Podcasts – a great method of fitness marketing
If you are in the fitness industry and want an easy and inexpensive way to promote your business then you should think about using podcasts. This is a marketing method that works whether you are a personal trainer, a gym club owner or another form of fitness professional.
Podcasts are a method of having a live conversation on the Internet (with a group of people that you invite). You can think of it as a form of Internet radio, as the principles are the same. Besides having a conversation with prospect and clients, you can also record the podcast and then upload it to your website so that other people can listen and download it at a later date (for free or as part of a paid product).
This can then be used as a promotion to get people to sign up to your mailing list, or simply to promote yourself and your services. It can be used in a number of different ways and will be seen as very valuable by your prospects.
The key to having a great podcast is to have a range of interesting subjects to discuss. You can create a question and answer session or you can simply give out training tips that you think are most relevant. Of course you can organize a series of podcasts if you wish, and cover a wide range of subjects over the course of a few weeks.
Question and answer sessions work very well as you can relate to specific issues of fitness and training that people want to know more about. For example, you can discuss how to structure a workout while you are on holiday and not able to attend the gym. You can generate a wide range of subjects that can be covered in a 45-minute session.
Another simple method of ensuring that you talk about the most relevant issues is to have your readers send in questions that you will answer live on the podcast. You can ask your readers to call you and have a conversation (tell them to bring a question to the call). This makes it much more interactive and will help people to get a lot more value from the podcast. This will give them more incentive to check out your other content and see what services you have to offer.
Always remember to give away valuable content that people can put into action right away. This is the key to having a popular podcast and it will increase your website traffic, signup rate and ultimately your sales.
Podcasting is something that most other fitness professionals overlook or don’t use. This gives you an immediate advantage that you can put into practice and will set you apart from the other personal trainers in your local area.
This will also give you the perspective of being an authority on the subject. This is very important, as people are more likely to trust and look to you when they need a personal trainer.
How-to Get Your Clients to PAY YOU to Send Their Referrals
By now I think we’ve all heard of the plastic gift card but just in case you haven’t let me first briefly explain what they are and how they’ve been used.
There are a number of manufacturer’s online that can produce a plastic gift card for you that looks and feels like something you would buy at any local chain store. Many savvy fitness pros may first have heard about this from guys like Steve Hochman and Bedros Keuilian. Using a high value amount like $100 having these cards made in the image of your business has proven to be a sound awareness and lead generation tool. The key is to give plenty away through any channel you can. Lead boxes, silent auctions, gift bags at events, in addition to your business cards, with partner businesses as a way to appreciate their customers with a thank you gift and so on. We’ve even seen our cards become a traded commodity in classifieds and on Facebook, talk about free awareness and branding!
While attending a mastermind weekend an idea was born on how to take this whole plastic card marketing tool a whole lot further. A method that not only practically guaranteed redemption but also allows you to generate revenue from them directly. Let’s have your clients refer their friends and family and pay you to do it!
Let’s face it our services are expensive, no matter how good you are you are going to face the resistance of price at times and even if you don’t we can both surely agree that everyone likes an opportunity to save money and get a deal.
When you sign up a new client I’d suggest the following strategy. Immediately give them a thank you card with your gift card inside, explain how it’s used. Next explain that today they can buy one additional card for a nominal amount and if it’s redeemed in the next 30 days in addition to the person they refer they will also receive the full amount of the gift card credited against their account. In addition explain if they meet this in the next 30 days you will add them to your VIP referral list meaning they can continue to buy cards at a nominal rate for anyone they wish to refer and basically get their own training free!
You’ve now incentivized a whole new sales team for pennies compared to traditional marketing channels. By simply paying even a few dollars for the gift card it’s almost guaranteed to be redeemed because we’re all pre-programmed to try to avoid wasting money. Additionally if I can get my own training for free I’m first wondering what the catch is, yet buy buying the card you eliminate this natural defense mechanism because I have now made an active decision to invest in an opportunity to earn my own training for free.
Now this may not appeal to everyone but it absolutely can predictably and repeatedly generate a few more quality referrals each month and that is the whole name of the game. Eliminate the need for a crystal ball with multiple predictable strategies that make reaching your business goals simply a product of execution.
Managing Cash Flow a Key Element to Success
When I first started in the fitness industry there was no marketing tools, business gurus, or any of the exciting business building methods and ideas that we seem to have at our disposal today. (Or if there were I was clearly clueless as to where to find them or how to use them.)
