Leverage These Life Hacks to Produce More Results
Technology has brought a whole new style of entrepreneur into existence. Independent trainers, small gym business owners, or even franchisees of big-box chains, like Gold’s Gym, can make the most of some of the life hacks that complement the things they already do daily. I’ve written about some of these tips and tricks on the Gym Insight Blog before, but a few are new.
1. Do Remote Training Sessions with FaceTime or Skype
It’s the human contact that clients want from their training sessions, as well as fitness, and almost everyone has a smartphone these days. Most people now use smartphones and seem to feel more connected online than in real life now.
Apps like FaceTime and Skype put you in the room with your clients and members in a useful way. Adapt your style and service to be flexible, with a remote training connection, and you can add a new level of value.
2. Take Advantage of Online Advertising Resources
Google and Facebook survive by selling advertising. The advantage they offer to you, the business owner, you can achieve remarkably precise customer targeting that you can’t get in any other way.
You know your fitness club membership personas, right? For example, design a Facebook to target potential members in your community. Try for some easy goal that you can measure, like visiting your website or liking your Facebook page.
Test the market with the minimum value ad-spend for a week and monitor the traffic. You may need to try ten or more different ads and the right follow-up process before it takes off, but this can be a fierce hack to find new members.
3. An Amazing Mailing List Life Hack
Any time and place you connect with people, ask them to opt-in as subscribers to your mailing list. Staying in touch and winning interest one email at a time is standard practice in e-commerce, and it can work for you too.
A healthy email subscriber list is entrepreneurial gold dust. Once you have hundreds or thousands of subscribers, there is no limit to the number of ways that you can reach out to them. Mailing lists come with regulations, so use a service that specializes in email marketing, such as MailChimp or ActiveCampaign, to stay within the rules and out of trouble.
4. Self-Publish Your Success Story
Publishing your story online can be a great way to attract new customers and establish yourself as an authority in your niche. Print on demand is reducing the cost of self-publishing books, but that’s not the actual hard part anyway.
It’s sitting down and writing a story, your story in the first place, that takes time and motivation. Start by writing a brief version of your story and offering it online as a downloadable PDF file. Give it away free for a limited time in return for signing up for your email list. You can always market an extended version to them later.
Either type out the words, write them down on paper with pen or pencil or record them on your smartphone verbally. You can always hire a freelancer, another useful life hack, to transcribe your thoughts or turn the text into a digital book for Amazon’s Kindle Reader.
5. Share Your Client Programming Tips
Information is the great marketing success of the twenty-first century. The knowledge, life hacks, and practical client programming experience you have accumulated are your most valuable assets.
You can write pamphlets about your programming and serve it up to your mailing list, reach out to people with targeted ads, or create videos of your techniques and post them to YouTube.
You can license your client programming to other trainers or sell it directly to the public. The ultimate approach would be to write up your whole programming regime, with diagrams and pictures, and license the rights to gym owners who are outside your competitive area.
6. Become A Social Media Influencer
If you build a substantial reputation as an influencer on a channel like YouTube or Instagram, brands will come to you to promote their products and services. You’ll need to have tens of thousands of followers to do this, but major fitness brands rely on this marketing method to reach young and digitally sophisticated audiences.
7. Hack Your Business Purchases with A Rewards Card
Use a business air-miles card to pay your expenses and get free travel. If you don’t already, start putting all of your business expenses on a rewards credit card. If you spend a few thousand dollars a month on business-related expenses anyway, why not get some benefit?
You’ll be having fun traveling regularly, staying in exotic locations, and generally having fun. The adventures you have will make great content for influencer posting; you can keep in touch with clients and staff with FaceTime, and, as long as you pay your card off each month, you’ll build a maximum credit rating.
Bibliography
Baker, Loren. 7 Amazing Email Marketing Hacks. September 3, 2018. https://smallbiztrends.com/2018/09/email-list-management.html (accessed February 7, 2019).
Dieker, Nicole. How to Self-Publish A Book. May 30, 2017. https://lifehacker.com/how-to-self-publish-a-book-1795485670 (accessed February 7, 2019).
DiVecchio, Chris. Why Remote Fitness Training Might Be Your Jam. July 13, 2018. https://theruggedmale.com/what-is-remote-fitness-training/ (accessed February 7, 2019).
Fagan, Lawrence. Gym Member Personas: Who Are These Idealized People? September 9, 2017. https://blog.gyminsight.com/4611-gym-member-personas-who-are-these-idealized-people/ (accessed August 19, 2018).
Guitteau, Anne. How to Be A Fitness Brand Ambassador Or Influencer. September 20, 2018. https://lonelybrand.com/blog/how-to-become-a-fitness-brand-ambassador-or-influencer/ (accessed February 7, 2019).