How to Build a World-Class Lead Funnel with Ben Pickard

[00:00:00] There’s some research that suggests that you are 60 [00:00:03] times more likely to qualify and convert a lead [00:00:06] if you respond quickly in the first hour compared [00:00:09] to 24 hours or longer. So speed to lead [00:00:12] is something you all know is important, even though it’s hard to [00:00:15] achieve. So we wanna talk a little bit about that today, but we also wanna talk [00:00:18] about persistence.

That all too often, the pushback [00:00:21] that we hear from gym owners and it’s understandable, we love you, even though you [00:00:24] say this, is that. I just don’t wanna bug my [00:00:27] leads. I don’t wanna reach out too much and annoy them or piss them off, [00:00:30] and then have them ghost me. And listen, I get that [00:00:33] sentiment. No one wants to be that annoying market or a [00:00:36] salesperson, but the reality is that all of your leads [00:00:39] lead busy lives.

[00:00:42] 1, 2, 3, 4. [00:00:45] Welcome to The Business for Unicorns podcast, where we [00:00:48] help gym and studio owners create a business and a [00:00:51] life they love. I’m your host, Michael Keeler. [00:00:54] Join me and the business unicorns team each week for [00:00:57] actionable advice, expert insights, and the [00:01:00] inside scoop on what it really takes to level up your gym.[00:01:03]

Get ready to unlock your potential and become a real [00:01:06] unicorn in the fitness industry.[00:01:09] [00:01:12]

Yeah. [00:01:15] Hello, fitness business nerds. What’s up? [00:01:18] Welcome to another episode of the Business Free Unicorns podcast. [00:01:21] I’m back with Mr. Pickard today and it’s [00:01:24] mid-summer. How’s your summer going? My friend. Summer’s going [00:01:27] so well. We are really maximizing [00:01:30] like time with friends, time with [00:01:33] family as we speak. I’m headed off for another camping [00:01:36] trip in a few days.

Catchy and I are planning a road trip to the East [00:01:39] coast. I know we’re not like latitude [00:01:42] wise that much more north than you. Sure. A lot of United [00:01:45] States is actually more north than me, so Canada isn’t the [00:01:48] Arctic, but it still feels like our summer just flies [00:01:51] by. Yeah. Especially now that Liam is 13, he just finished doing a [00:01:54] grade 10 school course.

Wow. High school to get [00:01:57] ahead. We’ve only got so many more summers that he’s gonna wanna [00:02:00] hang with us, so we wanna trying to milk. It falls [00:02:03] right now. Yeah. You gotta maximize every moment [00:02:06] while they still wanna hang out with dad. Yeah, exactly. [00:02:09] Yeah. Good for you. I’m glad you’re getting some fun family summertime.

[00:02:12] That’s awesome. Yeah. How about you? Yeah, my summer’s been really [00:02:15] good. It’s been a pretty good mix of keeping it local, [00:02:18] keeping it chill. Andrew and I decided this year to not make any [00:02:21] huge summer trips, so we’re keeping it local. We go to Fire [00:02:24] Island, we go to Jersey Shore, where my family is, and so we’ve [00:02:27] done that this year, but we stayed pretty close, which is nice.

[00:02:30] It’s nice to to scope familiar places in the summer. [00:02:33] Yeah. And it sometimes can feel like you need a vacation from your [00:02:36] vacation, so if you’re not doing. If you’re keeping it [00:02:39] reasonable, it’s not like you’re trying to jam too much stuff into too small [00:02:42] a bag. Yeah, and I’m frankly, I’m just grateful at this point in our [00:02:45] life, we both know as entrepreneurs that there’s been plenty [00:02:48] of years of our lives where taking a vacation at all [00:02:51] felt almost impossible.

So to be at the place now [00:02:54] where we’re on a regular basis taking multiple vacations per year. [00:02:57] We just gotta stop and smell the roads and be like, I’m just [00:03:00] grateful for that to be a place where our businesses allow us to do [00:03:03] that. And we work with people like each other [00:03:06] who encourage us to do that, which is nice.

And that’s something I wish for all [00:03:09] of you dear listeners, that if some of you might not be there yet, but if [00:03:12] you’ve been in your business for more than a year or two, [00:03:15] hopefully you’re at least getting to the place where you see yourself going on [00:03:18] vacation more. And hopefully you’re building a team around [00:03:21] you where you all are encouraging each other to take time off and supporting [00:03:24] each other in doing that.

