Far too often, our sales employees try to impress our guests with their knowledge of fitness and the facility. However, we must ensure that they are genuinely interested in finding out exactly what our guests want. Far too often, we train our team members on just the process, and not the intent behind it.
A few points to go over:
- The correct way to greet our guests.
- What questions to ask when qualifying a prospect.
- How to summarize and highlight our clubs while on tour.
- How to properly present membership options.
- How to overcome objections or concerns.
In training, we often skip over the fundamentals of sales. The fundamentals do two things: truly discover the needs of a prospect, and then communicate how those needs can be met through a membership — making it a win-win situation.
When qualifying, the goal is simple, but very difficult if not prepared. Create a conversation that leads to the sales team member getting to know what their guest is looking for, while building a genuine relationship.
What if your sales person doesn’t care?
- Then you hired the wrong person. If you hired the wrong team member, and this sales person doesn’t genuinely care about helping people, then this training will fall on deaf ears. If they try to fake it, they will come across insincere, and in some cases, make their guest uncomfortable.
Isn’t that why we prepare them with the correct questions to ask?
- People buy from people they like and trust, and those that genuinely care about their guests will accomplish this. We just need to let them know how to convey it without sounding like we are just peppering them with questions.
How do we get our sales team members to ask questions that lead into open conversations?
- It’s not the questions we need to worry about. Far too often our sales staff asks questions with the intent of using the guests’ responses against them later in the sales process. That’s listening with the intent to respond, versus listening with the intent to understand. Poor sales people just like asking questions to tie their guests down.
If this conversation is comfortable and informative, the sales person now knows what parts of the club to discuss in detail, and which to give a quick overview on. The areas in detail will be conversations, as opposed to presentations.
If done correctly, this process will minimize the amount of membership options that your sales person will need to present, and make the enrollment process simple and painless for the guest. This also sets the foundation of two-way communication, so if the guest needs more information to make their decision, they can comfortably talk through it with the sales consultant.
To gauge your current sales team, try sitting down with them one-on-one. Tell them that you’d like to have a conversation on how they qualify their guests before taking them on a tour. If it sounds like an episode out of your favorite cop show, you’ll know where to start.
Ryan Junk is the director of sales for UFC Gym. He can be reached at ryan@ufcgym.com.
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Rachel Zabonick-Chonko is the editor-in-chief of Club Solutions Magazine. She can be reached at rachel@peakemedia.com.
