How-to Make Your Services a Hot Commodity

I was recently asked a number of questions about my sales presentation that I present to new potential clients. For years I was maintaining a very high close ratio with new potential clients. The great service I provided and the results were generating a lot of referrals, so to keep up I essentially had to develop ways to efficiently handle my initial meetings with new potential clients. Kind of by accident my sales presentation was born.

There are different opinions about whether you should have any kind of formal presentation or not, I choose to but that doesn’t mean it’s the only way that it works. Since the inception of One-to-1 Fitness I now rarely meet with new potential clients, this is the role of our program manager. Having a set presentation allowed me to script or plan many finite details of the process which now allow him to maintain a steady 85-91% close ratio with no real prior sales experience.

You can do the same; you just have to understand how your potential client is feeling.

1)      They are feeling your services are awfully expensive.

2)      They are worried that you may not deliver on your promises and they will wind up getting nothing for their money.

3)      (Especially if you are solo personal trainer) They are wondering if you are truly a legitimate business and will they see good value.

My opinion has always been that by attempting to make your service a tangible solid item you increase the perceived value and legitimacy of what you do with your prospect. With all the bad trainers that are out there I think this is a pretty critical component for your long term success in this industry.

What makes you different or better than other trainers?

For me it’s my attention to posture and muscle imbalances has created an individualized training approach where people lose weight and feel great but usually eliminate aches and pains and learn a tonne about their body along the way. This philosophy has become deep rooted in the image of our studio One-to-1 Fitness. So our presentation demonstrates this value and solidifies the image.

New potential clients are met with a binder full of pages that display and explain the different methods of testing we perform, details of the program, and tools for accountability and support. My program manager explains why this is important to them, how it makes us different, and how it guarantees their results.

In essence we have established our image, demonstrated value, and reassured them against their greatest fears. Because the pages are well organized in a nice leather binder and printed in colour (and happen to display testimonials on every single page to validate our results along with nicely displaying our money back guarantee to reduce and eliminate objections before they occur) you can quickly see how this demonstrates tangible value to our potential client. At the same time it also allows a repeatable format to follow to which I can teach staff to repeat and modify accordingly to improve the results.

It doesn’t stop there though. Many of the materials displayed in the presentation are also forms and tools used to develop client programs and provide them accountability. So when they come in for their very first appointment we solidify this program even further by giving them a completely personalized package with all these forms and materials. Actually receiving this physical package alleviates much of the natural feelings of buyer’s remorse when we make a big purchase. It further legitimizes our services, creates value, and also becomes a topic of conversation with family and friends. That same tool we used to create value now takes another role and helps us generate more referrals.

This is a very brief overview of one of the ways we have made our intangible service a physical commodity in high demand, something for you to consider as you grow your own business.