Now it seems there are many experts; or people like myself, who have learned a few of the pieces of the big puzzle leading to dramatic growth in a short period of time. One of the gaps I still see, even with the many coaches and mentors I have and still work with, is attention to the actual indicators of performance of your business. Often called Key Performance Indicators or KPIs it’s my opinion that every single person self-employed or on their way to building an empire must know their KPIs; what they mean, how to track them, and to be comfortable to review them often.
In our business we track a few different KPIs ranging from: session completion volumes, EFT growth/decline, prospect and conversion tracking, and cash flow to name a few.
Today I want to talk about cash flow. Cash flow for some reason had always been the most difficult for me to wrap my head around. For me it has taken many forms, a budget, an income statement, an expense sheet and so on. I bet a few of you can relate. Cash flow planning is as much about the past as it is about the future and it’s critically important to the long-term health and success of your business.
When it comes to cash flow planning I consider four primary variables:
1) Revenue Sources – Depending on the products and services you offer you may have multiple sources of revenue. Within our studio we only have two currently: services and merchandise. (Don’t confuse yourself by thinking that each service you may offer is a different revenue stream. For the purpose of a KPI you want to simplify and minimize the amount of additional information to be able to look at the raw performance.)
2) Fixed Costs – Your fixed costs are all the obvious things like a lease, utilities, and consistent monthly expenses. They are an expense whether you do business or not and they don’t fluctuate greatly based on the volume of business that you do. At first it may seem confusing but things like front desk employees and even class instructors are fixed expenses if their wage isn’t fluctuating by the number of customers. (ex. Instructor costs the same if there is 1 participant or 20 and you have a consistent class schedule.)
3) Variable Costs – The only real cost I consider to be a variable cost is the wage/session paid to my trainers. Because the revenue they generate versus the wage they earn is completely dependent upon how many sessions of service they provide this cost may fluctuate significantly.
4) Service/session Volume – The final consideration for my cash flow plan is another of our KPIs, total session volume. Total session volume helps me understand the average costs associated with the sessions my trainers complete. This also helps with predicting future volumes and the training costs associated with those volumes.
Now if you’ve been in business for a while you can take your historical data and chart it out to see how your business is performing. By taking your total revenue and subtracting your variable costs you will know your gross margin or roughly the amount of income you hope to earn from each service package.
You can take the total amount of all of your fixed costs and divide it by the gross margin/service package to find out your break even point or how many service packages you will need to sell to cover your expenses. Anything extra of course is actual income.
The best part is it can even begin to serve as a crystal ball, as you track month by month you will see patterns both in your usage and revenues, which you can than make plans and assumptions for the months and years that come (based on more than just what your gut is telling you.) For example,perhaps it makes sense to purchase new items for your business in the fall where it seems the revenue and usage trends are consistently higher. Upon reviewing your monthly profits from the year previous you may discern that it may make more sense to spend a little more money some months on promotion to either attract even more clients or improve client attraction in a down time. Either way now by using math for the sake of comparison you are limiting the amount of emotional decision making from the future planning of your business. There are many, many more ways cash flow planning can both help you evaluate your current performance and predict the future, I hope this has given you a few ideas.
Personal trainer marketing
If you are a personal trainer and want to improve your income, client base or lead generation acquisition, then you need to work on your marketing. Besides training personal clients, your marketing is the most important aspect of your business. This will determine if your business succeeds or fails. There are a few important ways to do this.
Learn Direct Response Marketing
This is the best form of marketing for personal trainers. This form of marketing focuses on getting a response from a prospect. It is not concerned with pretty images of marketing slogans. When you use direct response marketing, you will be able to measure the response that each piece of marketing material creates. This means you can keep improving your sales message and increasing the number of people that come into your sales funnel.
As a personal trainer, your sales copy should direct people to call you. From here you should then set up a time to interview them and see if they are a good fit for you. As such, ensure that each advert you run emphasizes the need to call you right away. Learning about direct response marketing is the best use of your time, besides training clients.
Work On Your Website
If you don’t have a website then you need to get one right away. Another great form of personal trainer marketing is using the Internet. This is a very cheap and simple method of bringing in more leads. Again, you need to use direct response marketing methods on your website.
In other words, everything should be focused on getting prospects to call and book an appointment with you. You can also have a contact form on your website if you wish, but it is much more powerful to have people call you. You can then deal with them while they are excited about the prospect of getting into great shape.
