Fitness Business School – Get More Paying Clients

Full Transcript

Hey Pat Rigsby here. And in this episode, I want to talk with you about converting leads into paying successful clients. We’ve got a little bit of ground to cover, and we’re going to talk about some things that maybe you haven’t heard before. So let’s get to it.

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 til the end of this episode, because we have a brand new special offer exclusive for listeners. So stay tuned.

When people struggle with converting leads. It’s usually because of one really kind of simple mistake. They think about lead conversion to two. Literally they’re thinking about this in almost kind of a conveyor belt fashion that, that thing’s just going to automatically happen. Like there’s something that you, as the business owner can do that makes your leads just flip the switch and convert into paying clients. And the reality is you’re not going to convince anybody of anything, unless they’re, they’re really kind of already wanting that thing. Now you may be able to nudge them over the edge. You can probably persuade somebody who’s on the fence and, and incentivize them or motivate them to take action. But this isn’t like wrestling somebody into submission. Like, Hey, you’re going to come in here and train with me whether you like it or not. In fact so much of the time when I think about people who tell me about who their target market is or who their avatar is, or whatever language you kind of gravitate to.

I think back to when, when I first moved to Louisville, my next door neighbor was a really successful entrepreneur. He hit, he had been a co-founder a partner in launching two different fast food franchises that both grew to over a thousand locations. And even in retirement, I believe he owned like 55 Wendy’s in retirement. And so, you know, this is a gentleman who had a high eight figure net worth. He lived in the right neighborhood. He you know, he, he fit all those kinds of demographic requirements. And so did his wife, they, you know, the, that, so many of the fitness business owners I talked to are looking for, right? Hey, we want people who live within three miles of, you know, our, our facility that have a net worth of this or a household of that, that fit this age, age bracket, you know, they own their own home, all these types of things. Right, right. But the thing about it was through my conversations with him, it was abundantly clear. The, the, the idea or desire to go into a fitness facility was like fingernails on the chalkboard to him. And it was not going to happen no matter how persuasive the ad was, no matter what the postcard looked like, didn’t matter. Right?

So you can’t turn somebody into a wonderful prospect, but what you can do is discover the people who are already really good prospects, right? So what we want to do there is start by engaging people that that may be in visible to us right now, because prospects, a lot of the time are right. Like they, we don’t know who they are. They don’t know who we are. So it’s our responsibility to get out there and be seen. And that might be as simple as putting a lead magnet out a book or report, putting videos out, sharing things with, with your clients that hopefully that they will share with the other people in their lives. So we’re getting invisible people to essentially raise their hand and engage, right? And then we follow up with them in a process that hopefully allows them to know who we are to, to get to like us a little bit and feel like, Hey, if I’m going to move forward in this journey then, and this is somebody who I would potentially want to work with, and then trust that we can help them achieve their desire, solve their problems. And those things like it in the marketing world know like, and trust is a very common and kind of three word phrase, but it’s almost like people treat it like it’s one word and it’s not, these are different things like aware, precedes them, liking us and trusting us.

So knowing who we are is first, and then we’re going to keep things in front of them. Right. We want them to become more aware. We want them to know more about what we, what we have to offer things that, you know, things that we can provide to them or do for them. Right. And some of this, it goes back to kind of, I think, priming somebody or setting the stage for something. If you’re taking the approach that, that I coach our clients to take, and you have what we call a super signature that I learned from you, my friend and mentor, Dean Jackson you know, he asked at the end of every email that talks about the different ways that you can help somebody whenever they’re ready. Then what they’re doing is they’re understanding the ways that you can help. There’s this awareness that’s created so that, you know, you’re planting seeds, if you will, right. Things that, that whenever they’re ready, they know the place that they can look. It’s like driving by somewhere and seeing a billboard day after day, or listening to the same radio spot day after day, you may not be ready today. You may not be ready in the following month or two, but whenever that day comes, the seeds that you’ve been planning, they’re there we’re going to, to grow, right?

Things are going to happen because of this awareness that you’ve created, this bond that you’ve built. And you know, now you’re not convincing anybody of anything. You’re basically allowing them to convince themselves that because of the seeds that you’ve planted, because of the knowledge that you shared, the value you delivered, they’re convincing themselves that your, the right option. And so when they are ready or when you may make that offer, maybe you’re sending out an, in an invitation style email. They said, well, you know what, Hey, I think I’m going to do this today. Or, or maybe you’re running a deadline-driven offer that has some sort of incentive. And they’ve been thinking about it and thinking about it, but you know what, maybe they’re their kids just went back to school or the timing kind of synced up and today’s the day. And so that incentives enough to get them off the fence and take action.

But, but understand that if you’re going to try to convert leads into clients, it’s not, yeah, you converting them. It’s you creating an environment that they’re going to convert themselves. Are you helping them convince themselves, persuade themselves, make the, that leads to you two working together. And that may be tough believe, but I mean, think about the people that have walked through your door, the clients that you have, you didn’t drag them in kicking and screaming. They came in because maybe a friend there’s had a great experience with you and spread the word. So they said, well, wait a minute. This is the place that I need to go. If they can help my friend, they can help me too. Or maybe they got on your email list and they liked the content that you were sharing. They liked the message that you had, or the values that you displayed. That’s the way that this works. So don’t lose sight of that. And don’t become impatient because your patients, your consistency and perseverance will turn out being a competitive advantage and can, and really converting more of those people that everybody else gave up on because they couldn’t wrestle them in the door. So if you want to convert more leads, that may not be the simplest way to think about it. The, this kind of conveyor belt methodology, but it’s actually the way that it really works. And if you lean into it, it’ll work for you.

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