Have you ever wondered how to transform a casual lead into a dedicated member of your martial arts academy? Strap in, as together with marketing guru Swapnogog, we unfold the secrets behind efficient lead nurturing processes, ultimately guiding you to revamp your approach to converting leads into paying members. As we unravel the importance of touch points, we focus on a more human-centric approach, delivering personalized, goal-oriented content that resonates with potential members on a deep level. We reveal how to tell the compelling story of transformation your program offers, using bespoke emails and human connection to make potential members feel valued and excited about the journey that lies ahead.
Moving beyond the initial nurture, we delve into how to amplify show-up rates and craft effective follow-up strategies. This is where your language and tonality can make a world of difference, creating positive experiences that stick with your leads. We reiterate the need for commitment and dedication in your martial arts business, showing you how to keep your leads engaged and cared for – key components in boosting retention rates. So tune in and take notes, because this episode is packed with game-changing tips and strategies that will help elevate your martial arts business to new heights.
Have you ever wondered how to transform a casual lead into a dedicated member of your martial arts academy? Strap in, as together with marketing guru Swapnogog, we unfold the secrets behind efficient lead nurturing processes, ultimately guiding you to revamp your approach to converting leads into paying members. As we unravel the importance of touch points, we focus on a more human-centric approach, delivering personalized, goal-oriented content that resonates with potential members on a deep level. We reveal how to tell the compelling story of transformation your program offers, using bespoke emails and human connection to make potential members feel valued and excited about the journey that lies ahead.
Moving beyond the initial nurture, we delve into how to amplify show-up rates and craft effective follow-up strategies. This is where your language and tonality can make a world of difference, creating positive experiences that stick with your leads. We reiterate the need for commitment and dedication in your martial arts business, showing you how to keep your leads engaged and cared for – key components in boosting retention rates. So tune in and take notes, because this episode is packed with game-changing tips and strategies that will help elevate your martial arts business to new heights.
Hey guys, welcome to the Marshall Outbeases Growth Network podcast. I always believe in collaboration and working with some amazing people in the industry so that we can share knowledge, exchange knowledge and just basically help each other. Just rise. One of my good friends, Swapnogog, who is an expert marketer across pretty much every single platform, is going to be jumping on. We're going to have some discussions and topics about different areas to do with martial art business. It's going to help you guys out even more. We're going to question each other because we feel gaps that the other person has, and I hope you enjoy it. In this episode we're going to be talking about the pipeline, Basically how to nurture your leads and how to ensure that your leads turn into paid members and actually show up for your first trial. So enjoy and let us know what you think.
Speaker 2:So, rick, I've got a good question for you here. So when you get a lead, how do you convert them? Meaning that one of the biggest pain points, biggest issues I'm seeing with a lot of clients and a lot of school owners and it actually is not just school owners generally with clients in general is they get leads but they can't convert them, they can't get them to show up like show up, show up, show up, show up, show up. So how do you tackle that yourself? Because obviously I've got some ideas which I'll share as well in a second, but I'm just curious, what do you do? Like, for example, you get a lead, you're obviously following up and stuff, but what steps do you have in between that? You've noticed A few little things here and there that have I don't have to give everything away but what have you seen that have been good needle movers basically.
Speaker 1:Well, one thing I've noticed when running my own martial arts schools obviously over the years and talking to like coaching clients and everything is there's a there's almost a lack of consideration for the whole nurture process and how important that is once you actually get the lead in.
Speaker 1:It's almost as if the once the lead is landed so you've got the name, telephone number and email address that there's a little tick box that goes off in instructor's heads, that that's it.
Speaker 1:They should turn up, and if they don't turn up then it's the client's fault. The thing that has helped myself and other people that I work with to kind of get past that a little bit better and get a better result is to want to take ownership mentally of the whole nurturing process, from when the lead comes in all the way through to when they show up and step into the academy, and it's all about touch points and nurturing the actual lead itself. By nurturing I mean actually talking to them as a human, not like a set predetermined set of emails that are just unconsidered and bombard them with lots of crap. It's more about talking to them about the things that actually give a crap about. So, for instance, like my martial arts school, we teach different arts. We have different age groups, like other martial arts schools. So if I have a trail of emails and text messages and phone calls in there that my team do that are generic, it's like having a a shitty conversation that will stop with a random stranger.
Speaker 2:So are you, are you like kind of making it specific on age, or is it like how detailed do you normally go with it?
