Ep25: How To Convert New Gym Members Into Clients

What's going on, everyone? Matt here for another epic episode. This is the PT Profit, Leverage and lifestyle show. Hope everyone's having an amazing week so far and I hope you enjoyed last week's guest, Habby. She's been, she was actually one of my first ever clients that I mentored. Going from zero, completely zero, to fully booked, which is awesome. So, so if you haven't checked that one out yet, just make sure you go back and listen to that one. But in today's episode, just me. Today we're going to go through how to actually convert new gym members into clients. So I'm going to go through the exact script that I use to get about 30 to 40% pickup rate and to therefore have a 90% conversion rate into consultations and then into clients as well. So firstly, let me just explain who this is, who this training is really for. It's the face to face trainers in a rental based facility. So I'm talking Anytime Fitness, jets plus Fitness, Good Life Fitness Cartel, all, you know, the big box gyms that get regular new members joining the gym. So for those who have been in the industry for a little while, this is your bread and butter in terms of, you know, the leads as such. Because, you know, when they, when people first join the gym, they're usually quite motivated. They're, you know, usually pretty pumped to, you know, get started in the gym. So a lot of the time they're more open to working with the trainer because, you know, they might be brand new to the whole gym environment or they might be extra motivated to achieve their goals. So usually new gym member leads are not so much easy to convert, but they're easier than other leads to convert. So let's go through the specific script and what I might do, I might get it up on my screen if you, if you actually don't know, Zoom has actually just changed their layout. So I'm actually just trying to figure out how to share my screen. Okay, here we go. So I'm going to go into my scripts tab in my school community now. There's 1, 2, 3, there's about six or seven different types of scripts that I use, but I'm only going to go through the new member script with you guys today. So I'm going to, I'm going to assume we are at a Anytime fitness club because a lot of my clients are from Anytime Fitness. So it's super, super easy. Right? And actually before we get into the script, what you ideally want to do is you want to have like a spreadsheet that you get access to like ideally daily of new members that have joined the gym. So you want to have that set up as a little bonus if you can. If you can get the club managers actually book in those people directly into your calendar with a software called like Calendly or One Tub is another one you can use. That's a bit of a bonus if you can do that. I have got some training on that if you, if you need it. But that's the first thing. If you can get like a spreadsheet where you get access to name, number, when they joined and ideally like date of birth, because if there is someone that's under 18, you do want to make sure you get like a parent or guardian that can be there as well, because otherwise you can't sign them up without someone over 18. But ideally have a spreadsheet where you can get access to the leads almost straight away. Because when people join a gym they're more likely to be open to other things. So you want to try and get onto those ones asap. But this is the script you want to use and I'll go through the times to call people as well in a second. So it's. I'll do, I'll do a role play in a second. So, hey, name? It's Aaron from Anytime Fitness xyz. Whatever gym you're at, how are you? They're going to say, yep, yeah, I'm good, blah, blah, blah, and you can say, awesome. The reason for the quick call is I believe you recently joined our gym. Is that right? And you obviously know the answer to that, but it's to get them to say yes. Then optional part of the script. How are you finding the gym so far? You don't have to say that part just yet, but if you want to build a bit more rapport, then you can. Then after you ask that question, or if you don't, they're completely fine, you're perfect. As part of your membership, you're entitled to a free health assessment and strategy session to further assist in your health and fitness. So I'm just calling to book that in for you now, would you? Or do you prefer during the day or the evening? So you're just giving them an option. Do you want this option or do you want this option? That's it. So subconsciously, when you give people just two options, they're more than likely just going to choose an option rather than saying do you want it or do you not want it? So what a lot of pts do they like, you know, they might say, hey, I'm just going to put you in for a free consult. Is that something you'd be interested in? And 90% of the time people are going to say, nah, I'm good, I'm gonna try it on my own. But if you ask it this way, you're actually forcing them to make a decision and they just pick one. The other thing a lot of PTs do is people think it's an additional thing that's on top of their membership. So if you just say, look, as part of your membership, as in it's included in