Fitness Business School – Ideal Client Pipeline

Full Transcript

Hey, Pat Rigsby here, and in today’s episode I wanna talk about your ideal client pipeline. 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 to the end of this episode because we have a brand new special offer exclusive for listeners. So stay tuned.

I talk a lot about creating your ideal business and attracting your ideal client, or maybe better, better put connecting with your ideal client. And I wanted to spend a little bit of time today talking through what that process may look like because I think we, we sometimes get detached from it, and we think in
terms of numbers on a spreadsheet or amount of reach for an ad account, or number of direct mail pieces sent or we detach the human element from this.

And I, so I wanted to walk through what the ideal client pipeline looks like from the perspective of that ideal prospect so we can attract our ideal client. So let, let’s think about our pipeline and yes, people individually, and that, that’s key. And I’m gonna kind of jump back to that word multiple times, I’m sure.
But people individually enter as leads who are interested in achieving a goal or solving a problem. They each have their own unique desire or kind of collection of desires. And one thing we probably have to remember is it is theirs. It, it is individually theirs, and they have it for their own reasons. And a lot of
times we, we lose sight of that all together. We think in terms of, well, this is what I want this person to do. This is the thing that I want to create.

This is the thing they should be interested in because I’m interested in it. Instead of thinking, okay, why would somebody want this? Why do they care about it? Why, why would somebody download this lead magnet or grab my gift card for my services, or enter this sweepstakes or whatever, why are
they kind of raising their hand the first time and saying, yeah, I’m interested in this thing that you’re putting out here. And if we look at it through that lens, we’re gonna be so much better off. So as we kind of walk through this I want to start with that concept and we’ll, we’ll flip it around a
little bit just for you to, to think about this from your perspective. So, so let’s say that you’re in the market for a new dishwasher. You could have a bunch of different reasons why you want one.

Maybe you’re moving into a new house, maybe you bought a rental house and you need to put different appliances in there. Maybe you maybe your dishwasher just ran out of steam and you need to get a new one. Maybe you’re doing a kitchen update, maybe your significant other said they want to
do dishwashers. So there may be a number of reasons why this same interest in making a purchase comes up. But ultimately, everybody arrives at the same place. They’re looking on websites, doing research. Maybe they’re on Home Depot or Lowe’s website. Maybe they’re looking at a local
appliance store. Maybe they’re looking at Costco’s website. But the reason I wanted to walk through that is just for you to understand that not everybody arrives at the same place for the same reasons. And we wanna be sensitive to those individual concerns.

And so the more ways that we can kind of reflect how we can help people and who this is a fit for and everything through what we’re we’re communicating, the better off we’re gonna be. So the next step in this process for us, through this individual client’s pipeline, right, is that they’re gonna
engage in a conversation with us. And so for me, that’s when the person becomes a prospect. I think of this is that the pipeline being people are invisible to us. We’re invisible to them, then they become leads where they’re interested in something that we have to offer, but not necessarily ready to talk about a
program. Then when somebody raises their hand and says, yeah, I’m interested in learning more about your programs, how you help people starting a program or potentially starting a program, they again, they don’t care about the conversations that other prospects are having with us.

They are interested in the discussion they’re involved in, and it’s our job to make it interesting and valuable to them if we wanna hold their attention. So we have to not just tell them about us, because if we do that, we’re probably filtering out about 20 or about 80% of people. We’re only gonna be left with
about 20%. We need to ask about them, we need to be curious, we need to be interested, and we need to find out what their desire is, what problem they’re trying to solve, solve what kind of goals they have, what they’ve done in the past, and how they feel about that. And so all of these things factor into their decision making as they’re choosing the right next step. So if that goes well, if we can get them to say, this may be a good fit for me, this may be what I’m looking for,
then our goal would be to move them into what I would call a conversion opportunity.

Maybe it’s a success session or a trial or a front end offer. And again, they’re going to be focused on their own experience. Will this work for me? Will this time be different? Can I do this? Is it worth what I’m investing not just money-wise, but time and effort? Do I trust the coach or the owner or the
business? Can they actually help me? Do these people actually care about me or am I just another face in the crowd, just another number. And if we treat them well and as individuals, some of them are gonna become clients, the right ones are going to become clients. Now you may be thinking, well, if I do
all that, why shouldn’t all of them become clients? Because bottom line is, starting a completely new habit that is out of somebody’s comfort zone and that they’re having to rearrange their life around, it has to become a priority for that person.

And so logically, sure they should do it, but not everybody bases all their priorities on logic. So sometimes they’re just not gonna do it. Or maybe their life just doesn’t allow for them to do it in the way that we’re presenting it. Maybe they’re not in a position financially, which we can probably vet some of those people and and filter them out before we get to this stage through that, like, at that conversation level. But maybe they’re gonna be going out of town and
they can’t justify spending this much money with, without being able to be consistent doing it. I mean, you get the picture. So, so how do we start to narrow our, our focus and think about stuff this way instead of just saying, Hey, I’m gonna put out a lead magnet. I’m gonna send out a few emails and send
out some, some offers.

