3 Ways to Beat Industry Conversion Benchmarks with Hensley Ellefritz

0:00 Awesome. Well, guys, as I mentioned, we've got Hensley here today. She's going to be chatting with us about how to really not only stand out, but rise above when it comes to bringing in leads and ultimately driving them towards a long-term relationship with your studio. And this is something that we've spent a lot of time kind of innovating around talking about in Walla as we've built out our platform and as we are finalizing and kind of putting the finishing touches on our marketing platform. so I was excited to have this conversation now, Hensley, because I thought it would be really timely as everyone's kind of getting in the mindset and I also find that summertime ends up being the time where a lot of people spend you know, refining their systems and, you know, making those little additions or those tweaks to a lot of processes that ultimately set them up for success in the fall and into the new year. So, I love giving everybody time to think about, to consider, and this seemed like a really good opportunity. So, thanks for joining us.

1:06 Yeah, I 100% agree. I The fitness industry is notoriously slow during the summer, but I think it's an amazing opportunity to slow down so you can speed up. so if you're thinking about what that Q3 initiative might be, this is pretty perfect timing to your point. Yeah. Awesome. well, just as a quick heads up, hi Vinnie, hi Emily. just as a quick heads up, we are going to use the Q&A feature here in Walla for this call. So, if this is your first Walla webinar, you'll see that typically we do have a lot of kind of interaction, questions, answers. You don't have to hold your questions for the very end. we try to make this as collaborative as possible. And I'll be watching that Q&A box. So, at the bottom of your Zoom screen, there's a little Q&A bubble. You can type your questions or comments or thoughts in there, and then I can make sure I check the box and we get it covered live. the chat can sometimes be hidden, and I want to make sure that we get to everybody's questions.

2:10 so, without further ado, I'll let you take over and dive in, Hensley, if that's all right. Awesome. Perfect. my name is Hensley, you guys. And just a little bit of a quick background because it helps kind of lay out the framework of what we're going to talk be talking about today. I have always been passionate about fitness. I was not passionate about sales. I really fell into it after college as a means to get into management. And fast forward to today. I ran sales at a company called Club Pilates. I was their VP of sales and then saw the sales process build out of the other exponential brands. So, Cycle Bar and Row House and Pear Bar and so forth and then halfway through the pandemic was like why isn't anyone doing this for independent studio owners? So that's what we do today here at Rebu is really peel back the layers of the onion, establish what are our brand differentiators, build out a sales process, all of the call text email templates from there, and then really the meat and potatoes of it is teach you how to sell in a way that feels organic to your brand. So that's what brings us to today. I'll also say that you guys can have this deck afterwards and so don't feel like you need to like take pictures or screenshots or anything. again, to Laura's point, I want you to be engaged and asking as many questions as you can versus trying to

3:37 absorb all of the information and commit it to memory. Yeah, absolutely. And guys, one of the reasons I was so excited about meeting Hensley and bringing her in is, you know, I often hear from studios as I when I was in my consulting career working with studios before starting Walla that people felt like they were constantly at a disadvantage when it came to marketing and sales when they were either competing against some of the whether it's the exponential brands or you know the big franchises and I was really excited because I feel like this is giving you kind of a peak behind the curtain of what some of those brands do that make them so successful in driving so many people through the door and building their membership. and it's just it's really timely for what we're we're doing in the industry now. Kind of looking at all of the people that are in droves coming into wellness and fitness for the first time postco.

4:33 So, it's a great opportunity for us to learn from the best of the best. So, yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, guys. Well, please interrupt me at any point, but I'm going to start with kind of a I don't want to say a diagram because many of you guys have heard of this analogy before, but it's common in sales and in marketing to outline what's called a sales funnel. and just to just defy some early expectations, there's a huge focus in our space about like what can we do marketing wise? How can we bring more people through the door? How can we increase brand awareness? And that's amazing, right? That's pushing more people through your doors ideally or getting people to talk about your brand. So, that's widening this part of the funnel as much as we can. But if you don't have a strategy to nurture those leads through and actually convert them once they walk through your doors, it doesn't matter if you're getting 300, 400, 500 people through your doors if you're only converting and making this really, really skinny. So where we kind of flip the expectation is how instead can we get this funnel to get as wide as possible. So without changing marketing spend, without increasing you know your focus on social media quite yet, we graduate to that point. How can we make sure that instead of converting two or three out of 10 people that walk through the door, we're converting five or six. So already

6:01 you're doubling your ROI. anything to say there, Laura? No, I love it. I think, you know, as I as I look at data, aggregate data across the industry and many studios that I've worked with in the past, we often see that it's, you know, two out of 10 that end up buying their making a second purchase or coming back in or ultimately you know, moving into some sort of whether it's a recurring model or a package. and we've been really diligent about watching that in our in our conversion metrics and wallet. We've got a really easy snapshot report that shows you the conversion rates and you know on average we're seeing wall of clients hovering around 30%, 31%. so we've got a better than average conversion rate but like you're saying how do we get that three to a five or a six where everything you're investing in your marketing is actually really worthwhile because you know you're keeping those people.

