How to Turn Your Gym’s DMs Into a Client-Closing Machine

Learn how to build all four marketing funnels with our Never-Ending Leads training for gym owners, linked below. 
 
Nearly 15% of gym owners don’t contact their leads at all. The interest is there. The hands are raised. But nobody sends the message.

In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” Two-Brain founder Chris Cooper explains why your DMs might be the most underused sales channel your gym has, and how to use them without sounding pushy or salesy.

He shares a real story of how a comment on an old photo turned into a member walking back through his doors, and one about a post that didn’t land as intended and how he fixed things with a simple conversation.

Chris introduces a simple eight-step framework for turning casual DM conversations into booked consultation, and also gets into why the slowest leads sometimes become the most loyal clients and how to keep warm leads from going cold without a fancy system.

Tune in to turn your next follower, like or comment into a real gym lead.

Links

Never-Ending Leads Training

Gym Owners United

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00:00 - Why Your Gym’s Social Media Isn’t Turning Into Members

01:06 - How One Instagram Comment Brought Back a Former Client

03:28 - The Missing Link Between Social Media and New Members

05:46 - The DM Framework That Builds Trust (Without Being Salesy)

08:08 - The 8-Step Process for Turning Followers Into Clients

10:01 - How to Nurture Warm Leads Who Aren’t Ready to Buy

11:59 - The Post That Almost Cost Chris a Client

Transcript

0:02

Most gym owners think that success on social media is about the quality or the quantity of the content that they post, but it's not. Now, this belief makes them spend hours making reels and graphics, but they barely talk to the people who actually engage with them, and then they wonder why their content doesn't magically turn into clients. Meanwhile, some gyms are quietly turning really simple Instagram and Facebook DMs into memberships every single week. The difference between those gyms and your gym might not be your content or your programming or your coaches or your certifications or your location or your pricing. It might just be that they're having conversations and you're not. I'm Chris Cooper. I'm the founder of Two Brain Business, the world's largest gym mentorship company. We work with over 3,500 gyms worldwide to help them hit six figures in profit, because yes, that is possible. In this video, I'll show you how to use your gym's to build trust, to have more conversations, and to turn followers into paying members without sounding pushy or salesy. Let me give you a real example of how this works. A few weeks ago, a former client saw a photo that I had posted with our daily workout. It was a sled push, and she and her husband were both on the sled waving like this, and another member was pushing them down the track in my gym. The photo was a couple years old, and she sent me this private message. Now, I could have just laughed with her and moved on, but instead I said, how are you doing? I asked how her daughter was doing at school. She told me that she had been promoted at work, she was traveling more, and she had no time to exercise anymore. Then I asked about her stress level, and she said it was really high. So we had a conversation. It wasn't a sales pitch. It was a real conversation about her changing needs and changing levels of lifestyle. Now, she couldn't do the crazy high-intensity workouts that she used to do at my gym a decade ago, but she could do a lot in the four days a week that she had, even when she was on the road. Her life looks different now, and the right program for her looks different too. Now, here's the happy ending. Last week when I went in to work out with my semi-private group, she was in it. It was amazing. It was all because of a comment on a post that I made on Facebook and. Instagram. That turned into a conversation, and that turned into a re-engagement. I didn't send her the perfect ad. I didn't send her the perfect email. I didn't run a campaign. I just asked how she was doing, and then I listened. Conversations are the cornerstone of our humanity. They're the thing that made our brains evolve. They're the things that we relate to, and they're the things that make us more human. They're the things that AI can never replace. And so if you engage in conversation with people, it will help your marketing and your retention and solve most of the other problems in your gym too. Every person who follows your gym or you on social media, every person who hits like on your post or watches your reel or looks at your story, they've already raised their hand. They're not a cold lead. They're a warm one. And most gym owners just leave them there. They just ignore them. They acknowledge them. Oh, thanks for hitting like maybe, but they don't start a conversation. They don't take the next step. And that's the missing link. So here's a stat that should bother you. Our state of the industry data shows that nearly 15% of gym owners don't contact their leads at all. That's not just slow follow-up. That's no follow-up. The leads exist. The interest exists. People are waving their hands and nobody sends the message. That is the missing step. It's the gap in why your social media is not turning into clients. Think about what that means in your DM specifically. Somebody watches your. They, maybe somebody comments on a client transition post or somebody likes every photo that you put up for three weeks. They're telling you something that they're interested. They're paying attention. They are one conversation away from booking a no sweat intro and you're waiting for them to make the