is the only nutrition/supplement company that tests for all 200 banned substances for all major sports, including the Olympics.

We have personally sold about $12,000 of supplements this year and with the help of our fitness coaches and members telling others about our program, we have sold about $50,000 combined.

This world class nutrition company, called AdvoCare, is the safest, most trusted nutritional products in the world. You can find out more about them by going to www.VictoryWithAdvoCare.com.

Note: Because we have been so successful with selling these products in our fitness business, we have decided to share all of our methods and provide training on how you can do the same thing. To find out more information go to www.Advo360.com

Pre-Made Meal Program for a Fitness Business

If you are fitness professional, you understand the importance of good nutrition. Running a fitness business myself, the biggest frustration I have with people, is them not eating correctly. Some fitness professionals out there believe you can’t do anything about that, you can’t force someone to do something they don’t want to do. And that’s true…kind of.

I already knew how profitable programs like Jenny Craig and Weight Watchers could be, but I didn’t want to have anything to do with those in my fitness business. Mainly because those meals are disgusting and just crap.

They provide about 60-70% carbs, 20-30% protein, and 5-10% fats. If you understand nutrition, you understand that this is a recipe for increased insulin and slower lean muscle growth. They work because they are low calorie meals.

Then I discovered Personal Trainer Food.

This is one of the slickest programs around for personal trainers and gym owners.

The meals are delicious and contain NO preservatives. They are 70% protein, 20% carbs, & 10% fats. Just the right mix to burn fat and build muscle as quickly as possible. And did I mention they are freakin delicious!

This meal program comes with a 30 day, 100% money back guarantee. If your client or member places an order and ends up not liking the food, you can just give them a buzz and ask for your money back, no questions asked.

Clients love them!

For about $14/day or $100/week (this is what the average American family spends on groceries each week), you can get breakfast, lunch, dinner, mid-morning & mid-afternoon snack. And did I mention that these meals are delicious?

Now my personal training clients don’t have to worry about buying the right food, preparing the right food, cleaning up, cooking, going to and from the store, etc. They get close to 300 meals a month shipped straight to their front door, already frozen.

If this seems like something your members or clients would like to hear more about you can click on my affiliate link and get some more information.

Fitness Professionals make $60-$80 for every meal program sold. With just 10 clients ordering you will make $600-$800 extra per month! With 100 members YOU can make $6000-$8000 per month plus bonuses.

====>Check out Personal Trainer Food<=======

Accountability Referral Program

The main reason people cancel their gym membership or stop coming to your bootcamp or personal training studio is because of a lack of results.

With AdvoCare and Personal Trainer Food, we are very confident in our fitness business. So confident that in 2012 we are going to a 90 Day Double Your Money Back Guarantee for our personal training business. (I would advise you not to do this unless you are very confident in your fitness business and you are positioning your business to be the place to come to get results).

Accountability is so important to get people to commit to anything. If you don’t believe me, think about it for a second. When you got married, or decided to go into the military, or to get a degree in whatever, you probably told 5-10 of your closest friends about your decision.

And in the process you just set yourself up for your success because every time you speak to one of these friends they are going to ask you about what you committed to. This “peer pressure” helps us push through the hard times when we feel like giving up.

So what’s all this have to do with referrals? And better yet, what does this have to do with a profit center?

Well, the main, and sometimes only, profit center running in a fitness business is membership sales. And if used correctly a good referral program can make up 20, sometimes as high as 60% of your total memberships sales for the year.

This is how it works.

When someone joins your health club or bootcamp/personal training studio, they are making a commitment to you and themselves that they are going to follow through to get the results they need. ie come to the gym, take their supplements, eat properly, drink plenty of water, etc.

They may or may not tell their friends that they just joined a program. As a result, they may or may not get the results they are looking for and stay long term.

When they join, we get them to give us 3-5 accountability partners. Friends, family, co-workers, high school football coach, their mailman, it really doesn’t matter…we just want them to include some other people in their decision to get healthy and stay fit.

We make this a requirement for our program, but it’s not necessary to do that in all cases. And sometimes, mainly for gyms or health clubs, it’s impossible.

Here is the information that you want to collect.

Accountability Partners:

Name, Address, Phone #, Email address, & Relationship

You can tell your new client that you’re going to contact their new accountability partner and let them know that they joined your program and what their goals are.

An accountability partners responsibility is to remind your client to stay positive and motivated and committed.

A cool thing happens with this referral program. The first thing that will happen is that you will weed out the people that are not going to stay truly committed (these people give your fitness business a bad name in your community because when they don’t get results, they tell everyone it is your fault).

Another benefit is that the accountability partner who would have never heard of you, discovers a fitness professional that really cares about getting their clients or members results.

The old saying is, “No one cares,until they know you care.” And this program shows everyone involved that you truly do care.

If you would like to receive our Accountability Referral Workbook for free, simply feel out a Club Profile Form and we will send it right over to you with a few extra bonuses. Club Profile Page

I hope you’ve gotten some good ideas.

Now I would like to ask you for a favor. Please like our Facebook Fan Page, sign up for our Sales Sniper Newsletter, and share this blog post with other fitness professionals if you got something out of it.