7:05 Bingo. And again, there is absolutely a time and place for marketing. We just want to make sure that when those people walk through your doors, you're converting them as efficiently as you can. So again, I hesitate to bring up any PowerPoint because I feel like then it turns into a presentation versus a conversation. But like I said, you guys jump in with any questions along the way. So, what I want to kind of jump in with the start is there are five key metrics that we're going to like glaze over, but really there are three that we'll focus on today and those are the ones that are going to be easiest for you guys to start impacting and changing immediately. and then if we need a further conversation one-on-one, absolutely we can. So where we start with when we look at the sales funnel is an acronym that we call laser. And you guys may have heard it before, maybe you haven't. but again, it's commonly used not just in the fitness industry, but in the sales industry as a whole. So we start with L.

8:12 and L stands for leads. So how many leads are we getting on a monthly basis is typically what we're measuring. And then what is our typical cost per lead? And then how what's our conversion like? So how efficiently are they converting into a trial and then how efficiently is that trial converting to a member. But ultimately it starts with getting a lead, getting a hand raiser. A stands for appointment and for most of you guys that'll be a trial, right? We're not they're not coming in for a consultation. They're coming in to actually try you out. S would stand for show. So, we want to make sure, especially if you're offering something like a free class or three classes for $10 or something that someone could easily blow off for brunch the next day or their kids soccer game that we're creating that emotional stickiness and rapport and value that we'll talk about to ensure that person not only booked that class with you or booked that trial, but actually shows up and finishes it as well.

9:17 E stands for enroll. and we're specifically tracking the conversion to membership because our biggest initiative at Reboot is creating consistent membership revenue for you. It's a lot easier to measure. It's a lot easier for your pocketbook and it creates a consistent loyal membership base. So, while fast packages and one-offs are great augments, we're really looking at what is that conversion from someone who shows up to the door through the doors to how frequently they convert into an actual member. And then what Laura was speaking about at the very beginning of this call, our stands for retention and referrals. So, our goal is that on an ongoing monthly basis, 93% of your members are staying with you month over month. And again, you'll find that if you're selling a lot of class packs or you're selling like a one month trial, like check it out, get your feet wet, you're going to see a lot more eb and flow. You're going to have a higher attrition rate than those that again are leading with value, have a really strong relationship with their members, and are really cultivating that culture and community once they walk through the doors. The crazy thing is and the maybe one of the best parts of what I do is I can see all of this data across the industry. So not just you know what worked for us at exponential but also what does this look like and what are these like what's positive

10:47 versus what's just like correlatory. But we see a very strong and this is across every brand that we've worked with a really strong relationship between those studios that convert at a high rate and their retention rate. So essentially if a member is onboarded based on value, based on relationship, based on a personal understanding of how your studio and how your concept is going to help them solve a motive they have in place. they tend to stay with you longer than those who join because you are running a free offer or you had a once in a-lifetime promo. So, like I mentioned, we're going to start at the very bottom where you can get the greatest ROI and then we'll work our way up the funnel from there. The first KPI I want us to talk through is that enrollment. So, again, once someone comes in for a trial, how consistently are they converting to a member? Laura, when you were saying the 30%, is that from an actual trial redemption to member or is that from like lead someone who inquires online all the way to member?

11:54 That's trial to member. Okay, cool. Yeah. And if you're not doing anything saleswise except for providing them with a great customer experience, 30% is not bad. We I've definitely witnessed worse and especially in the big box space, but we're typically shooting for 50 to 60%. Yeah. So, if you have three people, three brand new people in a class, two of those people should convert. Why can't it be 75? Why can't it be 100? Because you will always have people that were just there for the free class or who were just there for the two weeks for $25 that no matter how good a salesperson you are, no matter how hard you try to create value, they just weren't your member to begin with. But 50 to 60 is healthy, our strong clients are seeing 60 to 75%. So how do we do that? we're really looking at three stages. So, if you are a novice seller, you typically think, "All right, what's the what's the pitch I need to give this person once they walk through the door? What are the magic words I need to tell them?" And then when they say it's too expensive, what's the oneliner I need to memorize to overcome that objection? So, all of that is a really reactive way towards selling. And if you think of how most of you on this call are above a hundred, even $200, $300 price point, you're a high-end luxury product and experience where the customer, your consumer is expecting a relationship and they're

