How to get everything you want as a personal trainer
I’d like to share a couple little tidbits of success from this week if you don’t mind. If you were at the Business Ignition Workshop you heard all about how to use a free weight loss program to rapidly launch your fitness business. Well this week two of my coaching clients nailed it big time. One of them explained how they recruited 40 new people for their results bootcamp and the other had over 65 training inquiries within 48 hours leaving their job to pursue their fitness business full time.
Given this is a free weight loss program you may not be impressed you might think it is easy to recruit people if you are willing to train them for free, and in a sense you would be right. Now on the other side of this equation I have had some people from the workshop contact me with questions as to why their programs weren’t working, in every single case they had try to cut corners somehow whether it was shortening the program, eliminating components of the offer or some other element, you can’t cut corners, but do you understand why?
Times are tough; people are tighter with their money than ever. The only way you are going to get them to give you their precious dollars is to make them feel like they would be silly not to and to make them feel as though they owe it to you, it’s this second point that my coaching clients really understand.
You see most personal trainers are starving, broke and barely hanging on so every new client is a must sell situation. Clients pick up on this, they can detect desperation like a dog can smell fear, it’s a sure fire way to go broke in no time.
Now the smart trainer understands the Law of Reciprocity. You must always go with a giving hand and be willing to give in a way none of your competitors are. When it comes to a free weight loss program pull out all the stops, always give them all your best stuff and never worry about anything in return. If you execute this fully then it’s a simple conversion process. How much does it cost will become how do I make sure I get a spot? Seriously the higher the quality of service you give people in an extended trial program you will never have to worry about selling them anything, they will sell themselves. Zig Zigler says, “Help enough people get what they want and you will get what you want.”
In an extended trial you earn massive amounts of trust because people get to see the value and experience it for themselves before they ever commit to anything, if they find value in what you do why wouldn’t they stay? Just think of this approach as an aggressive deferred payment plan.
Now the second aspect of getting everything you want as a personal trainer is a little different. Let me ask you, have you asked your clients to write out their goals for you? Probably, but now let me ask you, why have you not written out your own goals? Very few people actually write down their goals. As a trainer if you have not written your own goals for this year, month and week then I can guarantee you are not holding your clients accountable fully to theirs. This accountability is one of your primary roles as a trainer, trust me it’s not to count reps. A funny thing happens when you write down your goals, believe it or not they will come true whether you think you are actively pursuing them or not you simply will. Trust me.
What The Alarm Salesman Did Wrong…
Is your personal training business secure?
Yesterday an interesting thing happened it has nothing and everything to do with selling personal training and fitness marketing. The doorbell rang. I was in my home office intently concentrating when this noise distracted me. Seriously these days you know when the doorbell rings unexpectedly it’s a sales call. Funny, I like sales calls now, it’s like they just unexpectedly walked into a practical exam for sales and marketing. The poor alarm guy, though he was nice enough, he failed miserably.
He opened with a, do you have a security system now? Terrible! As terrible as these following personal training headlines:
- Get in Shape for Summer
- A Personal Trainer Can Get You Better Results
- Spring and Summer Boot Camps – Spots available, start today!
His question though seemingly valid wasn’t, you see the answer doesn’t matter, in that split second he disconnected with me and put me on the defensive as I knew his primary objective was to sell me on his new alarm system.
You Have to Get Them Emotional…
A much better approach would have been to introduce himself, and tell me something like, “Did you know that 50-100 break and enters occur in Red Deer every month? (Real number easily found on google.) Did you know that means that X# of people in this neighbourhood had their house broken into last month? (Divide number of neighbourhoods by total per month.) Your house is being targeted and here’s why…(high perceived value item, maybe like the 10 things you are doing every day that will make your house a target for serious theft. Like not locking your garage door to your home, like leaving your registration and garage door opener in your vehicle, like not quickly picking up the newspaper on the front step showing that you aren’t home or don’t pay attention, like not displaying alarm signage as a deterrent, gee and I am a personal trainer.)
Now let me ask you, do you feel comfortable knowing your house is a target? Do you do some of those above things I mentioned? Does that make you worry in the slightest?
