The Fitness Business School – Conversions feat Scott Rawcliffe

Full Transcript

Welcome to the fitness business school with Pat Rigsby, the podcast for fitness entrepreneurs who want to make more income, have greater impact, and enjoy more freedom in their ideal business. If you’d like an accelerated route to these goals, email me at [email protected] and put BGA in the subject line and I’ll get you all the details about our business growth accelerator program.

Hey, my name is Scott Rawcliffe and I’m here with Pat Rigsby. And today you get to come inside of our brain as we talk about kind of the third thing on our kind of little continuum called conversion. So Pat, you ready to talk conversions today? I’m ready to talk conversion and you look like you’re just floating through space, the black background there. But yeah, and I mean, you know, I, I present this whole attract, convert, delivery unit. I simplify things into those three buckets. And I know you kind of have your own kind of three Cs process and everything. But for me, I think of this as okay, somebody has been introduced there, they’re aware and they’re probably a little bit interested in the problem that we have the ability to hopefully solve for them, but they’re not ready yet. So how do we move somebody from interested and aware to ready to be a client, ready to be somebody that we can actually help and serve? And you know, I think that encompasses both this kind of know, like, and trust, the mentality that we talk about. But mechanically, you know, there, there’s follow up and then the actual sales process.

So somewhere in this followup and sales process, we’ve got to infuse, know, like, and trust. We’ve got to, to educate somebody on how we’re different, how we’re better, how we can help, and then we’ve got to motivate them to you know, take action. So the, you know, there’s a lot that goes on the way that I’m kind of unpacking it there. But it’s, and I, I mean, it’s, it’s very much like what happens in any kind of normal relationship, right? It’s the evolution of a relationship. And let’s say that somebody you know, ultimately aspires to go out on a date with somebody else while there’s that moment of introduction and then there’s small talk and then the conversation gets a little bit deeper. People dig into interests and background and hobbies and where they work and where they live and who they know. And, you know, and so there’s enough common ground and enough of a foundation built that the logical step in this process is, you know, somebody asked somebody out on a date or something. And, you know, I think that if we employ the same things that we know, or the way that, you know, the, the things we know happen in relationships offline, if we apply them to online we’re going to have great success. We’re gonna probably do much, much better than a lot of what happens when you, when you see these kind of I guess canned email systems and things like that.

I mean, I know a few years ago and I’m, and I’m a great fan of like Digital Marketer, right? Like I think they’re wonderful. I was in their mastermind for a couple of years but they came out with this program called the machine and it was this kind of conveyor belt of information that they, they run somebody through and then they make it a, a bunch of offers and then they kind of discard them because they’re dealing with such high volume. But that doesn’t really work if you’re talking about, you know, an email list in the hundreds or in, you know, it, you know, in the 1,000 to 5,000 range even, like you have to really value each of those relationships. And so if we want to value them, we want to treat them the same way we would treat them if we were seeing them in person and following up. So I know that was a lot. So I’m gonna turn it over and let you kind of share some thoughts.

It’s, it’s funny that you bring up digital marketing cause I was just at traffic conversion just a few weeks ago and they were kind of talking about how that’s what they did for so many years. And now they’ve kind of realized over the last probably 12 months, eight months of like having to shift to more, having conversation and not treat people so much like a machine and kind of bringing it back even with all their, you know, big eCommerce stores and stuff like that is bringing back in some kind of personal element, realizing that it’s not just, you can’t stick them on that conveyor belt like a, like a machine and just kind of run them through. So it’s interesting that, you know, it did work, but like you’re saying, a lot of people started to do that and then they realized, okay, you know what way more competition, that sort of thing. Now we have to treat a customer like a human being or a prospect, like a human being. Interesting, right? Treating a a prospect like human being, apparently it works. Yeah. And I mean, needless to say, I enjoyed the texts back and forth with you with the, I told you so happening at the event. But I mean, from my perspective, you know, there, there’s this kind of belief that if somebody raised their hand and they said they’re interested in solving the problem, that, that you’ve kind of suggested that you can help them solve, then, you know, they’re going to seek out a solution, they’re going to do something over time.

