A Post On Personal Trainer Marketing By Pat Rigsby

You know how sometimes things seem so big, so daunting that we almost get paralyzed and stop making headway on them entirely?

When I talk to a personal trainer marketing his or her business, it often seems that way.

Well, I’m going to do my best in this post to simplify the whole ‘personal trainer marketing thing’ once and for all.

First – let’s get to the bottom of what marketing really is if you’re a good trainer or coach.  Marketing is simply exposing people to your service and why it’s better than all other available options.

I don’t really care how you do it.  If you’re really good at what you do and someone experiences it… I’ll take my chances on you likelihood of building a successful business.

So with that as the basis of a successful approach to personal trainer marketing, the real need is to get people to ‘test drive’ what you do.

Where do you get these people?

Well, it astounds me when fitness pros ask about doing a 5000 piece postcard mailer or running a newspaper ad but they’ve never actually told everyone they know about what they do and how they can help them.

Seems pretty backwards to me.

The Power Of Your Network

A salesman named Joe Girard was the first I ever heard talk about the concept of the ’250 List.’  Basically, what Mr. Girard said was that everyone knows 250 people, at least in passing.

So if you know 250 people, why start by trying to sell people that you have no relationship with?

You may be thinking ‘I don’t know 250 people.’ Maybe, but humor me.

Open up a spreadsheet on your computer.

Pull out your cell phone and open up the contact list.

Start copying all the contacts and their contact information onto your new list.

Once you’re done, open up your email account and do the exact same thing.

Finally, log into Facebook and LinkedIn and do this exercise one more time.

At this point you likely have 250 or more people – even if you weed out your pseudo-friends from Facebook.  If not, you’re probably darn close.

If you’ve put the names of these people in the first column on your spreadsheet, use the second column to list their phone number and the third to list their email address.

If you’re missing one or the other – no sweat.  We’ll use whatever you have.

Now, if you want to do extra credit work, list their occupation in the fourth column, and any other things you know about them in the fifth (Do they have kids? What church do they attend? Are they a youth league coach or involved in the Chamber of Commerce?  List that here.)

This Master List – your 250 list – literally can be the hub of your personal trainer marketing efforts.

How so?

Here’s how you could use it…

1. Personally reach out to everyone (yes, everyone… don’t try to pre-qualify people here) and make sure they know about your business and how you can help people.  Invite them in for a free trial of some sort.  Tell them they’re welcome to gift a free trial to any friend, family member, co-worker or neighbor they think might benefit from what you do.

By the way – personally means personal calls, personal visits, personal cards or letters or personal emails.  There is nothing less effective than a mass email that looks like a forward.

2. Segment the list into A’s, B’s and C’s.  A’s are the people that you’re closest to, that are your ‘Raving Fans’ and the ones who will help you any way they can.  B’s are the people that know what you do, value it, but may not be referring to you or aren’t really ambassadors for what you do.  C’s are people who you’d think of as acquaintances.

Sit down over coffee or lunch with the A’s and tell them about your vision for what you want your business to be.  Let them know about things you want to do.  More public speaking, launch a youth program, start doing corporate fitness… whatever you’re working on.  Ask them for any advice or help they can offer.  Many will jump right in and assist you.  Let’s say you want to start training young athletes and tell an ‘A’ member of your network.  They’ll say something like, “I know Coach Jones over at the High School.  I’ll introduce you.  And my brother in law is on the board for the local youth soccer league.  I’ll connect you with him.”

Basically – they can open the doors you want opened.

With the B’s – see how you can help them.  Work to turn them into A’s.  Offer help.  Educate them.  Just strengthen the connection.  Some will become A’s and all will become better ambassadors for your business.

With the C’s – get to know them.  The difference between them being a C and a B is almost always familiarity.

3. Every time you’re looking to do something, from the public speaking or launching a youth or corporate program I just mentioned to looking for a new facility location or running a charity event – put it out to your network and almost always someone will be able to connect you with what you’re looking for.

4. Stay in constant contact.  There is noting worse than someone who only contacts you when they need someone.  I remember a marketer a couple years ago that only mailed his list when he was pitching something.  Not cool.

My belief is that you should reach out to people ‘just because.’  You never know when something may present itself.  Let me give you an example:

Way back in December of 2004 Damon Moschetto became our account rep for a nutrition company we decided to work with.   In spite of Damon making fun of us for not being very technologically savvy, we became friends.  After a couple of years we moved away from than nutrition company when we started consulting with and selling Prograde – but we remained friends with Damon.  We’d talk every month or two, never really with the thought of some immediate business benefit.  Fast forward to 2011 and Damon is on board with us working on a couple of big projects and a valuable member of our team.

All because we stayed in contact.

You can stay in contact through personal calls and emails.  Visits for coffee or lunch.  Sending an email newsletter.  Just stay in contact.

But don’t stop there.  With the people you do know, work hard to learn more about them and also about how you can serve them.

But the power of a network is not only about who you currently know – it’s also about those people that you can meet and get to know.

