Authenticity: Today’s Competitive Advantage in Fitness Sales
“Always be a first-rate version of yourself and not a second-rate version of someone else.” – Judy Garland
Let me start by stating this; Inspiration will always trump coercion in any sales scenario. Yours and/or your team’s ability to effectively communicate from a place of heartfelt care coupled with the sincere belief that what you do, truly changes lives for the better, will always outperform best practices and solid closing techniques over time. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t strive to be both.
Striving to achieve both improved health outcomes for your members AND executing on a winning sales program and process are NOT mutually exclusive concepts!
Many fitness business owners, sales managers, and sales associates seek greater success through the implementation of sharpened skill sets and better practices. I’ve personally spent over two-decades of my fitness career helping these very same professionals identify those opportunities and implement those improvements. Commonly it’s as simple as tightening up a price presentation or altering their tour-stop locations… Occasionally we may need to tweak the needs-analysis or pre-tour process to better prime prospects for what our fitness business is all about. But, on rare occasions, poor sales performance can not simply be fixed with different tactics and better scripts alone.
The good news:
All of the tactics above, and literally hundreds of other micro-improvements can be practiced, and implemented to near perfection to at least increased sales success.
The bad news:
All of those things will not be able to save you, your sales team, or your fitness business from a lack of authenticity overtime.
Our industry’s competitive landscape has changed in the time of Covid. Consumers were already beginning to lose faith in brand integrity due to the perceived lack of what was delivered versus what was promised over time. Today’s prospective members covet truthfulness and transparency over grandiose claims and guaranteed outrageous outcomes.
People know that there isn’t a magic pill anymore. So claims that our “6-week Booty-Bump Class” will magically manifest their wildest hopes and dreams only continue to work against you, and to a greater extent, our entire industry.
I personally believe that these very same shady practices share blame with why our industry continues to not break that 20% participation/penetration rate over the last two decades to get people off their couches. Too many non-members know others who have been burned by these programs. But I’ll save that rant for another blog…
I have found over the years that there are three intangible qualities that I look for in a fitness professional when evaluating talent and potential…
Communicates Value Ethically: Does this person conduct themselves with integrity or are they willing to do and say whatever it takes to close the deal that day? Even if it means degrading the value of your/their service, business and brand?
Intrinsically Motivated to be Better: Do they seek professional development opportunities or do they roll their eyes when you attempt to coach them up? Do they come to you with questions on how they could have done something better or do you have to call them in to discuss, all the while they just try to avoid telling you how many “misses” they had that day? Or even worse, disqualifying a lead when you are not around and they decide not to record prospective members’ contact information in an effort to stop their “closing percentage” from going down?
Committed to Representing the Brand and not just Themselves: Does this person follow through with their promises to help members achieve their fitness goals or do they simply forget new member names the moment they leave the desk? Does your fitness professional, or sales process, help to ensure that new members are on board appropriately or does the “sales success” team effort end with the members signature?
At the end of the day, when you, your fitness business, and/or your sales associates can speak with enthusiasm, personal experience, and authenticity, you will achieve far more success than any sales system could achieve alone.
Success is not a happy accident my friends.
Jason has sold over 18,000 fitness agreements in his career making him one of the highest producers in the industry today. With over twenty-five years of experience, Jason now provides professional development, strategic programming, talent management, and expert level sales training to the fitness industry as the host of The Fitness Business Podcast: Thinking Ahead Show and various industry conventions.