Mike (00:01):
What if you called your fitness classes exertion fests, and that small change dramatically increased revenue? It sounds ridiculous. Right? But Lindsey VanSchoyck changed the name of her nutrition, quote, unquote challenges, and suddenly she made more money and her clients got better results. She explains the change in just a few moments.
Chris (00:20):
Hey, it’s Chris Cooper here. Programming is the service that you deliver to your clients. So I partnered with Brooks DiFiore, who had one of the highest adherence rates for his group classes in the world to build TwoBrainprogramming.com. Now we built this for Two-Brain gyms and we give them free access in our mentorship program, but I’m now making this available to the public. Programming that’s proven to improve retention and cash flow in your gym. Visit TwoBrainprogramming.com to get it. Your gym’s programming won’t attract new clients, but it can help you keep your clients longer. Good programming includes the stuff you know, like your benchmarks, novelty, skills, progressions, leaderboards, but great programming contains something more. It’s a link between each client’s fitness goals and the workout of the day. Your coaches need to tell the clients more than what they’re going to do every day. They need to explain why they’re doing it and how it will help them achieve their specific goals. Gyms whose coaches could explain the why connection had a 25% better retention rate during lockdowns. Imagine how that translates into better retention when things get back to normal and a better bottom line at the end of every month. That’s TwoBrainprogramming.com. Take a look.
Mike (01:35):
It’s Two-Brain Radio and I’m Mike Warkentin. We won’t mess around today. Lindsey VanShoyck of CrossFit final Call found that a simple word change generated 75% more conversions to ongoing nutrition coaching. Lindsey. I need to know right off the top. What word did you get rid of? What did you start using and why?
Lindsey (01:53):
So we used to run nutrition challenges twice a year.
Mike (01:57):
Everyone did, right?
Lindsey (01:57):
I know. But we found the word challenge put people in that mindset where they would only think that they were doing this thing or making these changes for four to six weeks. So we’re like, what the heck can we do to make people make long-term changes or switch that mindset to where this isn’t a four week or a six week fix, that this is something that’s just going to get you started on your health and fitness journey. So we dropped the word challenge and added the word kickstart. So instead of doing any nutrition challenges or fitness challenges or whatever, we changed it to where it’s a nutrition kickstart, and it’s made a world of difference in converting our our past challengers over to kickstart, to ongoing nutrition clients.
Mike (02:46):
Yeah. And I’ll just throw in a personal anecdote that I’m sure everyone out there can probably identify with. We would run challenges at our gym and we would see visible changes over 30 days because people altered their nutrition. And we did very simple habits-based stuff. It wasn’t like super macro based and so forth. It was like, get rid of sugar or things like that. And we would see physical changes. And then as soon as the 30 days ended, people would just go berserk. Did that happen to you guys as well?
Lindsey (03:13):
Yeah, they would just, they’re like, Oh, I got it. Like, I know what I’m doing now, so I don’t need you anymore. And then I see them a month later and they gained back all their weight. They quit doing anything. It’s like, they forgot completely what they did in those first 30 days. And they went back to all their old habits.
Mike (03:29):
Yeah. Chris Cooper has written about this on the blog and talked about how, at the end of the challenges, you know, at his gym, they would all go out for wings. And he’s like, I was guilty of going with them. And he’s like, it was kind of a weird thing where, you know, and there’s nothing wrong with going out for wings. But the point was is that you go through this challenge and then celebrate by gorging yourself. And it’s kind of a funny way to do it and it didn’t lead to ongoing coaching. So tell me, how did this change from challenges to kickstarts, how did that really help your clients?
Lindsey (03:55):
Well, so we talked a lot about like mindset, like a lot of nutrition coaching has to do with your mindset. And so from the very get go, when we dropped the word challenge and added kickstart, we started really incorporating like how this is a mindset and you’re going to start changing your lifelong health journey. And so we ran this first kickstart last year and we ran two now and we’ve had 75% conversion to ongoing nutrition on both where before we would run a challenge and no one would stay in nutrition coaching because they were like, it’s a challenge, I’m done now, but we’ve also really stressed in our initial sit-downs though that this is going to last longer than four to six weeks. And so it’s all about like wording and what you say to clients. So when I have someone joining a kickstart and they tell me they want to lose 20 pounds,
Lindsey (04:53):
I’m super realistic with them up front because for a woman, it takes probably to lose 20 pounds, you’re looking at working, you’re looking at 20 to 40 weeks to lose that weight. And so if I have a client that wants to join a kickstart and is like, I want to lose 20 pounds, I’m super up front with them. And I say, OK, that’s great. This six weeks is really going to get you kickstarted on a health journey, but to lose these 20 pounds, realistically, we need to be working together for the next 20 to 40 weeks. And so this is going to get you in the right direction. But after these first four to six weeks, we really need you to go to an individual nutrition plan. So that way we can make sure you lose those 20 pounds you want to lose.
