Having started a few new businesses in my time, I know how daunting it can be to get started in a new area, branch out into a different area, or just plain want to dominate a local community. The good thing is, I’ve established some super simple strategies along the way that makes it easy to get those new clients that you need. Heres how:
Firstly, decide on a location that you are going to train at. This might be a local part if you do outdoor training or if you train in a gym, make sure that you have chosen which one you will train at. Once you’ve done that search in a 2km radius for the local ‘hang out’ spot. In Australia this is most likely going to be a cafe.
Write a list of all the cafe’s within that 2km radius and make it a point to visit them, snap a pic at the cafe and tag the cafe in the picture. Speak to the owner of that cafe and introduce yourself as the new PT in the area.
Once you’ve done that continue to tag yourself or check in on Facebook at other local places in the area – people will start to recognise that you are in that area.
Another great way to meet new people in a community is through Facebook Groups – we’ve all belonged to one of those groups right? The local buy, swap sell group, or north shore mums. Find the groups that are active in your area and request to be a part of them.
Then… have conversations. Don’t go in wanting to sell your classes or sessions – people hate that. But if you go in genuinely wanting to meet people, engage with them and help people… then you will build respect and you won’t need to ‘sell,’ people will come to you wanting to know what you do.
Once you’ve established yourself on Facebook both on your personal profile and in groups it’s time to start to get out into the ‘real world’ and meet people! Meetup is a great way to find local events in your area where you can meet people in the community and start to establish yourself as THE PT in your community. As well as meetup you might look at joining a local BNI, rotary or networking group where other business owners can pass referrals to you.
The last strategy that you can use is to find local professionals in your are like a doctor, a physio and anyone else that you might regularly see. It’s great to have local professionals who can look after you, but also have clients that will be similar to yours and once you build that rapport and trust you should start seeing referrals back and forth from those people.
As much as starting out in a new location can be hard – with some hard work and persistence using these simple strategies you can establish yourself quite quickly in a community and become the ‘go to’ PT.
