187. How Do I Get More Clients Out Of Working The Phone With A Limited Schedule?

Welcome to the personal trainer hustle. Personal trainer hustle. If you didn't know, you do now. Welcome back to another episode of the personal trainer hustle. Today we are doing a Q&A and that's when you guys send in a question. You guys go to personal trainer hustle.com, send in your question, fill out the form and I get that question and turn it into an episode like today. So if you guys are listening, that is completely free to do. You guys are more than welcome. The link to the website is always right in the episode. If you open up the information about the episode, you will see a link to personal trainer hustle.com. It's that easy. You're listening. You click and you go on there and you can send your question in just like this person did today. So today let's jump into their question. I'm going to read their question. He says, hi Sam, I'm a new personal trainer. I'm working full time nine to five jobs so I can only be at the gym either early morning or late afternoon. Do you have any tips on how to attract more clients where most of them don't want a PT? I tried calling a lot of people but no luck starting to lose hope. All right, I wish I would have gotten to this a little bit quicker but I hope that there's still time to address this and then for those of you guys listening to this for the first time, you may be going through this and I'm going to guess more likely than not. If you're a new trainer, you're going to go through some version of this and that's what the podcast is all about. Right. I've been a personal trainer for just over 15 years. I've had my own personal training gym for the last 10 years and this podcast is about addressing those things that you guys are going through and especially what you're going through when you're trying to get your career off the ground where you're trying to get clients, you're trying to sign people up, you're trying to keep people training with you, you're trying to build an actual career in personal training. That's the type of stuff we address here and this question is a great question because this is exactly what something I went through right when I first got my job at Valley Total Fitness. I was supposed to be making phone calls and a lot of you guys when you get your first job at a gym, you're going to be given a list of new members or people that have not taken advantage of their free trial session. Right. Every gym usually provides at least one free training session with a membership. So this is a very, very common situation that we're going to be talking about today and I hope to give you guys some advice on how to make this phone call better for those of you guys that are making the calls but also the power of going beyond the phone call and other things that you should be doing. Okay. So I got three main ideas and points that we're going to talk about here today but we're going to go back to the question. So the question here is I'm working a nine to five job so I can only be at the gym either pretty much before work or after work, which is I guess you know something that happens especially when you're trying to start your career. You can't just jump into personal training from one day to the next. You know, you got to pay bills and it's going to take a while to build your personal training career. But something you said here really stood out to me. It said, do you have any tips on how to attract more clients where most of them don't want a PT? So if I'm not sure if you mean just in general, you feel like people don't want to get personal training or if you mean that people don't want to train early in the morning before your nine to five or late in the evening after your nine to five, which if that's the case, let's start there and we're going to address something about the personal training schedule. You actually have a different task ahead of you here. It's not in my opinion of course, it's not about whether people want to train in the mornings or in the evenings or anything like that. It's about you having the bandwidth to have such a long day. And you're going to have to have it if you want your career to take off. You're just going to have to because there is no other option here. Either you either you quit your job and you go to full time training, which is very risky. Or you keep your job and give up on training because you don't have the energy and the time to build your personal training career or you can bite the bullet now, work super hard. You're going to have to have 12, 14 hour days right because if you get clients in the morning, you're going to train six, seven, eight, let's say or six and seven in the morning, then go to work because you need time to get to work. And leave work, come back work at six, seven, eight, PM, go to sleep and do it all over again. So that's going to take, it's more about your ability to have the bandwidth to actually do it, which I find a lot of people struggle with. But hopefully you're the type of person that understands what you want out of life, what your dream outcome in your life is, what you really want to achieve in personal training. You see this as an opportunity to do something different in your life. I for me, that was a big opportunity for me when I when I became a trainer and realized I could do well at this, I could open a gym, all of these things. That became my goal and my one and only objective, right? So I was willing to work 12 hours, 14 hours a day. I was willing to work on weekends. I was willing to work through the holidays because I wanted this to happen for me that badly. And that's something that you can't really measure with people, right? It isn't until you overcome that you realize what you're capable of overcoming. So right now you have a lot of to overcome. I think that's a big part of this situation that sometimes we find ourselves in is how do I become a personal trainer, but also continue to pay my bills. You know, for me, I was fortunate enough that I was super young. I didn't have bills like that. And so I was able to go into personal training full time, which allowed me to be at the gym 12 hours a day every day, weekends, things like that. The idea of not having personal training clients because they don't want to train at those hours is actually completely reversed. The most popular times at the gym are from 5 a.m. to 9 a.m. sometimes 10 a.m. And then again, from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. I literally just had to turn a client down at my gym just, I think it was Friday. No, what? It was Friday, right, right after Christmas. On Friday, I had to go into work as somebody wanted to come in. And obviously the staff is not in. It's the holidays, right? So being the business owner, right, you get all the perks. I went in and I talked to this person and they needed to train at six because just like you see, this is the funny thing about what you just said and asked just like you, they also work 9 to 5. So they can only work out before they go to work or after they go to work. So the clients are there. So my point is this person wanted 6 p.m. at my gym and I had to tell her that she would have to be on a waiting list. I would have to call her back and see if we could fit her in. If we can move our schedules around with the trainers because so many people want 6 p.m. That we cannot fit them at the gym anymore at 6 p.m. It is an extremely popular time. So you know, and I had another situation too where somebody wanted to come in early and one of my trainers was like, it's kind of tough for me to come in that early for this client. So what I'm saying is the personal training schedule, if you're going to be a successful personal trainer, every personal trainer has this schedule in the beginning. You work in the mornings and then you have a lot of gaps in the middle of the day or most of the day. And then you come back and you work in the evenings. So your 9 to 5 is almost exactly what a personal trainer schedule is in reverse. A personal trainer works with clients before they go to work if they have a 9 to 5 or a 10 to 6 or whatever. So you're normally, it's very, very common for a personal trainer to have 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 a.m. clients and then not have consistent clients in the middle of the day. Most personal trainers aren't very busy from like 10, 11 in the morning to 3, 4 p.m. Unless you've been at it for a long time, unless you've really built your client base over time that you can have the flexibility to choose where you take clients, but you have to be getting a lot of clients for you to finally land that perfect 10, 11, 12, 1 o'clock client consistently. It's not going to be that clean, especially when you're starting off because when you're starting off, you got to take what you can get, but you're going to get a lot of opportunities in the morning and in the evening. That is when it's most popular. You know, I wish you worked for me right now. I'd say, hey, I have a 6 o'clock client. It doesn't fit on anybody's schedule. It would fit in yours, right? So that's how popular those times are. So the issue is not that people don't want personal training at those times. It's, are you actually showing up at 6 a.m. Are you able to be there by 5 a.m.? Right? And I know you're going to, oh, well, I went to work. I'm tired. I have to sleep. Maybe you have a family, right? All these things, right? That's why I said in the beginning, this is a different thing that we need to solve for when you're fine yourself in this situation. Before we get into my point, I'll give you one more thing that I learned. And I've talked about this before from a trainer that had been a trainer there longer than I was. When I got hired, this trainer helped me out, gave me some information. Now I'm sharing with you what this trainer told me. I was going through the same thing. I was struggling with getting clients. I was struggling with prospecting in the evenings, especially. But I had a different problem, right? My problem was that I didn't like prospecting in the evenings because there were like five other trainers on the floor and all of them were also trying to target the clients, right? That's what I didn't personally like about prospecting. the evenings, the evenings after 5 p.m. at the gym were so busy that all the trainers knew to be there. The manager wanted us all to be there. So the problem was, did this person already get approached by another trainer because there are three, four, five trainers