You just never know when things will change.  You get transferred to another club.  You have a new boss.  Your company is sold.  Even if things just seem to be going crazy in the gym you have worked at for years. Things change, but the expectation of sales production remains.

Here are some tips to help you make the membership sale no matter what the circumstances;

1. Attitude is everything.  The key to remember here is that it’s more important how you feel about your prospect than how they feel about you. You can’t let crazy circumstances change you. The positive expectancy to win.    The will to make it happen.  No negatives, attitude is paramount.  If this is not in place, you can’t even get started.
2. Have commitment in your posture and voice. You want to be using words like great!  Fantastic!  Terrific! Show confidence!
3. Have enthusiasm that conveys conviction and belief. It’s been said many times that the definition of sales is a transfer of feelings or a transfer of enthusiasm. It really goes beyond just enthusiasm; it’s your passion, your belief and your conviction for what you do that means you can’t be swayed otherwise.
4. You must be sold. You must be sold that your company is the best.  You have the best product and best service.  You’re the best person to help them get the results they want.  You’re sold on the value you bring to your customer. You are unreasonable to the point that nothing can be said that will change how you think.
5. Always agree first with your prospect. This is senior to everything you do in the sales process. Always be agreeable. Don’t defend your position.  Certainly don’t tell your customer they’re wrong.  Be agreeable.  Mary, I understand.  Mary, I agree with you.  Even if your customer says they didn’t come to join today, you say, “Mary, I understand, most of our guests don’t come to join when they first come in.”  Then follow your sales process.
6. Be sure you are getting daily training. Be sure you are getting daily training.  If your club is providing this great, if not, be sure to get it on your own.  Daily training will add a sale a day to your production.

Now, go close a sale!

Jim Thomas is the founder and president of Fitness Management USA Inc., a management consulting and turnaround firm specializing in the fitness and health club industry. With more than 25 years of experience owning, operating and managing clubs of all sizes, Thomas lectures and delivers seminars and workshops across the country on the practical skills required to successfully build teamwork and market fitness programs and products. Learn more here: Jim Thomas On Demand

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Recent United States demographic information has startled business owners across the country…not the least of which are health club operators.  A massive age-population shift is right around the corner.  Will your club be prepared for it?

• Latest government statistics say that – on January 1, 2015 – 45% of the 315 million Americans will be age 50 or over!
• By 2017 – less than 3 years away – 1 of every 2 U.S. citizens will be over age 50.
• Every Baby Boomer is now over age 50.
• Industry statistics indicate that – within less than 2 ½ years – 50% of national health club members will be over age 50.

So what’s the big deal?  Well, the big deal is that most club and gym advertising, marketing, and exercise programming is geared to age 35 and under!  In other words, fitness facilities are acting as though their own member demographics haven’t changed in 20 years.

Add two other facts to this mix.

• 75% of all U.S. wealth and discretionary spending is controlled by consumers over age 55.
• The average 50-plusser has 6 times the discretionary buying power of the average 30-year-old.

What these numbers mean to you.

Club Owner – is that you will very soon have either a massive opportunity in your competitive marketplace or you will suffer a colossal bummer!  The choice will be yours.

For those who seriously want to engage with the best-potential-buyer market we have seen in over 35 years in our industry, you will have to quickly get on the ball with several segments of your business.

• ADVERTISING: You’ll have to go where they are (and it isn’t newspapers, direct mail, radio or TV).  You’ll need to learn “interactive smart site” marketing, email strategizing, and app/social media campaigning.
• SALES: They don’t like high pressure, “buy now deals,” and club tours.  You’ll have to get smart with “interview selling” and “personalization” approaches.  This group doesn’t like “locked in contracts” – they like no commitments until they’re customer-satisfied.
• EXERCISE TRAINING AND COACHING: Give them your run-of-the-mill orientation of two trainings on equipment and they’re gone.  You’re going to have to learn “outcomes management” if you’re going to keep this group coming back and referring their friends.
• PROGRAMMING: Think “group, group, group” – from on-boarding these new 50+ members into GEX classes to Small Group Training sessions to “clubs within the club” which may include social programs, nutrition counseling groups, investment clubs, and a lot of other “lifestyle-type” events which will add value to membership.

The track record of small training studios – whose principal clientele is Baby Boomers – proves that this group will spend a lot of additional dollars for experiences that they value.

Now your job becomes creating the value.

Michael Scott Scudder is Founder/CEO of Fitness Business Council, the independent club business network.  Michael can be contacted at 575-751-1212 or mss@fitnessbusinesscouncil.com.

