This post is about one thing…
Getting your personal training or boot camp business organized, systemized and monetized to the fullest so that you can have more time, money and freedom to do what you want, when you want, as often as you want.
Here’s the deal, most industry trainers run their business like a job. In fact most trainers are actually running their business by the seat of their pants with no systems in place for marketing, selling, retaining, or referral generating.
I don’t know about you, but that’s not what I’d call a reliable and secure income. Know what I mean?
See, it’s all about having systems, because systems run your business and YOU run the systems. Ever wonder why the Starbucks in California runs identical to the one in Nevada, DC, Florida or Boston? It’s the systems they have in place that makes the product, service, and profit consistent across the board.
So here’s a 30,000 foot level view of the seven areas that you should systematize first in your business so you can have the freedom, lifestyle and money you deserve.
1. I’m surprised with the number of fitness trainers who still don’t have a niche market to serve. Look, if you think you can be everything to everybody then you’re gonna struggle for long time to come.
Serve a niche market that you enjoy working with, that you have passion for, who are easy to find in your area and who have the money to invest in your services. Be a specialist, not a generalist.
2. You gotta have specific and systemized lead generation tactics deployed at all times to get the kind of traffic you want for your business. If you don’t have a steady stream of leads coming in, calling and emailing you then you’re headed for disaster.
Here are some lead generation tactics that are working really good for many of my coaching clients.
– Run Facebook ads that drive traffic to targeted squeeze pages, then offer them a low barrier of entry to your program on the next page.
– Have lead boxes peppered throughout businesses in the community.
– Use direct mail postcards and letters targeting specific homes in the community who you know can afford your services.
– Run lead generation print ads that get people to call your number and ask for a free report, ebook, audio program, or DVD.
– Run pay per click ads on google, yahoo, and bing and drive the traffic to your squeeze page.
– Is your personal training website search engine optimized for the keyword that people in your area are searching for?
– Build an email list of prospects, clients, past clients, local businesses and media contacts and emailing them killer content and offers consistently.
3. This is where most small business owners (trainers included) drop the ball BIG TIME. Once you get your lead generation dialed in and prospects start calling and emailing, you gotta have two critical appointment scripts in place.
The fist is a script to set the appointment, consultation or free session(s). And the second is a script to call and confirm that they’re coming in the day before the appointment. I’ve seen these two scripts increase appointment “show rate” by as much as 50%.
4. This is another one of those big things that can easily double and even triple your business if you get it right. Learn to sell and have a sales system and script in place that’s crafted to convert prospects into paying clients.
You can get a complete done-for-you system for selling personal training here.
5. Create a “stick system” within your fitness business. There’s nothing more frustrating then losing clients because you don’t have a solid retention system in place.
Here are the top three ways to increase client retention:
– Make sure you clients are getting the results you promised and they want.
– Give your clients consistent recognition, appreciation and love.
– Reward your clients often, even with little things like tickets to the movies or a ball game, or a gift certificate to dinner, and just a starbucks gift card. Reward them for showing up, losing weight, getting fit, and giving referrals.
6. One of the most overlooked client getting tactics I know – and it just so happens to be THE most low cost way of getting new clients – is client referrals. But the problem is that most fitness trainers go about it all wrong from the get go.
Here’s how you get your clients to give you referrals…
First: Condition them from the beginning to give you referral. The minute you sign up a client say this: Mrs. Jones, as I help you get what you want from your fitness and fat loss program, can I count on you to help me get what I want which is to grow my business by training more people who are referred by you?
Second, have referral generation contests each month. People love a sense of competition.
And third, hook up your clients who give you referrals with really cool things like a free month or two of training or a dinner and a movie.
7. Finally, you gotta have business systems in place if you want to be able to go do what you want, when you want without having to worry about money running out or someone calling you all freaked out.
Automate your business as much as possible.
– Use EFT or auto debit to automatically bill your clients each month. Stop collecting checks and manually running credit cards. That’s just nuts!
– Create an operations manual with every system outlined and detailed so that all you’ll have to do is handing to an employee and they should pretty much.
– If you have a staff then make sure they’re dialed into your system and know your expectations.
So as you can see, it’s all about the systems if you want more time, money and freedom.
Best of all, the amount of effort it would take you to create these systems once is probably the same amount of effort you put out each month racking your brain for ideas on how to get more clients, keep more clients, and generate more referrals.
If you want more done-for-you scripts, marketing material, and systems that you can just plug and play then check out the program that thousands of fitness trainers have used to turn their business around >> http://TheArtOfSellingFitness.com
Be sure to leave a comment below and let me know what you think and what systems you have in your personal training or boot camp business.