Many studio owners love free trials. I don’t.
Over three posts, I’m going to share why they always leave a slightly bitter taste in my mouth.
Here is Reason #1 Why I Don’t Love Free Trials.
It’s double the selling…
Recently I joined a new gym (It’s F45 and whipping my butt into shape!)
They offered me 3 free trial classes.
When I first enquired, I was given a lot of information about joining the classes.
The team gave me lots of extra attention in each class and tracked which number trial I was up to.
After my third class I was taken to the office and given a big spiel about membership.
Here’s the thing: I would happily have paid upfront before I stepped foot in the door.
When you lead a student into your studio for a free trial, you first have to sell them on coming into the studio for a free trial.
Then, you have to sell them for a second time into actually joining your studio.
It’s double the selling work for you and your team.
Double the tracking.
Double the administration.
Double the selling.
Even paid trials require a lot more hand-holding and management than if we just invited student to enrol upfront.
I get that it can be scary offering for people to join your program up front, but I have lots of tips and tricks for how to navigate this situation.
I actually have a bunch more reasons on why Free Trials may be holding your studio back AND exactly what the solution could look like (and how to transition into it) in a recording of a training I did recently.
If you’d like to jump on in, you can access the replay here (the bit about Free Trials starts at the 28 minute mark)
Click here to learn more about the pitfalls of Free Trials >>
I’ll be sharing more about Free Trials in Part II.
P.s If your studio currently does do Free Trials and it’s working – I am certainly not saying change them. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it I say! But it’s certainly worth rolling around what your studio could look like if we pivoted from free trials to a direct to enrollment strategy…
