CRAIG MAGINNESS: Co marketing with other local businesses is one of the number one things I tell people. I tell my acupuncturist, I tell my yoga teacher people. And the key though still gets back to this, which is knowing who your customer is, right? Because it's a waste of time and effort to be doing that at places where your customer's not going to be going.

Okay, so that requires you to know your customer I start talking about why do people come in here, why do people keep coming in here. you are creating a community space.

INTRO: Pilates business owners, welcome to The Pilates Business Podcast, brought to you by the people who own, operate, and instruct in a successful clinical Pilates studio in Australia. 

Our mission is to help you to discover Pilates business assets to build your clinical Pilates business success. And now, here's your host, David Gunther. 

DAVID GUNTHER: Ever felt like you are shouting into the void, posting, promoting, discounting, but the right clients still don't walk through your door? We are with you and in our last episode, we uncovered your secret weapon, real stories from real clients turning into Google Gold. But Reviews are only part of the battle. Today, in the final episode of our David and Goliath series, we ask, how do you attract the right people without shouting louder or spending more of your money that would be better spent on yourself or your family? I am joined again by small business strategist Craig Maginness, who helps us dig deeper into how community, co-marketing, and knowing your value can flip the script on big brand dominance.

Let's get into it and find your next unfair advantage.

DAVID: The sorts of local promotions that you can do, and I'm sure you've got some good examples of this with our clientele, we give them 100 dollar gift voucher to give to a friend, for an assessment because that's an entry point into our studio.

I find if we get the right people into the studio on the phones, usually enough, but certainly, if they come into the studio and experience that whole atmosphere and see the quality of the equipment and the people and what's happening and how it's happening, then they will want to be part of that.

So that's the first thing to have something that the clientele can use to make that difference in that person's decision to be in contact with us. So to help facilitate that, to make it easier, when they're at coffee with their friend at the cafe and they're talking about the back issues, the lower back pain that they've experienced for five years, they can say, Oh!

I've had the same thing, but I did have it five years ago, but now I've been pain free for five years because of Pilates Can. Now I think I've still got that 100 gift voucher And, oh, here it is Jane.

Here's the 100 gift voucher. Now it'll cost them $121. So they'll pay $21 but for us, it's well worthwhile giving them the $100 extra value because they're a new client coming in who might be spending two and a half thousand, $5,000 in the next year with us and most of our clients stay for 10 years and we've had clients with us now for 20 years.

And those clients, if they're paying, you can add up the value, the lifetime value of someone who's paying between two and a half, three, $3,000, $5,000 a year, year in, year out. So having another one that we've just come up with, another little strategy that we'll talk more about in that other series is, business cards, high quality business cards, the best quality that you can get, rounded corners, laminated nicely with a satin feel, color both sides, and with a deal or a series of deals, in fact, with the local restaurants so they can get more people in at lunchtime.

 We can promote that to 200 plus. Clients in our studio. Our clients can get a good deal. They can get a free drink, they can get 20% off off one of their meals. They can get 30% the next time they come through. And so they're creating a habit of going to that lovely Italian restaurant I should add. 

Antica Regetta, which means old recipe. And so they've got it right, we love going to that place, and our clients love going to that place. And now, at that Antica Regetta, they have table tents on one side, a gift voucher for the restaurant. And then on the other side, they have special deal, 30 percent off at Pilates Can, which is 20 metres up the road.

Being able to work in with other local businesses who also have the sort of clientele that might be interested in your sort of business, that's a really good practical sort of strategy that's not too difficult to activate. And you'll be able to see in this other series people that are listening how to exactly go about that.

will be providing some resources for assets that you can create with your branding, that you can do in your local marketplace. What do you think of those sorts of things, Craig?

CRAIG: First of all, yeah, I totally agree. Anything that can get like minded people in the door to experience. Clearly one of the barriers to actually closing a sale. And this sort of, to me, gets a little bit of the difference between marketing and selling, okay? Marketing is creating your value propositions.

And so that's the story, and how do you tell it, and where do you tell it. Pricing is part of your marketing, because that is a signal about your value proposition, right? And then selling is actually closing the deal, right? And so, yeah, one of challenges to selling is actually being able to get somebody in that space.

 Where they're ready to buy if you can just convince them that you actually are going to deliver on what it is you're saying you're going to deliver. So yeah, thing that's, that's get them in the door. 

You know, All those are things that say, look, we're willing to invest in you in a sense as a client. And then the, one of the flip sides of that is I'd say your idea of, it costs 120 but I'll give you 100 is good because I do think it helps to have the customer, even a first timer, have some buy in.