About a year ago my neighbour had his vehicle broken into on the exact weekend we were away, that easily could have been our house. Similarly my wife’s poor co-worker had her house completely emptied in broad daylight. I bet you have or have heard a similar story, does thinking about that raise your level of paranoia?
We are hardwired to become emotional when we use the right language, as a successful coach you need to understand that attracting clients (and more importantly having them commit and comply with your instructions) will be much more successful if you can generate a vested emotional interest within them.
The point is just by changing your approach you now have a prospect that may naturally have been on the defensive and resilient to sales now defenceless because they are emotionally invested. Even though we have a security system in our home, between this failed sales visit and writing this post even I think we need to be more careful with our home, the power of emotions.
The same is true of personal training. The headlines above can be more powerful, here are some examples:
- · Get in Shape for Summer Good news, there is a simple way you can lose 10-15lbs before July.
- · A Personal Trainer Can Get You Better Results Your gym membership failed you, Jenny Craig failed you, this won’t!
- · Spring and Summer Boot Camps – Spots available, start today! Do you qualify for this weight loss program? 5 spots available.
You know what? As a Canadian personal trainer trying to learn the ins and outs of fitness marketing strategies you have a serious problem. You are too nice, too plain, and don’t use enough emotional language, it’s time to start! You will thank me later, adjust your headlines, your ad copy, brochures and even your conversation, every little step will drastically improve your results, I guarantee it!
8 Steps to Becoming a Profitable Personal Trainer
If you want to become a member of the elite, a fitness marketing specialist, someone who can sell personal training with ease, a truly profitable personal trainer than you best pay attention to the following:
1) Stop doing 60 min sessions, switch to abbreviated training either a 45 min session or better yet a 30 min. If you think you can’t get a client an effective workout in 30 minutes you are not alone, I felt that way too but just trust me and do it. 60 minute personal training sessions are counselling sessions that will burn you out fast and keep you broke. 30 minute sessions allow you to appear to be cheaper than your competition while in reality you can be more expensive on a per hour basis. Your clients will find them easier to schedule and will be able to afford more of them which overall means their results will be better.
2) Don’t sell packages of personal training sessions, sell the lifestyle. No one loses 40lbs, corrects hypoglycaemia or lowers blood pressure in 10 sessions. You want clients that are serious about adopting a new lifestyle and the need you more than ever. Do yourself and them a favour and make it easy, sell ongoing monthly training packages not packages of sessions. (Ideally using EFT.)
RnR is an important part of being a Profitable Personal Trainer, Wendy and I like to get away any chance we get, our May long weekend was spent at Radium in BC.
3) Utilize sincere selling. Care about your clients and prospects, when you meet a new client use an extended meeting to get to know them, to learn about their goals, fears and pain. Ask them questions that stir emotions about why the need to make lifestyle changes. Your job is to make them feel as though you are saving their life because potentially you are. The more focused and aware you become about their needs the more they will fulfil your financial needs and with far less resistance.
4) Increase the value. Your job description when it comes to client appointments can be summarized in two words: service and value. Provide killer service and always find ways to provide more value: ie. Valuable additional content in the form of articles, newsletters, strategic business partnerships and discounts, tele-seminars, paper system materials.
5) Ask everyone for a testimonial, social proof will be better than any advertisement you can ever dream up, take before and after photos and videos and ask for testimonials often from every single client.
6) Always be building your list. Use public speaking, opt-ins, Facebook ads, classifieds and special free programs to constantly create an influx of new leads.
7) For each new step document the system. Longevity becomes about time and task management. As each new spoke of the wheel begins to turn document the system so it may become a repeat process. If you do not have anyone in your network to delegate to you will eventually but only if you have systems to teach. Take it from me, I failed to duplicate 4 times before I succeeded because I didn’t have documented systems.
8) Don’t forget to take time off and relax, get away from the business of personal training and do something fun. I hope you had a great long weekend!
4…3…2…1…We Are Go For Launch!
Did you wake up this morning full of passion and desire to succeed in a way that you have never felt before? Did you wake up with ideas and tasks swimming in your head that you absolutely need to attack and complete this coming week? Did you open your notebook to find that you now possess a complete 8 week, step-by-step plan detailing how even as a brand new trainer you can sell $100,000 in personal training and fitness programs in the next 8 weeks?
