What You Must Know In Order
To Successfully Market Your
Personal Training Services

By Eric Ruth

Here’s the most frequently asked question I get from Fitness Professionals who follow my marketing systems:

“How long do I continue to market to a lead or a person in my sphere of influence (personal network)?”

And here’s the answer:

Until it’s no longer profitable to do so.

Now, that answer may not satisfy you, so let me explain as succinctly as possible, what may be the most important marketing lesson you will ever get.

The ULTIMATE SECRET To Your Marketing Success!

If you really “get” what I am about to tell you, it will change your perspective – shift your paradigm – forever, and position you to make all the money you want as a Fitness Professional.

Here we go.

Marketing is about the constant conversion process of cold prospects to warm prospects, then to clients or customers.

Marketing is about developing relationships.

Because people only do business with people (not companies – but people) who they know or know of, like and trust.

See, almost everyone who is in business (selling something), attempts to sell via image type advertising/marketing that is all about the company or the individuals in the company.

They are putting a message out into the marketplace that says, essentially, “do business with me because…”

They erroneously believe that by making the case for why their company/services/products are better, people will pick up the phone and call them.

But people seeing these advertisements do not know or know of, like and trust the business.

It’s icy cold.  There’s no relationship.

That’s why you hear knuckleheads who are trying to sell you advertising – or anyone who simply does not understand how marketing really works – saying things like, “you’ve got to run your ad multiple times to get results.”

That’s crazy talk – and it drives business into bankruptcy.

But here’s why they say it.

Yes, it’s true that if you can afford to “brand” your image through extensive and EXPENSIVE marketing campaigns, you will essentially develop a type of “relationship” with people who see your advertising.

They’ll get more comfortable with you just because they’ve seen your name so many times.

And it will result in some business – if you don’t go bankrupt first.

It’s what I like to call the “pay and pray” marketing approach.

You pay for a ton of image branding ads, and you pray they bring you some business.

NOTE:  If you’re not clear what I mean by image or branding ads, take a look in your local newspaper or in the yellow pages.  99% of the ads you see are image: business name, catchy slogan or logo, location, phone number, a couple features, maybe a few benefits and a lot of self-serving, trite phrases like “in business for over 20 years” or “committed to excellence” or “we build better bodies.”

Okay, so now that you know what doesn’t work – image advertising – let’s talk about what does work:

LEAD GENERATION

To develop relationships with prospects so you can convert them from “cold” to “warm” you first have to have prospects, right?

You get prospects by advertising FOR THEM.

That’s the critical distinction between “image” advertising and lead generation.

Image advertising is all about the business.

Lead generation is all about the prospect.

Who will respond to this type of ad?

Why… busy professionals who are interested in losing weight and getting fit, of course.

Are they your ideal prospects?

Certainly.

NOTE: An important thing for you to remember is that not all those who respond to this type of ad will be interested in personal training services.  However, you DO know for certain that they’re interested in losing weight and/or getting fit.  That’s why you must test different OFFERS to these people in order to maximize your conversion.  Some may want to buy personal training services, but some may only want to buy a video or supplements or a book or fitness equipment from you.

So, where are we going with all this?

What’s the underlying purpose of lead generation?

It is to develop your own HOUSE LIST (database) of prospects who have raised their hands indicating an interest in weight loss/health and fitness.

As your house list grows and you continually market to these people with different offers coupled with VALUABLE INFORMATION THAT HELPS THEM, you will gradually build the relationship, warm the prospect up, and eventually sell to the prospect, thereby converting them to customer/client, or get referrals from the prospect.

This is the ESSENTIAL BUSINESS CONVERSION CYCLE.

Now, I used the word “eventually” in the paragraph above, and that word scares some of you, I’m sure.  Because, like all of us, you want results NOW.

You might get results NOW.  You might convert some prospects immediately.  Just don’t count on it.  Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.

What you must understand is that marketing is a PROCESS.

As your house list grows and you continually market to the list, you will begin to convert more and more prospects to customers/clients.

NOTE: I use the term “customer” to refer to someone who buys something other than personal training services from you.  The term “client” refers to someone who becomes a training client.  A “client” is more valuable because the depth of trust and familiarity is greater.

This PROCESS is what I call “getting to critical mass.”  As your list grows and you continue to make the right offers to the right person at the right time, you will continue to convert more and more business.

It’s like a snowball rolling downhill.  As it gains mass, it gains speed and momentum, until it becomes an unstoppable force.

When you achieve critical mass, the business flows in like clockwork.  All you do is keep your marketing machine stoked by getting out your mailings, email, phone calls, etc. to your house list.

If you keep going for the one shot advertising deals, you will throw good money after bad.  You will never build momentum.  You MUST build a list of people with whom you are developing RELATIONSHIPS.

That’s what my email newsletter is all about.  I consistently talk to my subscribers each week in order to build the relationship with them and make specific offers.  As my list grows in size, so will the number of subscribers who avail themselves of the offers I make.

When I had 100 people on my list, I would only get 2 or 3 people who bought stuff from me each week (2-3% conversion).  Now if that conversion rate holds true, as it has proven to do so far, with 3000 people on my list, a 2-3% conversion equals 60-90 sales each time I make an offer.  At an average price point of (for example) $50, that equates to $3,000 to $4,500.  If I make an offer every two weeks, 26 a year, that’s $78,000 to $117,000 per year.

BUILD YOUR LIST!!!

If you boil marketing down to it’s fundamental components, they are:

psychology
arithmetic

You have to understand what motivates people to become prospects and then to buy, and you have to understand the NUMBERS.

What are your cost per lead and your cost per sale?

If you know those two things, you can create a marketing money machine.

So, there you have my long explanation of my original short answer to the question “how long do I continue marketing to a lead or sphere of influence (network) member?”

The answer, once again, is: until it’s no longer profitable to do so.

If you know your numbers, you’ll know when to stop (if you ever stop).

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