I often tell fitness pros that we work with that a good goal is to add 1-2 people to your network each day.  Think about it. If you add just one person to your network and you actually cultivate that relationship – over the course of a single year you’ll have built 365 more relationships over the next 12 months.

365 relationships is enough to build one heck of a business with.  Your initial 250 network members are enough to build one heck of a business.

Why again were you going to start with Craigslist ads, lead boxes and direct mail?

If ALL you did for the next 12 months was to relentlessly network – you’d be one of the top 1% of the industry when it came to personal trainer marketing.  Guaranteed.

But that’s not what I’m suggesting you do.

No  – as much as I love networking and recognize that it’s the most powerful marketing tactic available to you… I’m not a fan of putting all my eggs in any one basket.

So here’s what I teach to the people I coach:

At any given time you MUST have at least 2 External Marketing Strategies and 2 Internal Marketing Strategies running.

That’s the bare minimum.

So what are the External Personal Trainer Marketing Strategies we like?  Here are a few:

• Networking – we covered that.
• Public Speaking – networking on steroids.
• Joint Ventures with congruent businesses.
• Fundraisers in your community.
• Deal of the Day Sites – great if done well, but unfortunately not in your control.
• Business or School of the Month programs.
• Direct Mail – I don’t talk about this much because it’s a little more advanced and requires a little more investment than some of the others, but it’s a winner if you’re good at it.
• Facebook Ads and Focused Social Media Marketing

There are others – but those are solid to start with.

And what are the Internal Personal Trainer Marketing Strategies we like?  Here are several:

• Point of Sale Referral Offers
• Referral Contests
• Bring a Friend Events
• Transformation Contests
• Referral Gift Cards
• Reactivation Campaigns

Again, there are plenty of others but you get the picture.

So we’ve covered the fact that you need to begin with marketing to your network.

Then we addressed the fact that you need to have at least 2 External and 2 Internal Marketing Strategies going on at any given time.

For a personal trainer marketing their business, the other thing needed to be successful is a means of measuring or tracking the effectiveness of what they do.

Unfortunately, that’s not something most fitness pros love – so we’ll make it really simple.

At bare minimum, you need to know how many leads each of your 4 monthly marketing strategies produces.

Of those leads, you need to know how many come in and ‘test drive’ what you have to offer.

Finally, you need to know how many of those ‘test drivers’ actually sign on and become your client.

So you need to know number of leads, number of ‘shows’ and number of closes.

That’s it.

Sure, there are about two-dozen other things that you could track and get value from, but these 3 are the big ones.

So let’s summarize this little crash course on personal trainer marketing…

Key Point #1: Marketing a personal training business is not rocket science and shouldn’t be difficult if you focus on a few key things.

Key Point #2: Start with your personal network.  List everyone you know, cultivate those relationships and make sure they not only know what you do, but also are personally invited in to try what you offer out.

Key Point #3: For your ‘A’ players, empower them to be ambassadors for your business.  Work hard to move your ‘B’ players to the ‘A’ level and your ‘C’ players to the ‘B’ level.

Key Point #4: Commit to adding one new person to your network each and every day.  Follow up with them and turn new contacts into powerful relationships. Again, like your current network, cultivate the relationship and get them to experience what you have to offer.

Key Point #5: Along with networking, you need to have a few other marketing strategies in place.  Our minimum plan calls for 2 External and 2 Internal.  Have 2 of each in play each and every month.

Key Point #6: Track the numbers (leads / shows / closes) for each of these 4 Strategies.  If the numbers are not good, either improve the strategy or replace it.  If the numbers are good, pour more resources in to the strategy and play to your strengths.

Finally – a good starting point for most fitness businesses would be a goal of 25-30 solid leads per month.  If you’re getting 25-30 per month and you’re building significant value, providing a great experience and at least somewhat proficient at closing sales – you’ve got what you need to build a great business.

So that’s personal trainer marketing simplified…what do you think?

Let me know below…

Dedicated to your success,

Pat

A Post On Fitness Referral Strategies by Pat Rigsby

Tomorrow we’ll be launching Fitness Business Blueprint, but even though things have been busy around here with the big launch I still wanted to share a really valuable post on one of my favorite relatively passive fitness referral strategies that you could use to kick off the week.

Fitness testimonials are one of the most powerful fitness referral strategies you have at your disposal. If you’re like most of the fitness pros that read this blog, you take a lot of pride on the service you provide and the results your clients get.

If that’s the case you deserve testimonials. But there is a difference between deserving them and getting them, so I wanted to give you a simple plan to start capturing testimonials.

Your Fitness Testimonial Acquisition System

Step One: Choose a couple of specific times when you will ask for testimonials. Here are three easy options to start with:

Option 1: When someone reaches a goal or hits a benchmark that is important to them.

Option 2: When someone thanks you or compliments you on your business / service.

Option 3: When you finish a training phase or phase of bootcamp.

Step Two: Ask for the testimonial. A script or email could go something like this:

I really appreciate your kind words. Could you do me a favor and write down why you enjoy training here? I’d love to have your comments and share them with others that could benefit from what we offer.