all walking around prospecting at the same time, talking to people? And so to me, I was like, "Man, this makes me really uncomfortable." You know, and I was telling them, I was like, "I feel uncomfortable talking to people." You know, I feel like there's so many people working out when I pick one person to talk to, they know that I'm targeting them. And so this guy's name is Antonio. He also just recently opened up a gym, so congratulations to him. But he gave me this piece of advice. He said, "Sam, why don't you just come prospect in the mornings?" He was like, "Dude, I've built, and he was really busy. He continues to be busy. He just opened up his gym. It's already getting full. He's a great, great trainer, and he has great advice." And this is what he told me. He said, "None of the other trainers are here at 6 in the morning, Sam. There are so many people that would probably get a personal trainer if only they had a trainer that was willing to wake up at 5 in the morning and be here." He's like, "It's just me and a couple of other guys. All of our schedules are full in the mornings because nobody else is here to compete with us." He's like, "So why don't you just come in the morning?" He's like, "The leads are there." He's like, "These are professional people." He was like, "Think about it. These people need to be done with their workout by 6, 7, 8 in the morning because they are serious. They are determined. They are disciplined people, right? But they need trainers. And a lot of these people are very successful. A lot of the successful habits of these people is that they get their workout in first in the morning and they set their day up for success. He's like, "So you're even working with a different type of clientele when you work with clients that work in the morning. They're actually better clients." He's like, "But you have to be here." And so I started showing up in the morning. It was still dark out when I would show up to the gym. And then I picked up some in the evening. And then he said, "Also come on the weekends." He's like, "All the trainers want to take the weekends off. Come on the weekends." He's like, "The weekends, there are people here that only have the weekend to come and get their strength training in or they work out of town, but now this is their weekend gym." He's like, "There's so much opportunity if you work outside of the hours that the other trainers are willing to work." And I took his advice and it completely changed my career. I made it so simple. I remember I used to love talking to people in the weekends because none of the trainers were there. There was nobody at the gym. So I'd be working out. And there'd be some guy there doing the trying to figure out how to use a curling machine or whatever. And it was super easy for me to just casually go over there and say, "Hey, the pin you're looking for is over here." Or like, "Oh, this seat, you have to make sure you tilt it forward." Now give them some advice. And we just start talking because it was casual. It was the weekend. With just anybody. I see a woman trying to figure out how to change the height on the seat. I'd go over there. "Oh, if you want to make this a little bit lower, you just pull on here and I'd help them out." And I'd start the conversation going about personal training. I'm a personal trainer. If you need help with anything, what are you working on? I can show you another machine that does this, that doesn't have this same issue with the seat. Or I'd like this one better. If you're trying to target your shoulders, I would say do this. And then maybe free weights. And you know, the conversation would take a different direction. They'd go, "I'm afraid to go to the free weight area." I'd say, "Oh, you're with me. I'll show you." Boom, boom, boom, boom. And there you go. You have a potential customer right there from working on the weekend, from having conversations, from changing the way you're thinking about this whole thing. Okay. So that's just from your question. It reminded me of my first year as a personal trainer. And this is exactly what I had to go through, understanding the schedule. So for me, like I said, you being available in the mornings and the evenings is not an issue at all because that's when people work out at the gym the most. The issue is, are you actually waking up early enough to get there on time? And are you willing to sacrifice some of your evening time, whatever you do in the evenings, right? Watch TV or maybe you have to sacrifice a little bit of sleep for a month or two, like whatever it is, right? I don't want you to do anything unhealthy, but can you sacrifice your time? Can you give your regular job enough energy and then still have the energy to wake up and go and do it? I think that's the bigger issue here, I guess, if you want to call it that, to really consider. But also, let's assume that you have the energy. Let's say you're giving it everything. Now it's a matter of skills. Now it's a matter of knowing what to do. So we're going to address that as well. So the number one thing about calls, and I'm going to say this because I have to be honest with you guys as I always am, I personally did not make a lot of phone calls when I was a personal trainer, okay? I went through the process. They showed me the book. We used to have a big fat binder full of old names. It was all, there was notes. People that answered didn't answer, told people off, right? There was little notes in there and you know, it would get updated. We get new ones, but you know, they were also like, hey, you're here, you're on the clock. Call old people. So sometimes I'd be calling people, this is like the fifth time, the tenth time somebody was calling them, they were pretty pissed off in annoyed. So it was brutal. I did not like it. And so to be honest, what I did is I stopped making phone calls and I just started talking to people face to face, okay? Now I'm not giving this to you as advice. I'm just telling you what I did and I'm going to tell you why I did it, okay? Because phone calls, they couldn't see me. They couldn't hear me. They weren't even in the gym. They weren't thinking about their fitness, right? So I felt like if I talk to somebody in the gym, at least we could talk about gym things. Number one, they can see me. They can hear me. We can make eye contact. They can see that I'm friendly, that I'm smiling. They can see that I'm not threatening, right? They could see that, you know, I work out. I can give them advice. I can see that they're doing something wrong. I can show them the example right then and there and get them interested. So I found instead of wasting my time calling person after person after person who's probably in the middle of their work, they stressed out because their boss just told them that the report is late, right? Instead of bothering that person, I was like, let me just go and bother the person that's here now because clearly they have the time to come. Clearly this time fits my schedule because if they're here and I'm here, that means we both can be here at this time. I was like, let me just go talk to people face to face. Now that was hard in a different way, right? The thing about the phone is it's easier because you're not face to face. So it's easier to do it, but it's harder to convert with face to face. It's harder to do it. It's harder to get yourself to do it. But when you do it, you're going to have a higher conversion rate because there is that filimiliarity, there is that personal connection, right? So it's going to be harder for you guys to want to talk to people in the gym, but you're going to get better results. Getting on the phone is going to be easier to do, right? All I have to do is dial. I don't have to see them face to face. Sure, but this person, because they don't see you face to face, is less likely to want to do whatever it is that you're calling them, right? You're interrupting their day. So it's a very hard sell, but you can get good at it. You can become masterful at it. You can get sales. You can get people to come in. And I'll leave a piece of advice here. Remember that when you call somebody, you're selling the next step. Okay, I know like this is just so random to say, but I feel like if I don't say it, I'm also doing a just service in sales, you're just trying to sell the next step. So just remember that when you're when you're prospecting or you're making phone calls, this is, oh my gosh, this is almost like its own episode, but because it's that important, but just remember your goal when you're calling or your goal when you're meeting people is just to get them to commit to trying it, right? So just remember that right now, have that in mind. My sell is not selling training. My sell is selling that complimentary session. Everything I'm doing is to sell that and that's going to make more sense as we move forward in today's episode. But I just wanted to be honest and say, hey, I never made a lot of phone calls myself. I talk to people face to face more, but I because I did get better at sales, I do have some advice for you to implement into your phone calls, which come from just all of my years of experience talking to people and selling personal training packages. I've sold hundreds, if not thousands of personal training packages at this point over the years. Okay, so number one, first tip I'm going to give you, if you're on the phone, is if you're going to keep making calls, change the offer. Okay, change what you're offering them. One of the biggest mistakes that we make when we make a phone call is that we're calling them to give them the free workout. And when you say it like that, that person knows that this is a sales call that you're calling to get them to try a free thing just because you want to sell them personal training. And they know that and their defenses are going to be up. So the first piece of advice that I'm going to give you is change the offer. Okay, chain and we're going to talk about some examples on how to do that, but you need to really think about before you start making calls, I need you to stop for a day and get a notebook out and start making notes as to how are you going to say this and what is the offer that you're going to make them. And I'm going to give you some things to work on in today's episode, but I need you to understand that you need to be prepared. And that's one thing that sometimes gyms don't do with you guys when you start at a training gym, right? I got a lot of advice for my manager, but I also got a lot of advice from other