Fitness Business School – Meet Your Prospects Where They Are

Full Transcript

Hey, Pat Rigsby here. And in today’s episode I want to talk with you about meeting prospects where
they are. Got a lot to unpack here, 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 end impact and improve their lifestyle. Be sure to listen to the end of this episode, because we have a brand new special offer exclusive for listeners. So stay tuned.

One of the kind of defaults or natural things that I see happen with
business owners and any business, but specifically, fitness, health, sports, performance
businesses, is that we think that people, or at least we want people to be on our timeline, we want them
to be on our schedule and join when we ask them to join and act when we make an offer.
Or we want everybody to be ready to take action and join our facility. And,
realistically, that’s just not the process. That’s not how things do or how things happen, I guess. And I think it’s wise to understand that kind of prospect journey and try to meet people, and it’s okay
to meet people at different stages of that journey. Now, the, the phrase customer journey is very
common in the, the business landscape, but prospect journey is, is not something I hear a lot of, but for
our purposes it may be just as important because usually what happens is somebody becomes either
aware of a business and it kind of lines up with what they’re thinking, their, their interest, or they start
to become aware of a desire to make a change. And so let’s say that you’ve been running a Facebook ad
to a lead magnet, that you know that that’s getting somebody to raise their hand and become visible to
you, so to speak.

Maybe you’re running a healthy holiday cookbook or something, and so you know
that somebody who definitely is, is starting to feel kind of compelled to not over-indulge during the
holiday. So maybe that person lines up with you in some way, right? Or perhaps
that person is starting to think about what they want to do in January to, they know they want to, to join
a gym. And so you pop across their feed or a friend mentions your gym
and passing, and they become mildly intrigued. They wanna learn more. Now, our
default is, hey, the moment somebody shows an interest, we just need to pounce. We need to jump on
that opportunity. And then if they don’t join, well, they’re not serious. They’re attire kicker, and we
move on.

But people’s buying process for anything that is, more involved is more of a
commitment is somewhat expensive. Well, it’s usually they become interested and then they go through
a discovery process. And that discovery process could become or could be becoming more educated on
the different options available. It could be looking at social proof, reviews, testimonials,
to try to become informed on what the best or better options available to them might be. It
could be trying to figure out, Hey, do I know anybody here? Does this fit into my budget? How close
is it to my home or to my work? So will it be easy for me to get to what type of people go to this
facility? Am I gonna fit? I this something where everybody looks like a
cover model where everybody’s strong?

Do they train athletes? Am I going to find somewhere that I feel comfortable and
welcome? So they, they’re going through their own discovery process about what your business is, but
simultaneously they’re going through this kind of self-discovery process, and they’re thinking about
things like, okay, am I willing to make the changes necessary to get the result that I want? Maybe I’ve tried this before and it didn’t work out. Maybe, I don’t want to train it
six in the morning, and I’m, I’m aware of that now maybe I tried that, or it’s just not appealing to me, if I do it after school, then I’ve gotta ask my spouse to be the one to pick up the kids or drop
’em off at this place, or help with homework or whatever else. So they gotta look at how it disrupts their
normal routine.

They’ve gotta look at the, the cost and benefit ratio, right? Like, okay, is the
potential gain worth what I would invest from a time, energy, financial standpoint? Do I risk, you
know, feeling worse about myself if I start this and can’t do it? Am I gonna be embarrassed if I go to this place and I can’t get through the warm up? So there are all these self discovery things they’re thinking about. Well, they’re also thinking about finding the right fit for, for them as a facility. And some of that could also be the, the format. Do they, like large group, do they prefer a smaller group or semi-private? Do they want one on one? So, there’s a lot of stuff going on from our perspective. A lot of
times we are trying to get them to fast track that decision making.
Though I don’t know if, if you are like this, but I know that if I’m thinking about what I want to do for
vacation, I’m gonna do some discovery. And especially if it gets outta my norm, I mean, we go to Disney World a lot, but it’s still, even if we go there, I’ve got decisions to make as far as when’s the
best time to go, what flights, what resort to stay at, where are we gonna eat? What parks do we go
to? On what days do you know there’s a vetting process? And that’s for a decision that I’ve made, you
know, 50, 60 times. So if we go somewhere new, man, I’ve gotta go look. Like when we went to the
outer banks, I’ve gotta go look at the different towns on the outer banks and the different beach houses and all, all the discovery that goes with that.

