I’ve come to the conclusion that to be successful in martial arts fitness, you have to have a course, or a variety of courses, that people can choose from. When someone is thinking about joining your fitness program, he/she needs to have the end in mind. In other words, they need to be able to visualize a finish or a completion to their fitness goal.
If all you have to offer is an ongoing fitness-kickboxing class, you really don’t have anything that the prospective student can grasp. The average fitness student will come to your martial arts fitness program to get fitness results, not because he/she wants to learn how to kickbox. So, when your fitness program is just an ongoing class, the student doesn’t see an end.
Plus, what do you have to sell? Fitness-kickboxing classes are a dime a dozen. They aren’t thought of as a high-priced item, but real results in fitness are. Why do you think there are personal trainers who make hundreds of dollars an hour? Because they’ve convinced the market that they can get results.
There’s a huge difference in the perceived value between a fitness program that gets results and just offering ongoing fitness-kickboxing classes. From my years of selling fitness and my Ultimate Bodyshaping Course (UBC) programming, I know that if I can get the student to visualize the end of the course—with them getting the results they want—then I have a sale.
Even though most of us know that fitness is a lifetime journey, not a ten-week sprint, the average person wants to have a finish.
Once you have them in your program, then you can convince them that they need to continue training with you for lifelong benefits.
When it comes to fitness, it’s all about the results. Having a course that has a completion gives the student the idea that all he/she has to do is the course and they will get those results. You must, of course, have proof that the course works. When I’m able to show a prospective client dozens of before-and-after photos of people who have gotten great results from the UBC programming, it becomes an easy sell. It’s an easy sell because it’s easy to understand: “Take this course and get these results.”
If all you have to offer are ongoing fitness classes, then it’s less tangible to the prospective client. They want answers to questions like, “How long do I have to train to get results? How many times a week do I work out?” By having a course, you take all of the guessing out of the process.
I’ve also come to the conclusion that the majority of the population will not get results unless you get them to change their eating habits. I learned this when I developed the Cardio Karate Program In the 1990s. Cardio Karate was a great class and a great workout, but if the student takes the class and then goes home and eats a double cheeseburger with French fries, he isn’t going to get the results he wants. Of course, he’s going to blame the workout and not his own bad eating habits.
One of our main goals with the UBC program is to change people’s eating habits. This is my motivation for creating our new five-week Guaranteed Weight Loss Program. By putting a five-week
or ten-week timeframe on fitness programming, it makes it doable to the average person. One of our favorite quotes for our original ten-week program is, “It’s only ten weeks. Anyone can stay focused on fitness for just ten weeks.”
By turning your martial arts fitness programming into a course, it becomes much more attractive to the average weight-loss consumer. You have something that the market can understand and will want. Just look at the other fitness programs and how they are promoted. Rarely can you find a program that has the all the elements needed to get the results without having to hire a personal trainer.
