My DM flow asks one thing before anyone types a word. Which of these is you?
Four buttons. Enquiry nai aaudaina. Sodhchhan, kindainan. Client nai badhena. Boost garda vayena.
One tap and I know which problem a coach is carrying before they’ve even said namaste, which is more than a lot of gym enquiry forms in Kathmandu ever bother to find out about a person who wants to join.
Knowing is half of it, though. What you do with it in the next 24 hours is the other half.
Gym enquiries carry the same kind of signal every day. “Kati ho monthly?” “Bholi aauchhu.” Then the chat goes still. Some people walk in. A lot don’t, and the owner tells himself they weren’t serious anyway.
What happens between “bholi aauchhu” and the first visit?
Usually nothing. And the nothing is where people change their mind.
Think about when they messaged you. Maybe after a bad photo at a cousin’s wedding, or after the doctor said something about sugar. The feeling was big that night. By the next evening it’s smaller. Office ran late. It rained. “Next month bata garchhu.”
The old belief says a serious person shows up on their own. I don’t buy it. Serious and nervous live in the same person, and a first-timer who thinks everyone at the gym will stare at them can be both at once.
I saw how common the silence is when I went through 40 coach and gym enquiry paths start to finish, as if I wanted to join. Only 5 sent me anything between my yes and the visit or call. The other 35 just waited.
It’s the same drop I wrote about in why people go quiet right after they sign up, only earlier.
What did Jay Hale’s gym send the day before?
A short video picked for that one person, sent the day before their sales call.
Jay runs Hale Fitness in the US. Edward Sturm wrote up his process in May 2024, and the order goes like this.
- A paid ad sends people to a page.
- At the top is a 41-second video of Jay explaining the form and the call coming next.
- The form asks questions that put each person into a type.
- They book a call, usually about two days out.
- The day before, someone on his team reads their answers and sends a video made for that type and their biggest problem.
His examples stuck with me. A mum in her mid-40s gets a video on menopause. A man in his mid-30s gets one about feeling too late to start. Men like Jay see Jay. Women see one of his female coaches.
Jay says about half of the cold prospects who reach the call end up buying. I can’t check that, so read it as his number and nothing more.
Two things I’d change for Nepal, where an imported playbook usually breaks somewhere. He has a whole YouTube channel of these videos, many per type, and you don’t need that to begin. Four will do. He also gives people who don’t buy a 24-hour discount, and I’d drop that part completely, because a deadline you made up is a quick way to lose the trust a membership runs on.
Why does a matched video work before someone walks in?
They’ve met you already. The first visit stops being a walk into a room full of strangers.
Psychologists call it the mere-exposure effect. People like and trust a face more each time they see it, even on a screen. One video is enough to move someone from “unknown gym” to “the didi who said day one is easy.”
The match matters as much as the video. Picture a woman in Baneshwor who has never been inside a gym. A big guy flexing tells her nothing. A woman coach saying the first week is only learning the machines, and that nobody is watching her, answers the fear she didn’t type.
Which four people send gym enquiries in Nepal?
Start with these four. Each one is scared of something different, so each one gets a different video.
| Who they are | What worries them | What the video says | Who’s on camera |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wedding coming, often Mangsir lagan | Not enough time, so they think crash diet | What 8 weeks can do and what it can’t | A coach of the same gender |
| First-timer | Being stared at, not knowing the machines | What day one looks like, minute by minute | A woman coach for women |
| Restarter, stopped after a job change, a baby or an injury | Starting from zero, the old injury flaring | How the first two weeks go easy on purpose | A coach close to their age |
| Test prep for Army, Police or Gurkha selection | Failing the run or the pull-ups on the day | How training works back from the test date | The owner or the strongest coach |
Your own DMs might show you a different four. Swap them once they do. I sort coaches the same way, by the problem they tap.
How do you shoot four videos on a phone in one afternoon?
Phone on a shelf, one person, one worry per video, under a minute each, no editing.
Write three lines on a card and talk from it. First line, their worry in their own words. Second, what happens on day one. Third, your name and “bholi bhetaula.”
Shoot in the gym near a window, in daylight. Talk in whatever language they messaged you in, Nepali, English or the usual mix of both. Jay’s page video was 41 seconds, which is a good length to aim for.
Take two tries at most. A perfect video starts to look like an ad, and the slightly messy one where you laugh at yourself is the one people remember when they’re standing outside your door the next morning deciding whether to come in.
How do you send the video on WhatsApp without being pushy?
Send it yourself, the day before, with one line that uses their name and the thing they told you.
Something like this. “Sita ji, you said the wedding is in Mangsir. Made this short one for you before tomorrow. See you at 7.”
That’s the whole message. No price list under it, and no voice note that runs four minutes.
If they don’t reply, that’s fine. Most likely they still watched it. You’ll know when they walk in and talk to you like they’ve met you before.
Do the first 20 by hand. It’s slower, and it’ll teach you which video gets people through the door and which one needs a reshoot.
Which of the four people messages your gym the most? Tell me in the comments. If yours is a fifth type I missed, I want to hear that too.
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