Sketching out the Beginning of the Buyer Behavior Process

Segment

The segment I chose were personal trainers and/or workout instructors. I spoke with two male personal trainers, one who teaches at the Southwest Recreational Center here at the University of Florida, and another one who trains at the Gainesville Health & Fitness Center. The workout instructor was a female and she teaches kickboxing and/other strength training workout classes. All three of them cater to my exact demographic, and for the most part many of them believed there is some merit in establishing some active self-defense workshop in their designated work places.

Interview Summaries:

Interview #1: The first interview was with a UF personal trainer. He has on more than one occasion trained college females, but something he has noticed was their discomfort around him. It seemed as if they had an imminent fear with working with him and he never understood it. It wasn’t until later that he found out most of the female clients felt uncomfortable working with him because he was a guy and they didn’t know if they would need to defend themselves. It would take a couple of training sessions for them to warm up to him, but upon hearing their stories and fears he understood why they felt that way. He thought it was a shame that guys like him would do that to other females, and he agreed that having some sort of self-defensive workshop might help the females but it doesn’t solve the overall problem.

Interview #2: The second interview was surprisingly a bit different, even though the personal trainer from Gainesville Health & Fitness center was male as well, he did not seem to have the same issues the UF trainer had. Many of his clients were a good mash-up of men and women between the ages of 25-45. He did not realize this unmet need for security and self-defense was needed until he spoke with one recently graduated UF student. But now that he’s more educated on the matter, he thinks having some sort self-defense workshop wouldn’t be a bad idea. He mentioned that it might be difficult to make a business out of it, since the police department sponsors a lot of these similar types of programs for free.

Interview #3: My last interviewee seemed the most aware of this problem. She is a workout instructor for a lot of strength training classes at the UF recreational centers, and her current position sparked interest in her because she has experienced this imminent fear and sense of vulnerability herself. She’s actually the ideal poster child for the mission of my business venture. She’s still in university but upon graduation she wants to continue teaching kickboxing and her other classes because she believes it can be incredibly empowering. She has friends and family who have fallen victim of violent crimes because they were defenseless, therefore she’s on a mission to change that narrative. She thinks the self-defense workshops might have some difficulty building clientele, but she believes it can be possible with the proper marketing and business plan layout.

What I learned?

I learned that this issue is way more common than I thought. The opportunity is there and people who fall into this market believe it to be true too. The only thing that seems to be a struggle is the operating competitors in the established market. Similar programs already exist and many of them are free. The barriers of entry will make it difficult to establish a role as a viable competitor.

Description of Segment

For the most part, I think the awareness for the need was there. Some were more aware than others, I think it has a lot to do with the demographic they’re constantly being exposed to in addition to their environment. As for their ability to search information, their experiences and data is mainly reported through observation. There is a bit of AN availability/representative heuristics issue where they may generalize based on the clients they tend to see.