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Participant: All right. So we have a location of ours, one of two. That’s in a kind of like a money-hungry area that everybody has got a lot of money. It’s an awesome place for fitness because you have them on every corner. We have only really gotten a lot of our clients through three primary ways.
One has been referrals. Obviously most businesses gain a lot of business through that. The second has been daily deals [Phonetic]. We had a crash and burn experience with them last year that almost tanked our business out there. It pissed a lot of our clients off that we had and the third one has been like the yard signs we use on the side of the street but they’re pulled all the time now.
We get a small percentage from Google. I’ve just been I guess a little wary about investing my money in like direct mailers and pay per click and stuff like that. So I’m trying to figure out what the best way to market outside of what I’ve been doing in order to get the best return on what I’m doing. I’ve got a lot of credit I can use for money. I’ve got cash flow I can use for marketing but I’m not real sure how to do it.
Sam Bakhtiar: OK. First of all, one of the most important things is marketing is not doing everything.
Participant: Right.
Sam Bakhtiar: OK? The first thing before you market, you want to make sure that you’re differentiated from all these other gyms, everything else out there. OK? So if you’re just going to come in there, just be another gym, another boot camp, another prospect or whatever they have.
Participant: Right.
Sam Bakhtiar: You’re going to be a commodity. [0:01:37] [Inaudible] lowering the price. So you got to come in and just totally offer something that nobody else does and please don’t say, “We’re the best.” Everybody says they’re the best. Everybody says they care about people. Have something that’s just totally different.
Participant: Right.
Sam Bakhtiar: Let’s just say you come into the market and you already have that established, right? OK. So now we need to market. You got to have your base. You got to have your foundation right first, right? OK. So I want you to write this down. I want you to write it down. So write down here “paid marketing”. Write down here “free marketing”. OK?
So on paid marketing, I want you to write down – start writing down everything that you have tried and then after that, tell me everything you have not tried.
Participant: There’s something I haven’t tried. I will come back to it.
Sam Bakhtiar: OK.
Participant: And some of these just crossed my mind. I’m not real sure if they’re effective or not. Oh, we have done this.
Sam Bakhtiar: OK. Well, let’s start here. Now free marketing. What have you tried? What have you not tried?
Participant: Free marketing. So free marketing, we’ve done – I don’t really know how to – I’ll just put just human billboard methods. There’s like four of them.
Participant: Actually I think it was like 8.0.
Participant: Excuse me, eight. I will think of some more. I will come back to it. I guess …
Sam Bakhtiar: How about free public speaking? Have you tried that?
Participant: No public speaking.
Sam Bakhtiar: Have you tried joint venture with other businesses?
Participant: Like cross-marketing …
Sam Bakhtiar: Cross marketing, joint ventures, just telling other businesses to endorse you.
Participant: Yes.
Sam Bakhtiar: Have you done it?
Participant: Yes, but not to a heavy extent though.
Sam Bakhtiar: So some.
Participant: Yeah. Some – what did you say? JV?
Sam Bakhtiar: JV. Have you done any networking events?
Participant: A few.
Sam Bakhtiar: A few.
Participant: Yeah.
Sam Bakhtiar: All right. OK. OK. I want you to step back. Come back here.
Participant: OK.
Sam Bakhtiar: I’m just going to stand over here. I want you to look at this right now. Look at it really hard. OK? You have the left side which is the paid marketing and you got the right side which is free marketing. All the clients that you have, right side versus left side.
Participant: Yes.
Sam Bakhtiar: Circle the side that you got the most amount of clients from.
Participant: Up here.
Sam Bakhtiar: Don’t want to go any further [Phonetic].
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