Stay strong fit pro! And remember that there is always hope if you are willing to look for it.

Since I own a fitness business myself, I know exactly how you feel.

I was sitting back the other day and thinking about my membership numbers. Things like how many clients I currently have in my bootcamps, how many deals I missed, things like that.

Since I own a bootcamp business and my membership rates are roughly $200/month, when I miss one client, it is painful.

Luckily, I have a “3 Step Referral Blueprint” that I have been using close to 20 years to multiply 1 new membership into 2 or 3 each and every time I take on a new client.

This “3 Step Referral Blueprint” is so powerful that if used correctly can help you add 15-20% to your membership base in the next 30 days. However, if you don’t use it, you will never see the true potential that your club or p.t. business has to offer.

Unlike some other programs and systems out there, I’m going to give you this one for free…as my gift to you for Christmas. My email list has tripled in 2010 and with 38,000+ gym owners in the U.S. alone looking for ways to maximize their efforts & PROFITS, this gift alone should be a great help.

So let’s get to it already.

Step 1 – Who and What are Referrals?

The first thing you need to do is understand that there are 2 types of referrals…hot and cold. Some examples of hot referrals are your current member referrals, friend and family referrals, strategic partner referrals, business of the week referrals, etc. Cold referrals come from sources that don’t really care about your business, or your success, and more times than not are a waste of your time and energy.

So in this step I want you to focus on collecting hot referrals.

How do you go about doing that?

The best idea is to start with your current membership base. You can email them the following:

=======================================================================

Subject: I’m sorry…but I’m not going to charge you for next month

Member,

I wasn’t able to sleep all night last night….

I have been thinking about how important you and the other members are to XYZ gym.

I’m positive that the other gyms around town don’t care as much about their members as I do my members.

And that’s the problem.

You see, I couldn’t sleep last night because I realized that I haven’t done anything lately to really show my members that I care about them. I mean, I can show my appreciation in more powerful ways than just saying thanks, can’t I?

I think I can.

So this is what I’m going to do. For the next 30 days, I’m going to do something that the other gyms in town would probably call crazy. I’m not going to charge my members for their membership.

This is how it will work.

Since I know you are a person of influence in the community and have a ton of friends that would probably love to be part of such an awesome gym, all you have to do is pick up some 7 day guest passes at the front desk and hand them out. When your friend comes in for  their 7 day trial, they will tell us that they were referred by you. And if your buddy joins up…guess what? You get next month FREE.

But that’s not the best part.:-)

If you have 6 friends that join up in a 30 day period, I will give you the next year…that’s right, the next 12 months FREE.

By doing this, I hope that you can see I’m really serious about showing my love and appreciation for your business and I hope that you’re really enjoying everything that we have to offer here at XYZ gym.

To your health and fitness,

Joe Gym Owner

P.S. If you want to give your friends the gym phone number so they can call in themselves and get more information our number here is ________. Some people may rather call in versus coming in. Also, here is our website address www.xyzgym.com

=======================================================================

Before you send this email you are going to need to do 2 things.

1. Put signs up around your club (mirrors in bathroom, few pieces of cardio equipment, door exits, things of that nature) with a goofy picture of a dog, baby or something like that with this simple phrase and call to action: “Memberships are now FREE…ask management how you can workout for FREE.”

2. The next thing you need are 7 day guest passes. We design and sell these guest passes and have been using them for a long time. The guest pass needs to have a few things: logo, the word  7 Day Guest Pass, the lowest membership rate you offer, name, email, phone number, referred by, etc. It’s also good to have these small guest passes made up in carbon copy form that way your sales staff can keep one copy and you can give the other copy to the trial member to show at the front desk when they come in for their workouts.

Step 2: Become the Puppy and Milk the Cow

What?

Now that you got this very valuable referral in your club, using your club for 7 days, it’s time to turn up the heat…so to speak. It’s time to show that member exactly why they should join your club versus the other clubs in town. Why are you different? If your answer is becuase we have the latest and greatest equipment…you’re on the right track, but your details are wrong. But you probably already knew that.

That valuable referral is more concerned with the atmosphere and how they are treated by your staff. So here are 2 key tasks of your staff when it comes to dealing with referrals working out in the club on their 7 day trial membership.

Become the Puppy - When you get home from a long day of work and are frustrated about the boss, traffic, and your pants fitting too tight, all you need to put a smile on your face is a cute little puppy wagging it’s tail and is so excited to see you that it almost pees on itself. Somehow this simple act of appreciation and enthusiasm will pull us out of our funk and get us into a different state of mind.

Well, that’s the same thing that happens at your club each and every day. People come through the door upset about life ups and downs and your staff has the power to inspire, motivate, and set at ease each and every member they come in contact with. Now I don’t mean your staff should lick the member on their face and pee on paper, I mean they need to show them real appreciation for that member making it into the club that day, and here are a few examples of what to say and do.

~ Make physical contact by shaking a hand, patting a shoulder, giving a high five…anything will do. (Just don’t get a sexually harassment charge in the process)

~ They should smile and understand that smiles are contagious and the most hardened, difficult member to deal with can be softened with a simple smile.

