Why are you here? Well, as a membership sales person the answer is easy. You are here to sell memberships and create positive relationships to keep members engaged and enjoying their membership. As a potential member you are here seeking an experience that improves your overall health and lifestyle making your life better. In my years of selling memberships and training membership sales people, I have compiled a list of best practices that ensure success. If you want to sell more memberships and create longer lasting memberships, follow these simple guidelines.
- Be consistent in your full sales presentation. If you want to be the best at anything you must have consistent good habits. Each and every sale should be methodical. Greet the guest, listen carefully to their needs and what they are seeking from your club, tour the club, present membership options and close the sale.
- Be friendly. This sounds simple, but consistently being friendly and welcoming is essential to maximizing your sales. Find a common ground with the prospect, create a positive connection and don’t forget to always smile.
- Act like you are excited to be there. We all have bad days, but the client should never know you are having one. To the prospect this should be the best day of their life. They are joining your club and on their way to a healthier lifestyle. Get the prospect excited about reaching their goal!
- Stay professional. So many things go into a professional demeanor. A few include your personal appearance, speaking professionally and treating the customer with respect are just a few.
- Find out why the prospect wants to accomplish their fitness goals. The most powerful skill of any salesperson is the skill of active listening. So, ask questions and listen more than you talk. When the prospect says that they want to lose 20 pounds you should always ask why. There is always an important reason behind why someone wants to reach a goal, and if you can convince them that your facilities and programs will help them do what they want, they will join.
- Give a great tour. There are two things that you should do on every tour. First, you should relate how your facilities and programs are going to help the prospect achieve their goal. For example, if a prospect’s goal is to rehabilitate from an injury, you should introduce them to the fitness manager and discuss what their rehabilitation program will look like and what equipment they will be using. Secondly, you should use trial closes. Trial closes are basically statements or questions that assume that the prospect will be joining the club. For example, while you are on your tour you can ask the prospect, “What days do you plan to workout,” or when beginning your tour you can show the prospect a membership card and say, “This is what your membership card will look like.”
- Ask for the sale and close it. It’s surprising how so many salespeople don’t ask for the sale. If you don’t ask, you won’t sell the membership. Always ask! You should present the prices and give two or three options. For example, you could say, “this is our paid-in-full option and our other option is our monthly payment plan — which one is better for you?”
These guidelines are important to all sales team members. Rookies can use them to develop good habits and veteran team members can use them as a refresher to get out of a sales slump. Wherever you are in your career, consistency in presentation, listening and asking for the sale are all good habits that will equal success.
