Recently my good pal and coaching client Josh Carter made a simple tweak to his opt in autoresponder sequence that made a gigantic change in conversion. So I asked him to share it with my friends here on PT Power.
Sometimes the simplest thing can make a HUGE difference.
Like using soap.
Just think, if you didn’t use soap the shower would be just a place where you moved your body dirt around. But you add soap and BINGO clean and fresh as a summer’s breeze.
A simple alteration in an everyday procedure can effect a massive change.
Well this is the story of how a simple change I made had an incredible change in my business (and oddly enough it had nothing to do with Facebook).
Like most of us I have a website for my personal training business. And again like most of I have a form on my website for a “Free Trial”. My offer is for a free “Body Diagnostic Consultation”. (During this consult I run the Close Clients magic on them, but that is a story for another time.)
It ***USED TO*** roll like this…
They enter their name, email and phone number and via interwebs sorcery they were sent an auto-responder message that went something like this…
Dear [NAME],
Thank you for contacting Carter Fitness, the #1 Fitness and Fat Loss personal training facility in West Hills. We have received your request for a free, no obligation Body Diagnostic Consultation. We will get getting back to you regarding scheduling this appointment within the next 24 hours. In the mean time, do not hesitate to call or email us with any questions you might have. We can be reached at 818-337-1675.
Yours in health,
Joshua Carter, CPT
The Body Transformation Expert
Carter Fitness
http://carterfitness.com /
http://www.fitbodybootcamp.com/westhillsfitnessbootcamp/
818-766-8888
Now that is not direct quote as I have since thrown it out, but it was just as bad. In my defense I set it up years ago before my genius marketing genes kicked in, and I basically never went back and checked it (shame on me.)
Mind you it still worked, I got clients in for consults all the time. But there were always the ones that didn’t reply when I followed up or re-scheduled or came up with an excuse blah blah blah.
SO…. about month or so ago a client replied to the email above asking one thing or another (and I of course replied) but I scrolled down and saw the email she was sent which I hadn’t seen in ages.
“WHAT THE HELL IS THIS CRAP?” I thought. And it was. Crap that is.
The new version goes something like this:
Hey [NAME], great to hear from you. When did you want to come in for you free consult? How is tomorrow?
-Josh
Guess what? My consult rate has gone though the roof. It has risen an astounding 397%
Ok, I made that up. I do not know what the percentage is but it was noteworthy enough that it made me, well… take note. I literally had to think to myself and figure out what it was I had changed.
The number of opt ins was pretty much the same, but the number actually making in the gym for the consult went up significantly. They got back to me almost instantly to schedule.
It was incredible. But why?
I’ll tell you why.
1) It was simple.
2) It was personal.
People do not want complicated when it comes to fitness and fat loss. Simple is better. Life is complicated enough, they do not need to complicate things further.
Even more importantly they want personal. The first email could have been sent from a corporate robot.
It sucked.
But the second email looks like I was writing a friend casually about meeting up later – and that makes it much more personal.
And here is the thing: for most people (and especially women) fat loss is and EXTREMELY emotional thing. And emotional and corporate do not mix.
BUT emotional and personal do mix – perfectly.
So here is the take home lesson: make your communication with your clients and prospects in all areas more personal, conversational and simple. (This is a huge lesson for Facebook communication BTW).
When you do, you will connect with your clients and prospects on a whole different level and you’ll quickly build the “know, like and trust” factor which is critical to converting leads into paying clients.
