PERSONAL TRAINERS: SCUMBAG MARKETING TACTICS REVEALED! Exposing The Sleazy Marketing Tactics Of Your Favorite Online Marketers, And How You Can Start Using Them Too!

Posted on 01. Jul, 2010 by Kaiser in Marketing Fitness

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Ever since Tim Ferris wrote a best selling book (a very good one by the way) about how he cheated at kickboxing and made over half a million a year selling scam diet pills (not to mention scamming people into promoting his book all the way to the bestseller list), being a scumbag has become a major career goal for many of todays’ youth  (especially those of us that spend way too much time on the internet).

With the low cost of internet marketing these days, you’ll find blatant marketing tactics used in horrible combinations in nearly every niche known to man.  Just like the swamp thing emerging from the ooze, try-hard direct response marketers are everywhere these days and more are getting into the game by the minute.

Before you think I’m calling this a bad thing, realize when you’re a small business start-up (which most personal trainers are), you are the sales and marketing chief of the whole operation.

This is a lesson I try to beat into the heads of trainers repeatedly, which is a little frustrating since we are a particular breed that is the most resistant to embracing it. Being a marketing scumbag doesn’t mean neglecting product mastery (in this case training) or industry preeminence (being number one).  Those can be two of the best marketing strategies out there for any marketer (again, that means you).

But there’s a lot more to it.  A lot of shady, “mind-f*ck” stuff (a la Puff Daddy in Get Him To The Greek) that goes into selling effectively online and through any other medium.  When you’re the chief salesperson and marketer in your business, no one is going to do this for you.  And you are well advised to use every shady tactic you have at your disposal to start getting results.

That’s why in this post we’re going to go over just a smattering of some of the most popular marketing tactics being used in direct marketing today (by direct marketing I am talking about ads, sales pages, tv, conferences – everywhere).  A lot of this is more under the radar stuff that you may have noticed, but not truly understand the value it can have for you in your personal training marketing.  Not only will this make you a better indirect seller (which is what we are all going for), but it will allow you step up from being one of the sheep and become an influencer yourself.

Before we start, if it sounds like I’m calling your most believed marketing guru a scumbag, I am. But note that I am also a scumbag, probably one of the biggest alive today. I use nearly every one of the tactics we are going to get into below. The ones I don’t use, I’m either too lazy to, or I can’t yet (for example, I don’t have any children – more on that later). I’ve made it my mission to read and study nearly every single business and direct response marketing book of note in the past 200 years, and know and learn from most of the top marketers alive today (many of which I’m friends with).  If you really want to get good at this, I recommend you do the same.

I'll be seeing you at the next internet marketing conference.

One of the best parts about becoming a lifetime student of sales and marketing is that it is extremely addictive and fun as hell.  You may end up hanging out with some nerdy people that remind you of the type you avoided in highschool, but that’s life.  Hey, you wouldn’t turn Bill Gates down for copy of coffee would you?  So open up your mind to who it is that you can learn from and network with.

This is also one of the reasons why sales and marketing have been covered in such detail in the new SIX-FIGURE TRAINER PROGRAM.  It’s been poured over in excruciating detail with information that has been employed from the world’s top companies and sales drive professions, applied specifically to personal training, and exhaustively field-tested.  For more info on the special bonuses and limited time launch price on THE PROGRAM, go here.

DRIVING WHILE PROMOTING (DWP)

What a shame ... he was in the middle of shooting a video for his big product launch.

This is probably one of the funniest under the radar marketing tactics you’ll see used today, everywhere from late night TV infomercials (watch the latest Dean Graziosi one), and very commonly used by online marketers in every niche.  Really, what is the purpose of recording a promotional video while driving in your car, and who wouldn’t look and feel like a complete tool doing it? But here’s why this works as an effective tactic:

It gives you the feeling of going on a journey with the marketer, gives the story momentum, and creates bonding with the marketer (you wouldn’t go into someone’s car if you didn’t know and trust them, would you?).  As you will find out below, relationship is one of the key factors in selling coaching and niche information products.  As a personal trainer, that is the business you are in, so if you can swallow your pride, this is a tactic you may want to use.

Note: DWP is not yet outlawed in any states, but as internet marketing proliferates, it’s only a matter of time.

FUTURE BANKING

When big dollar figures are an essential part of your sales pitch, future banking is a tactic you will want to use to its fullest benefit.  Future banking is projecting what a sale is worth over the long haul and using that number as your sales figure, even though that entire sum is not currently banked, not guaranteed, and more often than not will never be seen in it’s entirety.

Frank Kern at his scumbag best.

