Are You Ready?

Concept2 has released a series of free-to-use Zoom background images (above) and Steve Jensen (right).

Steve Jensen sees the post COVID environment as a time of opportunity for fi tness businesses

Here’s a fact: Every three to five years, a business should announce big upgrades or a relaunch, or at least an aspect of it. Given the lockdowns we’ve all endured this year, we need to seize the opportunity to reopen or relaunch our clubs and studios effectively, in order to confidently position for recovery.

Here’s a question: If you were going to open a new club, studio, or fitness business in just four to six weeks, what would you do? Yes, it would be a rush to create the opportunities to attract tonnes of leads and then convert them into members and clients who you can help.

Following is a strategy that has successfully helped our clients increase their leads and sales, and which - when adapted correctly - can also help you achieve the same.

Step 1. Develop New Services, Upgrades and Add-Ons It’s critical to add two or three new services or add-ons (avoid using the word ‘changes’ as people may feel adverse to change). This is important because it ensures that anyone who’s been previously toured or are former members or clients will then understand that something is different, which will help generate the excitement and enthusiasm required for them to take action.

Step 2. Create the ‘Expression of Interest’ Campaign A strong offer will excite prospects and former members to take action. One way to achieve this is to have them register their interest in the offer.

In order to create leads who want to know more and ultimately join up, your offer must be well structured and easy to understand. The key is to develop an offer that generates leads who want to join; not one that inspires tonnes of people to pay a low-priced membership that will later require extensive sales efforts to upgrade them.

This is what’s called a ‘low entry upgrade method’ (sometimes referred to as the ‘Groupon strategy’), as it usually attracts people who have a low value mindset. The downfall of this is that it creates lots of work later, for your sales team, and typically only ever results in low upgrade conversions. To avoid this headache entirely, deny the temptation of creating a ‘low-cost offer’ where people buy from a website; then, you can avoid the laborious challenge that this old-school, timeconsuming strategy typically requires.

The alternative is to embrace the ‘pre-sales and relaunch strategy’, which we’ve used with health clubs and fitness businesses all over the world, to successfully generate loads of qualified leads. One easy way to do this is by using an ‘Expression of Interest’ (EOI)strategy, which simply requires a strong offer that steers your leads to complete an online opt-in page where you capture their name, email address and phone number as part of their EOI in your offer.

Step 3. Deliver Two Opportunities When you write the text explaining your offer, make sure you focus on the results and benefits that will be enjoyed once they’ve joined up for a program or membership.

Your attractive offer will save them money (so state the savings but not the price itself), and it should confirm that

their goals will be achieved. These facts should be presented in your marketing, in this order. Doing so will ensure that you only attract people who are interested in your programs or membership (i.e., so you only attract qualified leads - and lots of them, hopefully). An EOI offer, therefore, should be structured so everyone can ‘Save up to $xxx on a program, and $xxx (a larger amount) on a membership.’

All registrations of interest should be followed up by booking appointments or Zoom calls, so you can then have the conversations required to qualify what they want and where their pain-points are. Once you identify these, you can then explain exactly the services and programs you offer, which will alleviate their pain and see them achieve their goals; this is where conversions take place.

Step 4. Select Your Target Markets To promote your offer, SMS and send emails to your lost leaders, old pending prospects and former members. You should also post the EOI on social media, on your Business Fan Pages, and your Personal Page with picture tiles. It is also recommended that you create a 30-second two-minute video, do some live broadcasts, and always include the link to your offer so they can immediately enter their details in your EOI opt-in page.

Step 5. Implement an Easy-To-Present Conversion Sequence It’s very important that you have clear processes and procedures in place, and that you and your team are confident in how to present and close, so that you can all convert every EOI lead to either your program or membership. It’s equally important that you practise your price presentations, so your offer is smooth and very easy-to-understand and ensure that when presenting prices that you focus on their results, and the feelings that the prospect wants – and not just on your offer and the price.

And delivering this information successfully requires constant and ongoing practise.

Step 6. When to Present and How to Close Please remember, the EOI is exactly that and that once you receive those expressions, you need to act swiftly and contact all of them.

When it comes to doing sales, times have changed since you were last open and we’ve all become better conditioned on what to expect and have become very comfortable communicating with and buying online.

These days, many people are comfortable using Zoom; in fact, we’ve had some awesome results with many of our clubs, studios and personal trainers who have pivoted and implemented our ‘Sell Via Zoom’ skills. The great news is, it’s actually shortened the sales cycle and has increased closing percentages because the team are now able to help their prospects more quickly, since they don’t have to wait for them to turn up for a booked appointment.

The way to achieve this is by using a new skill called the ‘phone switch’. The phone switch is where you establish rapport with your prospect; identify the problems they want help with; and this connection is then followed up immediately by jumping on to a Zoom call - ASAP. This has been hugely successful as it’s always best to help the prospect when they’re in that mindset.

Step 7. Selling Via Zoom This skill will help you close more quickly, and increase your conversion percentage. It’s highly recommended that you learn how to convert prospects into members and clients via Zoom. With all that’s going on in our industry and in the wider economic climate, this will become an essential selling skill in the not too distant future; in many instances, it already has! To help get you started, following is a list of the equipment, services, resources and skills required in order to consistently convert via Zoom:

Equipment & Services: • A strong and reliable internet connection • A quality webcam/video camera • A quality microphone • Lighting, or be positioned by a good source of natural light • Create a jpeg to use as your virtual background Resources: • A Zoom account • Google docs • YouTube account • PowerPoint • Touring, explanation, demonstration and proofing (a virtual tour with testimonials) • Screenflow (Mac) Or Camtasia (PC) • Testimonial in video, picture or written formats • List of USPs • Cheat sheets • Simple URL to your pay page Skills: • Building rapport online • Creating eye contact through the camera • Positioning • Permissioning (this is a new online selling skill) • On and off-screen switching (this is a new online selling skill) • Preloading (this is a new online preparation skill) • Online listening and recapping • Online test closing • Presenting prices online • Creating engagement during online presentations • Closing skills using an online chat box

Of course, the alternative is to contact each person who has submitted their EOI and book them in for a tour - and with the right systems, processes and skills, you will still achieve success.

Remember, your offer must include an easy-to-understand call-to-action and a simple process that enables people to join easily. This way you’ll maximise every opportunity for all prospects to become members or clients. This is essential for a successful EOIcampaign. Good luck. One of Australasia’s most respected and recognised sales, sales management and communication specialists, Steve Jensen is Managing Director of the Impact Training Corporation and the National Sales Academy.