So what’s this cool idea for Black Friday?

Gift Cards

Okay, you’re not impressed.  Let me tell you how you can use these gift cards on the most powerful shopping day of the year to get some immediate money AND generate potentially hundreds of new extra members at the beginning of the New Year.

First, put a big white board or announcement sign very visible in your lobby right now.  That sign will say:

“Special Black Friday Sale!
90% off sale!!!  Can’t think of what to get everyone?  Don’t want
to fight the lines Friday morning?  Get $100 Gift Cards to
XYZ Fitness for only $10!  One day only!  No limits!  Give these as
stocking stuffers or gifts for all of your friends, family, and
favorite co-workers!”

(…or similar)

Then what I suggest you do is run a report of all members who have used your club over the previous 30 days.  These are the “hot” members who will most likely buy.

Give this list to your front desk staff and have them make calls. Depending on the size of your club, you’ll likely have 100-1000 different members who have used the club in the past 30 days.  Your front desk staff will say something like:

“Hi John, this is Lindsay with XYZ Fitness.  How are you!  Did you happen to notice the Black Friday sign we put in the lobby this week? It’s a special member appreciation sale and we are offering $100 gift cards to give as Christmas gifts and it’s only $10 for members.  Non-members pay the full $100.  The sign says it’s for one day only, but I decided to call a few of our best members and let you pre-order as many as you want so you don’t have to make a special trip here on Friday.

How many can I reserve for you?”

Now you might think…forget that!  I plan to sell a few of these at full price to unsuspecting walk ins.  If you feel this way, then send me your address and I’ll have my people come over and break your thumb.

First of all, you’re going to make some initial money on this thing.  Many members will buy several at a time.  I would guess that an average size club can sell 100 of these if you follow the system above.  That’s $1,000 quick bucks right there.

Then if 100 of these are given out at Christmas, the majority of those will make their way back into your club.  Think about it…if I gave you a gift certificate for $100, even if it’s to some place you had never purchased from, you would NOT throw it away and you would likely use it or give it to someone else to use.  Right?  Right.

Let’s just say only 50 come in with a gift card…nah, let’s say only 25.  Let’s assume your membership is $40/month and they have 11 more payments after their complimentary month.  That is $11,000 in dues plus the $1,000 you collected from members for the actual gift card.  I don’t know about you, but I’ll take $12k for one day’s work!

And what does this $100 go toward?  Enrollment fees and first month dues.  Let’s assume you have a low enrollment fee of $49 and your monthly dues are low too at $25/month.  So in this case the gift card will cover enrollment fee and their first two months.  Great!!

If I told you I would send you 100 prospects and they would all join if you give them no enrollment and their first two months f’ree on a 12-month membership, and you didn’t have to spend any money or effort or time on marketing…you would do it right?  Right.  (again, if you would not do this, I’ll have my people visit you again to break your other thumb)

Now what about these gift cards?  When they pay you, let them know you’re going to order them after you find out how many everyone wants.  This allows you to have their money in hand, so the cost of the gift cards are covered by the money they paid you.

And where do you get these fitness gift cards?

Call Chris Batchelor with Vitality Marketing Group at 1-866-273-9217 and he’ll get you set up with full color, customized, sexy plastic gift cards (look and feel just like a credit card, with a mag stripe on the back!)

500 gift cards are $199
1,000 gift cards are only $50 more at $249

This should allow you extra that you can give to new members for them to refer friends.  Making the effect of this marketing system exponentially more successful.  Gift cards will take around 2 weeks to arrive to you, so be sure to order them as soon as your Black Friday sale is over so you have them in time for Christmas!

If you have any questions about this strategy, click the COMMENT button on this page and let me know…or GymSuccess members can post for a more detailed discussion at www.GymSuccess.com

Dedicated to Your Success…

Curtis Mock

A friend of mine whom I haven’t spoken to in a few years sent me an email a few days ago.  Her name is Beth, and as it turns out, she has been a personal trainer now for the last 3 years.  She works within a facility as a staff trainer.

It is obvious that she is passionate about what she does and she wants to be the very best she can be…and more importantly, make the most she can make for herself and for the studio.

Her concerns were typical.  She knows she is limited with one-on-one personal training, she doesn’t know how effective her marketing is, and she wants to create ancillary streams of revenue…specifically in her area of interest: Nutrition.

