May 11
10
A bootcamp marketing guest post from Paul Mort and Dan Thompson
Hey guys,
Hope your bootcamp has exploded after the easter break with guilty people!
With so much bullshit, smoke and mirrors in the fitness industry I though it would be great to bring you a blog post from somebody who has a business that can walk the talk so to speak.
Anyway, when Dan Thompson first approached me to join my mentoring program i was actually quite suprised as he was already smashing it with 5 venues i think.
Since working with us he’s doubled his bootcamp business and created something MUCH more unique than what he had before with his 5 STAR BOOTCAMP business.
Dan also has some GREAT marketing ideas (some of which I borrow), so i though it would be awesome if he could share some of the secrets of his success.
Take it away Dan:
Handsome Dan's on the left ;-0
8 Ways To Rock Your Boot Camps To Multiple Venues
MAKE A FAMILY: From the word go I decided I wanted trainers who wanted to join my little family.
My boot camp in Colchester is my baby, my pride and joy and I wanted my team to feel exactly the same way about there boot camp and members.
I tried paying an instructor in another venue but it never really clicked.
By franchising the trainers I took on have there own business, have to make it work at it to make money but are part of the 5 Star Boot Camp family. The other beauty is 8 heads are better than 1. If I have an idea or a concern I email the team to see what they think.
START FROM THE WORD GO: I actually put on my first boot camp over 3 years ago for a bit of fun! It never occurred to me it would turn into 6 figure business!
But don’t make the mistake I made and treat it as a business from the beginning. Create an operation manual. Later on down the line when I did want to franchise it took me months to write all the systems in a manual for the trainers to follow and actually cost me because the trainer I had in mind went elsewhere because the systems werent in place. If you were to go away could you leave your business on autopilot?
RED, BLUE and BLACK: I learnt this strategy at a James Caan Seminar and I’m going to teach you a watered down version as it changed the way I ran my boot camp business.
Red is your factory, where your product is made, delivered and sold. To you and me thats delivering pt or boot camp sessions and making sales. Blue is the Office, HR, Book keeping, Emails, usually has some sort of cost involved and if your like me you hate doing it! Black is the board room, where you create your strategies for your business. Now write down the top ten things you do most during your day. Probably like me they were mostly blue and red.
The key is making most of them Black and blue. I now spend 3 days a week delivering boot camp sessions and personal training with 2 FULL DAYS working on strategy. The red stuff is now outsourced, I have a part time PA and a book keeper to deal with the crap I hated doing and took up my time. I look after 8 boot camps without this technique.
BTS: Im not a massive fan of BTS but the one thing there brilliant at is quarterly training. Every 3 months my trainers have to go through my training. Its not always workout related, I cant wait for June to teach them the fat loss seminars they will be teaching and how Linkedin is a gold mine for trainers (Hint Hint!). The last quarterly training was Pauls very own boot camp tour where my trainers left buzzing and couldnt wait to get back to teach the band workouts. The point is you need to keep your team updated, one step ahead of the rest and I love teaching them the stuff I learn from my 3 mentors. We go a step further with a weekly phone call to ask questions, go over targets and iron out any difficulties.
CONSISTENCY: Theres no point having lots of boot camps if your all teaching different classes and singing from different song books. Every single one of my boot camps do the same session regardless of if your in Colchester or 50 miles away in Tonbridge. They are all use the 5 Star Boot Camps Inner Cirlce Members Site (I used Kajabi now, ning is so last year but thats another blog post!) and all members follow The Boot Camp Bible. The workouts are planned 3 months ahead so the trainer knows what they need to teach. You cant be in every boot camp to check what everyones doing but if you put the systems in place and make there lives easy and create more time for them they wont want to leave your systems.
WHO TO WORK WITH: I take on 2 types of trainers. Old school or freshers. Your old school trainers are the ones who have taught classes for years and can probably know who Dax Moy or Allyn Cosgrove is before you tell them and there loyal following watches every move they make on Facebook or Twitter. The fresher is someone straight out of finishing there first boy scout badge. There a rough diamond but the training you put into them will be worth it. But they have to have 3 basic principles – CHARACTER, PASSION and a WILLINGNESS to learn and put some serious hard work in the business. My mind is generally made up in the 10 seconds I meet them so you dont have long to impress me!
FOUNDATIONS AND PLANS: Setting up a boot camp in another town with another trainer is hard work even if you do find a gem of a trainer. I only take on 5 trainers a year to stabilise growth and make sure that every boot camp is ROCKING. Learn from the commercial gyms that we all love to slate. They went from a handful of gyms to 50+ within a few years. They lost what they were good at looking after members and everything became about sales, sales and sales. I like to think I, my team and 5 Star Boot Camps are building a strong reputation and I work hard putting systems in place to maintain that. The last 2 trainers I have taken on have both come from trainers that had boot camps with me and sang my praises to them.
LEARN FROM THE BEST: Even before I started mentoring with Paul I was sharing ideas and telling him what was working for me because I knew I would get something back. I now have 3 mentors including the boot camp king himself. Don’t afraid to look outside the fitness industry. Some of my best ideas have come from what I like to call my millionaire mentors. If they have made a few million chances are they know a thing or too about business. Every successful businessman I spoke to or met told me the same thing – I have a mentor. I am not saying this as a sales pitch to Paul but giving you a very big hint. I know I would’nt have multiple venues without learning the systems Paul has taught me.
