The PT Roadmap

A weekly newsletter for personal trainers to guide you to become a better coach and build a better business.

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Thanks for opening up today's newsletter. I appreciate you being here.

I’m reading Michael Easter’s Scarcity Brain just now. He talks a lot about the importance of getting outdoors and into nature. So, I’m going to take my son (he’s three) camping in the next couple of weeks. Have you done this before? Any words of advice? Any pieces of equipment you’d say are essential? Or should I just not and stay home instead because it’s way easier and more comfortable 🤣?

In today’s issue:

✅ Business

✅ Recommended exercise

✅ Coaching cue

✅ Social post worth your time

Let's get into it!

Business

My 5-Step Playbook for More Client Referrals

Referrals are a huge part of any personal training business.

Referred clients are typically better.

They’ve bought into you before starting and don’t cost you money or time.

But getting them is hard.

Sure, you might get the occasional one from your favourite client.

But systemising things so they happen consistently - that’s much more difficult to achieve.

Here are five steps to getting more.

Step 0 - Evergreen Offer

An evergreen offer is the simplest thing to set up to encourage and increase referrals.

An offer that is always in place.

This offer will be made clear to your new clients upon signing up, and then at ongoing intervals.

It’ll explain how to refer and if a reward is given for a referral.

For example:

If you run small or large groups, your ongoing offer could be a 14-day free trial and a £50 cash reward to the referer.

Step 1 - Before Consult

“Who would you like to bring with you to your consultation?”

Credit to Alwyn Cosgrove for this one.

It might be less relevant if you run a solely 1-1 business, but it makes perfect sense if you do 2-1, small or large group.

When you talk to your potential client on the phone, ask them who they’d like to bring to the consult.

You know a support system is vital for your clients, so what better way to ensure they start strong than to have a friend, family member or colleague they can come with?

There's no need to fancy this up; just ask it when you next have a sales call.

If they say yes, great! You’ve got two leads for the price of 1.

If they say no, that’s perfectly ok. You’ve lost nothing.

Step 2 - During Consult

There are two things worth doing to increase your chance of a referral during the consult:

1. Tell them about your referral offer. Make referring seem normal by telling them about your evergreen offer - how it works, why it’s beneficial to them to train with a friend, what they stand to gain and why you prefer to grow your business with referral clients.

2. Listen to them discuss the people in their lives who matter. Take note of these people - names, jobs etc. It’ll be their partners, best friends, colleagues. You’ll need this information when you get to step 3.

Step 3 - Their First 30-Days

Using the information you gained in step 2 about the people in their life, you can hand them a nicely designed 7,14, or 30-day VIP pass to gift to this person. If you’re doing 1-1, this card could be two sessions free or a reduced-price trial. You can create one of these on Canva or Vistaprint without much effort.

The second thing you’re going to do here is make a point of asking for a referral after 2 or 3 weeks. This is when they’ll start to feel better and see strength gains - it is the perfect time.

"It's been great training with you the last three weeks. I'd love to train a hundred more clients just like you! Do you know anyone who'd like to come and train with you? I'd be more than happy to gift you another pass. Who do you think would come?"

Step 4 - The Novel Push

This is where you’ll use a once-a-quarter strategy to push referrals. They are usually ideal for group setups, but you can easily use them for 1-1, too.

You could do something like a bring a friend week. Any client can bring a friend to one of their sessions for free.

A competition where the most referrals wins a big prize (e.g. a 6-month membership) can also work well.

I’ve also seen Christmas gift cards work reasonably well.

The key with anything like this is to prepare before you launch. Set your clients up by making a point of talking about the thing you’re going to do before you do it.

Step 5 - Covert Referral Strategies

The strategies mentioned before are overt because they are clearly trying to get referrals.

Covert strategies are a bit more sneaky.

You want to get in front of your client’s network without asking or gifting a pass.

I talked about these in Issue 25, but here’s a reminder of what they could look like:

• T-shirt gifts at session milestones - When a client hits a session milestone (100, 200, 400 etc), gift them a t-shirt. Here’s an example from Sean Armstrong Fitness. They wear it, and people ask about it.

• Tag on your socials - Whenever you have a client in session with you, get a picture (as long as they are cool with it) of them training and tag them in it. Selfies work well, too, if that’s more your jam.

• Coffee stamp idea - Most coffee shops have a stamp card. Buy 10 coffees, get your last one for free. You can do something like this, but they get a stamp each time they tag you on social media. Once they’ve done it 10 times, they get a free t-shirt, water bottle, hat, magnet or something similar. There can be issues with seeing who has done what with this, so a way to track it effectively is to get them to send a screenshot. Vistaprint would be a good place to get one created.

• Share client spotlights - It could be as simple as an image or video of your client training and some text about their story. Why they started, their results, their struggles and lessons. Or you could go all out and do it as a high-quality video series, like this from AKR Fitness.

• Client meet-ups - Give them a reason to post about you and your community by hosting meet-ups—5Ks, obstacle races, group walks, wine tastings, big outdoor workouts etc. There is a world of things you could do.

Exercise

No exercise this week, but I do have a nice short workout or finisher recommendation: 10-1.

I used this as yesterday’s short-on-time upper-body workout.

Pick two exercises that don’t compete (e.g. RDLs and pull-ups are a bad combo as the grip will be the first thing to go) and that you can do sets of 12-15 reps on, then work from 10 reps down to 1.

I chose ring rows and paralette push-ups.

So it went as follows:

• 10 rows, 10 push ups

• 9 rows, 9 push ups

• and so on

Simple, challenging and time efficient.

Coaching Cue

Recommended Cue:

What is it for?

Teaching the hip hinge.

I used this one during a session on Monday with a client who seems to forget how to hip hinge every week - you know the type 🤣

After he’d remembered and improved his technique, I asked what helped.

He told me imagining he was buried up to his knees in sand helped because he always muddles up squats and hinges.

So, we've agreed our trigger sentence for hingeing will be “You’re up to your knees in sand.”

Who knows whether it’ll work, but we’ll give it a shot!

Social Post

I enjoyed this post from Evan Daly.

I love it when PTs get creative with their video content and convey a message in a novel way.

This could’ve easily been a video of Evan talking to the camera, but instead, he’s gotten creative, taken a bit more time with it and presented an idea in a way more people will engage with.

Thanks so much for reading.

Until next Friday, Stuart.

Here is how I help in-person PTs like you build businesses they love:

Monthly Social Media Templates

Get sent five done-for-you social media templates each month. These are tried and tested templates, allowing you to post better content consistently.

You’ll build stronger relationships, showcase your expertise better and get more people enquiring about your services.

Try a month for £12

1-1 Mentoring

I work closely with in-person PTs to help them fix & grow their business so it’s profitable and on a schedule they don’t hate.

This is 1-1 mentoring where I work with you just like you do your 1-1 clients.

I’ll get to know you and your business before I offer any advice, and we’ll work together to make a plan that gets your business looking and feeling how you want it.

Then, we’ll talk on the phone every single week. And I’ll support you on WhatsApp, so you’ve got a place to ask questions and receive feedback.

Many PTs need someone to listen to their problems and goals, help them make sense of where they want to go, tell them what to do, and help them stay accountable.

This is why it’s 1-1 and not group coaching.

Talking 1-1 is essential to staying accountable and receiving individual advice.

Plus, I love 1-1 coaching.

If you’re interested in chatting about how mentoring could help you bring in more clients, increase your income and get your business running how you want it, hit reply, and we’ll set up a free 30-minute consultation.