Have challenges been failing to bring in new clients for your business?
Challenges can be a valuable business tool but they’re not the best strategy for generating new business.
So where do they fit into your strategy?
Let’s find out!
In this episode, we unpack:
- Why your challenges aren’t driving new clients in your door.
- How you can still leverage challenges to improve retention.
- Best practices for running successful challenges that benefit your business.
Plus tons more!
If you want clear direction on how challenges can fit into your business (and where they don’t), you won’t want to miss this episode!
Are you still looking for help with that acquisition problem? We got you covered! Sign up for a FREE Naamly trial to improve your follow-up and conversions!
Watch The Full Episode
Sumit: Well, hello. Hello.
So welcome to another episode of one. We’re training gyms, get actionable insights to grow their business. So, hi, Tom, how
Thomas Plummer: are you? Good. I think people think we have no friends, cause we’re always hanging out together. It’s just like, those guys are always together. What are they doing that they’re just sort of, you got a lot to talk about.
That’s why
Sumit: that’s true. That is true. So, so today’s question, Tom is I have a lot of clients. That use challenges to fill their gyms. And they run these challenges to put in a lot of money, energy effort, and then the end, they say, you know what? The challenges did not work. And they did not get the results that they expected it to get.
So what are they doing wrong? How should we be running challenges? Tell me more.
Thomas Plummer: Oh, that’s a, that’s a question. I mean, that’s a strong question. We could go back many layers on that. So the, if you think about a challenge, it was it’s. A marketing tool. You know, they used to have challenges choose even 15 years ago where, you know, the, you would have put together teams there’d be prize money.
You know, people would come in and okay, I’m going to be here for 12 weeks or eight weeks or six weeks. People are going to pay me to be. You know, part of this group and then they all have matching t-shirts and they, they work out together and it’s just like, yeah, that really did work 15 years ago, but the client has changed and sometimes there’s a sense of over exposure with them.
So if you think about the challenge, what am I really trying to do with it? So if it’s a simple. A tool to get new members. That’s one thing, but it can be a tool to challenge my existing members to seek a better performance. So most of the time we don’t really know what we’re trying to get done with it.
We try to blend it and do both which doesn’t work very well anymore. And also the weird thing in the training gym world. You and I talk a lot. About some other projects we’re doing together on what’s really happened in the trading world since 2005 and the big splits and the evolution of the training gym.
Well, that client coming in, I just saw somebody running one of these up in the Northeast. And it’s a, it’s a four week challenge for $39. And I’m looking at this going, oh my God, that’s you that a sophisticated client? What would, what just balk at that? That shit it’s scary. It’s so cheap. It’s just, it can’t be worth anything.
So when you think about this, they often don’t even match my clientele. So it’s it’s if all the stuff we’ve talked about in the last, I don’t have any of these we’ve done now, which I enjoy these. Thank you. But we’ve never is the fundamentals, how the fundamentals are delivered will change, but the fundamentals themselves don’t change that.
The fundamentals are still true. So who is my client? Well, my in a training gym, my client is somebody that lives within three miles of my gym, statistically important. And they’re in the top 40% by a fluence in my community. Extremely important. Then I have to do target for that. I can’t tell this guy to come down to the local grocery store because I’ve got two bottles of wine for $4 a piece on sale.
You know, the guys like that means nothing to me. I don’t, I don’t know. God, that’s disgusting, you know, cheap $4 wine. Oh my God. You know the money guys, look at this going, oh my that’s offensive. Well, I come to you, you, you want me as a 40% player. Uh, but you want me to come in and you’re trying to use a $39 thing where I come in with 30, 40 people and run around in a pack.
It’s like, well, nobody wants to do that anymore. Even pre virus. So the whole strategy behind a challenge. For bringing in external new members is dated. It’s gone. It doesn’t work that way anymore. So it’s, it’s too cheap. Nobody wants to be one of 30, no money guy just wants to be a part of a pack. You know, it’s just, oh God, I can’t wait to spend 40 bucks to come in and, and hang out with 30 strangers.
You know, that they’re not even in my influence. So go back to the basics. If I’m going internally, challenges were quite well because the people already trust you. They may join teams. They might have an individual challenge where they can meet their own goals. If I’m challenging myself internally as part of a six week or 12 week program, where I record data, push myself, there might be a prize money, but it doesn’t really matter.
I’m really playing with internally. Then challenge is still. They don’t work anymore for bringing in external clients because they send the wrong message about the gym they’re handled badly. They’re assuming a pack mentality versus something we’ve talked about a hundred times, is people coming in for a trial where a sophisticated client can evaluate you, evaluate your process.
Uh, evaluate whether I fit into this business or not. And I do so at a moderate to high cost because that pre-qualifies them. But also I know you’re serious. So if you want $199 or 2 99 for a six week trial, and your memberships are going to be somewhere between 300 to 800, $900, I’d look at the trial.