trainers. And then also it was up to me to seek advice just like you guys are doing by listening today You're going out and seeking advice because you may not have the right information somebody might not be helping you and so The piece of advice that I can give you now is you need to prepare for these phone calls, right? So what do you need to do you have to have a script or a semblance of a script? What is going to be my opening statement? Why am I saying what I'm saying? What outcome am I hoping to get out of what I'm saying? What response or what emotion am I trying to trigger in that person based on the things that I'm saying? Right and what you're trying to trigger is Desire and curiosity, right? You want them to want this and you want them to be curious about what this is you want them to think maybe this can help me in some way So if you offer a workout the issue with offering a workout is that they're already working out So when you say I'm offering the free workout, it's like okay. Well, that's one. I mean, I already get free workouts I have a gym membership, right? So every workout I go Is included in you know in in my gym membership. Also I have an app also I go hiking with my friends also I already you know workout whatever in a bootcamp class. So like You're just giving me another workout. I don't really need to talk to you about this make the time of day to get another workout in right? So when you phrase it like that or when you're not ready and prepared into what you're gonna say Then the conversation usually goes nowhere And then consultations a little bit better, but still a consultation is usually something that people look and seek out themselves Right, so when you're offering them a consultation You know, it's like who are you to tell me that I need to consult with you, right? If I needed a consultation I would look for a consultation right? So when you're the one putting words in their mouth it becomes a difficult thing so Number one start to think about what you're going to say right now Give you a piece of advice and I'll kind of do like a rough draft Example here right? Let me give you an example of like how I would say this The first thing that I would say when I make a phone call is I might Assume that I'm talking to the right person, okay? That's just my personal style. You don't have to you can go. Hey, is this is this Jane? Hey, is this is this John? You can say that but I like to go hey John this is Sam from you know, blah blah blah Only because and again, right? This is this is a personality thing. This is an experienced thing It's it's a style thing right? We all have different styles, but I usually would go. Oh, hey, John Hey, Jane Right, not is this Jane even though sometimes I do say that it just depends on how they pick up the phone sometimes right if they're hesitant I go, oh is this Jane, but sometimes I might go hey Jane Because I want to create film familiarity. I want them to think they might know me right that that's what I've talked about this in past episodes But one thing a personal trainer that I had about a year ago with me maybe two years ago now Said that after I got off the phone with somebody they said I could have sworn you've known this person before and I was like Oh, no, I've never met him before and they were like you sound like you know them already you guys were laughing you guys were talking Da da da da da you talk to them for like 15 20 minutes and I said well, yeah every time I make a call I go into it Like acting like we already know each other because it's human nature I said we're not that different all of us right if somebody's kind somebody's friendly somebody's humorous Then we all can connect to that especially if you are Very interested in what that person is saying so I'm telling you Number one you can change this By making yourself more familiar talk to them as if you already know them to some degree now again This is a simple you slow because if you do it too much that can be annoying. There's actually psychological science behind this Right, I have you guys ever been out and a new person gets introduced to your friend group and they're trying too hard They're trying to fit in they're trying to be funny. They're trying to tell the stories right what happens the group rejects that they go Who are you? I mean, it's not that you're a bad person, but it's like I don't know you like that Right, so it's a slippery slope you can't overdo it But you can definitely try at least by just saying their name By being friendly and caring and in your tone of voice right not sounding hesitant but sounding Confident in that like hey, what's up? Like this is you know just giving you a call right? I mean, I feel like I have a similar tone when I talk to you guys here I don't actually get to sit there with you guys and figure out your different tones different personalities You know your different sense of humor whatever right. I'm just on me, but I'm I'm not going okay you guys Well today we're gonna talk about What to say when you Talk to people about right you can't be so robotic and timid and at the same time I can go yeah, what's up you guys? It's you know today we're fucking talking about you know, that's too much so Just be natural just be yourself right a lot of you guys if you met me you'd go Oh, he's kind of how he sounds. He's just him right but that that sometimes takes practice not everybody has that right I know I didn't when I started so you have to learn to be natural is what I'm saying right naturally talk to them And then the second thing right we're talking about a phone call You need to and this is a piece of advice followed by a tip Number one piece of advice that you need to understand about when you call somebody is that you're bugging them and you need to know that You need to know that you're bothering me if you're calling me you're bothering me Okay, because again, right? I didn't choose to call you you're calling me and I don't know you at least if it's a friend You're not me. Maybe you're not bothering me because I look forward to it But if a stranger's calling me you're bothering me Okay, you're taking my time I could be watching TV I could be reading a book I could be with my family. I could be working. I could be working out I could be listening to a podcast. I could be doing so many other things But right now I'm gonna have to take some time to talk to you. I don't even know you right so you Need to be ahead of the game and know that so what I have done any time that I prospect somebody new Whether on the phone or if I'm handing them a coupon or something is I always start off by saying hey I'm so sorry to be bothering you with this So sorry to take your time here So sorry to stop you like this. I'm so sorry to bug you. I know you don't want to Talk to me, but blah blah blah right what I do is and I did an episode about this It's called addressing the elephant in the room So if you guys go look back to an episode titled addressing the elephant in the room or something like that something about elephant in the room It was talking about this. It's it's an episode talking exactly about this right you want to take away people's Arguments and ability to counter right and you want to deescalate the situations as much as you can That's another skill you need to learn especially when you're on the phone. How do you how do you bring the the the room down? How do you bring the energy and the hostility down right if I'm cold calling you your first instinct is to reject it no matter what it is right if you think about how much we Sorry, I just got a cool Just got a confirmation call for a training session so Well, where was I off shoot? Sorry guys. I just got a text about Consultation coming in tomorrow, so I lost my my thought process here. Oh, yeah, but you have to bring the energy Down you have to understand the situation right? Oh, yeah, I was saying think about the spam and that's why I looked at my phone Think about the spam calls that we get right nobody picks that up nobody picks up Unknown numbers anymore. You're lucky if that person even picks up the phone lately You know, which I should have probably made some notes about that But I didn't so I don't want to get into it But you know it let's we're just assuming somebody picks up the phone here They pick up the phone you know that you're bothering them. So if I was making a call and John picked up I would say hey good morning, John Hey, so sorry to be bothering you. I know you've got a busy day But now we're gonna go into the next thing right, but I want him to know that I'm aware that I'm Abusing their time right instead of what people do. Hey, John. How's it going? Listen? I just want to give you a call because I am Out here. I'm installing what I don't even do I didn't ask for this right but if I go John so sorry to bother you with this I know you're a busy guy But I just wanted to call you because we're in the neighborhood I work for a construction company and we are installing blah blah He's more likely to at least listen to what I'm saying because I have addressed that right and this is a psychological thing you guys when I address the elephant in the room when I sign a light on the issue I'm allowing that person to listen to what I'm going to say afterward The issue when you don't do something like that where you don't address the fact that I'm cold calling you When I just try to jump into it and I'm saying too many things or I'm asking too many questions What happens is the defense continues to rise and so by the time you go? I was offering you a free training session. Oh, yeah, no, no, no, thank you They haven't even really heard what the offer is because they've been on high alert the entire time They have been closed off the entire time so by Simply addressing the fact that I'm calling them that they don't know me and that I'm bothering them And then I'm gonna try to make this as short as possible They're gonna go okay this okay, I understand I don't know this person We both don't know each other what are they what are they calling me about and now they're willing to at least listen even if they still reject you at least they're listening because you addressed it. Super important. I wasn't going to talk about that a lot, but I think it's just like so important. You know, at least for me, this is just my system, you guys. I know a lot of people teach different ways of doing it and many different people are successful in different ways. There's not one way to do things so I don't want you to think, oh, I have to do it. It