Use Per Per Click Marketing
Once you have a website, you need to bring people to it. The fastest way to do this is with PCC (pay per click) marketing. This is most well known as Google Adwords, or Facebook ads. With this process, you pay a small fee every time someone clicks on your advert. They are immediately directed to your website, where you should have a page that convinces them to give you a call.
Using PPC marketing is a simple way to get hundreds or thousands of visitors each and every day. This will have a huge impact on your personal trainer marketing methods.
Advertise Locally
As a personal trainer, you are going to be working with people from your local area. As such, it makes sense that you also advertise in the local papers, post flyers, make agreements with other local businessmen and do other things in your community. This will ensure that your business name is spread around the local area and will help to attract more clients.
If you follow the simple tips given above then your personal trainer marketing methods will be much more successful.
Your Sales Format System
Being a successful and profitable fitness professional will take more than being educated and certified. Whether you like it or not you will need to be proficient at selling your services. If this makes you cringe it may be because you associate sales with the practices of the bad sales people you’ve been exposed to.
Selling your services is never about desperation; it’s never about manipulating someone or forcing them to buy. Your job is to simply facilitate the right questions and information for the prospect to decide that your services are the answer.
Like everything else in your business your sales processes need to form a system that you can follow and repeat each time allowing you to become more and more proficient. Here are some of the highlights of our sales system to give you examples of how you might create your own.
Greeting the prospect – Upon meeting and welcoming the prospect our first initiative is to tie their emotions to why they are there. Their emotions were involved when they first made the decision to seek out a fitness professional but as time has elapsed they may have become desensitized to the feels that sparked the idea of change. We would ask questions like, “when was the last time you were happy with your body?”
Touring the prospect – In our case we have a studio of a few thousand square feet, we tour the prospect stopping periodically at certain areas to talk about the features and benefits of the studio. Each point we stop at has a purpose in the information that is delivered. This information could range from the education and credibility of our team, to our various service models ensure we can meet any budget, to specific features that are unique to us and design to improve your overall health. Not only is the information at each point of the tour valuable to the prospect but the practice of moving and stopping allows the person to be more comfortable in our environment. Their level of comfort is paramount in their decision to purchase.
Defined presentation of services – Now everyone has a different opinion but I prefer to have a defined presentation of prepared materials to show my prospects. We have nice full color slides printed in a nice leather binder. These slides allow us to walk the prospect through exactly what it is we do. Some would argue that by writing this out on plain paper for each person you provide a deeper personal connection. I think that’s a valid argument and for someone new to selling fitness services you may want to try both and see which works best for you.
At the conclusion of our service presentation something very important happens, we don’t immediately offer any package or pricing information, but rather simply ask the prospect if they have any questions about what was presented. This may seem small and insignificant but I would argue it’s one of the most important steps in the system.
Remember as a consumer we always have our guard up, we are always sceptical of each new thing and particularly of anyone who’s asking us for the money we’ve worked so hard for. To really become effective at selling your services you must always keep this in mind. Be the facilitator asking the right questions and offering the right information to help your prospect decide that your services are right for them.
When you do present pricing and package options it’s also important that you only present a couple of options to them that are the most relevant to their situation. Having a whole list of available programs will only frustrate and discourage them from making a decision. You are the expert; don’t make them feel like they need to be in making this decision.
In a nutshell that’s the big take away. Don’t sell anyone, be the assistant buyer. Ask emotional questions and facilitate the information that helps them realize you are the answer. Most importantly try to systemize the process so it’s basically the same each time so you become more proficient.
If you’re looking for a good product to follow along and learn from (and also a little different but very complimentary to the above) I highly
recommend you grabs Close Clients from my good friend Bedros Keuilian.
One Strategy to Fast Track Your Business Right Now
If there is one thing that’s true it’s that personal trainers generally find it difficult to continually attract and find new clients. It doesn’t have to be this way and in this column I hope to recondition your whole paradigm when it comes to attracting clients.
First you need to think about what you “can give” before you ever consider how much you “will make.” By this I don’t mean the free test drive session or consultation that should be a standard part of your service. What I’m really referring to is mountains of unconditional value. Test drive programs that last a week or more, gift cards, deep discount opportunities, e-courses and resources that are instantly accessible and provide mountains of real benefit to prospective clients. A wise man once told me, “Give your best stuff away.”
Once you realize both the importance of these types of offers and how to structure pricing to be able to offer them stress and worry free you will have created an entirely new platform to market from.
Any which way you look at it most marketing is expensive, hard to measure, and can be very frustrating. Pay per click and email marketing is slightly better thanks to the myriad of data it provides, but then I’m not suggesting you don’t use these mediums but rather to enhance your overall marketing engine.
