Following on from last week where we talked about some of the methods you as a personal trainer can use to improve your visibility on the gym floor and therefore sales. There was one area of lead generation that we did not discuss, and in fact this can be one of the most powerful tools you have in building a strong client base.  This is the sales/membership team.

The key stumbling point with the sales team is that selling personal training is not what helps them meet their targets or impacts them in any way. So it is key that you devise a way in which the sales team receive some form of reward for mentioning your product range. Many gyms will not allow you to offer commissions to the sales team for leads they hand you for personal training (if they do allow it this is the easiest way to incentivize the sales team). So you will need to be a little more creative in how you reward them for the leads that they pass to you.

Some of the ways in which the sales team can help you with lead generation, include:-

Sales calls

Many gyms will allow you to cold call the membership, this can be done as a follow-up to the date that they joined the gym. Maybe after approx 4 weeks, when you call you should take the approach of seeing if you can help the member get more from their membership. One of the offers you can put to them is that you can give them a free personal training taster session to help get them rolling in the gym. This taster session can then be used to try to sell the member on the benefits of regular personal training sessions to help them meet and exceed their goals!  As the sales team have access to the membership database they can be a key tool in facilitating this process.

Being part of the sales teams pitch

Getting the sales team to mention the fact that personal training is available to new sign ups can be a great source of leads. Especially if you ask the sales guys to hand out free taster session vouchers to new members, this can drive a regular source of new personal training clients. The effectiveness of this can be improved by asking the sales team to only give the vouchers who hit your qualification criteria and that meets your client profile. This can save you a great deal of time carrying out personal training taster sessions for clients who may not have an interest in or the ability to pay for personal training sessions.

Getting other staff members talking about you

Other members of staff within a gym can help to drive leads for your personal training business. Everyone from the cleaners to managers should be aware of what you have to offer so they can help to promote your personal training service to the membership. The first step in getting staff talking about you is to help them understand what you do, there is no better way then allowing them to try your service or offering a reduced rate for staff on personal training sessions.

ACTION POINTS

• Come up with a way to work with the sales team so they can introduce your personal training products to prospective members.
• Get yourself into the sales office (don’t go empty-handed, take them down a coffee) and introduce yourself, talk to them about what your USP (unique selling point) is as a personal trainer. Most importantly ask them to start making referrals to you where they feel it is appropriate.
• Keep the sales guys and girls happy!

Please feel free to comment and ask questions below!

TOM

[ssba]