by Jonah Cockshaw, Founder of FITMEDIA
In this session, we’ll be covering:
👉🏼 What is ‘Sales’?
👉🏼 Why most fitness professionals suck at sales (ps. It’s not your fault!)
👉🏼 How to make selling 100x easier before you ever pick up the phone
👉🏼 How to frame all of your sales moving forward
👉🏼 Logic vs Emotion on the sales call
👉🏼 What exactly should you say when you’re on the phone? (copy these questions!)
👉🏼 Final tips to improve your sales indefinitely
What is ‘Sales’?
Well, without being pedantic, Sales is simply the exchange of money for product / service.
More than that, it’s the whole gap between your marketing and someone actually being a client or member of yours. For lower ticket products and services, you will find that there’s a lot less ‘selling’ involved and that people may be willing to make a payment directly from a webpage, for example.
However, for anything that’s either more expensive or more personal (as a fitness professional, your services will likely be both!) then you’ll find that Sales is a skill that you will hugely benefit from learning and getting good at.
The biggest misconception that most people have about sales is that you’re either good at it… or you’re not. This is totally false. You absolutely can (and should!) get good at sales if you’re looking to grow your fitness business through providing high-value services.
Another misconception is that sales needs to be sleazy in order to work. Perhaps you don’t want to be good at sales because you don’t want to be considered sleazy or pushy or someone other than yourself. In part, this will reinforce a limiting belief that says you aren’t good at sales, and nor will you ever be without compromising your character. This is untrue and damaging to your business!
Why do most fitness professionals suck at sales?!
Fitness professionals will suck at sales for a couple of simple reasons…
- Sales isn’t taught in school OR your PT qualification!
- You care more about the money being made than the solution / service you’re offering
- You don’t have a true and genuine conviction for the thing you’re selling
The fact that sales isn’t taught in school is probably a good thing… because it leaves more room for those that are willing to learn the skill to reap the rewards. Afterall, we live in a capitalist society, right? 😉
I don’t think that any of these things are your fault either… Instead, I believe that we all have inherited a predisposition to ‘suck at sales’ thanks to our exposure to the sleazy sales people that we see on TV, in movies or even in real life.
We notice their sales tactics because they’re obvious, but that doesn’t mean they’ll work well for you or your business.
Quick Exercise: “Sell me this pen”
Many of us will be familiar with the famous “sell me this pen” line from Wolf of Wall Street, right?
Well, if I ask you to sell me this pen, how would you respond?
Take a second to think about it. Let me know in the comments!
Well, for 99% of us, we’ll respond by frantically listing the features of the pen itself and how or why it might be better than other pens on the market.
If that’s you, let me know!
How to make all of your sales 100x easier before you even pick up the phone
Before we get into the rest of the training, I wanted to inject this thought into the mix…
The best way to make your sales significantly easier before ever picking up the phone to a prospective customer is to already have a genuinely fantastic product or service that you have a really strong belief in. You need to also care about the person’s outcome more than they do, and also more than any amount of money they may pay for the privilege.
Another factor that will make your sales easier is great marketing! If someone can get on a call with you and they’re already itching and ready to go, then that’s thanks to your marketing. You haven’t ‘sold’ anything at all yet and they’re already waiting to pay you.
Refer back to my previous training sessions for help in both these areas!
How to frame all of your sales moving forward
From now on I want you to move away completely from ‘selling’ anything at all.
Of course, you’re still exchanging services for cash. And you’re still looking to generate as much cash as you can legally get away with. But, between you and your prospects, you’re no longer selling anything at all, okay?
Instead, we want to frame all of our ‘sales’ calls and appointments as a kind of consulting session. We want to first understand IF we can actually help them. We’re no longer jumping straight into the ‘pitch’ and hoping for the best.
Instead of frantically listing features of your ‘pen’, we’re asking questions that both give us context around why this person might even want a pen in the first place, whilst also reinforcing their subconscious need for a pen.
For example:
- What currently is your biggest struggle / frustration when it comes to your health and fitness?
- What have you tried in the past and how has that worked for you?
- How much have you invested financially into solving this problem already?
- Have you worked with any other trainers / coaches to solve this problem?
- How quickly would you like to achieve [DESIRED OUTCOME]?
Logic vs Emotion in Sales
This is perhaps the most important part of this training… and that’s the difference between selling to the emotional side of the brain vs the logical side of the brain.
The quote I want you to remember is this:
People will decide based on emotion, and back it up with logic later.
When you sell features, you immediately engage with the logical portion of the prospect’s brain and they therefore use logic to talk themselves into or out of working with you.
This is dangerous territory because they’ll break down each component of what you’re saying and think…
“I could do that myself”
“I could get it cheaper”
“I don’t think I need help with X, Y or Z. Doesn’t seem necessary”
And so on.
Whereas, when you sell based on results, you’re immediately selling to the emotional part of their brain and the questions you’ve been asking them up to now will have created an emotional gap between where they are and where they’d like to be (their desired outcome).
This then creates the perfect opportunity for you to present your offer as the bridge that allows them to cross that gap. That’s the power of consultative selling, and actually have a really great offer that you truly believe in!
Final tips to continue improving your sales forever
Track your numbers!!
Seriously…. Track your numbers.
Record your calls.
Use Zoom or Google Meets to record the video calls you have and rewatch them on a monthly basis to assess your weak points
