How to do marketing while not doing any marketing
How a mind-shift may be all you need
In “Come to the edge with the Jedi” we met Tony Doyle of UK Bike Skills and got a little insight into why he’s known as the Jedi in the mountain biking (MTB) world. Here we look at what you can learn about marketing your adventure business. If some of it sounds a bit woo-woo to you, then you may be precisely the sort of person who can learn lessons from the Jedi and add to the way you earn a living from adventure!
Key takeaways:
Before you start your business and commit fully to it, what sort of a following do you have? Can you build a tribe (like Tony did) before you hit day 1 of the business?
When promoting your adventure business, don’t always overthink how to be successful. Know when to be in the flow. Enjoy it. Let the success happen. Much like mountain biking, really!
It’s often not a question of decision A vs decision B. Adventure OR Marketing. Sometimes a shift in perspective can remove the energy-sapping choice. Turn an OR into an AND.
How to do marketing while not doing any marketing
Professional marketers and sales people should put their hard hats on before reading the next few quotes from Tony:
“I believe your path in life will lead to me if it is going to, regardless of what I do”
“I’ve never paid for advertising in my life”
“I don’t keep lists of clients”
But Tony does do lots of things that marketers would recognise – and many adventure businesses struggle with. He writes a regular blog. He’s always taking photos and videos and sharing them. And they are very shareable, whether it’s people having fun while learning with him or a demonstration of his outrageous technical skills. (We don’t really want you to stop reading this, but do go and check out his Tiktok link at the end of this post to see what he can do.) While his talents may be amazing, the visual record of his customers (or should that be Jedi younglings?) enjoying themselves and demonstrably gaining new skills are a great testimonial and doubtless help drive their friends to also sign up for his courses.
Tony may have done it because it felt right for him and was a way of rounding off a day and being “like doctor’s notes – a record I can come back to in the future”. But it’s also all the good marketing things covered in the last paragraph. And is another example of letting the energy flow and finding success, even without thinking about it consciously.
This “not-marketing marketing” started before Tony even considered coaching to earn a living. Back in the day when he was just an enthusiastic mountain biker he posted so much on the SingletrackWorld forum that he became one of their top posters. He was already engaging massively with people who loved MTB. When he did start up UK Bike Skills, the marketing folk there ran up a banner advert for him in thanks.
There’s a similar story about the field where UK Bike Skills coaching takes place. It was originally rented by Tony and some friends just for their own pleasure. They set about building the raised timber North Shore structures you’ll see in his videos. They added in progressive features to help learn new skills and build confidence. They started a club for friends. Again, none of this was done with “creating a business asset” or “marketing” in mind. But it was both these things. (And while today the business rents the field, the club is still there and going strong.)
Here's the nub of it. When we talk to some adventure businesses they find the whole marketing thing difficult. To listen, it feels like sharing exciting photos and updates is a real drudge. The sort of feeling many of us have when faced with doing a tax or VAT return. There is always work to be done that they prefer to do. Like preparing for the next day’s activities. So it comes higher up the to do list and the marketing never gets done.
But what if instead of Adventure OR Marketing, it felt like Adventure AND Marketing? We suspect that’s what’s going on with Tony. As he says:
“My phone is always on. I like to help straight away if I can.”
Maybe he’s such a natural at communicating and looking after people that what we call marketing just happens and lets him believe that he doesn’t do any! And maybe if you struggle to get excited about marketing type activities would it help if you could stop feeling like they are similar to tax-return-like burdensome tasks and start seeing them as way of helping people and sharing the adventure?
In summary, all this non-marketing is why Tony wasn’t short of customers from day 1 and now gets him to where around 500 people a year come to him for coaching.
Related links:
Come to the edge with the Jedi - Introducing UK Bike Skills' Tony Doyle
Follow Tony Doyle and UK Bike Skills on: