Before we dig in here, I feel I need to justify the title of this article to you. I recognize the fact that you and I probably haven’t met yet and you don’t know a whole lot about me, so allow me to explain a little about who I am and my philosophy on business success. I’m a fan of the “long game.” I’m NOT somebody who shouts out ‘get rich quick’ or any of the business opportunity bullshit you see littered by marketing folks all over our industry now. Frankly, that kinda messaging and communication makes me wanna puke. I’m a ‘systems’ guy, and I’m a fan of the “long game.” My parents (and grandparents) raised me with a strong work ethic. I get up every morning, and I go to work, and I believe a strong will, perseverance to press on (even in hard times), and a lifelong dedication to learning AND implementation is the ONLY way to ensure your success long term.

But sometimes, for whatever reason, life throws you a curveball. You make a couple moves and stretch yourself out a little too thin OR you find yourself jammed in a “tight spot”. And when that sh*t happens… the “long game” ain’t gonna cut it! You need an immediate solution to your problem. And a big pile of cash is the ONLY thing that will cut it.

Whoever said “money doesn’t solve problems” obviously never worked for themselves or owned their own business. Because when you’re back really is up against the wall… MONEY is the only thing that will get you out of the hole to safety waiting on the other side. Then, once you get yourself some breathing room, you can get back to playing the “long game” again. But only AFTER the coffers are full of treasure, your bills are paid and you’ve gotten some rest to recover from the stress that NOT having money creates in your business and life.

Are You With Me?

Ok, I hope I’ve justified myself here, because it’s important. And I want to be clear that what I’m going to share with you today is NOT a long-term solution to a failing business model. It’s an “emergency shot in the arm” for when you really need it. The only way to create a sustainable business is the study and implement strong systems into all your operations for how you bring NEW prospects in the door, convert them to paying clients, manage your team of coaches to fulfill on services and get results, and watch your money.

All that being said, let’s now dig in and talk about…

3 Strategies to Create an IMMEDIATE Influx of Cashflow Into Your Business Now

If you’ve got an existing fitness business, these are the 3 fastest ways to generate an IMMEDIATE influx of cash with margin (and that’s a REAL important part of this whole thing) to dramatically change your future right now.

STEP #1: Fix Your Packaging & Pricing “Menu” & Launch a Raise Your Rates Campaign!

I’ve written extensively on the importance of placing an appropriate value on your services. , and why it’s critical to charge an adequate rate for your time. I won’t dig on you hard for that right now. I’ll simply give you the math. Let’s say you’ve got 85 clients, and you’re allowing them to work with you for $100/month. 85 clients X $100/month = $8,500/month GROSS REVENUE. Now let’s say you bring that up to $200/month (still pretty low, but we’ll go with that here). 85 clients X $200/month = $17,000/month GROSS REVENUE.

Keeping expenses equal… because your overhead didn’t go up just because you started charging more…You just gave yourself a $8,500/month NET Raise! Now extract that out over 12 months. $8,500/month X 12 months = $102,000/year RAISE IN NET INCOME! All of a sudden you go from being a “just scraping by” business owner to being a six-figure earner!

Think that’s too “rosy” a projected scenario? Okay, let’s say you lose 30% of your clients (which, by the way, is something I’ve NEVER heard of in all my years of coaching people this this process). 85 clients X 70% renewal (assuming 30% go elsewhere) = 59.5 clients. But we can’t have half a client, so we’ll round down and call it 59 clients. 59 clients X $200/month = $11,800/month GROSS INCOME. That’s still at $3,300/month raise! Calculated over 12 months you’ve still given yourself an extra $39,600/year raise in NET INCOME. And now you’ve got a more committed core group of clients you enjoy working with… and you can of course now do some marketing to add to that core group of clients from there. PLUS you “cleaned house” with some deadwood clients that were basically whiners and complainers you couldn’t really help anyway… and STILL YOU ARE NOW MAKING MORE MONEY! Why the hell would you NOT do this?

