In my high school years, me and my friends would spend our weekends at malls and nightclubs picking up girls and getting numbers.
We were salesmen, selling the fact we were interesting, fun to be around and decent enough for us to have their phone number.
Then we would wait 3 days to call…(you don’t want to look desperate)
Eventually chat on the phone, maybe go out on a few dates and maybe after a few months get “lucky.”
I wish I knew how to sell better when I was younger because I could have shortened the process much more! (I’m married now to the same women I picked up 10 years ago BTW)
I believe sales and marketing is similar to dating.
Really, I got this idea from a book called “The Game” about pick-up artist (Great read). Whenever they would pick up someone from the club, they wouldn’t simply take them home right away.
Nope, they would take them to go eat and maybe to another club and then home.
Because by this time, it’s like they’ve been on 3 dates and seen each other in different circumstances and situations to know, like and trust each other.
The “closing” comes naturally.
This is exactly how I envision and orchestrate the sales process at our gym.
When a client walks in they have to like the place right away by meeting someone that can explain everything. Not only are they given a great experience, we give them a t-shirt, some goodies and even a bottle of water.
They are introduced to the coach right away, introduced to the group then after the workout given high fives by everyone.
They’ve seen us in so many different circumstances and situations, doing a fitness consult is just really a formality because they know by now if they want to join.
This is low-resistance selling that focuses less on techniques and tactics to ask for the sale.
You can hire less experienced sales people (which I prefer to experienced and ego driven ones)
And you create expectations of great service, which will differentiate yourself from the competition in a class of your own.
Here are some simple things you can implement right now to make the process seamless:
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Do you have an email autoresponder sent out after someone visits your location?
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Do you provide an amazing experience from hand-shakes to introductions on their first visit
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Do you phone to confirm whether they can make it out to the scheduled consult
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Do they get any swag on their first visit?
Constantly ask yourself “What can I do to make my sales process effortless and automatic?”
Good luck with creating a world class experience, all you single people out there can thank me later for this blog post.