Mateo: 00:02 – Hey there. Is this Mary? Yeah, this is Mateo from CrossFit Rittenhouse. I just saw that you were interested in our six-week program? Oh. All right, that was a very strange phone call.
Mike: 00:22 – Hey Mateo.
Mateo: 00:22 – Oh, hey Mike.
Mike: 00:23 – Did I just hear the end of the sales call and did you just have someone cancel on you?
Mateo: 00:26 – Yeah. I was calling to respond to this lead and she did not—wasn’t interested anymore.
Mike: 00:35 – Well, let me guess. Let me guess. Tell me if I’m right here. I bet she booked the appointment, but all of a sudden she’s an ultrasonic lithotrip technician and she needs to go to the space station tomorrow because she’s the only one on earth who can repair the ultrasonic lithotrip. Am I correct?
Mateo: 00:51 – No, that wasn’t, but Mike, that was oddly specific, has that happened to you?
Mike: 00:58 – I’ve had some pretty weird sales calls, have you?
Mateo: 01:01 – I’ve had some strange ones. Yes.
Mike: 01:03 – All right, well let’s get into that. How about this? You seem a bit stressed. I’ll host for a while. I’ll let you vent. We’re going to talk about cold lead files. I am Mike Warkentin of Two-Brain Media, taking over Two-Brain Radio to present these cold lead files with Mateo Lopez. When you’re dealing with cold leads from ads, it can get weird, very weird. Like space-station repair weird. When we return, Mateo and I will talk about the wild world of cold leads.
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Mike: 01:44 – All right, I am back. I am Mike Warkentin, I’m here with Mateo Lopez. This is Two-Brain Radio. Please remember to subscribe and leave us a review. We are talking cold leads today. Mateo, I need a weird marketing story from you. I’m sure you’ve been all over the place, seen everything. Tell me something weird.
Mateo: 02:03 – Well I had an interesting encounter with someone. This person called and they wanted to buy a free month for a member at my gym, like a gift for my member. And it was like not the easiest thing to do because we were using—the membership software that we use just doesn’t make that kind of thing easy, but I don’t think any of them do. But she wanted to buy a gift for this current member. It was strange for a few reasons. One, this member also like, stopped coming like that month after, so he never got to actually reap the benefits of this free thing that this person purchased. But yeah, she herself was just kind of a strange person, but you know, very nice. So I helped her with this.
Mateo: 03:10 – Then there were came all these like different requests. Like I had to CC him with her and tell him that this was happening and be like, this is a gift that she’s doing for you, and like, make sure that, you know, so I handled that. And then, like a couple of weeks later, the same person called me and was like, you were so nice helping me with the gift card. I want to like help you out. Like I’m in charge of creating the gift bags for this awards show. It was like, I think it was like the Billboard Awards or one of those ones like the American Music Awards or one of those like random ones that aren’t the Grammy’s or aren’t the Oscars. I think it was like Billboard Awards, whatever.
Mateo: 03:59 – She’s like, I’m in charge of doing the gift bags and you know, Jay-Z is like really into fitness and CrossFit. So he mentioned he wanted that, I guess like the celebrities like request what they want in the gift bags. So I’ve got people, you know, donating classes from Soul Cycle and so I wanted to include, you know, some CrossFit because I know some of the celebrities like to do CrossFit. Then I had to explain to this person like, OK, well it’s not a franchise. It’s not a chain, it’s an affiliation. Oh, OK, so if I give them a CrossFit gift card, they can’t use it in the CrossFit … No, can’t do that. Oh, OK. But then like we at the time did currently like own four gyms, collectively, like the group of us.
Mateo: 04:48 – So I was like, I have a couple in Jersey, one in Philly, one here, that kind of covers your East coast crew. And so then like she was kind of into that idea and like I had back and forth with this person. Turns out they like—and I don’t know if any of this was true. Like I don’t know if I was being pranked by this person or not. Like I have no idea. But yeah, that was a strange one. That was probably the strangest request I got from a prospect that wasn’t even really a prospect.
Mike: 05:21 – The long and the short if it is did Jay-Z come to any of your gyms?
Mateo: 05:25 – No, I wish. I wish. The funniest one was like, Oh, we have one in Philadelphia, in Rittenhouse. Oh, that would be great. Like Will Smith, Philly. Oh he would love that. I was like, Will Smith’s not gonna come to my gym. No way. 0% chance.
