If your free fitness consultations fail to convert, you’re not alone. Here’s a look at why and what to do about it.

It’s not a body composition assessment or a movement screen. It’s something that once set up doesn’t require you to lift a finger.

But it will make every single one of your consultations more productive.

Helping Hand?

First, I want to say this. We love to help. Fitness professionals and health coaches love to help. We overdeliver. And that is a quality that makes you such a warm coach. However, you’ve got to have boundaries. You have a business. You’ve got to find the clients who do want to do the work. Those who expect that you wave a wand and they reach their goals easily make the relationship an energy drain and usually get the least amount of progress.

That said, it’s not only about conversions. I always enter a consultation with the frame of mind that the person I’m talking with will get value from the call even if they buy nothing. If they don’t take a next step, or don’t do it right then, they will get value.

Passionate About Fitness

To you givers, though I say this: always ask. You must ask for the sale in order to get a yes. Sure, there is that 1/100 who will interrupt you and ask how to get started. Honestly, that’s me. When I’ve gotten so far as to do a consultation and I know what the bottom line is and the value of whatever the transformation is to me, I may interrupt and say, “Look I’m ready, how do I start?”

What that means is during your consultation you should slip in a chance to by early for those fast-action takers. You can talk people out of doing it by making them feel aggravated and going on too long. 

How to Fix Your Fitness Consultations Fail to Convert Rate

A survey (or application) so you can pre-qualify them.

You can make it a part of your process.

• You actually share the link to the Survey FIRST and on the thank you page after they hit “submit” they will get the link to book the appointment.
• You can have survey/application link in the calendar booking link they open. (This method will result in some people booking without ever filling out the survey. When that happens, I cancel and let them know that it’s because they didn’t give me enough information about the meeting). It’s important to me (and YOU) not to waste my time. I’d love to help as many people as I can but I can’t help tire-kickers. Those “squatters” who just think you’re so nice for doing this for free… have no intention of buying and have every excuse why not to start or they can’t afford it.

Who Do You Serve BEST?

Remember, not "everyone" is your people. If you want high-quality clients who pay a premium price and expect premium service, you too can expect that they give a premium effort. The way someone books this consult shows you exactly who they are. I’d rather work with lawyers, realtors, professionals who are serious about doing the work and who can follow directions. Push back at the beginning means a rocky coach-client relationship for the duration of coaching.

If you’re applying for the Fitness Marketing Mastery Build Your Business (BYB) Mastermind for instance, I have personal trainers, health coaches, studio owners attend a masterclass first, then apply/enroll. They then do a call with me. If either of us has reservations about moving forward or whether the mastermind is right for them, they’re refunded, before they ever see materials and content.

Once they do see the current content, the library of 2021 mastermind content they get as a bonus to begin building Black Friday, the additional bonuses to start generating revenue the next weekend… I do not refund. I do guarantee, if someone shows proof of doing the weekly work, that they will increase monthly revenue by $5000 or more or I will work with them until they do.

What should you ask on the survey?

Ironically, it matters less than there is one.

There are a few pre-screening questions you want, but they are not absolute.

Ask questions that get them reflecting on why they want and need this.

• Ask how serious they are (a sliding scale/number)
• How long have they been thinking about it?

Be sure you collect their name and email address in the survey. That way from the calendar booking you can open the survey and see responses before or while you’re on that call.

Reference the survey on the call

Customers, or prospects, hate filling something out that you don’t look at. They’ll be super put off. I’ve done it before. I’ve had too little time to open it. I’ve been on the go and have to conduct the consultation from my phone in my car or at the gym. Not ideal, but I don’t miss appointments and weather, traffic, all can interfere with the best of intentions. Do the best you can to screen those responses prior to calls. A put-off prospect is not someone who is in a ready-to-buy state.

If they’ve been trying to lose weight for 10 years… mention it. “If you’ve been thinking about it for so long it’s pretty important to you. How much would you say you think about it daily?”