13:28 expecting that red carpet to kind of be rolled out before they walk through the doors. What that means is your sale starts the second they inquire. If they self-book themselves into a class for tomorrow, you're still reaching out because the goal is before they walk through the door, we're building that rapport. We're understanding what we can about them. We're preparing ourselves and our team on how we're going to pitch them and what we're going to say to this person once they walk through the doors. So the next step from there is in these conversations whether they're text whether they're phone whether it's a phone call whether it's a combination of both is to identify we used to say like their pain point which is kind of a negative connotation. So instead we like to say like what's their motive and specifically what is their emotional trigger. So you'll often hear prospects or leads say oh I want to lose weight. I want to tone up. I want to get stronger.

14:27 And I hate to break it to you, but they don't need a $250 membership to get stronger. If they want to lose weight, they can walk around the block for free, right? So, there has to be an emotion that we're selling and there has to be an emotional kind of end goal that we use throughout the sales process to allude to because ultimately, again, without geeking out on sales too much, this is an emotional sale. They're always going to find something, your prospect's always going to find something that's cheaper, that is easier to get to, that has child care, right? But if we can convince them, this is how you will feel less stressed. This is how you will feel more confident. This is how you will feel more relaxed and in control of your lifestyle, then there's no price point associated with that. And ultimately, that's how I will win them over. So in those initial conversations, I'm starting to understand what their motivating factor is.

15:31 And then before they walk through the doors, I want to have an idea of what I'm going to recommend to them. So that again, I'm not fumbling at the 10 yard line of, "Okay, here are all of our services." And then they go, "Oh, okay. Let me think about it and I'll get back to you." We've all been there. They might think about it, but they definitely don't get back to us. Yeah, this Go ahead, Laura. Yeah, I was going to say part of it is like relying on them to communicate back, right? So, it's that's why it's so important to leverage phone and text because it is so easy for something to just not be responded to in an email inbox or, you know, an automated, you know, excited to meet you email. So, anyway, I'll I'll let you keep going. No, no. And that's again like without going down a wormhole. Catalina's webinar on email strategy is was like nail hit the nail on the head. Email is such a good like blitz safety net. It's such a good educational andformational way to communicate and build that trust that way. But you do like the real rapport and the real emotional connection is going to come from text and phone call. And I know what you guys are thinking. You're thinking, "No one ever responds."

16:51 And guess what? I hate to break it to you. It typically on average in this industry takes 10 reachouts for a prospect to respond to you. 10. and the story I always like to tell is I started selling at Equinox like right after college and I was 20. And then you had to we were required to reach out to every lead for every seven days regardless of how long they had been in our system. And I never heard back from this guy, but continued to reach out and would again like try and ask him about his lifestyle so forth. Fast forward, I'm still with the company. I'd been promoted. Four years later, four years later, he responded to my email and said, "I'm ready to sign up and I'd love to go refer my spouse as well." And this is how sales works. It freaking sucks. It really does. But people will come through the woodwork and even though we think, "Hey, you just inquired. Why isn't this a priority for you today?"

17:51 We all know like in today's modern world, we're distracted and heartbeat, but all it takes is that one text or that one phone call where they're like, "You know what? didn't really have a great workout today or I've kind of hit a plateau that they go, you know, yeah, I'm actually ready to actually redeem that trial. so that piece is a little bit crazy. Absolutely. And for those of you that weren't on Cat's webinar, just quickly the I'll I'll post or I think it is already posted in our Facebook group, but I can also just reach out to me and I can send you a copy of it. quickly, Vinnie, while it does not connect to High Level, we connect with Reperizer and we are about to launch our own system that is amazing. So, you wouldn't need it, Vinn. No, don't say that, Vinnie. Vinnie on high level. but you know, we know how to reconcile that as you're but yeah, regardless, there's I there's a million ways to do each of these things. It's finding a way that it that you can you and your team can do consistently is what I'll say. so what that sounds like in practice is how asking yourself and asking your team if you're looking at these metrics and you're like, well, I'm not converting at 60%.

19:14 Are you trying to have three conversations with this lead before they walk through the door? And if it's, "I'm just checking in. I'm just checking in. I'm just checking in." They're they're going to blow you off. But if they're valuebased and they're based on the conversation you had with them last and again you're leaning in and actively listening to what they're saying back to you, they will want to have a follow-up conversation with you except for again the 40% that were never going to join in the first place. Yeah. So really ask yourself how much do you know about your lead? Do you know what their motive is? Do you know how they're going to push back when you recommend an object recommend a membership? Do you know how you're going to recommend a membership to them or are you just like they came in through Facebook and they're booked for a class tomorrow? Yeah, that's really key part of this. I think we focus so hard on the people that have come in and given the class a try, but before they walk through the door, how can you set them up for success?