’cause Mark and I just recorded a podcast about burnout that probably [00:03:27] came out a few episodes before this one, but that’s a real thing. [00:03:30] And Ben and I are over here trying to avoid burnout by taking some [00:03:33] summertime off. There’s a definitely a [00:03:36] long a longevity aspect to being a successful [00:03:39] entrepreneur.

And if you go too hard, too fast and that kills [00:03:42] your spirit. Yeah. I’m sure you guys talked about this in the [00:03:45] episode. Yeah, yeah. There’s something about being like, if you can just be in the game [00:03:48] for long enough, you’re naturally gonna win. 100%. [00:03:51] Yeah, it’s a numbers game. You gotta put in the reps over time and [00:03:54] if you burn out early, it’s like a marathon.

There’s some [00:03:57] racing analogy here I’m sure, but it’s like a marathon. [00:04:00] Yeah. Alright, friends, let’s switch gears and talk about today’s topic, [00:04:03] which is we’re talking about lead follow up and we’ve [00:04:06] covered lead follow up a ton on this podcast before, [00:04:09] and you all know how important it’s, there’s some research that [00:04:12] suggests that you are 60 times more likely [00:04:15] to qualify and convert a lead if you respond quickly.

[00:04:18] In the first hour compared to 24 hours or [00:04:21] longer. So speed to lead is something you all know is [00:04:24] important, even though it’s hard to achieve. So we wanna talk a [00:04:27] little bit about that today, but we also wanna talk about persistence. [00:04:30] That all too often, the pushback that we hear from gym owners [00:04:33] and it’s understandable, we’d love you even though you say this, [00:04:36] is that.

I just don’t wanna bug my leads. I don’t wanna reach out too [00:04:39] much and annoy them or piss them off and then have them [00:04:42] ghost me. And listen, I get that sentiment. No one wants to [00:04:45] be that annoying marketer, a salesperson, but the [00:04:48] reality is that all of your leads lead busy [00:04:51] lives, right? Their family members, their [00:04:54] workers, their community members, their contributing in all [00:04:57] kinds of ways in their lives.

And if you can’t break through that noise. [00:05:00] And help them establish a new habit, which is [00:05:03] coming to your gym. You’re never gonna get them if you can’t get [00:05:06] their attention. And so you really have to be persistent. So [00:05:09] we’re gonna walk through all the things that we recommend and that [00:05:12] we do both in our gyms and frankly here in business [00:05:15] unicorns, right?

As a business, we do all these things, bend our [00:05:18] salesperson. And so we wanna just talk through the [00:05:21] exactly what it looks like. To get speed to lead [00:05:24] and exactly what it looks like to be persistent. [00:05:27] Anything you would share right up front here? Ben, anything I missed? [00:05:30] No, that was good. I think it’s, yeah, I [00:05:33] guess there clearly is something, yeah, it’s, there’s always talk of [00:05:36] what’s the best software and what’s the best this and what should we use for [00:05:39] that, and I think it.

The way I [00:05:42] think of that is those are all in service of the principles that you’re trying to [00:05:45] execute on. Yes, you probably, you’re going to want, if you [00:05:48] don’t have already some sort of automation software, but it’s not [00:05:51] about necessarily the best software. It’s, but what’s the one that can help you [00:05:54] execute what you know you need to do, even if it’s scary?

[00:05:57] Yep. And sometimes we lose that. We [00:06:00] lose all that for the noise when it’s like the goal of lead is [00:06:03] to get them to take the next step. And the goal of that next step is to get them to [00:06:06] take the next step. So all we’re doing is how do we make that as. [00:06:09] Easy as possible for them. And sometimes that actually [00:06:12] takes sending way more messages than you think it has, so you don’t just get [00:06:15] lost in their inbox.

Yeah, I think that, I think it’s a really crucial [00:06:18] distinction. So I’m gonna say it out loud again because I think, uh, people need to hear [00:06:21] it twice, which is the goal of every [00:06:24] interaction when you’re following up with leads is to get them to take a next step. [00:06:27] And I think so often this process can be a little [00:06:30] overwhelming or you feel like you have to be really pushy because [00:06:33] you’re trying to get them to sell.