feels uncomfortable. I'm just telling you why I do things, okay? And that's why I like to explain why I do things because maybe it'll make sense to you or maybe not. Maybe you'll go, nah, that sounds like bullshit. That's fine too, but because I'm fairly introverted because I don't just go around talking to strangers, I have developed these things to help me. And I find that a lot of people struggle with this part of personal training because you also feel uncomfortable talking to strangers, selling personal training packages, telling them to sign up for six months of training. You know, it can be uncomfortable. So that's where I'm coming from. And that's why I've developed all these little tricks and techniques to facilitate my success in personal training. So that's one. Okay, man, I haven't even gotten to the point. Point number one that I wanted to make was change the offer, rephrase the way that you're going to say it. Make sure that there are benefits to why you're calling them. And this is homework for you, right? What is the biggest benefit to that person if they meet with you? And this is homework for you because again, another pet peeve of mine is when people go, hey, I was calling if you wanted to do a body scan. Dude, I know I'm fucking fat already. All right. I don't need to know if I'm 30% or 40% fat. The problem is I'm fucking fat and I need to work out and I don't know what to do. Oh shit. Okay. Not knowing what to do to lose the weight is where I need help, not in being told that I'm overweight and so many people miss that. Right? Dude, half the people that I sign up for personal training at my gym, I don't even measure them. We don't step on the scale. We don't do any any type of measuring. All we do is talk and maybe demonstrate and they sign up and then when they meet with their trainer and they start the program, I actually stop to do or they stop and do some measurements to set some expectations to set some goals to set some, you know, baselines as to what they're going to do. But to me, taking time away from the actual important conversation to do measurements is actually in my opinion, it hinders my sales process because I'm stopping the conversation about what's important to them in order to take stats. You know, stats are not emotional triggers. I mean, if you're good, you can use that and I'll, man, there's just so much to cover here. I'm trying to be quick about this. But stats are important when that person seems to be oblivious to their fitness. So I never measure unless that person is giving me this whole like, oh, yeah, you know, I just want to lose five pounds. I want to learn a little bit and I can see that they have a lot of work to do. What I do is I go, okay, well, let's, let's, let's start. Let's step on the scale. Now I'm resetting because I need them to see that weight in front of me. So they stop bullshitting, bullshitting me and bullshitting them, you know, and I'm not a hard closer, but I'm just saying we lie to ourselves as humans. And every once in a while, you have someone who is 50 pounds overweight and they're like, oh, if I could lose five or 10 pounds, that would be great. That person I'm putting them on the scale. Now I'm not doing it aggressively. I'm just going to do it as part of the problem. Okay, let's step on the scale. Cool. Okay, you weigh 250. Good. So let's talk about, you know, you want to lose 10, five to 10 pounds. How long have you been wanting to do this? And I go into my pitch, but now I know that it's eating away at the back of their brain because now they actually saw what they weigh because they think they still weigh 220. They don't even realize they weigh 250 now. And I, because I'm a good salesperson and a good trainer, I'm going to put them on the scale now because I need them to be aware of what they're actually talking about. We cannot have a real conversation if they're not real about where they are. That's when I would measure. But half the time measurements don't matter, right? They already, they're here. They're willing to train because they know, right? And also people feel uncomfortable measurements. So if you're calling them telling them you're going to do a consultation or we're going to do a body scan or whatever, most people are not going to be interested in that because there's not an actual direct benefit. But if I call and I said, Hey, I'm doing three sessions to teach you all the different strength training techniques to put five pounds of muscle on your body in one month, right? Something like that where when I hear that, I'm going to go, Yes, I want the five pounds of muscle. Give it to me now. How do I do that? At least I'm giving myself the chance that that person might be excited to get that benefit versus, Hey, I'm calling to do a body fat scan on you. Not as exciting, okay? Not that you can't do it as part of it or lump it into one type of like promotion or something. Yes, but that standalone, I'm just not a huge fan of that myself. But again, somebody might preach a different thing and go, absolutely no, it's just you're not pitching it, right? I'd be open to learning a different way of pitching it. But that's just up until now. What it has been. Okay. So again, back to the point, I'm sorry, I keep giving you tips on how to make the call. But really the bigger point and the thing that I need you to figure out right now is what are you actually calling them for? Okay. So let's stop and think about that. I'm going to assume you have your notebook out and you're going to start preparing for these calls. Okay. Number one, what are you actually offering them? Give me one paragraph describing and you can go to three paragraphs. No more than three, I would say, but give me one paragraph describing what it is that you're actually calling to give them. Grib it. Okay. A personal training session. Cool. What does that personal training session entail? And just write it down. Warm up, teaching measurements. I don't know. Start thinking. Okay. Right now it's very bare bones. But I need you to learn more than anything. Not what to say right now. What I'm trying to teach you guys is the process of dissecting your thoughts and your pitches and your presentations and the benefits, how to sell is about knowing all the in-between. Right. Just like I gave you an example, just a few seconds ago, a few minutes ago, I said, I don't measure. Well, actually, if I have this scenario, I measure. Right. Because I have the details that I need. I've thought the process out. Right. I have a chart in my mind that goes, if they say this, I go left. If they say this, I go right. If they do this, then I go back left. But they are at this stage, they're right, but then they have an injury. So I say this, right. I have this whole map in my head over the years of learning different things, different techniques to do and say and presentations and shifting. It's just like sports. We were just watching football yesterday, right. Quarterback gets out there. The whole team knows the play. But if they see something, they change it in the moment. But you have to have that drilled in to your system to be able to observe and get your brain to understand. And in that sense, they have to get the entire team as a unit to understand what's about to happen or what change is going to be made. But you can only do that. If you have the second play, the third play, the fourth play available, if not, then when you get presented with something that's different, you don't know where to go. But so what I'm saying is over time, you should build the skill of dissecting what it is that you actually do. Okay. So I'm giving you level one here. And you're going to call somebody, why are you calling them, right? Just get just drill that habit into your mind. Why am I doing this? Why is there a benefit to this? How can I say it differently? Why would they listen to me? Why would they come in? I know it's a little overwhelming right now and you don't have to have all the answers right now. But you do need to start to understand, okay, this is what Sam's talking about. He wants me to think and write and think and write. Yes. Because you need to answer this question. But what is the biggest benefit that this person would get from saying yes to this phone call? Now once I know the benefit, how can I maybe condense that because I don't have a lot of time on the phone, how can I get this message through as fast as possible? Right? So I'm going to give you that for homework, but I'm also going to give you something that I thought about that that you could do. Something that I would do if I was in your scenario is, and again, this is about sometimes you have to think for yourself, you guys. Sometimes you have to break the rules. Right? Yes, the gym is offering a free session, but could you give them the gym's free session plus another free session? If you feel like you don't have enough time, if you feel like you have to put more juice in it, right? If the gym offers a 30 minute session, can you do 45 an hour session? Can you maybe change the parameters in which you're working? Right? Maybe not. Maybe here's another skill in a task, right? You can make sure you fit within the time that you have. You can do both. But this is what I thought, right? What if when you called, instead of saying, hey, Jane, Sam from the gym here, right? X, Jim, and I'm so sorry to be bothering you with this, but I just saw you signed up two days ago. And I don't know if you're aware, but with your membership, you have a benefit package. And I wouldn't say like that on the phone, but I'm saying it for you guys to hear what I just said. Right? You're your total benefit package or your fitness benefit package, right? And that's just something I wrote. You can rephrase it. I'm just trying to show you creativity a little bit, you guys, right? So I might phrase it as their benefits package that came with the gym, not the trial workout, but the benefits package. Why? Because I'm trying to get them to be curious. So I might say, yeah, you have a benefits package, right? Every member when you come in, you have access to this benefit package. And there are a couple of things that come with that. You can choose what parts, if you can do all of them, you can do some of them, but you actually have a lot of options here that you can take advantage that are completely free with your membership. And here's another thing, right? I might realize, again, see how I'm thinking you guys right now, I just realized as I'm going through it in my head and as I'm doing it live right now with you guys. What I just realized is, oh, there's a question I have to address in their mind, which is why didn't they tell me about this when I signed up? You see what I'm saying? When you go through the process, when you practice, you have to be aware of their point of view and it's gonna help you be better. 