What Did You Add to Your Website This Week?
Does your website give to others or does it glorify you?
Ok this post is a very simple idea, but it can easily save you thousands of dollars otherwise spent on advertising in the next year or make those thousands of dollars far more productive. After reviewing a number of personal training websites it’s clear that many of the trainers in Canada need to understand how valuable their website is and why they need to add content more often.
When did you last add content to your website? Was it a day ago, a week, a month? It’s critically important you regularly add more valuable content to your website at least weekly. By content I don’t mean adding a new picture of yourself or updating your services but rather information that answers the questions of your potential readers and hopefully prospects.
You see the only people that care about your service changes, new photos or other items of this nature are already your customers. As I’ve mentioned in other posts the best way to attract many new prospects to your website is by providing information your prospects are searching for in Google and the other search engines right now.
Now the question is what do you write about this week?
Well here’s what I sometimes do, I’ll go to Google and type in something like ‘Latest Fitness News’ and then visit a few of the results sites like MSNBC, CNN or CTV. You see a wise person once told me that if you want to really position yourself as an expert in your community, and quickly, then follow the coattails of other experts.
Chances are if it’s been talked about on CNN a local radio station might talk about it in their morning show segment, a local news channel may also feature this topic and undoubtedly a co-worker or friend will be excited about it and share the news. All of these situations now send other people to the almighty Google because they too want to know more.
So if you are writing about the same things as these so called experts and share this with people in any way you can; you come across as doubly smart when they hear these same words from local and global media.
Now if you are writing these types of articles for your website I do suggest a couple of things that just may improve your search rankings. Include your location and key content words in title and again in the first paragraph. Example, if I were writing about the benefits of carrots my title might be something like: A Personal Trainer in Red Deer Exposes the True Benefits of Carrots. And then my article might start with: Cabel McElderry, a personal trainer in Red Deer, believes there are many great benefits to carrots such as…
By writing my article in this format I have added some simple optimization. Google now has a setting to remember where you are geographically and can find relative local content for you. Additionally as your credibility grows people may begin to search for your name also so it never hurts to include it. The key words for the topic you’re writing on are critical as we know these words are going to have a high search volume thanks to the media.
Start by posting something new once per week and work toward multiple times per week. It only gets easier and easier and you will see your website traffic growing exponentially in no time.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Be sure if you are using my strategy that you do work hard to write your own content, any plagiarism will not only destroy your credibility in a heartbeat but these days duplicate internet content is quickly detected by search engines and your whole website may be delisted as a result.
2 Step Marketing: Get Rich by First Giving it Away!
Remember a little while ago when I told you how we signed up over 40 people for our bootcamp in 72 hours? (Refresh your memory by clicking here.)
Anyways, that re-packaging strategy was the first half of a 2-step marketing process. As a fitness professional 2-step marketing is an incredibly powerful tool. Most personal trainers are thinking small time and would cringe at the thought of what I am about to tell you to do. So if it first you think I’m crazy relax because I can assure you right now, I am! But seriously this is not for the faint of heart, quite frankly it’s only for those that want to be super successful and absolutely dominate in their geographical area.
Ok here goes…
2-step marketing in a nutshell is just as it says; it’s an aggressive sales-generating program that requires two parts. We’re going to title these two parts as follows: Part 1 – The Pitch, Part 2 – The Close.
Two-Step Fitness Marketing can easily take you from zero to hero!
Part 1 – The Pitch
In the re-packaging promotion we ran for our bootcamp we used an aggressive deep discount price point and a short term program as our Pitch. Essentially we gave away real value for next to nothing, but there is a catch our key concept is the value. Next to ready, shoot, aim the next best concept I got from my coach was, “always give them your best stuff.” Now here’s where new and small minded personal trainers cringe. A free session doesn’t cut it! Give them real value, 10 free sessions, 2 weeks free, or 2 weeks for $2, something you know your competition will never offer real value. Give it sincerely without expectation, pour your heart out into these clients, leave nothing on the table, and trust me. Seriously if you are personal trainer who needs clients you should be training people, you should fill your schedule any way possible even if it’s for free. Here’s why, it’s simple economics, a busy trainer is worth more and considered more valuable than a slow one. Once you’re full, raise your prices, you now control the supply and you set rates to meet demand, that simple.
