Lift The Bar

A great exercise that a lot of my LTB Essentials members have done is to answer the questions below.  The information you gather for this can be referred to when you are creating adverts, reviewing your messaging, troubleshooting any marketing issues and as a filter and / or inspiration for content ideas which speeds up the process and avoids writer’s block.   

I have tried to provide a variety of different examples but they aren’t exclusive to the service I have used them on.  Use them as inspiration and amend to suit your business.  If you have more than one service offering then it may just be a case of answering the service based questions for each one or you may benefit from creating a new document for each service depending on how different the people who use each service are and / or how different the results are. 

Wherever possible use the language that is appropriate to your target audience.  The extra effort at this stage will make them quicker to use in future. 

1. Identify the logistical benefits 

This is one of the easiest places to start as it tends to be factual.  What are those things that are good about your location / method of providing your service.  Things like parking, ease of access, private space, comfort of own home, flexibility to train in different places / at different times etc.   

Examples: 

Commercial Gym: Easy to access, parking available, loads of great kit, other services that support the progress from sessions. 

Mobile: exercise in the comfort and privacy of your own home, no travel time,  

Online: Information available whenever you need it, train any time and any place 

2. Identify the service based benefits 

These are both the features of what you offer and those things that are about you and your approach.  

Semi-private: Shared experience, individualised coaching, benefits of PT with a lower cost means you can have more coached sessions for the same price, flexibility in choice of sessions, support to get the results you want, fun sessions. 

Private Facility: No need to wait for kit, get the most out of your sessions, know you are doing things right / in the most effective / appropriate way.  Support of an expert in xxxx  

Hybrid: combine the flexibility of online coaching with the feedback and other benefits of in person services. 

Online: Individual programming, feedback on lifts, nutrition support including recipes, feedback, a source of trustworthy information, solutions based on your situation and preferences. 

3. Benefits identified by current clients. 

What are those things your clients have mentioned about how working with you is impacting them outside of the sessions.  Those things they mention in sessions or check ins e.g. “I was out at the weekend and realised I didn’t get tired like I used to”, “I was playing with my kids / grandchildren on the floor and got up without any issues”, “I put on a dress / shirt I haven’t been able to wear for years”, “I feel like I have more energy / sleep better etc” 

A good way to capture this is to have review times every day / multiple times a week where you think through what’s come up in conversation etc because otherwise we tend to respond appropriately then move on and forget about these gems.   

You can also ask clients to answer some questions for you from time to time and if you are doing that then include a question about how working with you has impacted life outside of the gym.   

4. What were current clients looking for before they started? 

This helps you identify the gap between their priorities and the things they love now vs what they thought they wanted when they started so you have the information needed to attract more of the people they were before you influenced them to loving what you do.    

Again, capturing this information at the point people start with you will help massively.  You can also look back over previous applications / conversations you’ve had with people who are already with you or ask clients who’ve been with you a while to answer the question for you as part of a short questionnaire. 

Pulling It All Together

You now have everything you need to sell what you do to your potential clients. 

Your marketing materials will be a combination of the answers from the above exercises.  Sometimes you might want to focus on one element, other times it may be a combination but your posts and other marketing materials should each highlight at least one of the benefits or results you've identifed.

Other Useful Tools 

Reactivation 

Have a reactivation process, reaching out to people who worked with you previously but have stopped.  A how are you / general enquiry or follow up on something you know was going to happen after they left you (e.g. holiday) is great.  Because they associate you with health and fitness some people will automatically come back to you about training even though you didn’t ask anything.  If they come back to you but don’t mention it then, where appropriate, you can ask how they are getting on with their health and fitness, personalising where you can based on your knowledge of what is important to them or what they were planning to do when they left your service. 

You can do this as a project when you need clients or as a rolling exercise with a few people a day / week (depending on numbers involved) and cycle through everyone roughly once a quarter. 

Social Media Interaction 

Be social on your social media channels, reach out to people who have interacted with you.  Say thank you, ask if they have any questions, see if you can be helpful to them.   

Referrals 

Asking your clients, social media followers, friends and family if they know anyone who might be interested in your service is a simple, easy way to get more clients.  You can create referral systems and offer incentive (and if you have a facility or work with a lot of clients then that is probably the best way to go) but sometimes it’s better to get on and ask people than to put extra jobs in the way of moving forwards.   

Asking people in person is the most powerful way of doing this but don’t just stop after asking once.  Follow up with people “did you think of anyone who would be interested?” / “did you get chance to speak to Chris about if he’s interested”, “is there anything that I can provide to help you convince them?”, “if you’d like to bring them along to a session so they can experience it we could do that”…..  You’ll need to judge when to let it go but most of us stop way too early, after only one request, and you can definitely do a few more than that!  

There are lots of marketing related resources available on the site starting with the marketing checklists. 

If you are new to LTB check out the free trial now.