This was a question posed to me by a salesperson of another leading brand. This person has been involved basically since day one, so is not green. He really wanted to know how we get so many people into our studios and keep them coming back. So here I will outline what it took to be a real industry, not a fad.
If you are in another country and want to know how we did it, read the below carefully and understand there are no short cuts. Every point is important if we still want to have an industry in 10 years.
(1) Serious machinery
The limitations of machinery prior to 2004 was never going to allow Vibration Training to be used to fight obesity. And no matter how well the machines are promoted for their Physio applications. The core of the industry was always going to be weightloss.
Trying to sustain growth and move forward with machines that only worked and were shaped for people who were already healthy and skinny, was always going to fail. We had to build bigger and better, and build machines that catered for everyone.
(2) Serious programs
Creating a 10 min program with no "fluff" poses allowed us to promote the "10 min workout" Which again is the cornerstone of Vibration Trainings success here in NZ. Without this it only becomes an equal alternative to the gym. We were up against a massive already existing and mature industry, that did not understand Vibration Training, and did not want to. The gyms.
We did not compromise and suck up to the gyms by "just doing stuff on the machines you normally do at the gym ( aka. acceleration training ) .
The marketable fact Vibration Training is so effective and is the complete opposite to gym work can be diminished by bad / compromised programs.
(3) Taking on the marketers who would destroy us
To explain this, all you need to do is answer one simple question. What turns a good idea into a fad ? MARKETING.
That sounds all good until you understand what fads do to valid industries. They create an artificial tipping point ( sudden explosion of interest ) around an idea or product. Marketers do this by over-selling, over-hyping and finding cheaper ways of doing their job. The aim. To make as much money as fast as possible with the least effort.
Problem with that.... ?
You artificially create a fad, the public get over it just as fast. Like that radio station playing your favorite song or band until you cant stand it anymore. Nothing wrong with the song or band, it is what someone did to them that is the problem. Vibration Training marketers will use celebrity endorsements, miss out massive chunks of the truth, and sometimes lie out-rightly to the consumer to get this job done. They do not care simply because they will move on to the next product when they are done with this one.
Note: They do not care if they completely destroy an industries true potential in the mean time. No matter how many people it could of helped if done right.
(4) Places where the average person can come and try Real Vibration Training for free.
It must be a system where no compromises have been made, or the "WOW' factor is diluted. No amount of marketing can sustain an industry if word of mouth is not the active ingredient. If any compromises have been made, the consumer will not leave with a definitive and definite impression of what Vibration Training has to offer them.
You compromise on cheap machinery. On feel good fluffy programs, or programs that do not live up to your advertising eg.. 10 min somehow means 45 mins ? And the best they are going to do is tell their friends Vibration Training is ok.
Ok is not good enough to form an industry on.
(5) Real Passion Vs Fake Passion
The list of people who were "industry leaders" and "really believed" in Vibration Training and its future, but have since moved on to something else completely different is very, very long. In fact if you look up who the CEOs of some companies were 2, 4 or 6 years ago, or even the distributors in most countries. You will find they were in reality simply jobs for these people. The passion faked for a fleeting few years all for a pay check.
That is why they found it so easy to sell out. They had no value placed on this industry to begin with.
Real passion can not be extinguished, it is relentless and people find a way of following it without compromise. Sure something like a recession can way-lay their plans, but they fight to come back. I have surrounded myself with people ( globally speaking ) who share the above vision and we will shape this industry as we have done in NZ.
Why is this all so important to the whole industry ?
Because without it there is eventually no industry, no studios, no home machine market. Nothing.
All a fad resigned to history.
Don't believe me? - think they are not connected? Well think about this. Why do people buy home gym equipment like treadmills? Because they want the results people get from the machines you see in gyms of course, but just exercise at home in private. But I will tell you one thing, without treadmills being in gyms first, not a single home machine would ever have been sold.
You HAVE to have a hardcore commercial system to have a home system to replicate. If no-one had built machines that could take hundreds of people a day, but instead built cheap knock-offs and sold them to gyms. The idea would have been sunk before it even started.
The fact is too many people were out to get their piece of the market pie, when in reality the pie had not even been made yet. We were still getting the recipe together. But in NZ we got the recipe right and we are now cooking with gas.
