If there was one thing, and one thing only that you could do to build your business, what is it?
There’s a really great book that I recommend everyone reads by Gary Keller, called 'The One Thing'. The premise is this; there is one thing that you can and should be doing, in whatever area of your life, that will have the single greatest effect on results. This one thing will be exponentially more useful than an entire collection of other, less effective things.
It applies in business, in training, in relationships, in learning. In any area that you can think of, this rule will be applicable.
For example: what is the 'one thing' that your client needs to do to see results? If they want to lose weight, the one thing is probably something to do with their diet. Perhaps it is to write down everything that they eat. This one small thing, all on its own, will:
All in all, this one - extremely basic - thing will have a greater effect on their outcomes than any other thing.
For example: what is the 'one thing' that your client needs to do to see results? If they want to lose weight, the one thing is probably something to do with their diet. Perhaps it is to write down everything that they eat. This one small thing, all on its own, will:
- make them more aware of what they consume
- make them think twice before eating
- show exactly why they are or are not making progress at any one time.
All in all, this one - extremely basic - thing will have a greater effect on their outcomes than any other thing.
What is The 'One Thing' That Will Rapidly Build Your PT Business?
So to your PT business. What is the one thing that you could do…scratch that…must do to grow your business, build your income, help more people and reach the level of success you desire?
| It might seem like there’s a million things to do. Indeed that tends to happen more frequently than ever. All of these new social media channels and different people telling you different things. There’s a trillion things you need to do! Fact is, almost all of this is just noise. Some of it is useful, some of it is worthless. Either way; there is one thing that is your biggest sticking point right now. One thing that when corrected will bring exponential results. One thing that you must make your immediate focus. Everything else can wait. Fix your one thing and you will have all the time and money in the world to worry about all of the other stuff. |  |
The 6 Most Common Fitness Marketing Sticking Points
If you don’t have as many clients and as much income as you desire, it is because of one or more of these problems. I’ve listed them in order. Each is only relevant if the proceeding steps are taking care of. Thus, the one thing you must focus on is the first problem that you identify in your business.
- Not getting traffic
If you are not getting your message in front of people. No eyes on your website, emails, social media, etc.. Nobody is going to be buying your services. Simply, because they do not know you exist. You can be the best trainer in the world. Have the best sales process in the world and packages your clients desire. It isn’t going to help you in the slightest if nobody is seeing it.
You have three solutions to this problem; and I suggest you use some combination of at least 2 of them to get your business moving in the right direction. It might be that the subsequently following things are also a problem for you. Until you are getting eyes on your material, you simply do not know.
Three solutions – paid and fast, paid and slow, and free. They all have their positives and negatives.
Paid and Fast
Advertising. If you have the money, advertising is the quickest way to put eyes on your material. Advertising is an essential lead generating activity for many businesses. However, if you do not know the effectiveness of the following 5 things, it is a big risk. You could spend a lot of money obtaining traffic that doesn’t convert.
Paid and Slow
SEO & content. The tortoise wins the race. SEO and content based marketing is the best long term traffic source. First of all, the costs are mostly up-front. Everything that you do is building upon the foundation of everything you’ve done previously. Unlike advertising where every campaign is essentially starting from nothing. Every piece of content and every SEO improvement will increase the total effectiveness of your website and all previous efforts.
The down sides are that SEO is a medium to long game. It doesn’t bring leads in this week or even this month. However it is essential for the long term, because it will work out significantly more cost effective than advertising and require significantly less time and effort than the free strategies. (We can do SEO for you)
Free
Social media, email and in person hustle. This is very time and energy intensive, but it is also very effective. If you have a lot of time and little money, you can quickly generate traffic and ultimately income with some hustle. The problem is, it’s time consuming and tiring. You will burn yourself out trying to do it long term. That is ok, it is a short term strategy to get the wheels rolling. (Read Convert Group training classes to PT clients if your a Fitness Marketing Lab member) - Not getting leads
If your material is getting looked at, but it’s not generating you leads there are a few potential problems. First is selecting the right target market or niche, having a way of capturing their details for repeat marketing via lead magnet opt-ins and an email list.
Identify your target market/niche – If you’re a jack of all trades you tend to get lost in a sea of other Personal Trainers. Stand out by having a specific specialisation that attracts the perfect client for you. When you know who they are, your communication should effectively be targeting in their own language and you need to be generating the right sort of traffic. In other words, your perfect clients.
(Read How to Choose A Niche For Personal Trainers if you're a Fitness Marketing Lab member)
Capturing contact details with lead magnets – If you dangle an offer in front a potential client, without first collecting their details, it is essentially a one-time only, now or never offer. You will almost certainly never see them again. If you capture their contact details first you can market to them over and over again. A full 85% of the people who will do business with you, will not do so in the first 30 days. Don’t want to cut your potential client’s down to only 15% ready to buy right now?