Story on every [00:06:36] interaction. That’s not it. We’re not trying to get them to break out their credit [00:06:39] card in the first interaction. The first time we reach out, [00:06:42] we’re, this is the start of a relationship we’re trying to [00:06:45] build. So there are multiple touch points over multiple [00:06:48] days and weeks with a lead to get them to take a [00:06:51] next step, which is just.

The next step, [00:06:54] right? It doesn’t have, you don’t have to get them all the way to home base in [00:06:57] every single interaction, right? And so I think this, think of [00:07:00] this as like little nudges over time. You can use the analogy of [00:07:03] dating. Some people don’t date very slow. But imagine if you’re a [00:07:06] slow one step at a time, dater, [00:07:09] then we are gonna take this respectfully one [00:07:12] step at a time, and then I think that does become a good [00:07:15] analogy.

So let’s just start at the beginning. So when a new comes [00:07:18] in, talk a little bit about. Ben, how you see people really [00:07:21] achieving that speed to lead? Yeah, [00:07:24] so the simplest way to get [00:07:27] speed to lead is to have some sort of automation that when [00:07:30] somebody opts in within the first few minutes, or as long as it [00:07:33] takes your software to do so, they get a text in an email.

[00:07:36] Right now. Perfect world, we would have a [00:07:39] robot who never needs to sleep and never complains and never takes [00:07:42] vacation, sit by the phone and as soon as that comes through, they’re on the [00:07:45] horn with them. Sure. Uh, probably not [00:07:48] realistic in businesses the size of ours. Yep. But the [00:07:51] easiest way is get them to send a text or get the software to send [00:07:54] a text.

Get the software to send an email, and it’s just for the [00:07:57] record, not, hi Michael. We’ve received your inquiry. [00:08:00] We’ll get back to you later. It is a, something [00:08:03] that you didn’t manually send that message, but you [00:08:06] actually wrote that message. It’s, Hey Michael, it’s been from my [00:08:09] gym. I just saw you’re interest in what we do.

When’s a good [00:08:12] time for us to connect? Even better would be [00:08:15] like the first step is a quick phone call so I can get to know you and make sure this is the right fit [00:08:18] for you. When’s a good time to connect? Yeah. That’s something [00:08:21] that a human would say to another human. Yeah. It should [00:08:24] sound real, right? All these followups we’re doing both by email and by [00:08:27] text.

Even if we’re using automations, it should sound like we’re reaching [00:08:30] out to a person to person, friend to friend, right? People want [00:08:33] some sense that there’s a human behind, behind the [00:08:36] robots, even if they know it’s automated, it should. It should make them [00:08:39] question like, oh, did someone actually write this?

It should. It [00:08:42] should not sound like it’s coming from a company or robot. It [00:08:45] should sound like it’s coming from a friend. And I think that’s a important part [00:08:48] of it. And I’ll just say here that quick shout out to our friends at Kilo. You [00:08:51] all know one of our favorite pieces of software that we use. We [00:08:54] recommend highly use Kilo, use kilo.com.

Go check them [00:08:57] out and you can absolutely set up automated texts and [00:09:00] emails to out exactly like this and even prompt [00:09:03] yourself to make the phone calls to make the workflow easy for you [00:09:06] and whoever else is doing your lead follow-ups. Just going back to where we left off, [00:09:09] Ben. So moment one a lead ops in, they get [00:09:12] an immediate.

Text and email automated if possible, what [00:09:15] else happens? Yeah, and this is where it might get a little bit [00:09:18] uncomfortable, but you want to call them a lot. Yeah. So [00:09:21] for the first break it down in the first stage is day one [00:09:24] through three. So lemme give you the overview. So [00:09:27] day one, as soon as possible, they’re getting the text in the email, you’re [00:09:30] also calling them and leaving a voicemail that you as a [00:09:33] human leave.

So it’s a personal interaction, like you’d say it like a [00:09:36] friend. And then you’re also gonna try calling them two more [00:09:39] times that day. If a lead comes through at 9:00 [00:09:42] AM they’ve got a text in an email at nine oh five. Hopefully you’re phone in them [00:09:45] at nine 10 if you can double [00:09:48] call because not everyone’s phone’s gonna ring if you’re not in their contacts [00:09:51] and you’re probably not in your lead’s contacts and they’re trying them [00:09:54] again later that day and it’s not a pushy, [00:09:57] Hey Michael, you’ve gotta sign up for our program now or some [00:10:00] false scourge and see if you don’t sign up now.

