Guest Blog Post By Shawna Kaminski
Everyone thinks that an online fitness business means selling ebooks, follow along works, or membership sites…
…and to some extent it does.
But there’s nothing stopping you from turning your passion for training people into an online coaching program.
Here’s how I generated $7,000 in the last 72 hours by selling online fitness coaching to people from all over the world.
And how YOU can do it, too.
Here’s what you need to know about me…
Like you, I’m a personal trainer. In fact, I have a very successful Fit Body Boot Camp location here in Calgary where I still train clients once a week – my team does the rest of the training.
I also have several fitness information products online like follow along challenge workouts and programs for women over 40.
But in this article, I’m going to outline the exact steps you need to take to open up an online coaching program and earn over $7000 in 72 hours like I just did.
Premise #1 - I’m going to assume that you’re an amazing coach who’s developed a variety of solid fitness programs. Clearly you need to be a master at your craft with many client success stories behind you and confidence that your programs deliver results.
Given ‘premise #1’, I won’t go into the exact details of how you’ll structure the actual workouts for your group coaching. This is up to you to determine since you’re the expert at your style of training.
Your coaching program will need to have workouts and a nutrition aspect to it.
You’ll want to set it up for 90 days. You’ll have clients pay you a minimum of $99/month, paid up front to the tune of $297. You’ll provide a new program every few weeks and a scalable nutrition plan. You’ll meet your coaching clients daily on a secret group on Facebook.
Let’s get started with what you need to do to get your coaching program off the ground in just a weekend….
Know Your Customers
You should have a good idea of who your customers are, but if you want the nitty gritty, do a simple survey and offer a bonus of some sort to entice your peeps to fill it in.
I used SurveyMonkey.com to get over 1000 responses to simple questions about gender, age, biggest fitness obstacles, what my clients wanted to see me deliver and more. I’ll use this information in a variety of ways to help me be more specific in meeting their needs.
(If you’re wondering where I got these 1000 responses… I sent the survey out to my email list of clients and prospects. This should also show you the value of having an email list).
A survey is also a fantastic ‘excuse’ to open a coaching program…
Give a reason why….
Even if your customers didn’t specifically ask for an online coaching program, you can say that as a result of analyzing the survey, you’ve decided to open up a coaching program.
You can use the info from the survey to determine exactly what your customers need and be proactive in providing it (in your coaching, content and in any other offers you make to them).
Get them rabid for you…
Get your customers excited about your coaching program but DON’T LET THEM JOIN.
This may sound counter productive by giving them details and dangling the carrot without access. Tell them what you have to offer in an email or two to build up their desire to get on board.
Tell your list when you’ll be sending out information and applications for your coaching.
Open the gates…
When you do open up the program, provide information about what your coaching will entail.
Give specifics as to how the group will run:
• Dates of the program
• What customers will get
• Benefits
• Expectations
• Who the program is NOT for
• Price
• Facebook forum (this is non-negotiable, if someone is not on FB, they aren’t eligible)
Make it exclusive – By ‘application’ only
Create exclusivity by making everyone ‘apply’ for coaching through a screening process.
This will do a number of things:
• It will eliminate tire kickers.
• It will create credibility that you’re not just taking anyone into the group.
• It will make people more likely to explore your application to see what you’ve got going on.
• It will give you an opening to explain and create more value to those that are most interested.
• It will make for a more cohesive group once you start.
• You can screen out the “crazy’s” – we all have them in our circle. You can politely tell certain people that they just aren’t a good ‘fit’ for your group.
Use Google Docs
A great way to set up an application is to use Google docs. You can custom make any kind of question quickly and easily and present a professional looking application in about 10 minutes:
The good news about this sort of application is that you can create it such that it will automatically populate in a chart format for you to see responses.
Once a customer decides to fill in an application, you should respond immediately with a canned response. The likelihood of them joining your program is higher if you respond right away to their application. This is an indication of how attentive and responsive you’ll be as a coach. Try to reply to any applications the same day.
Expect MANY more applicants than action takers. I received over 130 applications for 30 spots.
Screen the applications.
For me, I wanted to make sure that most applicants were of similar fitness level and would fit my nutrition program. For example, I screened out vegans since my program is not vegan. Creating the right questions in the application is important.
Create a canned response that you can send to most of the applicants. Feel free to send a BCC copy of the email to several applicants at once after you screen them to ensure that they’ll be a good fit.