20:17 Yeah. Yeah. really that trial should be the icing on the cake, but they should have a really good idea of the experience they're going to get, what you guys stand for, their trust and confidence in you before they even get there. this is something we really dive deep into, which is not just your brand strategy, but your differentiators, your tone of voice, what you stand for, your mission statement. because ultimately if there's a I'll use Vinnie if there's he owns Heartfelt which is three studios in Columbus but if there was a another yoga studio that did exactly what Heartfelt Yoga did right next to them why would consumers continue to come to Heartfelt instead? That's what we're looking to communicate through social, through email, through our website, so that in this conversation, we can pull that into our text. We can pull that into our phone calls, but it's one cohesive message and it's one cohesive feeling. Because again, we want to allude to the experience they're going to get when they walk through the doors, not just you're going to take a yoga class, make sure you bring a yoga mat.

21:30 And then finally, and this is I think what if you guys take one thing from this call and try and change something about your sales process today, make it be this. I see so many of our clients when they first start with us using, we call it like the Cheesecake Factory menu approach where it's like, "Okay, you took a class. I'm so glad you loved it. Here are all of our offers." And you guys have all hopefully been to the Cheesecake Factory. If not, like don't die without going to the Cheesecake Factory. But if a waiter came up to you at the Cheesecake Factory right after you sat down and opened the menu and was like, "What do you want to get?" You would say, "Give us five minutes." Right? So instead, we really want to create this specific prescriptive recommendation because whether you like it or not, your members do see you as the expert in what you do and they're looking to you to guide them in what decision to make. and if you've understood what their habits are, what they're looking to accomplish, you should be able to say, "Allah Cheesecake Factory menu, based on what I know about you, I'd recommend our steak dish." So, based on what I know about you, I'd recommend our unlimited membership. and again, what we've seen is that when this membership recommendation can be prescriptive, it increases your conversion rate without doing anything else. Just again, crazy little easy win.

23:00 Okay, the next piece. So, again, we move from enrollment. we're going to go up to that appointment or that trial. And the reason I'm most excited to talk about this is because I think there's a lot of undue emphasis that goes on trying to find the perfect trial offer. and it's it's something that lives in your marketing space, but ultimately if you have a strong sales process, it shouldn't matter what your trial offer is. Once they're in front of you, they should be converting. So, if you feel like you're constantly asking yourself, what should I be? Should I be doing a free class? Should I be doing $10 for five days? Should I be let's change it up. Let's change it up. Let's change it up. That typically means there are holes in your sales process that you are kind of turning a blind eye blind eye to and instead focusing on how your trial offer can instead kind of like self- validate those leads or self-qualify those leads. So, we're looking at from your leads. So, hand raisers, anyone that says, "I'd be interested in learning more information." A name in an email or a name in a phone number, their redemption rate to actually booking that free class or booking that free week should be 65 to 75%.

24:20 And that's where having a really consistent lead communication or we call it like a lead nurturing process is critically important. and again I would say this is what we focus on the most. So I'm going to outline this in kind of five steps but the first is as you're diagnosing what's working and what's not with your trial offer. As I mentioned, consumers are becoming like our attention spans are becoming shorter and shorter and shorter and our sense of ease is becoming larger and larger and larger. So, if I have to reach for my credit card, if I have to fill in additional like parts of a form, anything that's going to slow me down or require additional effort, you have opportunity to lose me in that sales process, right? So ultimately, we want as quickly as we can to get them to land on our website and book that trial. We also want that to be what's called a low barrier offer. So something that feels like, hey, I didn't really I'm not actively looking for a new cycling studio membership, but first class for $5. Yeah, what the heck? I don't lose anything from that. So again, we want to choose something that really eliminates friction. ideally that's why you see free so much in the boutique fitness space. And I know the push back that you guys are hearing in your head, which is like we're not getting qualified leads or these people aren't showing up. And to that I say if you have, you know, 10

25:55 touch points that are happening between when they inquire to when they actually show up, I would challenge that. But everyone will come up with a unique trial that works for you. Ultimately though, make sure that it speaks to a wide audience and it's very low friction. Then, like I mentioned, we want to follow up consistently and with value. So, rather than let's get you booked, right? Or type C to confirm your class. We're constantly trying to ask for information and continue to gather and add on to the relationship and rapport we built up until that point. So, one of the things that and I'll send this to you guys if you want it to. but one of the things we focus on is people buy from people that they like, they trust, and that they have confidence in. And so, there's no oneliner that I can give you that's going to get someone to trust you. Ultimately, people like people that compliment them or have things in common with them. They trust people that have commonalities or similar experiences.

