Way back when (actually it was only last year) when my main focus was on helping C.H.E.K practitioners market themselves more effectively, I wrote a post which attracted some controversial and frankly quite rude & irritating comments from people who didn’t really know what they were talking about.

The funny thing is that if you now search online for a couple of the people who left those rather rude comments, my post (and hence their rude comment) is one of the first listings returned on Google.

How do I know this?

Because in my blog stats I can see that a few visitors have come to the blog from a search using those names…meaning they quite likely read those comments and quite possibly made a decision *not* to work with those people off the back of them.

The problem is, as a C.H.E.K practitioner you can bury your head in the sand for as long as you want, kicking and screaming and believing you don’t need to market yourself, especially online…but if people are already searching for you online, don’t you at least want to have some sort of say in what they find out about you there?

(…and I can pretty much guarantee that people are searching for you – I get multiple visits all the time from people searching on the names of C.H.E.K practitioners who’ve commented here).

I understand that some of those comments may well have been made in the heat of the moment but, from a marketing perspective can you really afford for that to be the main or even the only presence you have on the web?

P.S. One of those commenters even emailed me when I contacted them directly and apologised for their comment, stating that they’d been “having a bad day”. So the question stands…do you really want something you said on a bad day to represent your total and pretty much only presence online?

1) An NHS Pilot project – to show how addressing root cause issues (using the C.H.E.K principles) could help reduce NHS costs & provide a valuable association for CHEK Practitioners with the NHS.

2) A ‘Poster Person’ PR Campaign – a little bit like having a UK verion of Paul Chek (aaaagh, could we cope?!?) to be the face of chekkies in the UK and raise national awareness.

3) A UK Institute – a combination of an education & healing facility that gives a focus for C.H.E.K work in the UK & Europe.

4) A Gym Roadshow - holding workshops, presentations, masterclasses at gyms & events across the country using a group of regional C.H.E.K practitioners to demonstrate what chekkies can do and improve demand for C.H.E.K-trained staff at major gym chains in the UK.

5) Web Builder – a web solution that allows C.H.E.K Institute-trained professionals to build & maintain their own cost-effective professional websites with additional functionality providing them with customer service tools and to include C.H.E.K content.

6) Business Improvement Courses - specific courses tailored to helping C.H.E.K practitioners market themselves more effectively.

7) Mentors – providing a network of UK mentors, a little like a work experience system where chekkies lower down in the levels can benefit from working with colleagues higher up.

8) Entry Level C.H.E.K Course – a course which bridges the gap to Exercise Coach, a little like a CHEK Personal Trainer course teaching the basics of anatomy & physiology and all the stuff you learn on other personal trainer courses -but with the C.H.E.K slant.

Looking back over them now, I think they were inspired!! I must have been having an awesome day :-)

Does anyone have any more inspired ideas?

…and Fitness Pro’s and small businesses in the health & wellness industry everywhere.

(there, see I’m not being "chekkist" nor critical… quite the opposite, hopefully this will help people from making the most common mistakes which can hold them back and learn from the ones I made too).

So here they are, the biggest mistakes made by C.H.E.K Practitioners when running their businesses & marketing themselves…

1) Believing there will come a time when everybody is so sick & in need of your help that people will come flooding in through you doors.

They won’t if they don’t know you’re there. And especially if the pharma & drug companies get their way with their big budget advertising of all their quick fix solutions.

The "So what?" from this?

Don’t shun marketing and instead use it as a tool to help let people know you’re there…it’s your duty to do share your solutions with the world at large and let them know there is an alternative to allopathic approach to medicine before the drug companies get even bigger & richer from the growing number of "sick" people.

2) Spend so much time telling people about your "unique" approach when it really isn’t all that unique & innovative.

I know we all think it’s unique because it was so inspiring when we learned about it but…whilst the content/information might be unique, often the way in which it’s delivered isn’t.

From a client’s perspective, it might very well be the same they’ve experienced before…yet another "expert" telling them what they should & shouldn’t eat and getting them to do more exercise (all be it energising exercises or different kinds of exercise, it’s still exercise).

The "So what?" from this?

If you are going to market yourself as having a "unique approach", just make sure you really do and make sure your service really is "remarkable" (= noteworthy, worty of remark in the words of Seth Godin). Get creative and deliver what you promise.

3) Think that clients pay you for your knowledge & information.