~ You should say and mean such things like, “It’s so great to see you today!”, “I’m so happy you made it into the club for a quick workout!”, “I was hoping you would come today, can I get you anything?”

You should have at least one staff member that is responsible for walking the floor every 15 minutes that is the “puppy’ doing the before mentioned tasks. This task will pay for itself with new memberships and referrals out the ears.

Milk the Cow - did you know that if a cow isn’t milked regularly, it starts to get grumpy because it’s utters start to hurt? No, this isnt a National Geographic blog, it’s just an analogy. You see when a new member or referral gets to you gym, 9x out of 10, they don’t really know anyone. The longer they are in a club during their trial or membership, they longer they go without being communicated with, the thought of going to the gym can become painful and uncomfortable.

Pay close attention to what I’m about to say. After their 1st workout, you must schedule the day and time they are going to come back for the next workout. Let them know you just want to make sure you’re going to be there when they come again. This does more than I feel like writing about today, but it’s very important. Each time after they workout, before they leave, you are going to ask when their next workout will be. This is so important because it ties into the next step and shows the referral that you care. It also gets them to show up for the next workout and start the habit of a healthy lifestyle.

New referrals using their 7 day trail membership, should be spoken to a minimum of 3 times during each and every workout. When they get to the club, during their workout and before they leave. Don’t do this step and your closing percentage will drop by 25-35%.

Step 3: Closing the Deal and Brainwashing Your Members to Refer their Friends

So by this point you’ve gotten the referral, they’ve came into your club to see what you have to offer (personality, atmosphere, and features). You’ve bonded with them by “becoming the puppy” and you’ve helped them feel comfortable by helping them develop a habit of ahealthy lifestyle by helping them “milk the cow.” And since you have been aksing them when they will be coming in for their next workout, you know that today is the last day of their 7 day trial so you can begin to close the deal.

Closing the deal - “Always be Closing” or “ABC Selling” should make this step really simple. They should already understand the benefits of living a healthy lifestyle and choosing your club over other health clubs in the market. However, if you or your sales team have only talked to the prospective client once or twie and haent done the above steps, you’re going to have your work cut out for you.

Brainwashing for Referrals - Maybe brainwashing isn’t the right word here, programming is what I’m trying to say. When I say brainwashing it  is a little to “Scientology” for my taste.

In this part of step 3 you have to build up the fact that Joe member is going to get a month or a year for free just by referring them to the club, you can say something like, “Man I was looking at you working out there, looks like you had a great workout today and I didnt know if you knew it or not, but today is the last day on your 7 day pass, come right over here so we can go ahead and get you started and make sure to remind me to put Tom’s name down for the referral source, that way he can get next month free.”

That statement does 2 things.

1. It assumes the sale (remember ABC selling)
2. It’s programming the referral to continue the chain of referring new clients to the club and get free membership time.

You should have somewhere in your paperwork in bold red writing: referred by or “This member receives 1 free month on their membership by referring _____.” And your sales staff really need to play up the fact that referrals are not only appreciated, but the best, most popular members of the club refer clients.

Now that you’ve just signed up a new member to the club, it’s time to get him or her to refer friends and family. You’re going to do this in 3 simple steps.

1. You are going to have a master referral sheet for him to feel out. If you don’t have one already, please give us a call at 888-434-8360 and we can tell you more about our done for you “Fit Friend Referral System.”

2. You need to give new client  7 day guest passes to hand out to their friends and family.

3. You should send a pre-printed thank you card with guest passes printed into the card. These cards are a part of our done for you system, but if you don’t have anything a simple handwritten thank you card with a few 7 day passes would do.

So there you go.

I didn’t hold anything out. This is exactly what we have done, are doing, and will continue to do to grow our fitness business and help gym owners all over the U.S to grow their fitness business.

Last thing to think about here, if your club is running a 1,000 members right now & if in the next 12 months you can get 1/2 your members to refer 1 person, using this system, you would have at least 500 extra members and if 1/2 of those referred at least 1 person, that would give you a total of 750 new members by the end of the year.

Let’s do the math: 750 new members x $____/month x 12 months = $___________ in new sales for the year.

You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see how much money you can make if your referral program is running like it should be.

If you want to Sign up for our monthly Newsletter Click HERE and if you want to get more information about our “Fit Friend Referral System” simply call 888-434-8360.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

I Need To Be BEAT Silly !

I’ve had a lot of other personal issues going on I want to let you know about, but now I have a new assistant helping me out & I’m going to start delivering some real powerful stuff that is going to give every health club owner out there an unfair advantage in the upcoming months.

So … My wife Deanaa gave birth to a beautiful 8 lb, 20″ little girl on September 9th, her name is Jasmyne Delia. While on the way to the hospital, I must have gotten 5-6 texts from friends & family members asking if my wife had went into labor yet.

While at the hospital during my wife’s 9-hour labor, her & I roughly got around 37 texts from friends & family members wanting updates on what was happening. That kind of blew my mind & got me thinking…( I know scary right?)

