0:01

The key to exponential growth in

0:04

your gym is to have your clients bring

0:06

you more clients. I'm Chris Cooper.

0:08

I'm the founder of Two Brain Business, and

0:11

if this episode is helpful or you wanna get more tips

0:13

and tactics, go to jim owners united.com.

0:16

It's a free public group with over 6,000

0:18

other caring, empathetic, tactful,

0:20

and thoughtful gym owners. And you can ask

0:23

your questions in there about any aspect of

0:25

gym ownership. Today I want

0:28

to talk to you about the building a referral

0:30

culture. And the number one reason

0:32

that gym owners don't get enough referrals

0:34

is that they don't have referrals baked into

0:36

their process. And also because their

0:39

clients aren't expecting to generate

0:41

referrals, they're not expecting to be asked about their friends

0:43

or family. Today I'm gonna talk about building

0:45

that referral culture in your gym. Now,

0:48

this isn't a passive process.

0:50

You want your clients to bring you more clients,

0:53

but you can't just sit back and wait for

0:55

it to happen. Your clients are not

0:57

salespeople, they're not evangelists. They

1:00

probably love you, but unless somebody

1:02

asks who's your coach? Or How

1:04

did you lose all that weight? They're probably

1:06

not going to talk about you. So

1:08

today, I'm gonna tell you how we've built a

1:11

referral system at my gym and hundreds

1:13

of other gyms worldwide. While we

1:15

do occasionally run Facebook ads around

1:17

once a quarter, most of our clients come

1:20

from direct referrals. Yes,

1:22

of course you have to do a good job.

1:25

Yes, of course you have to get people results,

1:27

but that's not why we get referrals. We

1:30

get referrals because we've built a

1:32

culture of referral instead

1:34

of a culture of secrecy. In

1:37

the first 90 days that they're with your gym , a

1:39

client is very likely to refer

1:42

a friend. So that's where we're gonna start.

1:44

If you're in the two brain family, pull

1:46

out your client journey from the Growth Toolkit

1:48

and start taking notes. So

1:51

here are the steps. Number one, prepare

1:53

your client to refer their friends at

1:56

your first meeting with a client. Say this, if

1:59

I do a great job and you're

2:01

happy with your progress in 90 days, I'm

2:04

going to ask you for the name of one other person

2:06

who could benefit from this service. Okay?

2:09

That's it. Step two, do

2:12

an excellent job and get the client some results,

2:15

and you're already great at this part. Step

2:18

three, ask for a referral

2:21

at your 90 day goal review. Measure the

2:23

client's progress, record the client's

2:25

story, and then say, you have made

2:27

amazing progress. You've

2:30

probably noticed how warm and friendly everybody is

2:32

here. We curate our membership

2:34

by working only with amazing people. Who

2:37

in your life would fit into this

2:39

group? And then you make sure that you

2:41

get that person's name and their contact

2:43

information. Then

2:45

you ask, How would you feel about calling them

2:48

right now while I've got you here, Now

2:50

this is a 50 50, Some clients

2:52

won't feel comfortable, and that's fine. But

2:55

if the client agrees, call that new

2:57

lead and say, Hey Alan , I'm sitting here

2:59

with Joan and we were just talking about

3:02

you. She would like to invite you

3:04

in to work out with her. What do you say? If

3:06

the client would rather not have you cold call

3:09

their friend, you could email instead,

3:11

right? Just cc your client on the email

3:13

for credibility. So your subject

3:15

line is like your client's name, Joan

3:18

Leitz . And the text is like, Hey

3:21

Alan , I was just chatting with Joan here and

3:24

we agreed that we'd love to have you in for a partner

3:26

workout. Joan's next appointment

3:28

will be May the third at three o'clock.

3:30

Can you make it this type of

3:32

direct referral works best with low

3:35

hanging fruit, right? Your client's best referral,

3:37

like their spouse or their sister

3:39

who's probably pre-qualified

3:41

and ready to try something new. These

3:45

conversations will result in a new client

3:47

37% of the time. So

3:49

what that means is that you can take 10

3:52

clients, put them through a goal review and come out with

3:54

14. And the beautiful part is that , uh,

3:57

the , it's gonna be 14 good

3:59

matches who aren't like price shopping, who

4:01

fit into the same demographic as your current

4:03

clients, et cetera . Now I wanna

4:05

talk about extending that process out over

4:08

the first year. Your newest clients are

4:10

the most , uh, excited about your service. And

4:13

in his book, Never Lose a Customer Again.