And if people don’t do the things that I want them to do, then they’re tire kickers and they’re not serious. How do we get past that? How do we make the shift? Well, let me ask you this, like, what is your average client worth to you? Now, this is an exercise I’ve done for years and I’ve seen
some other people pick up on it. I’m gonna guess to the best of my knowledge when it comes to the training industry, I was probably first in telling people to think this way because we were kind of at the front end of doing annual subscriptions with training and not packages or programs or one-off things. It was more or less like people would sign up for 12 months or twice a week or three times a week or whatever.

So we would figure out like what’s their, at least their annual value. And then after we had a little bit of runway where we could see beyond 12 months then lifetime value. So let’s say to be super conservative, the average person that comes and trains with you is worth $2,000 to, to your business. That’s
their financial contribution In exchange for all the, the value you’re providing. And let’s say that of the people that enter your conversion opportunities, whether it’s a success session or a trial, half 50% of those people say yes. So that means every time you sit down with somebody, it’s worth a thousand
dollars to your business. So let’s, let’s work backwards another step. Let’s say that if you send out engagement emails or have PSS like I do at the end of emails, or you send out text campaigns, and let’s say out of every 10 replies, you get one of them say they raise their hand and say, yeah, I’m
interested in learning more, or they reply with test drive, or whatever you are trying to trigger a response with, then that means every reply that comes in is potentially worth a hundred dollars in that moment.

Like there, there are a hundred dollars every reply, we have the math. So with that in mind, if every reply you get is potentially worth a hundred dollars, do you follow up a little quicker? Do you prioritize it over doing busy work or scrolling Facebook? Do you personalize the response a little bit more? Are you more willing to actually engage this person in a conversation instead of just jumping to the pitch? I mean, you should be, right? Like, let’s, let’s frame it in a different way. If you wanna have a business that let’s say does $250,000 a year, that’s a solid business, right? It’s, I mean, we’ve got plenty
of clients who do many multiples of that, but that’s a pretty good small business. Well, at that level, you need 150 people paying you $167 a month, but those 150, it’s not a group of 150, it’s 150 individuals that you need to win each month.

And if you’re short of that, let’s say that you want to get to that number and you’re at a hundred, then you need 67 of those conversations to go somewhere to get to, yes. So you probably need, you know 135 conversion opportunities to get to where you want to go. I mean, this is just simple math and
they’re individual conversations. And so if you start to treat each of these individual conversations with more respect, I’m not saying respect the person, I’m sure you do that, but I’m talking the conversation itself. Like this conversation has meaning to my business and it’s gonna potentially be a deciding factor
whether or not this person works with us to change their life. Will you treat it a little bit better or will you hurry through it and try to automate it and try to streamline it so you just, you’ve got a verbal brochure that people, yeah, they, they get the details.

We have classes at this time and this time we have pri this is what it costs. This is what the commitment is, this is what the guarantee is. Instead of being interested in them and talking about why you’re gonna be able to solve their problems differently than other people have, or how
you’re gonna be able to fix things that maybe other people haven’t been able to fix. It’s a real shift. But the more you become interested in the individual, the more you’re gonna be able to attract your ideal client. So if you want to improve your ideal client pipeline, start with focusing on individuals, individual
conversations and individual experiences, do that and you’ll watch your business grow.

Thanks for listening to this episode of The Fitness Business School.

Before you go, I’ve got a quick announcement. When I first connect with fitness business owners, they almost always ask me how I can get more clients and make more money. Well, I’ve got an exclusive offer for you and it’s gonna help you do just that.

And as a listener of this show, I would love to invite you to a conversation where you and I can talk about our new program, the Business Growth Sprint.

The Business Growth Sprint is a one-of-a-kind program where you get everything you need.

We actually work with you one-on-one, unlimited, one-on-one coaching and support.

We design a marketing plan for you. We give you assets to execute the plan.

It’s unmatched in our industry between the level of coaching, the frequency of accountability, the simple step-by-step nature and the completeness of how it’s gonna guide you to making more money and improving your personal income fast.

Imagine having every tool, template, ad, and script that you need all ready-to-use. Plus you’re going to get one-on-one access with me and the other coaches on my team to make sure that everything from your business growth plan to your marketing and sales system is done, turnkey, ready to go.

And what’s great is there is zero risk. We guarantee that you are going to add at least $4,000 a month in recurring revenue, or $20,000 a month cash collected as part of this program in just four months.

So if you are interested, if you’d like to discuss and see if this is a fit, just shoot me an email at [email protected] and put Sprint in the subject line and I’ll get you all the details.