But, you know, we all go through our own discovery process. And the bigger the ask, the bigger the commitment that somebody is going to make typically the more involved the discovery process, you know I mean. I’ll give you a, an example of this on a really like small scale. So the other day I, I ordered this then called a molecule, like an air purifier thing that’s gotten a bunch of social media attention because I guess it approaches air purification a little bit differently than some of the other devices. And, you know, I mean, it’s a kind of pricey for that type of thing, apparatus, whatever. And so before I got into that, I wanted to, I knew I wanted to get something just because, you know, we’ve got people with seasonal allergy stuff and I’m sinus stuffy in our house and I, and you know, my, my youngest son, Alex, is kind of sensitive to bacteria and viruses and stuff. So, you know, so I started kind of investigating like, okay, I’m going to get something, but what’s the best thing for me to get? This was my kind of barometer, if you will, my control. Now I compare it against this Dyson one and then I get on Amazon and look at the reviews of other ones. And ultimately the molecule is the one I went with. But I needed to investigate a little bit because Hey, if I’m gonna, you know, make a purchase that’s potentially going to affect the health of my family. And it’s, you know, I mean there’s seven or $800, something like that. So it’s not like an impulse buy. Then you know, then I’m going to do that kind of investigation. And I think we do that with a lot of stuff. I mean, I remember when we were renovating a bathroom, I kind of went through some of those same types of things. If you’re buying a car, you might look at, you know, a Carfax report. You may go in consumer reports or do homework online. And these are all, in my opinion, smaller asks than what we ask of a client. Now, a lot of people may say, well, you know, that’s not the case. A car might be 40 or $50,000 of an investment. But the reality is, first of all, people probably think of it in terms of what their monthly payment is. But then beyond that, it’s not just the financial ask that we’re asking if somebody, we’re asking them to kind of rearrange their life and change their schedule.

And so, you know, let’s say that the prospect that you want to connect with has kids. Well, those kids probably have school, they’ve got homework, they need to be fed dinner at some point. They may have afterschool sports or tutoring or some other activity and you, you may have a significant other that you’re having to consider in this scheduling. So, Hey, I’ve got to rearrange all that stuff and accommodate all these people that I’m already committed to. And then not only that, I’ve got to be willing to go somewhere and be kind of out of my comfort zone both physically and emotionally because I’m not going to be very good at it in the beginning probably. And I’m not going to feel great about myself because all these other people, I feel like they’re ahead of me. And you know, then we’re not even talking about the ancillary commitments that we’re probably implying that they’re going to be needing to make. Not only do you need to come in and train three hours a week and change your schedule around and travel to and from, but you probably need to change your diet and we’re going to ask you to rearrange that and we may ask you to take some different supplements and whatnot and then throw on top of that. We’re going to say, Oh, and you have to pay us for X number of months before you’re probably going to really reap the results you’re looking for that, the things that are going to be the barometer of you achieving success. And then finally we’ve got to also consider any negative experiences they’ve had in the past where they started programs and failed. They’ve had a bad experience with a gym or a trainer or they started a diet and it fell off the wagon. Or maybe they did a transformation challenge that was really restrictive and deprivation based and it was miserable. And so, you know, so we were asking a lot of this person.

Yeah, a lot of times we’re not willing to do the investing in that relationship to help them see how this is really beneficial to them to see what’s in it for them. And you know, so we say, well that person they didn’t buy when they saw my Facebook ad when they were just kind of scrolling through their phone and killing time in the car out of line, picking up their kid at school. So they must be a tire kicker. They’re not serious. And I’m like, you’re asking this commitment of somebody where in reality we want person around three days a week for an hour for the next year at least. And so, you know, we’re talking about, we’re asking for 150 hours of their time, thousands of dollars of their money and all these other changes in their universe. And we expect them to make that decision while they’re scrolling through and we interrupt them where they’re watching videos and looking at pictures of their friends. It just doesn’t work. So, you know, we have to think in terms of how do we build a relationship with this person? How do we get them to engage and see what’s important to them and help them understand both from kind of an education standpoint of how we can help and how we probably are the best or most unique solution to their goals.

