Gym owners know that not all prospects are the same. Some are ready-to-go right after their trial is up, and some not so much. The key is to know how to close prospects that are on the fences.
Attracting prospects to your gym is crucial for short and long-term growth. If you’re not continually adding people, how will your gym ever grow? You also need to add people to account for the members that leave or don’t renew their memberships, hurting your retention rate.
Putting together a strategic plan is the best way to attract prospects to your gym. Recruiting potential members can only go so far. With the correct plan in place, you can set up your gym for long-term success with a steady stream of new clients.
Assist Staff in Recruiting New Members
Empowering your sales and customer service staff is the first way you can achieve strategic goals as a gym owner. You need to leverage your staff and let them know why it’s crucial for your gym to continue to build up its membership base.
Share important goals and numbers with them, so they are aware of how the gym is faring in terms of new signups, trials, and the current member retention rate. Once your staff is well-informed with goals in mind, you put them in a better position to succeed at your gym.
If your gym is pushing a specific offer, such as a trial or class pass, make sure your team also promotes it. Give out free items and merchandise at your facility, business cards, or even incentivize perks for current members that bring in their friends.
Allow Prospects the Chance to Succeed
If you have a great prospect in line, make sure they are on the road to success so that they will turn into a long-term member.
A unique way to do this is to alter your “trial offer” into something a little more substantial. Offer a more substantial offer to ensure the success of prospects. Instead offer a personal training session, 1-on-1 goal setting session, or any offer that will make your prospect feel valued and more likely to build a strong connection with your gym.
One tip for retention: people can feel unmotivated when they hit goals and have nothing else to work towards in the future. Always help members and set short and long-term goals so that way they always have something to work towards.
It’s all About Value
At the end of the day, people will commit to or leave your gym because it doesn’t provide value to them. People don’t commit based solely on price or location. There will always be people who will go to the big box gyms because of price, but if your gym provides results and a great environment, people will commit to your gym.
For prospects that commit, find out why they chose your gym, that way you know the strengths of your facility and why people want to me members. For prospects that don’t commit, discover why they are choosing to go elsewhere. This can give you valuable insights to better your gym for the future.
As a gym owner, provide the best member experience for members and prospects. There will always be facilities that are better and also less expensive, and that’s out of your control. Find your niche, what you’re good at, and you will close more prospects and retain clients year after year.
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