Part 2 – The Close
Ok now is the key part, as the trial period is coming to a close you should have established yourself as a hero to the client. They look to you as inspiration, they are already seeing results and it hasn’t cost them a dime! Let’s face it that alone should have them pretty much ready to write you a cheque. But don’t stop there; give them an offer they can’t refuse. For example in our bootcamp promo we discounted the next month to a lower rate than they paid for the trial, gave them an additional week free and threw in hundreds of dollars in bonuses. (Did I mention those bonuses cost us nothing? We simply talked to businesses in the community and told them we’d like to send them a bunch of customers and asked if they would be willing to extend our good customers a trial of some sort. Some businesses won’t, but the ones you want to work with will be pumped at the idea.) Now closing these new clients should be super easy, you are there hero and you have given them multiple times their initial payment in value, hell this is better than Wal-Mart rollbacks.
Bonus…how to leverage these clients and get even more clients.
These new prospects from your 2-step marketing program will be so warm and excited about your program you won’t have to sell them, but even better because you have given them so much the Law of Reciprocity says they will likely even feel like they owe you. So simply tell them if they like what you are doing, if they would be willing to refer someone else you will give them the exact same deal.
Soon you will be so busy you either won’t need to do programs like this or you will simply have to charge for the trials because you are too busy.
That’s it go kill it! By the way if you’re coming to the Business Ignition Workshop on May 15 and received the free bonuses they not only give you step-by-step instructions, but also scripts, artwork, and everything else you need to execute another 2-step marketing promotion. These concepts alone can double, triple, quadruple your revenues easily, One-to-1 Fitness has proved that easily 3 years in a row.
Killer Classifieds and Ad Copy 101
I see so many crappy classifieds it’s unbelievable.
“Hi, I’m Shawn, I am a personal trainer, I will get you in shape, I was Hercules in the TV series for the last 14 years, and I won Mr. Some Obscure Place and was crowned king for a day and I charge $50.00/hr. Contact me here….”
Do your classifieds create a connection?
Does this look and sound familiar? What’s funny is I read this and it makes me think of my bodybuilding days and the stereotype of bodybuilders being these egotistical clowns that never leave the mirror. Anyways not only are these ads me centered they have absolutely no attraction point to your audience and as a result generate little to no response.
In one of the mastermind groups I have participated in the topic of discussion was “Why do people buy?” The following list summarizes the buying action very well:
• They’ll buy when they feel understood.
• They’ll buy when they are referred.
• They’ll buy when they see social proof.
• They’ll buy from people they know, like, or trust.
• They’ll buy from those who are authentic, because authenticity is the NEW currency.
When you are generating ad copy or content of any kind it’s really important to keep these things in mind and try to encompass as many as possible.
Specifically when it comes to writing ad copy the following is a list of criteria I subject pretty much all my copy to as an effort to rate its effectiveness. Writing ad copy is about connection and emotion, without that you got nothing.
What is important to customer?
Meaning, what is their pain? How do they feel about their current situation, being overweight, in danger of heart disease? Your headline and opening sentence should hook their interest based on what is important to them.
What do they need to learn?
Explain why it’s not their fault, it’s because they don’t know…help them understand what it is that they need to learn to achieve the success and good feelings they are looking for.
What are core elements to producing result?
Specifically what things will you teach them and focus on that will achieve the result. This is your spot to share your best knowledge and validate the above while earning their trust.
What do they want to hear? Provide the solution.
Here is where you get to deliver your pitch, explain the solution and specifically how you will provide, ensure or create that solution. It’s important to validate rather than brag, rather demonstrate your success but then show them how it’s absolutely attainable.
What does Doggy Daycare have to do with Personal Training?
- What does Doggy Daycare have to do with Personal Training?
Last night my wife and I went to visit some really good friends of ours, they are solid gold the kind of people that would drive a hundred miles to help you in a snow storm just because. In fact when we first opened One-to-1 Fitness they put in countless hours with us on a volunteer basis just fixing the place up to finally get the doors open. Now nearly two years ago they took the big step to also open their own business. They are not personal trainers or even in the same industry. I have never met anyone more passionate about and better with animals, they began with sincerity, passion and a dream, a true foundation for success…they own a doggy daycare and provide pet supply and dog boarding.
Now here’s the really cool part, based on their natural affinity for animals they established their business with their sincerity alone but as growth has slowed it’s time to develop and learn to market the business to continue their stream of growth.
