I’ve never made any secret of the fact that I truly believe we should do what we can to help others, that we should always focus on adding more value to people’s lives or that sharing the fruits of our success is just the right thing to do. All of our Fit Body Boot Camp locations are encouraged to work with non-profits in their communities. All of my companies are active in supporting national organizations we believe in. But you can also do a great deal to grow your business this way and I want to share with you how to sell personal training by giving to others.
I’m going to give you real examples of how I personally and many of my FBBC owners have done and are doing it and I’m going to share principles that I have seen proven time and time again.
Giving to Your Community
Actively pursuing or creating opportunities to serve your community, your neighbors and non-profits in your area is one of the single best things you can do to grow your business. Let me give you a few examples. These are all things that I have done or that some of my most successful FBBC owners have done.
A local elementary school is holding a fundraiser for a new playground, so you volunteer to conduct some free boot camp sessions for both kids and adults.
What happens? You get written up in the local paper for being a great citizen and new clients sign up because you’ve created credibility and trust by caring about local kids. Plus, a bunch of teachers and parents sign up because they had a great workout with you at the fundraiser.
You hold a 10, 14 or 28 day challenge at your boot camp, giving a portion of the proceeds to a local women’s shelter.
What happens? You get written up in the local paper for being a great citizen with a killer workout program. New clients sign up both because of the challenge and because you’ve built credibility and trust by caring about women in need. Most of the people who participate in the challenge sign long-term contracts because you rock.
Giving to Your Clients
You can’t stop wooing your clients as soon as they sign up for automatic payments on a 12-month program. Your clients are one of the most valuable marketing assets you have. Understanding how to sell personal training programs to people referred by your satisfied clients is a lot easier than figure out how to sell someone who simply saw your ad.
Give to your clients by remembering that it’s all about the client’s experience not about how much you’re getting per head in your 6:30 session. Focus on making every client feel valued every time they walk in the door. What happens? Your retention skyrockets and so do your referrals.
Give to your clients by running great promotions and then rewarding the clients who bring in the most participants. Reward them with your sincere gratitude and with gifts like restaurant gift cards, a free month of training or some awesome workout swag. What happens? When you run a contest or promotion, your clients are all over it instead of letting it go in one ear and out the other.
Giving to Your Prospects
In order to consistently turn more prospects into long-term clients, you need to give them incredible value and make sure that what they get from you are things they can’t get just anywhere.
First and foremost, that means giving them a great workout and great results. But it also means giving them your attention when they’re giving you feedback, really listening when they talk about their needs and goals and then giving them the solutions, and also giving them added value with things like free fitness info products, free boot camp items like water bottles or T-shirts and anything else you can think of.
What happens? Your conversion rates go way up and so does the number of new people who are going to give you great referrals.
You see how this all works? There’s nothing wrong with knowing how to sell personal training by showing yourself to be a giving person.
There’s nothing wrong with giving with an eye toward getting in return, as long as your heart and mind are in the right place.
You do have to sincerely care and genuinely enjoy helping others, but most personal trainers are in the business because they already are that kind of person.
Committed to Your Success,
Bedros