My thoughts on Joe Wicks: The Body Coach
You may have come across Joe Wicks over the last few months. If you have, you’re not alone. Joe shot to fame last year with his 90 Day ‘Shift, shape and sustain’ diet and exercise programme. You might know him from his #leanin15 videos. I’ve been aware of Joe for quite a while now. Previous to Blue Cliff Media, I ran a health and wellbeing company and so I’ve always been big into the fitness industry. Joe has given the industry a much needed shake-up. Having a strong interest in both fitness and marketing, I wanted to share my thoughts on him, his business and his plan.
The plan
Joe sells his 90 Day SSS plan for ￡147 (￡49 per month for 3 months). I’ve been able to have a look at his plan and to be honest, there’s nothing in there that’s groundbreaking. But this is why it works. The fitness industry is filled with personal trainers and nutritionists, trying to make a fast buck by selling faddy “Get ripped in 6 weeks” programmes. You then look at their social media pages and they’re covered in pictures of them eating chicken and rice. Joe’s plan, however, is all about making little, long-lasting changes to your lifestyle. Which is the way any fat loss programme should be done. There’s no need for ‘no carbs’ or ‘juice diets’. Don’t get me wrong, there are lots of people in the industry offering fat loss programmes like Joe’s. What he’s selling isn’t anything special. But it’s how he’s marketed it that has given him the success. There’s three things I think he’s done really well:
Simple, easy plan
As I mentioned above, the plan isn’t the best in terms of personalisation to the client etc. but that doesn’t matter. Joe’s taken a solution to a problem many people have and has created a simple and easy plan that anyone, anywhere in the world can follow. For ￡147, it’s also much cheaper than most of the market. There’s no nonsense around it. You know exactly what you’re getting, for what price and you can decide whether you want to make the purchase or not. He only sells that one plan and nothing else. The consumer doesn’t need to make a choice on what they want, thus, making it easier for them.
Consistency
This is something I’ve spoken about a lot recently. To most people, it seems as though Joe has come out of nowhere with his #leanin15 videos. Almost like an overnight success. In fact, this isn’t the case. If you go onto The Body Coach’s Facebook page, you’ll see he’s been there, posting consistently since 2011! His first ever post only got 5 likes. You look at some of his posts in 2013: 0 likes. But guess what, he kept on posting. It wasn’t really until 2014 that he started to get any real engagement on his posts. So he may look like an overnight success, but in fact, he’s been working consistently for years!
Fun
Lastly, Joe has taken what I feel is quite a boring, monotonous fitness industry and brought some fun and spark into it! His content is all good fun and entertaining to watch. He’s got a great personality and brand and that definitely attracts people in to him. A lot of the industry like to post pictures of their abs and guns, but how does a 50 year old woman, wanting to lose a bit of fat relate to that? She doesn’t. But I bet she can relate to the content Joe posts.
The industry
The industry hasn’t reacted very well to Joe’s plans, for obvious reasons. Perhaps it’s jealousy? I don’t feel sorry for them though. Joe’s consistency and hard work is admirable and the fact that he’s simply been more innovative than his competitors isn’t a reason for the industry to #hate on him. The sooner personal trainers realise that marketing isn’t about showing off their summer 6 pack and that it’s all about relating to people, the better.
Joe’s done that. He’s done it over a long period of time. He’s marketed it well. He’s given people a simple product that works (check his testimonials) and so he deserves all his success.
I’d love to hear from anyone who has tried Joe’s plan, or anyone in the fitness industry that agrees/disagrees with my arguments. Just drop your thoughts in the comments below!
Gavin
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Hi Gavin. Brilliant post which express my thought exactly. His success, in my opinion, is due to the fact he is approachable, entertaining and probably the first "health & fitness" practitioner that shows people that carbs are not the devil and that you can eat pasta and rice too! Yes pasta and rice, not just Quinoa and sweet potato :-) Indeed the first health coach with an actually healthy approach to food and fitness.
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9 年Great post! I'm currently half way through cycle one and really enjoying it, it's a lot of prep but without the great marketing behind Joe Wicks' plan this kind of diet/lifestyle change is something that I would never have even thought I would purchase.
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9 年Health and fitness have always been very straight forward. It is us humans that have complicated it in the pursuit of commercial gain. Balanced diet with decent amount of exercise. Job done.
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9 年Great post Gavin Bell
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9 年Hi Gavin, good post. I am 90 day SSS graduate and I have to say it was brilliant. It really changed the way I am eating now. Most fad diets 5:2, Slimfast etc. tell you to not eat food whereas Joe's plan I have never eaten so much food (and I am a big eater). It is just about eating the correct food groups. On his marketing, it is great. I read recently that he last year he made ￡12 million profit without spending any money on marketing - just doing his own posting on social media, etc. I think the Tipping Point for him was when he started posting on Instagram showing how easy it is to make the food and people's transformations. There are always going to be haters but I can vouch this his plan is good and most importantly it works.