How-to Get Everyone on EFT
I find so many fitness professionals are really afraid to talk to their clients about automatic billing for services. Because they are afraid to talk to them about it when they do the results are just as bad as they imagined, people resist, say no, question them and more.
Automatic billing is essentially for the longevity of your business and more importantly it’s even better service for your clients. You see every month (if you’re not billing automatically) you’re spending time focusing on when people need to pay, invoicing, record keeping, and re-selling when what you should be focused on is THEIR GOALS.
Let’s face it, no one is going to reach their goals in a few sessions, and you have no idea when you start with them just how long it will take because that’s primarily decided by your relationship with them and ultimately their consistency, commitment, all as a measure of your support and accountability.
Your clients shouldn’t be worried about their billing, they should be focused on their goals, you shouldn’t be worried about billing them, you should be focused on their goals, ultimately with EFT your goals are the same. The video below will help you with that conversation.
[youtube]http://youtu.be/M0e2IhLdHPU[/youtube]
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!
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!
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.
YES! Contact me today to schedule a FREE no obligation consultation and trial workout.