When someone comes into your gym, there’s a good chance asking the right sales questions will enable you to close the sale. But, the minute you start talking to them, they may instantly shut down and run for the door.

Why does this happen?

The average consumer is very smart. They can smell a sales pitch a mile away. But, if you’re able to ask the right sales questions, there’s a good chance you can sway them without much hesitation.

Because face it, consumers may know what they want, but they have too many options.  So it may be hard to differentiate yourself from your competitors.

This is why, asking the right sales questions in your initial meeting, could help uncover the core needs your potential lead has. For example, if you uncover those core needs, you can show them how your gym can help them accomplish their core needs.

Those 10 questions include:

1. What brought you in today?
2. What are your short and long-term goals?
3. What would it mean to you to reach your desired goals?
4. What have you tried in the past? And why weren’t you successful?
5. What do you like about your current gym or workout situation?
6. What weaknesses do they have that have prevented you from being successful?
7. What type of relationship do you want to have with trainers and staff here?
8. Do you struggle with motivation?
9. If timeline or budget weren’t issues, what would your ideal solution look like?
10. How soon can we start working with you to reach your goals?

Although there are plenty of other questions you can ask, these 10 can get the conversation started.  This way, you can build a stronger relationship and rapport with your potential prospect.

The more you know about them, their situation, and what drives, and motivates them, the more you can tailor your sales conversation to their unique struggles or pain points.

Take Home Message

When a new lead comes through your door, there are 10 simple questions you should ask to build rapport and put them in a buying state of mind.

For example, the wrong questions might drive them away.  But the right questions could show them you care about their results, and may be a good fit for them.

Start each sales conversation with these 10 questions so you can turn more leads into paying clients.

Now, if you are having trouble getting your staff trained properly so they sell as well as you do, I highly recommend that you download our special report that explains exactly how you can:

CLICK HERE To Get Your Staff To Sell More Like You >>

As a gym owner, personal trainer, or health professional, you’ve already dealt with the principles of behavior change science. A perfect example is: most of your members will start New Year’s resolutions. And a good majority of them will fail on their goals.

Why?

Because they failed to change the behaviors in order to be successful. Instead of focusing on one or two small changes, they focused on the big picture—and didn’t have a clear path to success.

That’s where you come in. As a trainer or even a gym owner, you know how to change a person’s behavior by focusing on the small steps they need to get to the bigger prize. But, in order for them to be successful, you first need to understand where they are in the change process. Once you’ve determined what stage they are in, it’s time to give the proper guidance so they can move closer to their ultimate goal.

In order for you to be successful, you need a basic understanding of the behavior change stages, and how to navigate them.

The stages include:

Pre-Contemplation—the earliest and hardest stage to navigate. In this stage, the person is unaware they have a problem, so they don’t understand how damaging their behavior actually is.

Contemplation—in this stage, people are more aware of their behavior, and how making a change could benefit them.

Preparation—this stage is where they make small changes towards making a big life change. This is the “baby step” stage where a person is making changes, but needs to be motivated to keep going.

Action stage—in this stage, the person is committed to changing and is taking direct action to accomplish their goals. A person will need internal and external motivation to keep moving in the right direction.

Maintenance—during this stage, the client focuses on avoiding the same mistakes they made in the past. This is where they focus on adopting new habits and avoiding temptation.

Relapse—this often happens during any behavior change. Although it may lead to feelings of failure and frustration, it’s important for them to maintain their confidence. Obstacles will happen, but they can’t let them deter them from future success.

If you can help someone make the changes they need to be healthier, then you will ultimately secure a long-term customer and lead generation source.

It’s important to note, however, that behavior change is not just geared to developing healthier habits. It can be an important tool for getting someone to buy your product or service. If they are unaware there is a problem, they won’t look for solutions.

But if you can help them see the problem, and how they can benefit from your services, it may make the process of selling a membership or training package a lot easier.

If you want to see how you can apply Behavior Change Science to grow your business, schedule your complimentary strategy session below. But do so soon, spots are filling up fast:

CLICK HERE To Schedule Your Complimentary Strategy Session To Discuss How You Can Benefit From Behavior Change Science >>

Most gym owners want to be helpful, not annoying, right? You got into fitness to improve people’s lives – not to be an obnoxious salesperson.

But running a successful business requires you to make sales. And, lucky for all of us, there’s more to it than smiling Mr. Selfless on one end of the spectrum – and the used-car salesman in the plaid jacket on the other end.

Too often when it comes to sales, you can feel like your own worst enemy.

