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Personal Training Management BLOG Posted on Dec 18, 2007 - 8:22AM Personal Training Management - How to Get the “FLOW” Out of Your Fitness Center’s Sales Funnel Pipeline- Part 1 by Brett Johnston-Alter Ego Fitness Group I speak with a lot of fitness center owners, regional personal training supervisors and personal training managers who are frustrated with the poor quality of their fitness center’s sales opportunity pipeline. They are frustrated because: Do you share any of the above frustrations? If you do, read on. This article will shed light on key reasons behind the poor condition of your fitness center’s personal training sales opportunity pipeline and what you can do to fix it. Why do so many sales opportunities stall? For now, let’s define a stalled opportunity as an opportunity that hasn’t seen a change in status for a specific period of time. (You get to define the length of this time period.) If you want to apply a more demanding definition, you will find some useful suggestions in the article, “Sales Process - We're Only As Good As Our Next Step” - going onto our blog next week. There are many reasons why opportunities stall. Let’s look at two of the most important reasons: Reason #1 – Poor Sales Opportunity Qualification A sad fact of life is that many personal trainer's do a poor job of sales opportunity qualification. Why is this such a common problem? Basically it comes down to three factors: lack of training, lack of accountability, and lack of inspection. Let’s look at each factor separately. 1a. Lack of Training What is your fitness center’s definition for a fully qualified opportunity? Does the definition exist in writing? Are your trainer's trained to qualify opportunities in a specific way? In my opinion, a sales opportunity has not been properly qualified unless the trainer knows (at minimum) the answers to the following questions: What problems does the member have that can be solved by your personal training service? (People only buy something that they can not do themselves!) How significant are these problems? In other words, what impact do they have on the member, both professionally and personally? Most people buy emotionally. Personal training is an abstract and emotional backed product. Can the member quantify the impact of their problems? In other words, can they associate dollar amounts with their problems? Is the member worthy of the investment required for your fitness center to manage a sales process? In other words: Do your members have any kind of disposable income? Do they see value to invest in a product (personal training) to solve their problems? Are all key decision makers engaged in the decision process? (get the spouse in a "First Workout", so they can feel and witness what the other is feeling and have confidence and supporting the other.) What is their time frame for taking action? Is their an underlying motivation uncovered for urgency? 1b. Lack of Accountability Accountability pertains to creating and communicating clear expectations for production (sessions serviced) and sales performance by your personal trainers. If your fitness center does not have clearly defined performance expectations for personal trainers, or if those expectations have not been communicated to (and ingrained in) your trainers, you are likely to be disappointed with the results they produce. To determine whether your fitness center is truly holding personal trainers accountable, do your best to answer the following questions: 1c. Lack of Inspection Sales opportunity inspection involves engaging personal trainers on a regular basis (I recommend daily) to quickly ask about their business (in the middle of clients, or whenever is appropriate) the status of every opportunity in their pipelines or how much production (paid for sessions) they have for the day or week. This gets trainers into a business frame of mind. These discussions should have two goals: 1. To determine whether each opportunity has been properly qualified before the First Workout on the phone or at the beginning of the First Workout. 2. To determine whether each opportunity reflects an accurate status or simply, did the trainer get the member's underlying motivation for working out to be used throughout the sales process. How do you determine whether an opportunity has been properly qualified and reflects an accurate status? By asking questions! The personal training manager should ask the personal trainer the same questions that the trainer should ask their prospects (member). If the trainer does not know the answers to key questions, or if their answers lack key details, the trainer should be told by the manager to go back out to the member while member is warming up with specific opportunity qualification questions to again get the member's underlying motivation for working out. Sales opportunity inspection is truly a critical sales management activity. Why? Because fitness centers waste incredible amounts of time, money and resources on opportunities that can’t or won’t close! The sooner these (poor quality) opportunities are identified and removed from the sales opportunity pipeline, the sooner your salespeople will have more time to invest in finding truly qualified opportunities! But should also remember, every one could use a trainer at least once. It is just a matter of timing and the right trainer (people buy from people they like!). To be continued… Stay Tuned |
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