Stranger to Customer

Nobody wants to be hard sold on a gym before even knowing that that particular gym exists.
The buying cycle exists because potential clients all have the same approximate psychological
pathway to feeling good about a buying decision.

As a quick reminder, here is the buying cycle:

● Strangers
Attract
● Visitors
Convert
● Leads
Close
● Customers
Delight
● Promoters

The circular nature of the buying cycle means that all forms of conversation have a direct or
derivative connection to the other parts of the buying cycle. What you post on a gym’s website
may be seen by somebody who is a long-time client or a first time viewer. If a long-time client
refers to somebody who has never heard of the gym, that’s two very different stages for those
people. The goal of a well-crafted funnel - i.e strategic way of getting people to move through
the buying cycle so that more people end up as clients - is to get more people into the top of the
Funnel.

To build a quality sales funnel, it helps to go from bottom to top. A gym owner must begin with
what service they’ll ultimately want their clients to sign up for. Let’s say that example is OPEX
Individual Design, the gym owner must walk through each step their unique target market must
travel through to psychologically come to a buying decision (we’ll leave referrals and post
customer off of the table for the moment).

Please note that unique target markets will walk through slightly different emotional steps, but
the broad pathway will be pretty similar. For somebody to sign up for a, let’s call it, $300/month
individual design service, they must have done some thinking.

● They must be able to pay $300/month, have the time, know approximately what they
want to achieve, and be ready to pull the trigger

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 ● They must believe this particular gym is the best place for them to receive individual
design to reach their goals and enjoy their training
● They must want individual design training
● They must want to train or be healthier/stronger
● They must recognize that they aren’t where they want to be with health/wellness - for
whatever reason

Notice how the top bullet is the last point that somebody would likely come to in the sales
consultation, ie they are making the buying decision. The bottom bullet has absolutely nothing to
do with the gym, it has everything to do with somebody becoming aware of something that
doesn’t feel quite right. When they become aware of that, they begin to look for ways to
fix/improve what is not balanced properly. Based on what they find online, in person, or from
their friends, they begin to research the broad idea - i.e, they wouldn’t immediately say “I want
OPEX,” they’d say “I need to do fitness.” Once they know they want fitness, they need to figure
out what kind of fitness they want. When they recognize that they want a 1:1 coach they will ask
themselves “who delivers this 1:1 coaching service the best out there? It’s at that moment that
OPEX really should come into the fold. If the person does their research and has conversations
with OPEX and says “I’m interested in this, then the realities set in of “can I pay for it, do I have
time, etc."

This is a very common set of steps that all prospective clients walkthrough. Great gym owners
think about the buying cycle and these psychological steps as they plan out how, where, when,
and how they will have conversations that will turn into clients. Remember as well, the “who” is
the target market that the gym owner has already defined. The “what” and “why” really fall within
the context of the how/where/when portion of the funnel. That means all of the who, what, when,
where, why, and how are covered within a well-constructed sales and marketing - acquisition -
Funnel.

To briefly touch on the top of the funnel - the bottom bullet above - the gym owner simply needs
to put quality content/conversations that their target market finds valuable and will find them. For
example, if a gym was located in a fictitious world that didn’t have internet, it would be foolish to
do all of a gym’s marketing through a website. While that example might sound absurd, far too
many gym owners are doing one of two things that harm their marketing efforts: 1) putting
content out into places where their specific target market doesn’t “live,” or 2) not “sending” the
content out to their people. For example, if a gym owner writes an awesome blog, but they don’t
think about the specific search terms that their prospective clients are searching for, those
prospects will not find the article. If the gym owner doesn’t share that article on social media,
have their connections share it, hashtag it, etc., few to no people will find it.

Remember something important, just because the content is written doesn’t mean it’ll be found.
It’s up to the gym owner to drive that content to new potential clients. This is where ads, SEO,
using
hashtags to get your content into different audience groups, getting shares, etc are very

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important for the content a gym produces. The goal of most awareness campaigns is to get
potential clients to like pages, follow people/pages, get to the gym’s website, and sometimes to
opt-in for either a newsletter or a piece of content - keeping in mind that that piece of content
that the potential client would opt-in for would need to be more global (something they already
understand and want to consume) as opposed to something talking about the service or
something they wouldn’t yet understand.