And some social proof because no business owner’s going to say, well really I’m just pretty mediocre at helping you. So we know that the business owners bias. So I need to see some proof that other people are, are saying the same things about this program is the person selling the program. So again, I digress and we’ll let you integrate. Well it’s, you know, it’s, we also kind of forget sometimes too, like it’s not exercise, it’s not something a lot of people like to do. Like you’re, you’re trying to give it some do something they don’t even, they don’t even want to do and they’re not going to probably enjoy the majority of it. And then they’re getting reminded for the needs of the first two weeks for, you know, 24 hours a day because they’re gonna be walking around sore and stiff and stuff like that. Like we almost forget that. So I’ll have to think of it. Cause I know a lot of, I know a lot of fitness people don’t really love to do accounting and those sorts of things. So it’s like, imagine someone saying like, Hey look it, you’ve got to go to accounting three days a week for at least an hour. And then you also are going to get like little sores on your finger from doing all your accounting. They’re going to stay there all day. Like in my mind it’s like trying to convince someone to do that or trying to get to me like, Hey, you got into accounting for three or four hours a week or four days a week. And I’ll be like, Oh my gosh. Like I don’t want to do that.

But I was hoping you would bring up the whole tire kicker thing because it’s funny how you don’t, if they don’t buy it straight away on our time, it’s, it’s there. They gotta be a tire kicker. Right. And the car analogy is, is a perfect one because you’re going to do a little bit more research and it was like we shared it at your at the recent online mastermind of yours where I was talking about like the different, you know, speeds that we buy at and, and try to figure out, okay, how do we allow people to buy at their own speed? And you know, we have fast decision makers, which is well you know, people like us where you know enough just to make the decision like, cool, I need this thing. I’m just going to go buy it. Right? Like I need a new printer, this’ll do it cause I need one now I’ll just make a decision. And then you have the people that are, you know, kind of medium. It’s kind of speed decision makers where know pretty much exactly what you described was looking at the air purifier. You’re like, you know what? I know a little bit but I don’t know enough just to kind of make it be like, well Dyson’s good, I’m just going to grab, I want to do a little bit of research and kind of spend a bit of time. So you know, for that person it’s like that’s where the followup comes in. That’s where we’re building up the relationship, showing them, you know, the reviews, showing testimonials, just allowing them just to see, okay I’m legit. Here’s a little bit about us. You know, you’re going to like us a little bit. And and allowing that person. And then the person that I think that the buyer that always gets left out is kind of that slow lane person, except for maybe I would say maybe 2% – maybe I could be off – of fitness businesses probably cater towards this. And that’s a person that they needed to know. They need to cross off every reason possible, you know before they’ll actually sign up, they got to know that they’re never going to get burned. They, there’s no way they’re ever going to fail. Like all that sort of stuff. And it’s funny when we were talking about that you know, not too long ago, and Nathan posted about a client where, you know, he just stays in contact with people forever. And he talked about a person he met, I think it was on a flight out of Austin. You’ve got his details even, you know, following up with them just through his email for three years. And the guy finally emailed them and said, Hey, look it, I’m finally ready to do something about this fitness thing. You know, I’ve been looking after my mom. She’s, you know, has been sick for the last three years. She’s passed away. So now I have the time and I have the money now to come in as long as I can train for under a thousand dollars a month, I would like to sign up and here’s someone that we would most always be like, he’s a tire kicker. But again, we don’t know the other commitments that they have. Right. The fact that he has a sick mom, he’s taken care of, the money is going to make sure that, you know, she’s taken care of. And then here’s the guy that’s got $1,000 a month to spend on training when the time is right. And all you had to do was just stay in contact with them. And there’s what, $12,000 a year he just added to his, his revenue just for sending a couple emails a week. And you know, the, the person that probably falls into one of those latter two categories that I think we overlook as an industry is the person who is currently enrolled in another program. And, and I get that person in the fitness business landscape pretty regularly. I get a couple of them a month saying, Hey, I’ve got four months left as part of this other program. And I feel like I’ve gotten what from it, what I plan to get from it or what I intended to, but I’ve kind of, you know, I’ve kind of graduated from it. I’m ready to do something different. And so sometimes they’ll notify me of that.