first move. No, they're waiting for you to take the next step for them and invite them in. This matters because social media's job is to get people off social media and into your gym. And the bridge from Instagram into your gym is the DM, the direct message, the chat. There's a hierarchy of communication, right? Face-to-face is the most powerful and then video and then phone and then private message. But every time you move somebody from a public post into a private conversation, you move them up that hierarchy. You get closer. The relationship deepens. The DM isn't the destination, but it's the most important next step that you are probably skipping. You need to treat every non-member who follows, likes, or comments as a potential lead in your gym. So contact people who engage and do it quickly. Don't wait for a perfect moment or a perfect opener. When somebody new follows your gym account, send a message that same day. When somebody watches your story for three days in a row, send them a message. You don't have to be salesy. You just have to be human. Hey, Jim, thanks for following along. Are you working out somewhere right now? That's it. That's the whole move. You just start the conversation. You don't need the perfect opening line like you're on a blind date or you're trying to meet that cute girl at the bar. You just need to say, hey, how's it going? Ask a question. By the way, we've put together a free training that teaches you four methods to fix your leads problem for good. It covers exactly how to build a system so you always have new people coming in the door, including how to use DMs the right way. Click the link in the description or scan that QR code on the screen to grab that free training. Now, the main reason that most gym owners avoid the DMs is because they don't know what to say and they're afraid of coming off as salesy or pushy. The fix is really simple. Stop trying to sell and start trying to help. We teach something called sell by chat and it's built on the same foundation as our no sweat intro. You're not pitching. You're asking questions. You're listening and figuring out if and how you can help someone. The conversation has a shape and once you know the shape, it stops feeling awkward. So here's how it works. You start by acknowledging and opening up the dialogue. So you say something like, hey, thanks for the follow. Are you working out somewhere right now? You always end with a question because a question mark is like a fish hook. It invites a response. It pulls them in toward the boat. When they reply, you qualify with a follow-up question. Well, what have you been doing for fitness lately? You're gathering information. You're not just pushing them or trying to dump a sales pitch on them. Then after the answer, you need to reflect and validate what they said. So you say, okay, got it. So you've been doing some running, but you're not seeing the results you want. And this tells them that you actually listened to what they said and that you're not just a bot. That alone puts you ahead of 90% of the salespeople they've ever talked to. You're not just giving them a pitch. You're actually listening and thinking, how can I help this person? Then you offer some help. First, you tell them about a result that one of your clients got and why your service worked for them. It's not a pricing or a pitch. It's a story. Hey, that reminds me of Jill. Yeah, she came in as a runner too. And when she started lifting weights, here's what happened. Then you want to get personal. Hey, do you have time for a quick chat and figure out how to get you the results you're looking for? I have some time this week. Does Monday at 2 p.m. Work? And this matters because a structured conversation doesn't feel scripted to the other person. It feels like you care because you do. I often say, hey, this conversation is really interesting, but I'm not great at chat. Do you have 15 minutes to talk in person? Something like that. Eventually, the chat will leave the scope of what's possible through DMs, and you want to get them in front of you to move up that hierarchy of communication even further. The difference between a gym owner who closes sales through DMs and one who doesn't, it's not charm or charisma. It's having a repeatable process. When you know the next question to ask, you stop overthinking. You stop freezing. You just follow the shape of the conversation and you let the other person lead you through it to what they need. So write out your DM script and practice it to start. It's eight steps and you can train your staff to do it too. So here are the eight steps. First, acknowledge and open. Then qualify. Reflect and validate. Offer some help first. Get personal. Schedule your call or your NSI. Nurture those who aren't ready and keep the conversation going over time. This is not a one-shot deal. Some people will book an appointment on step five. Others will need six months of follow-up and both are fine if you have a system. It's just a conversation. Remember that the people who aren't ready right now are still worth talking to. Most DM conversations won't end in an immediate booking or a purchase. That's not failure. That's just a conversation. That's humans talking to humans. Your job is to fill your container and nurture those people until they're ready to buy. The first act of coaching is not push your knees out or get your heels down or chest up. The first act of coaching is having somebody commit to changing their lives. And that starts with committing to come in and talk to you about it. Your container is every warm lead who isn't quite ready to sign up yet. They're following your page. They're on your email list. They're watching your stories. They haven't booked an NSI, but they're in your