Someone messages you: "hey, how much is your online coaching?" You send the price and three paragraphs about your check-in process, and they never reply. Ten days later you send "just bumping this" and they do not reply to that either.
That sale did not fail at the price. It failed at your first message, which answered a question nobody was really asking and left the conversation nowhere to go. Everything between the enquiry and the answer is a conversation you have already had two hundred times, and most coaches improvise it every single time.
A script is not a way of getting past someone's judgement. It is a way of not fumbling a conversation you care about at nine at night on your phone between clients. Every line below is one you would be happy for the person to screenshot, and several of them lose you the sale on purpose.
Reply to an enquiry without pitching
The instinct is to answer the question that was asked. Do not — not yet, and not because you are withholding. You cannot recommend anything until you know what they want, and a price with no recommendation attached is just a number to compare against other numbers.
Reply the same day, use their name, and ask one question. One, not five. This is a DM, not a form.
"Hey Sam — happy to run you through it. Before I send anything, can I ask what you're training for at the moment, and what you've already tried? What I'd recommend changes a lot depending on the answer, and I'd rather not send you the wrong thing."
If they ask the price directly, tell them. "DM me for pricing" makes people feel handled, and the ones it filters out are usually the ones who were going to be easiest to work with. Give the range, say what moves it, and keep going:
"It's $280 to $360 a month depending on what you need. Can I ask a couple of things first so I can tell you which end you'd be at?"
Most enquiries come from somewhere you can see — a post, a story, a mutual client. Say where you recognise them from if you do. Coaches who get a steady flow of enquiries from Instagram are having this exact exchange several times a week, which is the reason it is worth having actual wording rather than whatever you type at the time.
The three questions that decide whether to offer a call
Not every enquiry deserves thirty minutes of your week. Three questions, spread across a couple of messages rather than fired off in one block, tell you nearly everything:
You are reading two things in the answers. The first is whether there is a real problem you are equipped to solve. The second is effort: someone who writes three sentences back is invested, someone who answers "just want to lose a bit of weight" twice in a row is browsing. That is not a character judgement, it is a signal about timing.
You also need to know who you are for before any of this works. If you cannot finish the sentence "I coach people who..." in one line, the script will not save you, because you will have no basis for deciding who to say no to. That decision sits in your business plan, not in the DM.
Move it out of the DMs
Text is a poor place to sell coaching. You are competing with notifications, they are reading with half their attention, and the questions that matter take too long to type. Ask for a conversation and say what it is for.
"This is much easier to talk through than type. Have you got fifteen minutes this week? I'll ask a few more questions and tell you honestly whether I think I can help — and if I can't, I'll say that and point you somewhere better."
For someone warm, offer two specific times rather than a booking link. "Thursday 7pm or Saturday morning?" is a decision they can make in four seconds; a link is a task they do later, which often means never. Keep the link for cold traffic and for people who have gone quiet once already.
Put a short form in front of the call. Six or seven questions — goal, history, training now, injuries and medical conditions, availability, budget — so the call starts at minute five instead of minute zero. Most of the intake questions you ask a paying client work here, cut down. Fitsly's forms can be shared as a public link that anyone can fill in without an account, and you can set the page to redirect to your booking calendar once they submit, so the form and the booking are one step for them rather than two.
Hand the call over to the call
The call has its own shape and its own wording: how to open it, the questions that find the real obstacle, when to give a verdict, and how to ask for a decision without inventing a deadline. That is a discovery call, and it is a different job from this one. When the number lands badly, that is a price objection, which is a different job again.
What belongs to the script is what happens either side of it. The day before, one message: "Still good for 7pm tomorrow? Here's the link." Unconfirmed calls are the ones people quietly forget, and one line prevents most of that.
Then, the same day as the call — not the next morning — send the summary in writing, whether or not they said yes. Five lines, no attachment, no proposal deck:
"Good to talk, Sam. Quick recap so you've got it in writing. What I'd do: three sessions a week, 45 minutes, plus nutrition targets built around your shifts. Cost: $320 a month, minimum three months, then month to month. Start: Monday the 18th, intake form the week before. If it's a yes, reply here and I'll send the payment link. If it's a no, tell me and I'll leave you to it."
That last line does more work than anything else in the message. Most people who go quiet are not avoiding you, they are avoiding the awkwardness of saying no. Give them the words and a share of them will use them, which is worth more to you than the silence.
Follow up on a cadence, then stop
The difference between following up and pestering is not the number of messages. It is whether each one was agreed, has a date, gives them an exit, and says something. "Just bumping this" fails all four.
| When | What you send | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Same day | The written summary, with the "tell me if it's a no" line | Puts the offer somewhere they can re-read it |
| Day 3 | The check-in you said you would send | You promised it, so it is expected rather than pushy |
| Day 10 | One line that makes no the easy answer | Closes the loop and gets you a real answer |
| 6–8 weeks | Only if the reason was timing, and only once | Timing changes; the offer has not |
| After that | Nothing | Two unanswered messages is an answer |
The day three message is short and asks a real question, not a status check.
"Hey Sam — said I'd check in today. Anything come up since we spoke that I can answer?"
The day ten message is the one that ends it, and it should sound like you mean it, because you do.
"Last one from me on this. If the timing's not right, just say so and I'll stop cluttering your inbox — no hard feelings either way. If it is right, I've got room to start you Monday."
Two messages with no reply means the answer is no. A third and fourth get you nothing except a reputation among their friends, which matters more in this industry than in most. If the reason was genuinely timing — a house move, a wedding, a baby due in March — put the date in your calendar and send one line when it arrives. That message converts at a rate no chase sequence comes close to, because you are the coach who remembered.
What to say when you cannot help
Some enquiries you should end yourself, and the sooner the better: a diagnosed eating disorder, post-surgical rehab, a sport you do not program for, someone who wants you in the room with them three times a week, someone whose deadline is fifteen kilograms in eight weeks and who does not want a different timeline.
Say it in the DM. Do not take the call to be polite.
"Honestly, I don't think I'm the right person for this. What you're describing needs someone who works with X, and I'd be guessing. Two people I'd trust with it are... Tell them I sent you."
Budget is the one that stings, because it is the fixable-looking one. If someone has $90 a month and your floor is $280, do not invent a cheaper tier in the message thread — you will resent it by week four and they will get the version of your coaching that does not work. Tell them what to do on their own for now, and say the door is open. People you turned away send referrals surprisingly often, because almost nobody has ever told them not to buy something.
The lines that lose you the sale
A script written only to convert would leave these out. Keep them, because each one costs you a small number of sales and every one it costs you was going to end badly.
- They ask the price in the first message. Answer it. Some of them leave, and those were the ones you would have discovered at minute twenty-five.
- They ask whether they can hit a number by a date that is not realistic. Say no, then say what is realistic. Agreeing sells one month of coaching and buys a refund request.
- They ask whether they have to track food, or train four days, or weigh in weekly, and the answer is yes. Say yes. Softening it to close the sale means having the same conversation in week three with a paying client who feels misled.
- They tell you they would have to put it on a credit card. Tell them not to.
None of that is nobility. Every one of those conversations ends with somebody who trusts what you say, and roughly half of the coaching business is people repeating your name to someone else.
