Business Tip: Sampling
Have you ever heard of the puppy dog close in the world of sales? It is where you give the prospect (potential client) the puppy to take home for a week to fall in love with. After the week you go and collect payment and 90% of the time the prospect will not be willing to part with the puppy. So how does this relate to selling Personal Training? Providing a sample of two complimentary Personal Training sessions is a variation of the puppy dog close. If you offer first class service and deliver great value during these complimentary sessions you should be able to convert a very high percentage of prospects to full fee paying clients as these clients have experienced a service that they don’t want taken away from them. I highly recommend the strategy of offering complimentary sessions while your Personal Training business is in it’s infancy and believe you should consider the time spent in these sessions as part of your marketing budget.
Once you start to establish a list of paying clients you should start to see the magic of referral business kick in provided you deliver a great service, and have learnt how to ask for referrals and can effectively sell. According to IHRSA (the largest health club body in the world) 46% of new business for Personal Trainers comes from word of mouth referral. When this happens you will find that you don’t need to do many or any complimentary sessions as these clients are often “pre-sold” by their friends. However, until you get to that point you will find offering complimentary sessions or as I call them a “test drive” and effective business building strategy.
Tags: Certificate IV in Fitness Article, Personal Training Business, Running a Fitness Business, starting a PT business, The Business of Fitness, The Business of Personal Training, The business of PT