Building interest makes a massive assumption - that people already know who the gym is.
Awareness can lead to interest and in seconds, but awareness must exist before building
interest properly. This is important to think about because too many local gyms talk too much
about their service before “getting to know a potential client.” Remember that the potential client
is the “hero” and they need to go through the buying cycle stages at their speed. Interest is often
accompanied by gaining information about the potential client or engaging them on social media
or YouTube. On the web side, it’s often where people have read an article or two and now have
signed up for either a newsletter or deeper piece of content they’re interested in. That allows the
gym owner to create a “drip” email campaign that gives helpful information as well as building
the case for - in the OPEX case - individual design/personalized fitness which would then work
to differentiate the OPEX Gym as the best place to do that individual design training. On social
media, this is where engagement would happen to build interest. If the gym does something like
a giveaway or posts really useful content for the potential client, that potential client would
engage with that post(s). The gym owner would then engage back with that person on the post
or potential through direct messages. On YouTube, people are often more willing to watch
longer-form videos, so the gym owner can do content that is a bit “bigger” than build interest in
both individual design and then OPEX. The goal is to take somebody’s awareness and turn it
into wanting the service of the gym and beginning to differentiate the gym vs the other
people/gyms offering the same service. When they know they want the service and they believe
they have the right coach/gym, they’ll “raise their hand” and request a consult (RAC) for a sales
consult.

Getting somebody to make a purchase requires that they are both aware as well as interested in
your service. Sure, gym owners can move people forward through this whole lifecycle if they
meet them in a coffee shop, but the majority of clients will take more touchpoints and time to get
there. At OPEX, we believe that the more expensive the service, the more likely it is to require a
human sales consultation - likely a phone call first followed by an in-person sales consult. When
a person moves through the interest stage and RAC’s in, they are saying, “I’m ready and I want
to make a decision.” The gym owner shouldn’t have to fully walk them back through each of the
previous stages. The gym owner should zone in on 3 main things: 1) Is this person a good fit for
the gym - the pre-qualification (pre-qual), 2) What is the best way for this person to start, 3) How
to get them to close the deal.

The pre-qual often happens on the phone where the gym owner - or salesperson - leads the call
and asks some strategic questions to figure out things such as “can this person pay for the
service, are they serious about starting now, are they a good cultural fit for the gym.” If the

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answer is yes to that, they often invite them into a sales consultation to “check out the gym.” It is
here where the salesperson learns even more about the client, walks them through the value
proposition based on what the potential client wants to do, overcomes any objections, and then
attempts to close that potential client into a paying client based on the right starting point for that
client. In the buying stage, it’s important to be very clear on what onboarding options the gym
has. If the gym brings every new client into a foundations group class, then that needs to fit for
the potential client. If the gym - like OPEX Gyms do - onboards people either through a 4-week
trial or into a longer-term contract (both options begin with a 2 session consult/assessment 1:1
with their coach), it’s much easier to stay focused on where the potential client needs to “go” in
the sales consult. Assuming the potential client moves through all of these steps and says “I
want to go,” the salesperson signs them up for the proper onboarding/contract, fills everything
out to get them going, has them sign waivers, etc, and sets the right expectations for next steps.
The goal of this stage is to have the potential client swipe their credit card and ultimately
become a contracted client.

Once the potential client has become a client, they must be taken care of beautifully so that they
enjoy the service, make progress in and out of the gym, give the gym high NPS scores and
reviews online, and most importantly refer new clients to the gym. Make no mistake, every
session coached, every program written, every consult had is a marketing opportunity - not a
used car salesman marketing opportunity, but a way of building brand affinity and raving fans.
The goal of this stage is to earn a lot of referrals each month.

