The section I've been reviewing in my Ducttape Marketing package describes the "Marketing Hourglass", as John Jantsch calls it. He speaks of the typical "funnel" approach to marketing, where all the potential customers in the world are funneled into your lead network and sales conversion process. John talks about taking these new customers and expanding your offering with them. In essence, your best chance for new business is with your existing customers. They already trust you, they know you've done well with them in the past and they are much more willing to "convert" to new products or services than a non-customer.

Its a great concept and certainly makes sense to me. How does that work in our Athletic Nation gym? Our offerings at the gym are fairly simple - the program can be modified, certainly, but it isn't as if we've got Taibo, Spinning Classes, Step aerobics that we can sign up our monthly pay customers for as extra payment like a big box gym. We also can't convert our monthly pay customers to add personal training, since all we do is personal training. Hey, that's right, we aren't a big box, that's what makes us unique.

Its obvious to me that our strategy is not to really "upsell" our current customers. We want to continue to ensure they have an excellent and valuable experience with us, that we overdeliver on our promises to them. We want continuity and long-term relationships, not necessarily new sales from existing customers. Sure, we've got some protein powder, shirts and hats we can sell, but those are definitely not a big part of our sales projections. We don't push them on people, either.

I really am enjoying the Ducttape Marketing stuff. The next series of topics is in regards to marketing materials and how to make them effective. Looking forward to the long drive home tomorrow just to get a good listen in!

75, sunny and extremely beautiful in Kiawah Island today. 6 inches of snow in Wisconsin. Hmm, why did I move to the South?