As we came out of Lockdowns, we changed our way of bringing new people in.
From a monthly find out more meeting to a phone call.
Pros and cons to both approaches.
It’s more effort over all to do individual calls.
But it’s a quicker turnaround on those that do want to get cracking.
And they can be done at any time – if you couldn’t make the meeting you had to wait a month or more (and some could never do Tuesday nights).
FitPro friends of mine sometimes ask about how we do things at RISE.
Most FitPros don’t like the idea of doing phone calls.
They “don’t want to hassle people”.
Or feel “it feels a bit salesly”.
I just see it as a chat with people who have a problem we might be able to help solve (it’s www.myrise.co.uk/apply if telling yourself “I know what I need to do, I just need to do it” hasn’t permanently solved that problem and you’re now willing to get some proven support in making that happen).
If we’re a good fit, we’ll get cracking.
If we’re not, for whatever reason, that’s cool – I’ll try and recommend something that does work better for them.
When people apply, I’ll normally send a few texts to try and arrange a chat.
And, if there’s no response, I’ll call them up.
I’m not hassling them – this is exactly what they’ve requested and I know how many times I’ve got hold of someone and they’ve been apologetic about not getting back to me and they’ve just been busy.
But it does get the point where I’ll stop attempting to contact people if there’s no response.
And, sometimes people will answer and then hang up when I explain who I am.
Or do the old “Hello? Hello? I can’t hear you. Hello?” and hang up.
Talking to a FitPro friend the other day they said how much they hated it when that happens.
“What do you do when they hang up on you?” they asked me.
“It’s great” I replied.
“It’s clearly not going to work out between us so we’ve just got to that position quicker and saved us both some time”.
Communication is a massive part of what we do.
Not getting back to someone when you’re busy is one thing (although I do try to help people question how long sending a text really takes and if time was really the issue)…………
Hanging up on people who’ve requested you call them isn’t how I roll.
Better to realise we’re not a fit than after a 15 minute chat.
Or, even worse, after they’ve started the programme.
Getting to a result fast has massive benefit.
The same result in less time frees up our resources for other stuff.
Eating home cooked meals with 20 ingredients chopped and cooked from scratch is awesome.
And if we’re happy doing it, great.
But choosing a lower calorie ready meal and drinks and swapping a few snacks around can be better than what we were doing and take no additional time.
A few tactical swaps in what we eat for something equally that is enjoyable, convenient and filling but that has half the calories, might not get us in the Olympics but will make us forward progress in zero additional time.
Daily two hour workouts will, obviously, get us great physical results………..
But two or three 45 minute ones will still make us forward progress.
There’s no right or wrong, of course.
But remembering that getting to the desired result with the least amount of time and effort is more likely to happen will only help us actually get there.
Much love,
Jon ‘Hanging On The Telephone’ 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!