I know a number of individuals who made the trip to Edmonton, Alberta this past Saturday will be nodding a resounding yes to all of these questions. (That is if they have the time to even read this post.)
The Alberta average wage for a personal trainer in 2009 was just over $22,000, we can do far better than this. Our industry is growing faster and is needed more than ever. One of the biggest road blocks I’ve seen in new personal trainers is first understanding exactly how to improve their skills and acquire many new clients in the easiest, fastest, lowest cost manner possible.
Below is a short video of a discussion we had on this topic at the Personal Trainer Business Ignition ($100k in 8 Weeks) Workshop. Watch the video and adopt the right mindset and if you’re lucky maybe some of the attendees will comment on some of the great things they learned! (Also if you haven’t already go to the form on the right an download Factor 3, this will push you in the right direction to becoming a Profitable Personal Trainer.)
Do you have a mailing list? If so how many people are on it and when did you last contact them?
Contact Management is essential for fitness marketing!
As a follow up to my last post this is the next big step for you and likely also your website. You see as fitness professionals we’re pretty limited to the dollars we can spend on advertising and various fitness marketing strategies. For us relationship marketing is where it’s at, but as the world continues to move faster and faster we are all governed further by technology; traditional networking is becoming increasingly difficult.
As will be a major topic of discussion this weekend at the Business Ignition Workshop it’s critical you learn as many ways as possible to build a ‘list’ of customers and prospects. It’s quite common that when people start building a list they forget to nurture it only to become frustrated as they now possess a dead list.
You nurture you list by frequent contact, an example is the words you are reading at this very moment. I try every week to make sure I contact you on Monday and Thursday so we might engage for just a few moments and continue to build our relationship. As you will learn from my good friend Mr. X these relationships are extremely valuable and never just from the standpoint of making a sale.
This website and my attempt to gain regular contact with numerous fitness professionals has already brought me new colleagues and ideas that have allowed my training studio and other businesses to make huge strides forward. This is why of all the fitness marketing strategies you might learn; the idea of content, list building and continuity are the foundation principles that will determine your total success as a whole.
Anyways…back on topic, a key element for list building is automation through some form of contact management. If you can provide an easy way to provide regular contact with your list without spending a lot of time; you are free to keep performing the technical work that many of you are trying to grow beyond. (I mean let’s face it, if you’re a solo trainer you still have to train people, and yet you need to develop the systems so you don’t always have to train people, get it?)
By using a contact management product you save a lot of time, by using a website blog and publishing regular content that you then also distribute to your list you leverage further; you maintain regular contact and also attract new prospects with all the posted content. The icing on the cake is now you can put the two of those together to help build your list also, this is the opt-in. An example of an opt-in is the offer for Factor 3 up in the top right corner of this website. I have offered you some very valuable information in exchange for the trust of contacting you next week, my goal each week is to continue to offer you value in hopes that eventually we’ll find a way to help each other and grow our respective businesses.
Makes sense right? Now the question for those not super techno savvy is there an easy solution to handle this problem? Well, in my opinion yes, as a fitness professional you absolutely should have some form of contact management as part of your fitness marketing strategy, and an electronic product is by far the cheapest and these days most successful. Though you can use simple products like iContact, Constant Contact, or Aweber I hands down recommend FitPro Newsletter, you see as I have mentioned previously FitPro is the only product designed for fitness professionals, it’s completely customizable but the beauty is it’s also done for you. Their professional writers add great new articles to every issue so you don’t have to worry about it like the others. Come times like now where you are super busy training people you don’t even need to think about sending content to your list as they will all receive great new content every two weeks on your behalf. Now when you need to contact your list for other reasons they’ll even still remember who you are. J
The list is king! Grow it, nurture it, it is the key to your success.
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.
5 Critical things, a Video, and Where it All Began…
The video below is an excerpt from last year when I spoke in Anaheim at the Fitness Business Summit (The 2010 summit starts tomorrow). This is the first year I have missed the summit and it sort of has me a little disjointed this week. You see this conference is what started it all for me. It was the first time I was ever in a room with trainers from all over the world that were gathered to learn one thing, how to grow their fitness business. It was the first conference I had ever seen that really delivered real how-tos on how to go from zero to hero. It was also where I met and hired my first paid business mentor, very reluctantly.
