Fitness Business School – Coach People Before You’re Paid To

Full Transcript

Hey, Pat Rigsby here and in this episode I want to talk to you about coaching people before you get paid. 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.

Coaching people before you get paid. That sounds like kind of a bad trade, right? It, it, it first mentioned, but the reality is I think my, my way of business building my way of marketing is very much in line with this. You know, Hey, I’m gonna treat everybody as a client, regardless of if they’ve paid me and know that over, over time, some of those people will choose to pay me. And this approach I think has served me very well for almost 20 years. And the idea, I mean, let’s face it. The, the idea of any business is to turn these leads into prospects, into customers. And for me, the difference between those three is a lead is somebody who has kind of expressed this general interest in the, the problems we solve, the desires we help people reach, right?

So if I’m thinking about marketing as a small town, it’s somebody who’d be interested in living in this small town. And you know, so, so that person comes into the world as a lead. A prospect is somebody who’s actually interested in services, right? And when we have a conversation or provide some sort of trial experiential opportunity to see if the way that we deliver services is a good fit for them and you know, their goals. So the idea is that when somebody becomes a lead, I want to try treat them as as a client. Now, obviously there are limitations to that because, you know, at a certain point, you, you can’t give everybody a ton of individualized attention because it’s just beyond the scope of what you’ve got the capacity to do, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to give them, you know, what I consider the, the best possible direction, advice insight that I can provide at that stage of that relationship. So if I treat everybody as a client, if I’m not, you know, evasive, holding things back, and instead I’m answering the questions that I think they are asking or the questions they should be asking, if I’m giving them things that are gonna make them better, if I’m giving them things that are of help them move towards their goals, then ultimately, you know, that person is going to want to invest in, in doing more in, in this relationship.

And, you know, the, the thing we have to be conscious of is if they’re reading my emails, if you’re listening to this podcast, if you are a member of the Facebook group and you’re reading post or engaging, you are already giving time and attention. And for me, time and attention are things that, that in many cases, or every bit is hard to get is monetary kind attribution, right? Like it, it’s hard to get somebody’s time and attention in this busy world where lots of things are tugging at them. So you know, I want to honestly take a little bit of responsibility for helping people succeed, whether or not money’s changed hands. I want to be the, the person they look to for, for help. I wanna be the person that you know, I’m treating everybody like a client, and then ultimately, hopefully they see themselves as a client. And, and those tho those relationships ascend into more kind of close knit, more personalized, more interactive relationships where maybe they joined a coaching program. And, you know, the, the thing is, I never know when somebody’s ready and neither do you, the, the, this idea that somebody opts in for a lead magnet, and, and then we run them through some sort of gauntlet of promotions and they need to buy within 14 days, or they’re not serious, or they’re not committed is just awful. It’s just so, so much about us. And so not the way that human beings act and behave. People have been busy, full lives.

People go through their own discovery and vetting process before they make important decisions and make no mistake. This is a big decision for somebody to go hire a trainer, hire a coach, join a program because not only is there a monetary investment, but there’s a commitment of time. There’s a commit of effort. There is probably a lot of lifestyle changes that go on beyond the 2, 3, 4 hours a week, they may spend under your direct guidance. They in many cases have to rearrange their, their life, their schedule to accommodate this new thing on their plate. They have to kind of probably get past some of their hangups about times they’ve tried before and failed, or reasons this might not work or negative experiences that they’ve had with sort of providers. There. There’s so many variables that go into this, that this is not an impulse buy, right? This is not, you know, buying a, a magazine or a pack of gum at the checkout at target. This is, you know, something where they need to make an informed decision. And the more you treat them, like, like a client leading up to this point, they’re gonna make a decision.

The more they’re gonna see themselves as a client, the more they’re gonna understand what you’re about and how you can help the, this whole concept of, well, Hey, I’m not gonna help anybody until they pay me. They need to go first in this relationship. I think it’s flawed. I mean, we are the people that can help them. Let’s demonstrate it. And if you coach people before they actually pay you to coach them, you’re gonna find that over time. You know, people are just going to make that decision kind of organically. Sure. You can nudge them at various points. If, if you’ve got a new program starting at a certain point or some sort of way to incentivize them. But a lot of times what just happens is they decide today is the day. And you’ve been the one showing up in their inbox or their, you know, in their news feed, or you’ve been the one that’s had their, their attention on a podcast. And when they decide it’s on the, a foregone conclusion that they’re going to decide to work with you.

So when you think about growing your business, one of the key decisions I think you can make is to treat everybody like a client until there’s a reason not to, if somebody wants to unsubscribe, if somebody wants to leave your group, then the they’re essentially moving out of your proverbial town, right? That’s fine. They, they can move on and find their own place. And we’re not for everyone and everyone’s not for us. So, so if we take this approach and then the people who want to be in, in our town, we, we, them all, man, the, the, the opportunities endless the impact is greater. The, you know, the, the approach to marketing, I is very straightforward. You just, you know, if a client ask you a question during the session, you could probably assume that the people in your world, in your town, they would benefit from that answer too. So you can turn around and create a piece of content around a more generalized version of that question that may not be specific to the client you were talking to, but you can make it something that that’s broader and it’s gonna help a lot of people. And if you help people, then there’s that reciprocity that they’re going to feel more committed to you, more likely to do business with you. So again, very much a non common way to, to market, but a truly effective Way to market that will set you apart from Everybody else that You compete against.

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