Mike: 05:41 – Jay-Z’s got 99 problems and a gym membership is still one?
Mateo: 05:43 – No, absolutely not. Not going to happen. There’s another story but it’s not mine, so I won’t tell it.
Mike: 05:53 – Well, we’ll circle back maybe and see if it fits in, but we’ve all, you know, I did some surveying yesterday in the Two-Brain groups and friends and colleagues who do marketing and we’ve all had all sorts of weird experiences and we thought it’d be fun to just go over some of those today. It gets weird. We’ll feel some camaraderie if we vent about it a little bit. When you’re dealing with cold leads or even slightly warm leads on Facebook marketing, you get some strange clicks. You get people click through and they’ll do some weird things. Then when you start, you know, the conversation starts, it gets very odd. And the first thing that happens, like, and this is, I kind of respect this one because it kind of captures the zeitgeist of our times is ghosting. People put their information into your lead funnel, sometimes twice. They’ll opt in just to get to the booking page, then they’ll book an appointment and then it’s just silence. Like nothing. And you must’ve seen this hundreds and thousands of times.
Mateo: 06:54 – Oh yeah. You’re going to get ghosted. I mean, we talked about this on a previous episode. You’re going to get ghosted more times than you’re going to connect. It’s just kind of the way the numbers work. Like you’re going to get more no’s than yeses, probably disproportionately so. But again, like the argument I always make is like, it’s still so cheap to generate this traffic that like, you’re gonna still win as long as you sell the ones who, matter. You know?
Mike: 07:23 – And so you’ve just got to deal with some ghosting. You know, it is going to happen. It happens all lot. And you’ll just get tons of people that—and you know, I don’t know if you understand the psychology, I certainly don’t. I put my phone number into this system and I put my email into the system and I book an appointment in the system. I have said that I want to speak to a real person. I have made this appointment commitment and then radio silence.
Mateo: 07:44 – How did you get my info? Dude, you opted in three times. That’s how I got it.
Mike: 07:50 – You can see it sometimes on the lead sheets. Those are the ones that I set up with Two-Brain marketing, the same ones that you designed, where you see the same person show up three or four times and they keep canceling these things. Like why do you keep putting your info in?
Mateo: 08:03 – Yeah. Yeah. I mean there’s, you’re also gonna get like in the beginning of a campaign when you first launch ads, like Facebook knows who their like hyperactive users are, like hyperactive clickers or hyperactive opt-in-ers. People who just like click and opt in to everything that’s on their feed no matter what. And it shows your ad to those people first.
Mike: 08:28 – Ah, so it’s giving them a bit of a head start.
Mateo: 08:28 – Exactly. And they do that for a few reasons. One, you know, they’re just going to push it there because they know you’re going to get the results you want, or you think you want. But then that’s why as a campaign goes on, like it usually regulates a little bit and kind of fixes itself.
Mike: 08:55 – That’s where the real weirdos come out.
Mateo: 08:55 – Sometimes, yeah. But also you’ll get more qualified people as has a little bit of time goes by because you’re not in that hyperactive clicking person phase of the learning process.
Mike: 09:06 – So I collected some of these things. I’m going to read you some of these and give me your comments on how common you think these things are. Fun examples. I talked to some people yesterday and we were convinced, absolutely convinced that if you book a No-Sweat Intro, like a consultation at one of our gyms, the chances of having some sort of general family emergency go up by like 95% right. It’s just like all of a sudden, and it’s funny because you’re on the other end of these lead sheets, you’re seeing these things come in and you’ll see—you’ll talk to five people in a row and it’s five different things. Like, my husband’s sick, my dog is sick, my kid is sick, my uncle is sick. And it’s just this endless, endless string of general family emergencies. Have you seen that?
Mateo: 09:47 – Oh yeah, tons. Yeah. Lots of work emergencies.
Mike: 09:51 – Yeah, I’m getting to that one down below, I got a few funny ones on that one.
Mateo: 09:51 – I think people just, you know, they get a little bit scared or intimidated and they don’t like saying no. People don’t like to just make that decision. In most things in life, I think most of us don’t like saying no or making that kind of tough decision. So they just rather just not engage.
