Hey there, welcome to the fitness legitness podcast show, I’m your host Nardia Norman. And today we’re gonna talk about how to wrap up the end of the year in a way that you can generate some more income and buzz and you don’t feel all stressy going into the holidays. Before we dive into that topic though, I just want to say a big thank you for all of you who have sent me messages about the fitness legitness podcast, the show. I have loved, loved, loved hearing your feedback and um, getting uh, watching you guys post on your stories. So please keep doing that. It really helps me to get this podcast out there and obviously it means it’s going to help a greater number of women in fitness. And if you are loving what you’re hearing, please make sure you give it a review over on iTunes because as you guys know, everything at the moment is all about the reviews and the testimonial.
01:01
So I would really appreciate that. Okay, so let’s talk about the end of the year. Now, I don’t know about you, but for many years as a personal trainer, I always had this belief that it was really hard to make money in December. I would always kind of get to the end of the year with a sense of dread knowing that I was like, how am I going to make enough money to get across or to pay for all the expenses that come up in December and also get across that January period. So when I was working at the CBD in Sydney, the majority of my clients didn’t really come back until after Australia day. And I think that’s quite common around a lot of Australia that most of our clients go away and then they don’t really get back into the full swing of things until around that holiday period. So that January period can be really light, meaning if you haven’t projected for that in the year prior to that, you kind of left scrambling a little bit, right?
02:04
And it can be a really stressful time. And, uh, you know, as a trainer, what we do is energetically demanding, you know this, right? And it’s tempting not to have a holiday over that Christmas period because you can’t afford it. But what if you could, what if we could flip this or organize this in such a way that you get to the end of the year and you feel comfortable and confident knowing that you’ve got strategies in place to see you through that December, January period. Wouldn’t that be cool? Yes. So that’s what I want to talk about today. Now when I reflect back on my mindset around this time, I think really it was just a result of not having good key strategies that I could implement to buffer the loss of income from people going away. And of course I wanted to take a holiday as well like I said before it’s really important.
02:58
So today I want to talk about five key strategies that you can apply. But before I do, I need to add a caveat to this. A big part of why we kind of run into this trouble or into the stress at the end of the year is normally because one hasn’t projected their income from the year before. What do I mean by that? So when I look at a year now, I’m not just thinking about the month that’s coming up. I have already projected my income forward too December, 2020, or I’m always a year ahead and advance. And as a trainer, I never really did this. I got it theoretically, but I never implemented it. And this is one of the key reasons why we need to implement these kinds of things. So at a global level, it’s probably a little bit too late to be doing this for December 19, but this is certainly something that you can pop in your head and start doing for December, 2020 in January 21.
04:00
And I know that seems so far away, but as you guys know, these years are going around really quickly. But if you were to project your yearly income across the year, knowing full well that there’s going to be certain dips in your business depending on your market that you’re working with, obviously let’s use, um, uh, working with moms of school aged kids as an example. If you run a business where you’re sort of on terms, you know that there’s always going to be dips, in income with school holidays. And so you have to kind of consider that and build that into your weekly and monthly targets for those times. All those seasons that you are actually on. I might go in a bit more detail about this cause it’s the taken away from what I want to talk about today, but just just know that’s kind of the overarching thing that we have to do first.
04:57
If you’ve got that done, then these strategies that I’m going to share with you, are going to be like icing on the cake. It’s just gonna be an extra way of generating some buzz and income in that short period of time. However, if you haven’t projected, then that’s completely okay. So these strategies I’m going to talk to you about now, um, there’s still time to bring them in. I’m sure that by the time this goes to air probably around mid to late November. So you can turn this around really quickly if you hustle on it. So there’s five key strategies that I want you to consider. Now, again, before I jumped into this, I do want you to pay attention to what your mindset is. So if you keep buying into this belief that it’s always hard to make money in December, December as a quiet month, nobody is selling, you’re going to have to check yourself on that before you even try to implement these strategies, because that belief is going to hold you back and it’s going to pull you back from doing the things that you need to do to get these strategies done.
05:54
So if you do find yourself falling into that space, where those are the thoughts that keep coming up for you. I just invite you to challenge your own notions. So approached it from a sense of curiosity. What if I could generate a shit load of cash this, this December? What would it look like if I were able to bring in more money than I have in any other years around December? Right? So just kind of approach it from an experimental perspective. Uh, you know, there’s nothing to lose here. All right. Okay. So let’s dive into the five strategies. Some of these you might’ve already heard, um, and they are oftentimes common sense situations or strategies, but as we know in the industry, common sense is not always common practice. So let’s go top five strategies to get some more income and generate some buzz and Bulletproof you across this Christmas holiday season.