I got one of those today actually. And the person like the program they’re in is good and the people are, you know, the, the person leading it, somebody that we both like. And I think it’s just kind of run its course for them. And so they’re exploring what’s next and you know, and I, like I said, I get a couple of those. Probably, you know, every month at least two or three. And it, you know, that person is a great buyer. Like they’re proving they’re a buyer, right? Like, because they’re paying somebody now for a solution. And if we would have written them off as a tire kicker because the timing was bad, I mean, that’s probably the worst possible evaluation of that person because they’re already invested in coaching. They see the benefit of it. So, you know, if you’re marketing to somebody and they’re a member at a facility that you know, has 12 month programs and they’re eight months in and they’re starting to do their investigation and discovery, well you can knock it out of the park and be the no brainer choice for them. Or you can just kinda leave them up to their own devices and, you know, let them figure out what they figure out at the end. And then, you know, you miss this opportunity to build valuing what you do and set yourself apart for this person who, man, I mean, they’ve already, like, they don’t have to acclimate to joining a gym. They don’t have to rearrange their schedule. They’re already doing it. So you know, there’s a lot of opportunity there and I think we overlook, overlook that. So let’s kind of Let, let me begin there because it’s a great example. I think that that if you’ve, you know, when you work in the industry, you’ve heard this for sure is, Oh yeah, I’ll come and hire you as a trainer. Once I get fit, I just need to get fit first. So all those people that are in the big box gyms, or maybe they’re going to do an add homework or something like that to get fit before they’re ready to come and train with you like that, there’s no one that’s never heard that from a, from a prospect before. Like, let me get fit before I hire you.

So given that there’s people out there like that. Yeah. So, so let’s get into like how this works in practicality. I think we’ve, we hit the, the why behind it, the logic, how people actually behave. So I mean, this is probably been what I would consider one of the two strongest parts of my business. I mean, being coaching centric and then following up with people pretty much for eternity. You know, so I’ll tell you in, in my world, I, I came by, what was so great was I was never exposed to the whole tire kicker mentality because I came from the college baseball world where, you know, the process was really simple. You identify potential players for the next recruiting class and you know, they may come to you in any number of ways. Recruiting services may present them, high school coaches may recommend them, you may see them at games or showcases or tournaments. They may come as referrals from your current players like, Hey, you need to go check this guy out. And so all the same kind of stuff we go through leads come from a variety of sources and then, you know, I would basically kind of reach out to the person and try to see if there was some reciprocal interest through phone calls and letters initially. And if they reciprocated the interest, it’s kind of opting in. And then from that point forward it’s follow up, follow up, follow up emails and phone calls and letters at that stage. Because that was kind of free text message. And some of that.