'Cause right now, as I'm practicing, 'cause this is what I would have done at home, right? I would have gone, okay, I'm gonna say this, blah, blah, blah, blah, I'm practicing, right? I'm rehearsing and I would have gone, okay, well, if I was them, I would go, well, why am I just finding out about this now on the phone? Why not then, right? So I might add that to my phone call pitch now. I'm gonna go, oh shit, okay, add that to the script. And I'm just calling you now. I know they should have told you about it when you signed up, but sometimes signing up, by the time you do the tour, by the time you sign up, sometimes they have other appointments and they just don't get to explain, 'cause it takes a few, you know, a couple of minutes to explain like all the benefits that you would get from it. So I'm sorry they didn't tell you that in person if they didn't. But I'm happy I'll try to just tell you in like two minutes what comes with it if you wanna know what you have access to. And now that person might be like, what do I have access to? You see how I haven't told them what it is yet, but I've told them they have benefits. I've told them why they didn't hear about this before, why it has to be a phone call, 'cause they don't have enough time to do it. I apologized for them not getting this benefits package, but I'm gonna try to be quick, right? I guess again, I know that time is of the essence here, so I go, I can try to make it as quick as possible. If you have just two minutes, I wanna make sure you know like all the levels of your benefit pack that you have. And now I'm developing a script right in front of you guys, just with you guys, right? So this person is more likely now. I'm not saying that this pitch is gonna work and I'm not saying it doesn't need work, 'cause I'm kind of working it out with you guys as we're talking here. But now I've increased their curiosity about this benefits package and I've answered the elephant in the room, the questions, right? Why are you calling me about this? Who are you? Why didn't they tell me about this? How long is this gonna take? All the questions in that potential customer's mind, I'm trying to get ahead of it in my practice right now, right? And I might not get it right, but the next level to this is once you make the call with your first script, pay attention to what they said. Oh, why didn't I know about this? So I don't have time, oh, they don't have time. Okay, I gotta make sure that I tell 'em that this is gonna take 60 seconds, right? Or something, you, and again, I don't know all the answers you guys, but I'm just trying to help you understand how I work these things out, how I come up with my formulas to these situations. So once I go, I just wanna make sure you know all the levels of your benefits package, they're gonna go, okay, well, I got something that's mine, it's beneficial 'cause it's in the name, right? That's why I call it the benefits package, you guys. But, you know, what is it? Okay, well, now I got, I got two minutes, like I said, so here we go, right? So now I'm gonna go, okay, well, with your package, you have the option of two out of four options or three out of four, or all of these options are available, you don't have to use all of 'em, but you can use this, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? Whatever. But, and again, right, I'm over complicating it because I'm trying to make the deal something that they really wanna take advantage of. So I'm calling it a benefits package so there's multiple options, right? And I'm just making this up. And so what I did is what I might do here and what I wrote down is I might say, okay, so you have three or four, right? I wrote down, and again, it just depends what you wanna do. I like to do things in threes because you don't want that person to be over, to enter what we call analysis paralysis. If you give them too many options that they're gonna freeze, they're not gonna make one. And if you give 'em too little, then it doesn't sound like there's a lot involved, right? So for me, three would be great, right? So if I called and I said, hey, you have a benefits package that involves three different options, you can do all three or you can do just the ones that fit your needs right now, okay? So if you wanna do all of 'em, we'll schedule all of 'em. If you wanna do just some of them, you can schedule some of 'em. Right, you see how I haven't, I still haven't told you what it is that I'm gonna give you, right? Because it's about the pitch, it's not about the thing yet, right? I'm creating curiosity. I'm hitting all the points that I need to hit. And so now what I might do is I might go, you have three options, okay? Now, I'm not sure, are you more of a beginner, more of an advanced person in the gym you would say? And I don't know, maybe I have two options, depending on their answer, you guys. You see how this is step by step? So I just made an option for one, but now you see how I ask them, and guess what, you guys? If this is going according to plan, we've been on the phone for like three minutes now. And they're curious, and they're answering my questions. Oh, okay, yeah, well, I'm more of a beginner. Okay, perfect. So if you're a beginner, you have these three options. You have intro to weight equipment, okay? And that is just, depending on your goals, 'cause it's very specific to you, okay? What we do is we're gonna talk about your goals, what muscles you wanna work, how you wanna look, your physique, weak areas, all that stuff. And based on that, we're gonna show you which machines target what and how to use them. Okay, that way when you go to the gym, you're targeting all the muscles that you need to be targeting, right? 'Cause that happens a lot in the gym. People come in, you start lifting weights, but those weights aren't targeting the thing that you want. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna address your goals and then show you all of the equipment that you should be using for those goals. The second option that you have is intro to actual strength training. This is a little bit different. Just the machines and the equipment. This is actually understanding how many reps you need to do, how much you should rest, how much protein you should be having in your meals. So we talk about what you're consuming and how that affects your strength, but also knowing the difference. When should you do 10 reps? When should you do 12 reps? Should you be doing three sets, four sets? Should you be changing your technique? What about when should you change what you're doing? Right? Should you do the same thing all the time? So in this session, what we do is we address all of that. And you can do both. You can do the equipment. You can do this one or whichever one speaks to you, like I said. And then of course the last one is just nutrition. If you have a goal of weight loss as well and things like that, then we have a whole session where we're gonna go into what you're eating and things like that. I don't know right now if you are on any type of diet already or if it's something you're looking to add to your workout routine with the gym membership that you just got. And so I'm walking through them. And they hopefully, I'm exciting them about these amazing offers. And then I might just say like, I personally think all three is the best way to do it 'cause they're all three are free for you and they're gonna really set you in the right direction. And my purpose today is just to ask you which one you would like to do first. And hopefully that person in the moment is excited enough for it. Again, I hesitated a little bit here 'cause I'm doing it on the spot with you guys. But hopefully once you've rehearsed it, you've fine tuned that so I would have said it more confidently. I wouldn't have hesitated. I would have just gone right into like, or if you ask them more questions, if you were able to get information from them on the phone call, you could even make a suggestion. But again, I didn't get into that. But this conversation might actually go somewhere else where they start telling you, oh, okay, yeah, no, that sounds great. Well, I haven't been working out in a while, so blah, blah, blah, blah, I feel like I would need all three. Okay, good. Well, I think for me the most important thing actually is to start with the second option, which is just understanding strength. And then that way once we teach you the nutrition and the machines, you actually understand at least the science behind the exercises and then the exercise and your nutrition are going to complement that. So I personally would think that that's the option to start with if I'm putting it in order for you. So I would love to take you through it. Are you available tomorrow? What's your gym routine right now? Do you normally come in in the evenings? Oh, I usually come in around 530. Cool, why don't we just do it? Are you working out tomorrow? Yeah, I'm going into a gym tomorrow. Okay, great. Why don't we just do it tomorrow? It's going to be, you know, you're going to get a workout anyway, but it's going to be more targeted. Why don't we, why don't we do a workout tomorrow? And we can take, you know, like I said, it's part of your membership completely free. We could knock out this part of your benefits package that you got with your membership. And then boom, hopefully they say yes, they show up. And now they're working with you. And you know, again, now you have to understand how to sell personal training as well. I just sold the benefits package. What I might do is shorten it to 30 minute sessions. That way, they're more inclined to sign up for a one hour training session with me. Or I might take some things out of it because I want them to be part of my personal training sales pitch and not my free consultation benefits package, you know, deal, right? So you can, you can pick and choose, right? It's a fine balance, you guys, between, you know, how much to give, but here's the thing, right? If you give them two options, or even if they just meet one time with you, what they're going to realize, because this is what you want. If you're a good trainer, you just want the opportunity to meet someone. Once they hear you talk the way you train them, the way