In this article I'm going to break down in it's simplest form Sales and Marketing. This is going to be a high level "training" on exactly how to sell, market and give yourself the best opportunity to make more income, impact and have more influence in your market.
When it comes to sales and marketing there is one thing I want to point out before we dive in. You must master this as a business owner or operator (or trainer).
I hear business owners all the time telling me that either "We're fine, we don't need to invest in marketing, our results do the talking." or I hear "That's not essential with our business model." or my all time favorite: "Our business is built soley on word of mouth marketing."
Show me the data to back any of those comments up.
What's your ROI on "Our results do the talking." Or how many members did you sign up with "marketing not being essential." Or how much revenue did you make last month on "word of mouth marketing.
Here's the thing: It's absolutely essential that you master the art and science of sales and marketing if you want to reach your true potential as a business. Anything less is leaving money on the table and athletes you could impact, unaware of your exceptional services.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. If you truly believe you have the best product and service in your market. That anyone that walks through your door is truly going to change their life because of what you offer, it is your moral responsibility to put your message in front of as many people as you possibly can.
If you want to break it down simply, marketing and sales can be broken down to generating leads and converting leads. Another way to look at it is T*C=R: Traffic x Conversion = Revenue.
All businesses want to make more revenue, have more predictable income, and really all it boils down to is this equation. You need to generate more traffic (marketing) and you need to convert that traffic (sales) and that's how you increase revenue.
Quite simply, if you want to make more money refer back to this equation.
If you want to increase your revenue, you have to increase your traffic (that amount of people coming to you) or you have to increase your conversion rate (the amount of people that sign up with you). Ideally we'd like to do both at the same time, but if you just increase one and leave the other the same, you're making more money.
Onward.
The key to starting any marketing and sales campaign is to define your target audience, your ideal client profile, identify your avatar. To simplify, who can can you impact the most?
For people that already coach or have a facility of their own it can be as simple as seeing who currently brings in most of your revenue, where are you getting most of testimonials from?
What are these individual's needs? Wants? Pains? Fears? Struggles? Frustrations? What are their dreams and aspirations? How do they view the world?
Get Deep!
You want to get to the point where everything you're putting out to the world seems like it's a specific message to each of your ideal clients.
The point where the people reading your articles, watching your videos, seeing your posts, feel like they are supposed to be a part of your culture.
The way you do this is by figuring out who you impact the most and understanding their deepest wants, desires, needs etc.
Next, let's look at the problem these individuals are having. Again, I like to break things down to the simplest form. When it comes to sales and marketing you're trying to inform people that there is an issue in what they are doing now and you have the ultimate solution.
Let's dig in.
What's the problem your "audience" is dealing with?
To help you get started, normally the problem is a negative emotion.
They're frustrated, upset, unmotivated, angry, nervous, anxious, fearful, disappointed etc.
They're not where they want to be as an athlete, or an individual.
Maybe it's frustration that they aren't in the shape they need to be in. Upset they didn't make the varsity squad. Disappointed in the scholarship offers that are on the table, or lack thereof.
Whomever you work with, they've got a problem, the question just becomes, 'What?'
If you can become the best at solving the problem and getting the solution in front of more people that have that problem your business is going to skyrocket.
So what are the negative emotional states that the people that come into you have?
And by the way the answer isn't it depends.... Depends is an adult diaper brand.
You have an ideal client profile, that avatar has negative emotions you need to pin point and solve so that you can market to that individual.
Disclaimer: I know it doesn't have to always be negative emotions that drive someone. It can very well be a positive goal that gets someone to move. Like 'hey if you train you'll get a D1 scholarship', or 'if you workout you'll go from husky to hunky and have prom date', but unless a current state of being is agitated, and the emotional gap of not being where they want to be is shown, very seldom do people look up from their game of Fortnite to give you the time of day. The key is to agitate a pain so that they are in a state to take action, and be committed to what they say they want.
When I ask this question, I normally get a list of features the facility has, a list of training styles, a list of people that they have trained and not much else.
One of the biggest misconceptions in marketing is that people give a hoot about you.
Here's the thing, they don't. Everyone's favorite Radio station is WIIFM (What's in it for me?) They care about what you can do for them. The end.
Remember our goal is to find our ideal client, understand them to their core, agitate pain and provide a solution.
It's that simple. Nowhere in that sentence did it say talk about your equipment, your training style, your square footage, etc.
From here on out, when someone asks 'why you?' (or any variant of that question), I want you to stick to the 90/10 rule.
90% of the explanation should be about the destination, the end goal, where the individual wants to be and only 10% should be about the transportation, your facility, your background, your training style.
Think about the last time you booked a vacation, did you take into account the steps it was going to take to get there, or did you book it and get excited to go to the beach?
Imagine if Sandals Resort told you all the steps it was going to take for you to get from your front door to their resort? Would you go? It wouldn't be as easy of a decision.
Instead their marketing simply shows the destination, the smiling faces, the cold drinks and the happy couples.
That's your job here. Show the success, show the culture of your facility, the scholarships, the PR's.
During this journey, we've gotten to know your ideal client/target audience very well. We know their needs, their wants, their aspirations, what keeps them up at night etc.
Above is a proven system on what to you need to do in order to begin your sales and marketing journey. To recap. Know your market, understand their problem, provide a solution.
It's that simple. Who? What keeps them up at night? Get them their NyQuil!
Ok, but just knowing this doesn't get results, we actually have to get in front of our little insomniacs.
First things first, you need to identify where your target audience is hanging out. Where do they spend their time?
What do they watch on youtube? What do they read online? (blogs, articles, books) What social media do they spend time on? Who do they follow on social media? What do they spend their money on? What groups or associations might they be part of?
This is only part of the research process, but it will get you started in stereotyping your audience so you can begin to target them online and put your message in front of them.
Now that you've identified where your audience is hanging out and spending their time and attention, you can identify the best distribution channels to put your message, content and offers in front of your target audience.
For example you should be able to know which of the following will be the best channels to reach your target audience: Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google Search, Podcasting etc.
From here it's all about creating content that is real, raw and relevant and putting money behind it.
I'll finish this article with something I said earlier: If you truly believe you have the best product and service in your market. That anyone that walks through your door is truly going to change their life because of what you offer, it is your moral responsibility to put your message in front of as many people as you possibly can.
Your process starts here.