The hardest section of your sales funnel is, without a doubt, the transition from prospect to client.
As people move from total stranger to lead to prospect, you know you’re going to lose a lot of them. Your boot camp won’t be right for everyone and that’s OK. And the ones you do get are easy because these stages don’t take much effort or commitment on their part. Essentially, those first stages are all the easy sections of your marketing funnel; it’s the transition from prospect to client that's so difficult.
It’s not impersonal marketing anymore. It isn't anonymous fire and forget. No, when you’re converting a prospect into a customer it’s all about in-person, face to face interaction.
You may have read about this stage of the process before, and that’s because it's complicated. If you want detailed instruction about how to consistently make sales, step by step, there's lots of content out there for you to check out.
But today’s post is a short, detailed list of the four most important tips and ticks to remember when you’re transforming a prospect into a client. Keep these guidelines in mind throughout your entire interaction with your prospect and you’ll have a much easier time converting them into a client.
#1: Guarantee Results
No qualifying, no pussyfooting, and no half-truths. Don’t say they could get results or they might get results or, “it depends on how hard you work.”
No.
You guarantee they will get the results they want. Give them a reasonable timeframe, tell them exactly how their body is going to look and feel, and promise it to them.
Does that make you nervous? Why? Don’t you believe in your services?
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There’s something about a challenge that just gets people fired up. It doesn’t work for everyone, but for a lot of people, a challenge can be irresistible. They want to know if they can beat it, they want others to know they can beat it, and at the very least, they want to try.
That’s why we run our challenges, because of the visceral reaction they elicit.
But there are right ways and wrong ways to put out these special offers. And if you get it wrong, it can be devastating for your boot camp.
Think about it, to keep your Boot Camp growing and keep your client base increasing, you have to keep filling your sales funnel, right? We’ve talked a lot about these in the past, they are what we call the series of steps our prospects move through as they go from being interested individuals to paying clients.
And we’ve explored many passive ways to keep that sales funnel full, because that’s how you operate an effective business. It’s not sustainable to be working like crazy to keep filling your funnel from nothing all the time. We teach you to put systems into place (like human billboards or email marketing) that keep filling the funnel overtime, all the time.
But occasionally, your funnel starts to run dry or you lose a lot of clients all at once, and you need to dumb a huge number of prospects into that funnel to keep things moving upward. And that’s where the challenge comes in.
But that’s also what makes the challenge so crucial. You rely on the power of the challenge to boost your client numbers when things start to slow down. If something goes wrong, your boot camp is going to be in trouble.
To make sure that never happens, I’ve put together the following dos and don’ts for Fit Body Boot Camp Challenges.
1) Make a Big Fat Claim.
If you want people to have a big reaction to your offer, it needs to stir things up a bit. If you want attention and you want reaction, you’ve got to stick your neck out there. While I strongly advise against promising anything you can’t deliver, I do encourage you to make a big fat claim about your program and the results you can bring people. If you want to get someone fired up, tell them exactly how you can change their lives or their bodies.
Make an impressive promise.
The catch, though, is that you sure as hell had better deliver on that promise.
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Making the sale is, for many owners and trainers, the hardest part of operating a boot camp. They don’t have a problem with the training, they can handle the numerous challenges that come with operating a successful fitness boot camp business, but they are deathly afraid of making the sale and closing the client.
And this fear bleeds into their marketing efforts. They can’t write powerful, engaging copy because they aren’t 
comfortable making a sale. And whatever marketing campaigns they create don’t seem to have the ‘umph’ required to make people take action.
So when I coach these owners and try to show them how they can get the confidence and the tools they need to become effective salespeople, I usually find their consistent failure stems from the same recurring problem: they are selling the wrong thing.
Think for a minute about what exactly you are buying when you purchase a membership to a big box gym.
You’re getting access to a massive, state of the art facility packed full of the most powerful fitness and weight loss tools available. Dozens of machines of all different types and purposes, everything from treadmills to stairclimbers, ellipticals and bikes— whatever you can think of, it’s there. Hundreds of free weights, bench presses, and anything else you need to get ripped. There’s even racquetball courts, yoga studios, Olympic sized swimming pools, saunas, hot tubs, showers, lockers, bathrooms. It’s all there.
And what does your boot camp offer? Well, virtually none of these things. It’s a fraction of the size and has little more than squishy mats and giant ropes hanging off the walls.