Now here is the really cool part, during our visit we began to discuss some ideas and quickly came to agree that most (if not all) the things I am telling you to do can be easily adapted to their business.
They asked me what little things they could do to really increase business. I started by looking at their website and plunking a few searches in Google. Now because I know many of you are in the same place with a very basic website this will be really useful for you too so I decided to post their ‘to-do’ list for you also.
First how do people find your website? Punch in a few keywords and phrases into Google and see if you can find your website on the first or second page. Keep a list of all of, what you think, would be the most likely words or phrases to find your business. Now here’s what you do in order of importance:
1) If you haven’t already, sign up for and download my free report, there is so much great step-by-step knowledge in here.
2) If you have a website (or if you don’t) and it’s not a blog look at www.wordpress.com and consider changing your website to a blog. Blogs are incredibly versatile, adaptable, super easy to manage and search engines love them. (About as hard as writing an email.) There are many free wordpress themes to choose from and when the time is right I can refer you to someone who can do a custom theme and really make it shine. (However more importantly would be to first buy optimized content which you can for about $5 US a page, 20-40 pages will drastically improve search term rankings, in fact I bet it would begin paying for itself in mere days.)
3) Buy a few keyword domains, for instance one of the high ranking search terms I use to find people like yourself is ‘Personal Trainer Certification’, you’ll notice if you type in www.ProfitablePersonalTrainerCertification.com you will end up right back here. Key word domains, any words or phrases someone would type in google to search for your business. Point these to your website; this is another inexpensive way I have gained local first page listings. If you live in a big city with multiple regions within your drive radius you can even buy a few domains that might allow those in neighbouring regions to find you a little easier.
4) Your page title, right now what does it say in the top right corner? If like my poor friends it says ‘Home’, change this ASAP. This is the first tag the robots will read, make sure it’s keyword rich, something you know a lot of people are searching for. (One of the ways you can test your key word phrases is by going to www.wordtracker.com and using the free service to see how popular searches are.)
5) You need an opt-in, something people can get off your website for free of high value to get leads and contacts, for me it’s my report, on our PT website it’s the free newsletter, building your list is mission critical. Always be developing your list and building your relationship with your list, just like I am doing with you each week. I gladly give you as much value as possible each week and hopefully at some point maybe we can do business together or I find a great product to tell you about hopefully you will consider buying it from me. For this you could use: www.icontact.com, www.aweber.com or www.1shoppingcart.com (to name a few) the first 2 are really simple, probably aweber is the best for simple, shoppingcart gives you the most options if you eventually want to sell online. (Selling online costs about $500 to setup and about $100/monthlyish)
6) Your website needs lots of content. Most of us start with a simple website that’s like, “hey here’s my website, now buy from me.” These kinds of websites get people’s attention for like 10 seconds and then they leave and never come back. For instance, why are you on the internet? If it’s not for Facebook it’s because you want to know something, the answer to a question. For your website to add to your business and create sales it needs to provide the answers. Add content (and ultimately value); teach your visitors something as chances are they came across you looking for answers not your services.
7) Facebook; fan pages are better than groups, something to do with the search engines, not to mention Faacebook has become the new word for procrastination, that’s where everyone is, go to the people. Every time you post something new on your website link it on your fan page and send the update to your fans under the edit page function. With a properly configured blog this can almost be entirely automated.
8) Offline, get client testimonials stick these on your window for people to read and then give complimentary businesses a discount coupon of some sort, something that seems really valuable to the customer but costs you next to nothing, the best items are consults or service trials (has to be more than 1 session though, create real value) these seem really valuable to the customer but have little physical cost.
These 8 things will easily create thousands of dollars in new sales, I could go on but I think I have given you enough to do. 🙂
Why do you do what you do?
Developing effective relationships will do more than improve your business.
Guest post by: Mr. X
In a job situation, most people think the easy answer is “the money”. When you think about your work, I guarantee that your pay check is not the first image that pops into your mind. If you are in a positive work situation, it is the people that jump to mind. If it is a negative situation, it is usually the people as well. You spend most of your life surrounded by people. Have you taken an account of those relationships that are most important to you and do you invest the time required to grow those relationships?
So the first step to building a great relationship is time. You build great relationships over time. Who are your 3 best friends? How much time do you spend with them in a month? How do you stay in contact with those best friends? Is it only by email? Do you get together for coffee? Do you get your families together regularly? Different means of contact and the amount of time invested makes the relationship stronger and more memorable.