An example of this are the promotions of a very popular online marketer, Frank Kern, who you’ve no doubt heard of if you’re really into internet marketing.  Part of his marquee sales pitch is that he was responsible for something like 28 million dollars of sales in 24 hours.  The lions share of this, about 18 million, was part of the launch he orchestrated for Stompernet, which was a continuity service that charged about $900 a month to be a part of. So the FUTURE BANK dollar figure of all orders on the assumption that they stayed on for a full 12 months was something like 18 million.

But if you know continuity programs, you know that most people do not stay on for 12 months (four months is considered better than average, and with the price here, I’d say it was much less).  So the dollar figure may have been much less than a quarter of the 18 million listed, but that doesn’t stop him from using the impressive FUTURE BANK number as the staple of most of his marketing.

(Frank, the brilliant marketer that he is, also uses FUNNY MATH and TRANSFERENCE OF RESULTS in coming up with his 28 million dollar figure, which we’ll cover later.)

I myself am actually working on a blog post about how I brought in nearly $80K in a single training promotion I ran.  But that of course was all in future bank, for money that was projected to come in over the course of an entire year because of the promotion.   Making eighty grand in a week sounds impressive, but does not consider that the entire figure is all future bank, it actually took time to learn how to write the ad and make the offer, and negotiate the deal and place the promotion (not the mention nearly a thousand training hours that needs to go into serving those clients, which has it’s own extremely high costs, overhead, and headaches involved.)

FUNNY MATH

Unlike future bank, which isn’t very useful for trainers since we are not in a get rich quick niche, funny math can be one of your best friends.  The way I’ve used this to create impressive promotions is total inches divided by time, ie “I lost 24 inches in only 8 weeks with GoHard Fitness”.  If you take measurements at enough measurement points, you can turn four pounds of weight loss into “100 inches lost”, so use this tactic wisely.  Another way I’ve used FUNNY MATH are statements like “over ten-thousand pounds lost and counting”.  You can work your numbers to get them looking as big and favorable for you as you want.

In Frank’s case mentioned above, the funny math dollar figure he came up with was for promos that took place over the course of several years.  Note how he condensed the figure into 24 hours for marketing purposes – that’s a true scumbag in action.

Great results one place are not necessarily transferable to another - just ask Mike.

TRANSFERENCE OF RESULTS

If you noticed, we’re getting into sleezier stuff the longer we go here.  When it comes to TRANSFERENCE OF RESULTS, it’s the idea of using results that others have achieved, or that are not completely related to the business at hand, but are used to imply results with something else.

If you want to see an example of this close to home, you can look at the launch of THE NEW SIX-FIGURE TRAINER PROGRAM. You will notice many testimonials on the site, but if you’re smart, you know that this program has not even come out yet.  I just got the first hard copy myself, so how is this possible?

Well all of these testimonials are for the original manual, or the top-level trainer program, both of which have got glowing reviews and more importantly real results for hundreds of trainers.  Well since the core curriculum of those two courses, the six-figure trainer manual, is included as a bonus here, that’s how I can in good faith use the testimonials again. However in reality, the manual makes up less than half of the printed materials in this course, not to mention the numerous audio programs and hundreds of pages of brand new content that come with it.  So you can call this a little shady if you will.  But in reality, the purpose of the deeply discounted and bonus laden launch of the program is to get the program in your hands so you can use it, get some stellar results with it, and send me your testimonial so I can have some real ones (to take advantage of the launch, go here now).  If you take a look, you will notice nearly every single testimonial for any product or promotion you see, bar none, is an example of transference of results.  So if you chose, you can use this tactic liberally.

Again in Frank Kern’s case, nearly 20 million dollars of his sales figures come from projects he has consulted on and ended up paying him less than $250,000 total.  That is truly transference of results in action.  You can make dollar figures claims of tremendous size just from being associated with or consulting for the people that put up the numbers.  (If it sounds like I’m picking on Frank, I’m just pointing out his expert use of every one of these tactics.  He’s one of my favorite marketers.   And he clearly and frequently points out his use of sleezy tactics himself – that is his entire hook.  However, when used properly, this will not decrease your results one bit.)

Making something limited edition, like the Enzo, is a great way to jack up the price and demand.

LIMITED QUANTITY

When it comes to training, your time and the time of your employees is extremely limited, especially if you are marketing yourself aggressively.  I highly encourage you to mention this in ever single piece of your marketing.  You may not always be able to track it, but it will up your responses for sure.

This is an example of stating LIMITED QUANTITY, one of the most effective tactics out there.