Or

Congratulations on just completing ___________________. You did a great job and I couldn’t be more proud of your progress. Because you’ve done so well I was wondering if you could you do me a favor and click on the link below and answer a couple of questions about why you enjoy training here? I’d love to have your comments and share them with others that could benefit from what we offer.

LINK to Survey

I really appreciate your help!

Sincerely.

YOUR NAME

Step Three: You share a testimonial form for them to complete. Here’s one to model:

You can make this a paper form or set up a form online through Survey Monkey or Google Docs.

This simple approach will consistently get you testimonials that you can use in marketing materials, on your website, in email promos and on your Wall of Fame in your facility.

All you have to do is put it into action.

_______________________________________________________________________________

Like I mentioned at the beginning of this post – we’re launching Fitness Business Blueprint tomorrow. Don’t miss the opportunity to save $100 on this awesome resource and grab a couple of really cool limited time bonuses.

Open your email tomorrow…

Dedicated to your success,

Pat

If you want to enjoy a successful and lucrative personal training career then you need to do some work.  There’s a lot of competition (which I think is a good thing as it weeds out the pretenders) and a number of factors that play into your success (or lack thereof.)

Here’s a list of 12 Steps that – if you adhere to them – will lay the foundation for a great personal training career:

Step #1 – Be A Great Coach: Being great at your craft should be the foundation that any successful business is built on.  If you deliver a poor quality of service, marketing and sales ability can temporarily keep you going, but eventually people will figure you out.

Step #2 – Create Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP): Your USP answers the question, “why should choose you over any and all of your competitors?” This is the foundation of all your marketing efforts during your personal training career.

Step #3 – Develop Systems For Everything: Every aspect of your business should be systemized.  You need to have systems in place for how you acquire prospects, how you convert them to clients, how you deliver your service, how you ask for referrals, how you collect payments and more.  Any task you perform in your business should be turned into a system if you want to enjoy any freedom in your career as a personal trainer.

Step #4 – Leverage Your Network: Your personal network holds the keys to your business success. Your friends, family members, neighbors, past clients, current clients and anyone else you have a relationship with can literally provide you with anything you need to achieve fitness business success. Whether you need to find a new location, are looking for more clients, want to do more public speaking or anything else – someone in your network can open any door you need opened.

Step #5 – Maximize Your Client Value: As a fitness business owner, your goal should be to maximize the total profit produced by each of your clients over the lifespan of them working with you. You do this by getting your clients to refer more often, improving retention and up-selling &cross-selling.

Step #6 – Eliminate Risk: If you’re like most trainers and coaches that we work with, you’re great at what you do (or aspire to be)  – so make sure people get a chance to experience it.  Offer free or low cost trials to eliminate the up front risk of someone working with you.  Once they’ve experienced what you have to offer, they’re almost a lock to become a client.

Step #7 – Embrace Selling: If you really do have the ability to help people achieve their goals faster and more safely than the competition then you’re doing them a disservice if you don’t sell them into your programs.  Selling really is simple though – connect with someone, learn about what they need and show how you can provide it.  It’s not much tougher than that and will make you’re personal training career much, much more successful.

Step #8 – Understand That Everything Is Marketing: The way you dress.  The cleanliness of your gym.  Your energy and enthusiasm.  How you answer the phone.  It’s all marketing and you need to be putting your best foot forward all the time.

Step #9 – Every Day Is Your Best Day: Assume that each and every day is the day that someone decides whether they want to continue working with you or find some other program.  Assume it’s the day that someone decides whether to bring a friend or upgrade their program.  Every day you have to ‘be on’ because every day is the day that decides your business success.

Step #10 – Referrals Should Be A Big Driver In Your Personal Training Career: If you’re great at what you do and you’re providing an extraordinary experience to your clients, then referrals should be a big part of your business.  You should be holding referral events, asking often – and in different ways – and rewarding generously.  Get testimonials, post on your clients Facebook Wall, create a Wall of Fame in your facility… the key is to make the clients happy and then get them to share their experience with their network.

Step #11 – Be Somebody: Becoming the go to fitness professional in your community may take some work – but it will be worth it.  Attend events, have a presence in the Chamber of Commerce, write articles, send press releases and start speaking.  There’s nothing wrong (and a lot right) with working hard to be seen at the only true answer to your community’s fitness needs.

Step #12 – Manage Your Time: Each evening, map out your following day.  Prioritize your tasks and schedule everything you need to do.  Anything worth doing is worth scheduling.

There are dozens of other things I could tell you if you want to have a successful personal training career – but these 12 steps are enough to get you started and set you on the path to success.

Well – let me add one more, just for fun: You Get Paid For Done! All of these steps are great in theory, but if you don’t actually execute – none of it matters at all so focus on what you finish.

Dedicated to your success,

Pat

The other day someone asked me what the top 10 traits of a successful fitness professional are. Honestly, I wasn’t sure how to answer. There are so many things that go into being a top flight personal trainer – I had trouble narrowing it to 10. Below is what I came up with – but I’d really like to hear your thoughts. So review my Top 10 and then let me know what traits I missed in the comments area below.

