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The recent changes we made to Trainer+ completely change how you can manage client flow for your business. Our goal with this platform was to empower trainers to help more people and focus on fitness support, not sales. In order to do that, we believe trainers need to:
- Aggressively follow up, rather than aggressively close
- Reassess EVERYONE, whether they purchase initially or not (give them a reason to see you again)
- Let people fail on their own
- Make sure everyone has a customized program
- Have a long term relationship with your clients, just as other extended health care professionals do
Over the past couple of months, and especially this past week, we have added a number of features that should allow trainers to do all of the above, and change how clients are managed.
Assessments
The first interaction that you have with any potential client is in the form of a consult or assessment, so it is important that our trainers can enter this information into the system. Not only does it give more data on every client in addition to their workouts, but it actually sets the tone and expectations with your potential client right away. You use an app to enter all of the relevant information about their fitness, which will let you...
- support them in new ways for training support;
- know when it is time for follow up or changes, and;
- have a long term record of their fitness and results
Reassessment Email/List
We made it mandatory for you to enter a reassessment date with every client assessment you submit. Not only does this set the tone for you with the client about ongoing engagement, it puts the responsibility on the technology to follow up, not just you. This also communicates support to your clients, instead of sales. We send an email to your client one week before their reassessment date with you cc’d on it, reminding them it is time to book a check in if they have not yet. We have also made a list of past and upcoming assessments, so you can see an overview of who needs to be followed up with.
Potential Clients
What about those clients that you know need your help, but they are not ready to buy? We created a new client status for potential clients which will allow you to enter assessment information for them (and a reassessment date) and prescribe a program for them to track. However, you do not have ongoing oversight for this type of client (i.e. you cannot see workout details or edit their program). It is the program oversight that allows you to deliver your real value (talked more about in this video here), but at least this way they have their first program and a date for reassessment (which they are much more likely to attend if you have given them some initial value). This way, when they come back for a reassessment, there are usually 3 possible outcomes:
They have not gotten to the gym or executed the program and you have proven that they need your help for accountability, so you can talk about a training package.
They have executed the program you gave them, so now you have demonstrated the value of at least having a monthly program and oversight from you.
They have executed your or their own plan and already have the next phase figured out, in which case, they don’t need your help and would not likely have purchased anyways.
This feature was especially asked for from our facility customers who wanted a good way of introducing Trainer+ and engaging more of their members. It gave them a way to show a little value from their training team, but also showed that they had a level of support for all members to retain them in the long term. For facilities that are less driven by the profit motive (school gyms, YMCA’s, etc) this provides a great way for them to provide support for all of their members while letting them sell training in a service-focused way. For facilities more profit driven, it provides a way to sell more initial training options and ensure reassessments where clients can be upsold.
New Pricing
To bring it all together we changed our pricing model to make it easier to get started and less confusing about the monthly charges. Rather than the per-client model we have been using, we decided to go to a tiered model that gives you a set number of active clients, with unlimited potential clients. Everyone can still earn their first two clients for free and track their own workouts on our basic free plan to get started, then upgrade to one of the paid plans to get more active and unlimited potential clients. This way you should be earning new revenues from services delivered through Trainer+ and only be paying for clients that are paying you, while having a pipeline of potential clients for you to follow up with and convert in the future.
Putting It All Together
Provide a variety of training options and keep your (potential) clients engaged at all times.
With all of these features, delivering the above client flow/management model should be much easier. Every single assessment you do should end up with at least the following:
- Their initial assessment information entered into Trainer+ for them to view
- An initial workout plan customized for them and their goals
- A date for a reassessment and follow up regardless of whether they purchase training
With these features in conjunction with the workout building and tracking tools already in Trainer+, you can provide a range of training options to your clients. For example:
Regular weekly training with online tracking and support
Monthly fitness programming that involves one in person session, with ongoing online oversight in between
A scaling back or less involved option that starts with more in person sessions and scales to monthly programming over time
An initial plan and let them try it out on their own
If they do not purchase training from you initially, you still should be able to prove some of your value and share some of your knowledge with them that can be reinforced on the reassessment. As one of our early success stories puts it, "it is not a matter of if they are going to buy training with this approach, it is just a matter of how much support they will initially go for."
We believe these features and this approach will fundamentally change how you deliver your training service, and have seen it already in some of our early adopters. Turn the assessment into an actual assessment, not just a sales pitch. Give all of your members/clients options for training support, and scale it up and down as they need. Have a long term relationship with your members/clients based around support, and not just renewals. Ultimately, do what you got into this profession to do: be a caregiver, and stop feeling like a salesperson.
For more information about why we made these changes, check out the video and blog post here.
For more information about how to take a long term approach to your training business and the assessment process, read our blog series here.