Mike: 10:18 – And they don’t want to ghost either, though. These are the same people that like, they feel like they owe you something, right? Like they’re not going to ghost you, but they’re going to give you something, but it is BS. And the funny one that came up in our group yesterday, someone said people without kids who have sick kids. So I’ll get a message and it’ll say, oh my kid is sick and you know, I can’t make it to the appointment. But then it’s Facebook, so you can click through and find these people, they clearly have no kids, right? Kids can kind of be the sacred cow where it’s like you can get away with a lot if you have a sick child obviously, cause you got to care for the child. But these people clearly don’t have kids and it’s very easy to find that.
Mateo: 10:52 – Yeah. I mean, but it’s fine too. You know, these people just, they’re not ready yet, but they’re on your list now. Right? And they may be ready two months from now, three months from now, a year from now. So that’s not money down the drain as long as you know how to nurture your list and keep people engaged.
Mike: 11:08 – Let’s circle back to that towards the end because I want to—that’s a great, great point where it’s not wasted money. We’ll get to that in a sec. We’ve had another one, sudden divorces. Have you seen that one?
Mateo: 11:19 – I haven’t gotten divorces.
Mike: 11:21 – This was an actual one. It says, I just found that I’m getting divorced, which is obviously a tragedy, but again, we’re assuming that 98% of these are not legitimate.
Mike: 11:32 – Nope. I just remembered one I got. This was the weirdest one I got. I called someone and they answered the phone and they’re crying, and I’m just like, why on Earth did you pick up this phone? They’re like, yeah, it’s not a good time. I’m just like, I don’t even understand why you picked up, then, if it’s not a good time. Like I was so thrown off by that one. They were like—I even tried to be like, are you all right? Like what happened? You need to talk about it? Like definitely like some kind of a break-up or something or job loss. But like this person picked up the phone crying and I was just so confused. Why even pick up the phone?
Mike: 12:12 – Did you make the sale?
Mateo: 12:12 – Definitely did not make the sale.
Mike: 12:17 – Did you call back?
Mateo: 12:17 – Nope. Nope, Nope. Didn’t want to talk to that person ever again. That was definitely like the—I don’t even know why you picked up the phone. But it does bring up another kind of—not a marketing maximum, but just like this idea that if you call, if you call a lead, and they’re like now’s not a good time. It’s like if it really wasn’t a good time, they wouldn’t have picked up the phone. You know what I mean? Like, oh, now it’s—like you can still get an appointment booked in that time. Oh, I’m at work right now, now is not a good time. Awesome. Great. You know, whisper. Awesome, great. Do you have time to come in for an appointment tonight? Like just tonight at 5:00 PM or six. What about tomorrow? Awesome. See you later. Like, you know what I mean? Like, if it’s really like, oh man, like I really can’t talk right now. It’s like, dude, why did you pick up the phone then? So if they really can’t talk, like if someone is sick or dying, like they’re not picking up the phone, you know what I mean? So if they pick up the phone, don’t get too thrown off by now is not a—can I call you back? Just get a time out of them, you know, get an available time out of them and book an appointment.
Mike: 13:39 – Yeah, that’s great advice because you’ll get people doing it all the time as soon. If they picked it up, they’re fair game, and they said it was OK by answering.
Mateo: 13:49 – Yeah. I mean that doesn’t work all the time. But like if they picked up and it really, like they really couldn’t have picked up—like I’ve had someone, I’ve had someone be like I’m cooking dinner, now’s not a good time. And then I’ve just like worked my way around and then I got her booked and like she just kept talking, you know. If you’re quick on your game and you’re able to build some rapport and make a quick joke, making them laugh really quickly is like the best way to like get over that now’s not a good time hurdle.
Mike: 14:22 – So we’ve had a couple of here we’ve got going through divorce and have to meet an attorney, which is an odd one in the sense that those appointments are usually not scheduled like instantly after you’ve booked a fitness appointment. But that’s on the same lines. Here’s a super common one. I got called into work. I got called into work on my day off. I have to work, all these different things. You’ve probably heard that one a bunch, I’m guessing.
Mateo: 14:44 – Yeah. Work stuff. Again, like I said, all right, great. Like, I’m not going to hold you up. Just like want to see if you had a time to come in for an appointment tonight. We’ve got two spots left, this thing’s gonna sell out.
Mike: 14:56 – Do you ever make a pitch on the phone? Like, you know, I know there’s appointments we want them to come in cause we’ve got all our, you know, we’ve got all our resources. We’ve got our room, we’ve got the whole script. But do you ever, when someone says something like that, do you ever just pitch them something on the phone?