Do opposites really attract? There are many people who believe that opposites attract. I would want to look closer at the attraction because you usually see a quality in someone that you have as well or that you want to develop. If you read many self improvement books, you will know there are 4 main personality traits. We have all seen the successful marriage of the loud obnoxious person with the shy quiet one. You point to this as proof that opposites attract. If you dig a little deeper though, you will find the core values of those two people are similar.
Have you heard about the story of the horse pull competition? The two top horses each pulled 2000lbs, individually. The farmers decided to see if they hooked them together, how much could they pull? Bets were places between 4000 and 6000lbs but everyone was surprised when together the team of 2 pulled 11,000lbs. We will naturally cultivate relationships with people going in the same direction and have similar core values. This will add to your life and your energy. We enjoy investing time with people who are like us. When you are with people you want to enjoy a deeper, more profitable relationship with reinforce your similarities when you invest time together. It might be hobbies, family, culture, interests, or career. The core principle of building relationships is we like those who make us feel good about ourselves. Great relationships take time, effort and consistency.
Use this small thought experiment to see how important relationships are:
What if because you took the time to read this article, I would build your dream home for you and pay for it. Imagine your dream home. What would it look like? Where would it be? Imagine the parties you could throw with your friends. However, the only catch is that you are the only one allowed through the front door. Do you still want the dream home? I know I wouldn’t but why not have it all. To be honest, the people in my life, the mentors I have chosen, have built solid relationships with people in life where they want to be. They have the fruit on the tree. I would trade everything I have materially for more time with these people because when you have those relationships, it will not be long before your dreams come true. I encourage you to develop a vision for the most important relationships in your life starting in these 3 areas: spiritual, family and business.
“Secrets to make millions…PLUS a smoking hot blonde!”
Earlier this week I was shopping for a couple of new keyword domains on GoDaddy.com and I noticed an image in the left hand column it read like this:
The secrets I used to sell online and make millions…PLUS a smoking hot blonde!
Now as you can likely figure out if you are reading this blog I read a lot of different books, blogs, etc about sales, marketing and related topics. So naturally being a 34 year old male the addition of “smoking hot blonde” took my interest level beyond a casual notice or interest in the topic to the point of actually clicking on it. Now that might sound bad but when you are considering how you reach your niche this buyline illustrates a basic human behaviour and an effective connection point to the targeted prospect.
Or at least that’s my opinion, here’s a brief idea of what I think his target prospect might look like and how he used this buyline to attract them:
1) A large number of internet start-ups are by males, mid to late twenties to early forties. Those that are more likely to embrace technology, are excited about the prospect of having something work for you rather than actually working, likely single and not afraid to risk what resources the have or to attempt to make a lot with a little investment. The buy line now appeals to this demographic in many ways: secrets used to make millions, hot blonde. Strong connection to the illustrated demographic.
2) The description in the sentence creates a subjective judgment, targeted at a male audience, “what is this guy’s definition of smoking hot? And what is he using sex to sell? Well I might as well see what these supposed SECRETS are also.”
Now even if you have no interest in selling products online this is a great video for you to watch. It’s a really good example of an entertaining presentation of simple truths that will bring success in any service based business model. I’ve embedded it here to make it easy for you to take a look.
The other point to make about this is that if you haven’t noticed, video is taking over the internet. YouTube is now one of the largest search engines next to Google. If you haven’t already incorporated the use of video into your website, you should. Now if you’re like me my initial thought about video was: time consuming and too much money. Truth is it doesn’t have to be either. Last year while presenting at a fitness conference in California I was introduced to the 
FlipCam (that is now catching on like crazy everywhere.) A small USB re-chargeable camcorder that is smaller than your cellphone and has it’s very simple to use editing software built right into its internal memory. You can shoot a video, edit it, and have it on YouTube in minutes. In fact almost all the video on any of my websites right now is made with a FlipCam, and far cooler stuff can be done with a little creativity. Though a video like the above looks nice, is fun, and entertaining a much simpler video can still be equally effective.
Video will set you apart from your competitors, it will provide a dramatically improved connection with your virtual customer or prospect, and with the addition of keyword rich titles and descriptions YouTube will become another traffic centre driving prospects to your website.
Anyhow that’s a brief little bonus for a Happy Friday. Have a great weekend everyone!