Mike (05:37):
I love it because there’s so much marketing out there of the get rich quick and the diet equivalent is lose all this weight immediately. And short term, you know, purges and cleanses and all this other stuff, restrictive, super restrictive diets. None of that is really sustainable is what we’ve kind of found. So I love that you’re respecting the people’s goals, but then giving them a realistic timeline saying like, I’m not going to sell you a six week challenge, lose 20 pounds, because it’s not going to work. So it’s such a great way to do it. I’ll ask you this. Have you had any issues with clients who might’ve signed up for a challenge, not wanting to sign up for kickstart?
Lindsey (06:09):
No.
Mike (06:09):
Straight up. So it’s just, it works. And the wording changes and it does offer, you know, a huge increase to conversion after the fact. So this is like a huge, huge win. I always ask, first of all, how it helps clients because our businesses revolve around our clients. Let me ask you now, obvious question, but you can tell me some of the details. How has this helped your business? Like, did this drive up average revenue per member, total revenue? Like anything you can tell us about that would be super helpful for people who are thinking about making this change.
Lindsey (06:37):
Yeah. So we always cap our kickstarts at 20 people. And so we sell our kickstart for $150. And so, that’s $3,000 in front end revenue when you do a kickstart. So it’s a big boost of revenue for the gym, starting the kickstart. But then after that, most of those clients go into like 75% of them are going into an ongoing nutrition program, which runs 150 as well. So that’s $3,000+ plus of continuing income that’s coming into the gym every month.
Mike (07:13):
Wow. Have you had any issues selling these things out at 20?
Lindsey (07:18):
I mean, people want—we cap it at 20 just because I want it to be like kind of an exclusive thing. And so it creates a demand too. And so it’s not that you can’t start nutrition with us after we sign up those 20 people, but you have to go into an individualized nutrition plan, which obviously costs a little bit more money. The problem is, is that gyms run challenge after challenge, after challenge and challenges are good in the way that it’s like a quick boost of revenue, but they don’t create any long-lasting revenue for the gym and they don’t get clients the results that they want. But then also, like you don’t want clients to jump from challenge to challenge. Like you want them to stick with ongoing nutrition. So that’s why like, in our community, like people know that we only do kickstarts two times a year and that we only take 20 people. So it kind of creates like a demand for it because it’s the lower barrier of entry to our nutrition program and the fact that it doesn’t cost as much money to get started in it.
Mike (08:21):
Nice. So do you sell them out each time and do you have a waiting list for the next ones or does that kind of thing happen?
Lindsey (08:27):
Not really because we do them six months apart, so we sell them out and then if they get sold out, we try to set them up on an individual nutrition plan and we just are like, sorry that you missed—didn’t get signed up fast enough.
Mike (08:41):
So here’s a question for you are most of the people who are signing up for these kickstarts, are they current members or are they outside? People from outside the gym?
Lindsey (08:50):
It’s probably 25 inside the gym, 75% of the gym.
Mike (08:56):
That’s interesting because the 25% that’s inside the gym already paying for something so that, you know, 140 or 150 that you said the price was, that’s tacked onto whatever else they’re already purchasing. So your average revenue is going to drive up there, correct?
Lindsey (09:09):
Oh, yeah, for sure. For sure.
Mike (09:11):
Nice. And you may not have this info here, but I’ll ask you anyway, of the people that start with the kickstart from outside the gym and you said 75% of people from these kickstarts are then continuing with ongoing nutrition coaching. Are you finding that they’re tacking on additional services as well, in addition to ongoing nutrition coaching?
Lindsey (09:30):
So it’s a way to get them inside of our gym and see what we’re doing. Right? And so there’s a lot of times where I’ll work with someone for nutrition, for like a good three months and they’re coming in a gym every month and they’re seeing what we’re doing. And they’re seeing that there’s people of all different ages and different sizes and different genders doing workouts. So it just kind of exposes them to the gym and what we’re doing. And so there’s a lot of times where after a few months I can convert our nutrition clients into members of the gym.
Mike (10:01):
I’m going to guess you can tell me the exact timelines, but I’m going to guess that you have some sort of goal review, or you have some sort of, you know, feedback meeting scheduled with those ongoing nutrition clients, where you can ask about their goals and their progress and so forth, and then use the prescriptive model to then tell them, Hey, I can help you get to this goal faster if you add in some fitness training, do you have something like that?