There is NO PROFIT in being the cheapest game in town, or working with clients for $100-$150/month. You just can’t run a feasible business when you are working for peanuts.

To give you some perspective on who’s charging what, we see a range of group training services between $200-400+/month. And private training services go for anywhere from $100-350/session. So if you’re NOT within those ranges…you need to be. And if you’re at the bottom end of those ranges, then the easiest thing to do is step up the ladder to be near the top end.

Now I know I’m going to hear a ton of objections as to why you can’t do this. But there really is no can’t. There is only “won’t”. And what I say to everyone who gives me a bunch of lame “reasons why” they believe they can’t do this is you need to reprogram your head on this stuff. If you don’t think you’re giving enough value to justify asking for more, then fix that… but still ask for more! Okay? Don’t NOT do it.

We teach a formula for value over here that goes like this: V = CE + R + R. This stands for Value = Client Experience + Relationship + Results. So if you want to focus on increasing the perceived value of your services, focus on improving 1, 2, or all 3 of those variables. Do that and you’ve justified in asking for more every time.

But more than simply raising your rates, if you’re still only asking your clients to invest in small blocks of “sessions” or go “month-to-month” with you program… then that ALSO MUST BE CHANGED. Over all the years and tens of thousands of tests we’ve run, here’s what we’ve found to be the best “control” slide for how your menu should be presented:


Program Name Commitment length Session Frequency Monthly Investment

Program Name: I’m really serious

Commitment Length: 12 months
4x/week $XXX
3x/week $XXX
2x/week $XXX

Program name: I’m serious

Commitment Length: 6 months
4x/week $XXX
3x/week $XXX
2x/week $XXX

Program Name: I’m kinda serious

Commitment length: 3 months
4x/week $XXX
3x/week $XXX
2x/week $XXX

Let me tell you why this is not only the best way to way to present and sell your services, but more importantly the best way to ask a client to commit to solving their problem or achieving the goal they are coming to you for in the first place.

Pay attention now, because this is REALLY IMPORTANT. I believe that when someone comes to you who needs your help, if you allow them to just ‘dip their toe in the water’ then you have let them down as a coach. I believe it’s your moral obligation to help them understand where they are now and TRULY MAKE THE COMMITMENT TO THE LENGTH OF TIME IT WILL TAKE TO GET FROM WHERE THEY ARE NOW TO WHERE THEY WANT TO BE. And when you think about it, what is really more important than that? Without a commitment to “doing what it takes” to solve a problem or achieve a goal, how can you really help anybody at all? You can’t! You and I both know their is not a single client walking through your doors that is going to be able to get to where they want to be in a month or two. And It will take at least 6 to 12 months for most people to not only get significant results they’re going to be happy with, but more importantly drill in the new lifestyle habits necessary to succeed long term. So if you allow someone to NOT make that commitment, then you’ve failed in this critical opportunity to help them make the commitment they need to make to themselves! Think about that one a bit, because it’s a big deal. Then presenting program options in terms of “frequency of sessions” makes sense because every prospect intuitively knows you’re going to ask them to train every week. The only question remains how fast do they want to go in their program and what are they willing to commit do given their schedule and other responsibilities.

So you as the coach should make your professional recommendation here given what a prospect has shared with you about their goals, level of commitment, and lifestyle. NOTE: Understanding the “lifestyle” component here is a BIG key to truly making an “honest” prescription for your client given where they are at right now. But I won’t go off on that tangent. We’ll stay focused on why this presentation of your packaging during your sales process is key.

Lastly you can see we’re presenting price here in terms of monthly investment. Why? Well, because that’s the way we’ve been trained to buy good and services in our society today! Everything has a “monthly investment” in our worlds. Our mortgage, our car payment, our cell phone bill, our utilities, etc. So presenting the investment in your services in that “framework” just makes good sense and allows your prospect to make a quick assessment about their finances.

