As gym owners we know that we need to eat more whole foods and less junk in order to live a healthier lifestyle. For the most part, we have a much easier time doing this than the general public. One significant hurdle is the pervasive misinformation and misconceptions surrounding nutrition our members are constantly bombarded with socially. Society so often promotes quick-fix fad diets that promise rapid results, and many times suggest restrictive, food group eliminating approaches that can be dangerous and make people sick. If you want to increase your gym’s nutrition program sign ups, as the gym owner you need to make it very easy for people to understand and learn how to property eat. Your members need to know what the right choice is, and the steps to get started need to be simple.
In this blog post we will help you learn how to increase your gym’s nutrition program sign ups so you can help more people live a longer, healthier life.
The Nutrition Programs That Crush It Are Doing These Three Things
Step #1 - Unified Coaching Staff
Your nutrition programs foundation is you and your staff. In order for the program to exist, all coaching staff must be on the same page. This means your entire coaching staff, not just the nutrition coaches.
Here’s how to ensure your team is on board:
Communicate the Vision: Clearly articulate the gym’s mission, vision, and nutrition program philosophy to all staff members.
Provide Training: Require all fitness coaching staff go through the nutrition program sales training so they understand how and why nutrition is to be sold from day one. They must also understand how to effectively refer members to the program, who to contact and how to make sure the members are getting a call back if the nutrition coach is not in the building.
Collaboration: Require all fitness coaches to go through the nutrition coaching program so they have a thorough understanding of what clients experience. This can be done through a nutrition challenge, or by being coached at least 30 days by the nutrition coaching team.
It’s extremely important that step number one is done before all other steps. Otherwise your staff will not know how to speak to members about the nutrition program.
Step #2 - Cultivate Informal Conversations with Members
One of the most powerful ways to increase nutrition program sign-ups is through informal conversations with members. These conversations need to take place by all coaching staff and staff members, not only the nutrition coaches. This is why unifying the entire team on the nutrition coaching philosophy as indicated in step one is extremely important.
Here’s how to make this strategy work:
Be Approachable: Create a welcoming and friendly atmosphere where members feel comfortable talking to staff. Either before or after class is a great place to start. Often times members arrive early or stay late and that is a perfect opportunity to ask members about their wellness leading to the next point…
Ask Open-Ended Questions: Inquire about your members fitness goals, challenges, lifestyle habits. Coaches should slow genuine interest so members feel important and their needs are being addressed.
Share Personal Experiences: If applicable, coaches should share their own experiences with the nutrition program. The conversation should never be all about the coach, but sharing personal experience opens up connection between individuals. A member is more likely to be interested in the program if they know the coach has had success with it rather than the coach recommending something they have never taken part of of.
Highlight the Benefits: Explain how the nutrition program can help members achieve their goals, whether it’s weight loss, muscle gain, or improved overall health.
Offer a Free Consultation: Coaches need to show and help members get signed of for a free intro with the nutrition coach. This system should be streamlined so there are no crossed lines of communication, and the process should also be simple.
There are so many options out there so making the how to get signed up process one click away needs to be a primary goal.
Step #3 - Use Social Media To Showcase Success Stories
Nutrition client success stories and testimonials can help nutrition program sign ups more than any other type of marketing. One of the biggest mistakes we see gyms owners make is not capturing client stories and sharing them with their audience.
Don’t sleep on this opportunity to help more people become interested in your nutrition program. All the podcasts, nutrition education and free resources in the world don’t add up to the impact on your community that showing a nutrition client success story will have.
Here’s how to leverage success stories on social media:
Highlight Member Transformations: Share these inspiring stories of members who have achieved significant results through the program. Remember – these results don’t all have to be about pounds lost. Non Scale Victoriesare a real thing and should also be highlighted in these stories.
Show A Picture: Visuals can be a compelling way to demonstrate the effectiveness of the program. These photos don’t have to be “shirts off” – they can be a simple picture of the client standing next to a tree, in their house, or in your gym! We have a wall that we take all of our client success picture next to that has our logo in the background.
Feature Testimonials: Collect and share testimonials from the success stories. This is icing on the cake! Picture and text success stories are great, but when you can get a video success story, that’s creme de la creme.
Create Engaging Content: Create informative and engaging content with the success stories posted to social media outlets, in blogs, and newsletters.
Have A Wall Of Success: Showcase all of your client success stories on a “Wall Of Success” in the gym. This wall should be seen by everyone coming into the gym and can be used as a sales tool when doing free intros.
Wrap Up
The concept of these three things is simple, but often times due to crazy schedules or lack of time management they are not easy to get done. If you are one of those gym owners who has great intentions, but seems to never be able to implement strategic tasks – now is the time to start!
If you want to increase your gym’s nutrition program sign ups start with one of these, complete it and move on to the next. Doing so is a just a time block in your calendar away.
