Class Pass Is Not The Marketing Enemy

FITNESSPRENEUR’S LIFE

CLASS PASS IS NOT THE MARKETING ENEMY

Today I’d like to discuss something that’s generating a lot of hate in our industry, and with all do respect, for no reason.

There’s an interesting debate going on regarding marketing services like ClassPass and Groupon. You’ve seen these programs, where a discounted rate is offered for a set number of classes or

services. These two are just the tip of the iceberg.

I’m sure there will be more low-budget ways to get customers through incentives like the ones offered by these types of companies in the future.

There is a lot of hate being thrown at these services. And I don’t think that’s fair.

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I get that a lot of trainers are nervous. They see these services as adding competition and undercutting both costs and quality of services. But, these aren’t good reasons for attacking these services.

Some people, including ones I highly respect, have called these services the serial killers of the fitness industry.

Please.

They are not something evil. We need a well thought-out debate on what’s going with these services.

They really don’t deserve the energy and emotion that’s being thrown at them. Because, not only can you avoid using services like ClassPass and Groupon, but even if you do decide to utilize them they can be a

sound resource for growing your client base.

You see, a savvy fitness business owner can sit back and actually use these services to great advantage.

Services like ClassPass are a funnel for leads. That’s it.

What you do with those leads is up to you as a business owner.

Today I’m going to show you why looking at these services as dangerous is really pointing the finger at the wrong problem. Then I’m going to show you four strategies to combat and, in some cases, use these services to take your fitness business to the next level.

FITNESSPRENEUR’S LIFE: CLASS PASS IS NOT THE MARKETING ENEMY


FITNESSPRENEUR'S TIP:

Let’s worry less about the ClassPass

boogeymen that isn't real and instead focus our energy on our marketing and

business know how.

















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3FITNESSPRENEUR’S LIFE: CLASS PASS IS NOT THE MARKETING ENEMY


So I recently read an op-ed piece about ClassPass. The writer was complaining about how these services bring on more studios and classes and that leads to more competition.

Well of course it will!

That’s business. And we are in an industry.

We’re not silos operating alone. We’re not islands in the sea, catching whatever drifts our way.

New businesses and people come into the market every day. It’s what moves the economy.

Why are people blaming ClassPass if business owners aren’t evolving their businesses fast enough to move with the times?

THE REAL PROBLEM

















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Trainers make less than $42,000 a year and their businesses last less than 3 to 5 years.

That’s not ClassPass’ fault.

Those facts existed before ClassPass even came along.

Our lack of quality education on business and marketing in the fitness industry is to blame.

Maybe if we would be including marketing education and systems in every certification, in every gym, and in every equipment box for every session at our conferences we wouldn’t be so nervous over not being able to get clients.

If you’re quaking in your boots at these services, here’s where you get it wrong.

Business is the opportunity to solve a problem in the market and get paid for it.

A client comes in to lose weight, you create a fat loss solution. Someone wants to run a 5K? You create a Couch-to-5K Program. If they’re trying to look fabulous on Friday night, a designer creates a sexy clothing line. You get the picture. That’s what business is. Business people solve problems and provide solutions.

ClassPass saw a need and they filled it. They know that fitness business owners are terrible at effective marketing and sales. They are stuck with not enough clients coming through the door. No clients means no business. No business means owners go underwater.

FITNESSPRENEUR’S LIFE: CLASS PASS IS NOT THE MARKETING ENEMY


FITNESSPRENEUR'S TIP:

Let's focus on the real enemy. Not

knowing marketing & sales hurts

trainers way more than Groupon and

ClassPass.



















Is it their fault that some fitness business owners are focusing on folding towels and scrubbing toilets instead of marketing? Of course not.

I get it, though. When you’re a small business owner, you don’t have the money to hire staff. I used to be like this. But one day the light bulb went off and I decided to focus more on my marketing education and less on programming and technician education.

I looked at the future and made a change. You need to, as well, if you want more clients.

So if hating ClassPass is a waste of focus and energy, what can you do?

4 STRATEGIES TO GROW YOUR BUSINESS USING CLASS PASS

Class Pass5 Class Pass

















STRATEGY #1:

Have multiple streams and offersI have always said: one is the most dangerous number in this business.

If you only have one of something, you are setting yourself up for failure.

One marketing source, one staff member, one client, one revenue stream, and one system are all dangerous ways to build a business.

If you only have one of anything, you are pretty vulnerable. The slightest unforeseen change, from customer habits to an illness or injury, and you are toast. And classes, group training, and private training should be considered one kind of service that you’re simply offering at different prices. You need to diversify.

Classes shouldn’t be your main profit center. They exist for merely covering your baseline expenses and overhead. You can use semi-private training or private training to increase your profit but those are still limited and you should build other revenue streams.