While at the hospital we received 5 phone calls & like I said roughly 37 texts. That is about a 6 to 1 ratio. That showed me that in the day & age we are living in the text message is a more powerful update tool than a phone call. I guess I shouldn’t have been shocked by that…I mean look what has happened with Twitter. Twitter has 75 million plus people shooting out 140 character or less updates 24-7. Many Fitness Business market their gym using twitter now.

So what’s all this have to do with fitness sales & fitness marketing? Well, as you know I have developed an extensive list of influential friends & professionals in not only the fitness industry, but other industries like home construction, internet marketing, venture capitalists & others. A new friend & partner introduced me to an amazing new tool that most of you guys have never heard of. This company specializes in mobile marketing.

So what is Mobile Marketing?

You know when your watching American Idol or Survivor or some other T.V. show & they ask you to “Text- Survivor to 55555″ this company developed the web based platform that provides that service. So I made it a point to do some research & make contact with the head cheese (so to speak) so I could provide some great, FREE information to all you health club owners & personal trainers looking for new creative ways to communicate to your clients, capture lead information & create a “cult like” following.

I got on the phone with Brian, with Cellit & recorded a 45-minute conversation & asked him some tough questions about his product & how it could help health club owners internationally achieve fitness business success.

Here are just a few of their clients YMCA, Taco Bell, KFC, ICEA, Chicago Tribune, Subway and MANY more . The conversation was packed FULL of great information for fitness business owners & I want to give it to you FREE for being a faithful subscriber to our “Sales Sniper Newsletter”.

If your NOT a subscriber to our FREE Sales Sniper Newsletter then to bad.

If you want to join then I have good news…… you can for a limited time. We could charge $59 per month for all the Fitness Sales Tools and pro advise that you will be getting, but for a limited time it’s FREE.

To Subscribe To Our Newsletter and To Get This Audio File Click Here.

I also wanted to let you know that we are in development right now in many new products that we are going to be rolling out in 2011. I mentioned a few of these products in previous posts & me & my team is working hard to make sure we deliver the best quality products in the quickest amount of time. I have been talking with many of ya’ll & reading your emails & understand how stressful it is right now due to the economy & changing market conditions…

I want to give you a word of advice; there is no need to stress about tomorrow because today has enough worries of its own. No matter what you do, do not stop striving for success. Don’t give up & stay positive! There is a new year right around the corner & as we start this new month I want to encourage all of ya’ll to keep up the good job. We are in an industry where negativity makes it impossible for us to prosper & paralyzes our ability to learn & grow.

If you are not a member of our Sales Sniper Newsletter make sure you enroll today. It’s FREE & Packed FULL of Great Information for Fitness Business Owners.

Please let me know if you enjoyed this conversation with Brian & if you have some ideas of other interviews you would like me to conduct, please leave them in the contact field. I have to say good-bye for now, I have a crying baby I have to attend to. So we will talk to you soon.

Be blessed & Be Positive!
Joshua
P.S. If you want to get FREE Demo of the Cellit Platform you can’t unless you Text -” Fitness360 to 30364” Right Now. That text will go straight to the top of Cellit and a cool dude name Jarret will be calling you to give you a VIP Tour of the platform. Don’t be the only guy or gal in town not be in the know.

Hey,

Joshua here, and I have a very special post for you today.

See, I’m so busy helping health clubs nationwide with their marketing, that I have to hire outside help for marketing my own business! To do this, I looked no further than expert marketers Louisa (Lou) Levit and David Tendrich.

They are complete experts when it comes to making your website a profitable, client-grabbing machine. And they’ve agreed to share some of their secrets right here.

Make sure you read to the end for a special free offer from them (it’s really cool)…

So, without further interruption, here they are:

Hey there,

We’re Lou Levit and David Tendrich, and we’re here today to talk to you about 5 key things that make a website successful. And by successful we mean that it brings you clients day and night – even when you’re on vacation. Pretty cool, right?

*Note: the word ‘copy’ is used quite a bit throughout this article. If you’re not familiar with copywriting, here’s a definition for you: it’s the art of writing words that make people want to take action. So copy is what copywriters write.

So let’s get started…

1. Research

Knowing what to put on your website isn’t guesswork. It comes down to finding out what your customers want, and giving it to them.

Talk to your ideal customers (you know, the kind you want more of) and find out in their own words what they’re getting out of being a member, why they joined,  what problems they’ve resolves, and how this impacts various areas of their lives (work, personal, etc.). Also find out what objections or fears they had before joining.

Write down or record everything they tell you. These are gold mines. When you write copy for your site, include the most common points you’ve gathered from all the conversations and use the same phrases and terms your members used. It only makes sense that to get more people like your ideal customers you’d use the same language they use when they speak.

When you do your research, also pay attention to your clients’ personalities. Are they mostly girly girls? Athletes? Moms?  Ask them what colors they like, what kind of things appeal to them, etc. Copy and design for house moms, for example, will be very different from copy and design for male athletes. Take these things into consideration when deciding what your site will look like and what you say on it.

Remember – find out what your customers want, and give it to them.

2. Clear focus / message

A lot of sites fall short because they have so much going on. Keep it simple – decide on one clear goal for your site, and make sure every page you add contributes to that goal. For health clubs that goal is usually to get more customers.

