During a recent coaching call with a client, we got to the conversation of the amount of beginners she had in her business vs. people that have been with her for a while. I introduced the idea that I felt that beginners were and are the foundation of her fitness business.
If you have a business where you’re bringing in newcomers all the time, then your business is growing.
You may not know but I had a Ceroc Modern Jive business for a number of years. Although I had pretty good numbers (between 100 and 150 people coming every Monday night religiously for a number of years), I actively went out and sought new people to come into the business, to be part of my beginner classes. I did this in a variety of ways. We used to do busking sessions in Cheltenham High Street just so people could see what the dance was about, how easy it was, how much fun people were having, and then offered them an introductory offer to come into the classes and really made an effort to look after them.
We also had people called taxi dancers. After the class, when I played music for people to practice their dance moves to, I had dancers that were experienced, dancers that went out and actually asked the beginners to dance and actually got them used to dancing with a partner during these freestyle sessions. I wanted to make sure that the beginners felt part of the group much quicker and they were more likely to stay.
I would suggest that for you, especially during this time, maybe think of different strategies that you can use to encourage newcomers to try out your sessions, especially if they’re online. Maybe reach out to some of your existing clientele and maybe you could still do referral week or referral day where they can bring a friend session.
Beginners are the lifeblood of your business. I would challenge you to think of ways where you can offer results in advance. Recently I’ve just run a challenge for five days for members of my email list where they created 90 days of social media content. I was offering results in advance so they could see that the principles that I had to share had some merit. And then that would increase the chance of them staying with me and taking part in some of my other services.
So think about how you can offer results in advance in your personal training business or group exercise business. Think about how you can provide a steady stream of newcomers and beginners coming into your sessions. How many beginners’ sessions do you offer as part of your overall fitness package? How do you offer results in advance for them, and how do you make them feel part of your main group quickly?
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