Here is a summary of my comments to her…hopefully you too can find something here that helps you too increase PT revenue.
–

As for maximizing dollar per hour worked, I agree…there is a definite ceiling on your earning potential which is directly attributable to the fact that there are only so many hours you can physically work.  One of the biggest complaints of PT’s is that to maintain their current income level, they have to continue working 4am-8pm every day.

That’s no fun.  So there are really only two solutions:

1) Train more people at once.  This is why group training and bootcamps are so popular.  You can make exponentially more money training more people at once.  It’s cheaper per client, but more profitable for you since you’re training more people at once.  I’m not sure what the layout of your gym or your parking lot, etc is like, but bootcamps are ridiculously hot right now.

Many experts agree that one on one training is a dying business model.  Yes, there will be people who prefer the one on one attention, but there are far more who appreciate the discount and even the ability to share the experience with others.

And 2) Sell more ancillary products/services to your clients.  This can include selling nutritional products, online personal training, nutritional counseling, life coaching, grocery shopping services, meal plans, etc.

As for marketing, how much are you doing? A flyer here or there isn’t going to cut it.  You need to have multiple marketing poles in the water at all times.  Go to chamber meetings, visit with local business owners, set up events for charity, speaking events, write for the paper/newsletters, door hangers, referrals from existing clients, etc.  You must always have marketing working for you every minute of every day.

Consider niching your service.  If you start a group training class, don’t do one for whoever signs up.  Do one for expectant mothers, new mothers, lunchtime warriors, teenagers, older adults, employees of a particular business, gastric bypass patients, arthritic people, back problems, children, toning class, core class, abs class, etc.

Focus on a specific group of people and be a big fish in a very small pond rather than a small fish in a very big pond.

Aim small, miss small

Network with other successful personal trainers.  I am in two mastermind groups, because the information I take away is more valuable than the amount I pay.  Join a website like www.personaltrainerU.com.  It’s run by very good friends of mine in the industry.

Go to events in the industry.  You just missed a great one for personal trainers called Fasttrack to Fitness Millions. I’ll let you know when another good one is coming up.  There are definitely some that are not worth the money.

Communicate with clients and prospects often.  Send out an email newsletter to your list.  GET A BLOG!  Promote yourself as THE expert in your area.  Dominate Google for Personal Trainers in your city.

You said you don’t know how effective your flyers were for your open house/group training.  This is important to do.  You must always know what marketing is successful and what marketing is not.  Otherwise you’re just going to be throwing shit against the wall and hoping that something sticks.  Never a good strategy.

Always ask what marketing brought them to you.  Then make a note of it…simple as that!
Feel free to call me to catch up or if you have other questions.

My cell is 573…
(Okay,did you think I’d really give out my cell phone on a blog post?)

Anyway, hopefully you can find something helpful in this.

Dedicated to Your Success…

Curtis Mock

You’ve heard me preach about how amazing having an autoresponder system is to a business. And perhaps you have signed up for a system like Aweber already, but aren’t sure the best way to utilize it for your health club. Here is how I advise our clients to use Aweber. Utilize some of these, or all of these…either way you are going to benefit your business and develop stronger loyalty with your members.

2. Then you need to set what’s called a Follow Up for the instant they click the confirmation link. It can have an attachment, it can take them automatically to a page on your website with the coupon, or it can simply be text stating “Please print this email and bring it into the club within 48 hours to pick up your membership.” Or similar.

3. I would then set up a Follow Up for the next day to remind them: “Did you have a chance to stop in yesterday to pick up your complimentary membership at XYZ Health Club? Be sure you stop by any time today to pick it up. We’re open Monday-Friday 4am-10pm, and Saturday and Sunday 8am-8pm. Call and let us know if you need a little more time. Our phone number is 555-555-5555. We can’t wait to help you reach your fitness goals!” Or similar.

4. Add a New Follow Up Message, and have 52 separate follow ups on that list, one sent each week. I would write a “fitness tip of the week”. So sit down one weekend and come up with 52 fitness tips…they don’t have to be long or detailed, just something simple. For example, “A great tip to stop those late night cravings is to brush your teeth the moment you are feeling like you need those carbs. If you start thinking about that bag of chips or box of cookies, brush your teeth! Cookies taste horrible after you brush your teeth!”…A Fit Tip from your friends at XYZ Health Club

It took me 30 seconds to write that one. So you could have all 52 written within a couple of hours for sure. I would have all subscribers, members AND prospects receive an automated follow up every seven days from that “Fit Tips” Follow Up List.

