Here are a few quick tips that might help you prepare for the New Year:
1. Flood the market now with offers from your sales team. I like hitting two or three industries and making sure everyone gets the “gift of fitness” from your club. You could target banks, hair salons and school teachers. The choices are unlimited. Give everyone one a free one month pass that activates when they come in. The goal is to get as many people to visit in December and have their pass end in January. Continue this for January and February. This offer has nothing to do with what the marketing department is doing. This offer is strictly a free gift by sales reps doing their own marketing. Each sales rep can hand out several hundred one-month passes. The results are always high, because so many people are looking to start a fitness program the first of the year.
2. Go back over all old leads. So many people who said “no” or “not now” will have a change of heart this time of year. So many people’s circumstances change monthly, but everyone knows the first of the year is the time to change. It’s the time to make resolutions, and it’s the time to join a health club. Take advantage of all the sentiment and contact everyone who at one time was a prospect. The worst thing they could say is “no” or “not now.”
3. Increase your referral incentive. Existing members want to bring people to the club, so give them incentives. Each of your members have friends who want to come to your facility. Often those leads are sitting dormant because no one is talking to anyone about your club. Wake everyone up! Give everyone an opportunity to talk. Get your members excited to talk to their friends. Never will there be another month where so many people will say “yes,” just because it’s January. We all know that there are great times to market, but there is not a better time than now for your sales reps to do external marketing, internal marketing and referral marketing.
Chuck Hall is the executive director at Big Vanilla Athletic Clubs.