The best gyms who produce the most new clients, regularly are very clear what their message
is at each stage of the sales funnel and they’re very consistent at delivering that message over
and over again to as many people as possible. Marketing at a local gym level isn’t
supercomplex - though it can feel that way at times. No, where most gym owners miss the ball is
that they go deer in the headlights and never find consistency of conversations at each section
of the funnel and/or they don’t have quality processes/systems in place to do things like
quality/consistent sales consults.

Before reading/moving further, map out the sections of your funnel. What do you have in play to
build each section today? What don’t you have in play? What are your top 1-2 priorities to add
the missing links to your funnel? Take some time right now to look at that.

Social Media

As a refresher, please go back and re-read the marketing strategy section as a refresher on
how to approach social media from a principal's perspective.

It is important to know what platforms people are on. Below are some statistics (Oct 2020) that
show the platforms by the number of users:

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 1. Facebook (2.7 billion)
2. YouTube (2 billion)
3. Instagram (1.2 billion)
4. TikTok (689 million)
5. Snapchat (433 million)

These numbers change depending on your country, but this gives us a great idea of what
platforms people are using worldwide. If you are in the United States, I would add LinkedIn and
Google Business to this list.

The most beneficial platforms that we’ve seen work are Facebook, Instagram, and Google
Business.

When it comes to implementing, it is important to have wanted outcomes in mind. For example,
think about what you are looking to accomplish from each platform. Below are some
considerations by platform:

Facebook

Facebook is important to use due to the number of people on the platform. Facebook has built
its company on algorithms to drive marketing revenue. For your message to reach a big enough
group of people, you’ll need your content to be highly engaging (i.e. to get likes, comments, and
shares), but you also need Facebook’s algorithm to send it to those people. To ensure that it
does, you’ll need to pay. Before you part with your money, however, it’s smart to understand the
different types of (organic) content and to execute them well.

Instagram

Instagram should be your platform of choice to:

● Build Trust: the number one reason people will join your gym is that they trust you. IG is
a perfect place to allow your prospective clients to get to know you, your coaching staff,
and your community.
● Acquire Customers: it is the most cost-effective way to engage your audience, spark
interest, acquire clients, and retain them.
● Know Your Clients: clients and prospective clients reveal their most intimate emotions,
share insight into their lifestyle, and post daily habits that become instant coaching
intelligence.

Google Business

Google is a powerful platform for people to find your business. Without a Google
Business account, it makes it difficult for potential clients to find you when browsing the
internet.

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Your Business Profile appears when people are searching for your business or
businesses like yours on Google Search and Maps. Google My Business is easy to
set-up an entirely free way for people to find you.

A few considerations when it comes to ongoing posting on your social media platforms:

● Have a plan​- planning out your social media will avoid the daily grind of social media
posts and will eliminate wasting hours a day coming up with great post ideas and will
create consistency in cadence and types of posts. Check out our OPEX Gyms content
plan in the Accelerator Index section to get an idea of how you can set up your social
media calendar.
● Be consistent​- in your tone, what you say, how you say it, and who you are speaking to.
Always consider your purpose, mission, and target market
● Keep it professional​- although we all have personal opinions in politics, religion, etc-your
business’s social media is likely not the place for this. Remember, your audience may
not have the same views as you do, but if your personal views align with your purpose
and mission-go for it. Just remember that when you do this, you are decreasing your
market size.

Referrals

Bringing in referrals is beneficial in so many ways. Client fit is one of the most important things
we must consider as coaches. If you have a client that is a great fit, likely,y their friends and
family will also be a great fit for your gym. Most people prefer to do business with someone they
know or someone they know of. Keep this in mind when considering client acquisition and ask
yourself this question - is it easier to acquire a lead that has never heard of you or a lead that
has only heard great things about you?

This is why referrals are a critical part of your business. Referrals are much warmer (meaning
they are further along in the buying cycle) than a lead off the street. They are far more promising
than cold leads, as the initial foot in the door part is not necessary. There will not be the same
level of suspicion and reluctance to engage. Many warm leads will approach you, rather than
you having to chase them. Also, consider your client acquisition cost (CAC) of these leads.
There may be cases that you are spending $1.00-$3.00 for an email address to put into your
CRM, whereas referrals have little to no CAC.

