Overcoming Fitness Competitors

Even if you don't have competitors now, you will. You must be prepared for any and all newcomers, big and small, in your market.

You've provided your community a valuable resource for many years. When someone in town decides they want to become healthier, they think of you. But competition is inevitable, especially if you are successful. At some point, you will be challenged and you will need to adjust accordingly. How you prepare for, and how you react to your competition will determine your continued success.

Maybe you have a new competitor arriving, or have been competing with someone for quite some time. You need to arm yourself with strategies that will allow you to not only survive, but to also thrive in your market.

Planning your strategy for inevitable competitors will be the difference between struggling and remaining successful. You must be ready and armed with a plan of attack. Don't allow yourself to be surprised by the enemy.

To beat your competitors, you must first understand your competitors. Find out what you do better or worse than them, and understand how you can use this information to your advantage.

If you and your competitor are competing head on for the same members, you will both lose. You need to understand and promote your USP (Unique Selling Proposition) and develop your niche to prevail over your competition.

Down and Dirty: Sometimes you have no choice but to fight fire with fire. But there are ethical ways to handle mudslinging from your competition. We will teach you the best ways to overcome aggressive competitors.

Your USP, or Unique Selling Proposition, is the identity of your business. It is the heart and soul of your sales approach and it is the thing that makes you stand out among your competition. The problem is that if you have a successful USP, chances are good that an existing competitor will either mimic it or a new competitor will come in and try to take it from you. This is without question the single most common problem among almost every client we have worked with in the past few years.

For the last 10 years the fitness industry has grown without interruption. The number of clubs has quadrupled. The problem is that the number of memberships has actually decreased relative to the number of facilities out there. This means that every single health club is eating from the same piece of pie. And every time a new competitor comes in, everyone else's slice becomes a bit smaller.

It is likely that you have experienced this trend first hand. You either opened your facility early on in the fitness craze (10-20 years ago) or got into the market recently based on the growth of the industry. Furthermore you have experienced one of two things, 1) More competition has come in your area that offers a similar USP to yours or 2) You opened your facility to compete with older clubs with a similar USP in hopes of sharing the market and possibly beating them at their own game. It is likely that you are losing out regardless of which group you find yourself in.

You must always have your own USP, even if it is continuously changing!! In other words, don't always assume the ways things operate now is the best way. The successful health club owner is always tweaking or even re inventing the identity or USP of his or her health club.

There are unlimited USP's available to you. You can offer results-based personal training, you can offer fitness boot camps, you can become a limited-membership facility, you can offer the most services, the most amenities, or the best equipment. You can be the club that offers the most creative programming or promotional offers to your prospects and members. You are only limited by your own creativity as to what your new USP is. Focus on making your business better and you will find that your new competition, isn't competition at all.