There’s no more spots. [00:10:03] But it’s letting them know, Hey, we’ve received your thing and we [00:10:06] take this. We take this seriously. We want to help you get to your goals. We’re a [00:10:09] responsive company that you can trust. [00:10:12] I think that anyone listening might hear what you just [00:10:15] said and might be sweating a little bit at this point to say, okay.[00:10:18]

They get an automated text and email, they get a voicemail earlier in the [00:10:21] day ’cause people don’t answer. And then we’re gonna call them [00:10:24] usually two more times and part of the calling twice is that [00:10:27] most people have do not disturb on their phone and they’re not gonna respond [00:10:30] to any number they don’t know.

And so if you have do have to disturb on the phone, it won’t even [00:10:33] ring. So you have to double call them. You have to [00:10:36] call, hang up, call again. Even just get the phone to ring [00:10:39] right the first time. And so I think calling that many [00:10:42] times is not pushy because people just [00:10:45] won’t answer the phone. How many calls per day do you all [00:10:48] get where you just don’t pay attention to it?

Many. Are you [00:10:51] bothered by it? No. We’re so used to getting calls and if it’s [00:10:54] not from number, we don’t know. We just ignore it. We move on. But these [00:10:57] are people who actually asked for your help. These [00:11:00] aren’t random political calls or junk calls. [00:11:03] These are people who opted in on your website or through your social [00:11:06] media or through an event and said, Hey Ben, I wanna learn more [00:11:09] about your gym.

And so you are fulfilling on a request [00:11:12] that they made from you. What’s rude if you don’t follow up [00:11:15] this much to try and get their attention because they asked you [00:11:18] for help. This is how you help them is by [00:11:21] getting their attention to get them to take the next [00:11:24] step. Okay, so that’s day one. Immediately. How do [00:11:27] the rest of the kind of stage one days, one through three, pan out [00:11:30] here?

Basically the same. Doing the same thing. [00:11:33] So day two you’re gonna do the same thing. Call with a voicemail [00:11:36] probably in the morning, if possible. When the lead came through is [00:11:39] always the idea is that if they were had time to [00:11:42] submit their information at. Whatever, noon, they [00:11:45] probably have time at noon the next day, but that’s not always the [00:11:48] case.

Yep. So you’re gonna call with a voicemail, you’re gonna send ’em a text, and [00:11:51] you’re gonna do two more calls that day. And then day three [00:11:54] is basically the same thing. Call with a voicemail, text, [00:11:57] also send an email in this case. And then two more calls that day. [00:12:00] So we’re talking 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. We’re [00:12:03] talking like 13 to 15 [00:12:06] touch points in the first 72 hours.

Yeah. And [00:12:09] again, as Michael said, you might be sitting there sweating, [00:12:12] but as you’ve asked for help, ’cause if we’ve probably had the [00:12:15] experience where you like reached out to a business when you were a [00:12:18] customer. Yeah. And you didn’t hear back for a little bit. And [00:12:21] it’s weird, I had to buy a thing like a month [00:12:24] ago about a new solar battery for my cabin [00:12:27] and I called a company.

They didn’t answer. [00:12:30] I called, I found another phone number for that company [00:12:33] online called that. They didn’t answer. I [00:12:36] ordered it an hour later from another company. Yeah. Now I know that’s not the [00:12:39] typical buying experience where like I had already [00:12:42] decided on exactly what I wanted and I just wanted to buy it.

Sure. Usually there’s a little bit [00:12:45] more than that, but as a case be made of, if they had to picked up the [00:12:48] phone, I would’ve given them 2,500 bucks. Yep, [00:12:51] 100%. And that happens all the time where I buy from the person who gets back to [00:12:54] me the fastest. It happened with my gym [00:12:57] membership. When I moved out here to the country, I reached out to a bunch of gyms.[00:13:00]

Honestly, I don’t know if I got the best one, but I responded [00:13:03] to the one who responded to me first. I wasn’t even doing [00:13:06] that hard of vetting. I was like, just someone get back to me and the one [00:13:09] who did got my money. So I think it’s a little bit of feeding the [00:13:12] competition to the call and also. Again, they ask [00:13:15] for help.

