First-Time Clients to Life-Long Clients

How often do you hear: “I’ll think about it” or, “it’s too expensive, I’m too busy” when working with a first-time client?  Growing your Pilates business relies on acquiring new clients, getting new clients to commit to future sessions, and getting existing clients to buy more often. If you are not converting first-time clients, this means your business growth relies solely on your existing clients. What if one of them gets sick? Moves? Goes on a long vacation? Converting first-time clients is not the easiest thing in the world. But, if you avoid these common mistakes you’ll be well on your way to batting 100! Yep, imagine every first-time client becoming a lifetime client.

Recognize the Mistakes

As a Pilates business coach, one of the things I do is watch and observe instructors teach first-time sessions. I would see many of the same mistakes over and over again. Do you recognize any of these in your teaching?

• Too many cues
• Too many exercises
• Trying to show them more than they think they need
• Too many corrections
• Telling them everything that is wrong with them
• Not connecting your teaching to the clients why
• Assuming they know what you mean
• Too much Pilates jargon
• Standing too far away
• Saying “don’t” a lot
• Spend most of their session on the mat or talking about Pilates but not doing Pilates
• Correcting but not waiting to see if you got your correction

What “To-do”?

When a client comes in for the first time, they will make more mistakes than you’ll know what to do with. Great! Let them. Let them move. Let their Pilates be safe but let it be a little ugly. After all, there is no such thing as perfect. I know you want to correct them, especially so they can see they need you. Guess what? They do. They know that already that’s why they are there. Instead, try to tell them more about what “to-do” and help them feel Pilates in their body. Maybe they have to do extra reps this time so they can get it. They don’t need to see that you know a thousand exercises. They need to feel the exercises their body needs.

Try this:

• Focus on their “Why”
• Coach them through it
• Help them do the goal of the exercise not the choreography of the exercise
• Share with them what you are seeing
• Be ok with saying nothing

I have more tips and advice for you in my course, “Converting First Time Clients“. I’ll be coaching you on what to do in a first-time session from start to finish. We’ll cover how to handle objections and also how to get eliminate those objections from the get-go.  If the “live”  webinar time doesn’t work for you sign up anyways, I replay the webinar for three days to allow you to watch, replay and replay it again if you want. As always you can send in your questions early, or you can ask them “live” on the webinar!

Until then think back on your last first-time sessions. What do you think you could have done differently? Did you do one of more of the mistakes from above? Can you add a little more from the “try” list?

My ultimate goal for you (and I know its possible) is that you cannot take just any first-time session. That you are so good at sharing the kind of teacher you are to a first-time client that you can only accept sessions from your ideal client. All other first-time clients will have to go to a different teacher.

Are you ready to make every first-time client say YAAS to YOU?

xx~LL