4:15

Joey Coleman says that evangelism

4:17

is most likely to happen around

4:19

that 90 day mark. So I

4:21

just told you what to say on Day zero and

4:24

what to say on day 90. And

4:26

if you're in Two Brain , you can pull out your client

4:28

journey map because I'm gonna share another

4:30

referral strategy for the rest of the client's first

4:32

year. So to recap, day

4:35

zero, you set the expectation that you're going to

4:37

ask them a referral. If you get them

4:39

results, day 90, you're

4:41

going to ask for the client's most likely

4:43

good referral. Okay? Now let's talk

4:46

about the rest of the year. Every

4:48

90 days you wanna book a goal review

4:50

session with your client. So

4:52

I've already said what to say on day 90. This

4:54

is Day 180. Okay ? They've been with you now

4:56

for six months. You can , uh,

4:58

grab the cheat sheet from our Affinity marketing

5:01

guide. If you're in two brain , uh, go to the toolkit

5:03

under Affinity Marketing and grab the cheat sheet.

5:05

But what you wanna do is basically

5:08

before you sit down with your client for their goal

5:10

review session, you ask

5:12

yourself a few questions. Who does that client

5:15

live with? Who do they work with?

5:18

Who do they hang around with? And

5:20

that should give you at least three opportunities for

5:22

referrals right away, or three ideas for referrals.

5:25

But you wanna put actual names on the

5:27

sheet. So if you don't know enough about

5:29

your client to know, like who they

5:31

live with or where they work or who they hang out

5:33

with, then use that first goal review

5:36

session to learn more about them. Instead

5:38

of asking for a referral, solidify

5:40

your relationship first. Get it on solid

5:43

ground and then try to expand it. Looking

5:45

at the client's relationships though, decide

5:47

which person would be the most likely to need

5:49

your service, then practice help

5:52

first. So ask yourself, how can

5:54

your service help this new lead get

5:56

to their goals? And then when you meet

5:58

with the client, make an offer to

6:00

help that connection. I

6:03

wrote an entire book about this with dozens

6:05

of specific examples for gym owners. But

6:07

here's one, Mary, I

6:09

know that your husband Bill likes to golf. What

6:12

does he do to stay in shape in the off season ? And

6:15

then you can invite Bill in to do

6:17

a personal training session with Mary. It's

6:19

not a free personal training session, it's

6:22

just an explicit invitation to join Mary

6:24

for the workout that she already has scheduled

6:26

day two 70. So their third goal review,

6:29

meet with the client for another goal review

6:31

session. Now, even if your last

6:33

session didn't result in a referral, you

6:36

should ask again, but some try somebody

6:38

else in their life. So remember, even

6:41

if only 30% of your

6:43

referral requests result in a new client, that's

6:46

a 30% return on

6:48

every client you have. That is

6:50

by definition, exponential growth.

6:53

If you invested a hundred dollars in the

6:55

market and you earned a 5%

6:57

return for 30 years, you'd have $433

7:00

. Imagine if you add a 30%

7:02

return on your current client headcount

7:04

every single year. That is exponential

7:07

growth. So do another goal review.

7:09

Go through the Affinity marketing cheat sheet, you

7:12

know, pinpoint one other connection and ask how you

7:14

can help. That's it. Day

7:16

360, they've been with you for

7:18

a year. This is when you invite

7:20

a clients , friends or family or coworkers

7:23

in for an event. So you could do

7:25

a Bring a Friend Friday, you could do a wine and

7:27

wad or a corporate challenge, or a Ninja Warrior

7:29

challenge for kids, or even a birthday party

7:32

or an invitation to watch them do

7:34

a workout like in the CrossFit Open. All

7:37

of these can result in amazing referrals.

