Hi Folks,

I felt absolutely compelled to share this post from one of our partners in the U.S, Eric Ruth.

Eric is the master when it comes to fitness copy writing and respected around the world as the best.

This post from him sums up my feelings to a tee and this is MUST READING if you are a serious fitness professional.

Read it, read it again and take the message to heart because this could be the most important lesson we all should learn.

Cheers

Ric

P.S. Lots and lots of you are taking us up the new Digital Version of Max-Fit offer for a crazy $97! If you don’t have this package yet, it’s a must-buy for the value it provides. This answers your marketing questions within the huge vault of step-by-step tutorials, case studies and additional tips. Even our Gold Plus and VIPs will benefit. If you haven’t checked it out yet, take a look here: http://www.fitnessmarketingaustralia.com/maxfmn-digital.html

Hey everyone,

You ever watch Bill O’Reilly or Glenn Beck?

Ever listen to Rush Limbaugh?

Ever read Dan Kennedy?

Even if you’re not a fan of these guys or their views, you should pay attention to their methods.

O’Reilly’s got the #1 show on cable news…for the past 100 months straight.

Beck is chasing him in the ratings.

Limbaugh’s the most listened to person on radio… by a huge margin.

Kennedy’s the most revered marketing expert… in the world.

But people either love these guys or hate ‘em.

There’s no middle ground.

Because they are INTENTIONALLY polarising. They’re not trying to be all things to all people. In fact, they’re not trying to be anything but true to who they are.

And that’s magnetic.

One of the biggest problems I see over and over again when doing marketing critiques for fitness professionals, is lack of personality.

Everything is very vanilla - very middle of the road - very boring.

The harder you try to be inclusive and “sensitive” - the softer and less compelling your marketing becomes. If you stand for nothing, you’ll fall for anything.

Remember, you’re not trying to attract “everybody” - because the vast majority of “everybody” either can’t afford your services or don’t value your services. The vast majority would be crappy clients who whine, complain, steal your time and steal your passion.

As you may have experienced in the past, working with a crappy client isn’t worth whatever they’re paying you. That’s, basically, prostitution.

Sean and I both have very strong beliefs and principles. One of our core company values is dedication to delivering results-accountable systems, tools and coaching.

Just like you, we are VERY serious about our value proposition. We don’t want you to feel like you got your money’s worth from our stuff, we want you to feel like your business and life has been forever changed, dramatically improved, revolutionised.

And, as you know, that kind of commitment to excellence is challenging. To some degree, it’s also limiting.

When you actually care about the results your customers get, you can’t cut corners. You really have to go the extra mile. And there’s a cost to that, in time, effort and dinero.

But it’s worth it. It’s absolutely worth it.

Because it’s the right thing to do.

And there’s a LOT to be said for doing the right thing.

So be true to yourself, share your knowledge and expertise with real PASSION. Infuse your marketing with your personality. Let people know, very clearly, exactly where you stand.

As a legitimate fitness professional, there’s no shortage of opportunity for you to do so because there are so many great enemies out there for you to rail against - there’s no shortage of snake oil salesmen and magic bullet peddlers in the fitness and weight loss categories.

If you really want to help people, then have the courage of your convictions. When you’re on the right side of things, you don’t have to worry about negative fall-out.

When you polarise, you magnetise and capitalise.

No magic bullets, just smart fitness marketing,

Eric Ruth

Every month Fit For Profit and NPE provide all VIP Members with a new marketing campaign or complete system.

Below is the model for pretty much everything you need to implement your own Body Challenge Contest.

It’s killer. The proof from NPE’s VIP Members…

“I currently have over 160 people enrolled in my body challenge and I still have 2 weeks before the kick off.  This campaign is a SERIOUS lead generator, and potential revenue monster.  I do intend on doing a boot camp format for these participants, but still a little overwhelmed on how to accommodate what will probably be 250+ participants (it hits front cover of local paper today!)”

We also just got word from another VIP Member in the Northeast that his body challenge launch generated 130 leads in a few weeks.

Other VIP Members are just getting their launches underway, so we’ll have lots more to report on this soon.

A body challenge contest is hardly a new concept. And that’s one of the reasons why we decided to create a system around it. It’s already proven. People want it. It resonates.

And if you sit down and do the work, you can probably create one yourself (if you haven’t already). It’s not rocket science.  It’s just work. Thoughtful work.

Here’s a list of some of the stuff you’ll need:

- A complete strategic system (the overall plan and how all the tactics and tools integrate)
- A great name for your challenge
- The offer (what do they get?)
- A website or landing page with compelling offer copy
- House list promotional tools
- Auto responder emails to keep your leads excited and to deliver pertinent details
- A promotional flyer/Free standing insert
- PR tools (like press release and PR “pitch” with strong hook)
- Mechanisms for making this go “viral”
- A fulfillment model (how will you deliver what they get?)

Those are the components we provide to our VIP Members. Just about everything’s done for them. It’s plug and play. Their job is to implement. The one thing we didn’t completely flesh out for them is the in-person fulfillment model. We provided a basic structure, but it’s up to them to fulfill according to what best suits their particular business.

Another piece that can make your challenge contest really strong (and also eliminate a great deal of the in-person fulfillment), is to provide a fitness and nutrition fulfillment system the challenge participants use on their own.

This way 80% of the fulfillment is done by the participant. You basically manage the project and are an expert resource who coaches and guides them in weekly group sessions.

We give our VIPs this tool. It’s an entire 12-week body transformation system (in e-book format) that is provided to each challenge participant.

We don’t leave out anything important. We cover all the bases, providing a complete system.

But there’s always some minor obstacles to figure out as you go along (as you can see from the VIP Member’s comments above about how to accommodate what could be 250+ people).

But that’s not really a bad “problem” to have, is it?

Kinda cool when you get 250+ people chomping at the bit to work with you.

Especially when it costs you next to nothing to generate all those leads.

This has all the makings of being a major home run. As you can see, the system is already rock solid - and we’ll fine tune it even more as we move forward.

And the timing couldn’t be better for rolling out a challenge right now. Keep that weight off during Winter.

One of our Gold Members, Jo Butler, recently began her “Greatest Loser Challenge” and had a fantastic response. Check our the advertorial she ran in our Member Tools Forum.

If you want to do it on your own, you’ve got a good little model above that you can follow.  Or if you’d prefer to have our complete system, then stay tuned and I’ll let you know how to get it later this week.

That’s all for now,

Ric

P.S. If you’d like a free business diagnostic (i.e. help with your marketing, management or sales), visit:

http://www.fitnessmarketingaustralia.com/consultation-request.html