Four Steps to Increase Gym Memberships and Improve Your Sales Process
If you own a gym or boutique fitness studio, your confidence in asking customers to buy is often the difference between a profitable fitness business and hoping to break even. It may seem like hyperbole, but I could compare membership sales to oxygen, and even that wouldn’t be an exaggeration. The fact remains that fitness business models cannot survive without sales.
Boutique fitness owners often prioritize marketing in both budget and time allocation. However, your business’s profitability relies on a steady stream of new clients seeing your ad and buying long-term memberships. This is why refining your sales scripts, training your sales team (who may simply be yourself or an instructor), and selling more gym memberships should be at the forefront of your business plan.
Before you sell yourself short (pun very much intended), a brief note to boost your confidence, you are already making sales in your daily operations as a fitness studio business owner. Anytime you ask a teacher to sub a class, you’re pitching. If you mitigate a client’s problem, you’re selling solutions. You sold your compelling reasoning to a landlord or agency if you asked for a rent reduction or applied for a grant. You are a salesperson every day- let’s refine your technique.
How to Improve Gym Membership Sales:
Sales is an innate part of your fitness business, whether you subscribe to the idea or not. But if you internally think, “there’s no way she’ll buy this; it’s so expensive!” each time you present your membership options, you create a self-fulfilling prophecy and a negative feedback loop. The client standing in front of you is not a cold call. They have a specific fitness goal and are hoping that you will be the one to help them solve it. Now, you need the courage to pitch your sale and the practice to grow your boutique fitness studio to new profitability.
Step One: Connect to Convert
I preach this concept nearly every time I teach studio owners how to boost gym membership sales. In order to convert a new client, you must first connect with them. Of course, you may want to launch into solving their problems and listing the value of your product or service, but your first job is to build trust. Ask questions like, “what brings you to our studio today?” and listen for the answer. Write it down or add it to the client’s profile and then offer your experience to show that you understand what they’re looking for. Many new clients put off starting at a new fitness studio or gym because they’re afraid of being judged. By listening closely and sharing your similar experience, if applicable, you’re conveying to the client, “I understand, and you’re where you need to be.”
Step Two: Solve Their Specific Pain Point
If you want to increase your gym membership sales, you’ll have to show each client that you can solve their specific problems. Depending on what your new client is looking for, customize their introductory period to show that they are a) more than just a number and b) in the best possible fitness studio for their goals. When you meet a new intro member, ask a variation of the following:
What’s your goal/intention/motivation for coming in?
What do you want us to achieve together?
What are your specific body and lifestyle goals?
Based on the answers to those preliminary sales script questions, you can build an ideal schedule for your introductory client. If you’re a boutique gym or multi-modality fitness studio, that may look like my studio, where we highlight specific classes that we recommend. If you’re a small single-modality or extremely boutique fitness studio, that may look like choosing a class with a fewer number of existing clients who have similar goals or signing the client up for a specific teacher.
Step Three: Build Accountability into Their Introductory Period
If you’ve completed step two effectively, this will be fairly straightforward. By designing a schedule that demonstrates your fitness studio’s ability to solve the client’s pain point, you’re also building accountability by saying, “I’ll see you in class.” When you sign your client up in advance, you’re showing your client:
You care about their experience enough to tailor even a highly discounted intro package.
You’ll notice if they’re not in class because they’ve already committed to you and themselves.
They have the time and can make their fitness goal a priority in their life (which is essential for future sales).
In my studio, we have a rule that new clients should not leave the studio without a future class booked. If we miss the opportunity to sign them up during their Connect to Convert Consultation, our desk staff will say, “How was class? Let’s get you signed up for your next one!” This script is upbeat without being pushy and ensures your client gets the most out of their intro- making them more likely to sign up for a gym membership.
Step Four: Welcome Them In
Revisiting one of the most significant barriers to entry discussed previously, clients delay or never enter fitness studios because they’re afraid of embarrassing themselves by standing out and not melding. A new client’s introductory phase is the perfect time to welcome them in, so they begin making connections and envisioning themselves as a member long-term. I discuss the rule of seven in-depth in this article, so start there if you haven’t explored this idea yet.
Your goal should be to introduce each new client to at least seven existing clients or staff members in order to help them mesh into the community. From a business perspective, it is drastically easier to close a gym membership sale when your client is already on a first-name basis with other members in class. From a studio culture standpoint, your community is your most valuable asset, and each client who buys into that is worth more than their membership fee.
How to Ask For the Sale in Part Two