So, I know for me, all the things that I just alluded to, I go through my own version of those
for any meaningful decision that’s not some sort of impulse buy or necessity. And I’m pretty
sure based on my own experience and my discovery over the years, that most people go through some
version of this. So for us, we can meet them at different stages of this discovery process. And, and it’s
not all, Hey, we’ve gotta meet them right at the beginning. I think for a lot of people putting a lead
magnet, like running a lead magnet with a Facebook ad is meeting somebody pretty early in the process.

It doesn’t mean they’re just starting, because if that’s just when they happen to notice us, then that’s
fine, right? But it’s kind of like a commercial, they’re on social media for their own
entertainment, and then a commercial pops up and if it’s compelling enough, it gains somebody’s
interest, but they didn’t go to social media to shop because they were ready or close to making a
decision.

Now, the flip side of this is, if somebody goes to YouTube, they’re probably looking to gain information, right? They’re in more of a discovery process. YouTube is very much great for how to, and then if somebody’s actually closer to the decision making process, again, I don’t know about you, but the two places I go if I’m shopping and making decisions are pretty much Google and Amazon. If it’s a local thing or a service, I’m going to Google, I’m gonna look at reviews, I’m gonna look at what, what’s in close proximity. I’m gonna see what options are available to me there that pop up on the Google map. And I have the Google business listings. I’m gonna see what the Google ads are, and that’s gonna
help me. I think of it kinda like today’s Yellow Pages. And then, obviously for retail things, I
probably go to, to Amazon before I go anywhere else.
Even if I might buy something locally, I go there to look at reviews to, to kind of vet things. So my
recommendation is to kind of try to put yourself in that path in somebody’s client journey multiple
times. We want to have lead magnets that are out there, gift cards that people can download, um,
things that kind of run as commercials that are done either organically or through paid ads on social
media. So we can get somebody’s attention with a, a low risk, kind of low barrier way to start the
conversation for them to begin to learn about us. And then we follow up with email, with a private
Facebook group, with text, and, and we educate people. We demonstrate that we can be of some help.
And so, so we show up in that way. But then beyond that, we need to show up further along in this
journey.

And my recommendation is making sure that your Google local listing is really robust. You’ve got plenty of reviews, you’ve got plenty of images that are up to date. So somebody can look at
this and say, yeah, I kind of fit there. The the description is good, you’ve answered questions. You can
kind of treat it like a blog and you can make periodic announcements and posts and then, you
know, if your budget allows it, then I would also run Google Ads and make sure that you are showing up and not just kind of dependent on, Hey, we’re going to show up on the first page of these searches of
somebody goes to the, the Google map or the Google local listing. It’s kinda like old school SEO where
it’s not always easy to get on the first page. Well, the way to make sure that you get on the first page is
to run some ads.

So now that’s, that’s allowing us to go out there and meet people along this journey at various stages so
we have a better chance of kind of intersecting with them, if you will. And putting our best
foot forward. And what’s great about it is you’re playing both the long game and the short game. So
much of my business has been built off that long game, the lead magnet, and then I just kind of try to
educate, motivate, demonstrate over time but occasionally I run into people who are just
ready to make a decision and they’re just doing some discovery. So my recommendation is, yes, you do
the same and you’re gonna see your business grow faster and you’re gonna get some of those people
who are ready to go today. And then you’re going to also get some of these people who maybe
download your lead magnet in October, but they join your gym in January or February.
Both are fine, both grow your business. But if you’re doing both of these approaches simultaneously,
you’ll grow your business the fastest. You’re gonna see your revenue improve the most, and you’re
gonna be building the type of business that you want to own.

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