Your Personal ‘Stick Rate’ and 5 Critical Elements You NEED to Track
First and most importantly, happy Family Day everyone!
If you’ve never heard the term ‘Stick Rate’ it’s one that you should become familiar with, even if you are a brand new trainer. Stick Rate is something I learned a great deal about from internet information marketers. Most of the most profitable info marketers sell products, or have their affiliates sell their products, but these products then lead to subscription based services that generate recurring revenue. (I would advise you to read that last sentence over and over until you have burned that idea in your mind so strong that you will never forget it. It’s critically important for us all to continue to work toward having multiple income streams of recurring revenue. Anyways, that is not the focus of this article.)
Over time the info marketers learn how long the typical customer maintains their subscription to their services, this average subscription length becomes their personal ‘Stick Rate’. As a personal trainer for many years, long before I even knew what ‘Stick Rate’ was all about I noted my average client stayed with me for 9 months. I knew this was an important somehow but because I didn’t know about the idea of ‘Stick Rate’ planning I had no idea how important it was for my business, or how to use it to grow my business. Now since the opening of One-to-1 Fitness our Stick Rate has increased drastically, the question is why? Simply answered, we now understood how to use Stick Rate to tweak our services (environment and customer experience) to keep our customers longer.
This is very important for the new and experienced trainer. In one of my last columns we discussed differentiation. I believe to be continually successful in this industry and generate the business that will give you the lifestyle you desire; your service as a whole, from day one and ongoing, must maintain strong differentiation from your competitors. A bench mark for this is your Stick Rate.
By now you might be getting the idea of what Stick Rate is all about. Even if you don’t by following the instructions below and tracking these 5 critical elements of your business you will soon, not only understand your personal stick rate but, have a comprehensive platform for planning and evaluating many aspects of your business. Keep the following as a simple spreadsheet each month.
|
Day |
# of leads | # of new clients | Total sales | # of cancelled clients | Total program duration |
|
1 |
3 | 1 | $3000 | 1 | 5 months |
|
2 |
8 | 6 | $16000 | 2 | 3, 14 |
|
etc |
A few important details can be determined from tracking these five elements in your business right from day one.
# of leads – This will help you determine how effective your lead attraction and marketing elements are. Over time you will even be able to identify what your cost per lead is with any given marketing promotion.
# of new clients – This will help you understand and track what percentage of leads become clients (close ratio) and allow for planning of presentations, marketing and services to improve conversion.
Total sales – This will allow you to determine you average sale, the average sales associated with a batch of leads, and of course total sales for budgeting and future goals.
# of cancelled clients – This is very important as over time it will help you plan with razor focus how many leads you need to generate each month to replace clients and grow to achieve or maintain your sales targets.
Total program duration – Track this for your cancelled clients, this will identify your personal stick rate. If you know how long your typical client stays with you it gives you a measurable method of implementing changes to improve or maintain your service. At some point your stick rate will stay pretty constant, at this point you can now fine tune your service to optimize costs generate the best service for your customer while providing the most margin for you.
How I Use Paper to Sell Personal Training
If you haven’t already read last week’s post you should do so before reading this one.
In this week’s post we’re going to pick up where we left off. Now that you understand your client’s needs, previous experiences, expectations and have made them a little emotional about the whole situation; how do you move them to a buying mode? How do you make them feel confident that your services are the right decision for them?
In my opinion there are two things you must accomplish in this portion of the sales meeting. The first is you must demonstrate higher value, the second is differentiation. By higher value I mean more than your competition and more than their expectations. Differentiation will be the subtle differences in your services or the way you provide your services that makes you stand out.
I’ve always created value and differentiation with paper. Let me explain.
Begin by understanding that the prospect of weight loss, fitness, and greater health are all promises of an intangible product. We’ve all been lied to before, we’ve all tried to get in shape and failed, we’ve all bought something that didn’t deliver. Why is your service going to succeed where others did not?
