In the Two-Brain Coaching First Degree course we talk a lot about barriers that clients present as roadblocks to joining our gyms.
I believe that the barriers that clients present to joining your gym are likely the same ones that clients present when they are thinking about quitting your gym.
For this reason, it is very important to have strategies ready to deal with them when they arise.
My top two: TIME and MONEY – in my opinion they are both the same.
Most of us have a finite amount of time and money. I haven’t met a person yet who has more than 24 hours in a day. Most people we encounter have a regular bi-weekly, monthly or yearly income.
Our prospective client has come to us because they want to make a change. If we do a good job with our No-Sweat Intro we’ve asked some great questions and gotten a peek into the internal or emotional reasons behind their desire for change.
If time and money are being raised as barriers it is likely that our client needs to be shown the value of our service compared to how they are spending these resources now.
They are in your gym, you’ve lead them to be emotionally invested, they are there because they want to be led to change!
My strategy is to have the client provide me a list of the things they spend time and/or money on that are keeping them from achieving their goals.
Are they spending money on fast food, eating out, alcohol, cigarettes, etc?
Are they spending valuable time watching Netflix, scrolling social media? Are they staying up too late to work out in the morning?
Challenge your prospective client to replace ONE of these things for a month and replace it with your service.
Then schedule a one month review with them to review how that habit change has impacted them physically and mentally.
People who want to make a change will put up barriers because change is scary.
Sometimes it is up to us to hold their hand and guide them to the other side of the wall.
What are some other barriers that you hear on a regular basis? How do you deflect or overcome them?