7:39

So here are some approaches to try. Hey

7:42

Mary, we're doing our quarterly, Bring a

7:44

Friend Friday next week. Who would you like to

7:46

invite to do a partner workout with you? Mary,

7:49

we're hosting a women's only workout on

7:51

Friday. I'm gonna bring in some wine. Who

7:53

would you like to invite from your friend's list? Mary,

7:57

I know this time of year is stressful

7:59

at work. What if we invited your team in

8:01

on Friday night for a fun little workout

8:03

challenge to blow off some steam? I'll

8:06

bring the snacks you bring them. Mary, I

8:08

know your daughter's baseball team is nearing the end

8:11

of their season. What if we brought them in for a

8:13

team party on Saturday? I'll set up

8:15

a little Ninja Warrior challenge. You can

8:17

bring in a snack and we'll just let them have fun

8:19

for an hour. How about it? Hey,

8:21

Bill, I'm sure Mary's been talking to you about

8:24

the CrossFit open at home. She's

8:26

nervous, but she's gonna do amazing. I'd

8:28

love to have you join us. Lots of spouses

8:30

and families come in to watch. Make it

8:32

a surprise. If you want to, the event is

8:35

Thursday at 6:00 PM and I can save you a seat. Can

8:37

you make it Now? Of course, getting

8:39

a body into the gym isn't the

8:41

same as signing the person up, but it's a

8:43

great way to start that conversation while

8:46

you're chatting to that new lead. Your

8:48

goal is to get the person to book a No

8:50

Sweat intro. The key is

8:52

to look for ways to meet the people who surround

8:55

your clients. My first three

8:57

clients at Catalyst were teen athletes. My

9:00

next 30 were their friends

9:02

and their parents because I showed up at

9:04

their events. Sometimes I even took a

9:06

tent. And so now I'm

9:08

gonna tell you how to set up a referral network in

9:10

your town. The way that I've done it, nobody

9:12

refers to their competition,

9:14

right? Everybody refers

9:17

to their friends. If the people in your

9:19

town know you like you and trust you,

9:21

they will refer to you even if they don't use the service

9:23

themselves. Catalyst

9:26

is a very successful gym in

9:28

a very poor town that is now

9:30

in its 19th year. And

9:32

while we do run Facebook ads once a

9:34

quarter, we always have a constant stream

9:37

of new clients from referrals. This

9:39

is because we actively ask for

9:41

referrals. We practice help first and

9:44

we tactfully ask clients how

9:46

we can help their friends. But we don't

9:48

offer discounts for referring friends. We

9:50

don't offer bribes for referring friends. We

9:52

don't run contests to see who can refer

9:55

the most friends. And we don't trade free

9:57

membership for new contracts. I

9:59

just don't feel good about any of those tactics,

10:02

and I don't need them and neither do you.

10:04

So here's how we do it. Number one,

10:06

we earn the trust of healthcare professionals.

10:09

When new clients sign up, we ask them,

10:11

Are you seeing a physiotherapist or a

10:13

chiropractor outside the gym? And

10:16

if they say yes, then we ask for permission

10:18

to send their workouts to the healthcare provider

10:21

just to be on the safe side. Now,

10:23

most healthcare providers know way less about

10:25

fitness than you do, and you don't need

10:27

their permission. But set

10:30

your ego aside for five minutes, and that's

10:32

all it takes to build an amazing bridge. So

10:34

you just email the healthcare professional and

10:36

say, Hey, Dr . Roberts, it's

10:39

Chris here from Catalyst, your patient. Mary

10:41

Green has just started at my gym. I'm

10:43

really excited to help her improve her fitness. My

10:46

plan for the first 90 days looks like this. And

10:48

you can just give a really quick summary. You

10:51

say, I can send you the specifics if

10:53

you like, but as always, if you have any fears

10:56

or known contraindications, just re

10:58

reply to this email. Have a great day. Now,

11:00

I've been sending those emails for about 17 years,

11:03

and the referrals that they've earned me have been

11:05

worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. I've

11:08

had doctors and therapists sign up for my gym,

11:10

and some of them have even stayed for 10 years.