Highly underutilized and generally misunderstood is the strategic alliance. Building mutually beneficial relationships with other local businesses is one of the highest priority items I stress to my coaching clients. Having other businesses actively speak about and refer to you is both an incredibly fast and cost effective way to ensure you are your community’s top expert.
Here’s a little idea I recently thought of that I know can take your business over the top. In fact if you hurry it can become the ultimate Christmas promotion ensuring your January is over the top.
Consider what other local services your clients may use on a regular basis. Some of the top candidates that come to my mind would be aestheticians, hair stylist, massage therapists, tanning salons and health stores. These days, especially small business, knows just how expensive it is to attract customers and more importantly how expensive it is to keep them. Big business has been both a curse and a gift to small entrepreneurs like you, me and the complimentary services listed above. You see big box stores cut corners and costs and ultimately service relying on sales and volume to guarantee bottom line profits. The curse is that from a cost and supply standpoint you can most assuredly never keep up, but the gift is that now more than ever many people are beginning to acknowledge the value of real service. Real service earns long term loyalty, these are the kinds of customers we want.
Here’s a way you can help your strategic partners increase customer appreciation and loyalty and automatically they can send you a steady stream of qualified leads. Visit you local printer and ask them to craft you a simple folding thank you card. On one edge you will need a removable perforated information slip with blanks for name, email address and a privacy statement such as: I have agreed to share my contact info with (your business name) fitness to register my gift.
Within the thank you card (or Christmas Card) you will have text that reads something like the following.
“Thank you for being a great customer, I truly appreciate your continued business. As a small gift of appreciation I have teamed up with (your business name) fitness to provide you a _________ program as my gift to you. Thanks again for being my customer”
Make sure you are offering them a great program, I recommend something no shorter than 10-14 days with extra value added benefits and a minimum of $97 value. Have your printer make these cards with the perforated info slips into a booklet of 25.
Now talk to any or all of the service providers I mentioned above. Explain that you would like to provide them these booklets to give this gift to their customers. Explain why it will help them improve customer loyalty and even better pay them to do it. I suggest for every completed book of 25 people you pay them a small bonus or provide a gift of service.
Now here’s the super secret to taking this right over the top. The first thing you do is send these 25 people, and the person that gave you the leads the following email:
“Hey, you recently received a gift from _____________. Isn’t he/she and amazing (business/service)? I love sending all my clients to him/her because he/she does such an amazing job. I’m excited to provide this gift to you. Here’s how you can get started…”
Just imagine the instant relationship and credibility you will have with these people, and imagine how happy the other business person will be to receive that email knowing the value of the third party social endorsement you just provided.
I’m willing to bet a new trainer could fast track their new business for weeks and months with just this one low cost strategy.
3 Easy Techniques To Be More Productive So You Can Make More Money
I have a guest post today from my friend and colleague Lori Kennedy. You may
remember Lori Kennedy – she is the Registered Holistic Nutritionist from Toronto.
We co-hosted the Wellness Business Summit this past March.
She has a few techniques on how you can be more productive so you can make more
money. As a mom of 2 young kids and the CEO of WOW! Weight Loss she has had to
work hard to be more productive and wanted to share some techniques with you.
By the way… even though she is a mom and a holistic health practitioner she still
enjoys making money and knows a thing or two about how to achieve BIG goals so
make sure you read what she has to say.
Take it away Lori…
Hi all,
Thanks for having me back on Profitable Personal Trainer Cabel!
Let me ask you a question: How frustrating is it that you have all of these ideas on
how to grow your business but can’t ever seem to find time implement them?
Even when you do you find time to work on your business you feel like you are
never being productive enough and are always being distracted by one thing or
another.
Let’s face it, no matter who you are or how much money you may have, we all suffer
from the shiny object syndrome.
Maybe your shiny object is continuously taking courses so you can learn more about
a subject you probably already know a lot about or watching videos on how to
improve your social media funnel to get you more leads in 7 days or less or focusing
on getting more LIKES, more followers and more pins which typically does not equal
to more leads or money in your bank account.
My shiny object syndrome is rooted in reading too many tech marketing blogs
without really understanding the technology or even implementing it. I just like
reading about new tech platforms.
It’s like AA… Hi, my name is Lori Kennedy and I have shiny object syndrome that
prevents me from being productive.
