From Passion to Profit: Heart Centered Strategies for FitPros

021 Uncovering Hidden Cash in Your Fitness Business

• Nichola Page • Season 1 • Episode 21

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In this week's episode of  'From Passion to Profit', Nichola delves into the hidden cash potential within fitness businesses. Nichola walks through the typical steps individuals take, from initial inquiry to becoming a member, highlighting common leaks in the marketing funnel. She emphasises the importance of plugging these gaps to optimise business growth and increase revenue.

Key Takeaways:

  • Leaks in the marketing funnel, such as no-shows and non-signups, can result in missed business opportunities. 
  • Effective communication at various stages is crucial for re-engaging potential clients.
  • Personalised communication through email, text, WhatsApp, or traditional mail can make a significant impact.
  • Business owners are encouraged to assess and optimize their marketing funnel systematically for better results in client retention and revenue growth.

Resource Links:


Nichola Page:

Do you have hidden cash in your fitness business? Now I'm pretty confident that you do 99.9% of fitness businesses have hidden cash in their businesses, right? Like right now. So unless you are in the point 1% You do too, right. So in today's episode, I'm going to help you to uncover that hidden cash so you can increase the money that's coming into your business. Now I've referenced one bout to reference more about group fitness. Okay, so what the outline I'm going to give you is really talking through the group fitness journey. But in truth, most of what I'm talking about, it's relevant, even if your business is not focused on groups, there just might be some of that, where you're going to have to join the dots a little bit. So I'm going to walk you through this typical group fitness business to highlight where the hidden caches right now. So as I say, if you're not briefing is still listen, it's still all relevant. It's just the example I'm giving is group fitness. Okay, so the typical group fitness membership journey goes like this, you put some marketing out, or you've just got people talking about what you offer. So they come to you they inquire about what your classes or you might, your marketing might be driving them to a landing page where they've got opt in. For your class, maybe you offer a free taster class, maybe you do a free trial, maybe it's not free, maybe you do a first class for five pounds, whatever the first step is, people are coming into your world at that first step, okay, so they're now giving you some form of contact details. So it might just be name and email address at this stage, or it might be a little bit more name, email, telephone number, but they now come into your world, you've got their details. That's step one. Step two is that they now need to book on to the class that they want. Maybe you have a whole timetable on offer. So now the next step is that they've got to select which day and time what type of class that they actually want to attend. So that's step two, then we have step three, where they've now got to show up to it. So they need to physically come along. Or if you're doing an online version of that, they've got to turn up to it. Or if you're completely online, where you're actually it's not like a zoom session where you can see them, they've got to actually consume it. So they've got now login to the thing and take part and do the session that they've signed up to. So we had step one, they've their first bit, and they've given you their details that says, Yeah, I'm interested, they've raised their hand, I'm interested in this. Tell me more about it, or what are my options? What classes have you got? So step two, is they book onto it, they've confirmed, this is the class, this is the day, this is time I want to come along step threes, they show up, they're now taking part or consuming what it is that you're offering. Then the next step from there is that you give them some kind of offer, you want them to say yes to a membership, or maybe you've got a beginners course starting, whatever that thing is, the next step is they say yes to what you're offering. And then they're a client for a while member for a while, and then they, they stop, they cancel, and they move on. So we've got these various steps that people go through. In the typical group fitness membership journey pays nothing rocket science about that. You may not have one or two of those, you might just go straight to that they've, they've got to book their class. That's all kind of step one, when they opt in, they opt in and book. So you might miss out those first few steps. And Step one is to book the class, attend the class, sign up as a member, and then end the membership. So that might be your, what I call your funnel. Okay, this is all about this is all in the mid marketing. So you're probably doing and thinking about a lot of different ways that you can do your marketing to reach new people. And that's what I call filling the top of your funnel. Okay, so you might be doing social media marketing, you might be doing paid ads, you might be doing some kind of referral programme, or a flyer job, whatever your marketing is, you're trying to fill the top of your funnel with new people into it. But the hidden cash in your business is often what happens once they've come in the top. They can end up falling through the gaps of that funnel. You have leaks in there. You're leaking water. If you imagine a bucket that you hold up, that's been you know, it's got few holes in it. You fill the water up in the top and little bits of water are falling out different places. That's what we're doing. looking