Prospect List

Having fun with your clients is an important part of your Personal Trainer Marketing. A goofy picture from my Iphone of Adam dressing up as Tom Cruise for a recent client birthday.

There are many ways that you can build your prospect list for your personal trainer marketing funnel. In this post I’m going to explain 5 of my favourites. Following these tips not only will you build your list but also rapidly position yourself as an expert in your community. Before I jump into the list you should understand what’s known in the internet marketing world as an opt-in. (If you don’t already.)

Personal trainers have been slow to catch on to what savvy marketer’s have known for some time. Using some type of online location (often a one page website to push visitors to a simple action, known as a squeeze page)to push visitors to providing their email address to receive a high value bonus item or service in exchange for the opportunity for you to contact them regularly. This is the opt-in process and it can change your life. If it sounds complicated but the good news is the product I mentioned at my recent appearance at the CanFitPro Calgary conference was designed specifically for fitness professionals and this purpose. Not only does it include the simple technology to easily setup this process it goes a step further and allows you to completely automate regular contact and relationship building with your list. (More on this in another post coming next week but if you want to jump the gun and learn more go here now.)

Ok on to the list building items, one more note, if you are new personal trainer your goal is to build a contact/prospect list of 500 local people as quickly as possible. I’ve seen time and time again a list of 500 will be enough to build the whole foundation of your business and quickly achieve and surpass six figure sales.

1)      Lunch and learns, public speaking.  At my conference session two people in attendance commented that they regularly get 10-15 new contacts in a lunch and learn or short information seminar. You really should have close to 100% conversion in this environment. The key is make sure you ask them for their names and emails and take the list at the end, don’t expect them to contact you after. I’ve been testing new methods of getting people to take action (in fact I even tested an idea in my session) but nothing works as well as simply asking people for their names and emails in your workshop.

2)      Classified Ads. Craiglist, kijiji, and other similar classified sites provide many free venues to “get your name out there” and direct people to your opt-in pages or to replay with their email in exchange for a high value item or service. One of my top coaching clients has consistently grown his contact list by 30, 50 and 100 new contacts per week with a simple free recipe classified ad.

3)      Ask your current and old clients. Run a referral contest with your clients, don’t even make it about who signs up but rather who simple refers you the most new people’s names in exchange for valuable information you can provide. An American colleague has grown his list by hundreds in just a couple weeks with a series of about 3-4 emails.

4)      Networking meetings, Chamber of Commerce events. Pretty much every community has social clubs, networking groups and a Chamber of Commerce. Simply go to these events, talk to as many different people as possible. Hand out your cards but more importantly get theirs. Transfer their information to your list and begin building a relationship with valuable information.

5)      Leverage social media. Everyone is on Facebook. Post intelligent updates and information that betters peoples live. It’s critical you maintain the right Facebook image, forget the cheesy status updates you see people make. Because the drama is their people are watching, if you enrich their lives they will click through, get them to your opt-in page.

If you read my previous post; with these tips and a few numbers you should easily be able to build a schedule and plan how to reach 500 prospects in a conscious, realistic and repeatable timeline.