When it comes to information marketing, this is really one of the most ridiculous uses of it, but also the place where it is most commonly used.  Seriously, us information marketers get all of our stuff printed by the same one or two companies, and they offer limited run and even print on demand pricing, so there really is no limit to what you can produce.  The funniest use is when you have an online program like a membership site stating a limited quantity, when new members just go into your automated system.  I’m even the member of a free newsletter list that got me to join by mentioning a vague cap on the number of sign-ups they were going to allow.  But limited quantity is one of the most powerful buying triggers out there.  Fear of loss is a very powerful motivator, so use this one wherever and whenever you can.

For example, sending out an email blast or placing an ad where you note that you only have 12 spots open in your bootcamp will probably get you triple the inquiries.  Whether you really hold true to your word in the promo is between you and your priest.

(To beat a dead horse, Frank will usually put limited time and limited quantity on his promotions to take advantage of both deadlines.  It’s very smart for you to figure out a way to do the same.)

RELATIONSHIP MARKETING

When you are selling consulting or coaching (which personal training is), the relationship component is key.  This is of course the case with the actual product, where the entire product is personal contact time.  But this also goes for your marketing.  With training services, you want to show that you are a normal, sane, friendly, credible, and likable person that this client will want to spend an extended amount of time with.  If niche information products are also part of your business model, then all of this still holds true.

For this I recommend you break out of your shell and have tons of relationship content on your site, on your blog, your ads, and everywhere in between.  Do this through video, pictures,  stories, and anything else you can think of.  The more the better.  You may be asking “who is going to read all that stuff?”.  People that are planning to give you lots of money, that’s who.  So building that relationship through any way you can think of will increase your effectiveness exponentially.

CHILDREN, SPOUSES, EMPLOYEES, DOGS, AND OTHER LIVESTOCK

If you don't have any kids to show off in your promotions, just adopt some.

Showing pictures of your family will increase sales period.  You will notice this in any “pitch” environment either through slides or the presenter actually carting his brood out on stage.  I recommend if you have family, to use it in all of your marketing.  No I don’t mean hidden away at the bottom of some obscure page on your site – I mean front and center, like at the top of the site.  If your target market is women, it has been proven that women respond most to images of children.  You will kill your competitors with this one, and just like the perfect “mind f*ck” they will have no idea what’s happening.

Before you think it’s distasteful and pathetic to use your kids as a marketing ploy, I happen to think this is good for the child as well.  Anything you can do to encourage your kids to become more sales conscious, the better.

This also goes for your pets, employees, friends or anyone else you can cart out.  They all bring out more humanity in you, and prove that you are a real person and that a few other real people (or at least a few animals) can stand you presence for an extended period of time.

SOCIAL PROOF

Social proof would have to be the grand-daddy of marketing tactics, and it takes on an almost unlimited number of forms.  Of course this goes for testimonials, which you can never use enough of in every single form of marketing you do.

But this also goes for professional relationships.  Your friends and colleagues could be the world’s biggest blabbering group of slobs, but if you say how great they are, and they say how great you are, this multiplies into positive social proof and makes all of you look stronger and more credible.  This is why I recommend networking with other trainers heavily.  Make friends with as many other people in the industry as possible.  Take pictures with them at conferences, have them write guest articles for you and do the same for them, put their pictures and testimonials on your blog – anything you can think of – it’s all more social proof.  You literally cannot over do this.

NAME DROPPING

Dropping names is another tactic most effectively used by confidence men (con men).  They build your confidence in the plan usually through other people vouching for it.  In the case of your services, and used ethically, this means proactively gaining the confidence of people in your area, other businesses, your clients, and anyone else you can think of.  And if this person happens to be a “somebody”, drop the name as often as possible.

A referral is an example of someone else doing the name dropping.  Coming recommended is seven times as effective as a cold call, so teach your customers to do your name dropping for you.

SUMMARY

If you are a trainer that feels you are in the top of the industry in terms of knowledge, but don’t have the revenue to match, you probably need to become more sleazy.  I for example remember a speed coaching session I had with a Super-Trainer customer last year.  He was a bootcamp operator and had some military special forces background, and didn’t mention it once in any of his marketing.  Again I remind you, he was holding BOOTCAMPS.  He thought his customers wouldn’t be interested.  I told him to make that fact about him a focus of his marketing – it’s his story and a point of differentiation among all his competitors.

There’s really too much to say about this subject than what I’ve mentioned here.  I’d recommend studying the business models of your favorite business coaches to further your education.  You own a personality dependent consulting business yourself, so I would advocate copying all of their tactics because they’re teaching you their exact strategies in how they are selling to you.

Good luck with applying all of this.  Because that’s just what the world is missing – another scumbag marketer.

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