MANAGEMENT SERIES
SELLING IN A BUYING WORLD
Dave Wright offers his advice to health club managers wanting to improve their understanding of, and performance in, the area of sales
S
ales in the fitness industry can be a very rewarding profession: you’re the gateway to members achieving their dreams of a healthier, more fulfilling life. It can also be a frustrating and time-wasting profession
without the right tools, mindset and guidance. It’s a manager’s role to provide the sales team with these tools and guidance. First and foremost, a sale will only take place if the value
in the transaction has outweighed the cost. The value is relevant to the individual’s goals, wants and desires, and the cost is what’s holding them back. The bottom line is that if the customer has not parted with their money or committed to join your club, they believe the cost has outweighed their motivation to join. Everything that transpires in selling will always swing
back to this basic equation. As a manager, you must encourage your sales team to deposit features and benefits into the value bucket while also trying to outweigh the negative cost elements of the sale. Here are some tips and suggestions to share with your
sales team, to help them encourage people to purchase a gym membership at your facility.
Understanding consumer mindsets Two factors must be met for a fitness sale to take place: logical needs and psychological (or emotional) needs. Logical needs are usually the ‘reasoning’ people use to justify their purchase: people always buy emotionally and justify logically. Logical needs at a club are things like flexible opening hours,
convenient location or reducing the risk of cancer. They are important, but they will not get the member across the line without their emotional needs being expressed or understood. Emotional needs are usually centred on how membership
will make a person feel about themselves. Losing weight so they can fit into their wedding dress and feel good about themselves as they walk down the aisle is far more persuasive than the logical understanding of a club having 50 treadmills.
The decision-making principle of ‘liking’ states that people are more likely to say yes to someone they like
The science of influence In 1984, social psychologist Robert Cialdini produced the results of arguably the most researched project on sales and the psychology of persuasion that had ever been published.
64 Read Health Club Management online at
healthclubmanagement.co.uk/digital June 2014 © Cybertrek 2014
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