What do brands that are “winning” all have in common?

What do brands that are “winning” all have in common?

Brands such as Google, Apple, Amazon, and Netflix. If only we also had the secret ingredients these brands have in the health and fitness industry!

I count myself extremely lucky to have been involved with some fast-growing brands in our industry as both supplier and operator, even more lucky that my roles always centred on CX and strategy.?I have been party to more than my fair share of “which channel?” discussions.?Now I would like to save you the time and pain of having to go through what I have.

One thing that Covid should have inspired in us all is innovation and thus better solutions for growing our businesses. So let me share my rules for innovation before we talk channels.

1.??????Innovation comes from the bottom up in a company.

The opposite of a good idea is not always a bad idea.?If you’re not creating an environment where its ok to be wrong, you will lose your best ideas (and people) for fear of making mistakes. As jeff Bezos says “if the size of your failures isn’t growing, you’re not going to be inventing at a size that can actually move the needle”

2.??????Strategy and culture come from the top down.

The best leaders I have worked alongside always seemed to do very little, these were not the ones who thought leading means they must be in the office before everyone else and leave after everyone else. These are the ones who wanted to know what they could do for their teams, always gave freedom to their teams to grow, and delivered it all based on a strong clear “brand promise”.

Let’s be obvious about the brand promise, its not only what you do and for who, it’s what separates you from the others, its often the cause your team gets inspired by.?Do you have a clear brand promise that inspires customers and staff alike and separates your brand from others?

Fig 1. Follow the rules of Innovation to avoid Discontinuity

3.??????Your best innovators are your customers. (Your staff are also customers)

There is one person who has the power to get rid of anyone in your business and that’s your customer.?I’m more obsessed with customer feedback than most because I would not make strategic decisions without it. When your customer is involved in building the product that they use, you begin to get into the realms of unconditional loyalty, that’s worth a huge amount of marketing dollar on its own.?

The reason we worked with Virtuagym to create our app at Xercise4Less was because the app could be moulded by us and our members alike.?The members loved the ability to join groups with the same goals and share their own meal plans and workouts. ?A 4.8 rating in the app store was evidence of this and all I had to point to when our CEO would complain about the app. At the time most gyms app could only book classes and like our original one provides no data and have no reflection on the organisations brand or CX.

4.??????A business does not have a culture – it is a culture.

The culture decides on the level/consistency of CX that will be delivered.?A set of shared values, goals, attitudes, and practices.?It’s the way people feel about their work, your work and what it says to others about them and you.?If your values and culture are not reflected in your CX today’s consumer will not put up with you. Today honesty and transparency are paramount.

What about the secrets of “winning” brands though?

What channels do we need? Are we going hybrid? Are we posting on insta or tik tok?

If you truly work with the four rules for innovation, you will be aware the only channel for success is monochannel, and that’s the customer!?That’s right once you and your colleagues are clear on your brand promise and standards you will know that its not possible to have different silos of your product without then creating different CX for each silo.?

To be clear if our online CX does not reflect our in club CX we now have two different businesses that do nothing to help each other’s CX. We need to be delivering the same brand promise, standards, and values whenever and wherever we have a touch point with our members (although I do prefer to think of them as guests).

Our industry operates upon the foundations of delivering high value monochannel experiences and that foundation that unlike many other industries is baked into ours is membership and data. If the data from each touchpoint is not improving future touchpoints across the business, then we will not be operating in a monochannel business.?If your membership model is not delivering personalised experiences based on delivering positive emotions throughout your CX you need to look at your data again. We have a fantastic base to be delivering new visions of what our industry can be, through CX and innovation.

Trying to be everywhere, everything and for everybody is not a good idea! Use your data to establish who loves what you do and how you make them feel whether they are taking an online class, running on your treadmills, or doing the latest Les Mills class.

This is how the work we are doing today ensure we are winning tomorrow.