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We recently took on a client club whose sales were on a steady decline. Of course, we heard the normal push-backs such as too much competition, time of year, rates are too high, marketing is not working, etc. One of the first things we will normally do is listen in to call-tracking results on incoming calls – most of this is tied to direct mail marketing. In this particular case, a prospect called in asking about membership rates. Not only did the club representative not follow the provided script, but when the caller volunteered that she may have called the wrong club, the club rep offered to find the phone number of the competitor. You may be thinking this was a new rep that was answering the phone prematurely…..unfortunately, it was the club manager.

Do you know what your salespeople and front desk staffers are saying over the phone?

92% of customer interactions happen via the phone. 85% of customers report dissatisfaction with their phone experience.

Do you have a written phone script? If not, you need to get one and it should be memorized to the point of being second-nature. Regular training and role-playing should be done to be sure everyone is on track. And be sure to listen to your call tracking notes…this will only be important to your staff, if it’s first important to you. You must inspect what you expect.

A customer is 4 times more likely to buy from a competitor when ignored.

Are you ignoring your customers?

Many clubs will put a significant effort into getting the phone to ring and people to walk through the door, but then don’t maximize the opportunity to increase membership sales when the salespeople fail to follow up.

48% of salespeople never follow up with a prospect.

25% of salespeople make a second contact and stop.

12% of salespeople only make three contacts and stop.

Only 10% of salespeople make more than three contacts.

80% of sales are made on the fifth to twelfth contact.

The biggest reasons we find salespeople do not follow up like they should – they simply don’t know what to say. Web leads, for example, on average, require 8 attempts before contacting….you may speak to some web leads right away which means someone else make take 16 attempts.

The key to successful follow up is to commit to it, get creative on different ways to do it and understand that speed is power.

Do you know what your salespeople are saying? Can your salespeople pass the test? If you would like for us to phone shop your club, just email jthomas@fmconsulting.net or call 800-929-2898.

Now, go learn that script!

Jim Thomas is the founder and president of Fitness Management USA Inc., a management consulting and turnaround firm specializing in the fitness and health club industry. With more than 25 years of experience owning, operating and managing clubs of all sizes, Thomas lectures and delivers seminars and workshops across the country on the practical skills required to successfully build teamwork and market fitness programs and products. Visit his Web site at: www.fmconsulting.net.

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All business owners know that in order to continue growing their business, the business must implement a marketing plan. Depending on your clientele, location, business type, and marketing personality, this will take on different forms. One popular marketing angle across business types is to work on increasing the visibility of your brand, thus creating the ubiquitous “household name.” Once you’ve built your brand and become a familiar name in your community, you will find more customers coming your way. While the marketing has done its job, there is a next step in adding and retaining health club members: You must implement a follow-up system.

When a guest visits your club, or uses a free trial membership, you must reach out to those guests to create a sale. Instead of creating a system from scratch, health club software can help you. Modern health club software has a variety of lead management capabilities including a general information database to manage members and leads, a plan-ahead function that allows you to assign a task to each lead, and follow-up tasks to complete after the initial check-in with a client. The most important aspect of this software is that it creates a systematic and partially automated approach to lead follow-up.

What’s the benefit to automation? Simple. Because your health club software can take care of some tasks semi-independently, employees spend less time managing follow-up. Follow-up is also consistent, which increases conversion while decreasing time spent on record keeping.

Other Benefits:

• All information is stored in one place
• Every employee can seamlessly participate
• Employee time can be spent helping customers and visitors in the club, because many of the tasks can be automated
• Get rid of paper to-do lists that can get lost or forgotten

Picture this:

Joe is working the front desk in the morning around ten a.m. when Sally comes in to look around. He inputs her information into the computer, including assigning a follow-up task—a text message or email. Two afternoons later, Micah comes in to work, opens the computer, and checks all tasks assigned to that afternoon. He notes that there was an automatic text sent to Sally, who has responded with plans to come in and sign up that night. The nightshift worker is able to check all notes made about Sally when she arrives, thus creating a feeling of organization and cohesiveness for the customer about the club.

Alternatively, Sally may have been debating between two health clubs. When she receives the follow-up text, she decides to go with your club, because she perceives a high level of customer service.

Health club management software is something no health club owner should do without. While health club software most often includes other useful functions, such as employee record-keeping, class scheduling, and customer check in, you should definitely look for software that also allows you to manage customer records and leads. Your to-do list will thank you.

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There’s much about “selling” in the 21st Century that has become tangled. “Price presentation” and “deal-offering” now precede “value advancement.” Club sales personnel think that they have to tour a potential member through a maze of steel and Naugahyde before he/she can make a decision! Sales reps are taught to “overcome objections” rather than find out facts.