1. Education: The fitness pro’s education is not only extremely important, but it should be continual. Great personal trainers and coaches keep learning because they have a passion for knowledge, are driven to help the people they work with and want to stay ahead of the competition.
2. Integrity: Integrity is vital for the fitness pro. Integrity is a concept of consistency of values, actions, methods, expectations, outcomes and principles. It’s sense of one’s truthfulness and honesty in relationship to one’s motives and actions. Without integrity you really don’t have anything.



3. Experience: There are many factors that go into developing a great program for clients. The more experience you have, the more effective you’ll be in developing a program and an environment that maximizes the likelihood of success for each and every client.
4. Teaching Skills: There are plenty of people out there that can get themselves in great shape and perhaps they have the knowledge necessary to be a top flight personal trainer or coach – but unless you can teach, it doesn’t matter.
5. Communication Skills: Good communication is good business in fitness or any other industry. Good communication skills are necessary throughout the entire process of bringing a client into your business and throughout the entire relationship.
6. Passionate: Great fitness pros must be passionate about who they work with and the service they provide. I truly believe that if you are coaching people or working in a business that you are not passionate about, it will show through in everything you do.



7. Organized: A successful fitness pro should be organized. They have to manage dozens of clients’ programs, but equally as important – they have to manage the same number of client relationships. Successful fitness pros also have to manage the operations side of the business, fitness marketing and all the other details that come with running a successful business.
8. Great Motivator: As a fitness pro, it’s your job to bring out the best in people. You have to get them to step out of their comfort zone on a regular basis. This only happens if you’re a great motivator.
9. Work Ethic: Having a strong work ethic turns average trainers into great trainers. Someone that is continually about to improve, get things done, exceed expectations, and push themselves, will always stand out from the crowd.
10. Enjoys Helping: Great trainers and coaches genuinely enjoy helping others. Gaining satisfaction out of helping others reach their goals is a trait that all great fitness pros have.

So there are 10. I’m sure that I missed some critical traits because a great fitness professional wears a lot of different hats and it requires a number of characteristics to be a truly great fitness professional.

So with that in mind, do me a favor and tell me what I missed – or share your Top 10 Traits below:

Dedicated to your success,

Pat

One of the biggest hindrances to fitness marketing success I see made is not knowing ‘who your who is’… or who you are actually for.

This is a lesson I learned way back when I was coaching college baseball, and a lesson which every time I’ve deviated from I’ve suffered.

When I coached, I built a very successful program by recruiting blue collar type players.  Young men from middle class or lower middle class families that were usually hard workers, had been overlooked by bigger colleges and had a chip on their shoulder – determined to prove that they were better than some of the ‘hot prospects’ that had kept them in the shadows.

I knew this was my type of player.  It was who I identified with.  Who I was most effective coaching.  In fact, it’s probably who I’d been just a few years prior.

This worked for me.  Recruiting those types of players was comfortable for me. Coaching those guys was fun… we even finished 5th in the World Series one season with a team comprised almost entirely of those types of blue collar players.

The only time I ever really deviated from that recruiting strategy was the point when coaching stopped being fun.  After having a decent amount of success, I was now able to get the attention of some of the more highly touted recruits.  I was a pretty good salesman so a number of them ended up choosing to become part of our program.

Biggest mistake I ever made as a coach.

These guys were the polar opposite of the players I’d enjoyed coaching.  They felt a sense of entitlement.  They had never really faced any adversity, so they weren’t mentally tough.  They had poor work ethics since they’d always been able to succeed on talent alone.

Make no mistake – I’m not trying to run them down.  They were very talented ballplayers… I just wasn’t the right guy to coach them.

We still won a lot of ballgames, but for the first time in my coaching career – I was ‘watching the clock.’  You know what I mean… counting the minutes until whatever we were doing was over.

Needless to say, once I figured out the error of my ways I fixed it.

Now, the fitness marketing success that we enjoy coaching professionals is founded in being very clear on ‘who our who is.’

The people that Nick and I choose to work with – and who, not coincidentally, are attracted to working with us – have the following characteristics:

• They’re ‘doers’.  They’re action takers that aren’t afraid of doing work.
• They’re entrepreneurs of aspiring entrepreneurs.
• They’re serious about their craft.  They care about being a great trainer of coach.
• They believe that providing a quality service is the foundation of a successful business.
• They’re willing to do what it takes to get better and to reach their goals.  They not afraid to invest time, money and energy in reaching their goals.

Over time we’ve figured out who we’re NOT for:

• Personal trainers who are not entrepreneurial. (By the way, this is the vast majority of trainers.)
• Those trainers who are not really focused on being a great trainer of coach.
• Personal trainers that are entirely focused on sales & marketing and don’t prioritize client experience or satisfaction.  (Strange coming from a business & marketing guy, right?)
• People who are out to just make a quick buck.
• Trainers that are eternally chasing the ‘Four Hour Work Week’ and aren’t willing to work.