It’s reasonable based on my future expense. It’s allows me to visit a high-end business, similar to my doctor, my attorney, my professionalism, my life. And this is a money person. You didn’t insult me because you’re going to design something for me. I’m not part of a pack. The trial is so much more effective than those old school challenges that people just keep running them because I really don’t think they know what the hell they’re doing in.
Sumit: Okay. So from that viewpoint, Tom, you’re saying internal challenges. Is that a way for me to upsell as well? So I do it for the team guys or the small group guys, and then say, I’m going to use that a way to get them to doing one-on-one training with me or, or no, just that’s just to bring in extra money for that period of time, because it’s an add on.
Uh, how am I looking at it? From what view should I be looking at that?
Thomas Plummer: Well, look, I think you look from it from your own lens from normally, you know, ultimate retention tool. That’s what this has got to be. It’s a retention. So everybody going into January, how badly did you eat? And you know, October, November, December.
So people get into the first of the year. There’s always that born again, fitness guy. Well, you know what threaten in your gym. So some of the training Jensen. We’re going to have the 90 day challenge. You know, we’re going to, we’ll going to have a team meeting on nutrition, information, how to recover from the holidays.
We might talk about supplementation. We might talk about. How much cardio you should do beyond your workouts. And then I set everybody in motion and let them have work it out individually, but it’s a challenge. And then we can post stuff on the wall. Sometimes people that pressure of, oh my God, my name’s going to be on the wall.
I need to walk two extra times. This week, internal challenges are motivational, but they’re also great retention tools and they do generate some cash. Now you can bring those in and a high bred in the middle of what I’m talking about is those could be designed to bring in people as guests. Because if I like you as a client, I’m probably going to like your spouse, you know, meaning your, your spouse is probably going to fit into my business.
So internal challenges as a referral system and a retention system are still. Where they fail as an external movement to bring in potential members because it’s it, they’re, they’re so cheap that they really deep value the perception of the brand of your business.
Sumit: Got it. And perfect. So Tom, tell me this then from a equation perspective, what is the price you already spoke a lot about.
Be mindful of who your client is. What about the duration you set a 90 day challenge? That sounds a lot long to me, but what’s the ideal timeframe that we should really have the challenge.
Thomas Plummer: Uh, well, nobody changes much in 30 days, so, but six weeks, you know, that’s when we tell clients and I’d say that’s, it’s kind of old school, but it’s still viable.
Well, I usually say, look, you’re going to notice first. And the first thing you’re gonna notice, you’re going to step out of the shower some days down from the mirror and go, oh my God, I look different. And that’s usually roughly four to six weeks. Won’t happen tomorrow.
So it’s just realistically, what can we do? So six weeks to 90 days are good challenges, anything shorter, six weeks just is too short.
It’s just nothing changes.
so give them six weeks on the short side, 90 days like that there’s are some guys I’ve seen successful. They use it annual a 12 month from January to January. I saw one of these a few years ago. It was really, it was a high end training gym with the. Extremely wealthy clients. So these guys put each of them put $500 in a pot and the money was put into a savings account.
So the gym couldn’t blow it. And the guy that just got in the best shape in 12 months took the pot. It’s like the biggest.
Sumit: Yeah.
Thomas Plummer: Yeah, yeah. But these are real high and CEO type people and men and women have that really higher stuff. So they, yeah, I’m in for 500, they did this. So you end up with 10, 12 guys in there.
That’s, you know, it’s not for them, not huge money, but it’s, uh, it’s enough money to get them thinking about an annual. Probably I’m going to make this the best year of my life, but I haven’t seen too many guys. Those guys, I don’t think too many gym owners have the patience to run one of those. Of course, if you drop out, you leave the gym, you lose your.
And now you put a 500 or a thousand and you put some big bucks on the board. These guys all feed it themselves. And then you just knew the coach, the gym owner records the progress. So everybody stays legit, you know, and you lay out goals and body fat percentages, and you kind of define what it’s going to take to be the winner and off you go.
And so that’s one extreme, but you know, not very many people will do that. Six weeks, 90 days, somewhere in that range is where you want to be. Okay.
Sumit: Talk time. Talk. You, you, you alluded a little bit to the body, fat, and stuff. What else should I be? Which is more on the tracking thing. Is there anything else that I should be mindful of when I do run a challenge?
Um, things that I should be doing from an approach perspective versus what I shouldn’t be.
Thomas Plummer: The, the thing, one of the things that’s changed is, you know, not too many years ago, we were the team thing, wood that was popular in the gym. So you get, you know, five people get assigned to a team or their training friends or something, but people are so busy now that.
Uh, they just don’t stay together so to speak. They just, they command, they drift out. Um, uh, 10 years ago we had, when we had the women’s gems, you know, that’s that that’s, we put teams together and, you know, women would cheat. They tried to get people to get, you know, here, take this lacks a day before we all have to team way.
It’s like, oh, don’t tell them, you know, who’s telling you that. Yeah, Mary, the captain of our team says we should take laxatives night before so we can weigh in. You know, I’m like, no, I mean, it’s the team thing is just so disruptive and corrosive too, because it just somebody and there’s always driving it.
