Currently the sports and health sector is undergoing profound changes. The sports offer has become in a majority way an offer promoted by large surfaces dedicated to physical care, sports and leisure. This has meant that both the sports professional and the employer have had to adapt both from the training point of view and from the point of view of the diversification and quality of their offer of activities.
The world of marketing and advertising does not escape the new health trends: Dairy products to "strengthen" our health, sugar-free candies to contribute to a slim and healthy body, not even "electric" companies, Natural gas or even bathroom sanitary companies are escaping this trend by selling sales promotions in the form of well-being and quality of life and hydromassage systems… Wellness after all.
Various studies are showing us two things: firstly that the level of knowledge of the consumer or user is increasing and secondly that there is a growing demand for more personalized services and above all more didactic, since the consumer demands more and more more often "learn" what you are doing.
Adapting to trends requires that we be clear about several approaches: what form are we going to give to the service that we are going to design, who is going to carry it out and what tools will be used for it, what implementation policy we will follow to implement this service, How are we going to make it reach the consumer or end user and something very important: how are we going to ensure that that customer continues to be so for as long as possible.
The new trends go towards the personalization of sport, contrary to the “Taylorist” conception of “sport for all and at all times” imposed by large surfaces, currently personalized activities for specific clients with very defined needs are prevailing. That's what personalized training is: the ability to offer concrete responses to clear and defined needs, usually linked to health and physical appearance. All this in a particular and personalized way.
To continue, it is essential to define the part of marketing that interests us and also define the concept of service:
WHAT IS MARKETING?
Marketing is the art of "coercing wills", it is the most used tool for you or I to spend money on one product and not another, so that we feel identified with a certain brand and so that we always find that brand Identifying we do the activity we do and although our age continues to advance.
According to the American Marketing Association, marketing can be defined as: "the process of planning and executing product conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of ideas, goods, and services, to create exchanges that meet both individual and organizational goals."
More specifically we would be talking about:
- Identify markets and possibilities
- Identify needs and wants
- Provoke those needs
- Justify our whims
- Transform all that information into activities, services or products
Within the definition of marketing we can make two subgenres:
- Strategic marketing. Through which I identify the needs of my potential clients or existing clients based on the benefits that the user will obtain from these services and that are not always physical benefits but also psychological, relational, etc.
- Operational marketing. I already know who my client is and what I am going to make available to him, now I must determine how I am going to show it to him, how I am going to convince him that he really needs to carry out that activity or use that service and what price I am going to put on that service… how I am going to market it.
DEFINITION OF THE SERVICE
We all know the meaning of the concept of "service" and we also know that:
The service is intangible. The service cannot be smelled or touched, but the service itself has a characteristic common to the product or item: It can be compared. And perhaps counting for this with many more variables than those we would use to judge a product, since in the exercise of sports service facilities, training level, personal empathy, customer service, image, etc. come into play.
The compendium of all these variables is what makes up the service itself, and the quality of each and every one of these areas will result in the final quality of the service and therefore the viability of the project or activity. Without quality there is no viability.
The service is inseparable. Often the services cannot be separated from the figure of the teacher or coach. A consequence of this is that the creation or realization of the service can occur at the same time as its consumption. Goods are produced, then sold and consumed while services are sold and then produced and consumed generally simultaneously.
The product can then be compared before paying or consuming it, the service is compared while it is being used, therefore all the variants attached to it (customer service, empathy, motivation capacity, leadership) are essential for its success. A good personal trainer -for example- must above all be a good salesperson, especially when we are talking about services with a common link: personalization.
Therefore, when we are talking about starting a service or activity aimed at individuals or small groups of people, it is essential that we include in our "start-up planning" the concept of COACHING and the concept of LEADERSHIP since it will be difficult for us to achieve that our service is competitive if we do not pay special attention to these two concepts.
The service is customizable. The personalized training service must adapt to the client, that is why it is personalized. It must therefore be programmed by the existing user target.
THE QUALITY OF SERVICE
The user will assess the quality of any service according to some variables:
Total availability even on weekends. Can this service accommodate my schedule?
Flexibility in payment. Bonuses, "packs" etc. Are there different forms of payment?
Immediate access. Is there a waiting period?
Individual information. I do not know this specific service, how and who informs me?
