Word of Mouth is King... or whatever the saying is

We all know that the simplest way to get people in is if our lovely clients bring folk with them. The only issue with this is that once our clients have been coming for a while, they run out of people to bring, after all, we’ve only got so many friends right?! So what can we do to work around this? 

First and foremost, create a good system for after you have new folk come, follow up and offer them a discount on a class pass. Yes yes, I know you don’t want to discount your services, you’re not, this is a one-off offer to get the new person to commit whilst they are excited and before the rest of the week has taken away their joy again. This means you have a few more chances to get them into the habit of doing some fitness for themselves. This new person is infinitely more likely to bring other new people. Jane from your front row who has been coming for 15 years is not. She ran out of mates to bring by the end of Year 3. Make sure your new people feel welcome, introduce them to people, offer them a great service, follow up, learn their name, chat to them… if you can make someone enjoy exercise and feel comfortable, they will tell their friends. 

Every now and again, I give out VIP Passes… especially if I have had an influx of new people - normally end of January time and also randomly this year, in July lol! I activate the code in Gymcatch and give out little free class passes… these are especially helpful for my new folk who potentially have friends who have said they’ll come but are making excuses about it at the moment, the fact it’s free reduces the barrier to coming, especially at the moment when everyone is feeling the pinch a little bit. Some of my guys take the passes into their work for me, especially if their work is local or they have a lot of women my age or older there, my target market. 

Additionally, word of mouth can involve social media, so simply asking people to share your class videos or even comment on them can be helpful. Every single one of your clients will have friends on their social media that they would never speak to or invite anyway, but they might see your class video when it’s shared. Even if the viewer of that video isn’t someone who wants to come, they may still offer you up as a solution if someone starts talking about wanting to find a ****** class. I had someone sign up for my online Flex program last week after having been recommended it around 5 months before (my client had come to me and told me their sister was going to sign up). Five whole months for me to be the right fit for that new person. It’s a long process when someone is buying something. 

People need time to get used to ideas, to see you pop up 11 times (or whatever the magic number is at the moment). With referrals we can bypass some of those times because the recommendation helps to build trust but we still need to be patient and allow for time. People are BUSY and they need warning. If you want to ask your clients to bring some friends, make sure you allow enough time for that to happen. 

Going into a business to do classes can also help if they are local enough. That’s a big group of people talking about you to other folk even if it’s not the people from the business who actually end up coming. Word of mouth isn’t always direct.

Word of mouth could be using a podcast, or emails or a blog… something shareable that your clients might actively want to give to a friend to help them. In fact, if you have some kind of free resources that can make a massive difference. It means they have a chance to get to know you before they make a move. It might be that you are more of an in-person type person, in which case maybe local events might work a bit better for you. The town markets, the light switch on, any local social nights perhaps even offering a free class pass to people who work at the hall you hire for your classes (for example teachers if it’s a school) - they might not come, but they might tell their friends about it. 

Getting people into your class is a bit like having a gym crush. If you saw them, walked over to them with a vicar-ish person and forced them to marry you under the squat rack, they might feel that they weren’t ready (maybe lol!). But over time of having nice chats, going out on some dates, getting into a relationship, the marriage bit might be on the cards. And it’s the same with our classes, one post won’t be enough to get someone to come. We need to show them who we are and what we are about, let them have conversations or see videos of us without feeling the pressure to buy, to have time to see we are indeed pretty normal and relatable to them in some way. Folk who will be thinking about starting new workouts in November/December/January will be laying the foundations in their heads now… and by ensuring that you are one of those people who are visible and accessible to them, you will be front and centre of their minds when they start thinking about it seriously.

It IS harder to sell classes now than it used to be, but we've still got a market... we just have to get better at reaching them.  

Anna

Xx

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