Because I work with a lot of businesses where you have, you have the no show problem, right? You do a special, people sign up for the assessment, and then they don't show up. And then you have dead time and dah. So at least if I know I'm in for $20, I'm at least that serious about it.

So I think that's a positive thing, I would say. Another broader thing I'd say about that also in terms of just like you said, it's a good investment to put out 100 gift certificate to give that up because you get people in for what a return customer will do. So obviously, when you talk about that thing, what you know what you really need to think about as a business person is your customer acquisition cost, right?

No matter what you do in the realm of marketing, it's going to cost you a certain amount per customer you actually land. And, you know, there's a thing called a marketing funnel, if you've ever heard of that. The idea is almost anything you do, you start with some bigger audience, and this is whether it's a advertisement in a magazine, or on the radio or people who will see the thing at the Italian restaurant, or whatever it is. There's some large number of people who see the initial piece of information. Some people will see it and just ignore it, because it just doesn't register. Some people say, go, oh, Pilates, and they'll actually look at it. Some smaller percentage of those people will say, huh, that actually sounds like the kind of Pilates I might be interested in.

Some smaller percentage of those people will actually walk the 60 meters up the street at some point to check you out. And then some smaller percentage of those will actually become repeat return customers, right? No matter what you do, there's some cost to it, and the question is, what did it cost to actually acquire any given customer, right?

And you can calculate that for your business based on what you spend on marketing versus how many new customers you generate. And at least have an idea, and it's a good metric to know because then it allows you to value, evaluate, should I offer 100 gift certificate, right? Is that a good deal or a bad deal?

I, and I think, to what you, it would be a good deal, most of the time. But, there may be other things you might think about doing. We're gonna give away a free Porsche. I don't know, you might add that up and go, Yeah, okay, that doesn't quite work. It costs too much for the number of customers I'm gonna get from that deal.

Anyway, so then the last thing I'd say about it is yes. Co marketing with other local businesses is one of the number one things I tell people. I tell my acupuncturist, I tell my yoga teacher people. And the key though still gets back to this, which is knowing who your customer is, right? Because it's a waste of time and effort to be doing that at places where your customer's not going to be going.

Okay, so that requires you to know your customer. Now The Italian restaurant is an interesting twist, though what I hear, that's partly about the community, about the locale, about the neighborhood, right? It's not so much that people do Pilates, like to eat a lot of high carb Italian food, as much as that this particular restaurant is a nice community spot, it's a neighborhood place, it's people who, and part of your value, I hear you saying, is if I get away from the thing, i.e clinical Pilates. And I start talking about why do people come in here, why do people keep coming in here. It's, it, you are creating a community space. And it's the kind of thing, again, about the thing, people do create that around coffee. People create that around used bookstores. Right?

DAVID: Studio owner, you already know the feeling competing against big brand Pilates franchises with big budgets and slick marketing. Our wonderful team at the Pilates Business podcast have created a set of tools that we call David's competitive Edge, Practical Action Steps to Compete with Goliath in the Pilates Marketplace.

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Download it free at www.pilatesbusiness.com.au or via the links in our show notes, and take the first step to owning your advantage. 

CRAIG: People create that, obviously, you know, in some theory, that's a big piece of religious and spiritual communities, right? You do it through Pilates, and that's a beautiful thing. But so it's, so a piece of your value is community, being in this community, and so that works, really well for you. Other people may want to think again about, where do the people who come here?

Go to get coffee. Or, what else, what other kind of activities, as I say, do they do, they're the kind of people who would really be, I don't know, a, a local theater enthusiast, right? So maybe doing something with the local repertory theater would be good. But it depends.

Anyway, but again, if you know your, if you know your story, you can picture who else tells themselves that story. And then you gotta know where do they show up. And anywhere they show up, yes. Then if you can do, it's a real win, right? People come into your place, I'll give them 30 percent off of my first thing, and conversely, I will have one of your brochures, or cards, or whatever, on my desk too, let's scratch each other's back.

Yeah, it can be very effective. One of the probably the most effective things are small businesses, particularly small businesses in a community. In a neighborhood, in, when there's a, and I guess the other thing to say about business is generally, obviously, the other thing that obviously is innately true of a clinical Pilates business is it is by nature a physical brick and mortar business, right?

It has a geographical location. And so therefore, some element of who your customers are will be dictated by, Who's going to drive what distance to actually come do this, right? There's some outer limit to that. Whereas there are a lot of kinds of businesses that are not geographically constricted and then they have a whole different idea as to what works and what doesn't work.