Our job is to reach out and if they don’t wanna hear from us, [00:13:18] they’ll let us know. At any point in this process, they can [00:13:21] text or email or call us back and say, I’m no longer [00:13:24] interested. And then all of this stops, right? We don’t [00:13:27] continue doing this follow-up. If someone says, leave me alone, [00:13:30] but at this point, from days one through three, how often do you [00:13:33] get someone to say, leave me alone?

[00:13:36] We run paid ads, so it’s colder traffic. Sure. Uh, I’d say off the [00:13:39] top of my head, one outta four say, leave me alone. Yeah. [00:13:42] And then we’re like, great. Thanks. Honestly, it happens with [00:13:45] BFU if someone’s, I’m not interested, or instead of hitting do not [00:13:48] disturb. They say, please take me off your list. Yep. [00:13:51] And I reply with a, thanks for getting back to me.

I’ll take you off right now. [00:13:54] I like, as a business, I genuinely appreciate [00:13:57] it. Yeah. Save me the time. Tell me, I don’t actually wanna call [00:14:00] you if you don’t wanna buy it. Exactly. Yeah. And so I think on very [00:14:03] cold traffic, when you’re doing paid ads. And you’re really [00:14:06] getting strangers to try and respond to you and interact with you after [00:14:09] they filled out a form online.

Yeah. You might get something like [00:14:12] one out of four, one outta five people who reach out and say, this is [00:14:15] not for me. Great. You just, great. [00:14:18] Take them off the list if they really wanna be off the list, but the rest [00:14:21] are still on, so keep going. So we talk about stage [00:14:24] two, we’re really talking about days four through seven.

So how do we [00:14:27] scale back a little bit in the outreach in the second stage, but you [00:14:30] wanna walk us through it, Ben? Yeah, typically you’re looking at one to [00:14:33] three touchpoints a day now rather than four to five. So we [00:14:36] have it as day four is an email. Day five [00:14:39] is a call with no voicemail and a text. Day six is a [00:14:42] call with no voicemail.

Day seven is a text, and this is the [00:14:45] stage where if you don’t get an answer. I don’t have the [00:14:48] data to back this up, but I would guess the likelihood of them becoming a [00:14:51] client if they don’t answer in this is probably mm-hmm. Down by [00:14:54] 90%. Yeah. And at this point, I think the thing [00:14:57] that I like about our script, and I encourage you all listeners to do the same [00:15:00] or join Unicorn Society and get our script, which is [00:15:03] we continue to be really human about this.

Right. What I’m [00:15:06] really looking at our script right now and one of the texts is something [00:15:09] like, Hey Ben, I know I’ve been reaching out for the past week. I hope I’m not [00:15:12] bothering you. Do you still wanna learn about our program? [00:15:15] That’s what I would say to a friend who I’m trying to schedule brunch [00:15:18] plans with.

And they don’t respond to me like, Hey, do you still wanna do brunch? Am I just [00:15:21] bothering you at this point? Yeah. And if they say, oh, actually no, I’m not [00:15:24] free anymore that day. Great, I’ll stop bothering you, but just respond [00:15:27] back. So throughout all of these outreaches, again, we’re [00:15:30] just trying to get them to respond.

So to let us [00:15:33] know they’re still interested, then we’ll likely get ’em on a phone call. [00:15:36] We’ll likely get them into our low buyer offer in whatever [00:15:39] fastest way we can do that. So that’s stage two. What about [00:15:42] stage three? These are really the third, the second week, yeah. [00:15:45] Really, just really quick, please. A point you made is we’re not, [00:15:48] all of these scripts don’t ever talk about buying the [00:15:51] program.

Not once they’re making, confirming that they’re [00:15:54] interested in it and they’re moving them to the next step, which in this case [00:15:57] is a discovery call. So it’s like, when’s the best time to get in [00:16:00] touch with you? How? When’s the time to chat to see if this is a good fit? [00:16:03] It’s never, Hey, do you wanna sign? Which membership do you [00:16:06] wanna sign up for?