Lindsey (10:21):
Yeah, I meet with them once a month. And so maybe their goal is to gain muscle now. Like they’ve lost 20 pounds. Now they want to gain muscle and tone up. Perfect. You need to do some strength training. Or they’ve hit their goal weight. Or even if they’ve like maybe they’ve stalled out on their weight loss. Well, a good way to increase that weight loss is to add in some exercise to put you in a bigger calorie deficit without taking away food. That’s an easy way to get you in a calorie deficit to help with weight loss.
Mike (10:55):
This is like, this is like a triple win for the gym in the sense that you get front end revenue, you get ongoing coaching, but you’ve also started a conversation during which you can start telling people about things that will help them get to their goals faster. And that’s going to increase your ARM because we all know you can’t eat your way to more muscle. You’ve got to do some training in addition to that, right? So this is a huge triple win for you.
Lindsey (11:16):
Yeah, for sure.
Chris (11:18):
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Mike (11:54):
So let me ask you this question, because I’ve talked to Mateo Lopez, one of our marketing experts about this challenges work great in advertising. We’ve seen infinite numbers of challenge ads, and, you know, a lot of us have run them successfully. Did you change the word challenge to kickstarts in your advertising or would you, and if you did change it, what happened?
Lindsey (12:21):
We did change it. We don’t ever advertise a challenge anymore. Cause I don’t want people to think they’re signing up for a challenge. So anyway we advertised our challenges in the past, we do it the exact same. We just changed it to the word kickstart and no one’s had any problems. We post results photos with it like we used to, we post testimonials with it like we used to, we post just exactly the same thing. We just literally just changed the word challenge.
Mike (12:47):
And what was the response in the market, did changing that word, you know, drop the response rate on Facebook wherever we were marketing?
Lindsey (12:57):
Nope. Exactly. It was no difference.
Mike (12:59):
So again, this is we’re working with a set of one here with you. Do you have any results or can you tell me, has this same change worked with clients that you work with so that we can kind of broaden our data set a little bit.
Lindsey (13:10):
Like with gyms?
Mike (13:10):
Yeah. Like have you advised any people and said, Hey, change challenge to kickstart and had them see the same success, like the same 75% conversion rates or something similar the same, you know, ad response. Has it worked for others besides you?
Lindsey (13:25):
Yeah. So, I have quite a few gyms that I’ve done mentoring calls with that have changed their wording from challenge to kickstart and they had to have sold out their kickstart with 20 members. So they’re right there. They’re not having any problems with marketing that they’re still getting that $3,000 front end revenue. Most of them are getting ready to wrap it up right now. And so they’re hoping to get that same conversion rate. But again, it’s all in like the wording and setting their goals, but I don’t have any doubt that they’ll convert most of their members to ongoing after that as well.
Mike (14:00):
Yeah. And there are some variables in there with the conversion. Like you have to be good at presenting the services and signing people up and so forth. And we have training obviously for that will help clients do that. But the general principle works with you and with other people. So that’s really interesting. So for listeners, you covered a little bit of this, but for listeners who run challenges right now, give me any other tips you might have for presenting and marketing a kickstart, like what are the key elements of getting people to sign up for that? And then what are some of the key elements of encouraging those people who sign up to move to ongoing coaching?
Lindsey (14:30):
So you can’t just—I’ve had this conversation with quite a few gyms lately. You can’t just post something on social media and expect people to click it and sign up for it. Right? Like how many times are you scrolling through social media where you just scroll through something and you like it and you don’t ever do anything with it.
Mike (14:48):
That’s almost all I do. Just like and move.
Lindsey (14:52):
It takes a little bit of work on your end, but you have to like reach out to those people that like it. So if we’re getting ready to launch a kickstart, we always start marketing for it four weeks in advance. So four weeks in advance, we’re posting about it at least three times a week on our social media page. We’re posting different things. Like one post might be a flyer of what it entails. Another post might be a testimonial quote. Another post might be a progress picture. And then anyone that like likes or comments on that post we’re personally reaching out to them. And so, Hey, we saw that you liked our post about our six week kickstart. Can we get on a call with you real quick and tell you what it’s about and get you signed up for it? Because again, like people aren’t like—they’re interested obviously, or they wouldn’t have liked it, but they’re not gonna just sign up for something that they don’t know anything about. And so you have to like work a little bit and reach out to those people that are liking it and have your coaches share it on their page, have your current nutrition clients share it on their page as much as you can. We don’t ever pay for kickstart marketing. We just use affinity marketing and share it.
Mike (16:05):
Wow. OK. That’s really interesting. So we’re actually in the process of revising our affinity marketing guide, what that means if you haven’t heard of affinity marketing, it’s marketing to the people that are closest to you and you start with your very best clients and you try and get to their friends, family, coworkers, and hobby pals. So you’re actually instead of paying for advertising here, you’re just asking those clients to help you with your marketing by sharing it with their circles. Wow. So this is great because your front-end revenue isn’t even affected by an ad spend.