DAVID: yeah. And, since COVID, we've also been doing some, as a lot of our contemporary studios would be doing, colleagues around the world, online sessions, out of COVID, that was semi privates during the lockdowns, it was pretty good with at work. And so we've kept that strategy going.

So one of the benefits there of, of COVID, but yeah, getting back to your point there about, getting to the right places locally that are where your clientele is going to be going. That's one of the reasons we really like these referral cards with discounts from a like minded or a place that they're likely to be going on one side.

And then the offer to, to give to somebody, Who they know, to come to Pilates can because it's those people that are your clients. Of course, the people they're speaking to are going to be exactly the people because they're usually, often more, more often going to be the people who are likely to want to consider coming to Pilates Can.

So if they've got that card in their wallet or in their purse to ostensibly, they're keeping it because they may give it to a friend for the Pilates can side of the card, but on the other side, they've got these discounts to go to the restaurant or the cafe or even the bookshop, as you, you mentioned, then they're keeping it there for that. Then when it does come to, because that conversation isn't going to happen the next day when after, I give them the card or after one of our instructors gives them the card. That conversation could happen in a year's time, Craig. So we need to give it some chance of still being in their purse or in their wallet so that when they do have the conversation, they can go, Oh, I've been wanting to use this for ages. And you know what people have been saying to me where I give them the a hundred dollar gift voucher that.

that voucher for an assessment so that they can give that directly. They say, Oh, I've had someone I've wanted to get along to come here for a long time. And then I say to them, and you know what, when they come in they'll say to us often, they'll say, I should have come here years ago. I should have come here years ago because this is exactly what I should be doing.

I shouldn't have been doing CrossFit or bicycle racing or whatever it was that they were, that they've been doing in the meantime. And, so they're so happy that they've been given that opportunity. And we're just giving the client with that 100 gift voucher, the opportunity to facilitate coming in to see us.

a little bit earlier, and, and to actually make that decision to, to call us or to, as you say, to walk the 60 meters, up the stairs. So geography is really important, and the geography of The friendships, between our clientele and the people that they know who are highly likely to be the sort of people that would enjoy our studio at Pilates Can, but all of the other clinical Pilates studios around the world who are listening to this and trying to come up with what, because there's so many things you could be doing, Craig.

You could be advertising on Facebook. You could be, giving a discount on Facebook where you'll get possibly, as we say, the wrong clientele will walk through the door. They'll take the discount, a free session or something of that nature, and we've done these sort of things in the past and we've regretted it, and so over the years we've honed and continually improved to just concentrate on the stuff that is likely to work.

It's always hard to measure, but it's likely to work. And even if it just gets the message out again, the same story. So that client, they, the, perhaps their friend doesn't take the card on that occasion, but that client gets to tell their story. My, I had a sore back for it was really sore up until five years ago when I started going to Pilates Can and I've been pain free since then.

And so that's just another thing for that potential referral client to think about to add on to that time when they will actually come in and or make the inquiry on the phone. Any thoughts, Craig?

CRAIG: Yeah. I do want to say, because I think this is important to always keep in mind, is that, the clinical Pilates studio as a market is a thing that certainly shares lots of things in common, right? It is on the one hand, likely that your other people listening here are going to say, Oh yes, that would work for me, right? But at the same time, you also have to keep in mind that still, even among, even in that group, Every business is different, okay, because it's as unique as the reason, the passion, the why, the individual person decided, I want to run a clinical Pilates studio, right?

And they can be different in lots of ways, some obvious, some more subtle, I think. It can be driven somewhat by exactly where they're, what is the culture of their neighborhood? How big is the environment? Is it urban? Is it suburban? Is it, right? There could be differences between maybe my passion is helping older adults extend their active life, right?

People who aren't ready to hang it up yet, but society is telling you maybe you could. Maybe my passion is helping middle aged athletes stay with the thing they love, continue to be a competitive bike rider or whatever, right? And so even though, yes, I also have a clinical Pilates studio, I actually have a little different story I tell.

I have a little different target audience, right? I just want to say that so when I hear you say, here's what works for us. And you're absolutely right on in terms of how you're associating what works for you. And it's certainly something to think about for everybody else. Somebody else may say, wow, you know what, actually not.

And then particularly, like when you said Facebook, right? Social media marketing works for some things and not others, but the reason it does or doesn't is because who are your customers and where are they, right? And again, I work with so many people, like, well, you know, I went through a thing and they said it, you have a small business, you need to be on Instagram.