Take, for example, the about page. Prospects don’t want to know that you’ve been in business for 30 years – they want to know what they will get out of that. They don’t want to know how many certifications you have – they want to know why that benefits them.

If you mainly offer one service, we’ve found that, especially for fitness professionals, long copy sales pages work significantly better than regular websites. If you’re not familiar with what a long copy sales page is, you can take a look at one here. Basically, they’re those long pages, without navigation, that keep you scrolling down until you reach an ‘add to cart’ button or sign up option at the bottom.

Now, you may be thinking “who’s going to read all that?” – but when done right, these pages are extremely powerful since they draw the reader in, without distractions, and lead them to signing up.

To sum it up – always keep your goal in mind.

3. Attention grabbing headlines

When someone first opens your home page, you want to capture their attention and start making the sale right away. The most powerful way to do this is with an attention-grabbing headline that shows them the benefits they’ll get from joining your club, and tell them what makes your club so unique.

To make sure it gets noticed write it in big, bold letters at the top of your home page, and infuse it with benefits, excitement, and personality.

Here are a few examples to get you started:

“How this New York health club is helping people lose up to 12 pounds every month!”

“How this Atlanta health club can help you instantly boost your energy so you’re awake and alert all day long…”

“It’s not just the incredible fat loss you’ll get that makes this Detroit health club so powerful…”

As you can see, all three headlines describe the benefits someone will get from joining in an excited and energetic way. They really get your prospects pumped up about the changes they can start seeing in their lives, and give you a perfect lead-in to talk about all of the awesome features of your club like your equipment, supportive staff, friendly members who encourage each other and become friends, etc.

4. Testimonials

Testimonials are an absolute requirement. It’s good to have them on a testimonials page, but also make sure you include them on other areas of your site. The home page is a great place for that, since it’s your first contact with your prospects, and it’s where you make that first impression.

If you look on our website you’ll see that we have testimonials practically on every page. That’s because when people read what our clients took upon themselves to write about us, they’re much more likely to want to do business with us.

You want to feature testimonials that:

• Show quantity (i.e. lost 5 pounds in 2 weeks).
• Describe the environment. (i.e. everyone was supportive and friendly)
• Counter objections (i.e. I never thought I could lose the weight, but… I never thought a gym environment was for me, but…)
• Validate the price (i.e. this was a great deal considering how much it changed my life)

If you don’t have any testimonials yet, getting great ones is as easy as asking your favorite customers. You can also offer a free training session or a free month of membership, give something else away, or enter them in a raffle in exchange.

5. Call to Action

Earlier in this post we talked about having a single, clear focus/goal for your site, and making sure all of your copy and design lead to that goal. Your call to action is the last thing between you and your visitors - this is the goal your entire website is building up to.

A call to action is extremely simple to write. That’s probably why it’s so often done wrong! All you need to do is tell your visitors exactly what you want them to do next – in clear, concise language. That’s it.

For example… a lot of people will just have their phone number placed throughout their site, or say “call now 1.800.111.2222″. But we want to get a bit more specific. We want to give people a good reason to call too.
Here’s an example:

“Call 1.800.222.3344 right now to start your completely FREE week at Awesome Bodies Health Club!”

As you can see there’s a free offer in that call to action. If you don’t already, we highly recommend having a free trial period for your club: it lowers the barrier of entry into doing business with you. You want to make it as easy as possible for prospects to become members, so ask yourself this question: what makes joining this health club a no-brainer? Free or one dollar trials definitely answer that question.
Now, here’s another cool tip…

Take your call to action a step further. For example, tell people what will happen when they call you. See, sometimes people subconsciously fear what will happen when they call. In the back of their heads they think that somehow they’ll be charged for something, sold something, dragged into a long conversation.. etc. By letting them know what will happen you dissolve this fear.

For example:

“Call 1.800.222.3344 right now to start your completely FREE week at Awesome Bodies Health Club!

“Our wonderful receptionist, Martha, will answer the phone, take down your name, and set up a time for you to get a tour of the club.

“Then you can come on in, and start getting in shape as early as today!”

See how inviting and approachable that is? It completely takes the mystery out of the picture. People know what to expect – so they feel safer about calling.

So there you have it!

We hope these tips help bring you even more business, and see even greater success. Feel free to ask questions in the comments below.

Lou and David are the founders of an advertising and marketing firm in Atlanta, GA called Unexpected Ways LLC. In the past year they’ve helped literally dozens of fitness professionals all over the world achieve results they once thought impossible – both in online and offline marketing.

You can find out more about them, and get in touch with them personally, by visiting their website: http://www.unexpectedways.net.

One more thing!

Lou and David have been kind enough to offer a FREE 10 min. website critique for the first 10 people who contact them at support@unexpectedways.net.

Make sure you mention my blog to get your FREE critique.

Have a great one,

Joshua

PS. I have a GREAT new tool that I will be telling you about on the next post so make sure you opt-in to receive my “Sales Sniper Newsletter NOW“

In this new era of the fitness industry, it’s not good enough to have new equipment and freshly painted walls, and you can forget about things being like they used to be. So what do we do as fitness business owners? How do we stay afloat, or better yet, how do we flourish in an atmosphere that is hostile to the growth of a fitness business?