27:07 So, what we created, and again, you guys can take this, sell it on the black market, do whatever you want, but before you dive into those questions of like, what are your fitness goals? What's your experience with yoga? What are your injuries? Really work on slowing down and figuring out before I get into the motives, what's going to link me and Laura. So, where what area of town are you coming from? Perhaps she says, "Oh, I live in La Hoya. I don't live in La Hoya, but I've heard great things. It's beautiful." So, I compliment her. Or if I've lived in La Hoya, I can say, "Oh my gosh, me too. What neighborhood are you in? Da neighborhood." And that's a commonality. But the goal is throughout this conver these conversations you're having with the leads, you're trying to establish two points of common ground. So, two things you have in common because that's the bare minimum we need to get someone to trust us enough to take our sales recommendation when they walk through the doors.

28:11 Yeah, I love that first one I was just going to pipe in. How did you hear about us? So often someone is going to say one of their friends. So you're almost immediately be like, oh yeah, I know Hensley. She comes to so and so's class or whatever. So there's almost always going to be a quick win there. Yeah. Yeah. And I think something we forget is that if you're not ending your text with open-ended questions, you're missing opportunities to get these links, right? So, and if they don't answer the question, they don't answer the question. But you miss out on that opportunity by not asking. So, our goal even in the confirmation process is to try and ask an open-ended question unless it feels really, really uncomfortable and like weird to do. out. so like I said, if you want that, I'm happy to send it over. but jumping back to this, the last piece is to create urgency.

29:12 So what I mean by that is using verbiage like today when you join or when you become a member today, we're offering XYZ. So multiple studies again not just in boutique fitness have shown that consumers are more motivated by scarcity than by shortage of time. So if you have a Black Friday offer that's good through all through Black Friday, I as a procrastinating consumer am going to wait until almost midnight on Black Friday. But if you say, "We have 10 of these that we're going to give away on Black Friday." Reach out to lock yours in. I don't know if you're going to sell through those 10 in three hours or in three minutes. So, we always in all of our correspondents want to create this sense of scarcity. and again, that's something we do by looking at the scripting, looking at how like what levers we can pull specifically and what you guys offer or the additional retail or personal training or things that we can plug in to get people to act more quickly than they would otherwise.

30:22 and then finally, the big kahuna that I know all of you guys came here thinking about was how do I just get more leads? And hopefully after these last 20 30 minutes, you understand this is less important than perhaps you thought 30 minutes ago. but we also or I should say I also want to clarify that you are probably sitting on more leads than you know. So your leads are not just the people that have redeemed a trial. They're anyone who has expressed interest. so if your software doesn't show that, I would challenge you to reach out whoever your point of contact is at Walla if you're unsure or whoever it is to really figure out like, great, I have this many trials, but how many other people haven't even redeemed that trial yet? We're shooting, and I know this is a high number, for 150 a month, and it is doable. Yeah. So, we've seen Gohead. I was going to say we've seen quite a bit higher than that in a lot of our studios, too. So, it really Yeah.

31:30 it's it's where there's a focus, but I also see a lot of those businesses that take advantage of every potential lead, right? So, if there's somebody that calls the studio and asks a question, like they get their contact info and they add them in. or if there's someone that, you know, they have a community event and happens to be there, they get their contact info. So, it's not just relying on people who which we do. We have like an easy you can see quickly accounts created on your site, right? Like one of the nice things about Wall is how quick and easy it is to add an account. We don't require a tremendous amount of information. and we've got an easy way to see that. But you also have all of these opportunities like dayto-day people walking in the studio, calling the studio at events, talking to your teachers. Those are leads. So, make sure that those get into the system, too. In the studios we see with consistently very high numbers of leads, do that.

32:29 Yeah. Yeah. and I'll show you guys some examples. If you're like, how can I do that? I'll show you what some of our clients have done. and again, feel free to rip off any of the ideas. That's why I'm sharing them. But when we look at marketing, we really look at this as a soup. and for those clients that are on, I know you hate this melody and have heard it a million and ten times, but all marketing is impressionbased. So, if I were to tell Laura about a new restaurant that just popped up and she hears it once, she's like, "Okay, sounds good." Then she hears three other people talk about it, she sees someone post their meal on Instagram, she sees them show up on Open Table, by the fifth or sixth time, that's when she's clicking. So, you need all of that awareness happening before someone is worn down enough to actually become a lead. Which is why all of these things, if you're just doing digital marketing or you're just doing grassroots marketing, it's not going to be as effective as doing a combination of all of these things because they all feed off of each other. So, really, your foundation that like always on kind of steady stream is some investment in digital. I hate to say it's a necessary evil, but in today's day and age, our eyes are here all of the time. So whether it's Instagram, Tik Tok, Facebook, Google pay-per-click, a combination of all of those things.

