Ep82: Rant Incoming: The Side of Coaching No One Warns You About

What's going on? Team Matt here from the PT Profit, Leverage and Lifestyle show. Hope you guys are having an amazing day and week so far. I'm going completely off script today and going into a rant. Well, not so much a rant, but just to kind of make you guys aware of some of the that goes down that no one ever talks about. That is incredibly frustrating for business owners. Happens to me every now and then. Happens to pretty much every PT that I, that I know and that I, that I work with or have worked with in the past. And yeah, some people are just shit humans to be honest. So I'm gonna just go completely off script here for a second. I'm just going to tell you exactly, you know, what's what. Some people are like unfortunately and unfortunately pts get taken advantage of and you know, I'll do my best to keep it, keep it strategic as well and show you how to deal with this type of stuff. So this is, this is my pet peeve in any type of, or any type of service business really, where people that do like failed payments and they try and break contracts for no apparent reason. So I've had a lot of clients of mine say they've been experiencing this and like I've, I've had this a little bit recently as well. And it's, it's a more reflection of the individual rather than the business. Like the business can only do so much. Like you've got the contracts in place, you deliver the service and for whatever reason people are just, you know, some people are just bad people and it's, yeah, as simple as that. So, yeah, a bit of a different episode today, but I wanted to kind of go through, you know, how to deal with this type of stuff. So I'm going to make it a bit more strategic but also just to kind of know, like it's completely normal for this stuff to happen. You know, for me, when I had, you know, grew my PT business to 150 plus clients, 250 sessions a week, you know, there was not so much, there was a lot. But you know, it's just part of, part of the game that you've got to deal with that people will miss payments though. They won't pay on time. They'll, you know, you know, people have financial difficulties, which I understand. But the, the annoying part which really frustrates me is when people do have financial difficulties or even they're fine financially, but they just for whatever reason just want to quit on their goals and they're like, oh no, I'LL just leave it. And then they block the payments, you know, completely ghost. You can't get in contact. And it's like, like, what the hell? You know, like someone has told me, oh, if you're not happy with the service, just block the payments. I like, that is such a shit thing to do. Especially when people are delivering a, you know, a good service. But what has happened to me in the past as a PT is I'll tell you what happened. And it was, it was, it was my fault. I didn't follow the process. But what happened was I was training this person. This is like early, early days. I was training this person three times a week. I think I was charging maybe 180, 200 bucks a week for this. And the payments kept declining. And he's like, oh, yeah, sorry, I gotta fix it up, I gotta fix it up. But anyway, two weeks went past, he still hadn't fixed it up. I was like, hey, mate, we gotta, you know, obviously you gotta fix up the payment. And I was just being super flexible, which, you know, everyone just wants to help people and they want to train people, which I understand. I didn't really care too much about it because, like, financially I was fine. I was like, you'll, you'll catch up whenever you catch up. Anyway, this keeps going on for, I think, five, six, seven weeks. Just keeps declining every single week. And I didn't set the boundary. I didn't, you know, I didn't do anything to stop this from happening. So it was, it was my fault. But he racked up like a $1200 bill and then all of a sudden he just vanished. Wouldn't come in for his sessions, wouldn't come into the gym at all. His payments declined for the gym as well. I just completely vanished. And I was like, hey, I've been doing these sessions basically for free for like six weeks and you just completely ghosting me. So don't do this. So I think it happens to everyone once before. You kind of set the heart, not the hard boundary, but set the boundary. So this is the process that you should do if this does happen. So what you should do is if it declines, it's just a warning saying, hey, look, that Mr. Client, here's a link to fix it up. If it declines again, we'll have to pause the sessions until the payments cleared. And second to this, I get people to pay in advance for sessions now. So I never used to do this, but now I tell my clients that you need to get people to pay in advance. So for example, if they're having, they sign up today, today is a Wednesday. You do not do sessions until the payment has cleared. So they pay ideally on the spot and then the sessions start the following week. Okay, so they always pay one week in advance. That way you're not doing the work and then getting paid. You're getting paid than doing the work. Okay, very different mindset to have. But also if people cancel or reschedule last minute, if your terms are conditioned, say they need to give you 12 hours notice. Of course you can be flexible the first time, but if it happens on a regular basis, you might call. Well, you, you just lose the session. Sorry mate, you didn't show up or you canceled 10 minutes before the session. I'm already here, I've already got the session planned. You know, unfortunately we're going to have to miss this session. But they've already paid for the session. So you've got the control as the business owner. So that's the first, that's the number one tip. Well, that was the second tip. But going back to the first one is the payment declines. You send a polite message saying, cool, no worries, here's how you fix it up. If it declines next week, we'll have to stop the sessions until it's fixed up, never declines again. It's an immediate stop train. So you do not train them until the payments are caught back up. Okay. So at worst case, you only ever going to lose two weeks worth of payments. But if you get them to pay a week in advance, you're only losing one week of your time. No, not one week of your time. Whatever those sessions