06:52
Strategy number one, create Christmas packages. So you can create vouchers that you can tell your clients about, that they can purchase from you to give the gift of Christmas to friends and family and whatever you choose to put in this as completely up to you. But remember you’re using this as a lead generation first and foremost. So you don’t want to make this hugely expensive, but you might want to create a couple of packages or gift vouchers that range from something like $99 up to $199 whereas part of these Christmas packages, the person gets two PT sessions with you, a consult or a freebie or something that’s a normal part of your offerings. So basically you are getting paid or you’re getting a paid lead gen at the end of the day. And look, you know, even if you just sell four or five, that’s an extra, if you’re selling it at $99 or just a little bit over, that’s an extra four or $500 in your pocket coming into that Christmas period.
08:03
I would certainly take the time to sit down and go, okay, cool. What would I like to put into this? What am I, my offerings in this little package? Um, remember have the mindset that this is a lead gen exercise as is not a way of hands down making a shitload of money at the moment, although you are getting paid for it. So that’s a bonus. What do you want to put into it? What are the deliverables on it? Where are they going to see the value in it? And what’s your capacity for time for honoring these packages? And you know, I’d get a little bit creative here. So you might also want to offer some sort of online Christmas package so that people who have got friends or family who are not in your physical space can still give this to somebody elsewhere and they can still get your services through online.
08:48
Now before you say, but Nards, I don’t have an online offering. Don’t worry about that, don’t worry about the what or the how. Just kind of offer it and see if you’ve got any bites. If somebody purchases an online package from you is not going to take a lot for you to figure out how to deliver an online package. At its simplest form. Get Skype, get zoom, send them a PDF or the program on it. Easy, happy days. So think about putting these little packages together, making a fancy little voucher or something using Canva. We can make it all really pretty and start telling your clients now that this is what you’ve got, that this is a great idea to be giving or gifting their friends and family and perhaps even their colleagues that are in their world. So that’s strategy number one, create Christmas packages, gifts where you’re giving the gift of Christmas.
09:45
Okay. Strategy number two. Now this will depend on your current schedule, but open up all those extra spots that you have for extra one on one sessions. Now if you aren’t selling one-on-ones, which is definitely what I recommend, that you shift more into like a membership or a package style model, just having those ad hoc one on one sessions as a little bit of a fun thing to do in, in this December period. It’s really novel. And given the fact that a lot of people are spending more time going to Christmas parties and uh, you know, their eating a bit crazy already, even though it’s not actually Christmas, just yet, people want to get more training into their time, especially if you’re making it more fun stuff. So if you’re traditionally all about the strength and conditioning, these little ad hoc sessions could just be like hard out, Metcons, hard out fitness stuff.
10:41
Instead of doing 60 minutes or 45 minutes sessions, you might be offering just little 30 minutes, sweat session, a sweat sessions or a sweat sesh, uh, just prior to that holiday period so that people can squeeze in those little 30 minute workouts around their crazy ass schedule. Now this is on top off the ordinary booked in PT session. But if you’ve just got it, you know, maybe two or three extra slots available, extra hours, then just throw it out to your clients and say, Hey, here’s what’s happening this Christmas. Let’s get it in and let’s make sure you’ve got, you know, exercise in the bank before you go into the Christmas period.
11:20
Strategy number three. Now this is a big one and this is one where I see a lot of trainers make a mistake on because they don’t do this. So strategy number three is more about January, and that is please, please, please make sure you have got all of your clients first sessions for January locked and loaded into your schedule and into their schedule. Do not let a client walk away from you in December saying, cool I’ll get back to you when I’m back from holidays. No, no, no, no, no. You need to have them locked and loaded ready to go. Now, if you’ve got them on some sort of automatic payment and when you’re pausing their payments over that Christmas period, they let them know when that payment is going to kick off.
12:24
Be really clear with them and say, Hey, on this date, your payments are going to resume. Therefore your first session back is at this time. Now if they have the objection of, Oh, I don’t really want to get back, I don’t know what my schedule is going to be like when I get back. That’s okay, so totally get that, but I just need you to understand that I’m going to be super rammed to come in January as the biggest busiest time of the year for us. Therefore, if you want to hold your spot, this is what I recommend you do and you just hold them accountable to that. Remember we train our clients how to, how to talk to us or how to, how to work with us or how to, um, deal with us. So if you let them have all the control and the power, then they’re just going to assume that control and power and that January period you need to take as much control as you can from the situation and have people locked and loaded.
