The Why behind the Do
When you take away the context from any industry, the actual products are pretty much the same whether they be fitness, technology, transport, or anything. The product is here nor there between competitors, so why do some go on to become staples in our lives, and others not? Why do more people choose (and remain in) Crossfit over other physical activities in order to get fit?
Ben Bergeron (Head Coach at Crossfit New England): ‘CrossFit has a stickiness to it, an addictiveness. It becomes part of people’s lives and changes who they are from the inside out. Just about everyone wants to get fitter and look and feel better.’
Every organisation knows what they do and how they do it. However, when you think of some of the most successful organisations in the world, they understand WHY they do it.
By thinking about this logically it changes the way the public perceive and relate to companies. Telling someone what you do and then how you do it is fairly uninspiring. For example, a lot of technology companies tell you they make great phones, they tell you all of the features and then ask you to buy. Boring right?
On the other hand, Apple tell you why they do what they do. For example, they believe in innovation and challenging design/technology boundaries, they then tell you how they do this, by making well designed, easy to use, beautiful products. The actual phones are simply a by-product of everything that comes before it and they believe in.
People Tend to Buy WHY you do, not WHAT you do.
So how does this relate to Crossfit? Simple, think about the other fitness programmes out there, they tell you all of the benefits of their product and ask if you want them, i.e. lose weight, tone up, get stronger. They then tell you this is done by their method (For the record I feel any exercise is better than none) and then put a price proposition in front of you “Only £15 a month”. People see it, perhaps buy into it, but have no real connection to it so have no problem in becoming unattached and falling out of the programme.
Crossfit on the other hand goes about this differently. They believe in challenging traditional perceptions in the fitness industry, improving the quality of health, pushing for change in nutrition (think Coke) and providing a healthier, better quality of LIFE (think playing with your grandkids).
They have a cause, a belief, not just an aesthetic goal. They then let you know this is done by following functional movement, varied at intensity. The by-product is becoming fitter, becoming stronger, looking better and feeling great.
Ask any games athlete, they will tell you they look the way they do as a result of their training. They are not as fit as they are because of how they are trying to look.
Because of this people build a relationship with Crossfit, they fall in love with the process and not just the results. This means they understand WHY, and hang around for the ride.
The post Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride: Why Crossfitters Stick Around appeared first on BOXROX.