Image. Are the employees and coaches dressed correctly?
Reliability. Does the coach start and have everything ready at the indicated time?
Reply. Administrative procedures (claims, proof of payment, etc.) Are they carried out quickly?
Professionalism. Is my training well programmed, am I observing results, do I receive explanations about them, whether positive or negative, do I feel informed?
Education. The director of my club or My coach Is he friendly, does he worry about my absences, does he contact me when I stop attending?
Coordination. If I can't attend class, for example, do I have the facility to coordinate another schedule?
Security. Does the trainer attend my exercises in order to avoid any danger, are the utensils used in perfect condition?
Accessories. Do I have a towel to do my training, and an isotonic drink. Am I motivated to continue accessing this type of service?
The more positive responses we are able to respond, the higher our added value will be.
POSITIONING
In positioning, the following areas are usually distinguished:
a) Current Positioning
It consists of determining the place where I am currently as a personal trainer according to the preferences or tastes of consumers or in comparison with the services of the competition, that is, with the rest of personal trainers.
To carry out this analysis, it is important to determine variables related to the service itself, these are called attributes, and those that are relevant to the target segment must also be determined, that is, those attributes that will be better received by my clients depending on relative factors. to their physical and health needs and of course also to their social stratum.
Subsequently, the most direct competitors are selected and with this information as a basis, a study must be carried out, so that we obtain a clear vision of how our service is perceived and how it is positioned in the minds of customers and in relation to the competition. For all this, at the level of sports facilities, indoor surveys can be very useful, which can also be carried out in a particular way, differentiating these in:
-Welcome surveys: It is like a small form that the new member or client fills out, in which information is collected about where the sports club has known or through whom or how it has contacted us, what results it hopes to achieve through this service, if you went to another center before or trained with another Personal Trainer and what services do you expect to find.
-Service surveys: In these surveys the final success of the sports service or activity is probed: Technical quality, empathy, schedules, customer service, cleaning, facilities or a variety of support elements, dumbbells, Fit Ball etc, diversification of activities etc.
b) Ideal Positioning
Once the current positioning of the company has been identified (let's not forget that the Personal Trainer is above all a one-man company), an "ideal positioning" program can be designed, which is still one of the most used parts in the design of the Marketing strategies (Analysis of the entity and Definition of the market). In this way, we will be able to adapt our services to the client's requirements: Satisfied client = Successful company.
THE LAW OF THE CATEGORY
"If you can't be the first in a category, create a new one in which you can be the first"
We are not only talking about sports, we are above all talking about health. Being the first in this environment is very difficult since sports and wellness development in some areas is highly developed and there are various types of health centers focused on physical care, sports, preventive medicine and hospital care.
It is important to innovate, to be able to offer what no one else offers, to obtain "added values" to our activity. Any product or service that is not differentiated thanks to a tangible added value becomes a commodity and, therefore, exclusive competition in price, and the price war is not profitable and also subtracts “brand image”.
A fact: when the advantage over the competition is achieved by systems based on technical capacity (mass media at the advertising level, economic barriers, etc.), these barriers are much easier to duplicate by the competition than when that advantage is won thanks to systems based on creativity, innovation and intellectual capital resources, that is, those innovations that only we are capable of devising and implementing, Pej. customer service systems for the elderly, high-level athletes, special populations, etc. All this is part of the intellectual capital, the potential that together with our technical capacity and our empathy will lead us to success.
INTELLECTUAL CAPITAL AND MARKETING IN PERSONALIZED TRAINING
Intellectual capital (IC) is owned or not owned, it is not copied, it is acquired but it is difficult to obtain as it is in high demand. Once we have the intellectual capital, we must take advantage of it to create lines of action based on creativity. Since an idea can be copied but without the IC element, it does not develop and disappears almost before being born. How many times have we heard that such a business would work or that such an idea would make money? We all have ideas, the capacity to give them a commercial form and the possibilities of implementing them is what distinguishes the “ideators” from the successful managers and professionals.
Creative ideas are usually a guarantee of success since a new idea, a new service, a new concept or a new brand is always the first in its environment or environment and in Marketing it is more important to be the first than to be the best already that being the first creates positioning and being the best creates loyalty, but loyalty there is time to work on. It is much easier to enter the customer's mind as the first than to try to convince someone that you have a better service than the one that came before.
