The long Con

sting2Hey Bedros Keuilian here…

I’m way up at the most north west point of the country relaxing with the fam.

My buddy Josh Carter crafted this guest blog post for you – and it’s killer – so I decided to come out of my hibernation just for a moment to gut this up for you.

Enjoy 🙂

You are a con man, grifter, hustler.

You may not be aware of it, but you are.  And if you are a smart con man you are running the “long con”.

But first a little history lesson on where the term “con man” came from and what a “con man” actually is.

The term “con man” is actually short for “confidence man”.  The first recorded usage of said term was in 1849 during the trial of William Thompson.  It seems Willie boy was on trial for stealing watches.  Thompson apparently would talk to complete strangers and chat with them until he asked them if they had enough confidence in him to let him to borrow their watch.  When they gave it to him he would just walk away.

Free watches for Willie.  Until he got caught that is.

Now while Mr. watch thief might have been an early con man, his con game execution was flawed.  You see the best cons leave the mark (or victim) clueless that they have even been conned.  That means the con man could return again and again to the same mark and run a different game.

That’s not you in the strictness sense of course, but I’ll draw the parallels in a moment.

There are 2 basic cons, the short con and the long con.  In the short con the con man gets his prize almost immediately, like William Thompson and his watches.

The long con requires more skill and more patience, but has a higher payout.

conman2

One of the coolest movies about the long con was the 1973 film The Sting.  Set in 1936, two con men played by Robert Redford and Paul Newman set out to con a mob boss as revenge for the death of a fellow con man.  The trap they set is complicated and intricate, and has plenty of twists and turns.  And it is rumored to have been based on actual events. In any case you should see it as the film kicks ass but it is a great example of the long con.

Now how are you in any way like these thieving professional liars? Well hopefully you are not, at least not too much.

But there is one attribute, and some would say the most important attribute that you share with the fabled con man- and that is the ability to influence others by giving them your confidence.

So while a true con man will seek to ultimately defraud a mark, you seek to inform, persuade and instruct a client.  Similar, but different.

Also like the con man you should know the value of the long con.

For a con man the long con can require months of preparation and the enlistment of dozens of fellow hustlers.  For you, all you need is a consistent newsletter.

It is simple really.  By sending out regular email newsletters with quality content and solid usable information potential clients are slowly gaining confidence in you.

Slowly, and that is just fine.

When it comes time that they are ready to make their fitness purchase it is you they will think of.  It is front of mind awareness.

The email newsletter will not help you with an (short con) instant sale (although it certainly has a few times for me.) But I cannot tell you how many times people have called me and said they had been reading my newsletters for a long time and finally decided to do something about their health and now wanted to sign up.  And like the best cons, the marks potential clients are unaware that you are secretly selling to them, so you can continue to sell to them over and over.

conman3(Again, nothing dishonest of course, just solid fitness content.)

There are many ways to go about getting a newsletter up and running of course, like Aweber or Constant Contact, but to me there is only one true solution for any trainer and that is FitPro Newsletter.  Even if you never touch it Fit Pro goes out twice a month like clockwork keeping you and your message in your client’s inboxes and in their minds.

The articles are written for you in direct response style to get your clients to wanting to contact you.  And if you know anything abut Bedros, you know that he knows how to get clients to want to do business with you.

It’s also highly customizable for those who want to tweak the articles or how the newsletter looks (like technical types like me).

For me, all I have to do is sell ½ of a client for a single month to pay for the whole year of Fit Pro Newsletter. Considering it is fairly unlikely I will sell ½ client then I am making money from my first sale.

Fit Pro Newsletter is really a no brainer… it’s the fastest way to build a prospect list and get in front of your clients and prospects twice a month.

Like I said in the beginning, if you are a smart con man trainer then you are running the long con.  The payoffs are huge and the effort is minimal.

Hey, Bedros here again!

Joshua Carter is not only one of the coolest dudes I know, he’s also one of my top coaching clients, and is known as the body transformation expert through out the greater LA area.

PS:  For help running the short con…closing the sale once the prospects are in front of you, check out Close Clients.