Mateo: 15:07 – Not if it’s a time crunch thing. But like I have sold over the phone.
Mike: 15:12 – Like if someone, for example, like if someone says not an immediate, like I got to go right now, but it’s like I can’t make the appointment later today because I got called into work. Have you ever said like, well if you’ve got five minutes right now and you kind of run through the script?
Mateo: 15:22 – Oh for sure. Yeah. If you have time right now and then you can do your No-Sweat Intro over the phone, for sure.
Mike: 15:27 – And you succeeded on that?
Mateo: 15:28 – Oh yeah. Yeah. It’s like, oh great. You know what, let me save you the trip. Have a couple minutes? Just want to get to know you and let’s get you into program.
Mike: 15:37 – So for listeners who are out there, if someone says, you know, I can’t make the appointment, but they did take your call, maybe they have some time right there. You could definitely run through some stuff and try and make a sale right there.
Mateo: 15:48 – Selling over the phone is the best if you can make that happen. And I have, for sure, like it’s totally possible. It depends on the offer, but yeah, like selling over the phone is totally possible. And if you can hone your skills there, you’re going to be much happier, happier camper.
Mike: 16:13 – Cuts down on travel time, cuts down work time. And if you can just make that sale without leaving, you know, your bathrobe so much, the better.
Mateo: 16:19 – Right, exactly.
Mike: 16:20 – So we’ve got that one, we’ve got—this one actually happened, this was from someone in another part of the world. Someone booked an appointment and then between 8:00 PM and 5:00 AM the next morning, lost the job, which is, you know, we all know that would actually not happen. No one’s getting fired at night.
Mateo: 16:37 – I have had those though. I have had like, oh, you know what, job situation changed up. Can’t make it in.
Mike: 16:46 – Which is again, we’re not making fun of anyone who actually has that happen, but when we look at like the likelihood of getting fired at 9:00 PM at night after booking an appointment an hour earlier is fairly unlikely. But might happen. We’ve got some sudden flights out of town. That one is just got called out of town again. That’s where we go back to the intro with, oh man, I’m the only technician on the Eastern seaboard. Looks like I’m going to Philadelphia today.
Mateo: 17:12 – Yep. I get the traveling one. I’ve got the I’m actually out of town. Yeah, I’ve gotten a lot of those.
Mike: 17:20 – Common. How about this one? I don’t know what it’s like in New York, but bad weather.
Mateo: 17:27 – Yep. Definitely. And the out-of-town one made me think of something. So, I got a couple leads from people who like lived out of state. So make sure that your targeting is set to people who live in this location, right. Cause sometimes if you have a set to just people in this location, you might be able to tag someone with a pixel if they just were on Facebook and saw the ad as they were like on a bus passing through New York into Philly or something, you know what I mean? So that definitely happens. Especially in New York, when people are here for weekends and vacations and tourism all the time, you know, that took me a while to figure that one out. I was like, Oh, this is why this keeps happening.
Mike: 18:19 – So what’s the setting in the back end that you can use? Because I’ve had the same problem. Like how did this person get my ad?
Mateo: 18:25 – When you’re going to the geographic targeting, you want to make sure that it says lives in this location.
Mike: 18:29 – So not just visiting, lives.
Mateo: 18:30 – And not just like in this location, lives in this location. That can definitely help with that for sure.
Mike: 18:37 – That’s a really good tip for anyone who’s out there. Cause I’ve definitely had people from weird area codes—in a previous show, actually Julie Johnson, our mentor, got a lead from me booking into her site just to test it. So she had her Las Vegas staff member calling me in Winnipeg, Canada, which is kind of funny, but they called it up instantly, which is great.
Mike: 18:56 – We’ve had this one where someone told me in the group they have people say it’s bad weather when it’s not bad. Like it’s raining, I can’t come in. And it’s like just kind of sprinkling in between sun.
Mateo: 19:05 – Or just like you’re going to be in a car anyway.
Mike: 19:09 – It’s a little bit windy, and it’s like three mile an hour wind or something like that. And the flags are all limp. Like that happens. We’ve had lots of injuries, sprained my ankle literally while getting ready. That is apparently an actual one that happened that someone saw.
Mateo: 19:26 – The injury one is worse when you get them signed up for the program, you get them signed up for a six-week program. It starts next week, and the weekend before they go play intramural basketball and they break their ankle, like that’s the one that cuts me the word the deepest.
