Kory Angelin, the president of The DRIPBaR, shares two ways to sell more memberships in the health and wellness industry.
Why are memberships important to any business? It’s the predictability of recurring revenue. Having a guaranteed amount of revenue each month makes it much easier to set goals for growth and profitability. That said, no one goes to school to learn how to sell more memberships, and very often, salespeople find it hard to close a deal.
There are ways, however, to coach your staff in your sales process. This will ultimately make it easier for someone to say yes to your product or service. With that in mind, let’s look at two ways to help sell more memberships.
1. Perfecting Your Needs Analysis
What is a needs analysis? It should be a series of questions you ask a customer that revolves around them and not what you have to sell. This is where most salespeople in the health and wellness industry go wrong.
If you’ve ever mystery shopped a competitor, chances are the person on the phone spends most of the time talking about what they have to sell and the amazing promos they have to offer when it comes to pricing. The reality is 90% of any first conversation with a potential member should be about them and their goals.
One tip is to use a simple acronym to make sure you don’t forget key questions to ask. The acronym S.U.P.S. is a great way to methodically walk through a line of questioning that revolves around the customer. Once you accomplish this, it’s a simple pivot to talk about your memberships as a solution.
- S – specific goal: “What is your goal you are looking to achieve?”
- U – underlying motivation: “Why is that your specific goal?”
- P – past experience: “Do have experience with this before?”
- S – strategy: “Do you think having a strategy or plan moving forward will help you?”
Stick to these types of questions and you will build a better rapport and trust with a customer. This will result in them becoming a member more often.
2. Referrals
Want to know the most overlooked sales tip in trying to increase memberships? One of the hottest leads in any business is a referral. After all, a person just joined and purchased a membership, so trust is at its highest. This is the time to ask if they have any friends or family they want to refer.
The reality, however, is the number one reason people don’t get referrals is because they don’t ask. It’s one of the scariest statistics in sales. What if you asked every new member for a referral? You would significantly increase the number of members month over month.
How can you remember to do this though? Automation messaging, for example, is a great way to trigger a referral response. Set an automated text or email in the first week to be sent to any new member asking for a referral. In return, you can be creative in what the member gets as a reward (i.e., $25 credit toward retail). The key to getting more referrals is to simply remember to ask.