Respond to everyone with some kind of canned or personal response.
Create a Funnel
In your response to each applicant, your goal is to get the customer on board and PAID in the shortest amount of time. The fastest and easiest way to do this is by simply creating a Paypal button for easy remittance of payment.
You have two options here: you could put the payment link right in your canned response/email or you could send the applicant to a payment page.
Creating a Payment Page
In my response to the application, I decided to send customers to a payment page. This may seem like an unnecessary step. I created the page to summarize the program once again so the customer would have their questions answered prior to payment.
Honestly, I also wanted to be sure that these customers were committed and computer savvy. If they couldn’t click ‘one more link’ to gain access to my amazing coaching program, then I determined that they were either not computer savvy enough to follow simple directions or they were lazy….
So, I created a page in my Fitpro Newsletter account in about 10 minutes.
I added a Paypal payment button and I was in business. (Side note: Be sure to test out your payment button before hand. Ensure that you have no ‘shipping and handling’ fees associated with the payment and that it’s in the correct currency. You may even make the purchase yourself and then refund yourself – no fees will be charged, but you just want to make sure the funnel works smoothly.)
Collect the Money and Act Fast
Once an applicant submits payment, you want to reach out to them right away.
Create a canned response giving them directions for the next step. This may be to go to a specific download page, friend you on Facebook, or what ever you need them to do.
I created a download page with the first module of my fitness and nutrition program for them to download and unpack.
I also created a separate list for the group and added an opt in form (on the download page) to my Aweber account. This is so that I would have everyone’s email all in one place if I ever needed to contact the group via email.
Facebook Fun Facts
The best place to ‘house’ your coaching program is in a Facebook ‘secret’ group. The trick with the secret group is that everyone in the group needs to be friends with the owner of the page.
Make sure that you tell your clients to ‘friend’ you and tell you who they are on Facebook. Many people have different names on Facebook. Once you are friends, you can add them to the group.
Get the conversation going on Facebook…
Create excitement on the secret page by welcoming group members and asking them to introduce themselves.
Tell your gang that this is where the action happens. Tell them that it is imperative that they check in daily on your FB group page with three reports:
• Workout – Report that it is done daily and rate intensity level 1-10
• Nutrition – Report compliance to YOUR program rate 1-10
• Motivation – Report level 1-10
Weekly Progress Report
Use Google Docs once again to check up on everyone in the group. It’s difficult to assess if everyone is on Facebook regularly. You’ll have some people posting and liking posts several times a day, others will be less active. Not everyone loves FB or is proficient with its use.
So that some clients don’t fall between the cracks, create a weekly progress report that is required on a specific time of the week. Create this similarly to the application, but focus your questions on motivation, obstacles, successes, how you can specifically help clients. By using a Google doc, you can set up the report and it will populate in a graph format for easy checking. Ensure that everyone fills in the report, follow up with those that don’t submit their weekly progress report.
Many people will be reluctant to share some ‘darker secrets’ on FB and this will help you help those that don’t enjoy the ‘publicity’ of the secret group.
You can also see at a glance the big issues that most are facing and coach your group with this valuable information.
This info will populate into an easy to read chart
Transformation Contest
At the start, set the stage for success and get them excited by having a contest.
Have clients take a BEFORE picture. Have them send it your way and tell them that you’ll keep it in the ‘vault’ and it will NOT be displayed without their consent.
Tell clients that they CAN’T win unless they submit a BEFORE AND AFTER picture at the end of the contest.
At the end, have a group VOTE as to who has undergone the most amazing transformation and have a BIG prize for the winner.
Give specifics as to what you’re looking for in pictures:
Picture requirements:
• front/back shot
• good lighting
• date stamp of some sort (newspaper, current mag, camera date stamp)
• bathing suit OR something you feel comfortable in that will reveal your transformation such as a form fitting t-shirt and shorts.
Rinse and Repeat
This is a process that you can improve and continue to implement every 90 days. This will alleviate the need to continually come up with new ‘products’ while you can still generate income.
If this sounds like something you’d like to do to increase your income and help more people with your fitness expertise then you should come out to Bedros and Craig’s Online Info Blueprint Workshop on November 7th and 8th.
That’s where I learned all of this fitness information marketing stuff back in 2009 and I still continue to learn from Bedros and Craig.