Fitness Business School – New Client Journey

Full Transcript

Hey, Pat Rigsby here and in today’s episode, I want to talk with you about the new client journey. 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.

As I’m recording this it’s January and it’s that time of year where I think so many business owners in our industry are expecting people to just flood through the door. And it’s such an interesting time because it’s in stark contrast to what they might’ve been expecting a month ago when they think, Hey, nobody wants to do this or nobody wants to do that because the holidays are here.

And I think the way that we look at this as a business owner is really disconnected with the way that consumers actually operate. I see so many ads where people jump pretty far ahead in the relationship and expect the consumer to just meet them where they are versus us meeting the consumer in the spot that they’re currently at.

Okay. And Because of that, I wanted to share this five step kind of journey that a client goes to as they kind of take that on ramp into becoming a client. And the first one is, they have to become aware. They have to become aware of who we are. For so many of us, it, I mean, we may, Operate in our own little world, but we’re invisible to a lot of the people around us.

We’re invisible to not just people who aren’t necessarily interested in our services at the moment, but we’re even invisible to people who might be interested because they’ve not gone down this discovery path. They’ve not done some deep dive looking around. So our first job in any relationship is to create awareness.

We have to go from invisible to visible. in the eyes of the prospect. They have to be aware that we exist before we can even bother trying to move that relationship forward. And then the second step is they have to have some interest and we can put things in front of them where they indicate an interest.

That’s why I talk so much about sharing lead magnets with prospects. And if you provide a lead magnet to somebody that might serve as an interest indicator, then if they opt in and they give you their contact information, they give you their attention, they give you permission to follow up with them.

That is a wonderful indication of interest that, Hey, I’m interested in solving this problem or achieving this goal. Now that’s different than actually considering your solution, the format, the pricing, the location, the style of training, all that stuff. Having an interest in solving a problem or achieving a goal though, is that second step.

So they need to be aware, they need to be interested in going on some journey to move from where they are to a different place to where they want to be. And then. This third step is that kind of discovery or consideration phase where they’re starting to explore the options available to them to achieve a goal or solve a problem.

And the thing about it is there are usually a lot of options. I mean, for a common listener to this show, people that want to, lose weight, improve their body composition, improve the way they feel, maybe get a little bit stronger. They’ve got a number of options available. They have big box health clubs.

They’ve likely got all sorts of independent and franchise training facilities or gyms. They can do things at home, whether it’s self directed and free resources that may be available to them online or an online coach. There, there are a number of options that they have. And so they’re starting to investigate, right?

They’re starting to consider things and that’s the next stage. And we want to put ourselves in a position where we’re one of the options being considered. And ideally we’ve, Taken that initial interest in we’ve demonstrated how we may be the best fit or we’ve provided education and motivation to Help somebody see us as a viable solution and step four and this is one that I think of through the way that I teach and I don’t know that everybody approaches this the same.

Some people jump from consideration to enrollment. I tend to think that most people do best with some sort of experiential opportunity, whether that’s paid or free. And I’ve talked in other episodes, how I’m an advocate for free. I think that one of the easiest ways to compel somebody to move forward in a relationship with you is they get to experience it.

I mean, it’s like a first date so to speak, right? And if we think about this through a relationship lens, Somebody to hit step five where enrollment happens. Let’s say that’s the equivalent of marriage. Obviously we have to jump back to step one. They actually have to know that you exist before marriage is even a possibility.

But I mean, it’s amazing how people, Just kind of gloss over so much of this. They don’t want to provide that first date. They don’t want to provide that experiential opportunity. They love to talk about, I want people who are committed. I want people who are ready. And I think there’s a little bit of entitlement there, right?

I mean, okay, maybe they are committed, but why should they be committed to you? What have you done to earn that commitment? And that’s where the experiential opportunity comes in. It is the opportunity to earn a commitment. It is an opportunity to earn an enrollment and demonstrate why we are the best option in an environment that we have far more control over.

Yeah, we can demonstrate stuff in YouTube videos. We can demonstrate stuff in emails, but if somebody comes in and has an experiential opportunity with you, then it’s a much stronger form of demonstration because You’re controlling all of it. You’re controlling the environment. You’re controlling the culture.

You’re controlling the structure or programming that they actually experience. And it’s a much deeper experience because they’re actually immersed in it, not just watching it. And in some ways it’s a little like the difference between watching a movie or being in the movie. Right? So if you want to turn this person who initially doesn’t.

know you exist into a client that loves what you do. You need to guide somebody through these five steps. Now the nice thing about it is sometimes you meet people and they are already On step three or they’re ready for step four. And that happens a lot if it comes from a referral or, you know, somebody who, even if it’s not a structured referral, like an endorsed relationship, right?

So if somebody Gets a neighbor to tell them about their experience with you and they’ve witnessed this neighbor, you know, have a positive experience and get good results. Then, you know, the awareness is there, the interest is there. The consideration may already be there by the time that you meet them in this journey.

But, you know, on the flip side, a lot of the people that we market to, if you’re running Facebook ads, if you’re running Google ads, a lot of those people are unaware you even exist. So how do you Create that awareness. You got to show up where they are. You know who your target market is. You know the people that you want to serve.

You have to be where they are. So they’re aware you exist. You have to offer something. A lead magnet is a wonderful thing to offer is an interest indicator that somebody can raise their hand and say, Hey, that’s interesting to me. That’s a, that’s something that I want a change in my life, a problem solved or goal that I want to move towards.

And then you need to follow up. So as that person, as that interest that they have increases, they consider you, they give you, whether they’re considering three options or 30 options. You’re in consideration, then we need to try to guide them into an experiential opportunity where they can see how you’re different and potentially better.

And then step five, that’s where enrollment comes in. It’s just making the decision on how we’re going to partner together to go from where this person is to where they want to be. So if you want to think about what the actual buyer’s journey or the client’s journey looks like. That’s what it looks like.

Everybody’s going through all five of those steps. Now we can hope that they go through all five of those steps on their own and somehow arrive at our doorstep or we can guide them through those five steps. We can show up and kind of choreograph those five steps so we can put our best foot forward all the way through.

And that’s the decision a lot of us have to make, or you can do what a lot of people do, and you can just promote step four and hope that people arrive at you. But that’s how people get low converting leads. That’s where people blame their ad agency for doing a bad job. That’s where. All that stuff happens because we ignored the first three steps and we wonder why people who don’t know we exist aren’t ready to go out on a date with us.

So if you want to enroll more clients, if you want to bring in more of the right people, consider all five steps during this client journey.

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

Before you go, I have a quick announcement:

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In this diagnostic, we walk through everything and we do an evaluation and can instantly pinpoint what you need to do next to build that business that you want. I’m going to extend this opportunity to get on with either me or my team and take you through this evaluation and fix your business’s most vital needs fast.

So if we take you through this, you’re gonna be able to make those vital changes that you need to finally have what I call your Ideal Business. If you’d be interested in going through this entirely free, risk-free diagnostic with us and learn what you already have in place, what you’re doing well and where are your greatest opportunities for rapid improvement are just shoot me an email with diagnostic in the subject line to [email protected].

Again, an email to [email protected] with diagnostic in the subject line will get
you scheduled and take you through this evaluation to help you build the business you want.