To which I say: Baloney! Foolish!
Modern selling actually needs to return to earlier-era professional sales approaches. In those approaches, the first concept that sales personnel (regardless of age, sex, or type of personality) mastered was “qualifying the prospective customer.”

What does that mean – qualify?
It means find out about the customer first – even before you “tour” him/her. What promoted him to come in today? How does he or she feel about themselves in relation to exercise? What gets in the way of him participating in an exercise program in your club?

There are four (4) basic steps that any salesperson – regardless of length of service, whether a “veteran” or a “rookie” – can use to qualify any possible buyer.
A genuine “prospect” exhibits four (4) definite characteristics (think of the acronym N-M-T-U):

1. NEED- The person considering buying genuinely has to know he/she needs/wants this product or service.
2. MONEY- The person considering buying has funds to pay for the product or service, either up front in full, or on a continuous/scheduled-payment basis.
3. TIME- The person considering buying is willing to devote specific time to participate/use the …product or service being offered.
4. URGENCY- The person considering buying wants to buy now.

Remember, please remember that you are NOT selling memberships. You are conducting a personal interview with a human being who is attempting to find out if what you have to offer meets what he/she perceives to be their needs. If, in the personal interview process, each of these four aspects is not satisfied…you do not have a prospect – you merely have an “interested person” (I call them “suspects!”). If you fail to engage each and all of these four principles, it’s likely that in 60% of circumstances, you’ll have a “walk-out” leave without buying because he/she felt that you were trying to sell them rather than get to know them and provide space for them to make a good decision.

Even if a person does buy without being qualified, there’s a strong chance that he or she will cancel membership within a few months. One of the facets of modern selling that is of uppermost importance is that the customer expresses satisfaction with the sales process itself…it seems to add “value” to the purchase – at least in the customer’s mind.

(Michael Scott Scudder is Founder/CEO of Fitness Business Council, the independent club business network. Michael can be contacted at 575-751-1212 or mss@fitnessbusinesscouncil.com.)

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We were asked recently to conduct a health club sales training class on ethical selling practices. The following are some of the points that came out of that training seminar/workshop.

Whenever I conduct a training class of this nature, I start by asking each person in attendance the first thing that pops into their head when the word “sales” is mentioned. I am always amazed at the negative descriptions many people use for sales.

I get the sense that this negative perception some health club people have about sales is used as a permission slip to “just get the sale.” Here is what came from the training session:

1. Don’t intentionally misrepresent anything.
   Never. Never, never, never lie to a health club member or guest. About anything. Ever. Period. That should be pretty straightforward.
2. Make it a priority to fix any significant misunderstandings that you can.
   It’s possible that your member or guest will form incorrect ideas or beliefs about your health club.

   It’s very tempting, when these misunderstandings work in your favor, to ignore them. On the important issues that impact the membership sale, allowing misunderstandings to exist is called an act of passive dishonesty. Correct them when you can.

3. Without exception, you should work hard for the health club owner.
   It’s easy for a health club salesperson to give in to the temptation to cut corners when it comes to working a full day, every day. After all, who really knows if you make your first prospect call at 9:00 A.M. instead of 8:30 A.M.?

   A code of ethics is easy to live by when the club owner is watching. But it’s a real test of character when your ethics are tested in situations where no one else knows, and you know you can get away with it. You owe your club owner consistent, full days of your best efforts at the health club. Anything less is unethical. Do the right thing when no one is watching.

4. If you say you’ll do something, do what you say you are going to do.
   This isn’t as easy as it sounds. In its’ simplest form, don’t over promise. That’s difficult to do when you’re in the middle of a competitive situation over a big corporate sale, and you know the health club around the corner is over promising to get the sale. But, if you’re going to be an ethical health club salesperson, you won’t over promise, because you know you won’t be able to do what you say you’re going to do.
5. No one does it alone, recognize those who help you.
   It’s easy to get into the mind-set that you alone are responsible for your health club selling success. After all, you’re out there all alone, fighting the membership sales battle every day. Nobody else knows what good work you did following up to get that sale, or how hard it is some days when nothing goes your way.

   In spite of this, you couldn’t do your job without the support of a staff of people at the front desk, on the workout floor, in maintenance, etc. Your health club owner gave you an opportunity and nurtured you along. I’m sure the front desk has cleaned up more than a few of your messes, and they have positively impacted many of your new members and guests.

   All of these health club support staff has contributed in significant ways to your success in selling memberships. It is just as dishonest to not recognize them as it is to misrepresent the health club.