By creating other revenue streams, and selling your members more once they are inside your doors, you increase the value of each member that walks through your door. And ClassPass might be a good way to get them to you because problem #1 for you is “not enough people walking through your door.”

Use ClassPass to fix that problem, then once they’re inside your door, you can tap them into higher margin services in your business, which is building your backend profit. More on that in a minute.

The one difference I should point out is if you’re marketing unique training, like back pain specific training or medical rehab training, then there’s an opportunity to create even more differentiation in services. Which is demarcation line of a true business and marketing expert.

But for now, whether you use something like ClassPass or any other discount lead service to bring people in to your business or not, diversify your revenue streams if you want to get past just staying alive in business and get to thriving.



















STRATEGY #2:

Be willing to acquire clients at loss or break even…at first

Dan Kennedy taught me that the biggest breakthroughs can come from analyzing industries other than your own. By doing that, I learned about the successes of my mentors outside the fitness industry.

And one of the most valuable lessons I encountered was the importance of letting people into your business at a loss or breakeven point, in order to engage them on the backend funnel of my business.

My mentors like Brendon Burchard, Jeff Walker, and Ryan Deiss all willingly gave away their books for the price of shipping only. Sports Illustrated famously used to send a football phone when you ordered a subscription. And walk into any Happy Hour in America and you’ll find things like dollar oysters or some other cheap promotion that makes you think, “they can’t possibly be making money on that”.

They aren’t. It’s called a loss leader.

But all of those business owners know that they can sell you other, more expensive, stuff once you walk through the door.

The books, football phone and oysters aren’t the real products. They’re the bait.

The real profits begin with the products they market to you after they have your attention.

In our industry, I believe that classes are that same type of bait. Once clients come to you, while you only breakeven or maybe lose a little, you can make them offers tailored to them and build more profitable relationships.

If you have multiple streams and programs, not just classes and sessions, but actual programs offering actual personal solutions that you’ve developed for specific markets, you won’t be at the mercy of price sensitivity nor small losses on the front end.

Sell them on the backend. But get them through the door. No people, no sales. It’s that simple.

A service like ClassPass can get you those people. Or you can bring them in through other ways, like Facebook marketing or offering lead magnet reports, educational videos, and other similar value exchanges in return for their contact info.



















But sales is the name of the game. I know some of you cringe at the thought. But you’re a business owner and you’re in sales. You can’t help people if you can’t sell them a service.

If you want to survive or, better yet, thrive in this day and age, you better fall in love with the sales process.

Monetization funnels, like specialty programs and upsell offers, which are used to make additional sales after the prospect or client has come in, also create for you a well-buffered business that leaves nothing to chance. Let me get into more specifics in the following strategies.

STRATEGY #3:

Develop a Stacking Revenue ModelStacking Revenue is the business practice and strategy of thinking through what you are offering your specific audience to optimize your business over time so that you can increasingly improve and solve their

struggles and frustrations by also lifting and elevating their ambitions and aspirations in a sequential manner that moves the needle of their life.

Basically, it’s as your clients come to you with problems, you have ready-made solutions and services that benefit them that also add to your overall revenue by increasing the value you deliver.

So let’s take a common example.

Let’s say a client wants to lose fat. We all know (or should) that just working out is not the solution. It’s only one aspect of the entire solution.

























You must add other tools for them to get a lasting result. Things like a nutrition plan, products, and accountability measures when they are not in session with you.

Maybe they need equipment or some other at-home or travel needs. They need personal development. Training alone is not a program.

You need all of those solutions in place before they walk through the door.

Once they come in because of ClassPass or attendance in a class of yours, you now have their information. This includes their name, emails, and, most importantly, their attention.

ClassPass marketed to them ‘taking a fitness class.” You flip the conversation and start talking about fat loss.

In particular you should have some reports, blogs, educational videos these new ClassPass members receive that educate them on the fact that taking a class is not fat loss and if they came for fat loss they are going to be disappointed and frustrated just like they have before when they tried joining gyms and taking classes and didn’t get the results the wanted.

As a savvy marketer and educator you now take your new ClassPass members and direct them to your ‘21-Day Waistline Solution’ program that they can purchase with includes nutrition guidance, products, online coaching, personal development lessons, daily habit and behavior practices or what we like to consider a TRUE program versus more training.

And inside that program you have more revenue streams tucked in, you get to offer the solution they really want, plus make more revenue from your low budget ClassPass member turning them into a high profit client with just one well thought out backend funnel.

What if you keep doing that?

I like to think of Stacking Revenue as a way to address a specific need each and every time.

All you need to do is bring people in through the low margin front end offer (like ClassPass) and move them into your higher margin backend offers that are specific to your tribe’s wants and needs.