13:19
You do not want to get to January and look at your schedule and go, ah, I really don’t know what sessions I’ve got booked in. You need to know where your gaps are so that you can start plugging those gaps with, um, those, hopefully all of those packages, those gifts that you gave as strategy one, you’re going to be needing to fill those with those sessions, those conversations, those honoring those packages, um, in that time. So you need to know exactly what’s on your schedule. So make sure they are all locked and loaded. Now I just thought of another strategy that wasn’t part of my five, but I’m just gonna call this like a three part B strategy. Now, I don’t know the last time that you raised your rates. This in itself is a whole new topic, so I won’t spend a lot of time on this, but a strategy you could possibly use for clients who have been with you for a year.
14:19
You could say something like, look for all my new clients that are joining in January, the prices are going to go up. So I’m going to honor your prices where you are right now, especially if they’re actually on a decent price. Um, but in order to honor that price, I need you to have you, I need to have you locked and loaded, ready to go. So I know that you are fully committed if you’re not prepared to lock in a session, your first session back, unfortunately, when you come back, you’ll need to go up to the new adjusted rates. So that’s a strategy you could consider as well.
14:51
All right, on to strategy number four. So depending on how long your clients are going away on holidays for, let’s just say some people are going away for a good solid three to four weeks. For those people.
15:08
Consider offering a holiday service program. Now that could be a hybrid where it is a combination of you jumping on and doing some Skype calls or some zoom calls with them and you do some live PT. So no matter where they are in the world, you could be just, I’m dialing in and Pting them. All somebody needs is basically a room with a little bit of space and you can PT them on line. Um, which is such a brilliant idea. And how’s that for just an extra little bit customer service. So you need to work out what your price point would be for something like that. Um, but really it’s just an opportunity to keep making some cash over that time period, but also to stay connected to those people and we have to sell it and such a way that, um, there’s a lot of benefit in it for them.
16:02
Obviously you always want to make things benefit rich for our clients. And the most obvious benefit we can think of here is if you continuously work out whilst you’re on holiday, it means that when you come back, it doesn’t feel as hard and icky. Or if you continuously work out over the holiday period, it means you can manage your, uh, nutritional intake. Uh, you can still feel really good. You can mitigate any possible holiday weight gain. So it’s not going to be as hard for you when you come back. Those kinds of selling points. So that’s one option there is to come up with a way that you can actually deliver one-on-one or some PT over zoom or over a Skype. Or you might want to just create like a holiday homework package where you write them a personalized homework program and you’re just going to check in with them weekly over that Christmas period.
16:55
And obviously make sure that you are accounting for your own holiday time. So you don’t want to be working when you’re supposed to be on holiday. So you need to work out whether this is viable for you. Um, but if there is some time in your schedule where you’re like, yeah, I’m happy to invest maybe a couple of hours just checking in on people, then offer that service where you’re just going to via email or just by a quick voice matters, just check in with them. Hey, so and so, alright, just checking in to see how you’ve done this week or your training. I’ve set this for you, I know that getting this workout done and also being on top of your nutrition was a real concern for you. So, consider this your accountability piece from me. So tell me where you’re at. Just those kind of little things.
17:39
Don’t underestimate how powerful those little touch points are as far as keeping somebody motivated and keeping them accountable to their goals are, and don’t forget, it’s just that next level service that so many people don’t tend to do. So think about something like that. Now the last, the fifth and final strategy is more about January than it is December. And so you’ll, you’ll probably be, you’ll probably know with your client base who’s going to be around and who’s not going to be around, right? So you’ve got two options with this particular strategy and the strategy I’m going to recommend here is like a January kickstart program. Change the terminology if it doesn’t resonate with you, but I just use that cause I think you get the idea. So in December what you might want to sell to your current client base who are already going to be, you know, sitting around or they’re going to be available to you in January is to on top of their ordinary PT offer some sort of like a January challenge.
18:47
So it’s just something a little additional. We might be offering extra support. You might have a really big focus on personal training sessions with some extra group sessions checked in for value. You might do something around goal setting for January and helping them to really map out what their training goals are going to look like for 2020. And you sell this as like a six week challenge or a six week package on top of what they’re already paying you for their PT sessions. Now this in itself becomes its own little product. So you could also, um, from strategy one, if you do know that you’re getting people who, um, uh, have purchased this and you’re getting their names and number, when you start to honor those, those packages, those Christmas gift packages, you might be able to up sell them into this kickstart program in January as well.
