October 3, 2018

Soggy word salad, personal trainer edition

What’s so bad about a personal trainer with the following positioning statement?

“I enjoy helping clients reach their health and fitness goals”

Sounds nice enough, right? Yes, but... it’s still soggy word salad.

I’ll break it down for you:

“I enjoy” <- A client’s primary concern is what you can do for them, not what you enjoy doing.
"helping clients" <- The word "clients" here might as well be "people", which is like saying "anybody". It’s vague and probably won’t connect strongly with any individual. It is highly unlikely to trigger word of mouth. And it projects desperation - i.e., "I’ll work with anyone! Please call! I need more clients!"
"reach their health and fitness goal" <- It strikes me as patently obvious that a personal trainer would help clients reach their health and goals. Isn’t that the whole point of being a personal trainer?

To summarize, the positioning statement "I enjoy helping clients reach their health and fitness goals" could have been rewritten more concisely as, "I’m a personal trainer." It’s me-focused, not you-focused.

But worst of all, it doesn’t answer the questions:

Who is it for?
What pain does it solve?
What promise are you making?

Can you answer those questions with your positioning statement for a given product or service? If you can’t, it’s going to be virtually impossible to price your offering profitably.

Yours,

—J