So how do you make a sales pitch that can compete with everything the big gyms have to offer? Hopefully it’s obvious by now that you shouldn’t be selling any physical thing that your boot camp offers. Clients can access whatever you’ve got and ten times more at their local gym, so that strategy isn't going to work for you.
So what should you sell, then? How can you compete with these seemingly overwhelming odds?
Actually, it’s easy.
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The biggest and best names in the Fitness Industry (you know, the guys and girls whose names you always hear floating around the gym or popping up in your Facebook sidebar) are more than just teachers or workout experts. These iconic figures, who spend their time sitting atop the industry’s tallest mountains and making the biggest bucks, are way more than just personal trainers.
Ever wondered how they reached such lofty heights? Sure, it has a lot to do with work ethic and personal situations and maybe a bit of luck, but there is one tool, one strategy that each of these giants uses to reach the tip-top of the Fitness Industry leaderboards.
Want to know what it is?
It’s storytelling.
Or, said differently, StorySelling.
Each of these greats has mastered the art of leveraging his or her personal origins and anecdotes to establish professional ethos (reputation) and, more importantly, make money from it.
O.K., let’s backtrack a little here and take a look at some examples.
Take, for instance, Jason Ferruggia. Jason is obviously an incredibly talented and knowledgeable teacher, author, and fitness expert. There is no doubt that his mastery and expertise are the driving forces contributing to his success. But there are certain tricks, strategies, and nuances that he uses to transform him from personal trainer to fitness celebrity.
Everyone knows Ferruggia for his incredible blog and his awesome products. He’s huge because he produces great content, but he’s a celebrity because people like, adore, and emulate him: his personality, his image, his story.
When you hear “Jason Ferruggia,” what sorts of thoughts and images immediately jump into your mind? Is it “Muscle Gaining Secrets?” Maybe you think of “The Renegate Diet?” Or, do you think hard ass, no B.S., straight shooting and hard-hitting writer, blogger, and fitness personality?
Thought so.
You see, Ferruggia doesn’t just have the awesome content and top-notch talent, he has created an image of himself that builds rapport, gains customer trust, and sells product through generating fascination and fandom within his audience.
Let’s take a look at a more understated example.
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Learning to love sales can be tough when your background is personal training, but if you’re looking to grow your business with new clients then you need to become an expert closer. Marketing will only take you so far, you’ve also got to be able to convert your prospects into paying clients if you’re looking to make the big bucks- and you can only do that by selling.
Selling personal training has gotten a lot easier over the years due to the fact that more and more people have taken a bigger interest in their own health and fitness. Because health and fitness are becoming more “front and center” in people’s lives, closing even the toughest customers is now a breeze compared to years ago when everyone was under the impression that you had to be rich or famous to hire a personal trainer.
Now that our society is a lot more aware of the harmful effects of obesity, more people are looking at getting fit as a way to curb medical costs- and they’re right to do so. Eating right and getting enough exercise can help anyone in almost any situation avoid costly doctors visits and not to mention help them feel a lot better, so it’s no big secret that most doctors will prescribe a patient a healthier diet and more exercise if they aren’t getting enough.
So what does all this mean for you and your personal training business? It means everything! Personal training, group or boot camp or one-on-one, is on the up and up meaning that more people are seeking a personal trainer to work with. They’re already easier to sell than ever before so all you need are these quick selling tips to get you on the right track with your prospects.
Trial Offer
One of the best ways to gain a prospect’s trust is to offer them something of value for free or cheap. A week free at your facility will help them get used to your personality and your style of training, which will help you when you’re ready to sit down and sell to them. They’ll already be familiar with what you have to offer so your consultation will be more focused on them and what they want to accomplish.
That’s much easier than sitting down with a prospect that you barely even know, who doesn’t even know you at all, and trying to sell them a year’s worth of personal training for whatever price. The key is to get them to know you, like you, and trust you before you even end up selling to them because it makes the process that much easier for you and for them.
So if you’re not offering some free or cheap (a week free or two weeks at $45 or whatever feels right to you) trial at your fitness center then start doing so and promote it online, offline- pretty much everywhere you can to get people interested in joining. Your prospects will be much more likely to buy if they can take your training for a “test drive”.
Ask Questions, Then Listen
The secret to closing is basically this: ask questions, then listen- hard. Even the world’s best salespeople know how important it is to let the prospect do the talking. It’s where all the magic happens, it’s where you can pinpoint the exact reason they came to workout with you in the first place and that’s your golden ticket.