There are plenty of other coaches or marketers out there that can serve those people – but they’re not a good fit for us. In fact, determining who we’re for has been kinda liberating.  It makes everything I do much more fun.  I can write to an audience and not have to compromise what I’m trying to say.  I can go into calls, coaching session or events genuinely excited to talk to people or spend time with them because they’re our type of people.

It’s really the foundation for building a business we enjoy.

My wife has done this with Fit Yummy Mummy.  She speaks to a very specific audience.  Moms.  But not just moms.  Pretty much they’re moms like her.  She’s not attracting moms that have personal shoppers.  She’s not attracting cardio queens. She’s attracting busy moms that are willing to lift weights and work relatively hard to reach their goals.

Now this is a little different than the typical stuff you’ll see on niche marketing.  Typically, discussions on niche marketing center around targeting an audience like women, or moms, or baseball players.

That’s a great start, but what I’m talking about goes beyond that when it comes to achieving fitness marketing success .  Determining your ‘who’ can be, in part, targeting a niche market like that – but it’s also about creating a culture that attracts a certain type of person… and repels a certain type of person.

I could be defined as a business coach (among other things) that’s niche market is personal trainers.  But like I mentioned before, we attract personal trainers that have certain characteristics and we repel personal trainers that have others.

This happens because our ‘who’ is weaved throughout what we do.  What I write.  How we coach people.  The way our events are.  Everything is designed to be for our ‘who.’

So this is where the work begins for you to achieve your own fitness marketing success.  Who do you want to work with?  Can you describe them in detail?  Once you know you your who is…

• Your website should reflect who ‘your who’ is
• The language you use to describe your business should make it clear
• The things you post on Facebook should showcase and attract your who
• Any advertising or marketing materials should speak directly to them
• The culture you create in your business should cater to your who

I’m not telling you to blow up your current business and run out everyone that doesn’t fit your ‘who.’  No, just start creating a culture that will strengthen your relationship with them while weeding out the people who aren’t a good fit.

Once you do this, you’ll start enjoying your fitness business more.  Achieving fitness marketing success will be easier than you ever imagined! You’ll start viewing your clients like your extended family – I know I do.  Your business will start attracting more people that are a great fit because your current clients will rave to their friends, family members and co-workers about their experience.  Running your business will be a lot of fun… just like it should be.

Am I crazy? Let me know below.

Dedicated to your success,

Pat

Erik Rokeach shares a simple fitness marketing tip to help you network with the most influential people in your area

OK, so when it comes to a killer fitness marketing strategy, and ones that just plain ole’ kick butt, there was one that worked really well for me. That was networking.

I know, I know. Networking is so cliche, and such a boring topic. But it’s that word of mouth that really makes things blow up quick.

Obviously when it comes to networking you can go to local events, health fairs, chamber of commerce meetings, leads groups, and all of those types of things.

At these events you have lots of people who you can network with, but a lot of times it’s people who are looking to do the exact same thing as you, and don’t have many great connections themselves.

So it’s important to be smart and leverage the right people. And you do that by finding the big players in the market who know everyone.

Who are those big players?

Business owners, politicians, PTA board members, presidents of youth leagues and anyone in the media.

Those are the types of people you need to network with, but sometimes there are so many layers to get through before you can even connect with these people.

But there is a secret ninja who can get you access to just about anyone you want.

This person has more connections, and more influential friends then probably anyone in the town, and they are usually not politically motivated. That’s because it would crush their business if they were.

Can you guess who this is?

It’s your good ole’ accountant!

Think about it. An accountant knows all the businesses in the area, knows how well or how badly businesses are doing, and gets paid to to handle the money side of things for regular folks, businesses, and everyone else in between.

So the accountant is the power player in your market.

Not only will having a great accountant save you tons of money, but they can directly make you a ton too.

Here’s how you make this fitness marketing strategy work for you…

If you don’t have an accountant, get one… FAST!

If you don’t have one, start asking your local network who they use for an accountant. Call them up and interview them to see not only if they are a good fit for your business but how many clients they have.

Now if your looking to flood your business with clients, then it’s probably not a great idea to choose a huge commercial accounting firm. They have too many clients, are not close with them, and really don’t have the local community at their best interest.

So find one who is medium sized and attached to the community.

Now that you have a great accountant. You gotta really find out who they know. But you can’t just come out and ask for a referral to one of their clients. You have to be smooth and like everything else, do something for them.

Start by offering them free training, give gift cards to their assistants, and if you can, refer business to them.

Referring business is a big one. If you can refer business to them, you pretty much have the option to ask them whatever you want.

Once you’re in with your accountant, and you’ve offered them free training, discounts for their employees and done business with them, then ask them who the big players are in the area.

Once your accountant tells you, thank them, and ask them if they can introduce you to one or two of those people.

A lot of times, your accountant may not actually reach out and connect you, but they will tell you that it is ok to use their name when you first meet the person.