Well …. we have been busy finding the solutions you need. Over the next few weeks and months, we are going to be doing a complete redesign of this website, our business model and our approach to helping fitness business owners like you. If your not part of our Sales Sniper Newsletter, Click Here to enroll to receive future updates.

Here are a few topics that we will be discussing in the coming weeks and months:

1. We will be revealing our “Membership Dominator” program – This program is a done for you marketing and promotion service that will drive in a ton of new members, increase your draft, give you thousands in new cash deposits, and supply your club with up to $30,000 in free advertising. All with no risk and no out of pocket expense for you. Plus, while our staff is on site running our “Membership Dominator” program, we will train your staff to be membership sales experts, just like we are.

2. We will be revealing our “Club Boss” program- This is the solution that successful gym owners have been looking for. If you have been trying to figure out how you can work less hours, make more money, reduce expenses and headaches, all without having to pay a butt load of money out for general manager salaries, and consulting firms, then “Club Boss” is your solution. We will give you an experienced management team, complete management, marketing, sales systems manuals, designs, and much more. We will take you from being a successful club to being the strongest gym in your area. All while giving you, the owner, less responsibilities and more free time.

3. We will be revealing our “Low Price Ninja” program - Fact: if a low price model club opens in your area, i.e. a Planet Fitness or similar type of model, it’s only a matter of time before your club and all the other clubs in your area begin to struggle, go out of business and fail. With our “Low Price Ninja” program, you can now convert your club to the low price model without any fear of it affecting your future business in a negative way. If you would like to add 200-500 new members month after month, year after year, reduce monthly expenses and grow your draft beyond your wildest dreams, than the “Low Price Ninja” is your solution. If you have been considering paying $25,000 to get a Planet Fitness franchise to compete in the highly competitive fitness industry…DON’T! If you have been thinking about simply lowering your price and calling yourself a low price club….DON’T…it’s more complicated than that. Fitness360 is the only company in the industry today offering a program like this. So we will only be opening this program up to a select number of clubs per year and the clubs we do accept into the program, have to meet certain qualifications. If this program is something you’re interested in getting more information about, stay tuned to our site updates for more information or contact us at 888-434-8360.

4. We will be revealing our done for you fitness consulting programs, built around diet and nutrition, ladies only gyms, group fitness programs, fitness boot camps, personal training studios, and many others.

As you can see we have a lot of things we have been working on and I can not wait to reveal to you, our clients, all the new tactics and strategies we have been developing. So if your not part of our Sales Sniper Newsletter, join now by Clicking Here.

And as always, feel free to contact us at 888-434-8360 for any questions about our products or services.

Look what we did at City Fitness in Lynn MA. We converted them to the “low price” model to compete against the 3 Planet Fitness that opened up near them. People can’t help but to love the low price promise. Our fitness sales team in only 4 weeks brought in 180 new sales, $28k gross and increased the eft by $2,200 per month. Fitness360 is the best fitness marketing company in the world! And to prove it we will give you a money back guarantee. Wait! I forgot. You don’t have to spend any money. We front everything!

What are you waiting for ?

Give us a call to see if your Fitness Center qualifies.

Call 888.434.8360

A good marketing strategy provides specific goals and can include:
o a description of the key target buyer/end user
o competitive market segments the fitness center will compete in
o distribution channels
o the unique positioning of the club and its products versus the competition
o the reasons why it is unique or compelling to buyers
o price strategy versus competition
o marketing spending strategy with advertising and promotion
o possible research and development
o market research expenditure strategies.

An overall fitness marketing strategy should also:
o define the fitness center
o position the club as a leader, challenger, follower, or niche player in the category
o define the brand or club personality or image that is desired in the minds of buyers and end users
o define life cycle influences, if applicable

Strategy statement tests. If the statements in your strategy are measurable and actionable and work to differentiate your company and products apart from the competition, congratulations! If they are not measurable and actionable and do not differentiate your company from the competition, revise them until they are.

A good working marketing strategy should not be changed every year. It should not be revised until company objectives (financial, marketing, and overall company goals) have been achieved or the competitive situation has changed significantly, e.g., a new competitor comes into the category or significantly different or new products emerge from existing competitors.
While a comprehensive marketing plan can be a vital component to any business plan, it’s often neglected by small business owners, online business owners and webmasters, and independent or creative professionals, for a few reasons:

o They simply don’t want to put the effort into writing a full marketing plan.
o They’re too short on time to write a comprehensive marketing plan.
o They don’t know how to write a marketing plan, and are flustered by the process.

A one page marketing plan can, in these cases, be a viable alternative to a full marketing plan, while still touching on important marketing strategy areas. This sample includes a variety of marketing areas that should be addressed.