about here, this is where your hidden caches. And honestly, if you plug these gaps, it can make all the difference in your fitness business. So how many people are we talking about that fall through the gaps? How many people would opt in, say yes, to come into your free class, but then they don't go ahead and book, the actual date and time of it. So they're in your system somewhere, they just haven't taken the next step to confirm the session that they want to come along to. But you still got their contact details. They don't take that next step. They've just leaked back out of your funnel. Maybe they have booked in. But now what is happening is that they don't show up. So they've booked they've confirmed, they've got that far in. But they don't show. That's another leak in your funnel. And often, when I'm speaking to small business owners, I say, you know, how many people do get that don't turn up. And there are so many Yeah, we get a few. So frustrating. It's infuriating time wasters. Maybe, maybe not, maybe life just got in the way. If you do nothing with those people, if you don't follow up with them, if you don't encourage them, if you don't keep nurturing them, they're not going to come back in the top of your funnel, but they will go in the top of somebody else's. So if you're not doing your utmost to plug the gaps there, you are absolutely missing a trick because they got even further down in the funnel, something just happened, potentially, that you are not aware of that just got in their way. Short term. So what are you doing there? How many of those people have you got? How many contact details have you got? If you think that over a whole of last year, for example, how many people booked that didn't turn up? Pretty sure you're going to have a few on your list. But it I want you doing with them? Are you trying to reengage with them. And if you're using a typical email marketing system, or a booking system, let's say you're using something like team up mind body, no disrespect to those at all. They can work brilliantly. But if you're just using the bog standard wording that is already there, that is not going to cut it, you have to be able to connect people back to the reasons why they opted in, booked a class in the first place. So your wording at those stages is crucial as well. So it's not just the fact that you're looking at what stage of the funnel did they drop out, we also want to make sure that how we communicate to them really hits the mark and get some kind of get Yeah, I need to rebook, I need to report back in that because that's, it was important to me, it's still weird. I just got slightly sidetracked. But I'm back, I want to get back into it. And then you've got the people that came along to that, that taster class, they so they attended they, as far as you know, they had a lovely time, they enjoyed it, but they didn't sign up there. And then there are there are kind of like loose statistics out there that say 20% of people that are come to your class to a taster class, like 20% of people were going to, they already knew that we're going to sign up. It was just part of the process. They were there. They're already they knew they were going to become a member 20% of those people would come and like, yeah, it's not for me. So now we're left with this 60% of people who may need a little bit of convincing that this is the right thing for them who are not ready to say yes, there are and there, there may be a whole myriad of reasons as to why part of this is about you showing the value, why they need to sign up. But some of it is like they're just too in their own head, they might say things like, Let me think about it, send me some information over or I need to speak to my partner or I need to look at money or I've got a lot going on at the moment or I've got holiday coming up. The list goes on right? There'll be a whole bunch of reasons as to why they didn't sign up. But if you're not doing anything with those people, if you are like some I've come across who are of the opinion or what if they didn't want it, they don't want it. I can't be bothered with that time wasters. Again, you're missing a trick, because for whatever reason, they either did not see the value in what you were offering. And that is down to how you position that is a whole other subject or something wasn't quite right there just wasn't quite ready yet. Some people are just not confident enough to do the next step. But if you don't communicate with them at all, again, they're going to go into somebody else's fun or somewhere down the line. And isn't it better that they come back into yours? Isn't it better that you given an opportunity to come back you keep in contact with them. So that's another huge leak in the funnel. And then we have got those people who have been with you, they signed up, they were the member, they enter some for whatever reason, at some point they decided to stop they decided to leave. Yeah, I know that at that point, it can feel like a bit. You know, they've they've cancelled, why did they go, it's a bit disheartening, when you know, that there's still so much more you can do to help them. But that is business. In the fitness industry, particularly in group fitness. If you have got a 95% retention of your clients, so 95% of the people stay with you, which means 5% month in month out, about 5% of people will leave, that is a great result. If you're trying to stick with 100% retention, good luck with that, I don't know whether that's going to work out for you. It's if it's you find it really difficult. And if it kind of hurts your ego, then my advice is, we'd love get over there. Because this is how business goes people will come, they'll go through your funnel, they'll be with you for a