The secret is overcoming your self-limiting beliefs – the nonsense we tell ourselves that holds us back from reaching our potential.

Here’s an example. Many fitness professionals think that if they don’t hear back from a prospect after an initial sales call, then the answer must be no.

• “If the prospect wants to join, they’ll call us back, right? They know we’re here.”
• “What else is there to say?”
• “I don’t want to be That Guy and bug him or her.”

Our Success Coaches hear that one a lot. But actually, it’s not true. You’ve got to make multiple follow-ups – often as many as eight!

That’s right – and if you think about it as an ongoing part of the “getting to know you” process, it’ll feel less uncomfortable. It’s not about hounding someone – it’s just simple psychology that’s been proven time and again. Often, we humans need to hear the same message seven or eight times before it sinks into our skulls.

Remember that people are busy and have a lot on their plates every day. Maybe Mrs. Miller meant to call you back, but her kid got sick… or her sink backed up… or she’s a little nervous to ask a simple follow-up question…

It’s probably – almost definitely, totally, 100 percent for sure – NOT ABOUT YOU. And if it is, then Mrs. Miller can either ignore your or say, “No, thank you.” That’s HER decision.

Let yourself off the hook by being genuine about yourself and your intentions; learning how you can help the prospect; and sharing your concern for their health and wellbeing. No used-car salesman ever did that, right?

The simple truth is, you’ve got to gain the confidence to make the sales calls and get the business. It’s one of the top six challenges gym owners face.

Click HERE to discover what the other challenges are.

And, we promise, you won’t become “That Guy.”

Most gym owners come from a training background, not selling. And the same is true generally for the people they hire.

So, after you’ve learned to become a salesman yourself, you’ll want your team members to sell like you do. 

You’ll need a process to train them, give them the necessary tools and confidence, and track progress. Here are five touchstones to guide you.

1. Foster the Right Mindset

Start by clarifying what you’re selling. It’s the support, accountability, and development of an action plan – the benefits of your programs, not just the programs themselves. Show them that prospects can choose to buy from you, buy from a competitor, or stay in their current situation. And finally, create a safe environment to fail, reflect on mistakes, and hone their sales skills.

2. Have an Airtight Sales Strategy

Establish a sales strategy that everyone follows. This leads to consistency and to judging what’s working and what’s not. We recommend Fitness Revolution’s 5-Step Sales Process. It uses principles of behavior change science to build motivation, and to help prospects understand why they need to make a change — so you  can then show why you’re the best solution.

3. Create Sales Conversations with Roleplay and Observation

Like any skills set, sales competency takes practice and repetition. While roleplay can be uncomfortable and not entirely realistic, it’s the best way to get some experience under your team’s belt before putting them in live sales situations.

4. Provide Live Experience

Give your staff the opportunity to sell on their own. The goal here is for them to develop comfort and confidence in executing the sales process, which leads to better sales development and performance. So, start with lay-ups – not those prospects you know will be tricky.

5. Debrief

Debriefing sales conversations is vital for you to keep a pulse on how your sales staff is performing and developing their selling abilities. It also provides you the opportunity to give feedback and sharpen their skills – and to see what you might need to tweak overall.

Finally, remember to check your own mindset.  If you struggle with trusting employees to have effective sales conversations, then you may need to take your time getting to Step 4. Remember that developing your sales game is never “done.” You’ll want to keep investing in your team members and in yourself.

Besides having issues with sales, and the virus, gym owners have been struggling with 5 additional business killers.

Click HERE to discover what they are!

Do you struggle with sales?

Many gym owners do – and it’s easy to see why. They come from a training background, with experience and passion to help people reach fitness goals. Now, as business owners, they find they have to also learn how to sell, and it can be a challenge.

We’ve been there. And we’ve counseled hundreds of gym owners through this awkward phase to become expert, confident salespeople. 

How? With our simple 5-step process. Here’s an outline of how it works.

Step 1: Welcome and Building Rapport.

When you meet your potential client, focus on doing just two things:

• Set the tone by building a genuine connection.
• Set expectations about the meeting and your relationship.

Show that you care about the person and what has brought him or her to you. Ask open-ended questions. Listen. Share a bit about yourself, without shifting focus.

It’s a real conversation, not a sales monologue. You want to draw from your prospects what they want to change – and the emotional component is key. Show that you’re here to help whether they sign or not.

Step 2:  Explore Aspirations.

Encourage your prospect to look to the future and dream a bit. Go beyond something typical and short-term (“I want to lose 15 pounds”) and let him or her describe what life could look like in a year. 