And then with the overall objective being like, Hey, I need to get them to campus because if I got them on campus, then there was a high likelihood that they were going to sign a letter of intent with us join our program. Same thing. Like if you can get a client or a prospect to walk in and do a success session or a trial, your success rate dramatically skyrocket. So that was all I knew. And I knew that the young people, I was reaching out to the people who are typically between 16 and you know, 16 and 18 as a high school kid or transfer kids who might’ve been anywhere from 18 to 20, usually like, you know, they short attention spans and they definitely like to, to be made to feel important. All the things that we talk about our clients. I mean, that’s all I knew and I think that the young people were even more hypersensitive to it. So you know, so that was my experience and I knew, okay, if I build a relationship with this person, then I may be able to get somebody that typically might not go to a program. My program stature, I may be able to get, like I coached at a small college, I may be able to get a kid who went to a big college or could potentially go to a big college because I had a much better relationship with them, but they were kind of on the fence. And so all that stuff really shaped how I’ve always followed up and sold with any lead that we’ve had. And that’s why I email people on a daily basis because I know that if, okay, if I connect with you initially, then my job is to kind of carry the torch for the relationship. It’s my responsibility. It’s not yours. I’m going to try to add value to your life every day. Try to make you know your business a little bit better or try to make you think a little bit, hopefully inspire you a little bit. Something like that.

And if I do that often enough and long enough then, and in my case I add a little PS at the end of every email that basically says, Hey, whenever you’re ready, come and check out one of these options and you know the same thing that I would have done as a coach. Hey, we’ve got this showcase camp coming up. Or if anytime you’d like to come on campus, let me know. And so keeping that in front of them so that whenever the mood strikes there, they’re ready to move forward. I’m not trying to sync this up with, Hey, I’m running forward transformation challenges a year. Take it or leave it on my timeline. It’s no, whenever you’re ready, we’re here for you. And by taking that approach, and that’s my foundational approach, use the email, try to move somebody to a phone call, which would have been the equivalent of when I was coaching, getting them on campus and then through that phone call saying if it’s a fit to join a program, what’s the same thing I would recommend to any fitness business owner? You get a contact with somebody, you follow up with something of value and something that allows you to kind of showcase you and how you’re different and how you can help. Because if you’re just giving information like we’ve talked about in previous, like the previous episode, information’s not a differentiator anymore. So you’ve got to add a little bit of personality, a little bit of differentiation and how you solve a specific problem and you need to ideally kind of in my mind mix things up a little bit. I think that sometimes we’re going to give them some sort of valuable, unique information that they can use, or at least it prompts some thought. Some of the time we’re going to motivate them a little bit. And motivation doesn’t necessarily mean you know, a rah rah speech. It could be seeing a case study or a testimonial from somebody who had been through what they’re going to go through. And so it’s inspiring to see that, wait a minute, this is possible. This regular everyday person achieved these results. Why could not or person started at even more of a deficit than I did? And they got there and then we mix in very consistent offers. In fact, I tell people email three days a week and add that little PS at the end of it. You knew that you’re getting your offer in front of somebody 156 times a year. If you do that with prospects, you know, I mean the odds definitely shift to your favor. So that’s my foundational stuff. I’m gonna turn it over to you then I’ll talk about how we’ve kind of added other layers to that. But they’re all designed to accomplish the same thing.

Well kind of the basics of marketing is you’re just kind of, there’s kind of two hurdles you’ve got to get over and one is you’ve got to convince them that you can help them, which is, which is pretty easy to do. It’s not a real hard thing. But the hard thing is to convince them like what you’re saying there is convincing them that this time will be different or with this program and we different like, and that’s where the testimonials, the case that he’s, that sort of stuff comes in play because it’s easy to be like, look, I’m in shape, I’m in good shape and I’m a trainer and I have a gym. So obviously I know what I’m doing. But it’s convincing them that you know what, the 32 times you tried before and failed, it’ll actually be different here because, and then that’s when you put in your case studies and all sorts of stuff. And we’re talking about email. Like I, I know for a fact there’s someone listening that’s like, well, you know, if I, when I started to email more people like unsubscribed, so like I don’t wanna email too much. I don’t want to annoy people. But they asked for information from you. And at the end of the day, and this is kind of I’m sharing because this was in my head, the turning point for me was if they get pissed off because you’re sending them free information that’s going to help them and they don’t, they unsubscribe. Well perfect. Because they’re never going to buy, they’re never going to give you any money if they’re getting pissed off that you’re sending them stuff for free. So yeah, it sucks. People come off your list. But you know what, if they’re getting off your list because you’re giving them great information, then they’re not going to buy. And at the end of day, I look at it, I’m like, get them off your list before your, your plan bumps up to the next level and you gotta pay more just because they’re actually on your list.

