Imagine spying on your front desk person (or receptionist) and noticing that they totally ignored a prospect as they entered and inquired about your club. You watched the entire process happen right before your eyes. You watched the prospect walk into your club’s front door, approach your front desk area, then walk around the front desk, even avoiding the gate or check-in system you have. You watched them start to wander around your club unnoticed, unapproached by any employees!
The prospect continued to walk around and check out the free weight area, the machines – even walked into the locker room. Again, the entire time the prospect was totally ignored by not only your front desk person, but all your other employees too. Everyone in your club simply ignored the prospect!
But, it didn’t stop there. After a short while, the prospect walked into one of your sales offices. They reached over the desk, shuffled through the sales materials, and picked up your club brochure, your business card and even your entire list of membership and personal training prices. After that, taking the sales materials and prices, and after seeing your whole club, the prospect walked out the front door (right past all your employees) totally unnoticed and unobserved! No one said, “Can I help you?” or “Would you mind completing this questionnaire?” They just completely ignored the prospect and watched them walk in and out of your club unnoticed!
Chances are, if this were to happen in your club, you would blow your top! First, you would probably fire the employee (or employees) that allowed a hot “ready-tojoin” prospect literally walk in and out of your club virtually un-noticed! Second, you would get even more frustrated knowing they watched the prospect walk in, walk all around the club and even gather the sales materials and brochures without even being questioned! Third, you would really be upset because after all the training and effort you give to your employees about proper sales procedures, they still failed miserably and even lost you and your business money by allowing this to happen. What a catastrophe it would be if your employees ignored prospects as they came into your club, don’t you agree?
With all that said, what would you say if I told you that I’m almost positive that this is happening in your club! That’s right. Prospects are walking into your club, looking around, and taking all the information they want without you even knowing it! Okay, I admit, maybe it’s not happening in your actual club, but I can almost guarantee it’s happening on your website!! Which to me is just as bad.
Take a second and check out some of the club websites out there. Many have glamorous design, fancy technology, bios and pictures of every employee, prices, sophisticated technology, movies, audio, you name it. But these elaborate sites are missing one important quality: Marketing savvy! Remember, fancy websites that don’t attract and convert prospects into members are like a fancy brochure sitting in the middle of an empty parking lot somewhere…worthless.
Your website, like a powerful marketing piece, must not give too much information. It must get prospects to take action! Your website must leave the prospect curious and entice them to either call you, email you, visit your club, or complete a Web form. This “enticement” must happen within seconds of their arrival. How do you do this? Simple, within your marketing materials, offer them something they want and make them go to your site to get it. Then, in exchange for what they want, get their contact information! Isn’t that what we do when a prospect visits our club? When a prospect walks into your club, what do they want? They want information and prices. We don’t just give it to them. We give them a “tour” first. But, before we give the tour, we get their information (goals, name, contact info, etc.). We don’t allow prospects to wander our club unnoticed, why would we let them wander around our website unnoticed?
To avoid this, offer a free pass or discount on your website, but before you give them the actual pass or discount (or whatever), capture their information first so you can continue the marketing process and follow-up appropriately. Capturing prospect contact information is the first step to converting your website visitors into new club members. Make sure your website captures information then followup immediately to get prospects into your club to join.
Pat Necerato is a Sales and Marketing Expert with over 15 years of experience in the fitness industry. He can be contacted at 866.468.2832, or go to www.GetMoreMembers.com and get his FREE Marketing Video & Report.