I’ve implemented these 3 simple productivity techniques out of necessity. They have
become core principles around which I structure my day. Take my advice… choose 1
technique that resonates with you and implement it.
Work at it and stick by it come hell or high water. Then choose another and do the
same until you’ve cured yourself of the syndrome or at least have it lay dormant
most of the time.
Productivity Technique # 1 – Stop FINDING Time and Start Scheduling Time.
You will never find time… time will always escape you. Pick a platform that you
know you will use as a daily schedule.
I use Google calendar because I can share my calendar with my team. Use your
phone or even a paper calendar if that floats your boat.
Pick 2 – 60 minute time slots per week to work on customer service. Customer
service is the #1 thing that will drive your business forward.
What do you do during those 2 – 90 minute periods? CARE about your customers.
Write personal emails, Facebook notes, phone calls, hand written love letters or plan
customer service events.
Productivity Technique # 2 – Chunk Your Time.
Multi tasking robs you of time and creative flow. Stop doing three things at once.
Chunk or group like tasks together and schedule them for the same day.
For example, Fridays between 9am – 2pm are my filming days. I schedule my Skype
interviews, YouTube videos or webinars for Fridays.
I rarely make exceptions to this schedule except for webinars, which I also do
Wednesday evenings at 9pm EDT.
Think of the tasks you do on a daily basis and group them together. Answering
emails, posting on Facebook, doing research, writing fitness programs or filming
videos.
Set specific times to do each one of those activities. Take this one step further and
make sure that the chunks of activities are similar to each other so that you can flow
from one to the other.
An example of this is filming videos and having meetings in the same day instead
of having 1 meeting on Tuesday and another on Thursday and then filming Friday.
Both tasks require you to be on, up beat and more extroverted then you would be
when answering emails and posting on Facebook. So schedule them in the same day.
Chunk like tasks together and schedule them back-to-back to create a good flow.
Productivity Technique # 3 – Schedule CEO Time
Whether you own your own business or you are working for someone else you
MUST schedule CEO time and guard that time like a mama lion guards her cubs.
CEO time is when you focus on business development, networking with others
and reaching out to make new affiliate connections, nurture current business
relationships and work on product/program development.
This high level work that can and should only be done by you.
Go back to technique #1 and schedule CEO time. I have 2 – 90 minute blocks each
week where I work on business development and business outreach. Everyone on
my team knows when these two blocks are and they do not bother me.
You are the only one who can grow your business and if you don’t consistently focus
on business development you will always feel like you are running on a treadmill.
It’s time to pull out your schedule of choice and map out the next 30 days using
the techniques I just gave you. Let your team know when you are off limits to them.
Stick to your schedule no matter what… I meant it, no matter what. A schedule only
works if you follow it.
Leave a comment below and let Cabel and I know how we can better help you be
more productive. We’d love to help you out!
What’s the difference?
Yesterday at a team meeting I had a little coaching activity with my trainers.
I asked them if they cared about their clients and if so what things they did to show their clients that they care.
If you can’t say yes to caring about your clients it’s time for a career change, but how you express that is interesting.
You see even my trainers get complacent or comfortable, some of the answers were things like:
Giving them the service and value they expect, individualizing their training approach to what the client needs, understanding the clients expectations and setting appropriate goals and being on time.
Now these are all great things but then I asked them to identify whether each one met or exceeded the client’s expectations.
I think you see what I’m getting at is each item above is really only the basic expectation that should no matter what be part of our service.
A few answers that were given that I feel do fall into the “exceeds expectations category” were:
Sending extra text messages between appointments, working out outside the gym with a group of clients on a weekend, going the extra mile to send flowers at a time of grief or on a special occasion, sharing my own story to reinforce my client’s enthusiasm to commit.
Coincidentally these trainers also generate far more referrals and have fuller schedules than some of my other trainers.
Here’s my point, nothing above has anything to do with trainer skill, it has nothing to do with how much each person works. The primary difference is their way of thinking and addressing a common problem.
As an entrepreneur we face the same thing.
It’s easy to be bogged down working all the time, feeling like we’re doing a lot, but still struggling.
Yet other trainers make massive strides forward and become more and more successful.
The truth is the same as in my trainer example above, it has nothing to do with skill, contacts, how hard you work, or how much you work and everything to do with how you think.
I’m going to share my biggest weakness with you, I bet some of you can relate.
I grew up in a poor family, woe is me I had very little, the real problem with that is it conditioned me to think with scarcity. It conditioned me to believe that I had to work harder, that I couldn’t trust or rely on others, that it was wasteful to pay others for things that I could do myself.