6. Be coachable and willing to continuously learn and improve.
   You are not as good at health club sales as you can be. You have yet to reach your potential in the health club industry. One of the reasons why the club owner hired you for membership sales is that they saw potential in you. I believe you have an ethical obligation, not only to the health club owner but also to yourself, to become as good as you can be… to continuously improve yourself. When you decide that you are good enough, that you know about all you need to know about health club sales, you quit learning and improving. And when that happens, you rob yourself and your health club of that potential you have that will not be developed. You’re either getting better or you’re getting worse. There is no in between.

Now, let’s get ready to sell. Ethically.

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Fitness management & Consulting

After having interviewed thousands of potential salespeople over the years on behalf of client clubs…and after having hired and helped to supervise many of them…and after having trained them and worked beside them, I have found there are certain qualities that every star health club salesperson possesses.

One of the secrets is don’t be tricked by what they know relative to fitness or the health club industry, and don’t be blinded by how they look. Instead, concentrate on who they are. Here you go:

1. Will they do the right thing when no one is watching? Do they have integrity?

Members and guests appreciate and want to deal with honest people. Fast talkers will come and go. Hard closers will get some sales, but will create some ill will… experts in fitness will help us understand, but the thing that draws us to do business with a person, more than anything else, is that person’s integrity. We know that we will be dealt with fairly and honestly.

2. Do they have a high energy level? Are they a self-starter? What kind of work ethic do they have?

Whether we like it or not, it is still true, to a large degree, sales in the health club business, is a numbers game. Every health club sales person must talk to a certain number of people in order to sell one.

So, the element of volume is very important to a successful health club sales person. Given two salespeople of equal skills, experience, intelligence, product knowledge, etc.; the one who works the hardest will be more successful.

There is no substitute for hard work. Sometimes, the difference between one sales person being successful and another being unsuccessful comes down to quantity of sales efforts.

3. Are they coachable? Do they have the ability to learn?

I’m not talking about the kind of knowledge that you get in school. For the successful health club salesperson, the ability to learn means the ability to evaluate a situation, and then to modify or make adjustments in the way they do things as a result. Can they think quickly on their feet?

In today’s health club environment, there are a number of areas in which a good salesperson must continually be inquiring, learning, and changing their behavior.

The first of these are their personal sales skills. Health Club sales is an area of endeavor where a person is never as good as they could be. There is always some skill that can be learned or improved upon. The successful health club salesperson never considers themselves to have arrived, but is constantly looking for ways to refine and improve their sales skills. It’s a continuous learning process.

The health club salesperson must learn how to change their behavior to meet the needs, drives, and personalities of the club guests and members. The successful health club salesperson is a chameleon. They change their behavior, and to some extent, their personality to meet the ways in which different guests and members need for them to behave.

4. Do they have the ability to build positive relationships? Do they have a winning attitude?

The successful health club salesperson is the individual who can quickly build trusting relationships with all sorts of people in the community and inside the club. That requires empathy, the ability to listen, perceptiveness, and the ability to mold themselves into the kind of person the prospect and club member needs.

Those are relationship-building skills. And the most successful health club salespeople are relationship builders.

5. Do they have a self-image of success? Do they see themselves capturing every sale?

People tend to live up to their image of themselves. We all understand that.

Every one of us can think of people in our own lives who have lots of ability and potential, but who never live up to that potential because of their poor self-image.

Somewhere, they developed a poor self-image, and began to think of themselves as incompetent, unable, or unworthy.

6. Do they really want to be in sales? What is their personal motivation?

The best health club salespeople all have within them a drive to excel, to be the best. They have a desire to persuade others. They have a desire… to get you to see their way of thinking.

It’s that internal motivation that drives all the other qualities of the superstar salesperson. And that drive to succeed is far more powerful than any of the other qualities. Given a strong internal motivation, sooner or later the health club salesperson that is driven to success will succeed. It’s only a matter of time.

Now, add that internal drive, with an ability to learn, an image of success and achievement, a high energy level, personal integrity, and add the ability to create strong business relationships, and you have the ingredients of a superstar health club salesperson.

And should you find a salesperson like this, get ready, because they will make your health club the most interesting it has been in a long time…and, oh by the way, profitable.

Now, go find that health club superstar.

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As I travel the country and have the opportunity to sit in on numerous sales meetings, I have noticed an all too common occurrence in health clubs… the majority of the club sales staff have a genuine dislike for the meetings.

Most health club salespeople don’t know why they are being asked to sit through weekly or monthly meetings. From their viewpoint, these sales meetings consisted of nothing but boring discussions without meaningful decisions, bull sessions about the local sports team or unresolved debate.