They do to some extent but let’s face it there’s a ton of information at everybody’s fingertips nowadays with Google, Wikipedia etc. etc. We’re not short on information, in fact there’s a touch of information overload which leads to confusion, which leads to skepticism.

Understanding that clients hire you not just for your knowledge but also for the added "extras" (although I believe they’re more than just extras, I believe they’re a core part of your product/service). The extras include the emotional support – the shoulder to cry on or the sounding board, the listening; the motivational support – the encouragement, the pushing, the cajoling, the bargaining; being a yard stick – the goal, the role model, the ‘you can do it if i can’; the additional confidence they feel; the improved moods; the extra admiring glances they get; the feelings of being ‘normal’ or ‘happy’.

The "So What?" from this?

Get into the mindsets of your prospects. Understand the problems they face, the feelings they deal with and the internal conversations they have with themselves. Really know how your ideal clients feel. You’ll find it so much easier to connect with them, instill confidence in them about your services and market yourself to the ‘right’ people.

4) Fail to set up the business for long term success.

Now, I know this will depend upon your definition of ‘success’ but I’m going by my definition (which I’ve clarified in a previous post)

As Jay Abraham pointed out, there are really only 3 ways to grow your business:
1) Increase the number of clients
2) Increase the transaction value of each purchase (put your prices up)
3) Increase the frequency of purchase (get each client to buy more, more frequently)

This is very useful to understand but only if you apply that understanding to your business.

If you run your business in the way that many people do, whether you love doing it or not, at some point there will come a time when you can’t possibly work with any more clients, charge any more for your services or get people to buy any more from you…without killing yourself and working 24 hours a day. Unless you structure your business in a different way…

The "So What?" from this?

Make sure you know where your business is headed – have a mission, end game, vision, plan, whatever you want to call it – and ensure you structure your business in a way that enables you to get there. There are plenty of business models which will allow you to get to where you want to be, you just need to identify which one will work best for you and then apply it to your business.

I know that quite a few chekkies would like a business that will eventually run without them – if that’s your goal, then set things up right now in a way that will help you get there. It’s perfectly do-able as long as you start right now and plan with the end in mind.

If there are any more mistakes that I’ve missed or that that you or anyone else you know have made and think should be included in here for everyone to learn from, leave me a comment…

I truly believe that a holistic approach to healing & health is the ONLY way to go. I truly admire what Paul Chek & the CHEK Institute have done in this field – and I still recommend the HLC course to anyone, whether they’re already working in the industry or not.

But, and this is a big BUT…I’m not so sure the CHEK model is a successful model on which to base a business or can really be used successfully to build a profitable, real business.

Why I do think this? Aside from Paul Chek himself, there are very, very few other C.H.E.K practitioners out there who have ‘made it’…using just the CHEK approach alone.

The most successful ones are largely based in the US but in the UK there are only a handful of practitioners running a successful, profitable business. And those that are, are mostly Paul’s most trusted (ADD: who are right at the top of the tree as Level 4′s), receive client referrals from him and also are able to supplement their income with teaching CHEK courses & other educational courses for other trainers. I can’t really name one CHEK person in the UK who has a decent marketing strategy and who has cracked it from the perspective of building up a ‘proper’ business based on coaching the CHEK principles.

Please correct me if I’m wrong by leaving a comment on the blog – but before you do shout me down, I’m not including people who have built up successful personal training business, incorporating CHEK stuff, but real, purely CHEK coaching-based businesses (and my definition of a successful business is not just one that is based on financial performance alone).

So, back to the point of the post…why is this?

I think there are a number of reasons. Some can be resolved, others can’t – at least not easily.

Firstly, I think there’s an inherent flaw within the CHEK courses themselves. You learn all kinds of excellent material on a course. But as Paul himself says, knowledge isn’t powerful unless it’s applied. The big thing lacking on the courses is how to apply that knowledge to clients – the coaching aspect, not the assessments, not the ‘how to’ exercises – but how to help clients apply the knowledge that you teach them to their lives, how to help ‘coach’ them through behavioural change and how to help them overcome often the biggest stumbling block to their success…limiting beliefs.

Something I hear really frequently from my clients is that they just want to work with dedicated, committed clients who are willing to stick to all the things they recommend and who will apply themselves diligently to the nutrition recommendations, the corrective exercises and the extensive lifestyle changes often required.

Come on guys…seriously, aside from us lot, there are very few people who are in a position to or want to make those wholesale changes like we do. I didn’t say there are none, but there are very few. If you really want to use the CHEK approach in its purest form, then you need to get to these guys.