that you talk about results, how they feel the next day, you teach them, there's so much that you as a trainer knows that that the common person does not know. And so they're going to go, man, there how much is it to just keep doing this? This is an amazing experience, right? So again, this is selling them showing up versus selling them the long-term benefits of it. And you know, I can't teach you. you all that in just one podcast episode. I know that I'm almost overselling the intro packages for free, but here's how I think about it and why I'm saying, oh, you have these three sessions, these three options, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, it's a lot to give to someone. I understand that. And when I say these things, a lot of people go, no, you're giving them away too much. They need to pay for this stuff. And yes, I agree with that because nowadays I wouldn't do it because I'm actually busy. That's the difference. And you're just starting off and you don't have leads and you don't know how to get people to try your training and you don't get, you don't know how to get people to even show up to a session or take you seriously. Well then who cares? Give them three 30 minute sessions. At least that way you're building rapport, you're getting practice, you're increasing your chances. You're actually talking to someone, you're actually practicing with someone and guess what? A few of those people are going to ask about training. A few of those people are going to become your clients once they experience it. But you know who's not going to become your client, someone who never even meets you. And so that's why when you're starting off, I'm big on just giving a lot, because you can, because you should, because what else are you going to do? That's why. But now of course, no, I have two gyms now. One has been around for 10 years. One has been around for a couple of months. We open it right towards the holidays. So we're trying to get the ball rolling here. People are out on vacation. It's not that easy. Hey, guess what? So now I don't have time like that to just go, "Oh, yeah, I'm going to give this person three, three, five, three, right?" But if you have the time, you got to do it. You know, in my opinion, of course, is why not. And again, the example I gave you today is not what you have to do. You can do one. And just what I was trying to show you with my example of the benefits package that I came up with is the example and the real lesson is not to do what I said. But to learn to think outside the box, to come up with your own alternative thing that you feel comfortable offering. Maybe you don't feel comfortable with this or you think that one of my examples was a waste of time. You would never show them how to use machine because it's free weights all the way, whatever right. And there's something to be said about being flexible. But it's up to you. That's all I'm saying. I'm not here to tell you what to do. I want you to learn to think in a different way because the way you're doing things in the way you're thinking right now isn't working. So I'm giving you just an alternative thing to try. And what you can try is to change how you phrase that free training session, right. And maybe you can come up with a way to make that one session excited. Maybe that one session has all of it included. Maybe you do it like that so you don't have to give away a lot of free stuff, right. Again, creativity. I don't know. That's what I came up with now. Maybe if we sat and made notes and talked with you, we'd find other strengths that you have other things that you want to do with people. You know, maybe there's a population that you're going after that maybe I'm not addressing. So that population would want certain things. So again, this is just a super rough draft of how this would go. You guys super rough draft, but that's just what I would do. I would come up with some type of name for it, some type of benefit for it. And making sure that what you're offering them is something that's going to help them. Right. So I said, oh, your first intro session is about the equipment and understanding technique and what each equipment does based on your goals. So first we're going to talk about your goals. Oh, cool. So I'm going to learn what machines to do for me and my goals and my strengths and what I want. Perfect. And then we're going to show you strength and how to get strong blah, blah, blah, blah, or weight loss that it at that. Right. And I'm kind of giving them the option, but also really like pitching this thing. So now they're not saying yes to a free session. They're saying yes to learning, they're saying yes to results, they're saying yes to getting closer to their goals based on this. So just again, how I would try to address phone calls. Like I said, I haven't made a ton of calls in my life, but I do make calls now, whereas if somebody calls and they're asking about the gym, I call them back. And I do something very similar to this. I go, hey, blah, blah, I know you were calling. And all they do is they go, oh, yeah, I just wanted to get more information on your gym right there. So now my job is to convince them that this is the right gym for them. So I start a process similar to this. I ask them about their goals, what they've done before, which leads me to point number two. Okay. Two more things I wanted to kind of discuss with you in this situation, your finest. So that first whole first part was just about kind of showing you how you could start to change your phone calls since you're making phone calls. Since a lot of trainers are going to make phone calls, even though I'm not a fan of the phone call. You can still make the phone call better and more effective for you. And of course, it shouldn't have to be said, but I'll say it before we stop the phone call. Talk. Remember that you have to offer them to come in. You have to try to schedule them to come in. Okay. I know you guys heard my example. I said, and you hopefully you just copy some of my pitch because I didn't actually explain what I was doing. But what I did is I assumed that they were coming to the gym. I didn't ask them, I assumed you're coming in tomorrow. What day do you come in? Boom, what time do you come in? Okay. What time do you come in? Are you here tomorrow? If they would have said no, I would have said, oh, what's your next workout day Friday? Okay. Cool. I'll be here Friday. Why don't we do it that way? I'm going to do it that way. call with you guys and I'm saying, oh, you know, this is what I'm offering you. What you'll notice is I stop and ask questions every once in a while because I Don't know which direction to go right so when I'm talking to them and I say hey, I have a Benefits package let's say Notice how I have to stop and go would you say you're more of a beginner or somebody who has some experience in the gym? Before I make my offer why? Because I don't want to make a mistake. That's the power of stopping and asking questions right when I'm on the phone I don't know who I'm talking to so I have to I have to ask I have to get information because if I go Oh, I'm gonna give you an intro to strength training and you know an intro to nutrition that person might go Oh, man I've been lifting for like five years and really what I'm doing is I'm just trying to get better at my overhead squats right now and You know get like 10 more pounds of muscle So to them that that doesn't matter But if I go would you say you were a beginner more advanced and that person goes oh I would say I'm pretty advanced right now. You know, I've I've already I've been lifting for a while dude So I don't know you know, I don't really think I really need a personal trainer You can now go oh no, no, that's perfect. That's perfect at your advance because we actually have this benefit package specifically for people that have been working out for five 10 20 years You see what I did there you guys I don't let them off the hook But the only way I can do that is to know when to ask questions and what questions to ask Before I make my pitch I stop and I go and might I have two pitches maybe three which one do I say Right and the reverse could happen if I go hey we have this blah blah blah blah blah It's a one hour boot camp completely free and that you're you're on the phone with a seven-year-old Person who just had hip surgery. They're gonna go oh no, no, thanks That's too advanced for me But if I would have stopped and I would have asked and I said hey, you know, would you say you're a more beginner? That person may have left and go oh my gosh. I'm more than a beginner Honey, I'm 70 years old. I just had a hip surgery. I have no business working with a personal trainer right now oh my gosh actually we have a senior rehabilitation program completely free as an intro for people just like you You guys come on I can sell anything if I ask questions if I ask questions if I ask them at the right time so Tip number two if you're starting to meet people. I know this sounds kind of random But you need to learn to ask questions because when you're meeting people on the phone or when you're meeting people in the gym Your natural instinct needs to become asking questions right so I'll give you an example Let's say I'm meeting somebody they go downstairs somebody just signed up and I always say downstairs because the first gym I ever worked at at two three levels But let's say you're working out Manager calls you hey Sam To the office done Okay, I walk in hey, this is this is Jane she just signed up for personal training We wanted to set you up okay great Jane, you know, questions here that here it comes. Oh my gosh. How long have you been working out? Good. Oh, it's so great to meet you Do you have any injuries? Do you have any specific goals you want to work on? Oh, yeah, you know, I hurt my back Okay, great how long has it been since your back started hurting good? Okay Interesting and what did your doctor recommend about your bad data and I'm asking questions Well, huh, okay, and and have you been working out before is this the your first gym membership? Have you had gym members before? Dada-dada. Oh, yeah, okay. Okay. I'm just asking getting information You know what people really feel like they're bonding with you with you when you're doing that and then guess what I go Okay, great. Well, let's let's meet and we're gonna ask some more questions We're gonna take you through a workout But why did I ask those questions because I want that person to be excited about the the Answers that I'm gonna provide