29 years ago, as a Personal Trainer and health club operator, I was taught to accept that December is the worst month.  Everybody is partying, stressing, eating, drinking . . . and shopping. 

“They don’t spend money on fitness during the Holidays.” 

That’s what I was told . . . and believed.  And every club I assessed and operated showed the same revenue patterns taking a major hit around the Holidays.

Fitness business owners made peace with the December dip, as they knew January was going to be lucrative.  People would inevitably show up with the new workout clothes they unwrapped on Christmas ready with their wallets, their short-term enthusiasm, and their resolutions.

Yes, 29 years ago, I saw The Holiday Season as “survival time” for my business, amping up to make January a time to prosper.

28 years ago, something changed for me.  I had my most lucrative “season” ever . . . and guess what season it was?  Yup.  The Holiday Season, and every season since then its been my windfall season.

What changed?  Two things.

1. I learned that when an industry establishes a pattern (a paradigm), some well strategized disruption can change the game.  In other words, if everyone’s going left, I’m going right.  If everyone’s saving their ad budgets and marketing thrusts for January, I don’t want to get lost in that shuffle.  I want to do my own dance and get noticed while my competitors and other players in the field are taking a December snooze..

2. I found “The Messaging.”  I sent press releases out to every local TV and radio producer promising to do a segment that would blow people away.  “Eat More During the  Holidays and Lose Weight!”  In actuality it became a talk about metabolism, but that single hook led to media bookings, interviews, and articles nationwide, and to this day it produces.

I’ve since learned to look ahead, to anticipate, and today I have far more resources than I had 28 years ago.
 
I’ve leveraged live Webinars since they became a thing, and will continue to, but when COVID hit, everyone, and I mean everyone (even my 80+ year old Mom) started “Zooming.” 

While it allowed us to "train" clients remotely, more importantly, ZOOM gave me the ability to conduct surveys, in real time.  It gave me the power to interact with a microcosm of my ICA Universe (ICA = Ideal Client Avatar), to hear their voices, see their faces, and openly solicit their perspectives and feelings on trends, desires, and purported solutions.

Without Zoom, I don’t know that my business would have made it through COVID.  Zoom meetings helped me formulate some of my “people are afraid to leave their homes” pitches, offers, promises, and outcomes and only through these promotions was I able to go from zero paying members (we were forced to close) to regaining the numbers and adding some.

Incorporating my “polling the ICA” strategy, I do what I’ve always done.  I study trends.  I study industry spending.  I study science (I subscribe to more than 30 research journals and actually read and dissect them). 

I look for overlaps and see patterns in the weight loss industry, medicine, health clubs, fitness spending, and drugs, and I can tell you with certainty that two big players will utilize massive ad spends in media, social media, and retargeting campaigns.  Know this.  If they’re willing to spend upwards of $25 million each in advertising (in a single month), the returns have to be massive.

ARE THE BIG PLAYERS A THREAT OR AN INADVERTENT ALLY?

The two big players are Noom (weight loss program) and Wegovy (a “new” weight loss drug).  We’ll see commercials from the usuals (WW, Jenny Craig, and the age-old Slim-Fast (now owned by Glambia, a global company packaging brands under their Performance and Lifestyle lines), but if this were a horse race, my money would be on Noom.  Not because it’s good or great or effective.  Just because it’s marketed well and they’re putting immense funding behind it.

SHORT FOCUS ON NOOM

With all of their talk about support and psychology, Noom is still calorie-deprivation with little or no focus on restoring metabolic effiency. 

Here's what I can guarantee.  Most of those who find a reduction in scale weight using Noom, WW, Jenny Craig, or Slim-Fast will regain the weight and have a greater struggle with Weight Loss Resistance in the future.  That's part of the message my prospects need to hear from me (and yours from you).

That should be enough to draw comparisons between "yet another diet" and the metabolic program you're going to offer.

THE WEIGHT LOSS DRUG PROMO IS FAR MORE DAUNTING

I’ll share a bit more about weight loss drugs tomorrow, going further into some realities of drug marketing, and outcomes, but let's touch on the topic now.

When focus is moved away from diets by TV commercials that present drugs as panaceas, an explosion in the hypnotic response to "ask your doctor for Wegovy" is a certainty.  And with recognition of the raw numbers of people who will give this a try, there are so many reasons "the new drug," Wegovy, is NOT a true solution, IMO, it borders on criminal for it to be released as it will. 

The active Wegovy ingredient is semaglutide, a “glucagon like peptide,” presently sold to diabetics as Ozempic (if you watch any television at all you likely just heard the Whoa-oh-oh Ozempic song start playing in your head). 

The pharmaceutical giant behind the release is Novo Nordisk, a Danish company that holds several patents in this market segment. 

What’s wrong with the drug?  It’s hard to say in terms of totality.  We learn that when people suffer adverse reactions after the drug is released, but I can promise you, IT WILL NOT BE A LONG-TERM WEIGHT LOSS SOLUTION.

I’ve been researching this class of drug intervention for years.  I've been watching the drug companies multiply profits by finding "new markets" for existing drugs, and I predicted this drug release over a year ago.  When you get to recognize the game the drug giants play, their moves become transparent and predictable.

While, as I said, we won't know the full picture of risks until people suffer, semaglutide's potential impact upon the pancreas, and the uncomfortable links in early research to thyroid cancer would be enough to dissuade me.

The problem?  People want to believe there’s a pill, and if Novo Nordisk, their doctor, and their pharmacist can deliver the proverbial "magic pill" in injectable form, that’s enough to drive revenues.

"WHY, PHIL, ARE YOU SHARING THIS WITH ME?"

These are my weapons.  This is my preparation.  By knowing what lies around the curve, I can capitalize on it. I can do appearances, seminars, and webinars, sharing the flaws and pitfalls in the most well-funded promotions and market with the recognition that people don’t really want a drug, they want to lose weight and be healthy. 

All of my positioning in this “season” positions me as an expert with a true solution.  I encourage you to market with a similar approach.  Why?  Because it works!

I’ll share more about the realities of this new class of drugs TOMORROW, and more importantly, I'll share the strategies that continually allow me to break through weight loss resistance and reverse chronic disease in the 3 Day Challenge beginning November 1^st.

Are you registered?

REGISTER NOW FOR THE 3 DAY PROSPERITY LEAP CHALLENGE!

 
Be Strong.  Be Courageous.  Be Daring.  Be Better,

Phil Kaplan
Founder / COO Infinite Impact, a Center for Human Betterment

P.S.   Be sure you're an active Member in the Every Personal Trainer Needs to Know Facebook group (free for certified personal trainers) as news and new insights will be released in that forum

P.P.S.   I prepare my "defenses" and anticipatory warnings far in advance, by understanding the science and looking at documented history.  As I'll discuss tomorrow, the history of weight loss drugs follows a pattern going back to the 1930s, blowing up in the 1970's, explding in the 1990's, and about to be replayed.  The pattern works like this. 

Desire - Discover - Spin - Exploitation - Funding - Mass Mareting - Overdue Scrutiny - Adverse Events and Deaths - The Drug is Pulled from the  Market and a New Release is Planned

I'll discuss more on this topic tomorrow, but know that we have the ability, naturally, to do what the drug purports to do, by tapping into a natural process - Glucagon Optimization.  If you've been with me for any period of time you've heard me  talk about glucagon.  More to come tomorrow.