Yeah. I mean, the reality is you can only help those people who want to be helped. Yup. And you know, unsubscribes are pretty irrelevant in my universe. I mean, most local training businesses need what, a couple hundred people to have a really successful thriving business. So if your in a market of 50,000 people, let alone a market like Louisville that has 700,000, then you know, you, you need like less than 1% of the market. You don’t need everybody. So you only really want to spend your time and energy. Reaching out to those people who, who at least are interested. Right. And the other people like, you know, somebody unsubscribing. I mean, we do do that stuff all the time. It is, is consumers. I know there are things that I was interested in a year ago that I’m no longer interested in. I know it doesn’t matter if it would have been a TV series, it doesn’t matter if it might be you know, somebody who’s teaching something online books, I mean, all sorts of stuff change. And it’s okay, somebody opted in because maybe they had a passing interest for awhile and maybe they don’t now. And I mean, just roll with it. But I mean, I talked to a gentleman this morning who, you know, some of that was probably a little bit of a hangup for him. And I remember Holly, you know, so you guys don’t know, my wife Holly Holly had just this thriving online business, which she still has a wonderful business. She’s just scaled it back now. But she used to get so mad when somebody would unsubscribe or something like that. And I said, you know, I mean you’ve got at that time like 50,000 people on our email list. And I’m like, that’s a city, right? I said, so you’re telling me that if you went into this city, you wouldn’t expect that there were some of those people in that town you didn’t like or they didn’t like you or you’re going Walmart and there wouldn’t be some weird people. And like this is a city of people that you’ve aggregated. Not all of them are going to be your person. So, you know, I, I think it’s important for us to think of that and follow up accordingly. Like, we can’t get bogged down by people who are trolls or people who are frustrating because frankly, at least in my experience, there’s not going to be too many people in your universe that are thriving and more successful that are going to be like publicly criticizing you. Typically, criticism comes from people who are just kind of projecting their own insecurities and struggles on something onto something or someone else. So you know, so if we’re saying that with email, like, like I said, I’m, I use email a lot. I like email because it offers a lot of leverage and it’s permission based. Whereas Facebook ads, I mean, posting something on Instagram or Facebook or something like that, it has value, but somebody’s opting in and giving you their contact information is a deeper level of permission than somebody just clicking follow.