for them. So how can you help me? I'm gonna ask you this question, right How can you help me if you're gonna be my coach? How could you help me if you know nothing about me How can you help me if you don't know my goal? Why my goal is important? How long have I working on my goal? You know why have I succeeded or failed in the past? Do I know what I'm doing or not? Do you know if I have good form or not? Do you know if maybe I'm I've been a personal trainer in the past was I an athlete in the past there's so much information You don't know so getting into the habit of getting to know people Let's you actually be a better coach But the other benefit of it is people become curious people become curious about why you're asking those questions and what What solutions you may have to my problem. So number two, I would say learn to ask questions Study sales. Okay, begin to study sales. So for the person that sent this question in and for anybody listening I've said this over and over again throughout the couple years that this podcast has been around Learn to read and listen to sales books because They're gonna teach you a lot of these things more in depth, right? They're gonna teach you Um that there is a way to do this and you want to start getting prepared early, right? Because what happens is this is what I did right I tried it my own way with my own skills thinking that just being fit and having fun was enough and taking people through hard workouts I thought that was enough until I realized months had gone by and I still was going nowhere Then I took people's advice started studying and went oh man if I would have done this from the beginning all of this would have been different So I'm trying to do that with you if you study the selling aspect the personal aspect of this business then Every moment is a sale Right, so right now I guess what I'm saying by saying like ask more questions and and study sales what I'm really trying to get you to understand Is that from the moment you're calling someone from the moment you're approaching someone at the gym You are already selling so you need to understand the sales process and the sales process has to do a lot with questions and the questions that you ask Questions lead to conversations about more important things and those deeper conversations lead to the desire to get Re- um What am I saying solutions to those things And you as a coach you have solutions to their problems But you need to figure out what those problems are it's not as simple as I need to lose weight So I need a trainer to kick my ass to lose weight. It's not that simple. There's a lot of other factors going on So I'm just giving you that advice to think about it like that right right now You cannot convert people on the phone you cannot convert people at six in the morning You cannot convert people at six p.m Not because of the time of day Not because people are not interested not because phone calls are hard It's because we don't know what to say We don't know what questions to ask we don't have yet the confidence right we haven't figured certain things out so Learning to ask good questions is very important and I think that ties with the previous point when I said hey start writing things down It's like what are they going to say what are they going to think there's a predictability there? So when you're coming up with these pitches to talk to potential customers You have to make sure that when you look it over it's like okay, where did I ask questions here? And if you don't have questions in there then you need to go back and make sure there are some questions in that pitch Because without questions you're going to not know what direction to go and just like I was giving you an example Right when I ask a question I know what pitch right if I ask are you a beginner advanced? What would you say blah blah blah or do you have any injuries whatever question I want to ask If that person says I'm 70 had a surgery Oh, that's great because we have a benefit intro plan especially for people over 70 that are recovering from it surgery Oh, no, I'm a beginner, but I just need to lose some weight. Oh perfect We have a perfect plan for you for beginners that are losing weight. Oh, I'm pretty advanced I'm really trying to get my lifts up by like 50 pounds each blah Oh, that's perfect because I have a plan right because I asked a question I can just shift right even if I don't have something for that person I can just redirect and go oh perfect because we do have an option for that And this is the option right and I'm just winging it because and it's not a lie because I as a coach I know I could train the 70-year-old lady I know I could train the beginner and I know I could train the advanced person Why this is important and the question is for them to feel like I have the solution for them If I just say well, I'm a trainer I can train with anybody. They're not going to trust you But if you go oh, you're 70 you just had it. I have a plan specifically for you They're going to believe that a lot more even though I know that I can work with all of them I need to figure out how to get them to believe that I know how to work with them So asking that question at the right time was super important to redirect my conversation The last thing I'll say and this is again a sales strategy super important for you to do You need to track how many people you're talking to okay? This is a funnel I also made an episode if you look for one with a with the title funnel somewhere in there I don't know exactly what it's called But sales funnel or something like that or prospecting funnel Something to do with a funnel okay, and I explained this in a deeper detail But this is super important for you to understand right now that you're making phone calls or whatever Track as much information as possible. What do I mean by that? You need to come up with a chart that tracks at what time of day you made calls How many calls you made? How long it took you to make that many calls What was your longest call How many people said no how many people said maybe how many people said yes? Right, I know it sounds tedious and it's not as complicated as it sounds But one of the most important things any new trainer can do When you're prospecting in person or on the phone this applies to both Keep track of your stats okay This is going to help a couple of things number one It's going to show you where things fall apart and it's going to show you what you need to do more of Right you could even chart you know men versus women that you talk to things like that right This can be as nerdy and as complicated as you make it in the more More complicated you make it the more it's gonna benefit you, but you can also do a rough draft like bare bones one in the beginning. But what I need you to understand is you're trying to track data on yourself. How good are you on the phone? How good are you on the floor talking to people? How long does it take me to talk to 10 people? Because the issue may not be that you don't know what to say, it may not be that the people you're talking to are no good. The issue may be as you're taking too long or you keep going after the wrong demographic. So over time, if you guys do this right now immediately, starting today, start to track what is happening. When did I start prospecting? How many people did I meet today? Baba, ba, ba, ba. What you might realize is by the end of the week, you talked to two people. And I'll tell you this just as a general number that is known in sales, you always have to think about one in 10. Now, if you're not very good, it might be one in 21 in 30. But you're trying to think of your statistics, right? So what you need to understand is how many people, this is very bare bones. How many people do I call before somebody agrees to come into a session? You need to figure out that number. You're not going to figure it out right away. You have to do it over and over again to finally get a real number. Because somebody might say yes on your first call, but then you might make 30 calls where somebody says no before somebody says yes, right? So if you go, oh, one out of one or one out of two said yes, that's not a real number. You have to keep going until you get the next yes to see how much gap there was between and do it over and over again to start to figure out how many calls usually? Because the world is very numerical like this. And this is a conversation for another day, like over some coffee or a beer or something, right? But things are very numerical, okay? And I can't explain that any deeper right now, but you know, and I'm not talking about some weird like meta stuff. I'm just saying in general, how about this? Read 80, 20 principle, because I'm not talking about anything weird. I'm just talking about percentages, right? The world just inevitably has percentages, right? The likelihood that the earth will get hit by a meter. There's a number for that. The likelihood that there'll be an earthquake today somewhere in the world. There's a stat for that, right? The likelihood that Steph Curry's going to make a three-point shot. The likelihood that somebody's going to commit a foul in the first 30 seconds of a game. There's a stat for that. There's stats for everything. With likelihood, you're going to get hit by lightning. So you have to figure out what your stats are for people showing up and signing up for training. This is-- because nobody's out there studying this for you, so you have to create this own database for yourself to understand what happens to you in your gym life, in your career. How many phone calls do I have to make before somebody's interested? How many people that say yes actually show up? Of the people that show up, how many people say yes? What is the demographic of the people that are starting to say yes to me? And you can let data. Why? Because this is going to make you sharper over time. It's going to make you more efficient. If you over time realize, well, only men say yes to me, or only women, or like 90% of people I call, the women say yes to men say no. To save time, you should stop calling the men and just call the women to make every call worth more. Right? You see how the stat is now helping you. If you're calling, calling, calling, and people say yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, but nobody's showing up, well, now there's something you need to fix. You need to fix the follow up. You need to fix getting them from saying yes when you call them versus saying yes to showing up. And again, right, this is