11:12

But not once has a single professional

11:15

responded with, That's a bad plan,

11:17

or I would do something different. Most

11:20

of them are absolutely thrilled that

11:22

you even included them in the conversation. One

11:24

quick note, if physical therapists

11:26

see you doing therapy in quotation

11:28

marks at your gym or any healthcare

11:31

pros, see you trying to act outside

11:33

of your scope of practice, your domain of

11:35

expertise, they will never ever

11:38

refer to you. So in a previous

11:40

podcast, I said, You gotta get the therapy

11:42

out of your gym and form a web

11:45

instead of trying to fix every problem yourself. Here's

11:47

my second note. Avoid

11:50

forming a formal referral agreement

11:52

with any one provider. I've tempted

11:54

to do this many times, but you're better

11:56

to keep lines open with everybody. You'll

11:59

probably be the only coach in town following this

12:01

strategy. You'll earn the trust of nearly

12:04

everyone. It's better to keep that trust than to

12:06

try and go deep with one chiropractor

12:08

or doctor who might refer you three

12:10

people a year for 20 bucks each

12:13

time. All right , so step one

12:15

was earn the trust of healthcare professionals.

12:17

Step two is publish a lot. Nothing

12:19

builds trust like media. So

12:22

you need to use that superpower for good by

12:24

sharing free information with your community, right?

12:27

You don't sell information, you sell coaching, you

12:29

give your information away for free. This

12:31

isn't just a marketing strategy, it's

12:34

a nurture strategy. It's a retention strategy.

12:36

It's a recapture client strategy overall,

12:40

it's a trust building strategy. I

12:43

often tell my coaches, teach

12:46

our clients to know more about fitness than any

12:49

other coach in town. Now for

12:51

two brand clients, we have a huge bank

12:53

of blog content that you can just swipe and use

12:55

in the growth toolkit, right? Use that.

12:58

There's more than a year's worth of stuff in there

13:00

that you can just copy paste. The third

13:02

strategy is to show up everywhere. Bring

13:04

a banner, bring a tent, be bright

13:06

like my , the catalyst colors are

13:09

black and silver and shr bright green

13:11

because that shade of green is visible

13:13

from a greater distance than any other color. Forget

13:16

the artistic ads. Forget

13:18

the t-shirts. They don't count. Get your

13:20

plain logo out to the public. A

13:22

catchy phrase or even your logo won't

13:25

attract any new clients. But we all have recency

13:27

bias. We think that the , the

13:29

brand that we see the most often must be the

13:32

best. So earlier I

13:34

said that my first three clients were teen athletes,

13:36

and my next 30 clients were

13:38

their parents and teammates. That's because

13:41

I used to show up at track meets carrying a

13:43

tent in a big green banner. My

13:45

clients would show up at the tent to stretch with me

13:47

before their races or their games. Their

13:49

friends would see them and I'd often tell them

13:51

like, Hey, it's okay to bring in your friend to stretch with

13:54

you. I would give them warmups to do and stuff

13:56

like that. Did I ask permission to

13:58

show up with a tent? Never. But I

14:00

was never told to go away. Either parents

14:02

would point me out to other parents, Oh, that's

14:04

Janine's coach. I used to come

14:06

home from these events with like two or three new

14:09

clients every time, and I would call them the following

14:11

day and sign them up. Number

14:13

four is wake the neighbors.