That was worth the price of admission to this episode, by the way. You’re welcome.

Joking aside, that is a question to tuck into your arsenal. As obvious as it is, many trainers and health coaches don’t realize the impact of a question like that. There are a handful of others that are similar.

You make the person so aware of how much of a problem, drain, focus this is for them, they are ready to learn about a solution, YOUR solution, since they’re in front of you.

Stay out of the weeds

They got on the call. They have a reason. They have expectations about what’s going to happen and the outcome of the call. So, lay that out at the beginning. And stick to the purpose of the call. It’s to share the options and get a yes or a no. Period. It’s not to show them how smart you are, or how much you know or can tell them. Help them make a decision in this meeting. Set it up that way from the beginning.

• Stick to a few questions in your survey/application.
• Stick to the purpose of the call once you get there.
• Take control of the process and you WILL improve your results and turn fitness consultation failure into coaching-client relationships you love.

Resources:

Copywriting Course

Menopause Business Specialist Masterclass

Mistakes You Make with Menopause Clients

Tools You Might Like Referenced in this Episode: 

• Survey Monkey
• TypeForm

You may think social media doesn’t pay the bills. But it could. In fact, there are plastic surgeons, physical therapists, and fitness pros who got checks from YouTube during COVID that kept them going when business was shut down.

And in fact, it can be a huge source of organic traffic. It is for me. I grew a YouTube channel to almost 130K organically. Still today, 8 years later, people that join my programs will tell me, “I’ve been following you for a long time on YouTube.”The social media tips that work here I know because of my own, my colleagues, and my coaching clients’ success with them.

Are You Making This Mistake?

But it’s easy to just throw things at social so you can check that box off. That’s the kind of activity you’ll use to prove social media doesn’t work. So if you’re using resources (time, money, and energy) to be on social media, here’s 10 social media tips that work.

Aside from the fact that video wins over everything else, I’ve got some social media tips that work. Social media requires strategy. What you post on Instagram doesn’t go on Facebook. The same hashtags on Instagram that help you get found (if you use enough and they’re relative to your post), will actually hurt your reach on Facebook.

Blindly just being on a platform is a waste of time and resources. Here’s a few tips to apply no matter what platform you’re on to do better with engagement and success. You’ve got to be measuring the right thing. The value of saves, shares, then comments and likes on Instagram should be clear to you. Is your content something your ideal customer wants to share? Have you solved, or started to solve, a problem so they want to keep coming back?

10 Social Media Tips That Work

1. Focus on your purpose
   1. Grow your email list
   2. Grow social proof
   3. Grow engagement
   4. Do product and market research
2. If it’s not working: that’s not a message the platform doesn’t work.
   1. Is your audience on that platform?
   2. Are you using the right platform strategy?
3. Nothing kills your engagement faster than posts that sell.
   1. People are on social not to shop but to be entertained or at the least edu-tained
   2. If you don’t have a following you’ll never grow one sharing “ad”-like content
4. People engage with people not businesses, reveal WHO you are.
5. Represent your brand in a way your audience feels like you, wants to be you, respects you.
6. Raise & Praise™ instead of Teach & Preach™
   1. Share information in a way that makes people feel good not judged
   2. Avoid “don’t” “no” and “stop”
7. When you know what converts to email list subscribers best, do that all day.
8. On Instagram, use a specific hashtag strategy. On Facebook hashtags hurt.
9. Less than 5% of your audience sees your post. You have to have more than a post and ghost strategy.
10. Prime the post, engage with the post comments, use all the places on a platform.

Social Media Posts Need Words That Work

The right words matter. With every post you have to be thinking about what you want your ideal client to think, feel, and do after seeing it. In order to do that you have to know your customer better than anyone else.

My Audience, For Example

I know for instance that my fitness and health pros feel frustrated that they aren’t making as much traction as they want to. They’re spending a lot of time doing what they do but they aren’t making a great living doing it. They don’t have the freedom financially or the time freedom they want. They don’t feel comfortable with the marketing and the sales or the business decisions that make them more than just busy, that make them a true business.