The Power of Re-Packaging as a Fitness Marketing Strategy
Some of the best fitness marketing campaigns come from simply re-packaging or re-organizing your existing services creating a completely unique program with incredible perceived value. A good example, last week we re-packaged our ongoing group exercise program (FIT Camp) into a fitness marketing strategy called the 21 Day Rapid Fat Loss Bootcamp. In 72 hours we signed up over 40 new participants into our bootcamp with two carefully crafted emails. Do you think if you had 40 new clients starting today, for 3 weeks, that you could impress them enough to stay with you for more training after? If you can’t you better re-read every post on this blog immediately, but I am sure all of you can and would; you are an elite group of success minded personal trainers committed to being the upper 5%.
Re-packaging can be an amazing fitness marketing strategy for the rapid growth of your business. Let’s lay out the guidelines in 6 tips for re-packaging success.
1) Use sparingly, it has to be something you only do once in a while, about 3-4 times a year or it loses its appeal. The has to be an attention getter as it should provide a completely new, unusual, unique way of accessing your services. Ultimately this will create high differentiation between you and your competitors.
2) Timing and relating is everything. What I mean by this is relate your pitch to common thinking. For instance right now is an excellent time for re-packaging as it’s the transition to spring here in Alberta and everyone is excited to enjoy the sun, warmer weather and is thinking about how much better they would like to look for summer. Our pitch referenced the “winter spare tire” which created a huge image/emotional connection to the program.
3) Scarcity is important. Make sure you create a limited number of spots based on availability or some other major limiting factor. This can be real or perceived. This is critical to drive people to take immediate action. Early bird gets the worm; wait too long and you are going to miss the boat.
4) High perceived value. This is also mission critical. Provide an attractive price point or find ways to add perceived value to your service with low to no cost. Like a free meal plan/guideline, a report on effective ways to strengthen your core and why that leads to a pain free life. Connect with a complimentary professional service and see if they will offer a free trial to your new clients. Whatever it is really crank up the value of the program to promote high conversion without adding additional overhead costs.
5) Make it easy to sign up for. Complete an email form with name, phone, email. Call them back and register them. Even better if you can accept credit cards use a service like www.1shoppingcart.com and setup an online order form. You will double your conversion with online registration over just having a phone number alone.
6) Contact twice. This is the last point but the synergist of the whole mix. Your initial contact should convey how great it is, how limited it is, and why you need to take immediate action. 72 hours later you need to contact them again to let them know you’ve almost reached the limit but if they hurry they can still get in. This time give them a few more bullets of info about what the program will do for them. On the initial contact you will attract the people that see something new, exciting and valuable, they won’t ask questions they are ready to buy. The second contact will appeal to those who need to analyze and evaluate, they need more information, now they are afraid to miss out, they are now also ready to buy. It is important to keep these distinctly separate (if you have ever heard Fred Sarkari speak you will understand why) each group of people will require different information to make the final decision. Mixing all the information into one contact will cause you to lose both groups and drastically lower conversion.
Following these steps with strong compelling sales copy will produce massive results and right now is perfect timing. Give it a try with your list. If you really struggle to write sales/marketing copy this is a skill I urge you to practice and get some help with, this is a major focal point of the Profitable Personal Trainer coaching program.
Three Tips For Getting Your Website Noticed
King of Ngorongoro Crater
Wow, I can’t believe I am back home, back to regular life. Only a week ago I was in Tanzania, Africa engaging in close encounters with the king of Ngorongoro crater and trekking up the great Mount Kilimanjaro all in support of an international charity called The Water School. (www.thewaterschool.org) My journey to Africa was an amazing adventure, life changing but I have personal training to thank for it and specifically the personal trainer marketing techniques I am sharing with you within the pages of ProfitablePersonalTrainer.com.
This morning as I was settling back into work and normal life, still kind of day dreaming about this crazy adventure just past, I received a phone call from one of my coaching clients. We were discussing a few internet based things: keywords, domains, content and search rankings. I hadn’t planned to write on that topic today but after that conversation I figured that likely others have similar questions.
Here are 3 tips for getting your webpage noticed and developing “targeted” traffic for potential leads and customers.
