You can have the nicest gym in town, with the best equipment money can buy, and the most qualified and highly trained staff, but without any members or clients, none of it will matter. You will end up closing or selling and won’t be able to change any lives.
Sales are the most important aspect of your business. Of all businesses. Think of any industry, any company, and notice who gets treated the best and makes the most money: the salespeople — if they perform, that is. But without an element of pressure, a job can get boring pretty quickly.
In order to keep the lights on, the heat working and the equipment functioning, you need a steady flow of revenue. Keeping the revenue coming regularly all starts with the right mindset. “We change lives, but it all starts with sales.” You need to give tours and sell memberships. It all begins there.
Let me give you seven things that are necessary in order to have a “Sales-First Culture.”
- At least one person dedicated to membership acquisition. Even in a small training gym, you need one person who spends almost all of his or her time on getting the door to swing open. This person has a positive attitude, a solid work ethic and responds well to challenges and goal setting.
- Someone who sells personal training. Find a trainer with sales skills — willingness to try and who is not afraid of money — and funnel all personal training sales leads through this person.
- A leader who plans, trains and inspects. This person can be a membership salesperson or a personal training salesperson. But he or she needs to be the one who sets the plans and goals, trains and coaches staff on a regular basis so they reach their goals, and inspects the production on a daily basis to ensure the plan is working.
- A price presentation book. This may seem superfluous, but it is imperative that you sit down with prospects after a tour and present on pre-printed price sheets. This goes for both simple access memberships and personal training sales. No writing the prices down; it needs to look professional.
- Sales tables. Again, this may seem superfluous, but I have seen many gyms not present properly. Sit the prospect down, not at a desk, but at a table. Sit adjacent to the prospect and you will create a more comfortable presentation. For personal training sales, which are often in a room or office, leave the door open (unless you’re measuring body fat).
- A cleaning crew. Everybody pitches in, but you don’t want your production employees (which is pretty much everybody) to spend their time with a mop in their hands. Your gym is never as clean as it could be, and never as clean as members want it, but outsource it and let your salespeople sell.
- All production employees, starting with the leader, need to be on the same page regarding the most important thing to be doing at any given time in your gym.
A simple list of five things that you can print and put somewhere in your gym so all employees can see it will go a long way. Train them to work down this list throughout the day and you will see production increase:
- Sell somebody something (memberships, beverages, protein, etc.)
- Service a member: Does anybody need help with equipment, a billing issue, etc.?
- Follow up: Go through your pipeline, call and e-mail to set up tours so you can sell and then service.
- Prepare the club: Get it ready for the next session, class, tour, etc.
- Clean: When everything is done, grab a rag and clean something.
Please e-mail me jason@jasonlinse.com for a free copy of my “7 steps to GIGANTIC gym profits” eBook.
And keep changing lives.
Jason Linse is president and founder of The Business of Fitness, a consulting company. He graduated from Minnesota State University with a degree in public health and corporate wellness. He started working in the fitness industry in 1995. In 2005, Linse started with Snap Fitness at its headquarters, helping them grow from 14 locations to 1,100 locations by October 2010, when he left to start the Business of Fitness. Linse also owned a gym for two and a half years before becoming a consultant. He also owns a personality assessment company called People Plus+ Fitness. He can be reached at jason@jasonlinse.com or at 612-310-1319. Visit www.jasonlinse.com.