Now, please note that I’ve said this is how you present it. That doesn’t mean you can’t still ask for full payment upfront, or incentive full payment. When you go to ring up the invoice, the total will be the Number of Months X Monthly investment. So 6 months X $300/month = $1,800 total transaction size. How you choose to allow people to pay for that… and if you choose to allow a payment plan or not is a separate conversation. I won’t go far into that here, because I think you get the point. Okay?

STEP #2: Fix Your Sales Process

Once you’re charging more, it’s time to fix your sales process. Because when you start asking for more money, you need to have a clear and consistent process of how you pre-qualify and the conduct a consultation with a prospective client. Bumbling around with a brochure that has a few rates listed, or throwing people into long free trials is weak and ain’t gonna cut it anymore. And NOTHING will have a greater immediate impact on your bottom line than fixing your sales process. Here’s a graph to show you what I mean:

	# of Prospects	Close Rate	# of New Clients	Average Ticket Sale	Total  New Client Monthly Refenue
You are Here	6	50%	3	$600	$1800
You NEED to be Here	6	90%	5	$1800	$9000

Look at how drastically the numbers change when you fix your close rate (by mastering your sales process) and increasing your average ticket sale (from fixing the way you package and price your services, along with your sales process). Total NEW CLIENT Monthly Revenue jumps from $1,800/month to $9,000. That’s a 500% increase in revenue from just new clients alone.

Now, if you don’t know what your close rate is right now… because you don’t track it… let me tell you that it’s 50%. How do I know this? Because that’s where everyone is at who doesn’t track their sales process! And I know this because I’ve been through this over a thousand times before! But when you get some simple systems in place… like using a “pre-qualification” phone script… and having a structured system and worksheets for performing consultations (we teach what we call our 7-step system of selling services) then you absolutely can get your close rate up to 90%.

We’ve got folks who get and stay at 100% for months, but I want to be conservative here and not just give you rosy “best case ever” metrics. And when you combine a high close rate, with now a higher average transaction size from upgrading your rates and packages… well now you can easily get up to a solid average package sale.

STEP #3: Launch a Reactivation Campaign to All Your Past “Inactive” Clients

All right. You’ve raised your rate to current clients. You’ve upgraded your packaging and the way you present your services to prospects (i.e. upgraded your sales process and the level of commitment you ask clients to make to themselves). Now what? Well now it’s time to reach out to clients whom you’ve worked with in the past, but for whatever reason are NOT working with you right now.

Now the number of people you’ve got on this ‘list’ will certainly vary. We’ve had some clients we’ve worked with who’ve been at this thing 20 years and have hundreds of inactive clients they’ve NEVER contacted since they stopped working with them. And truth be told, results will also vary here based off the quality of the relationship you had with your client. If they hated your guts when they walked out the door, then this probably ain’t gonna be that big a winner for you. But for most coaches, you’ve had clients come and go from your business for a variety of “life issues” that have nothing to do with you. They got sick and fell off the wagon. Kids are out of school and they took some time off for holiday and then just fell out of the groove of coming in. They took a new job and all of a sudden were faced with a bunch of stress from learning their new position and got behind in their workouts. Whatever the case maybe. Point being, life happens. And people fall off the wagon. But you know what? That doesn’t mean they don’t care about their health. And it certainly doesn’t mean they don’t WANT to look and feel better. They just have a lot on their plate and lack the ability to keep the right support system in place all the time to stay on top of their fitness goals. And that’s where we all really come in and make a difference as coaches, isn’t it?

Don’t we help our clients by providing that support system and accountability every human being needs to stay on track and keep ourselves “honest” with what we’ve “said” is important to us? Of course we do! So, again I’m going to challenge you here and say I believe it’s your “moral obligation” to reach out to those folks you’ve previously worked with every now and then. Ask them how they are doing. Let them know you care about them. And invite them to “come back” and work with you anytime they are ready. Because there are GOOD PEOPLE who would LOVE TO COME BACK and train with you. And all they’re waiting for is YOU TO MAKE THEM AN OFFER!