And, yeah, you do, if your target customer, if the person is always getting info from Instagram. If you have a business and your target audience is 25 years old or younger, you need to be on TikTok. If you're not, you're missing most of your audience, you're not getting information to them, right?

Again, you just need to think about who and where and why for. Really my business and I can certainly get lots of other ideas and again in my acupuncture world. I It's why it didn't work when they just had a successful acupuncturist come in to tell them what they did Because it still can be a unique Sense of what's my passion?

What's my value? What's my story? And that's What has to happen and again to that I hear part of your story. Yes, it's You know, pain free, it's da, but it's pain free coming from an environment that's a welcoming community. So one reason it works, partly, part of the story is, I haven't been pain free because it means I gotta go to the whatever doctor.

And man, I hate doing that. It's a bad situation, right? You gotta wait, and then when you wait, and then, and they don't really listen to me. I come and see you and it's just a different experience, right? So it's, yeah, so it's bigger than clinical Pilates. It's bigger than clinical Pilates and I can resolve your chronic back pain, right?

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CRAIG: so that's the thing. You gotta peel back the layers of really what is this whole story because all of that may change a little bit the contours. Of, who you're, trying to get and pitch to, so you're connecting with your customers. Which is then what makes running a business a really wonderful thing.

Everything becomes easier if you know what you're doing in that

DAVID: Craig, we've been discussing some really valuable things and we're running out of time now for this recording session. But. I'd like you hopefully to, to be able to come back, to do another recording session at an, at another time if it suits you, because we've touched on, we've talked in depth about, attracting clientele and, many

studios though, like Pilates can are in a position where they're pretty much at capacity. They've been very successful at that. They're 95, 98 percent full. There's, 12 spots available per week out of two, 250 spots on the, on a schedule. And the real challenge at the moment for a lot of those is attracting those people that you mentioned earlier, the passionate.

Instructor who wants to be in that environment. So I think there's a lot that we can still discuss on this same sort of theme, what's happening in the marketplace, because the marketplace, there's a lot of instructors being into those bigger organizations, those big franchises. And how do we thrive in a marketplace, also with our recruitment of those enthusiastic, passionate instructors who are going to be passionate about what we do, and, perhaps who've come into the marketplace.

So I'd like to discuss that in detail. Unfortunately, we've run out of time at the moment. What we've discussed has been terrifically valuable, I think, for our, both of our audiences, there, any wellness business, but in particular clinical Pilates studios that we're talking about here.

But, firstly, I'd like to really thank you, Craig, because the stories that you've told, that's been spot on, the differentiation language is important. When we're talking about things, we need to talk about things correctly. We need to get the right concepts, because otherwise, if you just Two degrees off, you'll end up in Venezuela rather than in, in Rome.

And, and if we want to go to Rome, we want to go the right way. So thank you, Craig. got some other things you'd like to finish off with? Or is that about it for today?

CRAIG: I think we covered a lot of ground. I would be delighted to join you again. And, yes, there's obviously lots more to cover to make a business truly successful, but I enjoyed it.

DAVID: Thank you very much, Craig. I really appreciate you coming on the show and getting this content out to important people out there, audience, and look forward to another recording session like this so we can build a whole series on this, unique selling proposition, and just what we do, because it's really morphed, I think, from that David and Goliath show that, It gets people excited, in the industry at the moment.

That's one of the dynamics and that might have gotten people to listen to begin with, but as we've pointed out, as you've so rightly pulled the conversation towards the unique value proposition, I should say, again, language important, unique value proposition. So thank you very much, Craig.

CRAIG: Great. Thank you, David.

DAVID: That wraps up our David and Goliath series, and if you've stuck with you know the real giants aren't just the franchises, it's the noise confusion. And forgetting what truly sets you apart, we've mapped out your unique value. Shown real world examples, uncovered the power of Google reviews and their accessibility, and today got tactical with local marketing

that actually works. Now it's your move. Download David's competitive edge checklist. It's the distilled essence of this series. Practical, proven, and built for clinical Pilates studios ready to thrive. Get it free at pilatesbusiness.com.au/davids-competitive-edge and while you're at it, make sure to follow the show so you can be aware of the next strategic edge. If that was, too long, a web URL, just go ahead into pilatesbusiness.com.au. That's easier, and you'll find the episode there in amongst a lot of other very valuable episodes that you might like to explore as well. Until the next series, the next episode, stay awesome.

OUTRO: You have been listening to the Pilates business podcast with David Gunther. If you are enjoying the show, let us know by subscribing and leaving a review. If you have any Pilates business questions, visit www.pilatesbusiness.com.au.