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Using referrals is the fastest and easiest way to build your personal training client base and make you more money. There are many different ways that you can approach this and different techniques that you can use to maximise the number of referrals that you get, therefore growing your business.
I would like to talk about some of the most successful ones that i have seen used by personal trainers that i have worked with over the last 12 years.
Some of these ideas are adapted from health clubs and gyms that i have worked for as sales and marketing manager and had success with in the past. The great thing about referral campaigns is that they are low cost, and usually brings you hot, qualified leads which convert to sales (new PT clients) at a high rate.
Of course as with any marketing, it is important that you first have a strong sales system in place which will close your prospects effectively. I would suggest that any personal trainer starts by focusing on improving their skills in this area before starting any marketing campaign. When you have the skills or the staff to close the prospects through a solid presentation, start worrying about increasing the number of prospective new clients that you present to.
The first thing to do is from day 1 to condition your new clients to bring you referrals. When they sign up with you say to them: “im committed to helping you achieve your goals, will you help me achieve my goals by recommending people from your circle of influence to train with me as well. Do we have a deal?”
Ask them at the end of a session if they have thought of anyone yet who would like to benefit from a free consultation. If you are doing bootcamps or group PT you can offer a free space on the bootcamp to someone or a couple of people and actually get them to pay you in referrals. If they keep recommending people to the bootcamp they continue to get their space for free. This works really well with people like hairdressers who see lots of different clients each day and can refer them to your bootcamp and tell their clients how good it is.
That’s the key to a great referral campaign – you want to get as many walking, talking, ‘human-advertisements’ constantly promoting your PT sessions or bootcamps to everyone they know. So offer some free spaces in return for paying referrals. You can get really clever and pre-qualify the people that you are offering the free spaces to. Say to the person, “Hey, I am looking for just 2 people to have a free space on my weekly fitness bootcamp, i usually charge £££ a session. I need 2 people who know loads of people are really keen to improve their fitness”
By this point if they are keen to get the free space they will be telling you how many people they know and why they would be so good – they are qualifying themselves. If you are happy, agree to make a commitment with them, you will help them achieve their fitness goals with your free bootcamp and they will commit to get loads of people to do your bootcamp-and pay.
Another great idea is to write a letter as if it was from your client, saying how great it is training with you and offering them a free session. Get them to sign the letter and then post it out to everyone they work with or all their friends. Obviously pay the postage and do all the work yourself so that all your client has to do is sign to endorse the letter and tell you who to post it to. This can also work really well as an email. Again you write the email then ask them to send it around to everyone in their address book so it is from them. Imagine you got an email from a good friend or a work colleague telling you all about this great personal trainer that he’s been working with and what fantastic results he’s had from it. Include an offer of some description such as a free session, something with a low barrier to entry.
Welcome letters can be sent to all your new clients the day after they sign up with you, again emphasising that you need their help to grow your business and offering them some sort of incentive for referring people to you. Maybe they get their next month’s PT half price for every person they refer to you that signs up.
A gift card works really well too. Get some gift cards, the ones with a magnetic strip always work well, and have them printed with your logo on and give them a value. For example it might be for two weeks of free bootcamp worth £60 when they sign up with you. Hand them out to your clients at the end of a session, tell them they can give them to a friend, and if they want anymore to come and ask you. You can reuse the cards as they come back in.
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Source by Jamie Jack Stone