Mike (00:02):
Goal reviews. Are you doing them with clients? If not, you need to start. And if you are, here’s a refresher on how to do them properly. Chris Cooper is behind the mic and this is Two-Brain Radio.
Chris (00:14):
Imagine you have a migraine. You go to the doctor, the doctor says, take some Tylenol threes. That’s the cure. That’ll be 199 bucks please. So you pay her and she leaves you with the bottle. How many Tylenol threes do you take? Half of 1? 1? 3? How often? For how long? When is it time to change? When should you watch out for addiction? When are the pills doing more harm than good? When do they stop working? This is why you need goal reviews in your gym. This is goal review month at Two-Brain. So our 850 gyms worldwide are all scheduling goal reviews with their clients. And today I’m gonna tell you why and how they benefit your clients and how they are more than just an opportunity for coaches, they’re also your responsibility aas a professional coach. Most micro gyms follow this process. A new client comes in the door and says, I want to try your service.
Chris (01:11):
And the micro gym says either, OK, let’s talk about what your goals are, which we call the prescriptive model, or they say, OK, do you want to try a class? Or they say, sure, let’s sign you up. At that point, there might be some discussion about the client’s goals or whatever, but ultimately the coach says to the client, OK, how often do you wanna come? Twice a week, three times a week, four times a week. And the client says, I don’t know what I need here. So I guess I’ll go with the only filter that I have, which is my budget. I’ll try twice a week. So nobody has said to this client, here’s your goal. To reach your goal, you need to come three times a week and go for walks twice a week, or you need to follow this nutrition plan, or you need to do this meditation, or you should also add yoga.
Chris (01:57):
Nobody said any of that. And it’s just like going to the doctor and the doctor saying, Hey, you got a headache. Here’s the medicine cupboard. OK. The medicine cabinet. Help yourself. And then walks outta the room. And the client says, all right, there’s lots of different medicines in here. There’s pink ones, blue ones, orange ones, yellow ones, white ones. What do I take? And they look around and they see, oh, here comes somebody else up to the medicine cabinet. And they look like they know what they’re doing. They took some pink ones. Maybe I’ll take some pink ones too. Maybe they’re brave enough to ask, Hey, do you have a headache? I have a headache. What should I do? And maybe the other person even says, oh yeah, I’ve been taking the blue ones for headaches for 20 years. They’re awesome. And so the client grabs the blue pills in a way they go, but nobody checks in on them.
Chris (02:44):
Nobody measures their progress, changes their dosage. And so a few months later the client says I don’t have headaches anymore. Do I really need these pills? They’re getting expensive. I don’t know if I’m making progress. If I’m getting better, if I’m cured or if I’m getting worse, I kind of feel like maybe I’m addicted, but nobody’s telling me any different. So I need to just, I don’t know, cancel. And obviously what happens is that the doctor loses the client, but more importantly, the client loses their opportunity to improve their health. They lose the thing that they came in to buy in the first place, because we give them the person with the least amount of knowledge in the equation, the choice on what they should do, the choice on making their own dosage and setting their own prescription, right? Right when a client needs us the most, and they’re asking, what exactly should I do?
Chris (03:32):
We sometimes shy away because of our own biases about price, or we sometimes don’t want tell the client exactly what to do. And we want them to make up their own mind. And this is doing a disservice to everyone, to the client who is seeking help to the coach who is trying to build a meaningful coaching practice to the other clients in the gym who want these good fits as part of their community and to the other staff who only want to deal with people who are open to receiving their help. The prescriptive model is one that we teach very early in Two-Brain, people who are with us for a few months, they get their marketing and their sales going. And then the next thing that they learn is this prescriptive model. The prescriptive model starts with an interview process. So you could call it a no sweat intro.
Chris (04:18):
Most people do. Even people aren’t part of Two-Brain who have taken that from my books. They know what a no sweat intro is. From there, the next 90 days should be pretty mapped out, which means you should know exactly when to call and check in on a client. How often you’re going to text the client for accountability, what kind of nutritional guidance you’re gonna give that client, which workouts and on which days, and which trainers are going to serve that client, you’re gonna know which pieces of your educational content you’re gonna send that client. We have this all mapped out for you, and it’s called the first 90. And it’s in the Two-Brain Business mentorship program. But if you wanna build your own client journey map, start by mapping out this first 90 days, because at the end of 90 days is the client’s goal review. At that point, the client should come in for another appointment with you.
Chris (05:05):
This should take about 10 minutes. And in that appointment, you’re going to measure their progress. And you’re gonna measure the thing that they care about, which might or might not be the thing that you care about. So if a client comes in and says, I wanna lose 10 pounds, you better measure their weight at the goal review. If a client comes in and says, I just feel weak all the time, you better measure their strength and energy at that goal review. If a client comes in and says anything, I want to improve my deadlift. You better measure their deadlift at that goal review. And then what happens next is up to you, the coach, the professional, who is making the prescription and updating that prescription. If the client has reached their goals, you say, are you completely satisfied that you’ve hit your goals? And if they say yes, then you make a new prescription.