33:53 we work with vendors that we trust that are native to Boutique Fitness that can create that part of the that ingredient for you. but it's that steady layer of brand awareness that is going to help with all of your subsequent marketing campaigns from there. We augment that with about 40% community outreach, which is crazy to think, but typically with our clients, if we're looking at 150 leads, 75 of those should be self-generated. And if you're like, how? We I'm going to give a shout out to we're working with a bar studio here up bar actually here in Dallas and they had 400 leads this month and 350 of those were from community outreach from social media giveaways from sponsoring a campaign for something called fitness ambassadors which is here. So they're constantly looking at how can we get in front of that audience and then all we need is a name and a number or all we need is a name and an email and then we can cultivate the end from there.

34:58 Yeah. Kate, just on quickly the social piece of this the 40% social is that both organic and paid and paid or just paid? I would say paid mostly, but it's it really depends on like I'll use Chroma as an example. I know that Sarah is on here. We established their trial offer had every intent of setting up a paid digital campaign and with just that trial alone in the organic word of mouth, she was they were getting swarmed with leads just because of what they were offering. I mean, yeah, they're offering an incredible experience, too. So, it's it's hard to say like for some of us, maybe you can pull back. For some of you, maybe it especially if you're getting up and off of the ground. We have clients that are about to open and they're spending like 2500 to 5K just on paid digital again, just to get up and off of the ground. But, if you are steadily growing, that spend probably doesn't need to be anywhere near that high. But yeah, I would say that's that's paid digital.

36:09 Okay, cool. okay. 10%. So, this would be website. This might be like that organic traffic. Now, this is where you want the most leads, but you're going to get the least leads of these, but these tend to be your highest converting leads because they are the people that are going on to Google and typing in joyhe cycling or cycling Iowa or whatever it might be. And that's that's a very qualified lead that is specifically seeking you out. Those leads organically from lead to member tend to convert at about 30 35%. So even though you'll only get a handful of those every month, if you can get even just one or two more, it typically creates one or two members. How do you get more people? you up this brand awareness and community outreach and things you're doing to drive eyes around your community, augment it with digital and then have a steady referral program in place. So these are your strongest converting leads typically converting at about 50% because to Laura's point that establishes instant rapport, right? If I say, "Oh, I know Laura." And then that's how we're building the sales off, you know, from there. That's going to be a lot stronger than trying to grasp at straws and create commonality. Also, members tend to recommend or refer like-minded individuals, right? can we go back to the community outreach part of it? Hannah is asking, you know, what are ideas with that? Just elaborate on what

37:45 community outreach means in this capacity? Yeah, great question. So, this is something that we typically spend gosh four or five hours, like call hours with our clients because a it's so specific to what works for your community. B it's there's a plethora of ideas. but also there's there's going to be things that you try and work or try and don't work. So, it's about what's finding what's right for you. I also think that what community outreach and grassroots marketing looked like precoid is entirely different than what it looks like today. So, I'll actually show you guys a couple of examples. do you have any examples, Laura, before I show these? I mean, I think community outreach can look like a lot of different things. It can be involvement like Blueridge is on this call involvement with nonprofits and they do events on a monthly basis where they have dozens and dozens of people that they get great leads and you know it's a sound healing or it could be partnerships with you know different businesses but yeah go ahead you can you can share.

39:04 No, those are all legit and part of what we a lot of those live as ideas in your head myself too, right? Of like that would be really cool to do. How do I find that point of contact? What do I say when I connect with that point of contact? And that's that is something we work on roleplaying too along with the sales process because otherwise it does feel very abstract. but just pulling up a couple client examples. So this client does a I'm sorry a weekly Pilates in the park. they are always targeting a group that is of similar demographics. So a PTA group, a women's group, a junior league, a tennis organ like a women's tennis league. So while they're opening this up to the community, they're doing it on that turf. the other really easy on that I saw on the bottom it was for the Parkinson's Association like there. Yeah. If you weren't in our webinar with Jessica from Blige, I'll again reach out to me or it's in our Facebook group. It she talked about the adding like the DNA of giving back into your company ethos and how that has impacted growth of her studio and just community awareness.

