#Filex2014 Wrap: Michael Port my Fave at The Business Summit
An extremely strong line up of business centric speakers for the 2014 Business Summit was on again. This year Nigel Champion, the Managing Director of Network relieved me of my duties as the MC, which enabled me to sit back and enjoy the sessions.
If you follow me on Twitter (@JTActiveMgmt) or the #Filex2014 Twitter stream, you would have seen there were some powerful insights from Michael Port, Nils Vesk, Reece Zondag and David Patchell-Evans.
My personal fave was Michael Port and here are some key points:
- Marketing creates awareness of what you do BUT what you do when they are aware of you makes the difference.
- You must build deep trust for sales to be successful
- If you don’t love talking about what you do, you will struggle to grow your business.
- A great brand either pleases people or people dislike the brand. If you are in the middle you are nowhere. Have your brand stand for something!
- Add in your reason why you do what you do (cue Simon Sinek: ‘Start With Why’) and you will attract customers.
- When your brand is clear, then the horing process is easier.
- To build credibility, you need to be likable. Here are the 4 steps to increasing your likability:
- Be friendly
- Be real and authentic
- Show empathy
- Be relevant
- Replace marketing in the dictionary with relevancy
- Stop sending general ‘stufff’ to clients and prospects. Technology allows you to be specific, which means you show relevancy to your customer! This is my current soap box and I’ll explain more at FitnessBiz Brunches over the next few months – click here to find out when FitnessBiz Brunch hits your city.
- Use price anchoring and framing to increase the yield from your customers. I was super excited to hear him discuss this generally, as we discussed it at the Industry Leaders Roundtable 8 months ago – to find out about the Industry Leaders Roundtable click here.
I was on a panel around technology with Ryan from Network, Justin from Anytime Fitness and Roxanna from The Forum. I shared some insights into wearable technology, so if you want a copy of those notes click here.
Love to know what your insights were from the #Filex2014 Business Summit?
Justin is the Managing Director of Active Management, which he began January 2004. He offers coaching to businesses worldwide in everything from start up and design to marketing and sales systems. Justin also facilitates four Australian and New Zealand ‘fitness industry roundtables’ events, which allows him to see a huge cross section of business models.
Enjoyed the Business Summit, thought the speakers were a higher quality from previous years. I enjoyed Michael Port, Nils Vesk reinforced what Luke Williams talked about at IHRSA, David Patchell-Evans was highly motivating. Michael Port was the standout, I would challenge some of his comments but most of it made a lot of sense. I didn’t agree with offloading those clients who don’t fit your niche or vision. Particularly liked his comments about brand strength and that when your brand is clear your whole hiring process changes. I also like the price anchoring as well, I feel the product we deliver is being cheapened and damaged by certain players in the market. Personally I am happier coming out of a session which has me agreeing with, and challenging, what was said. Generally if I am in agreement with everything then the content was too obvious with no real insight into how to practically apply that information.