while, and they will leave of the stay longer of this. They're much shorter than that. But that is the cycle of it. But if you just leave them, when they get when they've cancelled and don't communicate with them anymore, don't give them an offer every now and then to come back and rejoin again, you're missing a trick. There's lots of tricks that being missed here. So think about it, you're putting all this effort and profit possibly money into filling in the top of your funnel, apart from the one at the bottom, where they've been a member for a while, if you're not doing anything to plug the gaps in between, you are leaking money, not just potential people coming in that they are worth cash into your business, and you get to help even more people. So sometimes, it is all about plugging those gaps up. Once you've once you've optimised that part of your funnel, you actually don't need as many people into the top, because you've got a really tight system of bringing people back in. So actually your budget, the amount that you're spending on marketing, marketing can sometimes come down because you've, you've plugged all those gaps in your leaky bucket. So here's an exercise I'd love for you to do, if you have got the data is to look at if and if you haven't got the exact data, maybe best guess will do for now. But think about how many people let's look at the last 12 months. If you can't go back that far, then just look at the last six months, how many people may have inquired or opted in, in some way, but then didn't go any further. Let's say for example, you you can find 50 people that did that. So they said yes, you've got the contact details. They didn't book anything. Nothing. They didn't go any further. Let's say you so you've got 50 people sitting in this pot over here. Then you might have a case I had now how many people went on and actually booked that taster class that they were they've opted in for but then didn't show up. So now maybe we have got the 50 Another 50 Maybe. So we've got 50 people who actually inquired didn't go any further. And now we've got another 50 people who did book but they didn't turn up. So now we're up to 100 people potentially, there, maybe we've got some people who came along, but they didn't sign up. Let's be conservative here, maybe what 25 People sitting here who didn't actually sign up, but they did attend. And then we got another part of people 25 People in another part who went all the way through was a member was a paying client but then cancelled. We're talking about just about 150 people now in group fitness, depending on the size of your business, of course, if you've got a if you've got a studio, we're probably talking about a lot more than 150 people. But what are you doing to communicate those? They originally at one point were interested in drawn to your business, if you are not communicating with them at some level, all the way through that funnel. They've possibly already gone somewhere else. Or maybe they're maybe they've gone somewhere else but they're not quite happy and with a little bit of a nudge from you, they would come back. But 150 People leaking through different gaps, bunkers. What are you doing to fill those gaps? There are different ways that you can communicate with them. You could send them email you You could send them text messages, you could send a WhatsApp message, you could do a video message, you could send them a DM on social media, or you could send them a letter in the post, there is no excuse. There are so many ways for us to communicate with people that have taken that step towards us. So even if you don't have their email address, send a DM on social media. If you've got their telephone number, that's the better way WhatsApp call them, text them. If you've got their physical address, get something out in the post of them. If you haven't got their physical address, and on WhatsApp, send a video message. Hi, Nicola, I've been thinking about you, how's things going, we've got a great thing coming up. Just wondering if you'd be interested in it. It's that simple, takes a few seconds to do something like that. But reach out to them because you are absolutely missing a trick. If you don't, I hope I've got the message across loud and clear. So think about it. And all those differently, all those different parts of your funnel, do that exercise, and then make a commitment to yourself to work on plugging those gaps. When it comes to building your small business, it is not all about the front end marketing. It's a lot of it is about having the processes in place what I've just described to mop up those leaks that you've got in your funnel, you could be missing out on huge opportunities to help more people, and of course, to bring in more money into your business for it to grow. So what are you going to do to fix that, I hope that this is kind of resonated with you. I've hope you've taken in this information I've given you even if you pick one part of that funnel to plug that gap, set yourself a goal that in the next month, you're gonna work on one part and then the following one month, you're gonna work on the second part, but do it. Don't let those opportunities slip through the gaps. Don't let those people go to someone else. They need to come back to you, but only they're going to do that if you continue to communicate with them. So that's enough for me. I'm gonna get off my soapbox now. I look forward to hearing from you. Please do. comment and tell me how it's going on. Reach out to me on social media. Let me know what your thoughts are about what you're hearing on these episodes. share it subscribe, leave a review that will be amazing. But until next time, enjoy the process of uncovering some hidden cash in your business.