Fitness Marketing Guru Curtis Mock Reveals 5 Things Fitness Businesses Must Do to Be Ready for 2014

DENVER - Dec. 6, 2013 - PRLog -- Fitness marketing expert Curtis Mock makes it his personal mission to help gym owners and other fitness business entrepreneurs run a more profitable business.  Today, he announced the five things that you can do now in order to be ready for the New Year.

“One mistake I see a lot of gym owners make is waiting until January to put together a fitness marketing plan to maximize the opportunities in the first quarter,” says Mock. “Then they scramble to put together some half-baked plan, or call me because they waited too long and they need help. Of course I hope you still call me and want my help, but I also hope you've put together some of the necessary pieces to be ready for the masses coming to visit your facility in January and February.”

Establish Your Goals

In order to be able to have a successful New Year, you must first establish the numbers and objectives that you consider to be successful.  You absolutely must know the numbers you want to reach and your entire staff must also know what goals are in place.

Be sure to set your overall goal, and then break that down into monthly, weekly, and daily goals for each staff member.  Remember, “Sell as many memberships as possible” is not a goal.   Goals must be specific and they must be measurable.  Be sure to have goals for everything: new members, referrals, renewals, rejoins, personal training, other profit centers, etc.  Anything you sell needs to have a goal associated with it.

Plan Your Fitness Marketing Strategy

There is no magic bullet or perfect combination of fitness marketing strategies that is going to always work best for your gym.  To determine what strategies you should implement, refer to what has worked best in the past.

If direct mail tends to bring a solid return on your investment, make sure it is included in your marketing plan.  What referral campaign has performed the best?  Do it again!  What about gift cards, business of the month campaigns, a weight loss study, joint ventures with local businesses, marketing to expired
members, door hangers, or telemarketing?

Think about what has generated a positive ROI in the past and plan to do it again.  Most fitness marketing strategies that work moderately well during other times of the year, work even better at the beginning of the year.

But you must take a planned approach to marketing. You can go to http://www.ultimatefitnessmarketing.com to learn more about my favorite tool to help automate much of this for you. The bottom line is that you must plan what you will do today, tomorrow, next week, and next month.  Plan your marketing and let it do its job, so you can do yours.

Fine Tune Your Systems

Make sure all of your systems are running smoothly.   If any are not, take the time now to begin fixing them. Systems include the way in which phone calls are answered, the sales process, how memberships are entered into the computer, what happens to missed guests, follow up with new members, referral programs,
retention programs, cleaning, maintenance, filing, time management, and of course marketing systems.   Everything must be done according to a plan, and you must have your entire team fully trained on the systems.

Train Your Staff

From the cleaning crew to your managers, sales staff to your personal trainers; everyone must understand the mission of the business and the fitness marketing plan that is in place for the beginning of the year.

Now is the time for sales training, role playing, systems training, and to make sure everyone knows what you expect of them.

Set a time each week for all of your staff members to meet to role play and to discuss what they have accomplished the previous week, any complications they encountered, and what their specific goals and objectives are for the upcoming week.

Clean everything

Obviously you should always strive to maintain a clean gym, but this is the most important time of year to focus on cleanliness.  You want to make a good first impression on your new members.

Recent surveys have revealed that the number one complaint at fitness facilities is the lack of cleanliness.   Your members are able to see the dirt that you cannot. So now is the time to find and remove those dust bunnies hiding out in the corners and under equipment.

You do not want to find yourself unprepared for this upcoming busy season.  If you don’t already have everything in place, you need to quickly get everything ready.  The New Year, new members, and new revenue is on its way.  Implement these fitness marketing and operational strategies into your gym and you'll be steps ahead of your competition.