a process. Let's say your phone calls are great. People show up. But once they train with you, nobody signs up. Now you can go in there and go, my gap in my funnel, right? Because what the funnel represents is going from a bunch of people knowing about you to the one person that actually signs up. It's like a whole process, right? The funnel resembles a process. So you need to figure out a process for you and see all the steps in the process. So process number one, I make phone calls. I got to track how many I make. What time of day I make them? What you might realize that most people don't answer the phone when you call them at a certain time. So now you can go tomorrow, I got to make sure I call them from this time. I can't miss because that's when people pick up the phone. They never pick it up when I call this at this time, right? How would you know that if you don't have stats? So you may keep calling at lunch time and nobody picks up. And if you would have tracked all your different calls, you might go, actually people pick up at 10, but they don't pick up at 12 or whatever the number is, right? Or women answer, but men don't or men answer, but women don't. Or the beginners always say, yes, but the advanced people always say, no, right? All this information is going to help you fine tune it, but you have to see it step by step. Right? First I have to meet someone, then I have to talk to someone, then I have to invite them to come in and get an agreement. Then they have to show up. Then I have to take them through the service. Then I have to pitch them the service. And then they have to make a payment for the service. And then once I get that, I still have to service them, get them the results, show them that there's a benefit and get them to continue being my customer down the road. So going from meeting them to becoming a lifetime customer is an entire process. And you can, you know, you could keep track of that as much as you would like. And the more you do it, I'm not the greatest at it, but the more you do that, the more you have information that you can like fall back on or you can sharpen. Right? So that's how I do things in my systems is I go, okay, is the problem that we're not getting leads or is the problem that the leads are not making consultations or is the problem that they're setting consultations, but they're not actually showing up and confirming the consultation. Or is the problem that people are going to the website, booking the consultation, coming in, meeting with my trainer, my trainer is not selling the package. Or yes, they go to the website, they set a consultation, they show up, they meet my trainer, they like my trainer, they sign up with my trainer, and then they never continue past three months. You see how I can observe the trajectory of this person to see, do I need to get more people to know about me? Do I get to, do I need to get more people to be excited about my offer? Do I need to get more people to actually just sign up with me and I don't, I just don't know how to pitch it? Or, you know, wherever, right? Or am I just getting clients for three weeks and then everybody quits, then it's my training or my personality or something's going on, right? So again, learning to track everything is going to make you more certain and better and help you get better, but also it creates certainty because if you know that one in every 15 calls says yes, then now you know, okay, if I need three clients, I just need to make three times that many calls, right, or we'll keep the number simple, right? If you know that one in every 10 people you call signs up, then you know that I need to make 30 calls to get three leads. And if I know that out of every three people that come in, one person signs up with me 'cause I've tracked it and that's about my average, right? I just need to meet three people to get one say yes. If I know that, then I know to get one client I need to make 30 calls. So if I need two, I need to make 60 calls, right? Three, I need to make 90 calls because I know my statistics, I know my likelihood of conversion and, right, and I'm giving you a pretty good number, but if I know that one in 10, then I can just up the amount of people that I talk to, right? And that's always a good thing, right? You should always be talking to as many people as possible to increase your chances of success, but you should also be increasing your skill level and your process and the functionality of that system, right? Streamlining that system so that you get more bang for your buck, right? This is ultimately what you wanna work towards, where you are and what you wanna work towards. I'll give you an example and then I'll stop after this. Where you are right now is that you're probably having to call 30 people for one person to come in. If you, the goal now is you wanna be more efficient over time, you want to improve your skills, not the workload. Let's say the workload is I can only make 30 calls every day. Okay, I would say try to increase that, but what you want is when you make 30 calls for five of them to come in, not two. You might start with one, but as you get better, as you practice the things we talked about today, as you study sales, as you get experience, as you track your numbers, as you do all of this in conjunction, that number over time should improve. Now you only need to make 20 calls to get one. Then it'll go down to 15 calls. And now there is a limit because nobody has 100% batting average, right? Nobody gets a yes every single time, but you want to always try to get better and shorten the distance between the amount of work you put in to the result that you get, right? And the same thing for prospecting in the gym, how many people do you talk to in the gym? Or you can also track how many people you actually do your training session with. That's one number that I tracked a lot, right? How many people do I pitch my training to versus how many people actually sign up, right? So I realized, okay, one in every, you know, I have to train five people to get one customer, right? But then I got it down to four and now whatever. And now the current system at the gym, I feel like it's almost like 50%. I would say maybe at my gym, one out of every two people sign up. It might be even higher, but I'm just gonna say like one is in every two, one in every three, whatever, right? Like, again, like I said, I'm not the best at tracking, but what I know is most of the people, if they show up, they're signing up. You know, that's just, but we've worked these questions, we've worked these systems, we've worked these pitches, you know, we try to hire better people, we try to make the website sell the idea already to make the idea of signing up easier, right? It begins from the moment that they go to our website or the moment they find out about us or Google us or whatever, we have to track it from beginning to end to make sure that we're getting them from, oh, out of all the gyms I can go to, I wanna go to this one, out of all the days I wanna come in, I wanna come this day, out of all the trainers I could work with, I wanna work with this one, out of all the packages I could pick, I wanna pick this one, you know, getting people down that road. Now it sounds easy when I say it, but, you know, it's a lifelong process of getting better and better at your systems and streamlining everything down to a sale and a continued sale over time. All right, I gotta get off of here. Thank you guys for tuning in. Like I said, we got the mini course out, that's gonna stay up, so there's no rush on that end, but the longer you take, the longer, you know what I mean? Like there might be a question that you could have learned from that course, that if you asked your consultation tomorrow, that person might realize how much they need your training, right? So the longer you delay investing in these things, you know, and not just my course, books, anything, the longer you delay getting the information, you're gonna miss the opportunities from here until you make the decision. So I would say, get it now, if you're interested in bettering your questions, right? Maybe you already feel comfortable with the process, but if you're struggling with what to ask people when you meet them, right, I don't even know what to say. If you're in this place where you're like, I'm meeting people and I just ask them about their goals and a little bit about their nutrition, maybe injuries, and then we start working out, right? If you're a process of conversation and a consultation, you meet someone, if that is under five minutes, you should be looking into getting this mini course because that conversation for it to be effective, it should be a little bit longer, it should be deeper, you should be getting into more important conversations about why they want this goal, why they haven't achieved it, what's getting in the way, what it would take, what it would look like if they achieved this goal, what it would look like if they started training, all of these things, that's what I'm addressing in these questions. These are 10 powerful questions that I use personally when I meet with someone, further consultation when they meet me for the first time. I use these questions to get them to understand how important it is that they start training with me or with my team. So if that's of interest to you, pick up that mini course, it'll be linked on the episode, but you can also just go to personalhustle.com and get it there. The only reason why I am mentioning this right now is because, like I said earlier, for anybody that purchases before the end of the year, I'm gonna reach out with the opportunity for us to link up via Zoom one-on-one and have a 30 minute conversation. I can answer your questions, hear about your story, and just spend some time getting to know you guys. And also get some feedback on the course as well. That would be awesome to talk about, what you gained from it and things like that. So it'll all be fun and good. I'll be reaching out for the new year. So look out for that. For those of you guys that purchased the course, I'm sending you a link. So just give it a couple hours to get it. So don't freak out when you get it. If nothing happens, if you made the payment, then you're going to be getting a link soon enough and that gives you access to the mini course for the 10 most powerful questions that I personally ask during a consultation. So you can have access to that as well. All right, until next time, until next episode, I'll talk to you guys soon. Bye. (upbeat music)