A quick start guide can have multiple uses in your business and it’s worth considering if it could be a useful addition.
How can you use one?
Lead Generation
A quick start guide can be a great free giveaway. You can print it and give it to people in person as part of a conversation or send it to them following a chat in the gym or a conversation online. You can leave it out in the gym for people to pick up or you can pop it in a different establishment you have built a relationship with (local cafe / hairdresser / barber / butcher etc). Alternatively it can be a lead magnet for an email list, a runner up prize for a competition or an incentive to join a Facebook group.
Onboarding
Another use for a quick start guide is as a part of your onboarding. Giving new clients a head start as part of a welcome pack. Something that they can implement immediately rather than waiting for their first session or nutrition consultation. Something that allows you to capitalise on their enthusiasm, increase their awareness and prepare them for the ongoing service you offer.
How should you approach this creation?
The answer is that it depends a bit on how you intend to use the guide.
If using it for lead generation, think about what action you want people to take and how you will follow up on it. If you are giving it out or leaving it to pick up on the gym floor then give people a reason to contact you. Maybe a follow up guide, an accountability group, a 2nd workout, an autoresponder with more information etc. Include this information within the resource and then subtly reinforce it within the guide. Of course, then it is important that you continue to build the relationship and follow through on the follow ups. After all, an email list is only any use if you use it to send emails. Each communication you have with someone should be focused on getting them to continue with the relationship.
If it’s for new clients then think about how it starts people’s journey with you and how it transitions into your ongoing service.
Depending on your design skills and the technology you are comfortable with you can use something like Canva to produce your guide or make a word document and save it as a PDF. If you have the budget then a designer can be a good investment. (Steve Roberts is our recommendation at LTB)
What should you include?
The key, and difficulty, comes in keeping it to easy to follow actions and not giving in to the desire to add in extra explanations or download your extensive knowledge on a topic.
Think about the big rocks that can be applied to the majority of your client base (even if it’s not for existing clients you want to appeal to the same “type” of people) and your recommendations that don’t require any technical knowledge or experience. For example: For the majority of fat loss clients, it could be anything that encourages people to move more, eat less calorie dense foods and that generally increases awareness of their behaviours. E.g. measure and increase your steps, keep a food diary for x days, aim to increase vegetables, or a basic, rules based nutrition approach like the PN hand based one, a “things to watch out for / common pitfalls”, a FAQ and a home workout.
If you wanted to, you could include space to capture measurements, write goals and track achievements for the initial period. If this isn’t appropriate to your client base or way of working then change things up to match the requirements of your target audience and your business. The principles all transfer to any client base.
As with anything you produce you need to make sure it is written in language your clients use and has images that appeal to your audience. The key thing is that it is useful and instantly usable, so you may need to place all the technical knowledge you’ve amassed to one side and ignore what you think other fitpros might say if they saw it.
Want more help?
If you want more ideas about your service or lead generation we have a number of resources on both topics. Members can check out the practicalities course and marketing checklist downloads which are the recommended starting resources for these topics. Non members can sign up for the 2 week free trial here. Or you can email me on claire@liftthebar.com