We are the only thing we’re quote unquote selling here. [00:16:09] Is a free 10 to 12 minute phone call. [00:16:12] Yep. Great distinction. Thank you for clarifying that. Yeah, I love [00:16:15] that. Alright, so now we’re at stage three. This is really days eight through [00:16:18] 15 here. This is like the second week of them being a [00:16:21] lead. In your funnel, what’s the outrage?

The intensity lowers a [00:16:24] little bit. What does it look like here? Yeah, we’re looking at one to two [00:16:27] messages every second day. For instance, we’re [00:16:30] looking at a text two days later, doing a call with a voicemail on a [00:16:33] text, and the two days later doing an email two days after [00:16:36] that, doing a call with no voicemail on a text.

[00:16:39] So, although our formula works, this is something where it’s [00:16:42] like one to two things every two days seems to [00:16:45] be an appropriate frequency. And you are starting to [00:16:48] acknowledge the fact that I haven’t heard from back from you and I’m [00:16:51] concerned of being annoying. Or are you still interested in getting, [00:16:54] starting to do the fit, getting started with the fitness program.

This is the like. Hey [00:16:57] Michael, I’ve asked you if you wanna hang out four times now [00:17:00] and I haven’t heard back. Yep. Is are [00:17:03] things good? And I’d even use that kind of like [00:17:06] confused, curious tone in a voicemail. I don’t really wanna [00:17:09] bother you, but you said you wanted to do this thing. Can you [00:17:12] just let me know where you’re at?

Yeah. Yep. [00:17:15] I think that’s the right, great way to describe the mindset, right? And the [00:17:18] tone here is, I’m just curious and [00:17:21] confused, right? Like you, you said you wanted help. I’m just here to [00:17:24] offer it, but I’m not trying to be a stalker here. So let me [00:17:27] know when you want me to back off. I just haven’t heard from you yet.

I’m just assuming you’re [00:17:30] busy, so I’m gonna keep going until you tell me not to. [00:17:33] Yeah, and I think that’s a great energy to have, right? Because all too [00:17:36] often I say this with love in my heart ’cause I am [00:17:39] often. This kind of avatar for gyms, which is, [00:17:42] these are people often who, when you’re reaching out to cold leads [00:17:45] who don’t currently go to the gym right now.

Who don’t have a [00:17:48] healthy habits around their health and wellness and fitness, [00:17:51] and there’s a lot of resistance they have to push through in themselves [00:17:54] to bring themselves to get back to you. It’s not [00:17:57] just they’re so busy, they have no time to text back it. There’s some [00:18:00] resistance to trying a new habit, trying a new gym, [00:18:03] going to put yourself into a place where you might feel a little uncomfortable [00:18:06] or like a new person or look awkward for the first [00:18:09] time trying a new kind of workout, right?

There’s a lot that [00:18:12] goes into people’s resistance to getting back to you. [00:18:15] Don’t assume. Anything about your leads as you [00:18:18] go through this process? Yeah, I think it’s very easy for [00:18:21] salespeople to become jaded and be like, oh, these leads are just, they’re just stupid. [00:18:24] They’re just lazy. They’re just disorganized.

They’re just, you [00:18:27] don’t fucking know their lives. They, they lost, [00:18:30] they went to the gym two years ago and they did a. [00:18:33] Thing that hurt their knee and they’re terrified of the [00:18:36] gym and they’ve been thinking about this for three months, but they’ve got guilt and [00:18:39] shame. Yeah. Like it’s not that they’re assholes.

No. It’s that they’re [00:18:42] scared of something. 100%. Meet them where they’re at. Yeah. I’ll [00:18:45] share just a very quick personal anecdote for myself. I, I had [00:18:48] a neck issue. I have a herniated disc in my neck, still. Still [00:18:51] do. And at one point I was getting some treatment for it ’cause I was having [00:18:54] some real symptoms and I met three people, three doctors [00:18:57] who all immediately tried to tell me I need to have serious neck [00:19:00] surgery.

And it scared the shit outta me. Like three different people [00:19:03] all was like, you have to have surgery immediately. Spoiler alert, I [00:19:06] didn’t have surgery and I’m doing fine now. But because I was [00:19:09] so nervous to move, I was so nervous that I was gonna make it worse by [00:19:12] moving. I almost didn’t work out for a year.