If this takes a little pressing, you’ll find it’s worth it. Share a bit about yourself, if that’s necessary.

This will open them up emotionally and reveal important aspects of their values.

Step 3: Uncover Afflictions.

This flows beautifully from Step 2, so do it at the same time. Explore the tension between what they want and what they do. This identifies the pain points or afflictions that stand in their way.

We all have beliefs about ourselves, but sometimes there’s a gap between our self-image and our behavior. That can motivate us to change our actions to match our self-belief. 

When prospects see this gap, you’ve already helped them immeasurably.

Step 4: Collaborative Evaluation

Together, the two of you will evaluate the pros and cons of the prospect taking action – and of not taking action.

What’s good and bad about getting in shape?

What’s good and bad about continuing everything as it is?

It’s the biggest choice at stake — to change or not. And it has the biggest impact on closing the sale.

Step 5: Recommendations and Commitment

Repackage what your prospect has told you and maybe add a recommendation about, say, small group training twice a week.

Then, share a story about a client who had a similar challenge – and how that person succeeded. 

And finally, pose the commitment question, emphasizing the prospect’s freedom to choose: “Based on what we’ve talked about, what do you see as the next step?” This reinforces the themes we’ve followed all along:

• You’re genuinely concerned about helping them.
• They truly can make the necessary changes.
• It’s their decision to make – no pressure.

That’s a quick summary of our 5-step process. We’d love to talk about it in more depth and share how we can help you achieve your business goals. Schedule a free consultation with one of our Success Coaches today.

We all spend time and effort on social media, websites and blogs to promote our businesses. But there’s another, traditional way to get free exposure to the masses in your area, and it’s often overlooked or dismissed.

That’s free media coverage on TV and radio and in newspapers. Yep, the old dinosaurs still have plenty of value for you – particularly now with so much huge, serious news happening everywhere.

And, you might not realize it, but newsrooms everywhere are understaffed and overworked. They want local, positive stories related to bigger events going on all around us – and businesses helping people stay healthy during a pandemic? Huge. They don’t have time to think about what would be a good idea. They need you to make it easy for them.

In other words: What you do is newsworthy, especially this year. Getting featured or quoted in local media can be highly effective in gaining brand exposure, presenting yourself as a community expert, and building connections.

What makes something newsworthy

The first step in getting the attention of reporters and editors is to come up with a story that fits their needs. They didn’t go to work each morning thinking about how they can promote you or fitness in general. They are probably not aware of what’s trending in fitness – or what you are doing to provide a safe, effective workout to help your community.

They want legitimate news, so make it easy for them to see newsworthy elements, such as:

• Timeliness – Something just happened, is happening, or is about to happen
• Novelty – a new, fresh angle
• Human interest and emotion
• First-best-longest-strongest
• Impact – dollars raised, pounds lost, lives improved

For TV, add in visuals and think about how it looks. People exercising? Responsibly? Happily? GOLD. Examples today include:

• How gyms are helping charities, healthcare workers, and other local businesses through these tough times
• Outdoor exercise classes or group training
• Helping “older” people with online training (This one has it all!)
• If you’re allowed to welcome people into your location, what are you doing to ensure a clean, safe environment?
• Gyms lending or giving equipment to members at home
• Fitness professionals lobbying state and local leaders about Covid-19 restrictions, focusing on how you help people.

Next, you need to contact your local media, whether it’s a big-city newspaper, a free weekly, a radio host, or a TV reporter. Follow these tips.

• Take the time to find the right reporter or editor to email with your pitch. Don’t just call and ask to talk to someone or send an email blindly. Some reporters “cover” local businesses; health and fitness; or “positive” community news. Look for them.
• Point out what makes the story relevant right now or at a specific date in the future (an upcoming annual 10K, a local historic anniversary, etc.) 
• Do not suck up and do not insult. No comments about “lamestream media,” “fake news” or, “I know you don’t like to report when good things happen…”
• Be sure your email has your contact information – email, cell phone, land line, social media.

Even before you start pitching your story

Build relationships with local media people even if you don’t have something specific you want covered. Let them know who you are and what you’re all about, and suggest they keep you on file for when they need to interview a local trainer, businessperson, fitness expert, and so on.

• Follow their social media accounts. “Like” or comment on their posts. But don’t be a stalker or too flattering.
• Always be courteous, transparent and honest. Don’t oversell. Don’t engage in controversy about anything. It will only come back to haunt you.
• Stress how you want to help people, and make clear the key messages you promote about health and fitness.