The age-old question is, how do I get referrals? The answer is simple: ASK. You have to ask
your clients for referrals and it is best practice to ask when they are most likely to give them to
you. This could include a follow-up referral email based on a positive survey, during an initial or
monthly consultation, or after they lost that 10 pounds they have been trying to get off for years
or they accomplish their goal of that 200 pound back squat.

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Timing is very critical here. Remember that referrals are a critical part of your gym, no matter
what model you are working in, referrals are much easier to close because they are warmer
leads, and ask for referrals.

Convert

Conversations are the key to all aspects of sales and marketing. Whether the focus is about the
words that you’re using, the number of conversations you’re having, the channels you’re having
those conversations in, or something else, every time a gym engages its audience, it’s having a
conversation of some sort. The most successful client acquisition gyms have more and more
unique conversations with their people. That means they speak to their prospective audience -
meaning people who may buy at some point down the road - a lot. Many owners hope that
clients come to them. The best gyms go out and bring in new clients proactively. Once the great
gyms engage in some form of a conversation, they learn about the prospect in front of them,
and they tailor the rest of that and future conversations more and more into what the prospects
want and need - which moves that prospect to buy faster and more often. Within the
conversation discussion, there are a few main ways that must be discussed:

● In-person, conversations face to face

● Conversations through your existing clients
● In-person partner + event conversations
● Online organic conversations
● Paid media conversations

It’s important to break these into buckets because gym owners have different capabilities within
each of the buckets. Understanding those capabilities and tactics will draw in more sales
conversations. In future sections, more specific tactics will be discussed on how to convert
people within those conversations In-person conversations face to face OPEX will always begin
here because the better that a gym owner can get into and through an in-person conversation,
the better they will be able to sell, and we’d also argue the better they’ll be able to take care of
their people.

The reason why in-person conversations are so important is that they expose key
strengths/weaknesses in the team (owners/coaches/staff) having them. If somebody can
engage somebody whom they don’t know effectively, the rest is pretty easy. It’s challenging for
some people to feel bold enough to start a conversation with people they don’t know, but it’s
critical to building a loyal and wide-spread brand. It’s also critical to getting enough time with
folks whom an owner wouldn’t have otherwise gotten to speak to.

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Some examples of where in-person conversations can organically be created are: 1) any coffee
shop or restaurant, 2) any store be it a grocery store, retail, outlet, etc. 3) on a hike, 4) on a
train, plane, boat trip, 5) at the library, 6) at any local event (more on this later), 7) at a park.
So often, OPEX hears gym owners whine about not getting enough leads. Our first question is
always about how many conversations they had that month with new people. Most gym owners
don’t even know where to start, and the other gym owners rarely have numbers over 1-3/month.

Gym owners must recognize that acquisition is a numbers and quality/connection game. The
more people a gym owner speaks to within their target market, the more prospects they’ll
generate. How to have the conversation does depend on the situation, but some advice that
always benefits everybody who reads/hears it is: treat the potential client as the hero. So many
coaches try to get into a conversation and then only talk about themselves. Owners/coaches
must get into meaningful conversations that will almost always start with something in common
to the two parties, go into what the other party (prospect) cares about, and then grows into the
starting point of a relationship. Each of the rest of these subsections is intended to produce the
same sort of starting point of a relationship, but they are based in slightly different areas.

Conversations through your existing clients Aka “Referrals” or “Reviews online.” The more that
gym owners speak with consistency to their clients, the more their clients relay that message to
their friends. That means that there must be a significant number of similar conversations with
clients month in and month out. Of course, the better a gym coaches and engages their clients,
the more referrals they’ll expect to have. Additionally, there is tremendous power in a gym
owner narrowing down the message that is being articulated to all clients - meaning each coach
and staff member must also follow the messaging and language - so that the message that gets
out to brand new people is very consistent no matter where it’s coming from. And, what will
begin to sound like a broken record, the more conversations had with clients, the more likely
referrals will be. When the message is consistent, the higher the sales prospect count will be
and the more people will close as new clients.