Here’s something to remember. Your paying your accountant, you have now offered them free training and discounts, they will feel some sort of obligation to maybe do something small for you. Like directly connect you.

If they are still unwilling to do that, at least you can now drop their name.

Let’s say your accountant mentions that she has one of the biggest tanning companies in the area as a client. You can now walk in to that tanning salon, and drop the accountant’s name and you should be able to deal directly with the owner of that business.

Of course, you’d never go into that business and ask for something straight away… right?

Nope, you then tell that business owner how you can help them.

You can use this same fitness marketing strategy for a lot of the other influential people or businesses in the area.

If you get access to very influential people in your town through your accountant, make sure you don’t ask them for anything. Offer them free training, products, consultations, whatever you can to get them on your side.

Once you have them, then you leverage them and their network, and do the same thing for each person or business you connect with.

Even though you may only be dealing with one person at a time (unlike a networking event), you are dealing with someone who has more useful connections then probably 5 or 10 people combined at a small local networking event.

In just a short time you have connected and networked with the power players in your market.

And this is all because of your accountant.

Oh, and one small note. If you want more great connections, take a few minutes and write out a thank you note to your accountant after you’ve connected with the people they recommended.

No one does that and it will show that you are serious about your fitness business. You do that, and your accountant will probably directly connect you with a few more people that you should know.

Very few people use this fitness marketing strategy. But if you do, chances are that in the next 12 months you will have one very large business, with the support of all the biggest influencers in your market.

I’d love to know what your best marketing technique is. Let me know below…

Erik Rokeach is a fitness entrepreneur and owner of www.fitnessbusinessinterviews.com.  His goal is to help the fitness industry grow by sharing top quality information from other fitness pros about how they build their businesses.

A Guest Post On Fitness Referrals By Paul Reddick

You can probably remember the last 3 people who said something nice to you about your fitness business, right?

Do you have them in your mind now?

Maybe they told you…

- How much weight they lost?
- What an inspiration you are to them?
- How much they enjoy training with you?

If you’re like me you would put on your best “aww shucks” and say something like …

“My pleasure”
“Thanks so much”
“That means a lot”

Well, like me, you’ll have to change that. Like, NOW!

The next time someone gives you a compliment you’re going to turn it into an opportunity to generate fitness referrals.

Here’s what you’re going to say:

People love to refer. We just don’t make it easy and rewarding for them to do it. I love turning someone from windows to Apple. I have even gone to the Apple store with friends and family to watch the transition. I like being the guy that referred Apple to them… and every time I see them using an Apple product I always remind them that it was I who got them into Apple.

How cool do you think your client will feel when one of her friends says she want to lose weight and she whips out your card and says:

“I got the guy. Hold on let me pull out his email. Here’s his private email address, don’t call the main number. Just tell him we’re friends and he’ll take good care of you.”

You’ll be amazed at how well this works.

There’s so many things at play here I can’t even count. It’s not important that you understand all of it. Just do it.

You must program your mind to turn every compliment into a chance to generate new business.

So, from now on… a compliment will be your trigger to go right into the above dialogue.

Let Pat and Nick know how well these fitness referrals work and they’ll let me know!

Paul Reddick is a trusted insider in the fitness/sports community. He spent 14 years in professional baseball as a coach and scout. He wrote the best-selling book the Picture Perfect Pitcher and is the creator of the biggest selling pitching course of all time, The 90mph Club. Paul has also served as the director of Yankee Legend Yogi Berra’s Baseball Camp. Paul is the only coach to ever hold this position.

Rapid Fire Fitness Marketing Tactics– The Final Installment

Here’s the final installment in our Rapid Fire Fitness Marketing Tactics Series.  Art McDermott, Kyle Harrod and Todd Lowder each share some of their best stuff. If you missed the other installments here are the links to those….

Part1, Part2, Part 3

Fitness Marketing Tactic: School of the Month/ Biggest Loser By Art McDermott

The first thing we did when deciding on whether this would be a good promotion to run was we mentioned it to some of the teacher who we already had as members to our boot camp.  This not only informed them of the idea so we could get their reaction, but also got them to go back to the teachers at their school and market the idea for us to build up a following even before officially announcing it.

We then got in touch with the head HR person in Andover and pitched our idea to her.  We had a nice little presentation for her explaining all the actual benefits of having the teacher take part in the contest.

After that we got in touch with all the nurses and explained how the contest would work and the part they would play.  We limited their role into simply having to take the weights of their school’s participants day 1 and the last day, stressing we would do the rest of the work.

Once we got all those players on board we rolled out the competition and set it up that each school was it’s own team and at the end of the contest the team that lost the highest percentage of body weight was the winners.

Each participant paid $57 for 6 weeks of boot camp and nutritional help and at the end half the money paid was split evenly between the winning team.

Throughout the contest we had special sign in sheets separated by teams that the teachers would use to sign in each class.  This help bring a little more of the competition aspect to it as they would constantly see who came when and how many times so and so came.  This added a little friendly trash talking to it and made for a fun time between a lot of them.

