Fitness Business School – Grow Your Business Without Leaving the Gym – 03 – Maximize Lifetime Value

Full Transcript

Hey, Pat Rigsby here, and in this episode I wanna talk with you about the third way that you can grow your business without ever leaving the gym, maximizing the lifetime value of each client. Let’s get started.

Welcome to the Fitness Business School podcast, the show for fitness business owners who want to grow their income, increase their impact and improve their lifestyle. Be sure to listen till the end of this episode because we have a brand new special offer exclusive for listeners. So
stay tuned.

A lot of people talk about client lifetime value and they just kind of equate it with retention. And I think retention’s obviously the, the foundation of it. But I also think that, um, if you’re in business for a while, you’re gonna have people that come and go do multiple challenges, is, um, stop and start, take breaks,
whatever you’d like to call it.

So we’re gonna talk about that piece too, because I mean, I have people that were clients of mine in 2009 and are clients of mine today, but they have had what I would call a broken membership or coach client relationship with me, not unbroken, where the subscription never lapsed. And you know what?
They’re, they’re some of my favorite people. And I mean, that’s just how life works. People have changing circumstances. They’ve got changing budgets, they’ve got changing priorities. And I think that what we’re trying to do is be there for them when they need us and be the person they go to when
they’re ready. So, I’m gonna talk about this in a few different ways. The first of which is, number one, we’ve gotta deliver on our promise. If we’re telling people we’re gonna help them achieve a certain goal, then we’ve got to do our best to achieve it.

Now, obviously, it’s a two-way street, they have to play their part, but, um, I think a lot of people in our industry sell fat loss and actually just deliver workouts. And so we have to make sure that we’re helping them succeed. And then when we catch them succeeding, we celebrate it. We recognize it because
sometimes it’s really easy for people to, um, kind of notice, uh, what Dan Sullivan’s, uh, wonderful book the Gap and the Gain talks about is like, they notice the gap, right? Like how far they still have to go. They don’t notice the gain, how far they’ve come. So make sure that we’re celebrating the gain. The
second thing that I would tell you is, man, you gotta be focused on the client during the session. You’ve got to be present. And that, again, this sounds like common sense, but how many times do people think of?

I would hear people back, when I was around a lot more one-on-one training talk about, well, that’s my 10:30, that’s my 11:30, that’s my one. No, they’re each individual people that have meaningful goals that they’re, they are pursuing in partnership with you. They’re trusting you to be their
ally, their teammate, their guide, their coach. So we have to be focused on that client during their session. We can’t be distracted. We can’t just get it over with because, you know, every day we’re winning business where we’re not. And so that means leaving any of your personal issues at the door
and trying to be the best part of that person’s day. Because let’s face it, the experience precedes the result. The experience is the immediate gratification part of what we do when we’re training clients. Sure, they, you know, they can leave with an elevated heart rate and sweaty and, but you know, they
need to have a sense of accomplishment.

They need to feel like they move towards their goal. Because if somebody says, I wanna lose 20 pounds, they can’t come in and leave 20 pounds lighter. Like if they go get a massage, they, you know, they leave and they’re relaxed. If they go and have lunch at a restaurant, they leave having, um, been delivered the
meal that, that they ordered. So we have to make sure that our experience is something that wins them back the next day. The experience is the immediate gratification part of what we do. And so many people in our industry pass the buck and say, well, you need to be committed. Well, maybe that’s true,
but it’s a lot easier to be committed to something that you enjoy around people that you enjoy. So that doesn’t necessarily mean they have to be committed to us, even if they’re committed to the process, they can be committed to the process with somebody who pays better attention to the experience.

And then you gotta be interested, not just interesting, like so many people in our industry, they, you know, there’s the Instagram trainers that essentially are just posting shirtless photos and making it about them. You gotta be about the client too. And, and I get it that we in our industry often,
um, use our own fitness as a billboard for what we do. Um, but you know, people are interested in themselves, so we still have to shine the spotlight back on them, and we need to make sure that they know that we’re here for them, that we care about them, and that we are going to help them succeed.
So, you know, again, you have to be focused on the client during the session. Then we have to make it different enough over time that people don’t get bored. They don’t chase the shiny object, they don’t feel like it gets to be monotonous.