5. Your Monthly Newsletter, Announcements, or other miscellaneous things you want to tell your list(s), you will do with what is called a “Broadcast”. This is how my Gym Goldmine newsletter is sent.  You would do the same thing. If you have separate lists for Personal Training clients, and Club Members, and Prospects, etc. Send whatever announcements or news as a Broadcast any time you want to communicate with them. I would make sure to send your monthly newsletter to Prospects as well. At some point they will make the decision to join a club, and since you’re the one nice enough to make them feel like they’ve always belonged, they will join your club without a doubt.

And that is exactly how I would set up my Aweber system. You can even go back in and cross reference those who have joined your email list from your website and the names of new members since that date. If someone hasn’t joined, have one of your salespeople take their email address and send them a personal email to invite them into the club or to ask what it would take to get them in.

**A few bonus tips that work really well**

Always have a P.S. in your message. Many times people are in a hurry. They will read your opening paragraph, scan through any bolded text in your email, and skip to the P.S.  For some reason, people like reading the P.S.

Set aweber so that the person the email is delivered from is your health club name, not your personal name. I know you receive emails from Curtis Mock, but that’s because I want you to remember me until the day you die If I were sending to prospective gym members, it would come from the Gym’s name, so that they will always remember your gym’s name!

When you customize your emails and use someone’s name at the top, use the function {firstname_fix}, not just {firstname} in Aweber. Some of your prospects may have put their first and last name in the field provided, or perhaps they didn’t capitalize thier first initial. Aweber will “fix” it for you and use only the first name and make sure it is capitalized.

Never add people to your list that have not asked to be on your list. This is very important. If you get caught doing this, your Internet Service Provider can have you shut down. It’s no joke.

Even though no one really likes them, it is a good idea to put a pop up form on your website. Aweber calls these “Web Forms”. But make sure you set it only to appear once per day or once per visitor. You don’t want this thing popping up every time they go to a new page on your website. Again, Aweber makes this very simple for you.

Remember, I can’t even spell html. So Aweber uses a WYSIWYG editor. That stands for What You See Is What You Get. Meaning even us dumb jocks can use Aweber successfully!

That’s it for today. Hopefully this answered a lot of your questions!

Dedicated to your Success…
Curtis Mock

 

You know I’m a fan of efficiency.  I have so many things going on at any one moment that I am forced to find and use shortcuts whenever possible.  And don’t get me wrong, I LOVE Google.  They are the absolute king, the first mover, and dominate pretty much everything they do. 

Being the first mover or first to market on something is typically the best way to get most of the market share (I.e. Google searches account for 70% of all searches on the internet!), but being first also opens the door for others to take your idea and make it better. 

In our health club industry for example, big box clubs full of equipment dominated the market throughout the 80’s and 90’s.  They owned the market.  They got people interested in fitness.  In doing so, they also opened the door for a variety of niche clubs to emerge over the past decade: 24-hour clubs, high-end luxury clubs, low-cost volume clubs, personal training studios, women-only clubs, men-only clubs(?), and other small niche clubs throughout the industry.  Now the big box clubs struggle to find their foothold among all of these competitors.

So who is better than Google?  Well, no one actually.  But I was introduced to a new search engine that I’m very impressed with.  It can be found at www.SearchMe.com.  They too have a very complex algorithm that provides relevant search results, but they take it one step further.  It is a visual search platform, meaning you can see the images of the search results before you click on it. 

In addition, if you are searching for a video on say, Stability ball exercises, SearchMe actually begins showing the video clip and playing the audio before you even click on it!

What does this mean for you?  Well imagine the time saved by not clicking on irrelevant search results.  I have a fast computer, but I still find myself clicking through a lot of search results, wasting a lot of time trying to find what I want.  If I can see that a site lacks substance and is not what I’m looking for, I don’t click it.  I can scroll through the results like a rolodex until I find one that appears to be what I’m looking for.  Because you know, sometimes the Internet just sucks you in.  A simple search can turn into hours of surfing. 

So take a peek, it’s worth a look!  www.SearchMe.com

To your success…

Curtis Mock