We would also use those check in sheets to determine a school of the week each week.  The criteria would change slightly each week but could be total amount of visits from a school, average visits, total number of people, etc.

We had such great results from this contest that we are now doing another one where we opened it up to all Town employees and have a range of people from the police dept, fire dept and also some more teachers

We did away with the teams for this one and have it all individual based to see how it works this way.

Art is a Member of our Elite Mastermind Group and a Fitness Revolution Franchisee.  You can learn more about Art’s business, Matric Strength, here: http://www.matrixstrength.com

Fitness Marketing Tactic: Building your Community through Facebook by Kyle Harrod

Building your list of friends - Add all NEW and CURRENT Boot Campers and Clients to your friend list. If you find they do not have Facebook, suggest to them to make a page. Tell them that many campers and clients stay connected through Facebook.

Send the First Message - Send them a message immediately after they ADD YOU as a friend, thanking them for the add. Also suggest to them to follow your page for updated support from other campers, news on schedule, training, nutrition, etc.

Suggest Friends - Once you have them as your friend, suggest them to add other people in camps as friends via Facebook. This is easy: Use the Suggest Friend link at the bottom left corner of the screen and start suggesting.

Acknowledgment and Motivation - Acknowledge achievements of campers via TAGGED POSTS or through PRIVATE MESSAGE. Use them both because they both have their pros and cons.

• Big Achievements (TAGGED POSTS)- Tag them for achievements that are very important to the person or people that achieved it. First ask for permission to tag them and then take action.
  • Why is this important? When you tag someone via post, it not only posts on your page but theirs also. This is great because it will be seen by all of their friends. From my experience, this will always sparks conversation on the posts from your friends and theirs
• Smaller Achievements and Words of Motivation - Send through Private Message. Taking the time out to send a private message to someone goes a long way and letʼs them know they are important to you and your business.

Everyday Posts - Stay connected to the people that are following you. Couple good rules of thumb:

• Personal Post - 1-2 times per day. This can be something funny or cool that happened to you or something you may have done. This could be something about you or your family or even your pets.
• Make it personal.
• Fitness Related Post 1-2 times per day. This could be a fitness or nutrition article written by you or someone else or something you found that could be helpful to them.
• Camper or Client Posts -1-2 times per day – This can be an individual or group accomplishment within your camps.
• Promotion Related - 1-2 times per day. Don’t forget to sell on your page. Whatever your current promotion is make sure to post it.

SECRET FITNESS MARKETING TACTICS

Become a Stalker - This may sound crazy but this is what took my Facebook Marketing to whole new level. Stalk your clients’ pages.

• Anytime you see them talk about ANYTHING to do with your business, fitness, nutrition, accomplishments, etc… Like their comment!
• If you see anyone comment on their post and if this person is local and in your network, add them as a friend. Even the ones that, “Like” their post, add them. Chances are they may be interested in you or your services in the future.
• Use their Friend List – If you notice someone on their friend list that you think could use your services, add them as a friend.

Look Popular - People will judge you on the number of friends you have. The more friends you have, the more important you will be perceived and it goes the other way around. If you do not have a large friend list then start adding. Add other fitness professional to your list. Add anyone else that you may think would be possibly interested in what you have to say.

Follow what you Preach - If you preach a positive attitude from your clients refrain from posting negative comments. The brand you build within your camps is the brand you must show via your comments and pictures on your page. Focus on great leadership and they will follow you to the end.

Kyle is a Member of our Elite Mastermind Group and a Fitness Revolution Franchisee.  You can learn more about Kyle’s business, Maximum Fitness, here: http://www.maxfitstudio.com

Fitness Marketing Tactic: Power Networking for Maximum Fitness Referrals in 5 Easy Steps by Todd Lowder

Networking is not about handing out your business carding and praying they will call. It’s about positioning yourself as a business leader.

Create your own referral group:

1. Gather 5 of your most high profile clients and ask each of them to bring another highly motivated business professional to a referral group event you are sponsoring.  Be sure they know this is different than other referral groups which are usually comprised of a bunch of people selling network marketing. You only want established Professionals looking to grow their business and help others do the same.
2. Formalize this as a monthly referral group meeting.  With the sole purpose of helping each other build your businesses.
3. Set individual meeting with each member of your group to find out how you might be able to help them with referrals……you have to give to get
4. Formalize your group with a set monthly meeting day and time.  Have a consistent format and continue to help members create business.
5. The next step is to add value!  Share leads, share events, and once you have built rapport ask for help and be specific. Don’t just say I need referrals.  Specify demographics, time of day, type of program.  Even close associates will not spend time trying to figure out what type of referral is right for you, but if you tell them exactly who you need they will send them!

Todd is a Member of our Elite Mastermind Group.  You can learn more about Todd’s business, Fitness Quest, here: http://fitnessquestpt.ning.com/

Over the four posts on Fitness Marketing Tactics you gained access to over a dozen different ways to grow your personal training business.  But the key with these strategies as with anything else we teach is implementation.  So pick a couple and put them to good use.