A one page marketing plan can, in these cases, be a viable alternative to a full marketing plan, while still touching on important marketing strategy areas. This sample includes a variety of marketing areas that should be addressed. Use the following guide to help you fill out your one page marketing plan:

Marketing strategy checklist
o define what your company is
o identify the products or services that your company provides
o identify your target buyers/end users
o establish the marketing category (e.g., fast food purveyor, high-end audio equipment sales, etc.)
o determine whether your company will be a market category leader, follower, challenger, or niche player
o describe the unique characteristics of your products or services that distinguish them from the competition.
o define whether your pricing will be above, below, or at parity with your competitors and establish whether you will lead, follow, or ignore changes in competitors’ pricing
o identify the distribution channels through which your products/services will be made available to the target market/end users
o describe how advertising and promotions will convey the unique characteristics of your products or services
o describe any research and development activities or market research plans that are unique to your business
o describe the image or personality of your company and its products or services

Target Market - Briefly mention your target market for your company, website, product, etc., including any important demographics.
o Industry Trends - Are there any industry trends that would affect your marketing strategy (such as major growth or decline in your specific industry within certain markets)?
o Goal(s) – What is the goal of your marketing efforts? What do you want to accomplish? Make your goals specific and measureable.
o Strategies - In a general sense, how do you plan to reach your goals? These shouldn’t be specific tactics (like send a weekly newsletter), but should be broad in nature (such as increasing repeat visitor traffic, if your goal were to grow to 100,000 page views per day while marketing your website).
o Yearly Marketing Budget – Simply include your predetermined marketing budget, so you know what you have to work with when planning out your marketing tactics.
o Marketing Mix – Here’s where you’ll tackle the 4 Ps of Marketing.
o Product (or service) – Simply mention what your product / service is. What is it that you’re marketing? A tool? A professional service? Information?
o Price – How will the pricing model of your products/services factor into your marketing? Will you sell with a low price on a value principle? A high price to target a luxury market?
o Placement (also referred to as distribution) – Placement means where you will physically or figuratively “place” your products or services, to make them visible to your target market. Will you sell through special in-store displays? What kind of stores? Will you sell through a catalog? Your own website? Online through affiliates? etc.
o Promotion – Give a very general overview of how you intend to promote your products or services. How will you build your brand?
o Top 3 Competitors – Who are the top three competitors that you need to position yourself against? For example, if you’re an online book seller focusing on a niche of selling mysteries, Amazon.com won’t be one of your top three competitors. You’ll need to position yourself against other online booksellers in your specific niche before trying to go after the “big guys”. Keep things as realistic as possible. Who’s competing against you in the most direct sense?
o Your Strengths – What are your particular strengths which might help you position yourself against your competitors?
o Your Weaknesses – What are your weaknesses, or potential barriers to positioning yourself against your competitors? (Everyone has them.) For example, are you new to the industry? Do you have a smaller product line? etc.

Monthly Tactics – Using the rest of your one page marketing plan as a guide, determine where your chosen marketing tactics should fit into your yearly plan. For example, using the book-selling scenario again, if there were a specific week or month focused nationally or internationally on reading or your specific niche, you might want to focus certain marketing efforts around that time (like a sale, having online chat sessions set up with select authors, etc.).

So I hope this article helps you understand the importance of developing a marketing strategy for 2010.  If you would like your free copy of the one page business plan mentioned in this article, please send your request to info@fitness360online.com.  Please don’t hesitate to give us a call at 888-434-8360 for any other questions you may have.  I hope you have a great new year.  God bless!

Joshua Fleming

Over the past few weeks I’ve been doing a lot of consulting with club owners in regards to club management. This is one in particular that I’m very passionate about, mainly because that’s where I got my start in the fitness industry. It really drives me bananas when I walk into a health club and there are no systems in place. I can only imagine how aggravating it must be for the members and employees to be part of a chaotic environment. So that being said let me stop venting and give you a couple of tips that will help you on the road to developing in house marketing, sales and management systems.

First things first, let’s look at marketing.

A few rules to remember when marketing for new gym members.

1. Sale Solutions – When a member joins a fitness center they could care less about how fancy your equipment is. Planet Fitness has proved this. If you walk into any Planet Fitness you will find the same boring cookie cutter equipment. So why are they so successful? The answer is because they are selling a solution. The solution is an environment that anybody can feel comfortable in. That’s there brand and that’s the secret to their success. A good marketing piece we’ll sale a solution. Here are a few examples of the solutions people are looking for when they buy a gym membership: low price, weight loss, risk free money back guarantee, great social scene, no pressure environment, etc.

2. Go Big or Go Home – A fitness center’s marketing budget should be a minimum of 10% of your current draft per month. You may be asking yourself, “How can I afford to spend that much on marketing every month?” A better question would be, “How can you not afford to spend that much money on marketing?” I know some great and inexpensive ways to market your health club that I will go into in a different post. The main thing I want to get in your head is that you have to spend money to make money. And your marketing should be both proactive and reactive.

3. Budget, Budget, Budget – Setting up a marketing budget is the key to successful marketing campaigns. So you ask, how should I go about setting up a marketing budget? Well, I already gave you one key: spend at least 10% of your monthly draft on marketing. There’s a lot more to creating a marketing budget for your gym, so feel free to shoot me an e-mail or give us a call and I can give you a few more free tips.

Next we’ll look at sales.