I know many of my fitness & health coaches work with women in menopause and don’t understand why they can’t get their own weight and belly issues resolved let alone their clients. In fact, some of my Flipping50 mastermind members are fitness clients themselves first.

So, with all that information about my audience, when I post to social for them I know what will resonate with them. I know both what they already feel and how I want them to feel. Optimistic, there are answers, and I cracked that code 9 years ago so they can benefit right now.

Resources Mentioned:

CopyWriting for Marketing to Women course

Flipping50 Fitness Specialist Masterclass

Having to get things done can either be the best or worst thing for productivity. Some perform well under the gun, others not so much. If you’re in a habit of waiting til the last minute, in other words, you’re probably a perfectionist, here are 3 tips to help you get things done easier without the cortisol-escalating adrenaline rush that may not produce your best work.

You’ve got programs and workouts to write. You’ve got blogs, articles, videos to create. You have follow up emails, or cancelled appointments to reschedule. When does it all happen? Well, some things have to happen at the optimal times and others can happen whenever. Once you figure out when you’re most creative so you can schedule the things that require the most brain power, then these will tips come in handy.

I’m sharing what I’ve learned and how I cope when my attention-span wanes. You can’t go from 0 to six-figure months randomly getting things done. Here’s how I did it.

The absolute worst thing for productivity to do is to open another word document and start a new idea thread.

            And I try to do it all the time. It’s usually an equally important or urgent task, so I can justify it. So, if I don’t keep a list of what I need done and when and then translate that into blocks of time weeks before that I will focus on that thing, I’ll get to the last minute with too many things on my plate and nothing gets done. Even though I know I do this, it still happens.

            So, here’s how I handle it. The publishing calendar I create for myself has a block of time every week to work on something due at the end of the month. When I get started on it weeks before I’m the most creative.

https://www.flippingfifty.com/getstronger Ready for Resistance

            If you’re a creative like I am, I resist doing the work I’ve put into my publishing calendar sometimes because it feels like I’m backed into a corner. I have to remind myself that I can still have latitude with the treatment of the topic, and what I use to engage my audience.

            A creative mind- like so many entrepreneurs have – hates to be put in a box and told to do a certain thing! I never work well like. You know when you go to meetings and people are put into groups or individuals are asked on the spot to come up with something? I don’t perform well during those! I need to go away, get quiet, play with the ideas and then come back to it. Then I love to share. But I’m often a blank for my own work.

We Can't See the Nose on Our Own Face

            That’s why hot seats work so well for me and others! It’s why we do 12 of them in the accelerated 12-week Build Your Business mastermind course. You and I can see someone else’s problem so much more clearly than we can see our own. So, instead of saying, here – work on this and then share your answer during sessions, you just present your problem/challenge/question and other’s brains can go to work on it. That ends up freeing your ideas too. It’s a win-win-win. Everyone involved gets something from hearing the problem, hearing answers from others who aren’t emotionally attached to them, and you get to put them all in your pot and let them marinade for you.

The second worst thing for productivity is to make myself work through a longer block of time than my brain wants to focus.

            Your brain will wander at about 90 minutes and your productivity takes a nose-dive if you don’t take a break. A productive break is an exercise break. Clear your head, increase circulation to your brain.

            The Western world has done this forever. Those 8-9 hour days and 10 and 12 hour shifts, really do not lead to more productivity. You know how we most-recently know? The pandemic proved to companies that when people are allowed to work at home (most likely with more breaks) they got more done! People were happier. Many companies considered not bringing people back in, or doing so only in limited capacity and allowing people to choose.

Sprints vs Marathons

            While it (at home) doesn’t work for everyone, if you have a job that requires creativity, problem-solving, it most likely is best to work in short sprints of focus and then leave a project and come back to it.

