Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Pulcinella
Now that I put that picture in my profile you can see why I have no clients.....my head is very scary. ha ha
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I think you have hit the nail right on the ..uh head as it were.
Because of the anonymity provided by the internet (and I am probably geographically safe), I will agree with you. But I would go further and say that your site is equally scary.
I am not a trainer but (I think) an important possible client base for you, over 40, disposable income, and rather charming to boot.
I would suggest a different webpage for "normal people", or perhaps a banner that says we train normal people, too. I think that most people (even if they train) would be intimidated walking into your gym or even looking at your site.
I think the best money groups are men like myself, and the "professional" women group, and the homemaker group. There is little difference in the appeal to the pro men/women group, very much an issue of getting us in the door, not scaring us (which the head and sunglasses do
)
Then, education. Our "generation" is not of the "hunter gatherers" but of the information gatherers. Anal to the point of annoyance, I am sure. The upside is we are "trainable-mentally as well as physically, and have enough $$ to pay.
I do not know if crossfit is necessarily the solution as it appeals to people who have been training HARD already, and not as big a slice of the trainer pie, the weekend warrior (or the wannabe weekend warrior).
One aside, as an information gatherer, I started looking for a bow flex like machine, and stumbled across this site, and have tried to educate (never bought the machine
, just a bench and squat-rack). If I visited your site when I first started, I would say this place is not for me. Now I would say - cool- but... still pretty intimidating
However, if you respond to my post, and I read a few more of your posts, I will quickly learn that I COULD PROBABLY VISIT YOUR FACILITY AND NOT GET A WEDGIE OR STUFFED INTO A GARBAE CAN.
But there is a huge "jump" that the hard-core image of your site is
not helping me to bridge. In any service industry, reputation and work of mouth is your most powerful tool, I would suggest some ways you could "soften" your image is through participating some community that show the softer side (if that exists of you and your members, lol) . Bring some "skinny guys" to help out.
Outreach of any sort will help you develop a soft image that will serve you very well. Some things that come to mind are doing some kind of workshop for high school kids- especially a sport, that would bring in the spectator parents and the "weekend warrior fathers (yeah get ready for the story of the blown out knee...), even junior highs school kids. (BTW, you need to target middle class and semi affluent schools)
Create a "wellness" package for the "power" exec... (look at how these packages can be used/designed to lower health premiums for companies,
Target lawyer types (they like to think of themselves as "he-men" LOL. Get ONE customer in the right area looking great and talking about your "new method" of manly training. Use your personal networks to get your foot in the door.
I hope that some of these suggestions are of use to you. I have had some success in other service industry activities (and for only 19.99 you can buy my guide LOL)
Sorry for the long post.
Cheers
peter