January Marketing

Well it’s almost that time, that time of year where everyone begins with a clean slate. Unusually motivated, ready to dive in and commit, and unfortunately fiscally compromised from Christmas festivities and holiday spending.

In the twelve years I’ve been a personal trainer here in Red Deer, January has always been a little anti-climatic. You kind of think and hope that you are going to be swamped, and I mean there is a steady stream of traffic to the health club’s door and endless chatter about your co-worker’s “resolutionary” weight loss program.

The cold reality is though that as a one-on-one personal trainer your appeal is not at its strongest come January 1^st. I mean after all why do people need you? Support, accountability, they don’t need that, I mean this is the year, you and everyone else is so fired up you can single-handedly take on the world, right? With all this motivation and willpower why would anyone need an expensive personal trainer? Being so motivated and determined a space to workout in for $20-30/month is sufficient. Forget paying a professional hundreds of dollars per month for all that common sense knowledge.

Fast forward 3-4 weeks…

Determination has fizzled; motivation has turned to frustration or worse…desperation. It’s like Jekyll and Hyde, just a few weeks ago there is nothing our resolutionist wasn’t ready for or couldn’t do when it comes to their weight loss goals, now that same person often winds up feeling so low they just want to push that belly under a shirt and tuck it in all the way until the next year.

This is when our BIG rush comes, end of January, February. The time to pick up the pieces, the time for everyone to put it in perspective and succeed…the realization that they just can’t do it alone after all. Unfortunately you still have a very big problem, or perhaps often just one very big objection.

“I’d love to start your program but I’m stuck in this gym membership, if only I had known.”

January personal trainer marketing has to be very calculated. It’s a time where you must consider the emotional state of your prospect. (Highly motivated, confident, self-assured and generally on a tighter budget.) Once you understand this you can acknowledge that your offer has to appeal to this unusual situation. You need to meet their financial objectives of the “best bang for their buck.” If you don’t than you wind up losing them later because the gyms sink their claws in ensuring they think twice about committing financial resources somewhere else. (Which is what they should be doing, afterall come January 1 they are at their strongest appeal.)

If you don’t have a group program this is a good time to start one, leverage your time so you can financially compete with the major fitness centres. If you’ve been nervous about trying aggressive low/no cost trials now is a good time to execute these strategies to get your prospects onboard before they let their misguided emotion commit their financial fitness resources elsewhere.

Essentially what I am trying to say is that if you are newer to this industry you may be thinking that January is going to be easy. Truth is; it is the busiest time of year for fitness but if you don’t understand the psychology of who’s buying YOU won’t be as busy as you could be.

Merry Christmas, and May 2011 be the year where you realize all your dreams will come true.