are, that's what you're losing potentially. Like worst case scenario. Okay, you don't want to be in my situation where I frigging did six weeks of three sessions a week and was out of pocket twelve hundred dollars. Okay. So the moral of the story is this will happen to you. Chances are it's going to happen a couple of times. And it's just one of those things in the industry that you're just going to have to deal with. And it's really, really frustrating and there's not a whole lot of stuff you can do about it apart from manage the expectations, meaning get them to pay in advance and set the boundary as soon as the payments does decline. Because like for me personally, I don't want to be that person that has payments decline. I don't want to be that person that has to, you know, go on a separate payment plan to pay off something and by the way, if you, if you sign a contract for like a 12 week coaching program, you know, that's your commitment. If people want to break their commitment, then it just shows what type of person they are and they're never going to be successful in whatever they're doing because they don't have the respect for themselves to honor what they committed and it's a reflection on them. So like as a business owner, you don't take that personal, but it's just one of those things that are super frustrating that you need to deal with in any business really. But you know, no one ever talks about this type of stuff like when you're going through the course or when you first start, they obviously are never going to tell you about this stuff. So I just wanted to kind of go off script a little bit and just kind of let you know that this type of stuff is normal and it does happen. And don't, don't get too frustrated by it. Like I'm obviously a little bit frustrated by it because you know, sometimes you put in all this work for some people and they're just treat you with no respect and like you've delivered the service, like for example, as a pt, you might deliver the meal plan, do the program and they're like, oh no, I'm just going to give it a miss. Like what do you mean? I've already done, I've already done everything for you. So yeah, that's my little rant for today. So moral of the story is like even as a business owner yourself, like you wouldn't want that done to you. So some of the people in the past that I've worked with have done that to me and I'm like, well, would you, how would you feel if a client did that to you? So don't be that guy, don't be that person that does that because you know, it's not a good thing to, it's not a good thing to do for, to other human beings. But I hope that was, I know it was a little bit of a rant but also a little bit strategic. So moral of the story is if we summarize, it's bound to happen. It is what it is. And a couple of different ways you can, you can minimize this, the stuff from happening, get people to pay in advance. So ideally once, once they sign, you get them to make the first payment because then it's a done deal. Okay, It's a done deal. Once they've paid, contract sign, it's a done deal. And then you start the sessions the following week. So then you might do like an, on, like a, you know, in your, in your onboarding process you might get them to do a few things on their own for a couple of days. Meaning you might get them through before pictures, you know, you might get them to start tracking their food and then on their first session you'll review the, review their food diary for example, go through their photos, go through the measurements, et cetera, et cetera, you know, whatever your process is. But always give them the pay one week in advance. The other thing that you can do as well, if people, if you are experiencing this and it's getting a little bit frustrating, then you can partner with like a debt collection agency as well, which I have done in the past and I, I do have that connection still. Yeah, if you, if you're using like a third party software like Pay Smart, Debit Success, those type of ones, they will have a debt collection agency part of that, which super, super easy. You just basically say here's the contract that I signed. Just here you go. And you can even tell people as well, like you know, if we can't, you know, if you don't want to do the, you know, the contracted timeframe or whatever, you can say something like no worries. If we're not able to come to a solution for this, we'll just send this a debt collection and it'll affect your credit file moving forward. Usually when you say that people are going to be like oh whoa, Jesus Christ, okay, let me sort it out for you, you know what I mean? People will push the limits. So that's like a last resort. Like obviously I don't like talking about that type of stuff but at the end of the day like if you've done, if you've done the work and you know they're breaking the, the agreement or the contract, then you know, think of yourself as a, as a big business. What would happen if someone did that to an anytime fitness? You go to debt collection straight away. What would happen if you, if someone did that to Good Life Fitness first debt collection straight away better muck around. So why should you as a small business owner have different rules? I say this to people actually quite a bit. You need to run the business as if it's a friggin multi million dollar company because people don't fuck around with them. And I think because you're the little guy that you can, you all of a sudden are so flexible and you know, you, you know bend over backwards for these people which obviously, you can be flexible. Not saying you can't, but I'm just saying if you want to run a proper business, you need to start acting like a proper business and enforce the boundaries, enforce the expectations that you set. So, yeah, that's my little rant. Okay, I'm done now. I'm over the rant. Have an awesome day. If you guys actually experience this, feel free to let me know as well. And I hope that little strategy helps, helps you kind of get through it, because it can affect you. And it has affected me in the past as well, because it's never a good thing to experience where you have to keep chasing people for money or owed money. So part of the game, it is what it is, just one thing that you have to deal with. So I'll leave it there. Have an awesome day, and I'll see you next week.