Weekly Payment Plans Or Upfront Payments - Whats Best For Personal Trainers?

Should you do payment plans or should you be pushing for upfront payments? This is one of the things I've been speaking to a fair bit to trainers that have been speaking to this week last week. It's been a common theme. It's been popping up and it's a trap that I fall a lot of people fall into and it holds them back from getting to the level of success level impact that they should be at. So the age old question of is it better to have payment plans like weekly payments from clients or get them in on packages when they pay up front or two part payments or whatever it might be. Now, a lot of people that I speak to prefer to get clients on a weekly pay plan. Now it's kind of for two reasons. One is because they feel that it's easier to keep the client longer, or actually one, it probably feels like it's easier to sell because you are only asking for a micro payment versus a larger payment.

So it's easy to convert and because most trainers don't have a system to get high quality leads coming through and they've got a lower quality lead, they have to do micropayments to be able to get it over the line. Now I see most people justify that as well to saying, well, I enjoy having the weekly recurring payments because it gives me stability and gives me confidence that I've got cashflow coming in. And as a result, that allows them to make more confident moves in their business because they know what they're going to get paid next week approximately when they're going to get monthly and so on and so forth. And the third piece is a lot of trainers like to think that if you do upfront package payments, it's harder to keep the client long-term, whereas if you put 'em on a weekly, they can stay for life.

Now, in theory, all makes sense. Now, there's a concept in terms of we're all being all seen it lately, heard a lot about it in terms of inflation. Now, what does inflation have to do with what we're talking about and whatsoever is the concept that money today is worth more than money tomorrow. And that's what inflation's about is the devaluing of money to buy bread or buy eggs five years ago was a lot cheaper than it is now, and that is because your money has been devalued over time. Now, even more importantly, in business, money today is better than money in a week's time or a month's time or whatever it might be because you can actually do something with that resource rather than, oh, I know I have that resource coming in a month or two. If the client doesn't cancel or the card doesn't bounce, or whatever it might be, you have the funds in your account right now that you can use that resource to do something with.

And that can either be improve your services, improve your servicing to your clients so they're getting even better result, or both actually and or using that to get your message out even further. Invest in your business, get more clients and grow faster. So one, you actually have resources that you can use right now, and the other you have this assumption that something is coming in a week or a month's time. Now, once again, nobody can use a resource that isn't there yet that's coming a week or a month's time, and B, what I find with most people as well is that although a lot of people like to think of it as a comfort blanket of having recurring payments, you don't have a hundred percent guarantee that it's coming. And so in actual fact, there is lack of confidence and comfort in it to make big moves in your business because it is not a hundred percent there.

It's not even in your bank account yet. You're assuming it's going to come in and it's pretty hard to make confident decisions on assumptions that something's coming. So where some people get it wrong in terms of upfront payments is that they only get the client in for one package. Right now, the key and the real sweet spot is not all clients will pay upfront, but if you have it in the right way set up in the right, we're getting the right leads through asking the right conversations, leading down the right path with the right questions. Having a solid sales group like what I give my clients, you should be able to get somewhere between 60 to 70% paid in fulls upfront. But second to that is having the skill and the know-how to as that package is being complete, getting them to resign long-term thereafter.

And I'm a huge fan of the resign being on weeklies or monthlys or recurrings, and that way you can keep the client, you can build a stable recurring, but you are also getting the fast cash upfront. Now, once again, business, we're in business to help clients. It's not all about money and cash, but having that resource allows you to put that back into your business, reinvest that so you can grow further, get more reach, put your message in front of more of the right type of people and help more people. So most businesses fall flat on their face when they run out of cash flow or the ability to reinvest to grow further or to get their message out there further, help more people improve their service, bring team members on whatever it might be. So cashflow is really the blood of every business, and that's why fast tracking that, especially as clients coming in and getting lump sums coming in quite quickly allows you to reinvest in grow.

While as the other type of person will be like, all right, cool, I've got 10 clients. Maybe I'm getting a hundred dollars a week, that's a thousand dollars a week. Cool. I don't quite have the resources to do anything yet outside of what I'm doing, and I've got to wait a couple of weeks before I can. Whereas someone who's fast tracked has got 10 clients say, the clients are worth 2K each, that's $20,000. They're able to reallocate some of those funds into an area that'll improve their business to service their reach, their impact instantly. So you can see how the two give a very different outcome, and I'm all for doing business in a level that makes you feel comfortable. So you can make confident and powerful decisions. You need to have that, but at the same time, without the cash flow, you are dead in the water.

And even if you want to make a certain move, you're unable to. And as I said, it's all about future cash. It's not guaranteed. So the confidence, even though some people feel that it's there, it's not because once again, you never know what's going to happen in the future versus getting it now. So hopefully that makes sense. If you are a business owner who has just lent into doing payment plans out the gate, I would question you or challenge you to question your thinking around it and make sure that it is 100% sound and you're doing it for the right reasons rather than the reasons that are commonly seen, whether it's being low quality leads, so you're having to do micro payments to get it across the line, or like I said, your inability to resign and keep clients. These are two problems that can be fixed with other things.

And dropping your price or doing micropayments is like a band-aid solution to a bigger problem that you have in the business and that being inability to keep deliver a great service, keep and resign clients and or bad quality leads. So you're having to drop to micropayments. So hopefully that makes sense. Challenge yourself on that if you are doing these things. And I hope that this helps you transition into a way that allows you to pour a lot more fuel on the fire into your business, have more reach, have more impact, and of course have a lot more time. And financial freedom is.