Here’s how I avoid the #1 worst thing for productivity – I take myself out of my environment. I do it in two ways:

• I work in the dark. Not kidding. I can get more done working 4am-6am than 9am to 11am.
• I literally go somewhere else. I’ve not done a lot of this but plan to keep it in my arsenal. Pre-covid, I went to Maui to watch my son golf, and had extra days to work and relax. The two for me shouldn’t be isolated but instead exist together. Last year, I went to Sedona for two nights and got filled with hikes and inspirational views and then worked early mornings, mid-day after I’d come back. This last week I did the same in Colorado. I hiked every day – after and before I spent blocks of time creating the content for the new accelerator mastermind for next year and touching base with our Flipping50 community.

Worst Thing for Productivity May be Too Much Forced Productivity!

This kind of “white space” is sometimes missing from trainer’s days. It’s an old cliché that you’ve got to work on your business, not just in your business. Meaning that you can’t just schedule your training sessions all day and leave no time to develop the business plan and systems.

You’ll sink fast. You’ll paint yourself into a corner so busy with clients that you are “too busy” to focus on scaling. You can’t scale one-on-one sessions. Unless you can keep raising rates to $100 and $150 and $200 per session, and get clients to pay it, at some point you’ll be aiming at too small a pool to make that work.

When do you work best? When are you most creative? When can you think and focus best?

Work Best

For me – and most- thanks to cortisol, it’s morning.

So, I’ve made two changes in my business life over time.

1. I don’t work out right away anymore. I work for 3-4 hours first. Because I will workout, but I can’t force that creative time. And building and growing my business was the way I discovered the foundation behind menopause fitness science. So, never forget, you should walk the walk your clients walk. The more like them I am (with jobs and families and a desire to be fit), the easier it is to relate. They imagine fitness professionals just workout all day. Couldn’t be further from the truth if you truly run a business. You would never suggest a customer exercise 4-6 hours a day… you can’t do it either.
2. I don’t allow calendar appointments until Noon. So, I am working, I’m working out depending on the day, and responding to emails after 9 or so when I first open a browser.

Productivity an Issue for YOU?

Is it that you don’t know which tasks are the highest priority?

Or is it that you can’t focus due to too many distractions?

Are you marketing to active older adults? Successfully? Did you know more than 2/3 of them – especially women - don’t think advertisers understand them? While this episode touches on marketing, we dive into just what supports older adults most. There's gold in using the science and facts to educate and allow it to work for you.

My Guest:
Pete McCall is a personal trainer, the host of the All About Fitness podcast, author of Ageless Intensity: High Intensity Workouts to Slow Aging and Smarter Workouts: the Science of Exercise Made Simple (both published by Human Kinetics) as well as several articles and textbook chapters about exercise physiology. Pete holds a MS in exercise science and has been educating fitness professionals since 2002.

Currently Pete lives in Carlsbad, CA where he is an education consultant for Core Health & Fitness, the parent company of Nautilus and StairMaster, as well as a content creator for both the American Council on Exercise and the National Academy of Sports Medicine.

Questions we answer in this podcast:

• How are we defining “Active Older Adults” for this podcast? Older than what?
• What are the most effective types of exercise for slowing down the aging process?
• What promises do active older adults want?

Other things to think about for marketing to active older adults:

• What images appeal to older adults?
• What images show the transformation they want?

Successfully marketing to active older adults, or anyone, starts with doing your research. You have to ask questions not just imagine that you know who they are, what they want. That, perhaps, is the most important piece. People buy what they want not what they need. 

As fitness & health coaches it's easy to see what people need and try to sell them that. Two things help bridge the gap. Help them understand what they need in a way that makes it what they want. And compromise so you give them what they want.

Connect with Pete:
www.petemccallfitness.com

He’s on Social:
Insta: @Allaboutfitnesspodcast

Twitter: @PeteMc_fitness

Resources Mentioned:

Pete’s New Book Ageless Intensity – sure to become one you reference and recommend!

Smarter Workouts

Copywriting Course