14:16

You want your gym to be at the center

14:18

of a sticky web of referrals. So

14:21

walk around to all the neighboring

14:23

businesses with coffee. Make friends

14:26

when their clients ask about you because

14:28

they will. Your neighbor will say, Oh,

14:30

I know she's great. You would be surprised

14:32

how important that is in fitness. I

14:35

screwed this up. So , um, when I opened

14:37

our second location , uh, this was

14:39

2006, we were in

14:41

a second <laugh> story location. We

14:44

were right above this , um, this

14:46

store that sold sweaters and fancy clothes

14:48

to professional women, right? My

14:50

target audience. And the

14:52

first day I, I meant to take some

14:54

coffees down to meet the neighbors, introduce myself,

14:57

and I forgot. And of course, at

14:59

7:00 PM I had a client drop a snatch

15:01

bar and it knocked out all of the track

15:03

lighting in the store below. We got off to

15:05

on the wrong foot. They hated us. And

15:08

any women who came into that store for

15:10

the next five years heard that

15:12

we were jerks and loud and

15:15

crazy. Upstairs, I totally

15:17

shut down that avenue. Before

15:19

you can ruin a relationship by having

15:22

one of your clients like pushing a sled

15:24

behind the park , car of the tire

15:26

store next door, Forge

15:28

a friendship, Go take them coffee, wake

15:31

the neighbors. Number five

15:33

is be a pro. While it's super important

15:35

to maintain a positive reputation

15:37

in your town, it's more important

15:40

to maintain a professional one. I

15:42

have had bad local reviews. I've had a

15:44

parent write a letter to the editor because I

15:46

wouldn't refund her kid. It's

15:48

more important to be consistent than it

15:50

is to please everybody. People wanna

15:53

know that they'll be treated with warmth and

15:55

professionalism. So if somebody leaves

15:57

you a bad review, you wanna respond

15:59

to that review on Google or Facebook or

16:01

wherever else with, I'm sorry this didn't

16:03

work for you. We have policies

16:05

that we adhere to to provide the best

16:08

possible service for our clients. That's

16:10

your response. That's a professional response

16:12

that you can give consistently. It

16:14

is more important to be consistently

16:17

professional than it is to be positive all

16:19

the time. Okay ? You have

16:21

to be kind, you have to be tactful.

16:24

You have to publish your rules and your agreements,

16:26

and you have to stick with them a hundred percent of the time.

16:29

Potential clients are watching, even

16:31

when you think they're not. Reputation

16:33

is a pillar of longevity in any service

16:36

business. The key above all

16:38

to getting referrals is to

16:40

not wait for them to actively

16:42

pursue them. Now I'm gonna talk about

16:44

what happens when you get to the tinker

16:47

phase. You're making more than a hundred thousand

16:49

dollars a year. How does this

16:51

referral network help you then? Well,

16:54

your job as an entrepreneur

16:57

is to be the CEO of your business. And that

16:59

means that your job is to match new services

17:01

to your audience and to forge new partnerships.

17:04

In short, your job is to be the connector.

17:06

Whether you have one client and you're in the founder

17:08

phase, or 300 clients, a

17:11

million dollar gym , and you're in the tinker phase, being

17:14

the connector is your job. But

17:16

the , the connections that you forge will

17:18

change and become more valuable over time.

17:20

So I just told you several ways to set

17:22

up a referral culture in and around your business.

17:25

Now I want to have you set up a referral web

17:27

for your whole town. This works

17:29

best when your business has been around

17:31

for a while , has a good reputation,

17:33

and shows obvious signs of success.

17:36

Because I've been around a while , I'm

17:38

often the first fitness professional that

17:41

the media contacts when they need a quote. I'm

17:43

often in the local news because we've

17:45

made donations through the gym or something like that.

17:48

And I've met, met dozens of other business

17:50

owners through my gym. So when my

17:52

gym needs five new clients, I don't turn

17:54

to Instagram. I turn to my

17:56

contact list in my brain. I

17:59

think about other entrepreneurs in town. I

18:01

send them a text or an invitation for a coffee,

18:04

and then slowly I turn that conversation

18:06

to exercise. Then I invite

18:08

them to join me at the gym where I offer

18:10

to introduce them to a trainer. My

18:12

niche is really entrepreneurs. Yours

18:14

might be two or you might be something

18:16

different. You probably have entrepreneurs in

18:19

your gym, but you can use a help first

18:21

strategy with nurses or teachers or

18:23

any profession to form a

18:25

tight bond, right? You wanna

18:28

be known as the one who helps

18:30

first responders in time of crisis.

18:32

The way that you get that reputation is not

18:34

to give them 20% off. That's not why they

18:37

became a first responder. The way that

18:39

you get that reputation is to send 50

18:41

lasagnas out to first responders

18:43

when your city is going through a crisis. I've

18:46

done that. You wanna be the one who

18:48

works with the social workers in your

18:50

town. You don't do that by giving them 10%

18:52

off if they refer a friend. You do

18:54

that by buying bikes for local kids

18:57

or collecting gifts at Christmas time

18:59

. Alright ? I like working with

19:01

entrepreneurs at my gym, but you can do this with any

19:03

service based business. So the

19:06

way you start is that you set up a

19:08

referral board at your gym. You pin

19:10

up the business card of any professional who

19:12

works for you. So I have a referral board

19:14

at Catalyst. It's just a cork board with client

19:17

business cards pinned to it. Then you

19:19

invite entrepreneurs and CEOs

19:21

from your gym to a local

19:23

round table or a coffee chat. You can propose

19:25

a topic if you want, but this isn't a lecture.