What you do matters. Sometimes, it’s also newsworthy. So, make the most of this potential to reach a huge audience with your message for free.

Schedule a free consultation with one of our Success Coaches to discuss possibilities in your market and other ways we can help you grow your business now and in the future.

If you borrowed money under the federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), you should know about new changes that give you more flexibility in using the money and paying it back.

President Trump just signed into a law a measure that brings much-needed relief for borrowers. The bill was recently approved in the House and Senate.

Here are some highlights.

• Extension of covered period. PPP borrowers can choose to extend the eight-week period to 24 weeks. The flexibility is designed to make it easier for more borrowers to reach full, or almost full, forgiveness.
• You can spend more of your proceeds on non-payroll costs — but be careful. The payroll expenditure requirement drops to 60% from 75%. Borrowers must spend at least 60% on payroll, or none of the loan will be forgiven. Currently, a borrower is required to reduce the amount eligible for forgiveness if less than 75% of eligible funds are used for payroll costs, but forgiveness isn’t eliminated if the 75% threshold isn’t met. 
• You’ll have longer to replace FTEs/restore salaries: Borrowers can use the 24-week period to restore their workforce levels and wages to the pre-pandemic levels required for full forgiveness. This must be done by Dec. 31, a change from the previous deadline of June 30.
• Businesses that remain partially or fully closed through the end of the year will get new relief: The legislation includes two new exceptions allowing borrowers to achieve full PPP loan forgiveness even if they don’t fully restore their workforce. Previous guidance allowed borrowers to exclude from those calculations employees who turned down good faith offers to be rehired at the same hours and wages as before the pandemic. The new bill allows borrowers to adjust because they could not find qualified employees or were unable to restore business operations of Feb. 15, 2020, due to COVID-19 restrictions.
• Any unforgivable amount has more favorable terms: Borrowers now have five years to repay the loan instead of two. The interest rate remains at 1%.
• You can defer certain payroll taxes even if you received a PPP loan: The revisions  allow businesses that took a PPP loan to also delay payment of payroll taxes, which was prohibited under the CARES Act.

Have questions on making the most of your financial planning? Go here to reserve time to speak with one of our coaches for free! 

If you started offering virtual training during the coronavirus quarantine, you might be among the many gyms planning to continue offering it even after the crisis is over.

So, you might find yourself operating two marketing tracks: one for virtual and another for in-person training.

It might seem like a lot to think about, but we’re here to walk you through it. This was the subject of a recent webinar, and you can watch the video here for a longer discussion. 

Download our free list of resources to protect your business during the COVID-19 crisis.

First: Let’s Review Some Basics

1. Keep doing what has worked in the past. The best starting place is the marketing plan you had before COVID-19. You can make changes to it, but don’t throw it out and start over.
2. Maintain realistic expectations, track your results, and (even now) balance short-term needs with long-term goals.
3. Messaging must be clear, concise and conclude with a Call to Action – what do you want them to do now? Click for more information, download a resource, etc.
4. Focus on them – your clients and prospects – rather than yourself. 
5. Pick three things to do, and get good at doing them consistently. That’s one each for these three channels: internal, offline and online. Choose activities based on your strengths, resources and their ability to generate revenue.
6. Track and measure your marketing efforts – leads, FEOs, sales opportunities, and execution of your marketing activities. Sound familiar? It should – because we’re talking about sticking to your plan for the most part. 

Marketing Your Virtual and In-Person Offers

Good marketing is based on foundational principles that should get you 90 percent of the way there. These principles apply virtually, in person, during COVID-19… All the time.

There’s a lot more “keeps” than “tweaks.” But let’s take a look at the 10 percent difference you can make with some minor adjustments.

Marketing Messaging

Tweaks: Speak to what makes your offer virtual and not just a product they can buy and use on their own. Highlight the new value, and leverage social proof for virtual offers. You want them to understand this is working and they can get good results with it.

Keeps: Stick to the basics of marketing message. (We go over the six key components in the recorded webinar.) Health and safety should always be a priority – and should be front-facing right now.

Marketing Activity

Tweaks: Shift a higher percentage of marketing to the online choice. Introduce virtual FEOs. Evaluate how much time and money you want to invest.

Keeps: Use all three channels (internal, offline, online). Create quarterly promotions and “insurance” marketing activities.

Tracking & Measuring Your Marketing

Tweaks: Adjust testing periods since you might not have the luxury to wait several months to see how something’s performing.

Keeps: Use of minimum metrics, designated testing periods.