Lindsey (16:36):
Literally all profit. Like it costs nothing to run a kickstart.
Mike (16:41):
- So that’s a really, really interesting tip. And we recommend you always market to your current clients first and try and get further into their circles because for exactly this reason, it’s free. It just takes your time to do it. Paid advertising works down the line, but there are so many steps before that. So if you guys are interested in affinity marketing, this concept, go to free tools on TwoBrainbusiness.com. You can download the guide for free and there will be an updated guide coming very soon for you. Give me a couple of tips before we go here on some of the key elements that encourage people to move into that ongoing coaching. So, you know, when you’re doing your exit interviews or whatever you call them, what are some, just some few things that people can do to increase their conversion rate to ongoing coaching.
Lindsey (17:23):
So it starts with the initial conversation. You have to like really stress in that initial conversation, that it is a kickstart and that we’re going to be working together for a while to reach whatever goal that they desire. So I do it when I’m presenting the offer to them. I do it when I’m doing their initial sit-down with them and doing their biometrics and measurements. I do it when we do our kickoff seminar. And I do it again at the end when we’re wrapping up. So they’re getting exposed to this idea that they’re going to do nutrition coaching for more than these six weeks at least four to five times before that wrap-up conversation even occurs. And then when that wrap up conversation occurs, we meet with each client for 15 minutes and wrap up their kickstart. I don’t really ever give them an option to continue nutrition.
Lindsey (18:14):
It’s not that I’m like not giving them an option, but I say like, you have done so great. Like you’re telling me that you feel better. You’ve lost six pounds this six weeks, we still have 14 pounds to go. I present them with the nutrition options. And I just simply say, which nutrition options do you want to go to? So I present them with like this last six weeks, we’ve worked on eating vegetables and drinking water and sleeping, but you’re telling me that you’re still struggling with snacking in the evening. So to help you lose these last 14 pounds, we’re going to focus on using a snack bucket in the evening and trying to only choose one snack from that snack bucket. Based on this, which nutrition option do you want to roll into?
Mike (18:58):
So this is really, really cool. What you’ve done essentially in your initial marketing, you screened out people who just want to be a, you know, call it a nutrition tourist or whatever you want to call it. And they’re just going to pop in for that six week or challenge a 30 day reset or whatever it is. You’ve screened them out because you’re talking about a kickstart for ongoing plans. Then at every single part of their journey through this thing, you’re just assuming that this is a starting point and we are going to keep going. So then when you get to the end, quote, unquote, you know, the final part of the kickstart process, all you’re doing is you’re prescribing them the exact plan that will get them to keep moving towards their goals and say, you know, basically sliding that across the table and saying, do you like this? They say, yes, the credit card keeps getting charged and away you go.
Lindsey (19:44):
Yup. Exactly.
Mike (19:46):
Wow, Lindsey, this is so powerful that we’re going to try something we’ve never tried here on Two-Brain Radio. We’re bringing in the revenue riff.
Mike (20:02):
That means that if you do what Lindsey is saying, you’re going to make some money. What do you think?
Lindsey (20:07):
Love it. You really will. So most gyms that I’ve worked with on launching their kickstart have sold it out, made 3000 in front end revenue. And most of them, I have no doubt are going to convert those members over to where they’re going to have that $3,000 worth of recurring revenue every month.
Mike (20:26):
I’m super impressed with this, and I’m not going to dawdle because I want people to take action here. How can people speak to you about this if they want more info?
Lindsey (20:33):
So if you’re a current Two-Brain client, you can either purchase an extra growth call, or you can swap out your monthly mentoring call with your regular mentor. If you’re not Two-Brain client, I highly recommend that you join Two-Brain, but you can also email me lindsey.vanshoyck@twobrainbusiness.com.
Mike (20:51):
The cool part about this is that, you know, you’re going to make the money on this call back very quickly and multiples of that spend. So I’d really encourage you guys, current clients talk to Lindsey. If you’re outside the Two-Brain family, do book a call with some of our mentors, we can help you make that money back immediately. Lindsey, thank you so much. I’m not going to drag this out any more because I want people to talk to you. So thank you so much for joining us on the show today and sharing this advice. It’s so great.
Lindsey (21:21):
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Mike (21:23):
My pleasure. Lindsey VanShoyck told you how to change a single word and make more money. This is Two-Brain Radio and I’m Mike Warkentin. If you prefer video, Two-Brain Business is cranking out clips on YouTube. Be sure to head to our channel to check out Chris Cooper and our team of mentors.