The CI will define not only what you know, but also what you are willing to learn or how you are going to sell your knowledge to the client. This is where Interelational Marketing comes in, the "strategic sale" of yourself as a success coach.
It is very important to be good, it is very important to sell that you are good, it is essential that you really are what you sell and what you say you are, but the most important thing is that others believe that you are twice as good as you really are. As long as your goal is to double your knowledge. That is CI and that is also Marketing.
THE LETTER SOUP: THE FIVE "W" AND THE FIVE "P"
What, Who, When, Where, Why
What, who, when, where, why.
What are we going to offer, how are we going to focus our product or service, what is paid for? - We should offer a global personal health service using the different facets of sport for this. Again, it is important to have a support structure that justifies the reason why we are attacking a market niche that may be more than covered by certain clubs. The concept of “added value” takes on double importance here.
Who are we targeting, what is our market segment? - Let's take the example of "Personal Training": At an individual or private level, the Target of our clients would be very defined: It would be indistinctly men and women of upper-middle or upper class, generally with little availability of schedules and many times used to employing additional services of a particular type as an integral part of their study and leisure activities. Of course, new fields of work can be sought, especially at the level of support for recovery systems for different pathologies. Support services for other sports may also be a possibility. Again training is decisive.
Where are our potential customers? - Knowing who we are addressing is important to plan our promotion and advertising. That is why it is so important to know where our potential client is or to have the maximum information about the members of our club. Knowing what they need, we can offer a better service.
When will we carry out our activity, do we have a schedule, do we fluctuate throughout the season? - Obviously any commercial activity fluctuates with the market due to different variables. If we work in a sports center we will depend on its hours of use, if we work at a private level we will coordinate our schedules around the number of clients, however it will be important to plan the actions depending on the time of year in which we are: an advertising action in winter it has little impact on our field, however it should be focused in order to promote activities in the living room for obvious reasons. An advertising action outside this season should of all, all be carried out before the month of May and enhancing all the work variables but sectorizing the potential client much more.
Why offer a new service? - This question is answered with another question: Does the market need us? Of course yes. The department stores that began operating a few years ago did so perhaps with a management-level thinking more focused on product development than on service provision. Although this situation tends to change, many of these large sports areas suffer from a significant lack of customer service: the well-known “inpersonalization”. On the other hand, the "collectivization" of sports activities is something that many people try to flee. Personalized Training -for example- can cover all these aspects: total attention, permanent information, continuous advice, and above all assured results.The main premise of any service company is: Do not offer anything that you are not capable of fulfilling.
THE FIVE “P” IN THE SPORTS FIELD
Product, Place, Price, Promotion, Publicity
Product, Square, Price, Promotion, Advertising
Product
Service as a product and an understanding of the dimensions of which it is composed is essential for the success of any sporting services organization or activity. As with goods, customers demand benefits and satisfactions from those of services.
Services are purchased for the benefits they offer, for the needs they satisfy and for the sensations they produce, which in itself gives reason for the rest of the rules.
The service seen as a product requires taking into account the range of services offered, their quality and the level at which it is delivered.
The concept of consumer benefit: this concept is a set of functional, effective and psychological attributes that each user perceives differently: benefits in the form of physical appearance, in the form of health, in the form of weight loss, increase of the cardiovascular capacity or all together.
The clarification, elaboration and translation of the concept of consumer benefit raises several problems for those who sell services. First, the services offered must be based on the needs and benefits sought by consumers and users. But consumers and users may or may not be clear about what they require, express or not clearly express in the announcement of their requirements. Difficulties can arise due to not knowing what to expect, inexperience of what is required, or inability to determine its need. Second, the benefits sought can change over time due to good or bad experiences in the use of the service, through new expectations or changes in the consumption habits of the service.
The compendium of all these variables is what little by little has developed what we call "new trends": the search for new systems, more attractive and efficient in adapting to the client and, of course, in customizing the service.