For as long as I can remember I have always used paper materials as part of my presentation. I used to show clients sample workout sheets, exercise descriptions, warm up outlines and sample nutritional menus. These days this has evolved to professional looking color slides with testimonials and explanations of the various forms and aspects of the service that One-to-1 Fitness provides. But ten years ago when many personal trainers were just leading people from machine to machine I was showing my clients that my service included instruction as well as a take home education. ß(Higher value and differentiation)
Likely less than 10% of my clients ever read any of those materials, they relied on me to educate them. The point is about two dollars worth of materials created a tangible product for my service that closed many deals because I had generated higher value than the other trainers around me.
As for differentiation the materials that I had generated also gave me a very unique approach to meeting with a client. Today it’s still unique within our facility, potential clients come in to see what we’re about and we introduce them to a process they have never seen or come to expect from a personal trainer. Now when it comes to differentiation the materials are only one aspect of it. I have always made it a habit to offer my services in a different way than the other trainers around me. Perhaps a unique form of assessment, a non-typical session length, some extra type of service or for instance I used to charge less per session but I was the only trainer that had an ‘initial assessment fee.’ This initial assessment made me more expensive than all the other trainers but it also created higher value and differentiation as it made me appear to be the only trainer that offered an initial process that gave the client the perception of likely better results. (And in my opinion it did, so don’t think I am suggesting you develop creative ways to rip people off, just unique ways to create a different service.)
Now many coaches I have used insist that just have a blank piece of paper that you scribble on and draw out important charts and points for the client can be just as effective for an initial presentation. I wouldn’t disagree with this in that you can then emphasize the most important things for each particular client. However I have always liked to project prestige and quality with nicely printed materials so what I have done is generated different materials for different situations to try to limit information overload. The negative to this is the cost and time generating all the materials, the positive is it has given me a defined system I can both teach to employees and maintain an emphasis on quality control of the presentation and information provided.
Though a plain piece of paper will work just fine for a skilled presenter, the final point in either case is it’s critical you have a defined way of presenting that you follow for each and every client, improving each time until it becomes systematic. Loosely scripted is fine but never totally scripted as you need to always emphasize sincerity.
The Right Way to Begin ‘Selling’ Personal Training
Don't be the used car salesman of fitness.
I’ve seen so many personal trainers just starting out that seem to be very nervous about meeting a potential client for the first time. Maybe rightly so as its next week’s pay check on the line. However I am here to tell you that you are never going to experience a lot of success handing someone a piece of paper that includes your rates for 1, 10 and 25 sessions, even if you give a couple of freebies with the bigger packages. If your potential client has already made up their mind about personal training then they may buy a couple sessions to try you out or they’ll just take your information and, “think about it.” Now you’re in a situation of constantly “re-selling” your clients and will have to constantly be meeting new ones to find those ready to buy. Not a very long term sustainable plan.
The first 10-20 minutes that you meet a new prospective client should never include pricing information at all. (In fact don’t even have it in sight, or in the room, show that you are interested in them, not their money.) This time should be about you showing them that you are genuinely interested in finding out about them, their goals, and that you are a good listener that can ultimately provide a solution to their problem or pain.
When I meet a new potential client for the first time I will begin with a brief introduction and welcome, from there I ask them if they mind if I ask them a few questions. I highly recommend you use a piece of note paper and a pen to write down the highlights from their answers. This shows them you are in fact listening and can address all their concerns as you go.
Questions I like to ask:
- So what has you thinking about personal training? (Ice breaker, summary of their immediate concerns/pain/goals)
- So what have already been doing and for how long to (summarize goals from previous question)? (This creates an emotion within them by reminding them they have not been successful thus far, begins an affirmation that they may need your help.)
- Have you worked with a personal trainer before? (This is incredibly important, if they have and it was negative you know they will be apprehensive to buy again, if it was positive you best find out what they liked to ensure you can provide the same or better level of service.)