By comparison my friend, mentor and colleague Bedros Keuilian who also grew up with nothing (in fact far worse than my own story) now runs multiple 7-figure generating corporations and he started as a simply trainer just as you and I.
It’s because of his guidance that my mindset has shifted slowly (I’m very stubborn slow learner) to realize that the answer to growing the business you want is not to work more, its not to work harder but rather to identify the little things (like the trainer examples above) that catapult you forward at lightning speed.
You can do this to, here what you need to learn:
- To document systems that make it easier, cheaper and faster to repeat similar tasks and quickly evaluate the performance of your business.
- To understand how marketing channels produce on a consistent basis and have a action plan that allows you to rinse and repeat rather than always creating.
- To be fearless to “draw a line in the sand” and determine the value of an hour of your time and then delegate all tasks that you can pay someone less than that hourly amount to complete.
I never dreamed I’d be where I am today and now that I am I know how much more is possible and just how fast it can happen.
I now have coaching clients that have started from zero and exceeded six figures in 60 days, I’ve helped people buy their first home, stop living in their gym, hire teams in months, turned a 400 sq/ft basement business into multiple six-figures, helped multiple trainers move from sub-contract to their own studios and more.
We’ve repeated this plan so often it’s becoming more and more predictable and consistent to the point that I know if you’re still reading all of this you can do it too!
All it takes is one thing, the willingness to think different, trust in your peers, and take action.
Wellness DFY Marketing
The wellness business is much like the fitness or personal training business; the clients have the same behaviors and concerns. Usually you’re not their first attempt to overcome their present challenge and a healthy level of skepticism has them reluctant to commit to anything long-term.
As a result many wellness professionals (like personal trainers) find themselves selling short-term programs, small packages of sessions, and are frustrated because they’re business barely generates enough revenue to be considered a part-time “hobby.”
Don’t you think that our noble purpose is to help people? Yet traditional weight loss programs are far more profitable than those of the typical wellness professional or personal trainer and attracting thousand more people than we are, does that seem wrong to you?
Truly the missing component has more to do with us than a problem with traditional weight loss. As caring and compassionate professionals we’re good at helping people; that is until money is involved. We somehow think by not asking people to commit to long-term care, or leaving it up to them to self-direct the time we have to modify their behaviors that we are providing them the best service. Can you think of one instance where the people that communicated with you the most, on a regular basis, for an extended period of time didn’t get the best results? Of course not, so why would we ever think it was ok to reinforce the idea to our clients that a long-term commitment isn’t required? They clearly don’t know or they wouldn’t have sought us out.
This is what traditional weight loss is good at. They have taken a system or set way of doing things (hey we have that) and they’ve packages in a way that helps the customer long-term, and it just so happens that’s more profitable too. So if you can maintain your noble purpose, help people and live a good life too any reason not to?
That’s what I thought…
So here’s a little wellness promotion to get you started. The goal is to show you how we can engineer a method to use normal consumer behavior in a predictable format to drive people to take action on goals that they’ve been putting off for far too long.
As people we work off inspiration, without inspiration we will forever remain inside our comfort zone, we can help a lot more people if we can predictably inspire them to take the first step to help themselves.
It follows a consistent email promotion sequence to grab the attention of the impulse buyer, the analytical consumer and the procrastinator.
The final sold out email should be a valuable component of most if not all of your campaigns, if things fall short of plan and it’s not any where near full (doesn’t happen often but can) then don’t send the sold out email otherwise we may as well end on a note of conditioning the consumer to more promptly respond to the next promotion.
I’ve written the emails in a way that I hope most people can use them as is, just a simple cut and paste. It can always help to add more personal relevant details so don’t be afraid to edit those areas as well.
How to Run This:
Send out the emails on the days indicated one week before the official start date. Be majorly enthusiastic.
As you will read in the emails, there doesn’t have to be any big crazy difference, in fact the difference from what you’re doing now is likely that you have an ongoing commitment to these people in a set pattern of frequency for the next four weeks. With all that predictable and regular accountability just imagine how great the results can be…now imagine if they committed to you for 6-12 months?
About 2 ½ weeks into this program you should be talking to all of your clients about continuing with the same services on a monthly basis at the regular price. I suspect like personal trainers many wellness professionals are about a $1/min for service, or $60-70/hour on average. (If your more than be more, it’s good to be expensive.)