19:41
Alternatively, in December you can now start talking about on your social media or just to, to clients or to people that you’re coming into contact with that you’re offering a short term four or five, six week January kickstart challenge slash program that people can come and grab at a realistic price. Um, and that you kick off on a particular date. Let’s just say at the start of January. And you know, you might get like four or five people join in at say a $300 price point and it’s no skin off your nose because you’re going to have a quiet month anyways. So it kind of makes sense that you’ll have the time and the capacity to honor and service those people that come in and all of these little pieces, these little sales add up. These are things that you wouldn’t ordinarily have anyway, especially if you buy into this whole notion that you can’t make money in Christmas December or January.
20:39
If you think about these five different strategies and you might want to choose to do all of them or you might only want to pick two or three of them, at least that going to be something that’s going to take you from where you currently are up to that next level. So let me just recap those five strategies very briefly. So strategy number one is to create a Christmas packages as gifts for clients, friends, families and colleagues. So I would recommend starting them at $99 and go up from there. Strategy number two is to throw out the, uh, the period of December up to when you go on holiday is to allow people to do little 30 minutes sweat sesh or ad hoc one on one sessions. Or you could actually turn this into a group session, um, that’s not attached to a program, but they’re just fun sweat sessions and give it a cool name that’s benefit rich, that’s compelling, um, that people would love to buy into.
21:40
Strategy number three is just making sure this is a logistical thing, making sure that you’ve got all your clients locked in for their January sessions and that is a no brainer. No client gets to leave you without having got, having had that locked in. Um, I did do a three B for that Oh yes. One strategy was to say that your prices could be going up for newbies in 2020. So therefore, if you want to stay on your current rate, you need to lock yourself and only use that sparingly. A strategy number four is offer a holiday service, um, slash product where this would work for those who are going away for a little bit longer. You can either do sessions where you’re delivering PT via zoom or Skype and or you are going to be doing a PDF or some sort of a program that you seem to them email to them and you’re going to offer weekly check in.
22:36
There’s like a true hybrid and the fifth and final strategy there is to create a short term January, 2020 kickstart program of some description that you can sell to your current clients on top of their current membership and or you can sell to others to try and fill those gaps in January. So there you go guys, five kick ass strategies that will definitely, definitely up your money game and up your buzz for that December, January period. Hopefully you find that really helpful.
23:14
All right. I want to switch gears just a little bit and there’s a second part to closing off your year. And I want to talk about the customer service aspect of making sure you are finishing the year off with some sort of gift or something for your clients. Now I’m a bandit for Christmas gifts and I think as a personal trainer, you’ve got to make the decision as to whether you’re going to be someone who does gifts for birthdays and Christmas or you only focus on birthdays and not Christmas or whatever.
23:49
For me Christmas gifts were always my thing. I really love them and I’ve done so many different gifts for clients across the years. I’ve done super personalized gifts and I’ve done generic gifts and I think whatever it really comes down to whatever you feel fits you and your business. Um, you don’t have to stick to the same thing every single year. But what is important is that it’s definitely done. So just off the top of my head, theres gifts that can kind of this, there’s a couple of different categories. So you’ve got the gifts that can kind of fall under the food category, then food and wine. Then you’ve got the gifts that fall under, sort of like the exercise. Um, I guess self care categories. And then you’ve got the gifts that kind of fall under promo category. So let’s start with promo categories. So this is where you can gift branded swag to your clients.
24:48
Uh, so for example, you could be doing umm, branded water bottles, t-shirts, tank tops, um, sweat bands, um, yoga mats. Ah, the possibilities are endless. And if you’ve got the funds to do so, I highly recommend it. But think very carefully about what your branding. So what’s the whole intention of branded swag? Yes. You want them to read it. You want what? You want them to wear it. Sorry. But the intention is to increase your brand awareness, right? So obviously if they’re going to be wearing or you’re giving them stuff that’s gym stuff, they’re only ever going to wear it when they’re in the gym, which is, or in working out, which is fine, which is great. You want that, but you also want them to be able to do things or share your brand when they’re not just in the gym. That’s important. So consider things like, uh, keep cups, um, or tote bags.
25:46
Um, and I’ll provide a link with a printing service, uh, in Australia that you can get some really cool tote bags made up that just look pretty cool. And yeah, the idea is that they would use the tote bags when, you know they’re out shopping and that gives you even more exposure of your brand in a, in a bigger area. So, um, that kind of works. You can also brand things like your own journals, um, pens, iPhone covers if you’re really into that kind of thing. Key rings work really well, so that should kind of promo kind of gifts. Then you’ve got things like your exercise or self care. So I kind of threw yoga mat into that last one as well. But think things like trigger point balls, um, blocks like yoga blocks, um, booty bands, stretch bands, um, socks. Actually I really liked the idea of putting your face on a pair of socks.