40:22 It's unbelievable when you can attach some of those community outreach efforts to causes that you care about. people in consumers now like not only is this a great a great thing to do and a way to give back as a company, but consumers want to feel good about where they're spending their money and the it's it's really important for them to feel like, oh, okay, this isn't just a company that is, you know, making gazillions of dollars. It's like we all are. but it's a company that cares about where we live and they're doing something good for our community. Yeah. And I like you're we've had so many convers Benny and I had a conversation with us with about this earlier this week because so many brands do jump on all right let's jump on you know LGBTQ in June because that's what everyone else is doing and consumers can read through that right unless it's really native to your brand and your mission I would challenge you on what causes you are supporting or the organizations you are getting involved in even if they're quote lucrative. They can tarnish your brand reputation if you do them just for let's say non-alttruistic reasons, right? Which is which is totally the theme of the webinar we did because it's all about how do you make that part of who you are, right? Not just like, hey, we're doing this for, you know, awareness for a month.

41:48 Yeah. another one of our clients, one of the things, so when I was in your guys' shoes and selling at Equinox, I would always think of where is my member going before the workout, after the workout, and on the weekend because those are the organizations that I likely need to target. So, we had a client ripped. I'll show her example here in a second. She partnered with a local coffee place because they would always be members carrying those coffee cups and they quote sponsored the cups for a weekend and got their QR code for redeem a scan for a free class on 900 coffee cups for that weekend. and their leads spiked from it, but it made sense, right? There was very similar demographics. Both brands really knew of each other and were willing to support each other. another super easy thing, again, this is ripped, is to just make sure you always have an A-frame. We can build this out for you, too, but so you're capturing that walkby traffic.

42:50 Again, have a QR code where people can instantly give you their information and book that class. But then maybe you bring this and swap marketing materials with a local like athletic wear boutique or a juicery or so forth because this thing is totable. You can bring that places as well. the other way to do this is, we will create something like this that allows you to have like a digital openhouse. So maybe I partner with a local apartment complex and I go, "Okay, Joy Wheel plus the Alexa in Lower Greenville invites you to come in and take a free class on us this month." So that way you're getting exposure and you're getting clicks and you're getting eyes where people see them without physically having to be there. So, it's a mix of physical actual events popping up and doing classes and things that feel organic to you and then I would say through a lot of QR codes building that brand awareness where you can plug in.

43:54 okay, I know we're like do you have do I have I know I was going to say guys we're we're at time so I'm happy to continue. We've got some questions I can go through. please like we can going for another 10 or 15 minutes if you'd like to get those answered. we are recording this so if you have to jump you totally can. but I did I did want to get to especially Christine because talking through like I you bring up these conversations that we're supposed to have and like have those kind of sales talks and build rapport. it's tough to have that conversation and say like, "Oh, you know, we only have 10 available." Especially if you plan on selling more. Like a lot of people are going to struggle with authenticity there or just in general that feels instantly like sales, you know, do I want to do that? So, can you give us any tips on how to have those conversations and verbiage that makes it feel authentic?

44:55 Yes. Absolutely. So I would start with from the booking process, I would almost substitute scarcity for so selectivity or specificity too, right? So instead of saying take a look at our class schedule, let me know which saying we have a spot available in our Thursday 8 a.m. class or Saturday 9:00 a.m. class. Which one works better? Even though you didn't outright say, "Hey, we only have one spot available." I didn't say I have 10 spots available or one spot available to the consumer. I'm thinking, oh my gosh, that they're in such high demand that these are the only spots available in these specific classes. And just even having just those two choices versus more than that is going to expedite that decision-making process. Other ways to go ahead. It can also lead you to understanding their schedule and what their objections are going to be a lot easier because if they have an objection to like, oh no, I can't.

45:54 That's kids. And you're like, okay, they have kids. And then, oh no, that one doesn't work. Like, I've got to do early mornings or else it's not going to happen. Then it's like, perfect. Okay, I'm starting to hone in on who this person is by getting a little more specific. And like you said, it feels a little bit like scarcity, but it's not lying to them and saying, "Oh, we only have one spot left in this class." Yeah. Yeah. And subtle verbiage. And I know you guys are going to hear this and be like, "Well, easy for you to say." And like, "Yes, easy for me to say. I've been doing this for 10 years." But things like while they're still available or while we still have room or before it waits. You're not saying you're going to wait list, right? or you're going to run out of something. But saying even just saying before XYZ uhhuh yeah fears or fears them scares them into being like oh shoot I need to act before that happens. and then in terms of the joining process I love today when you join or when you get started today because you're not saying I can only offer this today and today only. So car sales mini. it's this is what we're this is what we're currently doing right and ultimately from there it might open up further questions of like can you honor this tomorrow and you guys can decide from there but I would say create scarcity through subtle language versus those like traditional sales v