So we have to integrate some variety. Sometimes that’s, you know, I think that that’s where so many people in our industry missed one of the big benefits of running challenges. They, they thought of CES exclusively as this external marketing tool instead of an internal engagement tool and an internal
excitement tool. So, you know, change up the, their goals, change up their focuses. Make sure, you know, even if it’s like, Hey, this month we’re gonna work on, um, you know, this area with a little bit more intensity, or, um, you know, this month we’re going to pursue these specific strength goals or
whatever, make it different enough to keep ’em interested and then reach out in between sessions, text clients and check in, even if we’re not talking about an accountability program. Um, you know, I talked with a client the other day in Manhattan and when there was all the, the banking stuff that, that was
really kind of just happening and they have a lot of people that work in the banking industry.

There, it was, you know, that was one of the things that, that we talked about was just reaching out to all those people, checking in, say, Hey, how are you feeling? Do you, um, need to, to get in here and blow off some steam? You know, if you’re too busy to get in here, is there anything I can do to support
you? Well, you’re, you know, well, you’re not able to get in, but check them. You know, check on them, check in, make sure they know that you care about them. You’re not just somebody that is interested in them once they walk through the door. And then, you know, as I mentioned in one of the previous
episodes here, um, catch people doing right. Let them know what they did. Well, a lot of times in our world, we get a lot of constructive feedback, but we don’t get a lot of positive feedback.

Catch people doing stuff right. Let them know what they do well. And then if people have to miss a session or if they have to reschedule, the goal here isn’t to make them feel, feel guilty. The goal is to make them feel cared for and let them know that we’re still their coach and we can coach them and
problem solve from a distance. We can help them stay on track and feel good about themselves and keep them engaged with us and then finally, as I kind of alluded to at the beginning of this episode, reconnect with former clients. You know, make sure that they stay engaged. Notice I didn’t say
reactivate, because that doesn’t mean that these people aren’t training anywhere. They may be training at home, they may be training at a health club, they may be training somewhere else. Stay reconnected.

Like reconnect with them, stay connected with them over time. And, you know, eventually just like if they got bored with what you were doing and wanted to pursue this shiny new object, this new gym that came to town, well eventually they’ll get bored with that too. So we want to be top of mind when
that happens or whenever they need help, we want them to think of us. You know, if you’ve already invested time into building this relationship, leverage that time you’ve already invested and reconnect every couple months. Just send out a message, text somebody, follow up with them, stay in touch and
make sure that they understand that they’re always welcome, that you’re always gonna be their coach. And finally, every day we have to win business. All too often we think of, well, hey, I sold this person. The sales part’s done. No, we’re, we’re reselling them on staying committed to their goals on, on the
idea that this was the right decision for them on being, um, you know, true to whatever we’re asking of
them when they’re program.

We have to resell people on that. And that’s again, it’s winning business each and every day with the people we have. Back in my college coaching days, I learned very quickly that the most important recruiting I would ever do would be to recruit the people that I already had. So there wasn’t a revolving
door. And I would tell you the same recruit the people that you have. So we’ve kind of unpacked it all three ways to grow your business without ever leaving the gym over these last three episodes. I’m certain that there’s something in one of those three episodes, if not something in each episode that you
could either start doing or maybe do a little bit differently based on some of these suggestions and get a better result. You’re gonna see your business grow even if you don’t have a ton of time, even if you can’t get outside the gym or in some cases maybe you’re not super comfortable with some of that external marketing stuff. Well, this allows you to still make progress, but you’ve gotta be proactive. You’ve got to go pursue
business again, you’ve got to play offense. And this gives you a pretty robust toolkit to do just that. So
take these three ways and go grow your business.

Thanks for listening to this episode of The Fitness Business School

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