your membership, you receive, or you're entitled to free health assessment. I call it a health assessment, to be honest. You can call it a discovery call, you can call it a consult, you can call it a free PT session if you want. Like, for example, the health assessments that I do and the ones that I get my clients to do, a lot of the time there's no physical activity involved, so they can just do it over the phone. Doesn't have to be in the gym, you can sell them over the phone. It enables you to scale a bit more as well, but. But like, if you want to do it in the gym, that's also fine. So once you ask, do you prefer the day or the evening, they're going to tell you the day of the evening. And then you say, sweet, I've got this time or this time, what's best for you. So same thing again. You want this or that, not this, this, this, this, this, it's this or that. Just give them two options, make it simple for them to understand, simple for them to book in. And once you get that, you get the confirmation, then you go to Calendly. Or you can use One Hub as well. So I use Calendly personally. We've got a couple of questions that we asked to pre qualify some people and I'll tell you what to say if you don't want to actually see them because they're, you know, you don't vibe or whatever. So you ask. Cool. So just so I can prepare for the health assessment, I just got a couple of questions for you. Firstly, what are your goals? Cool. Blah, blah, blah. So if that's someone, like, for me, like if someone wants to a powerlifting competition, I don't, I don't do that. So kind of pointless for them to book in with me. Or if you only want to work with females, I'm sorry, if you only want to work with people who want to build muscle and they want to don't have any intention of doing any strength training, there's no point hooking in with you. So I usually ask, what are the goals? What's some things that they're struggling with at the moment to achieve their goals and what I think they need help with is usually the three things that I ask. If you're not happy with their answers, I would say, look, based on your answers, I don't think you'd actually get any value from the health assessment, so I'll probably just leave it for now. But if things do change, you do need some assistance in the future, then, yeah, feel free to reach out or, or yeah, we can touch base in a couple of months once you've tried a few things on your own. Because remember, a lot of the time these things go for 45 minutes to an hour, so you don't want to waste that much time if it's not going to be the right fit for you. So I always ask those questions after I've got the commitment for the appointment and there's no harm in saying, hey, look, based on what you've told me, I don't think it's actually going to be a value for you, it's probably just going to be a waste of your time. So yeah, if things change and you do think you need some assistance, then yeah, we'll, we'll get it booked in at another stage and that's it. I've had to do that a few times and like you don't, you don't necessarily have to ask those questions but like, if you just want to smash out consultations and you're just happy to get experience and stuff like that, then go for gold. But when you get a bit more experience and you don't want to waste as much time, you do want to ask those pre qualification questions. So that script there, depending on the time that you call, should get between 30 to 40% pickup rate. I speak to a lot of trainers that are getting like 10% of people picking up the phone or even less than that. It's because they're calling at the wrong times. So what time should you actually be calling? In my experience the best times to call is Saturday between 11am and 1pm the second best is Sunday, 3pm to 5pm the reason being, obviously people aren't working on the weekends. That's when they're usually just, you know, scroll scrolling on their phone or they're not at work, so they're not, they're not super busy. And then if you have to call during the week, which is also fine after work time. So usually between 5 and 7pm is usually when I would call. Personally, I found Saturdays to be the absolute best by mile. And, and, and just on that as well. Like, I had this experience on the weekend. I had like the first five people not answer and I was starting to be like, oh, Jesus, starting to have negative thoughts. But then the next three people answered. So it always works out, as always, law of averages. So don't just call five people and be like, oh, it doesn't work. Sit down for an hour straight, call up 20 to collect 30 to 40 people and you'll, you'll find you at 30 to 40% of people picking up. With this script, you should have 90% of people booking in and then it's fully up to you if you want to cancel any appointments because they're not the right fit. Which it just depends on where you're at with your business. Like if you're relatively new or you want more practice, then probably best off booking absolutely everyone in and just to get the experience. But that is essentially the scripts. So let me do a quick role play for you on what it'll essentially look like. And I'm going to be like both people here. I'm gonna be