- Keyword content – you need to write or produce content that is keyword driven. The bigger and more competitive market you are in; the more keyword content you are going to need to make it on the first page of the search engines. Now when many people think of key words they are thinking of phrases like: get in shape, fitness program, fat loss, losing weight. Sure these are keywords but not ones that are going to find potential clients just down the street. When it comes to keywords think of local search phrases that people might actually be typing into Google and Bing right now. (Ex. Personal Training Red Deer) These are the keywords you want to use within your website content and ideally reasonably often. In the title, in the first paragraph and in the second paragraph. Now unfortunately this doesn’t make for the nicest sounding article so you will have to be a little creative and accept that some of your content is not going to read as nice as others.
- Keyword Domains are a bonus – Now depending on the size of the market you are in its a good idea to buy strong keyword domains. As in the example above I am sure you can see why our studio website is built on www.PersonalTrainingRedDeer.com instead of www.oneto1fitness.com. The search relevance for www.PersonalTrainingRedDeer.com is much higher. Don’t get too hung up on this though as content is still king this is just one more little thing that helps.
- Incoming Links – Now these provide the most clout for search engine rankings because they are the hardest to get and maintain. When other sites link to yours your search value or site value is rated a lot higher, especially if these other sites have a lot of traffic, are mature in age and provide quality content. Now here’s the kicker, you can’t really go and trade a bunch of links with people, when you do they cancel each other out. So how do you get quality incoming links? Well the best way is to provide value to someone else. (Remember the more you give, the more you receive.) Generate quality content and offer to contribute it to some popular fitness blogs or submit your articles to places like www.ezinearticles.com or www.submityourarticle.com.
Uhuru (Freedom) Peak, Kilimanjaro
At the end of the day content is still king and of these three things (though you should work to have them all working for you) your main focus should be on generating more and more content. The more optimized content your site contains the faster you will move through the rankings. If it’s within your budget I highly recommend even outsourcing for some optimized content to take advantage of even a few more tips and tricks and faster ranking.
Not Having a Newsletter is Crazy
Right now I am in Tanzania, Africa. My trip here began with a two day safari to Lake Maynara and Ngorongoro Crater with our expert guide Hubert from Multi-Choice tours. It was amazing, seeing groups of 10, 20, and a 100 or more of many of the animals, until now, I had only seen in zoos. What an amazing experience to see giraffe, elephants, hippos, zebras, wildebeests, warthogs, lions and even a rare Serval Cat. All were within plain sight and often just a few metres from our Land Cruiser. An experience I will not soon forget, if you would like to see pictures many will be posted on my Facebook profile once I am back in Canada.
The next leg of this trip was an adventure of a lifetime, a six day trek up the world’s largest free standing mountain Kilimanjaro. What an amazing experience to reach the roof of Africa at 19,341ft all in the name of a good cause. I urge you to check out www.thewaterschool.org and www.kili2010.com to learn more. My whole story of this adventure and many photos will be posted on my Facebook profile and websites upon my return to Canada.
Anyways, the business of personal training.
This week’s topic goes hand in hand somewhat with my adventure here in Africa. As a means of growing your business and generating stable, secure ongoing income you need to develop a system of finding prospects, warming them up to your services and ultimately closing the deal to create paying customers.
Up until now we have talked a lot about ways to close sales and turnover those that are ready or more likely to buy today. This week’s focus is to discuss how to attract a lot more prospects and producing more sales from those not ready to buy today. A key component of the contact to sales process is a means of repeat contact or relationship building with purpose.
Many businesses fail at contact management and the reason they fail is because it is often time consuming, sometimes costly, and has to be done in a very predictable and regular pattern.In the past many companies did this with addressed and direct mail, a very costly and time consuming process. Once again thank you to technology email mailing has become both accepted and popular, after all you are all reading this each week.
Now email newsletters are brilliant for personal trainers, simply because most don’t know how or don’t take the time to offer them and when they do it’s usually nothing but a series of sales pitches, here is where you can gain an edge and be different. If you read my report than you already know what I mean, content is key. What happens when you send a group of prospects a lot of content on a regular basis is you are creating a platform of trust. At first it’s as simple as they may actually be surprised you keep sending stuff. Sooner or later they begin to read at least some items, or are just reminded of you again. Or when you share you adventures, like the one I am currently on, they get to gain a part of that experience for themselves which as emotional creatures this is one of the ways we enrich our own life. When they read your stuff the best part is they begin to forward it and refer others producing new leads. Soon they are used to your information, come to trust it and at that point with the right nudge or small offer it’s human nature to move to buy.