Speaker 1:It needs to be specific to needs. So goals deeper than just. We're talking to parents of four to six year olds, or little ninjas, whatever the class is called, or Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu or Thai boxing. It's what does the, the client, potentially want out of what we've said we give? So if you've got an advert going out that says we build confidence in kids, surely if somebody responds to that, you presume that they want their child to be more confident. That makes sense.
Speaker 1:But when you see some of the email chains and the nurturing sequences that go out, the content is talking about the school, the instructors and everything, but nothing about getting excited about building the confidence in the kids. There's also the fact that this is a big tip for people is tell them the actual story of what is going to happen. What is the transformation that is going to happen based on what we've just promised in this ad. At the beginning and when you come to our academy, if somebody says to you we can make you a millionaire in a week, put your details in here. You put your details in and then the emails you get back just talking about how amazing the culture, whatever is about you becoming a millionaire and teaching the program. It's not exciting, is it really? It's got nothing to do with you.
Speaker 2:It's like our phrases in it.
Speaker 1:If you tell them that, like a stage one, this is what's going to happen, this is what to expect, this is how we do what we said we're going to do in the ad at the beginning, then it helps them to see themselves in it and get a little bit more excited about the whole journey and show up and has to be spoken about in a human way as well.
Speaker 1:What are your thoughts about it? I really hope you are loving the content and the value that we're giving here. I just wanted to quickly interrupt and say to you that if you are finding value in what we're saying so far and you wish to find out more about what we do and get more help, more guidance and different aspects of the martial art business, then follow the link that is above me somewhere on this page and head on over and just request to join and then you'll get all the daily updates that we put in there every single day about how to grow your martial arts school. There's a little bit of personal development in there. Enjoy the rest of the podcast.
Speaker 2:Do you have many touch points? I'll share my thoughts in a second.
Speaker 2:I think this is quite key for anyone listening, because what I've seen is they'll get a lead and then they'll just maybe get a response and then maybe they booked in and that's it, and then they just leave it and expect the person to show up, and then they go show up. These leads are crap and all this stuff I think one of the things that I've noticed and we experience this when we do our own businesses, because I don't think martial artists realize how easy they have it compared to other industries. In the proper B2B industry. You've got to be good at this stuff, because to get someone to show up on a strategy call or any of this kind of thing, you have to send them stuff to excite them also, isn't it? It's not literally just a text going yeah, I'll see you soon, yeah, exactly. Then you wait for the last day and then just ring them and they don't answer and you go oh, that's crap, but there needs to be more touch points, like you just said, talking about specifically what they've come for very important Then showing them results of someone that has come in for that reason and what kind of results they've had. If someone watches that, or even watches a tiny bit, it's warming them up.
Speaker 2:Trying to get a lead to warm up is the biggest thing, isn't it? If someone can show up to your place and they know exactly what you do, who you are, what you're about, what your system's about. They just need a good class. That's it I think majority of your people generally are getting a lead in. They might interact with them, maybe one email here, there. The email, like you said, is literally about them, about the instructor, and they're reading and like, okay, I might show up then. But if it's something like, hey, this is exactly what your child's going to experience, this is hey, check these results out. This is what happens. This is what the exact steps in the first class. People need to be showing a path as to what's going to happen, isn't it? It's like in sales, isn't it? You need to show them what the path is before they buy. So, yeah, Definitely.
Speaker 1:Like I said, I think the most powerful thing is showing them what's going to happen, how it's going to happen and how it's helped other people, like you said, and showing case studies is a powerful thing. Within my own business, we're actually going through a process of actually getting our testimonials together and trying to categorize them based on the most common pain points that people speak about. When we go through the bookening process, and our thought process is, with our CRM we'll be able to tag not just for the class they're booked in, but tag it and link them to the pain points as well, which will set off a different set of automations. So the touch points will be based upon the numbers of pains and stuff in the conversations. Instead of saying it's got to be eight touch points or 10 touch points, I think it should be determined by the conversation, the initial conversation that we have with the individual.
Speaker 1:That's my thought process anyway, Because we can tailor it as much. The more we can tailor it to somebody, the more it's going to actually talk to them, the more chance they're going to have to actually turn up because it's compelling. But then also the other thing is they're interested in classes, they're interested in solving the pain points. How often do people actually present an offer beforehand?
Speaker 2:Well, never really to them.