You can do that all day long and grow a healthy profitable business like clockwork.

A smart and savvy business owner is constantly adding residual income streams from these stacking revenue model programs that can be built out and packaged.

It’s a results oriented strategy to add clients and provide relevancy to their lives regardless of price fluctuations and market trends.



















Here’s a simple strategy I teach my coaches that adds $37 per person profit for every member they get in their doors on top of class revenue.

Take all the clients ClassPass brings you, and start the nutrition and mobile solutions conversation.

We all know that clients need nutrition simplified in their lives and they need mobile programs to fit their busy travel lives.

So, I’m teaching them to add a quality meal replacement product into their programs that helps their client get healthier nutrients in less time, so they can cut the BS excuse of “I don’t have time to eat health”.

This revenue stream adds $30 per person every month to their bottom line because people use food every month.

What if you had 100 members at your studio who added to their existing membership your nutrition lines for $30 profit a month that’s an extra $3000/month profit! Would that help? Especially since it doesn’t require your time on the floor training more.

We are also teaching them how to add online and mobile off-day trainer programs that would add an additional $7 per person per month residual so clients can have access to online programs for when they travel, want to train more frequently, get caught at work, kids sick and would otherwise cancel a session.

Same thing what if 100 of your members added this program to their existing program to meet their growing needs, and you added an additional $700/month profit. Would it help?

Of course it would.

And you can see this line of thinking going on and on and on. That backend can dramatically lift your revenues.

Find the products and services that are right for you and have them ready to meet your customers’ needs. Ask those who are killing it how they are doing it. Look for ways to monetize beyond simple classes and memberships.

Educate your clients. That’s what they came to you for! Get them results, package a program for them, and watch your income grow.



















STRATEGY #4:

Create Specialty ProgramsI’ve already highlighted what specialty programs are. They are programs designed to speak to a specific audience about a specific problem and deliver a specific solution.

These programs aren’t threatened by something like ClassPass because they speak to a specific person who is looking for a specific solution.

Let’s take my friend Trina Gray who owns Bay Athletic Club. She has something called the 3-Week Train To Run Program. It’s one of my favorite programs that we used to run in my studio.

This program is perfect for the person who wants to run for the very first time and finish a 5K, not a 10K or a marathon, and wants to feel great. This specific program gets them there. The best part?

She makes more money from her existing members by charging people for the program on top of any class membership fees that she collects.

Now that’s a different way to sell memberships. You’re offering the opportunity to have people achieve a very specific goal that is unique to them. But you have to have these ready.

I believe that the future of a successful fitness business owner will be creating a model that isn’t price sensitive. They will fill their business with people they love and who love them in return because they can get targeted solutions to their problems that they can’t get anywhere else.

Here’s something people don’t think of when they argue against ClassPass: they haven't figured out this type of marketing.

ClassPass can’t target people with specific solutions, they can only get them through the door based on classes and other common services every studio and gym has because they need to aggregate their marketing to pool everyone in.

But, you on the other hand, you can introduce these people ClassPass funnels to you to your new member specialty programs and move them through your various offers and funnels, you’re set.

Offer them your Train to Run program. If they take it, great! If not, offer them your 21-Day Waistline Solution next. And on and on.





















Start identifying the needs these clients have and anticipate what specialty programs will benefit them the most.

By doing so, you’ll create more solutions that speak to your specific client base. And that means more money, and more results for your valuable members. I hope you’ve gotten some valuable strategy here.

Let’s worry less about boogeymen that aren’t real and instead focus our energy on our marketing and business preparation.

DON’T WORRY ABOUT CLASSPASS.

















There are so many strategies that you can employ to buffer your business, grow your client base, and create more than just class revenue.

The essential thing is to have an improved understanding about marketing and sales, period.

While I respect many of the voices in our industry, their calls against ClassPass are misguided.

If local gym owners are going to unify about anything, it should be unifying a commitment to get better at marketing, get better at developing revenue streams, and get better at market differentiation.

It’s time to evolve.

Commit to your marketing and sales process. You will quickly gain the power and skills to launch your business, income and lifestyle into something where you’re living, what we like to call, the Fitnesspreneur’s life.



Let me help you launch your business, income and lifestyle! Follow me on:

















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As a certified High Performance and Funnel Optimization Coach, Vito La Fata, is the NO BS business & personal brand coach to the wellness and fitness professional or company that is looking to get outside the box of the industry and start learning how to grow a personal brand online and offline utilizing a hybrid business model of offline and online marketing strategies that deploy customer value optimization systems in order to create as much benefit and offering for the customer and as much profit and lifestyle for the company as possible.

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Class Pass Is Not The Marketing Enemy

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