While in Texas last week I met with three different health clubs’ staff and I was shocked to find out that there were no goals set in place. No weekly sales goals, No monthly sales goals, no goals, period. I thought I was being Punked! I thought any minute now Ashton Kutcher was going to jump out from behind a wall with a big camera and I would be completely embarrassed and have to say, “Hi, this is Joshua with Fitness360 and I’ve been punked!” But to my surprise, it wasn’t a joke. To top it off these were big 20,000 square feet health clubs that were all doing well just because of their sheer size and quality of equipment. This is the exception, not the rule. Normally, if I consult with a club in those conditions, they are taking huge loses and on the verge of going out of business.

So my number one rule for managing a productive sales team is “MBO”, (Management by Objective). In a nutshell managing by objective promises to help the club manager and a sales manager improve communication and leadership by setting specific goals with club personnel at all levels. “MBO” allows the manager and his personnel to identify common goals and define each person’s area of responsibility and return of results expected of them or standards of performance. “MBO” focuses directly on results. That is the fitness consultant will be responsible for keeping a specific set of goals that are unique to him. He will not be compared to another consultant when these goals are defined.

Here is a brief description of the six steps in implementing the “Management by Objective” system:

1. Have daily, weekly and monthly meetings between management and fitness consultants. At these meetings you’ll go over daily appointment quota, daily prospecting quota, presentation quota, sales ratio goals, sales goals, etc.

2. Make the goals specific and easily understood. And the most important part is make those goals achievable.

3. Make a plan of attack with your staff. The last step was, “What to do”, and this next step is, “How to do it”. Make a road map and follow it. Set out verbally and on paper your marketing strategies and goals so everybody on the team has a clear understanding moving forward.

4. At this point both management and consultants need to make a commitment verbally to do whatever it takes to meet the expectations set forth. The thing to keep in mind is that the commitment from your fitness consultants need to be supported by a commitment by the managers. It takes everyone involved to achieve goals, and if someone isn’t pulling their weight or following through, the whole team will suffer.

5. This is the most important step of all. Your job as a manager is more clearly defined with the title of a coach. When your fitness consultants do good praise them. When they do bad correct and motivate. Never compare fitness consultants to each other or correct them in front of other staff or members. If you do your throwing a wrench in your own machine, trust me. The performance of your team will be directly related on how well you accomplish this step.

6. After completing the goals set forth your fitness consultants by nature are going to be looking for a reward. Their paycheck is not necessarily a reward, that’s compensation for doing their job. A type of a reward that you should consider could be a gift card to a restaurant, movie tickets, a cruise for two to the Bahamas, etc. The size and nature of the reward is very important. Can you imagine if you gave your top salesman for the month a trip for two to the Bahamas and then told the staff that whoever makes salesman of the next month is going to get something even better. You would have a team of headhunters out there doing whatever they could to attract new members and to exceed the goals set forth by management.

So “MBO” sets goals and expectations, gives a map on how to achieve those goals, coaches the team through the hurdles they may face, and then rewards for achieving those goals.

So this last thing I want to talk about is health club management. As I stated before, management is the same as coaching. Most health club owners believe that to be a good manager you have to be a dictator and nothing could be farther from the truth. Leaders learn to understand people first of all. They’re obvious good communicators and have an incredible ability to find individual needs in people and create an environment for those people’s needs to be met. Thus a manager is able to get more productive work accomplished in less time, while his employees enjoy doing it. Leadership is a learned skill, and can be developed by study and practical experience. Below are two factors involving an effective leadership:

* Expert Power -This is associated with the managers expertise, special skills, and general knowledge. These qualities gain respect and cooperation of peers and subordinates. This form of leadership can be acquired and developed.

* Referent Power – This is associated with intangible personal qualities that attract followers who admire these qualities and wish to be associated with them. This type of leadership power, often called “charisma” is more likely to be inherent, however, can still be acquired and developed through hard work, and persistence.

Great coaches are also excellent leaders. By focusing your efforts on club productivity, profitability, and discipline yourself to always doing the most productive thing possible, like staying on the front line, working your proposed schedules, training your employees, scheduling and attending meetings, praising and reprimanding employees, and creating an environment which is productive for career and personal growth are attributes of great club managers. By doing these things your staff will respect and will in return follow your direction enthusiastically.

In closing I would like to remind everyone that Fitness360 is a full service health club marketing and management company. Our reputation in the industry is second to none. If you’re a club owner looking to step away from the day to day operations or would just like to become more profitable, we have solutions that meet every need. With our strategic partnerships and “out of the box” thinking, we are currently managing hundreds of clubs around the U.S. We’re also rated #1 in the industry in converting clubs to the low price model. A conversion to the low price model is not as easy as just lowering your prices. We have developed a complete package for health club management, low price conversions, gorilla marketing, etc. We also have the teams and personnel to implement those systems into your health club if you so desire. Feel free to contact us today to see if your club qualifies for our club management program or low price conversion model. I think you would be shocked to find out how profitable your club could be if managed correctly.

Also feel free to leave a comment on this article. Anyone that leaves a comment, positive or otherwise, will receive a one hour free phone consultation for your health club.

Here’s to your success…

God bless

Joshua