Speaker 1:I don't think they ever do. I think that's something that's quite powerful. Now I'm not saying you've got to say, oh, my class is at £69 a month for twice a week because that's going to potentially put people off. They're like 69 and they compare it to other things before they even see how amazing your school is. However, if you don't let them know that, by the way, if you did decide to try to take the next step with us after your trial free trial or whatever we have some amazing offers where your son or daughter will get a free uniform and then I'll get teamed up with a buddy to mentor them for the first month Something to make the parent go, oh, that's cool.
Speaker 1:Because that little tiny, little bit of oh that's cool, that's good Could be the differentiation between that child coming to your martial arts school or going to gymnastics or not coming at all because mom's tired or dad's tired. It has to be something there that's going to make them think, oh, yeah, cool, that's worth it. I don't have to worry about that. Never even thought about that.
Speaker 2:Just like that little noise, that little things going in their mind. That's good time.
Speaker 1:So what do you reckon about the offer thing? Because I said it to other people before and they're like, oh, I'm not sure.
Speaker 2:I think, yeah, I think, putting the offer like what I did with my ads and stuff. Generally, we used to always put the offer right at the start, anyway near enough, and that did work really well for quite a long time. Nowadays, I think, with the economic climate and all this stuff, it's having a big impact just because of how the media is putting it out, but it's just. I think people need to try you out before they. Even the people have money. That's the biggest thing. People are thinking everyone's skin, but they're not. It's like they're more restrictive in the sense of they're cautious what they're spending it on. So putting that really big, letting them know exactly the price I know some people send them the price list and everything right at the start and I don't think that's the best way because it's literally putting them off.
Speaker 2:Without. If someone doesn't come and experience you, no matter how good you are, they will never know. You might be the best school in the world, for example, but if you don't show that in your showcase and your marketing and you say that, you put that to the side and you literally is from just that contact point, and then you're just saying here's my price, it's going to put them off. But you're right, I think having something like a hint towards like hey, we have special offers, we even have some that are 50% off offers and stuff like it gets them excited, is that thing in marketing that we always do is a curiosity. Making them curious of it is probably the best way, because that is what's going to get them to show up as well. Yeah, I think that would help a lot, but I don't see hardly anyone do it really.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think, like I said, the fear of presenting the offer to give away too much, so to speak, is definitely there in the industry. However, you just got to be a little bit clever about the way you word it. Now we spoke about case studies and testimonials. I don't know why people are thinking along the lines of in a case study, talk about Sally's, a six year old child that started with us two years ago and had lots of issues with anxiety, confidence, making friends, blah, blah, blah. We spoke to our mom, to Sally's mom, about this, this, this, and here's what she had to say. And then in that little clip a video or whatever, or the script that you put out, Sally's mom could say, yeah, we started and it was an amazing offer to get started. It only cost us like 10 pounds to join and we got a uniform, we got pair of gloves, we got this, we got a speed bolt, we got a holiday and Barbados. And then now what we're doing is we couldn't do without.
Speaker 1:The place of confidence has gone through the roof and blah, blah, and then talking about the child's journey. So it's just seeding it, Because if you notice that, if the business owner says this is how much it costs. Regardless of how much it costs, it's still the still that kind of oh is that? Is that a bargain or not? But if another person, like the client or the potential student, says the cost it's taken on board differently, Does that make sense?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that thing of seeing somebody like yourself that you can resonate with, that you feel understands your world, like a mom to a mom, and both these moms have got four year old, four year old children with confidence issues. It's just that this one is sorted out by coming to martial arts. If they're willing to pay 20 pounds, then it's got to be worth it.
Speaker 2:And also you remember, like when people I mean I don't see hardly any schools really properly showing testimonials in case studies.
Speaker 2:I've rarely found many that even have it on their websites. So, but the things that they forget is that sometimes their parent might see one of their mates on there and then that is a straight up where it's like literally, oh, my mates go, kids are going there, so I might as well go there. Is this, if you don't show that, how did they know you know? So, having having them elements in also in the follow up and like getting people excited, really, really important. But here's a question for you. So between between the lead, confirming that they're they're going to, that they booked in for trial, how many touch points do you generally have from them, from there, to them showing up? So this could be all the stuff we chat about, but roughly how many do you have? Because most probably only have one All right.
Speaker 1:The issue of it is, if you have a system where you allow somebody to book in in three weeks time, four weeks time, then you better have a damn good nurturing sequence and a lot of touch points on that journey to excite them, for them to turn up, because every second that goes by that they don't they've done everything they need to do. The next part is just turning up. It's hit and miss. Whether they're going to turn up or not depends what happens in life. So it does depend on how far ahead you allow people to book in.