47:16 promo today only you know act fast that stuff awesome just quickly Vinnie so right now our like quote lead form is are create account, but you can create account and skip everything except name and email address. So, it's a pretty quick one, but with our marketing suite that's launching, we'll have a lead widget, so it'll be pretty easy. and then, oh, Britney, thank you for putting the webinar link. If anybody wants to watch that one on the DNA of giving back with Jess, the link for that is there. Okay, awesome. Go ahead. Go ahead. Sorry. No, I was going to say Hannah, I'm I'm reading your question about like what community outreach is, and I think we answered it for the most part, but I do want to distinguish that it's not member appreciation events. So, anything that's happening inside of your studio that's targeting members is not community outreach. And I only say that because it's a very common misconception. But everything else beyond your four walls would be considered community outreach.

48:22 Yeah. Awesome. Well, this has been so helpful. I mean, just being able to understand that, you know, the ability to convert more people is a going to grow the referral base for your clients. I know we didn't talk about those KPIs looking at, you know, people bringing other people in. but it's going to make it easier on your team and on your pocketbooks because you guys like marketing is expensive. And so when we can when we can make that more effective and maybe it means getting through a little bit of discomfort and learning how to sell and learning how to communicate more effectively early on with our clients that is going to ultimately save you a lot of money in the long run. like businesses that put a big focus on this part of, you know, the process that funnel are ones that can that can afford to, you know, maybe not spend the 10 grand a month on marketing that others do. There it can be significantly less because they're more effective with those conversions.

49:25 So, I think that you know, a lot of you are probably sitting there thinking, "How the hell do I do this? I don't have staff. I don't have a team or I don't have extra time to be calling all of these people. Some of it can be done from an automated perspective. but there are also really great services out there. Actually, our July webinar is going to be with a company called the sales arm that does a lot of this for you. because I know it's it's definitely challenging to think about the time and the energy required to respond to and communicate three times with a lead before they walk in the door. but we're we're hoping to give you guys as many solutions and options for that as possible because it's an overwhelming thought. But if you Hensley before we wrap up on like who's the best person to do this, that would be great too. Yeah. So I don't believe in I don't want to like pitch what we do, but we build out every call. You walk away with 150 call, text, and email script.

50:29 And again, we're Yeah. people say like you're doing what everyone else doesn't want to do, and it's completely true. And we do work with Chris at the sales arm who then carries actually carries that out. but our goal with you is to figure out something that's going to work long term, not something that feels great and launches hard, but ultimately we're working with our clients for 12 weeks. 90% of them recoup their investment before they finish working with us because this is a steady growth and it's something that they feel empowered and confident in carrying out on their own. and again, it's it's a combination of some automation and some persontoperson communication. so actually this will lead you guys to if you do want a this is specific to you guys, the Calendarly invite. and you can we can do a sales deep dive and really look at where are the holes in your specific sales process and is it something that you need to hire out for that you need a system built out for?

51:31 and then really working up the sales funnel from there and starting to brainstorm trial offer, community outreach ideas, so forth. Awesome. Perfect. Yeah. And we can again share that deck so you guys can have all the details and the PDF that she that PDF was amazing with like the different questions and the build report, you know, commonalities, finding a couple of things to touch base on. and guys, I will just say like icing on the cake to all of this is being able to layer in personality typology. So, being able to know that yeah, the giver and the doer probably need all of that like in spades. And then you're going to have a thinker who wants virtually none of that other than the dollars and cents of and the scheduling of the prescription. They don't want more. and the maverick who's like, I don't want to tell you about my dog and my kids because I don't want to have a relationship with you. I'm here on my own like valition and I don't need you.

52:29 so not that they're they just they're there for their own reasons and they're intrinsically motivated and they're not looking for you to push them along. so just the ability to have those kind of tools when you're having these conversations is going to help you have success at just, you know, in a different way than you thought possible. So very excited to layer that in. Okay. guys, just quickly before we wrap, I confirmed our next month webinar which is going to be all about retreats. So if you are thinking about doing retreats at your business, if you're in the midst of, you know, planning one or you have one booked and you want to make sure that you're selling it out, we have an amazing Yeah. Cat. I know we've gotten some requests for this. Roxy Borger, who maybe some of you guys know from MBU back in the day, is going to be doing that. She is an amazing an amazing expert. And I'm so excited.

53:32 She's going to be speaking to our crowd. So, I'll have the invite out for that shortly. And then, please, please, please reach out to Hensley and her crew if you guys have any questions. I'll have this posted in the Facebook group shortly. All right, see you later. Thank you so much, H. To have you. Bye. Likewise. Bye, guys.