Mike: 19:42 – Have you ever had someone give you an injury excuse then eventually you track them down, they sign up and then you find out later on you’re like, oh man, is your elbow feeling OK? And they’re just like, what elbow?
Mateo: 19:54 – I haven’t had something that egregious.
Mike: 19:57 – I’m sure someone out there has, where the lies build up and all of a sudden the web is just too tangled. You know?
Mateo: 20:04 – I haven’t had that one.
Mike: 20:06 – I’m sure someone has. I love this one. This is good. This is an actual one that someone told me. Saw the doctor this morning and the doctor recommended no exercise of any kind.
Mateo: 20:18 – I have had that.
Mike: 20:20 – That’s an interesting one.
Mateo: 20:21 – I’ve had that. I’ve had the doctor being like, no physical activity whatsoever.
Mike: 20:27 – You can’t argue with a doctor.
Mateo: 20:27 – Yeah, that one’s tough. Just like, OK, I’m not going to win this one.
Mike: 20:36 – Can I get you some water or groceries so you don’t have to leave your couch?
Mateo: 20:40 – Can you get a second opinion?
Mike: 20:44 – Yeah, I think your doctor might have maybe not the greatest training. I love that one, it’s funny that you got it, too. This is a good one. This is an actual one. Again, this is so specific and can’t be made up. A sick pet with no timeline for recovery, but the person is gonna cancel the appointment but wants a month of free workouts sent over to try. That is a good one. I like that.
Mateo: 21:07 – Whoa. I have had people do like, oh, I thought this was free thing. I mean, yeah, I’ve had people request a free trial, request like, can I just try it? Requesting a whole month of workouts. That one’s—no. But the one I have had, the one I have had is this: I’ve gotten this one a lot too via email. Hey, I saw your ad, hey I want to do this program, looks great. Like here’s what I’m thinking you could do is like I’ll do this program and then in exchange like I’ll be your transformation story, you can use my like pictures as like before and afters for marketing.
Mike: 21:47 – Oh, OK. Selling the social proof for free.
Mateo: 21:51 – Exactly. That one happens a lot. Not a lot, but I’ve had that one a lot. And then a worst one is the drop-in one, where you’re like, hey, like I’m doing a—this one’s rough. I’m doing a documentary about my life, like losing a hundred pounds in a year or whatever. And I’m touring all these different CrossFit gyms. It’s been great. And so like typically what I’ve been doing is I’ve just been like doing the drop-in for free in exchange for like the social media plug. And I’m just like, dude, no. I cannot get more members from you doing this weight-loss journey for your YouTube channel. Like that’s not gonna translate into more members for me. The other one is like coming into the gym and being like, oh hey, like, yeah, we want to drop in. And then someone tried to pay with like a T-shirt from their gym, like a T-shirt exchange.
Mike: 22:52 – That’s awesome.
Mateo: 22:52 – Hey, like here’s a shirt from our gym. And I was like, this isn’t money, dude. What are you doing?
Mike: 23:00 – I love the influencer. That is great. That’s my favorite modern one is the influencer where it’s like, hey, if you give me something free I’ll plug it, and you look at their channel and it’s like you have seven subscribers. No, that’s not going to happen.
Mateo: 23:13 – They can have 50,000. But like, if they don’t live a subway ride away from my gym, it’s not gonna happen.
Mike: 23:23 – All right, we’re going to get back to the rest of the list. We’ve got some really funny ones coming up. We’ll hit the rest of the list right after this.
Ad: 23:29 Sean: – “How to Add 10,000 of Revenue”? “How to Sell Your Gym”? “What to Do After the Open”?—Holy $hit, Cooper’s written a ton of help guides. Mike: – C’mon Sean. Just read the ad. Sean: – Did you know he gives this stuff away? Like for free? Mike: – Yup. That’s his thing. Sean: – I’d buy this stuff. Mike: – You don’t have to. Sean: – But I would. What kind of business expert gives everything away? Mike: – Chris gives it away so owners can fix their gyms and earn enough to pay for mentoring. Sean: – Oh, that’s actually pretty clever. Should we do the ad? Mike: – Never mind. Just tell them where to get the Free Help Kit. Sean: – Get your Free Help Kit at twobrainbusiness.com/free-tools. Click the link in the show notes. Mike: – Now do the thing from the competition. Come on Sean. Sean: – Come on, man. Mike: – Just do it! Sean: – Are you not entertained? Mike: – And we’re done here.