19:28

Your job is to connect

19:30

them. So the last time we did this,

19:32

I chose a topic. I said, We're

19:34

having really great luck with Facebook advertising

19:37

right now. I'm happy to show you exactly

19:39

how to do it. Do you wanna get together next

19:41

Friday? And I'll walk you through it and you can

19:43

bring another business owner if you want. We

19:45

had 13 people show up, Only

19:48

five were members from my gyms. Some

19:51

of them were absolute beginners with Facebook, right?

19:53

Like one of them asked me, How do you get a website?

19:55

And some were really advanced, like, what

19:57

should our cost per lead be for lead ads with a video?

20:00

But I had a really fun hour with five

20:02

of my favorite clients and eight of

20:04

their friends. And then we talked about the gym.

20:07

And if you have several entrepreneurs in

20:09

your gym, then you can make the meetup

20:11

a regular occurrence and introduce topics

20:13

if you want, right? And if you're

20:16

in Tube Brain , I'm happy to send you copies of my

20:18

books if that will help you, whatever, hand them out.

20:21

If you wanna work with like nurses,

20:24

then what I would suggest is that you host

20:26

a nurse's week at your gym with

20:28

lectures, nutrition, coaching. Um

20:31

, maybe you do a free trial class just

20:33

for nurses on the 3:00 PM shift or

20:35

something like that. Or maybe you do lunch

20:37

and learn meetups. Um, lots

20:39

of mentors do that right now. They'll, they'll find a

20:42

local partner, they'll offer to do a lunch and

20:44

learn. They'll go into that workplace and just teach

20:46

for an hour. And then fourth is

20:48

invite trusted connections into your

20:50

gym to speak with your clients. Right? So

20:53

for example, I love my financial planner Jordan.

20:56

Uh , every March I want Jordan to come into Catalyst

20:58

and tell people how to save money on

21:00

their taxes. Uh , and then of course, like

21:03

they'll have more money, which they will often

21:05

spend at my gym. Jordan will probably

21:07

get some clients. The caveat is that

21:09

he has to email his clients too.

21:12

So his clients come in, they get this tax

21:14

seminar, they're exposed to my gym and I

21:16

get to meet them. Um, another example is

21:18

we had a physio come in and talk with our clients about

21:20

aging and fitness. And uh , you know,

21:23

that was also awesome. This

21:25

is a long and rewarding game. It

21:27

takes a while to set this up. It takes even

21:29

longer for it to bear fruit. But

21:31

the strategy offers returns that compound

21:34

over time. Like any long term

21:36

investment. When shutdowns

21:39

happened for two years, I kept over

21:41

70% of my clients. The whole time people

21:44

referred to me, the media called me. Um

21:46

, other practitioners were calling to say, Are you

21:48

open yet? Right? I went out to lunch with

21:51

people. I still get invitations to

21:53

speak at local businesses. This referral

21:55

strategy means that Catalyst does not have to run

21:57

ads, even though we haven't like

22:00

actively pursued any new referral

22:02

relationships in probably three years.

22:04

The rewards are big enough that it can replace

22:07

almost all of your marketing. And

22:09

the best part is that while most marketing

22:12

disappears or loses its effectiveness,

22:14

over time, this grows

22:16

and compounds and you get more and

22:18

more from it. The book on this topic that

22:20

I wrote is called Help First . But if you

22:22

wanna talk about strategies that gyms are using,

22:25

go to gym owners united.com. Join

22:27

our Facebook group and ask about this

22:30

episode. We'll post a link to the episode

22:32

in that group. We'll share some comments, tactic strategies,

22:34

and ideas below. And you can use

22:36

these forever. They don't run out. You

22:38

can repeat them for as long as you want. I'm Chris

22:41

Cooper. I hope this helps build

22:43

yourself a sticky web.