Plaza (Accessibility-Availability)
The translation of the English term “Place” refers to an area of the Marketing Mix in charge of managing services in terms of the channel, site, delivery, distribution, location or service coverage. From the sporting point of view, this concept is adapted towards "accessibility" or "availability" for the customer when the service is required. And we are not just talking about Standard services or group services such as aerobics classes or similar. We are talking about the availability of a specific client / s to access a service in a personalized way or to access those services of an individual or even medical need: Reviews, stress tests, analysis, massages, dietary service, electrostimulation, infrared etc.
An important element in the design of these services is therefore the communications system and infrastructure that must allow rapid response to customer calls. Therefore, the sports coordinator of a center must have sufficient capacity to provide the client with those services that in themselves cannot be offered (if it is the case) from the same center but that can be covered by attached professionals.
Price
At a recreational, sports or activity level, the price is the value that the athlete, user or client is willing to pay for the provision of the service.
The price can, however, be applied from two distinct aspects: The user and the company. From the user's point of view, the price constitutes, as we have previously pointed out, the quantity, quality and emotional or physical satisfaction that the user plans to obtain from a given service.
For the company, the price measures the intrinsic value that these services carry with them, thus being able to determine the final benefit that is expected to be obtained from them.
The manager or director of a sports center should not only know what the prices of the competition are, but also design those of his sports center based on these data and the data resulting from his own calculations. This requires having some knowledge about Marketing of services that will be of invaluable help to know the general profitability of all our services.
Is it important to know the real cost of each service?
It's very important. Decisions on price are of paramount importance in the marketing strategy for both consumer companies and companies aimed at offering services. In an exploratory study carried out in 1989 of some 40 medium-sized companies, manufacturers of various products, it was found that price, in the opinion of executives, was the most important marketing variable and the one with the highest frequency in decision-making. As with the other elements of the marketing mix, the price of a service must be related to the achievement of organizational and marketing goals.
At a commercial level, price is also one of the factors that will determine the demand for the service.
The variables to determine the price of the service are these:
- Fixed costs. (Maintenance, personnel etc.)
- Amortization
- Fixed costs derived from Marketing, Advertising etc.
- Indirect costs of maintenance, personnel etc.
- Indirect Marketing Costs
- Expected profit
As in a financial analysis, the study of these variables should establish a compensatory price with respect to the costs incurred for the provision of the service. In a rough way, to know the final price, we should add all the previous points and divide it by the number of services offered.
Internal prices
They are those that are established without taking into account the data of the sector but that help us to design and establish different internal action strategies:
- Technical price
- Price limit
- Target price
Technical Price. It corresponds to recovering direct costs plus indirect costs, and allows us to cover the total costs of a certain volume of services or activities. The technical price can help us determine and distribute the structural costs of each service, entering the profit zone from there.
Indirect costs
Technical price = Direct costs +
Volume of services
borrowed
Limit price. Also called threshold price: It is the one that corresponds to direct costs. Limit price = Direct cost.
The limit price is the point below which the company cannot fall as it would enter the loss zone. It allows to recover direct costs, and therefore the gross margin is zero.
Target price. If, in addition to paying the direct and indirect costs, the price allows obtaining a profit result, the resulting price is called the Target Price.
Its calculation is made in the same way as the technical price according to a certain volume of services provided.
Indirect costs + Investment made
Target price = Direct costs +
Volume of services
borrowed
Variants
There are a series of application variants to the price system, which are used to make a specific service more attractive, or receive an effective push or launch:
These are bonuses, flexible payment methods, discounts, etc.
The discount prices are presented in almost all markets and are intended to constitute a reward for services performed that allow production and consumption of the service, or as a promotional instrument.
Most sports or service companies can offer special reductions or payments of this nature, although sometimes these payments erode the margins available to the sports center. However, they are strategically important.
These variables should in no case cause a loss to the profitability of the service, although it is true that sometimes it can be tolerated in certain services that a small level of losses can be assumed, as long as these are programmed, calculated and foreseen.
Objectives of the pricing strategy.
The objectives of the sports company for setting prices can be oriented to:
Obtain benefits
- A certain profit margin on the planned registrations.
- A determined return on the invested capital.
- Optimization of profits.
Get a certain volume of services
- Increase in the volume of partners.
- A certain participation in the sector of physical-sports activities.
Maintain company status
- Support or exceed the competition.
Other services
- Accomplishment of other objectives.