After returning home from that very first conference in 2007 and soon being told with authority to, “Ready, Shoot, Aim” I worked tirelessly to complete the business plan for One-to-1 Fitness. Soon after I met with RBC, only to have my business plan rejected. Because of the inspiration, confidence and a notebook full of ammunition of information this rejection didn’t even faze me. By accessing what little equity we had in our home we pushed ahead and One-to-1 Fitness was born, and well you know how well that’s worked out.
Now what’s amazing is ever year at the time the summit has come around, without realizing, I have always rewarded myself big time (trips, cars and houses) as a result of the success of the previous year, in fact I didn’t even realize it until my mentor pointed it out to me the other day. Anyways, here’s what’s important about all of that:
1) Always set clear goals for yourself.
2) Surround yourself with people that contribute and rid yourself of the people that hold you back.
3) Always have a plan.
4) Ready, Shoot, Aim.
5) Never, ever, give up.
I am so excited to launch the Personal Trainer Business Ignition Workshop on May 15 because I know for someone (and hopefully more like everyone) this is going to have the same impact on them that it had for me in Anaheim.
Anyhow, wow this was supposed to be a short post about the video below and totally turned into a heartfelt gimpse of how sad I am about to not be seeing friends and colleagues in Anaheim this weekend. Anyways, the exciting news is not only is the Business Ignition Workshop CEC approved by CanFitPro; yesterday I applied to be a presenter at the fall conference in Calgary. I believe that this information needs to go main stream, it’s totally changed my life and I want to see it change others. Part of the application process is I had to submit a video of me lecturing, below is an excerpt from Anaheim where I affirm what I feel is one of the single most important points of owning a fitness business as opposed to it owning you. If you’ve been paying attention to my previous posts you already know exactly what it’s about. Enjoy!
When Systems Fail
Milo my calculator operator could hardly believe the results either.
The following is an example of why it’s important to always remember to not only be a strong leader but an effective delegator. Sounds easy but do you truly know the difference between delegation and abdication?
Yesterday was one of those days you really wish to avoid, but once you get past the frustration you are reminded of the value of failing forward. Yesterday was budget day at One-to-1 Fitness. Our first quarter has appeared to be every bit as successful as many months before, (with the exception of a little bit of a lull in March that many of you might also relate to.) However where sales and receivables appeared strong our bank account cash flow just seemed like it wasn’t totally adding up. The difference, well it was fairly significant, more than fifteen thousand dollars between our accounting records and our facility records. Certainly a significant amount over only one business quarter and enough to unravel any budget you have in place and are attempting to follow. Where did it go? How did this happen? What kind of problem were we facing?
Over the last three years at One-to-1 Fitness we have made it a habit to make each decision as though we’ll have to face the same scenario a hundred times or more. Than as we apply the solution it’s carefully documented as a step-by-step process and added to our operations manual. Every aspect of the business is treated the same way from the trainers and their responsibilities through to sales and administration. It can be trying at times but it is what has allowed us to go from 100 appointments a week to routinely over 500 appointments per week while maintaining a high level of customer service.
So unfortunately a planned budget meeting scheduled to last an hour now became a full scale nine hour audit lasting well past midnight, of sales and close outs. After hours of frustration, calculation and remembering why I never wanted to be an accountant I discovered all sorts of user errors in handling payments and refunds. Thankfully a number of them were data entry but after a gruelling evening about $3000 still remains unaccounted for. What would you do?
Well I thought about it for a while and then reminded myself that this was truly my fault, after all we had put what we felt was a good system in place but I had neglected to review it at regular intervals to ensure its accuracy. Key individuals will need to be reminded that it is their responsibility to make good decisions and point out areas that are not functioning correctly, as I have now reminded myself but as the captain it’s my job to review the systems and correct or adapt them as needed for better function and accuracy. And that is the difference between delegation and abdication. If your goal is to be ultra successful become comfortable with delegating and outsourcing as much as you possibly can so you can focus on your top 5%. Just be prepared to take responsibility and immediate action when things some time go astray.
YES! Contact me today to schedule a FREE no obligation consultation and trial workout.