I [00:19:15] almost, and I didn’t, I wasn’t even, I just did some light yoga. [00:19:18] I did some walking, some light biking [00:19:21] for like almost a year. I was just too nervous to do anything. [00:19:24] So if I would’ve reached out for help during that time, and when I eventually [00:19:27] did start reaching out for help and went back to a, to gym on a regular basis, [00:19:30] this is when I didn’t live near Mark Fisher Fitness anymore.

For the record, [00:19:33] I, I wasn’t just not going to my own gym, but [00:19:36] it took a lot. To just say yes to getting that [00:19:39] kind of help. ’cause I was just so nervous that any kind of [00:19:42] exercise or movement was gonna mean any neck [00:19:45] surgery. And no one wants neck surgery. [00:19:48] Spine surgery. So I just share as a personal anecdote, and that certainly [00:19:51] colors my perspective on this topic, but I think more [00:19:54] people than not.

Have that kind of resistance of some way, shape, or [00:19:57] form. And it’s part of what makes this lead follow-up so difficult [00:20:00] is you’re trying to get their attention and to try and get them to [00:20:03] overcome any obstacles or barriers they have to starting a new [00:20:06] healthy habit like this. Yeah. And that’s tough. [00:20:09] Yeah.

And even if they submit the, whatever the [00:20:12] form on your website or however they reached out to you, like they can [00:20:15] oscillate between different stages of change. So just, [00:20:18] it just ’cause they were like. They might be in like the [00:20:21] contemplation stage and they’re just curious, but they’re scaring themselves that they’re a little [00:20:24] bit curious.

There’s, these are things that you can include in emails to [00:20:27] include some social proof based on the needs and lots of your [00:20:30] avatar. But yeah, that’s a really, that’s a really good story, Michael, to [00:20:33] share how that feel is real. Fear is real. Even people [00:20:36] who own gym. Yeah. 100%. [00:20:39] 100%. Alright, so we’ve covered a lot here.

Now we’re [00:20:42] coming up at the end of our time here. So we talked about the first two weeks of outreach. [00:20:45] So let’s just say that someone has not really gotten back to us in two [00:20:48] weeks. What happens to a lead after that? Really [00:20:51] simple. You just add them to your long-term nurture, meaning [00:20:54] that they’re included on any [00:20:57] emails you get.

Hopefully one, or you’re sending one or two emails a week. [00:21:00] That have like soft calls actions, but periodically you do [00:21:03] offers. They’re included in those offers when you get them. [00:21:06] If you do any like events for non-members, they get the email event, [00:21:09] the nutrition thing or the whatever you’re doing. Like [00:21:12] you’re just treating them like anyone who’s a [00:21:15] non-member who’s on your email list.

And reason why this is so [00:21:18] critical is I remember we had a client, Jeff, I [00:21:21] think I might have mentioned it before, like a year ago in the podcast, maybe [00:21:24] in a consultation with me. He outright mentioned [00:21:27] he’s, I had been reading your emails for, I can’t remember exactly what he said, but two [00:21:30] years before I decided that this was the thing I wanted to [00:21:33] do.

Wow. So if I had have just been like. [00:21:36] Fuck Jeff. He’s not a good lead. He doesn’t whatever. Yeah. And I [00:21:39] didn’t continue to keep that relation, even though it was a one very [00:21:42] one-sided relationship. I didn’t know he was reading my stuff, but he was, [00:21:45] Jeff probably spent $5,000 with us that year. Yeah, [00:21:48] 100%. I couldn’t even tell you how many times that happened to us at MMFF [00:21:51] where people who would straight up tell us have been following you guys on social [00:21:54] media, watching your YouTubes, on your email, reading every [00:21:57] email mark sends for literally 2, 3, 4, 5 [00:22:00] years and just decided.

Now, this is the moment where [00:22:03] I am ready to, or I’m comfortable coming in. And [00:22:06] obviously MFF and like your Jim, we serve a general [00:22:09] population, right? And we get a lot of folks who do have those [00:22:12] hesitations. So I think this is a really important part, is that just ’cause a [00:22:15] lead doesn’t commit now, just ’cause a lead is not ready right now [00:22:18] doesn’t mean they’re never gonna be ready.

So make sure you have them on your [00:22:21] email list. You’re nurturing them on a regular basis [00:22:24] and you tag them as someone who has not yet converted. [00:22:27] So when you make those offers to your [00:22:30] list of people who are, or leads who have not converted [00:22:33] that they’re on there and they’re gonna keep getting offers to [00:22:36] come in.

