Getting personal training leads ready for a consultation

Continued from an earlier blog...

Building leads

...so, as I was saying one tip I used to get PTs started was to get Personal Trainers to meet and greet a lot of members early on WITHOUT OFFERING MEMBERS ANYTHING OR ASKING AWKWARD QUESTIONS.  I also limited what they should say so they couldn't get themselves in the dog box and the pressure was off 'SELLING' so they could relax and be themselves.

By doing this they got the 5 thing happening - accummulating a few hundred names over a few weeks.  Over the following two weeks I'd teach them the rest of the steps they should take on the yellow brick road - so that they eventually knew these things about the people they were talking to;

Pain - why they started, what gave them that kick

Goal - where they want to ultimately end up

Timeframe - when is their next milestone

Barriers - what is holding them back or was holding them back

Preferences - what they like / dislike about their training situation

I use a set of pretty cool questions that 'inter-lock' so you can move through this list above without seeming like a stalker at all.  I don't have time to run you through them in this blog, suffice to say they will be in the membership side of this site for you.

I'd get Personal Trainers to use these questions after the initial two weeks of just meeting and greeting.  I found that your 5 names easily became 3 bonafide leads - a lead being someone you knew those details about (pain, goal, timeframe, barriers, preferences).

The lost art that always works

The other method I used with Personal Trainers was surveying.  OMG as they say!  Surveying is a totally lost art form and incredibly useful.  There is a standard survey we recommend (because we built it, used it, refined it, and it works) in two parts.  I would simply give it to a Personal Trainer and say you need to get 10 of these completed a day.  The introduction was part one, and then based on the members initial response you either completed part two or did a nice 'exit stage left' move.

The introduction was;

Walk up confidently holding a clip board with a pen, smiling the whole way. Then say "hi, I'm 'name' and I'm completing brief fitness surveys on behalf of the club so we can build a better understanding of members needs and shape our services to suit.  Today you're one of 10 people I'm going to survey and it would be a great help if I could quickly ask you just six questions over the next 2-3 minutes.  May I start by asking your first name...'

Nearly everyone, except for the crazy eyed gym monkey with smelly breath, would say 'yes' and give their first name and away the Personal Trainer would go.  It was golden because the Personal Trainer could gather a huge amount of detail in a non-threatening manner and the member was typically at ease and fully co-operative.  The qualifier was that you never ever ever sold to the survey participant - never (I said that!).  You just thanked them whole-heartedly and slipped away saying you'd say 'hi' next time you saw them.

After two weeks of this you could then cycle back to the first survey participants and, provided you'd continued to fortify your initial contact with acknowledgments at every opportunity, you could craft the correct opportunity for them to have a sit down with you. 

This worked so well and could be repeated 2-3 times a year based on new Personal Trainer intakes in my licensed clubs.  And, we were always careful to publish the aggregate results in the club so it never looked like a sham.  You'd be amazed how positive this whole exercise is for PTs, members and club management.

So, there's two super easy ways to get started on the 5. 

1. meet and greet followed by secondary 'lead' based chats
2. surveys followed by offers of 'sit downs'

How to ask for a dance (or offer a consultation)

Okay, so awkward! 

You know how it is, it's been this way since we all went to dances at the school hall and all the boys were on one wall and all the girls were on the other.  Sure, we all knew each other, played in the playground, but this was the first situation where openly and explicitly we had to identify an interest in going further - it never meant a 'dance' it meant you wanted to kiss her behind the bike sheds.  Luckily, as with all things human, there is a way to do it and keep your dignity (wish I'd known that when I was 12!)

To prevent the premature proposition I taught Personal Trainers to do several things EVERYTIME they were asking for a dance (offering a consultation).

1. Make sure you knew all the lead details (pain, goal, time-frame, barriers, preferences)
2. Start the front end of the conversation by pretending to be an idiot (trust me, it's very disarming - ask my wife) - 'okay John, I just want to check I've got this pretty close to right.  Let me know what I've missed...' Then you do step 3.
3. Reflect back all the details, in detail (can you see a trend here...) using some the words the member had used - 'you were saying John that your xxxx was "abc" and your yyyy was "def" etc etc'
4. Watch them closely (not stalker like, no one wants to dance with a stalker, but make sure as you reflect everything back that their body language is getting more positive and not negative)
5. If they are looking positive then offer to 'give' them something - 'John may I give you something?'
6. When they say 'yes' give them time 'John, I'd like to give you 40 minutes of my time to sit down and ....'

I used to give a script to my Personal Trainers and practise it so that they could swing into this process with ease and could make offers with comfort.  This is where the rubber meets the road because any flinching or squirming on the PTs part makes the member spooky and rightly so.  Just as the kid that did kung fu, rode a BMX, had the right jeans and was naturally lean had more interaction with girls and therefore was more confident with them and therefore when he asked for a dance they didn't spook, they swooned - so too with Personal Training. I was not that kid, but damn it with Personal Training I was.  Because making an offer to help someone was a pleasure - and I wanted to make sure the way I made that offer was most likely going to cause a 'yes' answer not a 'eeeewww, giggle, no way' response (I am deeply scarred as you can tell..)

Once my Personal Trainers could turn leads into consultations it was only time that lay between them and a full diary.  You should note that the consultation process was possibly the strictest, most repeated, most deeply understood part of the overall client conversion process I was involved in.  My expectation was that 90% of potential clients who sat down and went through the full consultation process with one of my Personal Trainers would sign up to a month of training minimum.  Over the years this proved to be the case so I never really found consultations an issue - just helping Personal Trainers get members from the gym to the consultation room was the key and the tips I've given you in these last two blogs should give you a fair understanding of where to start.

But what about creating the right initial training experiences?  Next blog coming soon...