Chris (05:50):
If they say no, then you upgrade their prescription based on your knowledge and experience as a professional coach. What don’t do is leave them alone to guess, is this working? Why isn’t it working? Should I have a nutrition plan? But as coaches, we feel like, ah, I shouldn’t step in because we feel like we’re trying to sell the client something. And I will say this. About 20% of the time, a client will wind up upgrading their membership. Sometimes they’ll actually downgrade because you, their professional coach, are saying, you’re over training. You need a break. You’re too stressed out. You know, it’s summer, whatever. And when they do upgrade, yes, you will earn more money. But the intent of these goal reviews is not just like a blanket upsell; it’s to make the right prescription. And when the right prescription is more of this, less of that, it’s more one-on-one attention.
Chris (06:44):
It’s come more often. Something just basic as that. Then that’s the prescription that it’s your duty to make as a professional coach. But a lot of the times we stop ourselves because we feel like I don’t want to feel like a salesperson. What you need to understand though, is that your job is to provide the solution to the client, not to, you know, express your wallet onto them or project your budget onto them. So the question I always ask myself before I’m due a goal review with session with a client is if money were not an object, what would I tell this person? And then I tell myself, it’s my duty to tell them the truth. So if they need more from me, I’m just gonna tell them that. If they need you know, different service from me, they need nutrition instead of weightlifting, I’m gonna tell them that.
Chris (07:32):
And then I’ll deal with the price thing later. So after I say something and the client says, how much is it, then I’ll deal with the price thing. But I owe it to everybody to get the right answer off to them first. And then you’re going to book the next goal review for another 90 days. How do you get people to do this? Well, people who use the Level Method are really good at this because they attach their goal review sessions to their global assessments. But if you’re not with Level Method or you want another model to use this, at Two-Brain, we have these scheduled into our calendar for all Two-Brain gyms, about three times a year, it’s on an annual calendar so that we can plan for it. And we give people social media posts to use. We help them schedule.
Chris (08:13):
We practice doing goal reviews with people. We talk about metrics that you can look at to make better prescriptions. We review this with everybody in our mentorship program, so that everybody’s getting the best results for their clients. Now, sometimes the conversation gets even better and the client is a raving fan. They want to be an evangelist for your business. And you think the only way that I could improve this service for them is if their husband joined them or I invited their sister to come, or I gave them a way to bring their kids. And at that point, you might say, how can my service help your husband? Now, again, you are asking for a referral and we do this in a way called affinity marketing, but you only do it when the client is a raving fan already, they want to bring their husband in.
Chris (09:01):
They just dunno how to do it, because like you, they are not a salesperson. And all you’re doing is just opening up the drawbridge, basically. So goal reviews sometimes end in affinity marketing, but more importantly, they’re a way for you to track and celebrate your client’s progress. And that’s the last point I wanna make here is how important it is to actually celebrate progress. Because most clients have tried something in the past that didn’t work or it worked for a while, and then they got worse, but no client is getting praise for their progress outside of your gym. Their boss is not saying to them, Hey, amazing job. Their spouse is not saying you are doing it right. Their kids are not giving them fist bumps because they prepared an amazing dinner, right? The people at the drive through are not giving them high fives and hugs just because they completed a hard workout or anything else, nobody is thanking them for their patience.
Chris (09:56):
Nobody is rewarding their efforts. Nobody is praising their accomplishments, except for you. You are the only one putting them on the podium, turning on the spotlight. And a goal review is a great chance to make your clients famous because nobody else will. So first off you wanna say, great job every chance you get second. And if the client is especially proud of their accomplishments, you wanna share that story with everybody so that everybody can praise them. So you pull out your phone and you say, I am so proud of you, tell us what you’ve accomplished and why you’re proud of it. And if you wanna go a little bit further, you can even say, what advice would you give to the person were two years ago? And that’s when things tend to get emotional. I won’t go down that content rabbit hole, but telling your clients’ story, if you don’t know what other kind of content to create, this is, it’s a never fail strategy. Make them famous. So goal reviews, you wanna do them three times a year. You wanna track your client’s progress. You wanna update their prescription when it’s necessary. You know, most of the time, it won’t be. You wanna offer the service that they actually need to get to their goals because that’s your job and you wanna praise them. You wanna tell their story more. That’s why Two-Brain gyms are doing goal reviews by the dozen in April. And that’s why we recommend that every coaching business has some kind of goal review process.
Mike (11:21):
This is Two-Brain Radio, please remember to like and subscribe for more episodes. Now here’s Chris one more time.
Chris (11:27):
Thanks for listening to Two-Brain Radio. If you aren’t in the Gym Owners United group on Facebook, this is my personal invitation to join. It’s the only public Facebook group that I participate in. And I’m there all the time with tips, tactics, and free resources. I’d love to network with you and help you grow your business. Join Gym Owners United on Facebook.