like, hey, John, it's Aaron calling from Anytime Fitness, Breckenridge. How are you? Yeah, I'm good, thank you as well. The reason for the quick call is I believe you recently joined our gym. Is that right? Yeah. Awesome. And how you finding the gym so far, John? Loving it. Awesome. Love to hear it. So I'm not sure if you're aware, but party membership, you're actually entitled to a free health assessment to further assist in your health and fitness. So I'm just calling to book that one in. Would you prefer time during the day or the evening, John? In the morning. Perfect. No worries. I've got. I can do Tuesday or Wednesday at 7:00am which one's best for you? Awesome. We'll do 7:00am Tuesday. And just so I can prepare for the health assessment, John, I've just got a couple of questions for you. What are your goals for this year for your health and fitness? Love it. Sounds good. Sounds good. And so far, what have been some of the challenges that you faced when achieving that goal? Yeah, so bit of structure and a bit of accountability. Yep. Awesome. No worries. So is that the stuff that you think you need help with or is there anything else? Yeah, maybe a bit of form, technique. Awesome. Perfect. Sounds good. Well, we'll Go through that in a bit more detail, John, but apart from that, enjoy the rest of your day and I'll see you on Tuesday. Boom. So the calls should only take, you know, two to three minutes, maybe five max, depending on how much you talk about with, you know, how they're finding the gym so far. And that's as simple as it is. Like, there's slightly different ways you can say, like you would have heard there. I'm not sure if you're aware, but you're actually entitled to. Or party membership. You're actually entitled to a free health assessment. So I change it slightly, but you can literally read that word for word and you'll get a 90% booking rate. And it's also, it's completely fine if people don't want to do it, because if, if you did book them in, it's going to be a complete waste of your time. Not everyone needs help and not everyone wants help. So don't try and sell everyone. It's not a little tip for you guys. Don't try and sell everyone unethical. Only sell the people that need help and want help. Otherwise it's just a bad experience for the member and they could end up complaining to the gym, which you don't really want. So that's essentially the training for today. So just to recap new members, they're the easier, easier leads to convert. So make sure you're calling those new members. Get a spreadsheet done up so you have access to it every single day, so the club manager can put the new, new member leads into that spreadsheet so you can call them almost straight away. Bonus, if you can get the club manager to actually book them into your calendar for you, that is by far the best strategy that you can do. You don't have to worry about calling people, you just get them automatically booked in. And then after that, follow the script as per what I just told you. If you, if you're watching the video, if you really want to, you could probably screenshot that script. Otherwise I can drop a link for my community so you can add yourself to it. And then the last thing, make sure you're calling people. Ideally, like what I used to do every. I used to work every Saturday, only a half day. The last thing I did was do the calls. So you do the calls for the following week so you know what your schedule is going to be for the following week and then what happens. You don't work for the rest of the weekend. So I usually finish work at like one o' clock on Saturdays. I did admin Saturday morning and then I did calls from 11 till 1 or until I was happy with the amount of consults that I had. And then I pre planned for the following week and then it's done completely free. Saturday afternoon, completely off Sunday, no stress, didn't think about work at all. And then come Monday, I knew exactly what I was doing. Because there's nothing worse than chasing your tail if you don't have consults booked in for the following week. If, let's say you start the Monday, you're like, oh, chief, I got my consults booked in better way my next clients are coming from. It becomes stressful and then you try and chase your tail. You're trying to get people booked in, but then they're not answering because they're working. You're far better off getting done on Saturday. So literally every single week I have, I get my clients to booking calls between 11 and 1 every single week on Saturdays. It's the highest priority task that I get people to do. If you want your business to grow, you need to get consults booked in every single week, which means you need to do calls every single week. It'll take you an hour, two hours maximum to get that done. And a little tip for you, keep calling until you get 10 consults booked. I've got 10 consults booked for a done for you service for clients of ours, so I'm super keen to see how they go. But that's it for today's episode team. Hope you enjoyed that one and got some value from that. So that's it. Hope you have an amazing day and I hope you got some some value from this episode and hopefully it helps you grow your business. Catch you later.