The importance of this statistically is significant. For instance for every 10 people that contact you in some manner only about half may ever see you for information. If you are really good at sales you will close 70-80% of those that show up. So now to generate 10 paying clients you need approximately 25 prospects, but why just give up on the 15 you didn’t close today? Over time it’s far easier to gain your next 10 clients by continuing to market to the warm prospects who already contacted you at one point than continually finding brand new prospects.
Now there are many great options out there for generating your own newsletter, but I suspect most of you would be like I was, start with the best of intentions and then fall out of the habit or miss mailings because it’s so time consuming to be finding new content all the time and preparing the newsletter from scratch. Today I am going to go out on a limb and I am going to recommend a specific product to you and flat out tell you that I pretty much promise it will be one of the best investments you make for your business. What I am talking about is a product called FitPro Newsletter. This particular newsletter software is made specifically for the fitness industry and the beauty is it’s done for you. On the 1st and 15th of each month a newsletter will be sent to your list automatically with two new articles, tips and a recipe. So even if you never touch it your prospect list is always going to be getting new, good content from you. Additionally you can configure, edit and modify any aspect of the newsletter from appearance to the content, which is great as I mentioned before when you go on adventures like the one I am on right now.
So for this week know that an email newsletter is a very key component of what will become your lead generation to conversion sales and marketing system. Do yourself a favour and use a product that is done for you and guarantee the right result, that product is FitPro Newsletter trust me.
Ok I have to get packed and set to begin my 29 hour journey home I’ll be thinking of my wife and family first, but I am sure by the time I get off the plane in Calgary I will have another great idea for you for growing your business. For now check out FitPro Newsletter and I’ll get back on schedule in the coming week.
The Absolute One Most Important Thing for Your Personal Training Business
EFT Billing is like Automatic Money
Well here I am writing from the airport in Denver. My flight was delayed on my way back from Miami where I was meeting with my business mastermind group. This group is crazy; some serious contenders in fitness and other industries across North America, a number of them are seven figure earners. In fact had I not been flying out I’d be heading to a private club with them right now where Jay Z was going to be performing, a pretty hooked up group. Anyways, something very important I have learned is that if you want to be super successful at anything, you can greatly improve your chances by working with coaches and spending time with people far more successful than you, even if you have to pay them. However that’s not the point of today’s post, today we’re going to talk about the absolute one most important thing for your personal training business.
About three and a half years ago, even before One-to-1 Fitness came to be I began thinking about something and preparing to make a major change in my solo personal training business. If you only read one post on this website, or only pay serious attention, or only learn one thing, this should be it.
No matter what your goals are, whether it’s to earn a high income as a solo-trainer, employ a team or own a gym/studio you need to understand the value of continuity for you and your customer. In this post I am referring expressly to continuity of billing and specifically automatic or EFT billing.
Without EFT billing you are more vulnerable than the office employee who is afraid of being on the next cut list of company layoffs. Without EFT billing you don’t have a business, you have a job similar to a door-to-door salesman. You are forced to continually resell your clients and your income is directly proportional to how well, how much and how often you sell to your clients. What’s worse is you are continually working but without gaining any leveragability whatsoever. A bank will never consider providing you any sort of financing while operating in this manner.
Now if you are a solo-trainer automatic or EFT billing may seem like a daunting task but it is actually far simpler than you think. Work with your account manager to open a merchant account and then with one of their providers for your gateway and necessary software. A couple of simple steps each month and you now never have to worry about asking a client for a payment it all begins to happen automatically.
Now at first I was concerned if my clients would resist, but the truth is they won’t, and if a few do you don’t want them as they are likely to leave you high and dry at some point. But the beauty is automatic billing is also in their best interests. You see, if you are like I was with 50-70 clients at a time when I was on my own it was extremely time consuming to track who I needed to collect from and when. By automating my billing process I saved numerous hours that could now be used for more important things like: improving client testing/assessment, reviewing client files, and powerful client follow up that yielded significantly better accountability and improved results. Will any of your clients ever complain about better service and better results?
By implementing EFT billing you will begin to grow a real business, business that has real saleable value and one that will allow you the security and freedom of a real business owner. You won’t have to worry if Frank remembers his chequebook to pay for his sessions today or if you can afford to take next week off. Knowing what your cash flow is each month will also allow you to easily manage a budget for your growing business and develop a predictable plan for growth.
I hope you get it as this one thing will seriously change your life and if you don’t read it again and leave your comments so I can help you further.
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