Connect the dots
You may have seen the different blog posts that I´ve posted recently? You may also have attended Coaches Congress once or even several times? Every now and then you pick up information and ideas and get inspired to do some changes, at least I hope so!
Let´s say that you think the idea of doing consultations with all potential clients, what we call No Sweat Intros. If you know why NSI´s are good and what potential benefits they have for your business and for your clients, and if you know what questions to ask, then NSI´s are great.
Let´s say listen to someone talking about pricing your services in different packages. You decide to go home and redesign your services with packages on three different levels. To be able to sell more expensive packages. This is also great and something some clients will look for and be willing to pay for.
The problem often occurs when you start using on of the above without having the other in place. A NSI is the perfect tool for getting to know clients, learn about their pain points and their goals. By doing that you end up in the role of the expert and can then give your best possible recommendation, that is what we call the “Prescriptive Model”. But, if you do not have your services packaged properly there are no options for you to recommend, that way you end up listening to someone with their unique situation without being able to recommend the best possible solution for that person.
With a good script for NSI, one of the most important questions to ask is; “do you prefer working out alone with a coach or in a group?”. It is important because if someone is more comfortable working out alone, they should be recommended personal training. There is no use asking for information if you can´t offer services that is best suited for that individual…
If you have different packages, and are NOT doing some sort of consultation, then you never get the chance to recommend your best solution. That means that very few clients will buy your best services and you will miss out on revenue. So, as you can see, pricing and packaging your services goes hand in hand with doing consultations.
Why is this important for you to understand? Because if you start doing one without the other, you will never see the true potential of this system. If you never get to see the true potential, you may make the assumption that it really doesn´t work and then you will stop doing them.
- There is no real reason having different packages if you don´t make sure to put yourself in situations where you can actually recommend and sell them!
- There is no real reason doing consultations if you can´t offer different services based on the information that you get in order to best help your client!
I am a mentor in Two Brain Business and get to talk to lots of gym owners. I am also often in contact with gym owners because I am the founder of Coaches Congress. I have been arranging workshops for gym owners and I have often have phone conversations with people who ask for advice. That means I am in contact with lots of gym owners. When I show them some of the packages we, and other gyms, sell, they hardly believe it. They think it is impossible to have someone pay between 300-1000 dollars a month when they sign up as members. And yes, it IS almost impossible if your only way of bringing new people in is by signing them up for onramp classes or something like that. You never get to know their true goals and pain points and then you never get the chance to recommend your best solutions.
What if someone wants to lose lot of weight and prefers working out alone with a coach? Wouldn´t they be best served by signing up for nutrition coaching and personal training? If you don´t offer that you may lose a very high end customer because they never even start with you. You must create a system for gathering information from potential clients and you must design packages that help them. For lots of people, joining group classes is not even a goal. You should stop thinking of group training as the “ultimate end goal” for your clients.
Having and onramp process with personal training is one of the first steps you should take. Create that, and start taking people through consultations, then you can help more people and increase your profit.
Win-win for everyone!