I think that’s pretty crucial. Alright. Let’s wrap it up [00:22:39] here. Ben, how would you, we started this podcast talking about the importance of speed to lead [00:22:42] and the importance of persistence. I think we’ve demonstrated here what [00:22:45] persistence looks like. How would you summarize. [00:22:48] Getting this process started for people who have not really dove [00:22:51] in yet.

The first step is this gets a lot [00:22:54] easier if you have any automation software. So obviously again, [00:22:57] shameless plug for kilo ’cause they do such great work. Yeah. But [00:23:00] anything we mention with a email or a [00:23:03] text can be automated because you know which days you’re gonna send them. Easy to build [00:23:06] those automations and type of out.

Yep. So lean into [00:23:09] that if you haven’t already. Second piece is really [00:23:12] being willing to set your own internal fears and [00:23:15] hesitations aside. And just try this [00:23:18] out. And I would even challenge you that like [00:23:21] try to get a complaint about frequency of follow [00:23:24] up. You’re gonna get one or two eventually, but [00:23:27] you’ll be astounded by how frequent or [00:23:30] how infrequent that happens.

I can think of one person off [00:23:33] the top of my head who is actually unhappy with the amount of follow up. [00:23:36] Wasn’t just like, Hey, I’m not interested anymore. Stop. So [00:23:39] being willing to set those fears aside and put on your [00:23:42] experimenting lab coat and just give this a go for a month [00:23:45] and see what happens. I think it probably the piece to help manage [00:23:48] yourself as you try to execute this.

Yeah, I think that’s [00:23:51] great advice. I’ll add one more, which is a ver just a [00:23:54] version of what you said. I just wanna double down on, I think the most, [00:23:57] the hardest part about this is just the time it takes. Yeah, [00:24:00] I mean I was just talking to one of our unicorn head members recently who [00:24:03] is gonna be on the podcast I think in an episode a few [00:24:06] after this.

And they were talking about when they started really getting a lot [00:24:09] of leads because they really doubled down on, on, on, [00:24:12] on paid ads and they’re doing all kinds of really great marketing. [00:24:15] They had so much lead followup to do that was taking them [00:24:18] three to four hours a day of just doing lead [00:24:21] fop ’cause they really were getting a lot.

That might be true for all of you, but I think [00:24:24] you need at least an hour. 30 to 60 [00:24:27] minutes a day to really do lead follow up if you’re really [00:24:30] gonna, if you have any volume of leads at all. Even [00:24:33] it’s one lead a day, right? That CU cumulative cumulatively is gonna [00:24:36] be a lot by the end of the next two or three weeks.

If you’re [00:24:39] following up with them, you’re gonna need at least 30 minutes, [00:24:42] ideally 60 minutes every single day to do this lead follow up. [00:24:45] That’s often the barrier for gym owners. Just can’t squeeze out [00:24:48] the time. I say can’t, I’ll rephrase that, have not [00:24:51] yet figured out how to design their days in a way that allows them to [00:24:54] squeeze out the time.

And I think that’s. That’s a really big part of it. [00:24:57] If you don’t have the time, it’s not gonna happen. And I promise there are [00:25:00] no more important priorities in your business than this. [00:25:03] No. Even, and even at the start, if you can do [00:25:06] 15 to 20, 15 to 30 minutes, two to three times a [00:25:09] day, that can work wonders.

’cause Yeah, to your point, there’s [00:25:12] no magic scripts, there’s no magic software, there’s no magic. [00:25:15] Anything that I know of. Yep. It a lot of it is [00:25:18] just like being persistent and continuing to follow up with that. [00:25:21] Yeah, said my friend and we’ll leave it there. Thanks as always, for a great [00:25:24] conversation, hearing your wisdom, your experience.

This is such a, [00:25:27] an important topic for all of our listeners, so I hope we did it [00:25:30] justice. Hope you dear listeners, got a lot out. This took lots of notes [00:25:33] and I will see you on the next one. Thanks, Ben.[00:25:36] [00:25:39] [00:25:42] [00:25:45] [00:25:48] [00:25:51]

[00:25:54] Up, get [00:25:57] up.