There are also other determining factors in the pricing strategy, but they would become more directly part of the accounting work of the center, however, depending on the size and infrastructure, this work will sometimes correspond to the director himself. These are:
- Economic-financial decisions on margins and profits.
- Decisions on the rest of the variables since the price may vary depending on the decisions on the infrastructure of the facilities, equipment, programming and communication.
The promotion
The general purposes of promotion in service marketing are to create awareness and interest in the service and in the sports club, to differentiate the service offering from the competition, to communicate and represent the benefits of available services, and / or persuade customers to use the service.
The promotion in the services can be done through three traditional ways, in such a way as to be able to influence the sales of the services. These forms are:
a) Advertising: defined as any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of services through a specific individual or organization. Also of course, it can be done from the same center.
b) Personal sale: defined as the personal presentation of the services in a conversation with one or more future users for the purpose of promoting or introducing a certain service. This work is sometimes carried out by Personal Dynamic, s that each sports center should use, and that constitute the perfect complement to a panel of teachers with relationship skills and personal feedback.
c) Public Relations: defined as the non-personal stimulation of demand for a service obtaining commercially important news about it, in any medium or obtaining its favorable presentation in any medium that is not paid for by the sponsor of the service. Once again the Personal Dynamic, s form the workhorse in this type of activity, helping us to energize the club, to enhance the services and above all to LOY the client.
In general the purpose of any promotional effort is to sell the service through information, persuasion and recall.
We must start from the basis that it is not possible to set a price without knowing or being oriented about the prices of the competition.
These can be with respect to the competition:
Similar: If we set similar prices, it is because perhaps we are not sure of offering a better service or perhaps because we seek to highlight another differential advantage.
Below: Perhaps we are confident that we offer an uncompetitive service or perhaps we have a high-quality service and are preparing to drive our competitors out of the market.
Above: If we set prices above the competition, we are definitely obliged to offer some sufficiently remarkable competitive advantage, activities or services. Prices also rise when a certain segment of the market with higher purchasing power is attacked.
Promotion is very important. "How you sell yourself" will determine "How successful you are going to have."
How can promotion help us?
-You can make a potential customer become an active customer.
-It can reinforce our external image and our reputation.
-You can provide the potential customer with the necessary information.
-It can increase the demand for the service.
-It can positively distance us from the competition.
The promotion of the Personal Trainer, however, cannot be very extensive since it is an individual company with scaled budgets, however, we can use several tools to make the promotion a useful element. In the US it is easy to see clients training with clothing bearing the Personal Trainer logo.
Prices are also a good promotional strategy: discounts, additional services, friends discount, prepayment discount, etc.
Other promotional or advertising systems could be mailings, brochures, or even informational dossiers, all depending on the budget.
PRICE PROMOTIONS
- Discount for hour bonuses (Advance payment).
- Discount for training couples or groups. (Joint promotion).
- Free services.
- Discount for providing new clients.
The possibilities are many, but it is important to determine who we are going to contact: a very expensive price can detract from the true tangibility of the rest of the services of the sports center. In the case of Personal Trainers who carry out their activity individually, a very expensive price can limit you to a very small group of clients or even kick you out of the market.
A very cheap price can detract from the service, it can take away the interest of the potential customer and it can negatively distance you from the competition.
An average price requires that our added value or differential advantage be evident, which can delay the amortization of the service.
ADVERTISING
Is advertising necessary in the field of sports and health services? Definitely yes. If we understand advertising as the way to obtain benefits through promotion, loyalty and brand image. The use of a service also depends on the amount of information that the client has about it.
At the advertising level, we understand media as public disclosure systems that we call “support”. These can be varied, Television, Press, etc. But, given the nature of the service, we will basically focus on three of these media: Press, Magazines and the Internet.
Press: Advertisements in the press tend to have a fairly acceptable price-effectiveness ratio. They reach a huge number of people but on the contrary their life is very short. A newspaper loses all interest the next day. The advertisements published in the press must be very global, offering information capable of capturing the attention of various segments of the public as they will reach very different potential customers, and all this concentrated in a clear, attractive and concise message. On the other hand, it is necessary to "sectorize" the advertising inserts in our field of action, neighborhood, etc. Through local publications of localized incidence.