Now we’ve also tested several of these “client reactivation” campaigns over the years. And we’ve seen what works well, and what doesn’t. I’ll tell you what the most important component of this whole thing is though… DOING IT! And to the extent you also take the time to personalize your communication with these folks you’ve previously had a relationship with, the better response (and therefore result) you’re going to get. Not only that, but it’s actually really fun to re-connect with folks whom you may have actually forgotten you enjoyed working with!

Let’s run some numbers here… because I’m a big numbers guy and I think you need to look at this to really understand the power of what I’m talking about. Let’s say you assemble a list of all the clients you’ve worked with over the last 2 years that you DON’T WORK WITH RIGHT NOW. And let’s say that number is 50 inactive clients. I think that’s a pretty conservative number. So we take and run a solid reactivation campaign to all 50 inactive clients. And 15 (30% which can vary but is very realistic) respond to your offer to come back in. Now with your new sales process, you’re closing at 90%, remember? So here is our number (carrying over the same new average transaction size assumption from our last example. 15 prospects X 90% close rate = 13 new clients X $1,800 average ticket sale = $23,400 in revenue you just created. By ‘harvesting’ the stored value sitting there in these old “inactive” relationships.

Pretty cool, huh? You didn’t have to do any crazy marketing. You simply followed a simple process and used a marketing campaign to touch base with people who’ve already worked with you in the past… and now you’ve got an extra $23,400 to show for it! You see how all these numbers start to really add up.

How Much CASH Can You Reasonably Expect?

Obviously that depends on a number of variable like the number of clients you work with, how much you raise your rates, what your final ‘packages’ look like, how many inactive clients your business has, and the quality of the relationships you’ve built with them. But again, let’s run some totals on these numbers in a conservative way. In example #1 where we looked at fixing your menu and raising the rates to current clients here were the numbers:

BEFORE:

85 clients X $100/month = $8,500/month GROSS REVENUE

AFTER:

85 clients X $200/month = $17,000/month GROSS REVENUE

And even with the unheard of 30% attrition example, that left us with:

59 clients X $200/month = $11,800/month GROSS INCOME.

That’s still at $3,300/month raise!

In example number #2 we looked at fixing your sales process, and here’s what that did to your business:

	# of Prospects	Close Rate	# of New Clients	Average Ticket Sale	Total  New Client Monthly Refenue
Before	6	50%	3	$600	$1800
After	6	90%	5	$1800	$9000

That gave us a $7,200/month jump in new client revenue walking in the door each month.

Again, that’s still without doing ANY new marketing… which you should also be doing to increase the number of good prospects walking through your doors… but I’ve kept that out of the equation right now (obviously that will also cause things to jump up dramatically).

And in example #3, we took a list of 50 inactive clients, and here’s what happened:

50 total inactive clients X 30% response rate = 15 prospects X 90% close rate = 13 new clients X $1,800 average ticket sale = $23,400 in revenue you just created out of thin air.

So let’s sum this up:

$3,300/month raise from existing clients + $7,200/month increase from NEW clients + a $23,400 hit from reaching out to old clients = $33,900 CASH INFUSION TO YOUR BUSINESS!

Not to mention what that means over the next year to your bottom line:

$3,300/month + $7,200/month = $10,500 X 12 months = $126,000 INCREASE IN NET INCOME

Again, we still haven’t done any NEW client marketing yet… which will also increase the numbers substantially in NEW CLIENT INCOME.

Is this beginning to sink in yet?

How 3 simple strategies can give you a tremendous boost RIGHT NOW… and set you up for success for the entire year to come?

I hope so!

Summary

All right, we’ve covered a lot of ground here. Hopefully I’ve convinced you of the “argument” for why you should place a higher value on your time and the services you deliver, and I’ve shown you the math how quickly your cash flow can increase immediately with just 3 simple actions.

So where do you go from here? Well, now it’s time to implement of course! I’m going to be talking more about THAT piece of the puzzle later this month. Stay tuned!