Speaker 1:We do not allow people to book in further than seven days. If we can get somebody, if we call somebody today, we try and get me tonight, strike one up the eyes hot, and because if we try and do that and they're going to come in tonight, then they'll get one and it'll just build the information that they need because there's not enough time to do it. But if it's three, four days, five days, then there's nothing wrong with an email every day or a touch point every day. I don't think.
Speaker 2:No, you're right. I mean the quicker you get. I mean, if someone says they want to book in, they'll get it Like two, three weeks later. I would say probably not even take them on because it's very unlikely that they'll come through. Yeah, you might as well replace it. We replace them with someone that is more motivated, I suppose. But yeah, just, I think a big fear factor for a lot of people generally is I'm messaging them too much, I'm emailing them too much.
Speaker 2:I don't think there is too much, as long as it's not like a spammy way of saying you know just the same thing again and again, and again. Then of course that's just going to be weird. But you know, as you just said, like having these touch points and making it very bespoke, if you can, about the pain points, yeah, it's just, it's going to convert a much, much higher rate. What would you say is like a good show up rate, like in percentage wise.
Speaker 1:When you talk to school again, I'm not stuck with school learners and I ask them what the short rate is. I can tell when they don't really know this. That's their numbers. Because they say things like oh, everybody turns up, 90% turn up. I'm like, wow, 90% of people that you book in turn up. It's like shit. You need to do like worldwide seminars to all martial arts schools everywhere to teach them how, because that's not the norm. It really isn't. I think a 60% show up rate is good. I think it's a decent number to expect and if it's dropping below 40%, then that's when you really do need to look at your systems. It's going to change for so many different reasons. But also, how many people are tracking the show up rate for the rebook? How many people actually tracking when the follow up, if somebody just doesn't turn up, and how long are they leaving it before they do follow up?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's key.
Speaker 2:I think that bit you just touched upon, where they might say my show up rate is 50%, is probably like average-ish, I would say. But then the 50% that don't show up, they might rebook them for the week later. But then they forget to add that in as a show up.
Speaker 1:As a stat. So it kind of really really messes with the numbers and I do listen for that when I talk to people. But that's so important. I mean, what's your experience with people following up the no shows? Do people do it?
Speaker 2:No yeah.
Speaker 1:No no.
Speaker 2:Majority don't, majority don't. I mean even I'll put my hands up right earlier, at the start of when I was doing things myself on my own things. I didn't really have any show, no shows, or people that don't come on, sales calls and all this stuff. I don't even have that much as what I should. But I know that ever since I implemented a few more things and putting them into a different nurture list so that they get there, shouldn't stuff? That has made a big impact. So, but with schools they generally don't. I think they're always after new leads anyway. They don't really think about the ones that have come through. That's the lowest hanging fruit really, yeah, wrong mindset.
Speaker 1:You've done all the work to get the lead in the first place. That's an asset. A lead is an asset. So once you get that telephone number, email address and the name, you should talk to that person over and over and over again until they've ever become a member or they tell you to f off. Yeah, that's what nurturing a lead is. That's money. If you, I think people need to. That's why I love my CRM, because it's got the pipeline, is got a monetary value on it, so I could see how much is in each part of the pipeline. So when you look in and you see like I've got another 60, 70 grand worth of leads in the first part, I'm like why the hell is that money not over here? It's, you've got to get it working. It's powerful. But we we contact leads 15 minutes after the supposed to turn up. No shows, no, actually, that's a good idea. Why? Because of booked in for an appointment. This isn't a joke, is it?
Speaker 2:It's all money, it's all time, energy and effort, yeah, and they've obviously said yes, so something might happen. Family, whatever which is normal, you know. But the thing is I think sometimes people appreciate you as well following up with them, because then they feel cared for. But people, if you're not following up with your no shows, then you're like that person just doesn't feel cared about. He's like oh, I was going to go there, but no one's even bothered asking, so I'll just give it a miss.
Speaker 1:So true. Does that say anything? I think, dave Colvars is it. People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. And it's so, so true. The things that we do now within my schools and stuff, and some of the things that my clients are doing to be fair, some of them are better than me at it I would literally go in above and beyond sending flowers out to some members that are real or going through tough times and stuff like that. Ask me that 15 years ago, if I do that, I'd be like we're kickboxing club mate. When we're going to send flowers out, I was like I haven't got time for that crap. Literally, that would have been my mindset then. But now it's completely different. You have to. You're in a people to people business.
