Speaking (yesterday) of conversations with fellow FitPros, having had a successful fitness business for over a decade, it’s quite a regular thing that they ask me about how I do things.
I’m happy to share the way I operate with anyone that isn’t direct competition.
And one thing that people sometimes ask about is how I bring new people in.
The process, in case you haven’t seen it, is that someone fills in a form and we arrange a conversation about the programme.
That form might be accessed directly from a post on social media, via link in a blog (cough** here –> www.myrise.co.uk/apply ** cough) or from somewhere else.
When I explain this to the fitness professionals, they’ll sometimes tell me that they’ve “tried phone calls”.
But that they got a lot of “time wasters”.
And ask how I deal with them.
The important consideration, that they are usually missing, is that no one sets out to be a “time waster”.
No one wants to waste my time and particularly their own.
When I ask said FitPro what that person was expecting when they come on a call, the reason for all this “time wasting” often becomes clear.
Often, the person coming on the call is coming in with zero expectation but there’s going to be talk of a membership.
It’s been pitched as a “free health and fitness consultation”, “exploration session” or some sort of chance for them to gain some information and / or direction.
And they’ve got exactly what they came for.
When some sort of paid membership is mentioned at the end, they’re unlikely to choose to go for it then and there.
They didn’t particularly come to find out about that.
Or maybe they did, but they came in knowing zero information.
When people arrange a chat with me, it’s clearly framed as an opportunity to find out more about the programme and why they might then choose to join.
They have a certain amount of information given to them beforehand.
They’re fully expecting to come in and for us to have a look at what they want to achieve, what they’ve tried in the past, why that may or may not have worked, what support they’d need from us……….
To gain some clarity on if, or how, the programme would help them achieve those goals………
For any additional questions to be answered………
And then for a decision to be made.
That’s what people come into calls with me expecting to happen.
And nearly always a decision is made at the end of the call.
Sometimes it’s a “No”.
Sometimes a “Not right now”.
Usually a “Yes”.
You know, because the programme is awesome and all 😉
And you can get some of that via www.myrise.co.uk/apply
But, whatever their decision, I’d never considered that they’d wasted my time.
We’ve both gotten from the call exactly what we came to get.
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It’s a powerful thing, when we’re continually not getting the result that we want from something, to look at our input to that situation.
We get annoyed at other people in our lives for their behaviours.
But at no point have we clearly verbalized to them exactly what we’d like them to do and why………
Let alone got their buy-in.
We avoid the difficult conversations with people about the things that are frustrating us……….
Then continue to get frustrated when nothing changes.
Having these conversations isn’t always easy.
It’s rarely easy.
It doesn’t always lead to the result that we desire.
But it’s more likely to than just expecting that people “should” or “ought to” behave differently.
Because that’ll just go the same way as before.
Much love,
Jon ‘Waits for no man’ Hall
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RISE in Macclesfield was established in 2012 and specialise in Group Personal Training weight loss programmes for those that don’t like the gym and find diets boring and restrictive!