Mike: 24:20 – We’re back. It’s Mike Warkentin, I’m here with Mateo Lopez. We are going over a list of odd reasons for canceling free consultations. Some of these are real. Some of these are very specific, some are general that we’ve seen and we’re kind of giving you some comments and helping you figure out some ways kind of to work around some of this. Here’s another one, very common: vehicle or tech troubles. So flat tires, calendared glitches, all this different stuff. We’ve even had one person, an actual one where the person said that they couldn’t come unless someone would come and pick them up. Have you ever had that?
Mateo: 24:56 – All the time.
Mike: 24:56 – And have you ever gone and picked them up?
Mateo: 24:58 – Oh, never.
Mike: 24:58 – You could have sold more! Oh, Mateo.
Mateo: 25:01 – No, no, no, no, no, never done that one. There was a spam email that I was getting, I would get like every six months and it was something like, hey, like, I’ve got these group of kids who are like high-school kids who like training—
Mike: 25:24 – Yes, I’ve got that, too.
Mateo: 25:24 – Who want to train and like, this is a high-end client, like private driver, very secure, very safe, willing to pay for personal-training packages. And then it’s like, all right, cool. I’m interested. What’s the deal? OK. Here’s the thing though, in order to get the driver there for the first session, you need to, you know, and then I have to pay them to deliver these kids to my personal trainer. That one I would get every six months. But that one always freaked me out.
Mike: 25:59 – That’s a common one. I’m going to circle back to one we talked about before, people who want it for free. Do you think that’s just a result of some of the shady bait and switch marketing out there?
Mateo: 26:08 – Well, that one, yeah, 100%. If I have a six week challenge out of it, oh, I thought this was free.
Mike: 26:16 – So that’s kinda ruining it for everyone.
Mateo: 26:19 – Literally ruined for everyone.
Mike: 26:20 – And if you guys haven’t seen that, we talked about this in a previous show, but that’s ads that are out there, it’s kind of bait and switch stuff where they say this program is free, but they take it and pause it and then they’ve got this laundry list of stuff you have to do to get your money back. And the whole point is that they’re going to find a way to keep your money.
Mateo: 26:39 – Yeah. Even if you win, you can get your money back, but they’re gonna spread that across a 12-month contract, spread that one month up across that, the discount, whatever it is, like 10 bucks off.
Mike: 26:50 – Yeah. That’s kind of the dark side of marketing where things get disingenuous. It’s not dealing in good faith and it kind of like Mateo said, it’s ruining it for all of us. So don’t do that stuff. We deal with a lot of people on our calls that have been through that and it’s just a disaster.
Mateo: 27:05 – I mean, Jack, we’ve talked about him in a couple episodes here.
Mike: 27:12 – 360 Fitness.
Mateo: 27:12 – He do a we’ll pay you to work out kind of a thing. But he’s very explicit about like the parameters about, you know, what you would need to do to win. He lays it out pretty clearly and it’s limited, right? It’s only like a couple people are going to get it.
Mike: 27:29 – And that’s honest. There’s no bait and switch if there’s no switch, right? Like if it delivers on the promise, that’s totally fine. But what we’re finding is there’s a lot of people, they’re finding these just nonsense reasons to keep people’s money and then all of a sudden you’ve got people that are just mad at the fitness industry and it makes your job and my job harder.
Mateo: 27:42 – 100%.
Mike: 27:46 – All right, next on our list here, we’ve got, this is an actual one lost keys five minutes before the appointment. But then the upshot of that is this person must’ve lost the phone because it was a complete ghosting. So I found my keys, but I never found my phone. That one’s obviously I’m brushing you off. The one we just covered, you need someone to pick them up. I didn’t realize it was that common. I thought that was a weird one. But you’ve had that a ton of times?
Mateo: 28:10 – Not only, I’ve gotten that same email from different gyms. The Philly gym, the Hoboken, like Ash will send me like, is this real? No. I got the New York one like 10 times, don’t respond.
Mike: 28:22 – Another one just as common, like I’m still out running errands, and for me that one’s kinda like, you know, one of your errands is the gym appointment you booked literally an hour ago. You could just swing by. I don’t get that one.
Mateo: 28:39 – That one thought, it’s like, we’re here till nine, we’re here till 10, great.