So you know, if you like lean on that and understand that logic, email can be a really good foundation. Now, I know in my world we use email as the foundation and then from a followup standpoint, you know, I do, I do podcasting. I mean, we’ve introduced this podcast. I have the ideal business show and I don’t use that so much as a first connector with somebody because I send it out to my audience usually. But it’s a way to build a relationship and hopefully connect with somebody because we’re hopefully delivering something real valuable to you right now or at least moderately valuable. And and then we, we share things that I write or videos that I’ve filmed through Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn to, to accomplish the same thing. Being willing to meet somebody wherever they are. Not that they need to consume every bit of information that I put out, but we get enough touches through whatever channel that they’re connected through that they have the ability to learn, to know how I might be able to help to build a relationship and know me and trust me a little bit more. And I think that, you know, if email went away tomorrow, I still take the same type of approach, but who knows, it might be with direct mail, it may be through more podcasting, it may be through some other mechanism where I’m doing a a five minute daily podcast to people or voice broadcast, whatever, something where I’m still trying to accomplish the same things. And I think if we understand that in the followup process and then we keep building that relationship and keep offers in front of people, then over time the cumulative effect is going to be probably multiples of what you’re expecting. And now here’s like a little Know beyond the email if you want. Like, cause you know, we always look at the little tricks and tactics and stuff like that. So here’s something we use a lot of our clients if you wanted to use like with that follow up approach using your Facebook or using her Instagram. So it, and this is a little bit more like intermediate, advanced, but you can pixel people and you can obviously retarget them. So once they’ve hit your, your website. So also think about the high percentage of people that hit that, that landing page for your, your FTO or whatever, your lead magnet, but they didn’t kind of now wasn’t the right time. How can you maybe convince that person who is more of a medium lane type person that needs a little bit more proof and stuff? Well, once they’ve hit your page, you can kind of control the conversation if you’re willing to spend a little bit of money on your ads. So what we would do is we’ll take some testimonials, we’ll try to take some little videos of, you know, if the trainer will make some, they kind of squash some objections and then we just run video ads to them afterwards. So let’s say, you know, we have a client Ottawa, we’ve done this for going on three years. He runs a program three times a year. We run ads on his page. Once they hit the page, we do 18 videos only because that’s what he had when we first tried it and it just worked. So we keep with it. So for 18 days, every day they see a different video. Testimonial of a different person saying, you know, I did this program, it changed my life, I did this program, I lost this much weight, I did this program, now I’ve gotta go get brand new clothes. And we took these testimonials and they, everyone had a different story and basically it was like the same thing as I can email. We’re just putting it in front of them and just sharing some more social proof. So you can do the same thing on Facebook if you set that up, you just set up the little custom audiences and then just allow them to just see that social proof and drip over. And even if you have it for two weeks and they don’t agree, they’re kind of not the point yet. They just watched you know, 1421 testimonials about how you’ve helped someone. So you’re starting to get in their mind that yes you can help them. And also maybe just maybe it’ll be different this time. So that’s kind of a little chat. Take away if you want to use some of your paid marketing to actually kind of follow them up. And it’s not that intrusive. Like, Hey, you didn’t sign up yet, maybe now’s not the right time. So now let’s place that social proof in front of you in a strategic way. And I mean if someone really got pissed off cause they kept seeing video testimonials, the way I look at it is just take their name down if they comment. And that’s the same thing with trolls and put that in a little folder called people I’ll never work with cause they’re doing you a favor. You’re like excellent, you’re that person. Let me write that down so I make sure I never have to actually deal with you in person. You never give you money so I have to try to help you. So we, we’ve covered followup like crazy.

We’ve covered a lot of that and then you know, so, so the last thing I probably would want to touch on in this conversion process is whenever somebody is ready, then we need to kind of take a leadership role and help them to choose the best fit for them. Not necessarily the biggest program that don’t buy, not necessarily you know, the, the, the high ticket offer or anything else but the best fit for them within the context of what you offer and understand that sometimes you can do everything right leading up to that point. But maybe your schedule doesn’t mesh with their schedule. Maybe they were looking for one-on-one and all you do is group. That’s okay. But your, your job is to help them understand how you can help them get the results they want. And the easiest way that I’ve found to do this, and I’m going to give you the same kind of two sentence, a selling tool that I use that I, that I teach any client to. First is, okay, if we’re going to be talking again in the next six months, 12 months, whatever time frame you’re going to work with somebody like, Hey, what needs to happen over the next six months for you to have, you know, for you to feel like you got a dream come true result, what would that be for you? Right. So there, there’s a bit of, you know, some elements of, if you’re familiar with the Dan Sullivan question, you know, there, there’s some of that there, but I want them to articulate what it is that they want and if they’re not gonna just give me a really vivid answer. Then I want to dig a little deeper. I want to ask more questions. I want to just get them to like, if they just say, Hey, I want to lose weight. I mean, great, well tell me more about that. And so once we get them to paint this picture of where they want to go over the time frame we’re presenting now we’ve kind of set them up to think, not immediate gratification, right? Like we’ve helped them with forward pacing. We’ve helped them think six months out, 12 months out about where they want to go and we’re not imposing what they want on them. Like that’s something that we do. A lot of you tell people, I mean we’re going to do an FMS on somebody and we’re going to tell them they need to correct this, this and this. And they’re like, man, I came to you cause I want to lose weight. And so let them tell you what that looks like. And then my followup to that is okay, so what do you feel needs to change or happen for you to get there? And again, let them articulate what, what they think needs to happen.

