Everything you need to know to implement EFT to your business!
OK you have been following the advice of your Fitness Business coaches and your business is really starting to see some growth. You have revamped your pricing to go to a monthly recurring membership and you’re totally psyched to have money coming in the door every month!
But wait a minute – your campers/clients are used to paying you per cycle… to automate your billing you must have a recurring amount in a recurring pattern, it could be every week, every month, every quarter but there has to be a repeatable pattern for you to be able to automate using some type of software.
How do you figure out what to charge monthly when you are used to charging per cycle? Here is an example to help you see how it is done:
Step 1 – Calculate the annual cost of your program:
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Calculate your cycle length; for example you run 5 weeks on 1 week off for a 6 week cycle
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Calculate the number of cycles you complete per year; there are 52 weeks in the year so we take 52 ÷ 6 = 7. That means in any given year you run 7 cycles
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Calculate the total cost to be a member of your program per year 7 cycles x $149 (your price per cycle)=$1043
Step 2 – Calculate the monthly cost of your program:
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Take the total cost of your program $1043 ÷ 12 months = $86.92
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Decide if this is the price you want to advertise and adjust as needed, you may offer a slightly lower price to your existing campers/clients and like $79 to entice them to convert to monthly billing and for all new campers/clients the price may be $99
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Typically you would charge slightly higher for the people that don’t want to have automated billing setup. An additional $10-$20 to cover the extra administrative time that you will have tracking them down and reminding them to bring you a check or cash
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You can also decide if you are going to offer different price points for different time commitments
Step 3 – Introduce your new billing structure to your existing campers/clients:
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This is the hardest part, you are changing what your clients are used to, keep in mind that you may have to make exceptions for some old clients
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Make sure that you are 100% comfortable with the program that you are putting in place, if you can’t explain to them the pricing it will backfire on you. You may want to offer a slight discount for the camper/clients that are ready to convert as I stated above
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Make sure you know all the extras that are a part of your PROGRAM, they are not signing up for a 6 week Bootcamp they are signing up to be members in your program. Here are some questions to ask yourself and know the answers to:
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What else do they get when they sign up?
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What other events, lectures or specialty classes do they get as part of their membership?
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Do you blog regularly, is it valuable information?
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Do you have a members only area that they get access to?
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Do you give them workouts or recovery plans on their off weeks?
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How do you create a sense of membership that they will want to be a part of
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Discounts at local merchants?
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- Once you have all this information organized you will want to announce your new membership system. Launch it as you would launch having a special event. You want them to think this is a great idea, remember you are making their lives easier and allowing them to pay at regular intervals smaller amounts, this will help their cash flow and they get all the great perks that you offer. For new clients you still want to sell them the benefits of membership and how they are going to see amazing results from a committed program.
So don’t wait, take your fitness business to a new level by automating your billing. You and your members will love it.
Nikki Layton is the CEO of Volo Innovations, an online billing and scheduling software with fully integrated member management. She is also the co-owner of Momentum Fitness a personal training studio in Vancouver BC. Volo was originally designed to handle all the complicated scheduling and billing that is a part having a personal training studio and then was enhanced to handle any type of fitness business. Volo is designed to streamline your business, improve your revenues and automate billing so you can focus on the things you love to do.
You can follow her on Twitter and friend her on Facebook
Awesome stuff, Nikki! It makes no sense whatsoever to waste time trying to track down payments from clients and campers.
Great Post Nikki!
How do you work it when you have coupons that campers bring in?
Good stuff! This is the one that i have been waiting to read.
Jason
Volo Madness!!
So glad you guys turning us on to Volo.
Every time I have a question about Volo, I call Nikki. She’s picked up the phone nine times out of ten and has talked me through everything. She even had a meeting with my accountant.
We have the majority of our group training clients on Volo, and every new client that comes in goes on there. Sooo much easier then hawking people down for cash.
Now our focus is solely on what we love, program design and training!
Thanks Nikki, and sorry for being a pain in the ass!
Peace from the Jersey Shore!
Mike
Thanks Guys! We really have seen the power of automated billing in our business.
Todd with Volo you can edit the amount the client will pay next month or the amount they pay this month so you can really adjust for any specials that you are having and pull reports about what is most effective in your business.
Recently got everything in place with Volo. I had 95% of my current campers sign up for the automated plan. This great knowing I will have members going into the new year. I am not worried about who will come back after the transition phase.
Thank you for your help Nikki.
Heath
Hey Nikki if possible could you give me a call or email me 610-291-6779 or realworldstrengthcoach@gmail.com i really want to use volo to kick of the new year but i have a few heck alot of questions and i want to be able to make a smooth transfer for my clients and then get all of my new years resolution people rocking and rolling!
Thanks you so much if you can!
Look Forward to hearing from you!
Dave Lee
@Nikki Layton -
Thanks for the timely info Nikki. I am going to be doing my launch next week.
Adam
Applying EFT (electronic money transfer and emotional freedom techniques) to you and your business is only the way forward. You want to automate as much of your business as possible and you want to clear your own stuff up about your business success.
Happy Days
A
Something that has been troubling me is how to convert clients over to monthly EFT who do not stick to a regular schedule. The client who comes twice a week like clockwork is not problem, its the clients who come twice in one week, then miss the next two weeks, etc, that give me trouble. Any suggestions?
Mike,
I would recommend putting them in the lowest usage package 1x/week and if they do more than the 4 sessions than they their next months bill would be for the 4 sessions for that month and for any sessions that he did over the 4 sessions that he had done the previous month. This would be the most flexible solution that would get you the automated payments while still allowing you to work with your clients hectic schedule.
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