…which leads me on to my second point.

The other main reason I think CHEK practitioners fail is this. They don’t know how to market themselves & get the attention of the people they want to work with to promote their services…

And worst of all many don’t even realise that this is why they’re not successful.

The theory of contraints says that there’s usually just one thing standing in the way of success. For 70% of small businesses, it’s this…marketing.

But if you don’t even realise this is what it is and you make the mistake of spending thousands more on expanding your knowledge in your field instead of also learning how to maximise your potential & income from your existing knowledge, then in all honesty, you are highly unlikely to ever run a successful, profitable business using the CHEK approach.

I know a lot of people think marketing is simply advertising in a few places, sending out a few flyers & emails, speaking to a few more people or encouraging referrals from other clients.

Most people don’t realise that marketing is much, much, much more than this.

Marketing covers:

The Product – the services you provide, what do you offer people, what can they buy from you?

The Pricing – how do you currently decide on your pricing & fees and why do you charge what you charge?

The Promotion – this is the aspect of marketing which covers the “how” do you promote your service. What marketing channels do you use to promote your services?

The Place – where do you distribute your products/services? In a gym, your own studio, home training, online?

The above 4 are all key aspects of marketing.

A lot of people I talk to say things like, “Oh well, I think I need to get x,y and z qualification first then I should be able to offer people more and then business will pick up” or “Well, I just need to hand out some more leaflets & business cards to people who would benefit and then I should be able to get some more clients”.

NOOOOOOOOO. It’s way more complex than that. If that’s “just” what you need to do, then why (a) haven’t you done it yet? and (b) if you have, why hasn’t it worked?

And if it’s the first scenario, then when exactly do you think you’ll feel “confident enough” and “qualified enough” to start really helping clients properly. How are you going to get to these clients, you’re now able to help better?

Thirdly, and this ties in with my second point, CHEK practitioners fail in business because they fail to understand what running a true business is about. They fail to understand about strategic planning, profitability, performance metrics, exit strategies and the like – all of which ‘proper’ businesses have.

Put simply, if you’re a CHEK practitioner, have you thought about your future? How long you plan to do this? Will you keep doing this until you die because you need the income? What if you can no longer do what you do, would your business survive?

I know most of you are young and don’t think about retirement, financial planning and the future – I’m still under 30 (not for much longer though!) but it’s something I think about all the time. I’m making sure I set up my businesses in a way that covers all of this. I don’t want to have to be working at age 50 or 60 because I didn’t have a little bit of foresight beforehand and didn’t want to take some time to invest in my future a few years ago.

My argument is that CHEK practitioners fail because they focus on the wrong things when it comes to business. They are in constant pursuit of upgrading their qualifications (not objecting to that by the way) and neglect to work on improving their business skills too.

Now, you might think this post is just a marketing promotion for my Healthy Business Program, well of course it is ;-)…but actually it’s not just that.

My motives are more altruistic than that. And to prove it, the CHEK Institute have just promoted another marketing course – “Irresistible Marketing” by some other guy. Looks interesting but can’t recommend it as I’ve not heard of it or of the guy – but it’s out there as an alternative to my programs. Can’t find any other details about it, other than an email I received from the forum on it – no website or anything for more details, just a phone number.

What it does show is that the CI are also aware that this is a big part of the puzzle that’s missing for people and that they’re encouraging people to do something about it too.

So, do I think the CHEK model could be set up for business success? Yes, because in the end it delivers. It can help do what it says on the packet. But not for everyone. And certainly not if no-one knows about it.

ADDENDUM: Before commenting, please read a follow-up to this post which clarifies some of my definitions and you also might like to find out more about me, my experiences & where I’m coming from to give you context for this post.

EXTRA ADDENDUM: If you want to know my real intention for writing this post, and not what other perceive was my intention, read this post.

“How To Create A Basic Marketing Strategy”

Date: This Thursday 8th March
Time: 7 – 8pm UK time

Especially for C.H.E.K Practitioners who don’t have one (and I think there are quite a few).

It’s not going to be rocket science but it is going to be simple…3 steps to creating a marketing strategy that will give you a MUCH clearer idea of how to market yourself better.

Whilst it’s mainly for the CHEK lot, it’s suitable for any fitness professional who’s not so hot at marketing.

Sign up below for this & future FREE teleseminars:

p.s. Yes, it’s free to join in!