Asking important, qualifying questions like, “When is the last time you felt good about the way your look and feel?” or “Tell me about the last time you felt good about your fitness” will help you figure out just what it is that’s holding them back from (more…)
Being an independent personal trainer who’s not tied down to the hard knock life of working in a big box gym, you probably know firsthand just how hard it is to charge what you’re actually worth. Why is this? You own your own business and have clients that have made amazing transformations, and yet you still struggle with the notion that your services aren’t worth a whole lot more than a gym membership. Learning how to sell personal training programs without comprising price or what you’re worth has more to do with how you run your business versus your selling and closing skills.
Now, don’t get me wrong- knowing how to sell and close clients is extremely important, but you should also keep in mind that how you run your fitness business makes a huge difference. What’s the environment like? Is it friendly? Encouraging? Would a first timer be comfortable coming to your boot camp or private studio? These things play a valuable role in getting clients to say yes instead of no.
What about you or your trainers? Are you (or they) as friendly and outgoing with your new clients as possible? People have to know, like, and trust you and your trainers in order to feel comfortable shelling out the big bucks to be a part of your facility.
Atmosphere
Having a nice and friendly atmosphere goes a long way in the eyes of someone who is looking for a new gym or boot camp to join. Same goes for cleanliness as well as the feel of your facility. It’s important to keep these things in mind when you’re looking to get new clients because these things do matter a lot. It also matters to the clients that you plan on keeping for the long haul because they’re expecting a nice, clean studio too.
How you keep your facility says a lot about who you are as a trainer and a business owner. So does how you keep yourself. Are you a fit trainer? You have to be or it’s a lot like going to a hair stylist with a rat’s nest on their head, or going to a dentist with bad teeth. You can’t expect your clients to pay several hundred dollars a month to train with someone who doesn’t look the part.
But don’t go completely overboard and spend money that you don’t have fixing your gym or boot camp up. Use what you have and improve on it as your business grows.
Show Them The Love
Show your clients the love and you’ll keep them much longer. You won’t ever feel like you’re overcharging them if you spoil them rotten. Remember their birthdays and other significant things about them so you can surprise them with a little something here and there. It’s so important to build real relationships with your clients because that is what makes you different than your average gym and gives you the permission you need to charge them what you want.
Send them things like a care package when they first sign up with you along with a handwritten thank you note that encourages them to stick it out. Exercising is really tough for some people so you’ve got to make an effort to encourage them rather than neglecting them because they can’t do something just yet. (more…)
If you’re terrified of and don't know how to sell personal training, try this exercise. Next time you strike up a conversation with a stranger in a restaurant or supermarket line ask them if they’ve ever considered personal training or joining a boot camp. Steering the conversation toward that question shouldn’t be as hard as you think because you look incredibly fit, happy and healthy and they will naturally be curious as to how you do it.
Now ask why they haven’t joined a boot camp or seriously thought about personal training, and make a mental note of the excuses. These are the objections you will encounter all the time when you reach the point of closing a potential client. Get used to these standard objections because you’re going to have to work on ways to overcome them. I strongly recommend that you take a look at The Close Clients system as it is the best complete how to sell personal training system out there. The most common objections boil down to just a basic few: (more…)
In order to have a thriving fitness business you’ve got to be an excellent trainer AND an excellent salesperson as well. If you’ve been in sales you know the most difficult part is closing, and it’s no different when selling personal training.
I’ve come across lots of excellent trainers who have no clue about the psychology of selling and how to close, so I’m going to explain the most effective way of closing most fitness clients without ever having to sit down or waste hours of your time.
If you get five or six people coming through the door every day looking for fitness training, you certainly don’t want to spend six hours a day dealing with people who end up making excuses and coming up with the same run of the mill objections.
Knowing how to sell personal training and how to sell fitness effectively gets easier, and for many of us who already “get it” closing rates can be anywhere from 90% to 100% and it will only take a few minutes every time.
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Closing is not about YOU
If there’s a sudden look of dread on your face, I guarantee that word “close” was the cause. You’re in this business to make money, and if you’re lucky enough to have a good supply of leads you must concentrate on perfecting and mastering the art of closing and converting more leads into sales. It must be part of your fitness sales strategies.
Hopefully you’ve already started your own Fitness Bootcamp – and if not, why not? Bootcamps are without a doubt one of the best ways to promote your one-on-one fitness training sessions.
People are already familiar with you and your methods, they like and trust you and they’re probably seeing results, so why not help them go one step further? Not everyone will want one-on-one sessions. Many people feel more comfortable being part of a group, but some will, so be sure to stress the benefits and the value of personalized training to everyone.
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