Sports Therapy Business Plan

Cyclist Repair Center intends to leverage their competitive edge of cycling specific services. This should be effective because of its location in Boulder, a true cycling town. Cyclist Repair Center’s marketing strategy will seek to develop an awareness of the cycling specific services offered to both competitive and recreational cyclists. The sales strategy has been designed to convert clients of one service into recipients of multiple services provided by Cyclist Repair Center.

5.1 Milestones

Cyclist Repair Center has established several milestones for the organization as a whole as well as for departments within the organization. The milestones have been chosen as identifiable and achievable objectives. The following table provides the time frames needed to complete each milestone.

5.2 Competitive Edge

Cyclist Repair Center’s competitive edge is their specialization on one sport, cycling. No other facility in Boulder serves only cyclists, all are general sports clinics. This is of significant value to Cyclist Repair Center’s clients. All of Cyclist Repair Center’s staff are cycling enthusiasts. This is quite important because it provides each service provider with a unique and instrumental cycling perspective. This is valuable to the clients because it provides insight to the providers of the problems the clients may be facing. Additionally, as cycling enthusiasts, the staff’s excitement regarding cycling is contagious and apparent.

Having a cycling specific service also allows Cyclist Repair Center to offer more specific training and therapy, including the use of a specialized array of cycling specific equipment. One example of this is the use of the CompuTrainer. While some facilities may have a CompuTrainer, Cyclist Repair Center has three and uses them extensively. A CompuTrainer is a type of cycling trainer where the client mounts their own bicycle to the unit and the CompuTrainer allows the person to ride indoors. What makes the CompuTrainer especially useful is the ability to set it to test physiological functions such as aerobic threshold, lactate threshold, etc., on pre-established, consistent courses. In addition to these functions the CompuTrainer has the ability to measure wattage as well as analyzing the pedal spin cycle.

5.3 Marketing Strategy

Cyclist Repair Center’s marketing strategy has been designed to increase the awareness of Cyclist Repair Center’s cycling specific services amongst the Boulder community. Several different efforts will be undertaken to generate brand awareness.

• Sponsorship– This effort takes several forms.
• The first form of sponsorship is for local tours and races. This will be quite helpful in developing visibility for the organization to a very specific and targeted crowd.
• Sponsorship will also take the form of specific athletes. Chosen athletes will receive free services from Cyclist Repair Center. In return for the sponsorship, Cyclist Repair Center gets visibility on the athlete’s uniform and the athlete is asked to talk up the positive benefits that he/she has received.
• Advertisements– The advertisements will also take several forms.
• The most broad is an advertisement in the Yellow Pages. The Yellow Pages are an indispensible resource for individuals who are looking for service providers.
• Advertisements will also be placed in several cycling specific and local Boulder journals. These advertisements will again be targeted toward the cycling community.

5.4 Sales Strategy

The sales strategy will be piggybacked on the marketing strategy. The marketing strategy will be used to generate visibility for the organization while the sales strategy will be used to generate increased sales. The most significant way (relative to increased revenue) is to convert current clients who are using only one service from Cyclist Repair Center to using multiple services. This may take the form of a client who came in for sports massage services who then becomes a user of the training services. This will be done through “upselling” by the various service providers as well as written information dissemination. Economic incentives in the form of discounts will be used to convert current single service clients into multi service users.

5.4.1 Sales Forecast

Cyclist Repair Center has developed a conservative sales forecast as a means of increasing the likelihood of achieving the sales goals. This also will assist Cyclist Repair Center in its relationship with investors who will want the sales goals to be met. If the sales forecast was too aggressive then the investors are likely to be disappointed. Sales will grow incrementally. As a start-up organization, it is anticipated that the first year will be relatively slow as the organization develops awareness and brand equity. Year one to two sales are expected to have the largest increase with the growth rate decreasing a bit from year two to year three.