So, they’re selling themselves on behavior modification. You don’t have to tell them where you need this, this, and this and run the risk of you guys butting heads before you’ve earned the right to be their coach. And you also kind of get to do a little bit of a a tape measure, check you if you will, on whether or not they’re realistic about where they want to go and what it’s going to take for them to get there. Because if they say, look, I want to lose a hundred pounds in the next eight weeks, you can stop and kind of try to come together on realistic expectations and if they’re not willing to do it, then you don’t have an unhappy person three weeks down the road and maybe they do have realistic goals, but their, their journey isn’t realistic or what they’re looking for. Is that something that you want to address? Then you’ll know it’s a disconnect there, but if they tell you, Hey, this is where I want to go, this is what I think these changes are happen. Then you get to say, and that’s great. Here’s how we can help you do that. And then you just talk about how that functions within your program. Like if they say they need more accountability, you can talk about how your program offers accountability by having scheduled appointments each week or how you follow up or whatever it is that you do. If they feel like they just need clarity because there are so many different shiny objects out there, so many different diets and programs. You can talk about how Hey, you’re going to be able to take all the guesswork out of it for them and you’re just going to be able to give them this great plan that they can just focus on executing and then getting on with their life. So you can do that. And then once you’ve presented that so great, two days a week, three days a week, here’s how much they cost, which one do you want to start with? And it doesn’t become this tug of war. You don’t have to overcome a bunch of objections because you’ve invested so much time in the lead up with the value building and follow up and then you made it about them and you’ve allowed them to kind of sell themselves on their terms from when they replied to what they actually want and to, to what they feel like needs to happen to get there.

Now I’m not going to tell you they have all the right answers with this stuff because frankly they’re not the expert, right? Like they’re, that’s your expertise. But I think that we all have to accept that you can’t help them until they’re under your care. And so you’re not going to convince them of something different with a five minute window of time, any more than somebody going to convince somebody to change their political allegiances on a Facebook post. So, you know, I think you need to earn the right to persuade them that there might be more to the story. Yup. And just kind of those questions too, like asking someone like Kate, you know, kind of like you know what they’re trying to achieve and then cause there’s so many fitness businesses that will end gyms that will just, they just want to make the sale and by actually asking them, like if they see your example is they want to lose a hundred pounds in eight weeks, you can say, well like let’s be honest, that’s, that’s actually like an 18 month goal. And so I just want to be honest with you and now you’re, you come across differently than most people out there is because you’re actually being honest and up front with them and being like, I don’t like if you want to do that in the next six months, I can’t take your money cause we’re not going to get there. And you’re actually being a person of integrity. And unlike probably a lot of the people that they’ve talked to before and it’s, and you know, the whole trust thing, they’re like, wow, okay. Because deep down inside, like I think most people realize if they have a kind of weight loss, I mean they want to do that, but I think deep down inside they know it’s probably not realistic because it doesn’t happen. So yeah, it’s be integral. Is there, I mean we went through a lot right now. Is there, is there anything else you think, cause I can’t think of anything else that I need to share.

Anything else you need to share to kind of wrap up this conversion episode? Just accept that it’s a process, right? Like any relationships, a process. And if you’re not willing to commit to the process of earning a client, then why should they be willing to commit to the process of being a client? So man, that’s, that’s like a quotable, right? I was just going to say that. I was like, we should quote that and if there was a mic around, I would knock it over.

Thanks for listening. I’m giving away a bundle of my bestselling books, the ideal business formula, the fitness entrepreneur handbook in the path. All you have to do is go to patrigsby.com/podgift to get it. Also, make sure to subscribe to The Fitness Business School with Pat Rigsby so you don’t miss an episode and you get yourself on the fast track to creating your ideal business.