world. They're having a conversation. The goal of every DM conversation is to either book the consultation or to deepen the conversation and the relationship until they're ready. So there's a specific order to the winds here. The jackpot is a booked consultation. But before that, you might get somebody to follow your personal account or join a Facebook group that you run or sign up for your email list. Or even just to reply to your message at all. Every one of these is a step forward. Every one is a win. Don't discount them. The lead who isn't ready today is often the most loyal client that you'll ever have if you stay in touch and build trust. People who buy impulsively also leave impulsively. The person who took six months of conversations before booking their NSI, they've already committed mentally. They've been watching you, reading your posts, seeing your clients succeed, talking to you. By the time they walk in the door, they're sold. Your job is just to stay relevant and keep offering value until they're ready to make the move. And by the way, if it took you six months of conversing to get them in, it will take somebody else six months of conversing to talk them out of your gym. So build a follow-up system so that warm leads don't just get ignored and go cold. Reach out regularly, not to sell, but to serve. Also, check in monthly. Send them something useful, a tip related to what they told you they were struggling with. Hey, by the way, I recorded this podcast today and I thought of you. Here it is. What do you think? Comment on their posts. Celebrate something that they shared publicly. You don't need a CRM to do this at first. You need a list of names and a habit of reaching out. Be more human. The system gets more sophisticated as you grow and try to scale it, but it starts with one gym owner, one phone, and one message at a time. Look, your DMs are a sales channel that you're probably not using. Every follower is a warm lead with their hand up. Help me, help me. Every engagement is an invitation to start a conversation. You already have an audience. You're probably just not having a real conversation with them from human to human. The gyms beating you on new client acquisition aren't necessarily spending more on ads. They're not doing anything differently than you do. They're just having more conversations. So start having more conversations. I want to leave you with this one story because it kind of ties everything together. And I want to be honest with you about how dicey this can actually get. Having conversations makes you better at having conversations. That's really important. And I once made this post that said, I see you. Now, the thought was just to connect with people and say, hey, I've been in your shoes. I know this is hard. And I said something about the person who's hiding at the back of the gym. They're nervous. They're pulling down the hem of their shirt. They're embarrassed. They look like they're trying to escape. And I wrote it because I remembered what that felt like. I hesitated before posting it because I knew it might make some people uncomfortable. And it did. This woman saw it and she was a former member and she got really upset. She sent me a message. How could you make that post about me? It really hit a nerve. And she thought that I was literally talking about her. And this was exactly what I was scared of. I never want to make somebody feel worse about being in a gym or confirm that people are judging them. And so I had a choice. I could explain myself to her. I could defend the post. I could convince her of my intentions or I could approach with curiosity. The thing to remember is that like, you don't need to win the conversation to win. So I chose curiosity. And I said, well, I'm really sorry that I made you feel that way. I actually tried to do the opposite. I made that post because I've been there and I remember what it's like. And I wanted to encourage people to keep going. And she said, well, it sure didn't come off that way. And so I asked her to share her story. And we talked back and forth for months. And when she finally came back to my gym, we had this trust relationship that she couldn't have had with anybody else on earth because nobody else, had had that conversation with her. Not because the post was perfect. It definitely was not. But because when it landed wrong, I had a conversation with her and asked questions instead of just making arguments and trying to win or convince her that my post was good. Now, I've got to be careful here because I've probably screwed this up more times than it's worked out. Definitely. So if you post something that is genuinely offensive, people won't start a conversation with you. They'll just block you and you will lose the opportunity to help them forever. So I'm not telling you to be reckless. What I am telling you is this, even an imperfect post can start a conversation if you respond with curiosity instead of defensiveness. Ask questions, offer to help first, ask for their story. I pretend that we're sitting together facing one another in a coffee shop and I'm looking them right in the eye. The conversations that start like that, like humans, they can last years and the clients that you earn that way will almost never leave. Now, we've put together a free training called Neverending Leads that walks you through exactly how to build all four of your marketing funnels, including the DMs and organic social funnel that we talked about. The training is free, it's practical, and the link is in the description below. Go grab it. And if you're ready to work with a mentor who can help you implement, actually do all this stuff inside your gym, there's a link to book a free call there too. I'll see you on the next episode.