Speaker 2:Really, when humans you gotta be likeable and you need to be human really.
Speaker 1:Exactly Emptial empathy. I've got kids. I know what it's like. It's the amount of times that my wife has booked my little one in is seven, now almost eight for swimming lessons. Right Over the years we've booked him in quite a few times. You know how many times my Joe and my wife hasn't shown up. It's not nothing to do with the nurturing campaign or anything like that, not that swimming schools have any nurturing campaigns. The terrible, however, but it's more to do the facts that shit happens, or traffic, or must. So now have an attention because he's stuck in a car and there's so many things that could happen. And if you can accommodate that and show that you understand their needs, understand their world and it's not a problem, it makes it more comfortable for them to take that step into your academy.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of this stuff kind of goes a little bit to his retention as well, because it's the same thing it is. But yeah, I think we I think we touched on, touched on some really big points. Man, I think if people just implemented these things itself, they'll see a big difference, massive difference.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean it's just going to go into like we I know we're going to talk about these things in kind of future, future episodes and stuff, but it goes to dance. The language that we use, the tonality that we use, how we do the phone calls, what happens in when they actually show up, the kind of language this is what you're really really amazing at is the kind of language used and sentence structure used in the copy originally because of the target audience that's receiving the actual ad, all of these things. It's. It's it's so important we're going to talk about those in in the future episodes, I feel.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think you're right. I mean, all that NLP and all that stuff is important. You know, and I, tonality is huge. I I'd never looked into tonality too much, but as I started learning sales and all this stuff and I was like, wow, you can actually make such a big difference with just the way you speak you know kind of you know you're just increasing your pitch and all this stuff is like it's mental, isn't it really?
Speaker 2:But it's what people need to do, but it's it's effort as well. People don't like putting that much effort in.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, that's the thing I think. Getting work, having a successful business, is not easy. However, it's worth it if you will put the work in, because the rewards and I'm not just talking about financial rewards, talk about all the rewards and everything and the feedback you get is worth its weight in gold. But you have to put it's like anything you get out what you put in. You have to put proper work in to get out of these results.
Speaker 2:I mean like this, they don't. They like 90% of businesses fail after five years, basically. Just, I mean, I think it's less than that, actually, but it's just a. It's crazy, isn't it? But I think that I think, looking back when my first business but well, back now it's very different. Back then, because there were no communities, there were no masterminds, coaches or anything like this I think people forget that there are, that they should surround themselves with, where they can learn stuff.
Speaker 2:I mean, obviously, with those chatting. This is sharing a lot for people about you know, show up rates and all this stuff is actually good to go and experience these other masterminds and all these other things, because you will see how they do it and that's how I've learned. A lot is like bringing and I'll be like wow, they've done that, they've done that sequence and they've shared this and that got me to show up, I think. I think the martial arts industry and like quite a few other industries, want quite a lot of industries. They just put themselves in a bubble and they just look to just start copying each other. I think sometimes really important to go and experience, like these other coaches, masterminds, all these other things where, because they have to, like, it's cutthroat industry really, so they have to, like, make all this show up thing work. It's cost them a lot more money, doesn't it? So, yeah, I think I think, with people implementing all these things, I think it should definitely make a huge difference.
Speaker 1:If they do that's it's going to make a massive. We've given a lot here. I do think we've given a lot of value, a lot of tips and stuff. If somebody just implements 50% of what we said like properly, they'll notice a significant change and improvements in their show up rates and the quality of people coming in. I feel because of the law of reciprocation, we're giving so much of ourselves so that people come in with the feeling of yeah, I like these people that have gone to a great length, which means they're more likely to spend. It's easy to close them.
Speaker 2:And I think it's for the people that listen to this. I think don't try implementing everything we've just said, because you just want. You won't do it. Procrastination kick in, you'll go. I can't evolve it. I think. Just pick two things, do it, come back, re listen and implement the next two things, or just one thing at least, so you'll get much more success doing it that way than trying to do it all in once 100%.
Speaker 1:That gives you a little bit more focus and obviously they can reach out to us if the one anymore detail about anything that we've said, both open.
Speaker 2:Cool. So till next time, guys, whenever we will have. We have these awesome topics, I'm sure, every time, so the actionable stuff will catch you there. Cool, awesome. Take care, guys, see you soon.