- What would you like to see happen in the next 3 to 6 months? (Keep painting the picture of their goals, and now you are conditioning them to commit for an extended timeline.)
There are many more questions you can ask, and it’s important you find your own so that each presentation exhibits your personal sincerity to each person. The more emotionally charged someone becomes toward the things that bother them the higher their belief that you will be able to help them and the more likely they will buy. Once you have gathered information about their goals/concerns it’s time to show them how you are the solution to these problems while using their terms/words to maintain their emotions.
This may sound manipulative from a sales or monetary standpoint but the truth is its just effective coaching. We all know that we can help just about anyone get in shape with basic fitness principles; the underlying factor is their commitment to the necessary changes. Change is difficult but how difficult is directly related to how emotionally charged we are about what we want to change. By asking emotional questions to your potential client right from the get go you will not only experience more sales but also gain clients who make better progress through greater commitment right from day one.
The More Lines in the Water, the More Likely You Will Get a Bite
Don't monkey around with fishing for new clients!
What does fishing have to do with the business of personal trainer marketing in Alberta? Maybe more than you think. Too often, especially as a solo personal trainer, our time is spread very thin amongst a variety of tasks. When we think of personal trainer marketing and attracting new clients we often become really focused on one idea or promotion. Soon all our efforts are wrapped up in one thing at a time, though once in a while this may produce a dramatic result; most often it will be pretty discouraging.
Effective and continual client attraction and business growth requires you to have more lines in the water. One promotion leads to the next or simple awareness marketing needs to run parallel to your latest offer. Each new avenue will provide more credibility to the other campaign. Now a word of warning, I am not suggesting that you have several deep discount offers running at the same time as this will only confuse the consumer. My point is to make sure you always have a plan B, C and so on. The more lines in the water the more likely you are to get a bite.
Here is an example of multiple streams of marketing that reinforce each other within our business. Each one makes the others more successful than they would be on their own.
Let’s say we were running a newspaper ad or a direct mail flyer on a deep discount training program to generate new clients.
Facebook Advertising – Running a free consult ad on facebook continually provides local, targeted branding. If people who seen the flyer were skeptical about the discount program this may provide a comfortable alternative to seeing what we have to offer without feeling any sort of obligation.
Articles – If you are writing articles make sure they get posted online but more importantly try to get them out in your immediate area. I’ve been writing for our local paper for over 3 years and now when someone sees our ad and follows it up with reading my column in the Sunday paper we have developed a great deal of credibility. This makes all our marketing carry more weight.
Radio Branding – Not that I necessarily suggest this, but for us it is so inexpensive that a basic radio branding commercial brings the appearance of our print ad or flyer back to top of mind awareness and maybe increases our conversion slightly with those that had already forgotten about it.
Free Newsletter – If they seen our print ad or flyer, and/or maybe our facebook ad or heard our commercial or maybe all of the above, curiosity may overwhelm them to make them visit our website; just to see who we are since they keep hearing about us. If they are still afraid to feel pressured at all about using our services they can find out more without ever talking to us by opting in for our free newsletter which puts them in our marketing funnel. This gives us an ongoing chance to offer them our services or another promotion in the future.
The only one of these that presents significant cost to a new trainer is the radio branding, and it’s by far the least important the larger your market. We only use it because in our market it’s very cost effective. I hope I have illustrated my point, don’t really on attracting clients through one campaign at a time. Make sure they overlap or blend into ongoing items that ultimately create your marketing system.
Developing Your Pricing Structure as a Personal Trainer in Alberta
When starting out as a new personal trainer in Alberta, how much to charge is a common question. At least through central Alberta the average for personal training is around $1/minute. Many new solo trainers are charging somewhat less and many established trainers and studios like ours are charging significantly more. So the question now is what’s right for you?
Truth is how much you CAN charge is determined more by how you present it to the client. There are many factors of an initial appointment far before pricing that will determine whether they become your client or not but since this question was asked directly by email I wanted to try to answer it right away. Over the coming weeks you can expect numerous posts that will breakdown the aspects of meeting a new potential client and increasing your closing ratio. (The number that progress into your services versus those that don’t.)