Assuming that you see your clients for 30-minute appointments we’re talking about 1.5 hours/week X 4 or 6 hours a month or approximately $420 month. I recommend offering them a deal to continue if they commit before the end of the program, like 25% off the first month and 10% off each extra month as a VIP discount. If you’re not comfortable with this then repeat this chant 10 times: “I will raise my prices because I am totally worth it.” Seriously though that’s the answer. If they say, “I’ll think about it.” Be sure to follow up, I’ll think about it is typical consumer fear that it might not work, you and I know better.
I know many of you will read this, get set to run it, and then start to lose your nerve and find all kinds of “reasons” why it won’t work, seriously just do it, hit send and say a prayer. I did the same thing, and this is why we need coaches and mentors too, but that’s another story.
Your awesome, you can do this and if you need more or need someone to push you in the pool come back to www.ProfitablePersonalTrainer.com or www.facebook.com/ProfitablePersonalTrainer as that’s what I’m here for. J
Always here to help,
Cabel “The Mechanic” The Profitable Personal Trainer
Email 1: Monday AM week prior to start.
Subject: Secret BETA Project (Are you in?)
I’m writing you today to let you in on a little secret. As people we’re all the same we all want the best results in the shortest time and we’re always looking for an easier way still.
As a wellness professional I’m always learning, and just like you I always want to figure out how I can help you get “there” faster and easier.
Recently I stumbled across something that will do just that. In fact I began applying it with a few of my clients immediately, the improvements were noticeable almost instantly.
(If you can include names and results of recent clients here could be even more powerful.)
I’m so excited about this I want to give it a real unbiased test (you know very scientific and all) so I need your help!
In fact I need the help of a small group of people to help me fully test this idea. Are you in?
All you have to do is be excited about losing between 5 and 15 lbs in the next 28 days, willing to follow my specific instructions and really put this new little secret to the test, I’m calling it my Secret BETA Project.
Can I count on you?
I mean really what do you have to lose? Maybe a dress size?
Wouldn’t it be great to fit into those “skinny jeans” hiding in the back of the closet?
Here’s the deal.
Since this isn’t 100% tested and proven (that’s what you’re gonna help me do) that’s why I need people not within my current training program. Additionally to make it a win-win you won’t pay my regular price, instead it’s only going to cost you a measly $97 bucks! Just like everything I do it’s guaranteed, so if it doesn’t work or your not happy with the result I’ll 100% refund your money.
Now because this is a BETA project I’m going to keep the group small so you can have my maximum attention. I’m looking for only 9 committed individuals that are serious about losing 5-15lbs in the next 28 days.
- We’ll be meeting 3 days a week for the next 4 weeks. ***NOTE: Your services may not function like this please revise****
- You may be required to complete additional workouts on your own that I’ll provide.
- You must be super committed.
- You must not have any specific travel plans that could cause you to miss sessions or make eating consistently really difficult.
- You must not be a current client.
- And to be fair to everyone so I can help as many people as possible you must not have taken advantage of any sale promotion in the last 60 days. (Sorry.)
If this sounds like you then hit reply right away because my Secret BETA Project is going to start next Monday and I suspect these spots are going to fill pretty quickly!
Always here to help,
(your name)
Email 2: Send Wed morning.
Subject: BETA Project Nearly Full! (wow!)
Wow! Ok I didn’t quite expect that kind of response.
Within a few hours a had a whole bunch of replies for the Secret BETA Project idea it seems a lot of people are really curious…and willing to be human guinea pigs!
But seriously, it seems a lot of people love the idea of testing out this new belly-busting secret to lose between 5 and 15lbs in the next 28 days.
I did get a couple of questions though…
Many people are wondering if they have to have tried a special diet or used any of my nutritional programs before. The answer, no, it’s good for anyone, regardless of what you’ve previously tried.
Others have been asking what exactly the secret is. Honestly, I’m sorry I can’t tell you; it would actually ruin the test. It’s 100% safe no crazy gimmick, not a supplement or anything like that. In fact it’s so simple you may not even realize it’s different at first so you just have to trust me.
In 28 days I promise you will both see and feel the difference.
So here’s the skinny, at this point 6 of the 9 available spots for the Secret BETA Project are full.
If you missed the last email definitely hit reply right now or call (your number) and let’s get you registered before the last couple spots are gone.
If you did miss the last email here’s the details again:
- Starts next Monday (insert the date)
- Runs for 28 days, 3 appointments a week.
- You may be required to do a few additional things at home, which I’ll detail.