26:39
I know that’s kind of kitch and weird, but I kind of like quirky, funny gifts as well. And if that’s the way that you roll, then by all means do some funny things as well for your clients. I do enjoy swag or tee shirts and stuff that don’t act too serious. Like I like the ones that are kind of a little bit funny. So if that’s you go for that kind of stuff, I think your, your clients would appreciate that as well. Um, a self care thing, so like a bath salts or massage oils or essential oils or um, gift vouchers to massage places. Um, those things work really well. All right, let’s move on to the category of like food stuffs. And you know, this is, this is still really cool. Like if you’re somebody who loves to cook, then make them some homemade stuff. People really do appreciate home made things.
27:29
So like if you’re a bandit for making great protein balls, then do that and wrap them up with some really cool like cellophane and make it look pretty and they’ll appreciate that. I remember, this is one Christmas gift that I’ll just never forget. This is actually from one of the other guys; a senior trainer at George street fitness first that I worked with and he has done this for years and it’s always a home made rum butter and makes them in these beautiful little ramekins and he gives them my every single year and I don’t even like rum butter, but I just think it’s such a great idea. Plus they get to keep the ramekin afterwards so if there’s something that they can keep afterwards, I think that’s a really good idea. I love those ideas of those jars where you’ve kind of like got all the ingredients for those balls that they can make themselves or or the gradients are in there for like a chocolate chip cookie or something like that.
28:20
That’s pretty inexpensive. The only thing you’ll be invested in as those kinds of things is your time for making them up, but please only do homemade food things if you’re actually a good cook, if you’re not and you’d give them horrible things, that’s just not going to land very well. So just make sure you’re on top of that or outsource this to somebody else. Wine alcohol is always a firm favorite as well, but you do just need to make sure that you know their taste. But anything like teas, coffee, chocolate, bickies, donuts, all of those sorts of things are such a treat and your clients will really appreciate it. And I think the thing here is, is don’t get obsessed over how much money to spend on them. Really at the end of the day, it does come down to the thought that counts. Now you might be sitting here going, Oh, well that’s fine and dandy, but one, I don’t have time to.
29:13
I don’t have the money right now to get all this done. I can’t give them anything. Well, yeah, you can. What you can do, and this is the absolute minimum, is write everybody a hand written card. Now, this was my thing. I always wrote my clients hand written cards and it wasn’t just a, Hey, dear Sally, thanks for training with me this year. Have a great Christmas sign out. Nards. No way. These were extensive hand written cards. I always said to them what I really appreciate, appreciate about them. I outlined things that they have improved on in the year, so specifics around their goals, but things like, Hey, you know your deadlift now. When we started it was at this and now it’s at this. I just can’t believe how how far you’ve come in such a short period of time. Like I really just want to highlight their wins and their achievements that they’ve had over the year and I always wrote
30:12
Something that spoke to their personality or to their character and it would always be something like, you know, I really appreciate your tenacity and I always appreciate your willingness to try something new, even if it doesn’t feel comfortable. And those cards, I cannot tell you how many times I’ve had clients say to me, those cards meant everything to them. I’ve got clients from way back who’ve still got their cards because it was just something super meaningful. And it’s not something that a lot of people get, right, especially when you’ve been that detailed about their wins and points specifically to amazing parts of their characteristic or the character. All right. It’s just something that people don’t receive in today’s world. So do take the time and make the effort to create a really nice card for them. It’s a source of inspiration as a source of motivation and that is what really helps deepen that connection and that trust and that relationship with your client.
31:18
I love it. And by the way, it does take a long time to do this. So I used to have to budget out, you know, at least a weekend to write out all of these different cards for my people. And also it took me ages to find the right cards cause I’m, I’m very picky with cards. So, um, that might, might kind of tap into your time a little bit. Alrighty. Um, what I’m going to do is I’m going to put together a list of all of the different uh, Epic gift ideas for you and hey, you might want to stash this away and use them for birthday gifts as well. So if you want to get that then just head across to www.nardianorman.com/podcasts and go to this episode and you’ll find a download link there with all the different ideas laid out. Alrighty, that is it for this call.
32:13
Five Epic strategies to help bullet proof your Christmas and into your new year plus some good go to gift ideas to close out your year to really add to that customer service and take your client love to the next level. I really do hope that you have found this useful please, please, please shoot me a message either on Instagram or on my email or through my website. If this stuff really resonated with you or you’ve got some extra ideas that you’d like to add into the mix then I will certainly add it to the show notes. So thank you for this training and I appreciate you and I. Good luck putting all of this together. Till next time. Bye.
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