You can be the best Personal Trainer in the world but skill alone will not pay your bills. You need to be able to close sales and get new clients. Unless you are a professional athlete or celebrity, most people have no idea who you are. The potential client is not sure how to screen a trainer to be sure that they are hiring the right person. Because they lack the knowledge to make an informed decision and don’t know who you are they will most likely take multiple bids. It’s not that they dislike you, it’s simply the most obvious way for them to deliberate while choosing a trainer.
From your standpoint the odds of landing a client become much slimmer the moment they leave from your sales presentation. If they take 3 bids at best the odds are 1 in 3, but they are actually much worse than that. They are basing their decision on a complete lack of knowledge so they don’t know how to properly vet a new trainer. Most likely they will just choose the third person they see simply because that person is the one sitting in front of them when they finish taking bids. They also may change their mind all together and go it alone. So it is of the utmost importance that you convince them to hire you while they are right in front of you. If you try to convince them on the spot to hire you they will object because you are circumventing their decision process. Nobody likes a pushy sales person that is trying to force a sale. So that leaves you between a rock and a hard place if you are not their last bid. If they leave you will most likely never see them again, but if you push them they will leave. Perhaps you need to give them more choices that all lead to a sale.
Land the sale
Did you ever go to a hardware store to buy a garden tool? If you did you will notice that generally they offer three grades of the tool, good, better and best. The middle grade tool is always the biggest seller. Most people know that they get what they pay for and at the same time they know that money does not grow on trees. It’s like Goldilocks and the three bears. One tool is too cheap, one tool is too expensive, but the middle tool is just right. Had they only had the low grade shovel you would have bought it and left with a few extra dollars in your pocket. What they just did was provide you with something to decide on and you up sold yourself into buying a more expensive tool. Not only did you buy the more expensive tool but you didn’t shop around to find the best price. You were given three price points by the same store so you were able to compare prices right at the same retailer. How convenient is that? They just sold you a tool that costs much more than the store up the street because you didn’t check around.
Imagine if you could stop a potential client from shopping around just by offering them a choice of good, better and best just with you. The potential client will have an informed choice to make, basic service, better service or deluxe service. What you are in effect doing is giving them the choice you, you or you. Now the odds of them choosing you have become much
better.
Cut out the competition
There are some other benefits to using the good, better, best approach. As I explained with the garden tool example given three choices most people choose the middle one. That will give you the advantage of not competing directly with your competition for price. If a person has three bids all by different trainers they will often take the lowest bid. This is because they see all three services as being of equal quality. Remember that they don’t know you or your competitors so the only thing they have to compare is price. However when you offer them three different levels of service you will have presented them with a choice of quality. In effect you will be able to sell your service based upon what your actual expenses are rather than what the guy up the block is charging.
Yes, no, maybe so?
The most awkward part of the sale is the close. It’s like going for a first kiss with a new partner. Everything is riding on that one moment and rejection is always a possibility. When you say to a person “so what do you think? Would you like to sign up today?” The only two choices that you are giving the person are yes or no. If they say yes you walk away with a smile, no and it’s like a slap to the face. In sales you always want to presume the sale. But if the person in front of you feels pressured you will be seen as being too pushy. This is the best part about the good, better, best strategy is that it allows you to presume the sale without sounding presumptuous.
Instead of asking would you like to hire me you simply say which package would you like? That gives the person three choices to make all of which lead to a sale. There is no such thing as a perfect close, someone can always shut you down. The good, better, best close increases your odds greatly which is the best thing you can say of any sales technique.
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John Rutnik is a NFPT Certified Personal Trainer. He holds an AAS in Electrical Technology and has been a certified personal trainer since 2008. John has been involved in physical fitness and weight training since the late 70’s and is an avid outdoors man. He became a personal trainer after rehabilitating himself from a spinal injury he sustained in a car accident and losing 70 pounds. John later obtained ISSA Certifications as both a Fitness Trainer and Specialist in Sports Nutrition and became Lead Fitness Trainer at Anytime Fitness in Schenectady NY. His training philosophy is “no man left behind,” everyone deserves a chance to succeed.