Mike: 28:46 – Come on by! But then it’s funny cause when as soon as you confront these things, people, they don’t know what to do. Right? Cause they’ve just got that first excuse. They hadn’t figured out the chain. You’re like, well I’ll be here all day. I have a lot of errands. Well we’re here tomorrow as well. I have also errands. And then that’s where it gets to like, yeah, no, I’m actually shooting a movie. I’m an extra in a movie in Saudi Arabia. Leonardo DiCaprio is star. I’ve been told not to look in his eyes and it’s this intricate web where it’s just like, dude, just tell me you don’t want to come.
Mateo: 29:15 – Great. Like let’s just do this over the phone then. I don’t have a phone. How are you been texting me then? My friends phone?
Mike: 29:21 – There is no spoon. There is no spoon. There’s another one. This is probably common. Signed up at the wrong gym. I think this is actually legit in some cases.
Mateo: 29:32 – For sure. The Rittenhouse gym in Philly is eight feet away from a competitor’s gym, so that one happens a good amount of times for sure.
Mike: 29:50 – OK, so that might be legit. Maybe that’s the one where you just like, oh, does that gym offer this what we do? I don’t know. Maybe turn that around.
Mateo: 29:59 – Why did you decide to sign up over there? You want to come check this one out on your way over?
Mike: 30:04 – Now that we’re talking…
Mateo: 30:07 – Now that you’re here…
Mike: 30:09 – So this is a legit one. This is my favorite on the list, honestly. I guess someone in New York had a person book an appointment and in 45 minutes after signing up and paying for a package, literally said they got their dream job and they’re moving to the other side of the country and had to cancel. This is after booking, signing up and paying. You believe that?
Mateo: 30:31 – Yeah, I’ve had a lot of buyer’s remorse. I’ve had someone call me like literally 20 minutes after they walked out after signing up for a package.
Mike: 30:42 – How often can you prevent them from canceling? Is there a percentage or?
Mateo: 30:47 – I mean, sometimes if I have a cheaper option I’m able to downshift. Sometimes I’ll be able to get them to commit to the first class. Just come to the first one and take it from there. But yeah, definitely had some quick turnarounds like that for sure.
Mike: 31:05 – And the last one I’ve got here is one we covered a little bit, but people who just, and I don’t know how this is possible, but they don’t realize they booked an appointment. You call them, they’re like, who is this? And they actually get hostile and they’re like, why are you calling me?
Mateo: 31:18 – That one happens all the time.
Mike: 31:19 – Do you have any idea how it’s possible these people do not realize that they have literally typed their information into your system?
Mateo: 31:31 – I don’t know. People are weird, Mike.
Mike: 31:32 – I guess that’s as good an explanation.
Mateo: 31:36 – But yeah, I’ve had that one. Like you literally just booked. I didn’t know I booked. It’s an appointment scheduler that you just used.
Mike: 31:44 – If you’re calling back, you might even have them like if you call them, you know, 40 seconds after they booked it when it’s still open on their phone, you know? That’s funny. That’s the list and the takeaway here, we’ve had some fun kind of going through some common things. Just so we can all say oh man, I’ve had that one. If you guys— leave a comment, if there’s something we’ve missed or you have a really good story, we’d love to hear it. The takeaway here, Mateo, so how do you deal with rejection? You touched on this a little bit, like how do you deal with rejection and stay positive? And you kind of said like, these guys are maybe not lost sheep.
Mateo: 32:19 – Yeah, there’s tons of ways to look at it. I mean, the first one is like, especially if you’re driving cold traffic, most people are going to turn you down. Most people are not going to pick up the phone or show up for their appointment or whatever it is, right? But you have a hundred people and 20 of them buy, though, you know, that 20 is worth it. That can make a huge difference in your revenue. So, you know, that should be the focus. You know, if you want to limit no-shows, you can make it a little bit harder to book, right? You can have the opt-in really easy, but the booking page can have a little bit more of a longer questionnaire. You can do a little bit of pre-qualifying that way by asking some questions like, hey, like, you know, are you ready to work out three times a week? Do you live close by? Or whatever it is that you want to use to weed out some of the people that you know aren’t going to be serious or take you seriously.