When it comes to pricing there are two primary important factors.
1) Can you build enough value? – Whether you are charging $20/hr or $100/hr the deciding factor will be can you create enough perceived value for your potential client? The higher your rate the more value you will need to provide, here are some examples of ways that I have used to create value for my training rates when I was a solo personal trainer:
- Explain the testing protocols and process that are involved in developing their program, and that it is in fact a process. Show them the steps and assign a value to this process but then include it in their programming as a no-charge benefit to create value.
- Provide more paper. At one time I had written and photographed all the primary foundation exercises. Even though my clients would never read or use these descriptions it was given to them as an additional value to reassure them that if they ever need to exercise on their own they could. It also created a solid tangible product that they were buying as opposed to an intangible service.
- Provide additional unique service or service variations. For instance it may be standard practice for all trainers to measure blood pressure, girth measures and a 12 min run/walk or 3 min step test. However you can bundle this and give it a unique name that set’s you apart such as: Dynamic Client Health Assessment. This bundled service also now has a value attached but when included in your programming creates extra value.
All of these additional services take up your valuable time so it is important to charge for them. From a business building standpoint, remember this is a service industry and what will set you apart from your competitors is not price but rather service and results.
2) What structure you present. – Now many of you are no different than I was when I was a solo trainer. I performed only 1 hour training sessions and I sold them in small packs of 1, 5 or 10. Now I would never sell training like this again (which I will discuss in greater detail in a future post). It is more effective, especially for your businesses health and growth, to sell your service on reoccurring monthly billing but for this post let’s keep it simple and discuss an end or situation.
If you sell sessions I would recommend you build packages that include an assessment period that creates value and bundles your testing sessions together in a discounted format. This creates a large amount of value for the client to base their initial decision off of. After the assessment period I would suggest you bundle your sessions into packages of multiple of 4 to create a typical monthly cycle. (ie. 4, 8, 12, 16) Now for the tips:
i) When you present these to your client I would only present the 8, 12 and maybe 16 packages as the 12 is what you will probably sell the most of.
ii) Don’t show the monthly total but rather the cost per session, lower numbers are always better.
iii) Use nice numbers such as $x5, $x7, or $x9/session.
iv) Make your rate breaks at least +/- $5/session.
If you want to charge more and be price competitive in your market or simply offer a service that stands out to be unique to your competitors my final suggestion is to change the length of your sessions. Don’t offer a standard 60 minute sessions, offer a 50 min or a 45 min, explain you offer the same results in less time. Cost wise when you divide your hourly rate into the new session length you can now match your competitor or even appear cheaper while maintaining a greater margin for your time.
As for where to start if you are a personal trainer in Alberta I would never suggest you start below $50/session. And a good rule of thumb is that as you grow about 5-8% of your clients should complain about your prices, otherwise you are not charging as much as you could. As my coach used to always tell me go increase your rates by $8/session right now.
How I generated Killer Leads in less than an hour
How I generated over 200 prospects, 67 emails and 6 potential clients in less than an hour (and you can too!)
In fact some of you reading this post may be within that group of prospects. With that being said don’t feel duped, jaded or tricked into sales scheme because that is entirely not the case. The point is this whole experience was a test to just see what would happen, and it was based on two things that I have learned to be universal:
- We learn best from others, so communicate with as many like minded people as you can and you will learn far more than you already know.
- Sincerity goes a long way, the more you give the more you receive. I am determined to have an impact on our industry, it’s given me a lot now I hope to give to you. (There was far less apprehension than I expected this really seemed to resonate well with many people I contacted which is completely awesome!)
If you don’t take anything else from this post remember these two things alone will be invaluable.
Anyways, how did I generate 200 prospects, 67 emails and 6 potential clients in less than an hour?
Continue reading How I generated Killer Leads in less than an hour »
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