Your personal trainers, front desk workers, and childcare room attendants aren’t just personal trainers, front desk workers, and childcare room attendants. They’re also salespeople — or at least can be. But are your fitness business staff members doing everything they can to recruit new members, sell products and services, and build member loyalty? These five tips can help you optimize the impact of your staff when it comes to optimizing fitness business growth.
1. Create a sales culture.
While your fitness business may not be Glengarry Glen Ross’s Premiere Properties, there’s still plenty of room for your fitness staff to “always be selling” — even if they don’t think of themselves as salespeople. The best way to change this mindset? Educate them.
Contends fitness business owner Rob Bishop for Inc., “Too many employees have never made the connection between their role and sales for their company. Not only is it your responsibility to help them connect the dots, but you need to also help them see how increasing sales benefits everyone, creating security, opportunity, and stability for them. So start by explaining this to your team. Share stories of how people in the company helped do just that. Celebrate the successes of non-sales staff who help generate more business. Reinforce this into the culture of your company.”
2. Embrace the “elevator pitch.”
“An elevator pitch can be one of the simplest yet most powerful tools for a small business owner,” says The Balance. And while the majority of your staff may not be salespeople, the fact remains that they’re in a position to sell. So why not set them up for success by devising an at-the-ready elevator pitch for your employees?
“In any company, it’s vital that every single person knows your elevator pitch. They need to be able to explain, in about 30 seconds or less, what it is that you do. Maybe their ‘real job’ is a software engineer, or an administrative assistant, or newly-hired accountant. But their secondary job is to be a salesperson for the product that your company provides,” adds FullContact.
3. Have a script.
On a similar note, do your employees know how to respond when a member or potential member asks about pricing or a new service? There’s no bigger turn-off than an unauthoritative, fumbled-through answer — or, even worse — an “I don’t know.” To avoid this unfortunate situation, have a script for everything. The more knowledgeable your employees are, the better positioned they’ll be to deliver an effective message that builds rapport and trust with your constituents.
4. Nurture “brand ambassadors.”
Now more than ever before, we are living in the age of “social.” Today’s consumers don’t want what they perceive as an empty sales pitch; they want “social proof” that your products and services deliver on their promises. There’s no better way to demonstrate this than by enlisting your staff members as spokespeople and brand ambassadors. Encourage them to suggest their favorite classes and to recommend the products they use and love. This approach can be particularly effective for staff members who resist the idea of selling. In this case, they’re not selling but sharing.
5. Try and try again.
While selling comes naturally to some people, for others the mere prospect of doing so can elicit feelings of dread. The simplest way to get over this obstacle? Practice. Knowledge alone is not enough. Applying this knowledge, however, is everything.
Continues Bishop, “The more practice everyone gets at customer interactions, the better they are. We role-play phone calls, tours, signing the contract, explaining the cancellation policy, and everything else we can think of. We script it all to make it as easy as possible for everyone, and then we make them practice, and we discuss in real time what happens day to day. The practice and feedback doesn’t stop.”
Ultimately, you don’t have to be a trained salesperson to make a compelling case for fitness business membership. Anyone can do it — particularly if they believe in what you’re asking them to sell. Another compelling fitness marketing selling point for 21st-century gyms, health care facilities, and other fitness businesses? Fitness monitoring capabilities. To learn more about what Accurofit can do for you, request a demo today and learn more.