Mateo: 33:17 – And then also, you know, even with sales, right? Let’s say you have someone come in and they don’t buy or they call you back and say like, I have to cancel. I can’t afford what I just paid for. You know, kinda, it’s an exercise just wiping that clean from your memory you, cause you got another one coming in later on that evening and you gotta be ready and positive for that person.
Mike: 33:37 – That’s like a football quarterback. You got a short memory, right?
Mateo: 33:39 – Exactly. That’s exactly right. For sales that is crucial.
Mike: 33:47 – So the overarching thing here is that if people talk to you on the phone, no matter what nonsense excuse they give you or legitimate excuse, they’re still talking to you on the phone, you might have a chance to talk to them there and give them some information. At least give them a professional, positive interaction with the brand. You know, when people give you an excuse like that, are you making notes and are you calling back afterward and saying, I hope a hope your dog is feeling better. Can we book an appointment? Are you doing stuff like that? Or could one?
Mateo: 34:19 – Someone could definitely do that. I think if it’s more of an injury thing or a travel thing, if they really are genuinely look like they’d be a good fit and a good candidate, and their excuse does seem legit, then 100%. Yeah, you want to continue to nurture that lead. And I’ve had people like that. I’ve had people who cancel and then I realized, Hey, you know what? I don’t think classes were a good fit. Did you know we had personal training and like a month later I’ll do that and like, oh actually no. I’ve gotten clients back who quit after doing a six-week program because I didn’t realize that they just wanted personal training or would pay for that, or would pay for literally—I had a person come do a six-week program, really like it, try doing the classes, stopped because they couldn’t make it in or whatever.
Mateo: 35:09 – And I just offered them four personal training sessions a month, like one 30-minute session a week. And that person loved that option and has come ever since. You know what I mean? So, and that’s worth it. You know, that’s worth it for your coach. It’s worth it for your gym. That’s worth it for them. And this person does a lot of horseback riding. They like doing that. They like doing other stuff for fitness, but they still love our brand and our gym and what we have to offer. So they’ll make it for just that one session a week.
Mike: 35:41 – Ah, that’s cool. And then I guess the other thing to remember is you’ve got these people on your list. So regardless of what, you know, I decided I don’t want to keep this appointment or I’ve got an excuse or whether it’s legit or not, you do have their contact info now. And so you can put them in, we talked about some previous shows, into like a long-term lead nurture where you’re just going to keep giving them free stuff and goodies and information. Some point, you know, they obviously liked you enough to give you their contact information once, they might find something again and they might make that purchase. Is that right?
Mateo: 36:08 – 100%. 100%. It may take person a year, and they say, hey, I saw your six-week thing. I keep seeing it. I’ve seen it at every month. It hasn’t worked out. But this month I actually have free six weeks available, you know, of time to do this. Now I’m ready to start. You know what I mean?
Mike: 36:29 – So it’s a huge mistake to hear these excuses and I mean, and feel like you’re losing or like your ads suck, your system sucks. It’s really just, it’s part of the game and you’re going to win if you keep playing.
Mateo: 36:40 – Yes.
Mike: 36:40 – And again, your lead nurturing and the things that you guys do to follow up on these things, you teach all that in your course, correct?
Mateo: 36:52 – Yeah. Yeah. 100%. We teach in the course. And what’s great about the Two-Brain group is other people will come up with ideas that we’ll then put back into the curriculum. You know, sending things like a video text message or things like that. That’s some of those things have come out of the fact that we have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of gym owners talking with one another and in our private Facebook group. The social proof wall, things like that. These are ideas that have come from just having this amazing group of people together in one place.
Mike: 37:29 – Yeah, we’ve got tons and tons of people testing and sharing, and they’re taking a lot of the guesswork out of it for you. If you want to talk to a mentor about, see if this is right for you, go to twobrainbusiness.com, check it out. We have people available to talk, give you some information, no pressure. We just want to find out if this is something that we can do to help you out. Mateo, thank you. This series has been awesome. If you guys like it, check it out. There are seven episodes in total. They’re back in our archives and we’re doing more stuff like this. And Chris Cooper, our founder, is producing mountains of content as he always does. He’s a machine. Lots of it is coming on the podcast. Subscribe, leave us a review, it would be great. Mateo, thank you so much for your time on this. We’re going to do it again.
Mike: 38:06 – Thanks Mike.
Mike: 38:08 – All right guys, this has been Two-Brain Radio. Please subscribe and we will see you again next time. Go out and sell with confidence. Thanks.
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