As with the previous marketing posts, if you like what Art, Kyle and Todd shared, let them know below.

Dedicated to your success,

Pat

A Personal Trainer Marketing Plan Post By Pat Rigsby

When it comes to marketing, personal trainers tend to procrastinate.  They’d rather do about anything else – write programs, read or watch stuff online.  Heck, they’d rather straighten up the gym than actually market.

But for a personal trainer, marketing is critical.  No getting around it.

So what if I tell you that you only have to spend an hour a day to execute a personal trainer marketing plan?

Well – it’s true.  You can accomplish a lot in an hour.

But it has to be a quality hour.

No texting, checking email, talking on the phone or checking out websites – unless that particular activity is critical to your marketing task for the day.

So how can an hour be enough?  Simple.  No multi-tasking means you’ll be ultra-efficient.

You’ll get shit done.

And as you’ll often hear me say: You Get Paid For Done.

Here’s an idea of the stuff you can get done in an hour.

The Personal Trainer Marketing Plan:

• Send your weekly or bi-weekly email newsletter to your list.
• Text all of your clients to tell them ‘good job.’
• Write a press release.
• Work on a monthly print newsletter.
• Attend a networking event.
• Drop in a few local businesses.
• Post some pictures of a class on your Facebook page and tag your clients.
• Contact some members of your network with a call, personal email or note.
• Send some handwritten cards.
• Send some gifts to clients.
• Call several local organizations or businesses to arrange speaking engagements.
• Work on a Facebook ad campaign.
• Send an offer to your clients for a workshop or some other promotion.
• Make some reactivation calls.
• Take a client for coffee.
• Hand out a few plastic gift cards.
• Place a lead box.
• Do a talk for a local group or business.

There are dozens of other things that you can do – but that should get you started.

Here are the ground rules for the One Hour Personal Trainer Marketing Plan:

1. Block off an hour a day to market.  Treat it just like you’d treat an hour scheduled with a client.  No canceling unless there is a real emergency. It doesn’t matter which hour unless you plan to attend a meeting or or give a talk – then you probably ought to choose the time you’re scheduled to attend
2. No interruptions.  Turn off your email and your phone unless they play a part in what you’re doing for the day.  No browsing the internet.  No distractions.
3. Plan what you’re going to do the evening before.  You don’t want to go into the hour with no idea how you’ll spend it.  You also want to be able to be efficient so you want to know what you might need in advance so it will be easy to access.
4. Get stuff done.  Try to get as much done as possible during that hour.

That’s it.  And you can even have Sundays off if you want.

6 hours a week (or 7 if you’re really ambitious) to having the fitness business you want.  Pretty small price to pay.

But like anything in life – if you’re willing to work hard & smart, you don’t have to work long.

So are you willing to do what it takes for one hour?

Let me know what you think below.

Explore more ideas for building a great personal trainer marketing plan here.

Dedicated to your success,

Pat

A Personal Training Business Post By Pat Rigsby

There are a lot of different ways to build your personal training business.  Infomarketing being one of them.

If you know anything about the infomarketing world, it is a pretty interesting one.  There are a lot of smart, ethical folks doing really, really well – and a fair share of people that are, well…not folks that I’d consider ethical or even remotely close to being experts in the information they’re selling.

But pretty much all of them that are doing well have some stuff in common.  They have sound personal training business models that they know inside and out.  They track everything to see what works.

Because of this – they’ve developed pretty efficient ‘machines’ that fitness pros can learn a lot from.  Here’s an overview of some of those infomarketing concepts that you can apply to your business.

Traffic – Most of the infomarketers I know are very good at using 1 or 2 sources of traffic.  Some are great at media buys.  Some are awesome at SEO.  Some know Facebook or Google Ads inside out. Others are great at leveraging affiliates.  I don’t know many – if any that are great at all of it.

You should be the same way.  You can generate plenty of leads by being great at a couple of marketing strategies.  If you get great at public speaking and Facebook Ads to generate leads to your personal training business, you probably don’t need to be strong at running Business of the Month promos or Joint Ventures.  This doesn’t mean you should ignore other strategies – but it does mean that you should work to become great at a couple and spend less time on the rest.

Tracking – The most successful fitness infomarketers know their numbers inside and out. They know where their leads come from.  They know how many convert to buyers.  They know what percentage take their upsell offers.  They know their ROI on every marketing dollar.  They know a bunch of other details that would probably take me an entire blog post to explain – and knowing all this stuff makes them money.

So at minimum you should track:

• Where your leads are coming from
• What percentage of those leads you close
• The lifetime and average monthly value of your clients
• Your client’s usage rates
• Your client’s referrals

There are plenty of others that are valuable – but start with these.

A Marketing Funnel – Many info businesses use a marketing funnel that looks something like this:

So how could you use this type of approach in your personal training business? Here’s an example:

Do me a favor and look at your personal training business and see what is here that you’re missing or that you can improve on.  There’s a lot to learn from other businesses outside your industry -and this is a great example.  Tell me if you picked up any ideas below.

Dedicated to your success,

Pat