There are a plethora of opportunities for gym owners to put themselves in front of groups of
people. Some of the notable examples are 1) lunch and learns, 2) corporate events, 3) local
events or running clubs, etc, 4) larger conventions, 5) local partnerships with other businesses,
6) networking, or networking groups (if real relationships can be built). The idea here is that gym
owners must put their brands onto a stage that allows people to get to know the brands and
them better. Whether the gym owner sets up these get-togethers, events, networking
opportunities, or whether they take part in them, they are wonderful avenues to build brand
awareness. Often these conversations don’t lead directly to sales, but if done well, the gym
owner can acquire contact information to reach out to these folks afterward.

Principally, that just means that it’s advertising/marketing that turns more specifically into a 1:1
conversation whether it’s through email, on the phone, or in person. Online conversations
organically Think of this as social media direct messages, posts, stories, live, tv, YouTube video
posts, lives, etc. The medium is merely something that has the potential to speak to tens,

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hundreds, or thousands of people in your local area. This type of conversation is now a very real
and important form of brand awareness building - if a gym owner goes out to people - as well as
interest building.
Often the conversation shifts from social media to either email, text, call, or in-person to sell a
gym membership, but the work done on social eases the road to these sales. In today’s world,
it’s very difficult to build a known local brand without some version of a social media presence.

Additionally to social media, web presence, plus google my business presence is massively
important to most gym owners. Web presence means that a gym’s website must be searchable,
plus convertible - meaning people must be able to find it through search engine searches locally
- and the site must effectively nurture people through the buying cycle so that they feel excited
to make a buying decision. Google my business is something very unique to Google, but it’s
extremely important now. Google has built its search engine to function very effectively for
people to search locally. Local businesses must fill out a Google my business page so that their
gym’s information sits in local searches within google - i.e Google doesn’t want the searcher to
leave the Google platform, so they want as much information to remain in the platform as
possible. That means gyms want to have their info there because so many searchers will be
there.

Certainly, there are other forms of online conversations - perhaps a gym owner writes a blog
article that sits on a local website that many people will read every day, perhaps local blogs are
written about the quality of the gym service, perhaps sites like Fitt.co have local sites that
feature a gym owner’s gym. However, somebody who is found without paying for digital ads
would fall into this category of conversations. Paid media conversations This falls into one of a
few main buckets of paid ads: 1) paid social media ads, 2) paid Google or other search engine
ads, 3) paid partnerships with other sites/blogs to run articles a gym owner wrote, 4) paid news
story or magazine ads local to the gym owner’s gym, 5) YouTube ads. There are many forms of
paid advertising online, but there are also many forms of traditional advertising that a local gym
owner has in their arsenal: 1) local tv spots, 2) local radio spots, 3) hard copy print media ads,
4) paid sponsorship of events, 5) billboards in local areas, 6) paid signage or fliers, 7) paid
mailers, 8) paid ads that go into restaurants or local places. In the local gym world, most gym
owners lack the funds initially to pay much for ads, and most gym owners who have paid for ads
have found that they don’t produce amazing results. Please don’t mix the message of gym
owners haven’t gotten good results with ads that don’t work. That’s not the case.

What’s important to think about is what the ad is designed specifically to do, and does the ad
accomplish that exact thing. Many paid ads are not designed to close sales, they are designed
to build brand awareness, drive traffic to websites or social channels, or acquire email
addresses or phone numbers. After that ad does its job, this is where most gym owners drop the
ball. They either don’t follow up with those leads or they don’t have quality social/web pages so
people bounce off of their pages, or they don’t have a good sales system to walk the prospect
through to ultimately close them into being a client.

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All of these avenues listed are merely conversations. The more conversations gym owners have
with the right people (target market) at the right time (buying cycle stage messaging) with the
right message, the more people will sign up for their service(s). As the buying cycle and
language are discussed, the picture will become clear on the tools that every gym owner has
and when those tools should be deployed

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