Have an opt-in lead magnet to capture their details. This something of value to your potential client, such as a video series, e-book or cheat sheet that they will exchange their contact details to access.
(Read How to Create Your First Lead Magnet if you're a Fitness Marketing Lab member)
Communicate with your email list & social media followers – When you have their contact details, you simply need to keep in touch with them regularly, and present different offers. Send them valuable content, blogs, videos, emails. Mix in proof of your expertise such as client stories and testimonials and offers for them to work with you in various different forms.
You will capture the 85% who are not ready right now but will do business with you at some point. (Read How to Turn Your Facebook Likes in to Leads ; Get Your First 500 Email Subscribers) - Not getting consults/sales calls
If you’re communicating with leads via email list, adverts, social media, and it is not leading to consultations or sales calls there is possibly a problem with your targeting (see above). If your targeting is on point, there is a problem with your offers.
You need to make offers that first of all resonate with your perfect client. The offer needs to present the solution to a big problem in their life. They need to believe that this is the best solution to this problem. They will only be happy to pay for it if they think it is the right thing for them.
Once you know the offer is right for the client (hint: asking them is the easiest way to find out what they want), simply present it in a compelling way and ensure you have specific and simple steps for them to follow to take action. Having them fill in a form and contacting them back is usually best, people will procrastinate on calling or emailing you.
(Read How to Write Offers That Sell) - Not making sales
This is not quite as obvious as you would first think. If people are coming and having consultations/sales conversations and not converting to clients it MIGHT be because there is a problem with your sales process. However, it might also be either that your targeting and/or offer is not right and this person was simply never going to buy.
The product/service needs to match up with the client’s wants and needs. The client also needs to actually have the money to pay for it. Qualify your client’s a little before they get to this point, to ensure that you have the right offer for them.
Assuming that the targeting and offer ARE CORRECT for this client, then the actual sales process needs to be addressed. We break our sales training down in to 4 stages: your selling mindset, pre-selling & getting them in to the consultation, the core of the conversation and closing the sale.
Your own mindset will sabotage you every single time, even with the best sales process in the world, if that is your sticking point. If your mindset is correct, the actual sales process is pretty easy to learn with a little bit of practice. - Not retaining clients
If you’re not retaining your clients it’s going to be one of two things. Either they are just not getting on with you, or seeing the results they desire. Or, more likely, they are not fully committed in the first place.
Why are they not fully committed?
Probably because the targeting or offer is not quite right for them in the first place. Perhaps – even - they are just not in the right head space and there is little you can do. Almost always, I would bet it is that your client selection wasn’t right and they were not your perfect client. See, when you can select your perfect clients to work with, they get better results and will stay with you longer.
No matter how good you are, you’re not right for everybody and some people will just not gel with you or your service, for whatever reason. This is totally fine, when you have everything else in place, you will easily find new clients who are your perfect client. - Busy but not making enough money
This is not actually a bad place to be. If you are too busy, it means you are successfully generating leads and turning them in to clients. You are doing basically everything right. Now you just need to convert this in to more money and possibly more free time too, depending on the kind of business you wish to have.
Two things you can do here. First of all is just to increase your prices on existing offers. This will mean more money coming in to the business.
The better option is to offer more valuable packages. Packages loaded with additional things of value to the client (aside from your time) that organically increase the value of the package. Sell packages based on results rather than time and you will be able to charge more for the package. Especially if they have defined lengths and guaranteed results.
(Read Designing Packages for Personal Trainers)
What's Your Business 'One Thing'?
Identify where you need to make changes and make that the single focus of your available time outside of servicing clients.
Gary Keller, in the book ‘The One Thing’ recommends blocking out the first 4 hours of your day. Every day. Dedicate this 4 hours to doing your one thing and it will very quickly come to fruition. At this point your one thing will shift and you should focus on that thing instead.
Even if you can’t spare 4 hours, you can definitely find one hour. How much progress could you make in an hour, every single day. With intense focus, no distractions and persistent effort towards your goal? A lot, is the answer. You can rapidly build your business by focusing on the one thing that is most important for you right now.
Gary Keller, in the book ‘The One Thing’ recommends blocking out the first 4 hours of your day. Every day. Dedicate this 4 hours to doing your one thing and it will very quickly come to fruition. At this point your one thing will shift and you should focus on that thing instead.
Even if you can’t spare 4 hours, you can definitely find one hour. How much progress could you make in an hour, every single day. With intense focus, no distractions and persistent effort towards your goal? A lot, is the answer. You can rapidly build your business by focusing on the one thing that is most important for you right now.