And then there’s somebody doesn’t lose as much weight and pulls the team down. So I just don’t think that because of time, because of the negativity today’s culture, all those things, I don’t think the team works as well as individualization of the process. Where you’re competing against yourself. And so I, I, that’s the one I’d like to see.
And so if you design around that, then, you know, um, you know, using an InBody some kind of body fat system is good. Um, my zone where I can get, you know, certain points, I, to record certain amount of time exercising and things like that, it’s a great tool, a wonderful tool for that type of stuff. So you’re, as you start to move through the process, but individualization versus team is I think where it’s going, the contradiction of that is one day of that.
Where you might have a one day, you know, kind of a fun challenge for people that are been in the gym for a while, where they, you know, they run up a hill and then they carry a bag of sand somewhere and do some kind of goofy course emulating the old Spartan races and all that stuff back from pre COVID and things like that.
So those types of things are fun, but they’re a one day event and you have age categories. Metals and stuff like that, but the, the challenge is anymore. I think individualization, I think this whole team concept, nobody. Geez. I have a hard time going into a restaurant already, you know, let alone put me with 12 people on a team.
You know, we got you slap pads and all that. I don’t know if the world is quite ready for that yet. So individualization, I think is where we need to be. Yep. I think
Sumit: the train gyms, everything is the mantra has always been personalization and individualization. So absolutely. But tell me this, how many people should be there in a challenge.
That’s one other thought that came to my mind as you were talking about individualization. I am I running a challenge and I have 20 people in it. And then 10 of them needs to be that guy asked if you’re thinking about it from a referral perspective or no, I’ve got it wrong. What what’s, what’s the right number based off of of course, um, my square footage, but can you give me some, some
Thomas Plummer: the old 10% rule still works.
If I, if I have 300 training clients in my little, you know, 3,500 foot gym. And so if I can get 10% of them to. Uh, participate in an internal challenge. And then out of those 10% of those three to, you know, maybe if I get lucky 20% bring a guest, I consider that a. Uh, success. So, you know, you might do better than that, but again, the challenge is just a motivational tool.
You run it, you know, you’ve got a scoreboard in the gym, you know, people getting shouted out on social media for successes and things like that, but it’s really. Some people do wetter. WeightWatchers obviously made, you know, billions of dollars back in the day before they destroyed that brand.
That’s why it doesn’t work for everybody. Maybe 10 to 20% of your clients. Want to be part of that environment. You know, most of us are here to hide, let us, but some people were there too. Oh my God. I just need to be called out. You know, I’m not going anywhere. I need somebody to be yelling at me. Okay. Put my damn name on the wall.
Okay. So, you know, and you know, this guy weighs 260 pounds and goal weight of two 20 and six months. And he’s got all this stuff on the wall. Everybody’s got their little plaques and pictures. And so when we just cross stuff out, you make up. Visual deal out of it. And some people will do that, but the 10% rule that’s your question directly, still is a pretty good rule.
Sumit: Perfect. So, so from that 10% rule perspective, let’s, let’s work that back as you were saying those numbers. So if I have hundred clients in my gym, that’s, that’s typically the avatar that we have a hundred, 250 clients for the most part. So if I have hundred. You said 30% of them, no, sorry. 10% of them, we sign up for the challenge.
So that means 10 people. And then 20% of those 10 get me, um, a guest. So that means only two guests then. Is that what I’m saying? Yeah.
Thomas Plummer: I guess thing is, I mean, yeah, if you’ve got the right gym and the right owner and the right team, you might get a higher guest rate, but the 10% rule, the minimum numbers.
So if I’ve got a hundred clients and I get 10, I consider that this. And out of that, if I get, you know, one to three guests and I signed them up while I ran a little in-house promotion for six weeks, I ran 10 of my clients through, we posted their numbers, you know, three quarters of them lost some weight.
And I got two new clients out of bed at 300 to 500. I take that I that’s all I would do.
Sumit: So, so challenge for internal members as a referral strategy, not necessarily challenge to open up new members and solicit altogether. Like we’re just going to run a challenge where we’re just bringing in all new people.
Without, including our existing clients is what is
Thomas Plummer: the, yeah, that’s what you said. There is so massively important is that this we marketing for an order the other day.Small group would be for, uh, intensive coaching and then you’d still have the team players. So the challenge does just doesn’t, it’s too generic to work with all of those marketing people. But I know we really don’t want to go down that path today with the marketing, but again, the challenge, it’s a mismatch.
It’s a generic tool. And a train gym, or I need to apply target Pacific marketing with target specific, uh, delivery tools. And that’s where the disconnect comes in. Fair enough.
Sumit: Well, thank you once again. Uh, Tom, I really enjoy these sessions. These are wealth of information for me. Worth its weight in gold.
So I’m sure the audience is going to enjoy this as well. So thank you once again.
Thomas Plummer: Yeah, my pleasure. Obviously, as usual, I talk too much and too long because there’s just so much, I want them to learn. So, but thank you.