Magazines: The useful life of an ad published in a magazine is considerably longer. They can reach several people and their main advantage is that they segment the potential market very clearly, "They allow us to target directly", for example: An advertisement published in a magazine about Golf or Sailing attacks a very clear segment of the market commercially speaking. For this reason, as will be described later, our brand image must be in accordance with these variables. As negative aspects, it could be highlighted a cost in most cases higher than the insertion in the press and of course the lack of geographical flexibility since they are usually national.
Internet: The Internet phenomenon has been demonstrating since its appearance that it constitutes one of the best quality filters that exist since it uses the opinion of hundreds of thousands of daily users to establish its tough selection criteria. A page on the Internet can incredibly boost three aspects that have been the workhorse of Marketing and advertising for many years: brand image, promotion, and above all customer loyalty. On the other hand, the Internet can be the differential cause that separates us from the competition both positively and negatively: A good quality, fast Web page, with enough information and above all very interactive, will undoubtedly capture the potential client who is looking for it on the net that particular service. Despite a slow web page,sad and not arousing curiosity will last in the eyes of the navigator for a few seconds. Statistically, the Internet user who does not enjoy the sight of a Web page, either because of its lack of attractiveness or because it does not inspire confidence, usually leave within thirteen seconds of it.
BRAND IMAGE
What do we understand by brand image? Okay, let's remember the NIKE logo. When we think about this brand, we are doing it by automatically and unconsciously including it in the "Short List" that each one has in mind: those brands that are "Top" in their field, those that convey prestige, quality, reliability and in the specific case from NIKE: Dynamism, sport, youth… in a word, WINNER. Well, that is the brand image.
How soft, is it new? It is a slogan that we quickly identify with a brand, that this identification becomes an effective purchase is a matter of how effective that slogan is shown, of the ability it has together with other variables to capture consumer confidence. The compendium of all these variables is the brand image. From the “Chup, chup Avecrem” to the onomatopoeic sound “Wop” by Quiero-TV, passing through the almost abstract Mironian figure of the child depositing the “La Caixa” coin, our senses are constantly bombarded by the omnipresent advertising.
The brand image can be projected from the field of marketing sports services in different ways:
From the logo
The logo is often the first contact that the client will have with us. Whether you perceive it from the Internet or from an advertisement or card, it must inspire what we want to convey.
The ideal would be to have the ability to offer the client exactly the service they need, offering an image according to their target and the general image that we offer. From our business card, from the presentation and general image of our work, all this will largely reflect the image that we are offering.
A good logo must be dynamic, expressive, clear and truthful. That is: it must convey a reliable and quality image, in conjunction with the rest and all of our service.
Also, on many occasions the services are marketed under a specific image: Body Pump, Body Combat, etc. This helps the customer to perceive the use of the service as a differentiating value, something like a personal brand that differentiates it from the rest.
From the presentation of our work
The presentation of training programs can make a difference in many ways with the rest of the competition. Again our training will be of the utmost importance.
Computer science, for example, can help us design programs in an attractive way, using image and text editors that will facilitate the presentation task. There are currently some training software on the market that add value to the service of the sports club thanks to their high level of quality.
From the physical infrastructure
As I have commented previously, the infrastructure that we surround ourselves with and know how to properly exploit will clearly determine the differences in the service and, of course, the “added values” will be evident.
From the support service
It is evident that if we are able to refer a potential client to another professional (physiotherapist for example), we are very possibly gaining a potential client, if we can also keep the client informed through computer statistics of cardiovascular progress, weight, progression of the training and so on, and we add to all this a support training service for trips or even the possibility of having other training rates in holiday seasons, our support service will become a considerable added value.
From our personal image
The sports wardrobe is important, as well as our physical presentation, our capacity for dialogue or our sympathy. The new sports professional is a professional specialized in different areas, not just in-room bodybuilding. Furthermore, it must be borne in mind that sport is above all a means of self-identification. People, people are easily identified in certain brands and of course also in certain aesthetics, that is why appearance is so important in the sports field.
INTERNET AND CUSTOMER LOYALTY
The Internet can help us to make ourselves known to the potential customer who visits our website, which would already fall within the field of promotion.
