If you want to get people into your program, you need to get them to walk through your door first.
Here are the three critical stages to transforming prospects into clients:
- First, they must set appointments to meet you.
- Second, they must show up for those appointments.
- Third, they must sign up for your program.
This sounds like a simple progression. But most gyms bleed prospective clients—a lot of them—at every stage, and then the owners say, “I need more leads!”
In a few cases, a gym owner needs more leads—and we can solve that problem.
In most cases, the gym owner just needs to do a much better job with the leads the gym is already getting.
For example, a gym owner spends time and lots of money on Facebook ads or media content or other advertising. They drive prospective clients to the gym’s website:
- And then the potential client doesn’t book an appointment (set rate).
- Or the lead doesn’t show up for the booked appointment (show rate).
- Or the lead shows up but doesn’t sign up (close rate).
If a Two-Brain mentor digs into that business, here’s what might be evident immediately:
- The gym’s website isn’t set up for conversion, and the booking link is buried or even broken.
- No one follows up with leads to confirm appointments.
- The salesperson doesn’t practice selling and instead overwhelms the client with unfocused offers: “Which of our 50 options do you want?”
We see this stuff all the time.
The good news: We know how to fix problems fast.
When we remove the clogs in a funnel, the gym starts acquiring high-value clients quickly. We don’t use marketing tricks or secret deals. Just data-backed tactics that have been proven effective in gyms around the world.
On that note, I’ll give you our marketing leaderboards for set, show and close rate one more time, and then I’ll give you direct quotes from the gym owners who made our Top 10 lists in February:
And here’s how the leaders posted these numbers (note the relentless focus on simple but effective tactics):
Speed: “We really tried to reach out to new leads as fast as possible, and we have double confirmation before the appointment.”
Speed: “We contact the leads as quickly as possible and follow up. Contact consists of text, call and email.”
Speed: “We try to contact all leads within 20 minutes. Yes, we have automations set up to help with lead follow-up, but nothing beats a call and human contact.”
Speed and fundamentals: “I am the sole lead-nurture and sales person. The two things I focus on the most are: One, call the lead as fast as possible, making sure to write notes of our conversation so I can keep lots of convos straight. Two, practice NSIs all the time, mostly to my camera, so I can have a smooth sales pitch once I get the lead into the gym.”
Clarity/Consistency: “We are consistent with new leads and have a clear path for all our leads. We have narrowed our offering for new members, and there is less confusion for the lead and our staff that are doing the No Sweat Intro (NSI).”
Using data: “We created a new Facebook lead campaign based on some graphics recommended by (mentor) Colm O’Reilly, combined with some variations of a 5130 post. We then split-tested this for women, men, mixed. In addition, we have started Google ads, but 80 percent of the success comes from our Facebook advertising.”
Relentless follow-up: “In the perfect world where we have the time, our lead follow-up is very intense. One, call all leads, once an hour, until contact is made. Two, always call twice to increase pickup rate. Three, SMSs and emails are only used from Day 2 onward. Four, ideally try every hour between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m. every day for at least six days. Of course we don’t have time every hour. But that says something about the volume and attention I’m willing to give each lead to help them get started.”
Using staff to scale: “When we hit on this effective marketing that has multiplied our leads, I hired a ‘meeting booker’ that I pay per show combined with a small hourly rate. She can book NSI interviews directly in my client success manager’s (CSM) calendar in order to keep up. My CSM does nearly 200 Goal Reviews per running 90-day period now, so that’s why she is not doing all the lead follow-up anymore.”
Help First: “I’m doing pretty close to what Two-Brain teaches—just trying to perfect it every time and having a genuine Help First mentality.”
Tools and tactics: “We recently joined Kilo and also started running paid ads. We think this was directly responsible for the metric. I expect the coming months to be the same if not better.”
Doing the work: “Two-Brain teaches this: I decided to really double down and get out of my comfort zone and call the leads rather than just rely on text and email. I ask them a few questions (almost qualifying them) and then invite them into our gym. Instead of asking them to come to our gym, we invite them, provide a few times we have available, then book it.”
Doing the work: “We really just do everything we are told to do by our mentor, and that makes us successful. We consistently tell stories on social media, we engage with our clients through Kilo using our own voice, and it all just works!”
Fix Problems Fast
If you aren’t doing the things our leaders are doing, you probably don’t need more leads. You need to focus on fundamentals.
We have entire courses on marketing, as well as a huge toolbox of tactics to boost set, show and close rates.
The key?
Track metrics and work with an experienced expert who can spot problems, prescribe the exact best fix and make sure you do the work to unclog your funnel.
To hear more about how a mentor helps with marketing and sales, book a call.