Be sure to take advantage of the free COVID-19 resources we’ve gathered for you. And schedule a time for a free one-on-one consult with a Fitness Revolution coach. We can help you with virtual and in-person marketing, plus everything it takes to make your gym successful.

Some people see an obstacle and focus on how it’s blocking them.

But successful entrepreneurs see challenges as opportunities.

In these days of the pandemic, we all face plenty of these situations. Your success depends largely on overcoming obstacles and seizing opportunities inherent in today’s world.

Here’s a look at three common situations and how some of our top-performing gyms are spinning them to gold.

Download our free list of resources to protect your business during the COVID-19 crisis.

Topic No. 1: Safety. This is the primary concern for everyone – your employees, clients, prospects and community. You want to build trust by providing a clean and safe facility; present positive optics about what you’re doing; and protect the culture you’ve created.

What Top Performers Are Doing: They’re communicating with all their stakeholders so much they might feel like they’re over-communicating. (Impossible.) They’re looking ahead, regardless of whether they’re allowed to reopen yet, with contingency plans and ordering cleaning supplies in advance.

Topic No. 2: Losing Revenue. Most independent gyms have suffered some level of revenue drop. Most businesses of any kind probably have. It’s part of the current state of the world, but you can take steps to improve.

What Top Performers Are Doing: They’re expanding their short-term and long-term offerings to create new revenue streams with virtual training and nutrition coaching. They’re reducing costs wherever it makes sense. And they’re watching for opportunities to take clients to the next level of service – from, say, group training to individual training. 

Topic No. 3: Retaining Clients. Keep delivering your best service and experience. People want more community and engagement now. You can cultivate client connections and peer relationships to increase that sense of belonging that clients crave. And you can get to know them better, which will inform every aspect of your business.

What Top Performers Are Doing: They’re increasing their touchpoints with clients by making personal phone calls, sending texts, and even writing notes by hand. They’re providing opportunities for clients to interact, like virtual happy hours and game nights. And they’re asking clients about their needs to find new ways to meet them.

If much of this sounds familiar, that’s good! It means you are relying on the strong foundation you’ve developed – and you’re making adjustments as needed rather than ditching your whole business model and starting from scratch. Have confidence in what you’ve done, and show it by keeping a steady hand while remaining open to adjustments.

We’ve been updating the free resources to help you through the COVID-19 crisis. It’s such a fluid situation, and different from state to state, so stay aware of what’s happening in your area. And schedule a time for a free one-on-one consult with a Fitness Revolution coach. We can help you ensure you’re a top performer now and when all this is over.

Our weekly webinars have produced great conversations about how to solve problems for gym owners. One recently addressed how to maximize revenue in your business, including virtual training in the era of the coronavirus.

You and all business owners already know the importance of what we call The Big 3: marketing, sales, and retention. Keep up the focus on those three basics, always. 

But here, we want to share eight additional tactics that we shared during our webinar – action items you can put into effect right now to improve your revenue.

Download our free list of resources to protect your business during the COVID-19 crisis.

1. Price Increases: Where should you raise rates, and for whom? Can you increase rates across the board, or just for new clients or programs? Yes, you might lose a few people who were looking for a reason to bail anyway. But you can minimize losses with proper communications.
2. Up-Selling: After a customer buys your main offer, what service or product can you sell to increase the purchase amount? For semi-private training, for instance, sell them a MyZone belt or similar item. For virtual one-on-one clients, show them the value of buying resistance bands from you.
3. Cross-Selling: You know how your TV, phone, and Internet services might be bundled together by one provider? You can do the same by offering similar packages to sell things like nutrition coaching and supplements.
4. Ascension: Move clients up from your low-tier program to a higher level of service that costs more. Transition them from once-a-week virtual training to three-times-a-week personal training.
5. Frequency: Increase the frequency of purchases, and reduce the time between purchases.
6. Reactivation: Win back prior contacts, including: cancelled or frozen clients; prospects that never sold; people who took your FEOs (front-end offers) but didn’t convert to COs (core offers).
7. Expansion: Introducing (and selling) new programs, like virtual nutrition coaching, stress management, or life coaching.
8. One-Time Sales: These are products  and services that you might sell only once to each client, like meal-prep or cooking courses; yoga mats and water bottles; and video libraries.

Be sure to check out the free resources we’ve gathered to help you during this time, and schedule a time for a free one-on-one conversation with a Fitness Revolution coach. We’re here to shorten the learning curve and drive you to the next stage of your success journey.