In addition to the points mentioned above, the Internet can be an important differential advantage: It can help us to serve our active customers in a very efficient way, establishing an informative and constant attention feed-back:
Through email, we can inform the client of their training statistics, the status of their bonuses, the payments made, the latest trends and the most recent medical and sports information. On the other hand, a web page that manages to interact with our clients through the use of a password in order to access different services (training folder, progressions, diets, messages, etc.) using the Internet to create a solid loyalty strategy the client's.
It is three times more expensive to get a new customer than to keep an existing one.
At this point, it would be important to highlight that regarding the promotional use of photographs, texts or images for advertising purposes or that imply disclosure of any kind, the law is very pronounced in this regard both in the conventional sphere and in the Internet sphere. Therefore, we should provide our own image bank in order to comply with the legal provisions.
COACHING
The nexus between the business world, management and sports is undoubtedly teamwork. Day by day, company managers base the success of their actions on how to obtain the best results, and this is achieved through different factors. Communicate efficiently, define clear goals, assign tasks according to the individual capacity of the staff but with global objectives, recognize and promote leadership in favor of general work, create team spirit, delegate effectively, and so on. In Management, all this is called Coaching, taking advantage of the sports reference of this word.
Companies such as Nike or American Express manage a large number of business functions through systems derived from sport. In fact, sports coaches have all these functions very well structured in their work plan. Any coach knows that the work of one influences the work of the rest. At the individual level, the coaches of any sport are clear that the results depend on how you have carried out the training of the entire season but largely on how they have been able to motivate and encourage their athlete.
All this is applicable both from the point of view of the entrepreneur or manager who starts an activity or service through a group of coaches and from the point of view of the coach who individually performs that service.
The management of a planning and "start-up" program for a sports center or as an individual initiative requires considering different aspects:
Define objectives (Plan the season) Establishing gradually which clients we will try to access in the first place and in what period of time we will access the rest.
Establish and create a brand image (Team Image) Because creating a solid and uniform image provides credibility to the service.
Exploiting individual and team capacities (Coaching) Holding meetings, establishing a fluid dialogue between all team members in order to share ideas and take advantage of new possibilities.
Delegate effectively (substitutes) Once the qualities of each “player” have been identified, a change of position is sometimes necessary in order for a specific member of the team to take charge of a specific client in order to exploit the capabilities of the service correctly.
Develop a Marketing Plan (Training Plan) Contemplating advertising, service promotion and customer loyalty.
LEADERSHIP
Leadership in the work of the sports professional is not the exclusive province of managers or directors. The leader is a great communicator, a person with charisma capable not only of leading but also of enthusiasm.
The Journal of Business Strategy recently reflected a study conducted on the challenges a new leader faces today. A survey was conducted of more than 1,450 executives from 12 multinationals, of which 31.63% responded that being a good leader implies being able to articulate a tangible vision and have a clear strategy. For 27% of those surveyed, a good "coach" in the business world will be one who has the ability to draw potential from the people they lead. Well, this rule is common to coaches, managers, teachers or Personal Trainers: Self-confidence, self-control, results orientation, empathy, teamwork and knowledge management will determine the success of our team, our service or of our business initiative.
Success in the role of coach is influenced by how effectively Coaches can motivate other people and by how well they can communicate with them. The ability to motivate people is crucial to the exercise of leadership as a sports professional. Without empathy there is no success and from the point of view of a sports manager that is an extremely important detail when we are talking about personalized services where the client interacts with the coach constantly and on occasions and over time, beyond strictly professional.
A professional lacking in motivation capacity will be just as bad a driver of our service as a professional without training resources incapable of offering results over time, but a demotivated client lasts much less.
What skills should a good Coach or a good Personal Trainer have?
Coaches technical skills are their abilities to use training methods, processes and techniques. It is easy to visualize the technical skills of a surgeon or physical therapist, but in the same way, managing a client (who sometimes takes on a subordinate role) also requires certain technical skills.
Human skills, also known as interpersonal skills, are the skills of coaches to get along with other people, to understand them and to motivate and lead them in the workplace / training.
Conceptual skills reflect Coaches' mental abilities to visualize all the complex interrelationships that exist in a workplace. Relationships between people require knowing how to interact with each client depending on the empathy received, that is, “left hand”.
In short: the ability we have to motivate and energize our client, will ultimately be what largely determines its continuity.
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