- You must not be a current client. I need this to be independent of my current methods to really judge its effect.
- You won’t pay anywhere near full price, it’s a fraction of the normal cost at $97 and still covered by my full money back guarantee for the whole program. (What on earth do you have to lose?)
- You must be excited about the idea of losing 5-15lbs in 28 days.
- You must not have any specific plans that will cause you to miss appointments or make it difficult to eat consistently. (I understand things can change so just no 2 week vacations please.)
- If you were part of a recent promotion (in the last 60 days) sorry you’re not eligible, I want to help as many people as possible.
So with just 3 spots remaining hit reply or call (your number) and I’ll get you setup right away.
Always here to help,
(Your name)
P.S. (Add a comment about timing, as I write this we’re heading into EASTER so my PS might be “The Secret BETA project is the perfect solution for eliminating the guilt of an indulgent Easter, keep the family memories and forget the weight concerns! (oh and it’s guaranteed, are you crazy? What are you waiting for? Just kidding, hit reply if you’re ready for change.”)
Email 3: Send Thursday afternoon.
Subject: Last chance (Urgent, attn. required)
There’s just 1 spot left in my Secret BETA Project for some dedicated and determined person to lose 5-15lbs in the next 28 days. Is that you?
I need just one more person to add to my special test group for this new strategy that I’ve already seen melt fat like crazy in some of my current clients.
Here’s the details of the program from the last email one more time:
- Starts next Monday (insert the date)
- Runs for 28 days, 3 appointments a week.
- You may be required to do a few additional things at home, which I’ll detail.
- You must not be a current client. I need this to be independent of my current training methods to really judge its effect.
- You won’t pay anywhere near full price, it’s a fraction of the normal cost at $97 and still covered by my full money back guarantee for the whole program. (What on earth do you have to lose?)
- You must be excited about the idea of losing 5-15lbs in 28 days.
- You must not have any specific plans that will cause you to miss appointments or make it difficult to eat consistently. (I understand things can change so just no 2 week vacations please.)
- If you were part of a recent promotion (in the last 60 days) sorry you’re not eligible, I want to help as many people as possible.
With just one spot remaining this is totally first come first serve, so hit reply immediately, I’ll be looking at the time the email came in to see who gets the spot or you can call me directly at (your number.)
For everyone else already registered I’m pumped to see you on Monday!
Always here to help,
(your name)
Email 4: Send latish Friday evening
Subject: Secret BETA Project Sold Out!
It’s official the Secret BETA Project is totally sold out! Thank you to everyone who has jumped on board, I look forward to seeing you all next week and we’re gonna kick butt!
If you missed out on the Secret BETA Project I am so sorry (I had a few additional emails after that were sent after the final spot was filled) but don’t worry I’ll be in touch.
I always want to help everyone if I can and though this program is completely full I might be able to squeeze a few more people into my other programs. I’ll be in touch with something special for you or if you thinking now you’d really like to get started just hit reply and I can fill you in on the details.
Thanks everyone, you’re awesome!
(your name)
You Need to Attend Events!
As I write this I’m 40,000 feet in the air on my way home from Fitness Business Summit 2013. I’ve been to this event every year since it’s inception in 2007 and this was the third time I’ve be honored by being asked to present.
Every year the event get’s big and the force multiplier of its effect is spectacular.
I always get excited about this event. The day I arrive I’m feeling good, unwinding from the day to day of running the business. I’m looking forward to seeing friends and colleagues and thrilled to think about all the great content that will be shared and especially the few light bulb tidbits I’ll walk away with.
And every year I’m shocked at what happens.
Every day it builds, by Sunday it’s bursting at the seams.
The positive energy of hundreds of people that have completely transformed; this may sound ridiculous but it’s absolutely true and I guarantee it will happen to you if you attend quality events.
You see you think this event is about business, and tools, tips, and tricks to build a bigger/better one, but it’s so much more than that.
The event draws together the energy of hundreds of people with a spark of a very special emotion, desire.
As the event winds on that spark of desire ignites into a raging bonfire and hour-by-hour you can feel it. The aura of optimism, of will, the raging fire of desire, dreams, ideas, passion and support is overwhelming.
You can’t help but leave and be more enthusiastic, more productive and indestructible in the face of adversity for a time.
It amazes me how many personal trainers I meet that don’t make an active effort to attend live continuing education events or any kind of life personal development workshop. I realized this year that with all the success I’ve had even I have not effectively taken advantage of what live events can do for my business. I highly recommend you attend something at least every 90 days.
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