After giving this some thought, here is what I observed about how NOT to conduct a health club sales meeting:

1. No advanced agenda for the sales meeting.
   This is very common as many health club managers will simply try and “wing it.” Your health club sales staff will be unable to contribute effectively to a particular discussion because they won’t know the subject matter in advance. The idea is to put your salespeople in a position to be successful. Lack of preparation from management will result in frustration and poor decision-making.
2. Failure to adhere to the established agenda.
   The morning of each sales meeting we were presented with the meeting’s agenda. We rarely stuck to those topics, and often got behind. The majority of the time was wasted.
3. Lack of a marketing and sales plan for your health club.
   I do not remember any cohesive marketing programs or plan of action, which would increase our club market share or prospect/member awareness. It was difficult to generate excitement in the club.
4. No business fun in your sales meeting.
   We had four talented, capable managers, who wanted to succeed and make money. There was no “motivational speaker” or trainer or consultant brought in to help us grow personally, to get outside our habits and look for innovative ways to grow our business.
5. No follow up from the top.
   The Owner and the VP of Sales were great people. We became friends. But they had no action plan to work with us outside the club to identify markets, increase networking or improve corporate sales. We may or may not see them in the club between meetings.

From these experiences with health clubs across the country, I have three recommendations for effective sales meetings in your club:

1. Identify and promote a specific and definite objective for each meeting.
2. Keep it short and stick to the business of your health club. Generate excitement to make the meeting personally rewarding and health club profitable.
3. Follow up with a management presence in your health club to reinforce the initiatives or the plans decided in the sales meetings.

Salespeople in your health club need to be accountable and feel supported. Now, go have a great sales meeting!

Jim Thomas’ Fitness Management & Consulting
www.fmconsulting.net

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It’s always interesting to see the different ways health clubs across the country go about selling a membership. Most that struggle in the sales process have made the process overwhelming and complicated without even realizing it. Most that do well in the sales process seem to have figured out a way to make the entire process very simple.

So, before you continue reading, I’d like you to take a moment right now and decide whether you think selling a health club membership is simple or complicated?

Ok, please continue.

People demand the simple in their lives and they see the value in simplicity. Simplicity sells and people who visit your health club are even willing to pay more money for things to be simplified.

Now let’s come back to selling a health club membership and whether it is complicated or simple.

I think that many health club owners have been convinced that selling a membership is difficult and complicated but we also use the perspective that selling a membership is complicated as an excuse to miss the sale. Let me explain this a bit further.

Many health club owners have been told selling a membership is difficult, overwhelming and complicated. They have been convinced that:

• As the health club facilities and services we are selling get more and more complicated…and the competition increases, the selling of these complicated and highly competitive facilities and services must by definition get more complicated as well.
• As the number of people involved in making a single buying decision increases (husband/wife, corporate sales), the more complicated the selling of a membership becomes.

Since many owners have been convinced that selling a health club membership is complicated, they start to believe they need a complicated membership sales process and complicated sales tools in order to effectively sell. As a result, lots of health clubs do not maximize an opportunity that is right in front of them.

Complexity in the sales process provides us with many additional sources of excuses and gives us the ability to cover up our failures in the sales process. If you are selling complicated facilities and services at your health club, you can use the excuse that a prospect failed to see the value of your health club because the facilities and services are so complicated and overwhelming. If it is taking a long time for your prospect to make a decision to join, you can make the excuse that selling a membership is complicated as there are lots of people involved (husband/wife, corporate). You could go on and on making excuses because selling a health club membership is complicated.

I would like to say to any health club owner, manager or salesperson that selling a health club membership is not in fact complicated; it is in fact quite simple.

Even if the facilities you are selling are overwhelming and complicated, so what? You are not selling a complicated facility or service; you are selling a solution to a problem. You’re selling strategy, a plan and focus is around the solution to your prospect’s problem and not around your complicated or overwhelming facility. Whether your health club is complicated with every piece of equipment imaginable or just a simple workout studio should not be relevant to the membership sales conversation.

If you are willing to take on the belief that selling a health club membership is simple and you are prepared to give up the excuses you can use if you believe selling is complicated, then what is your next step?

I suggest that you look at the membership sales process you are using and if it is complicated, replace it with a proven, simple membership sales process. Find something that can be effectively used by everyone on your staff.

Commit yourself to finding and learning a simple, beginning-to-end, membership sales process that focuses on selling solutions, benefits and results to the prospect (as opposed to selling facility and price) and which works whether one or more people are involved in the buying decision. If you do, you will naturally be a lot more successful at selling health club memberships and you will enjoy it a lot more too.

Selling a health club membership really is simple and simple sells. Now, try it and see.

Jim Thomas’ Fitness Management & Consulting

fmconsulting.net

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