Gym Sales 101 - A Course for the Non Believers
Lesson 1: Zigging When Others Zag.
If you do not like the concept that you are a sales person - this series of posts will likely be the most important information you read in your entire business life.
Before we begin let’s do one thing that will be paramount before you journey down your path of being a successful gym owner.
Take a deep breathe and say it with me…. “ I am a sales person”.
If that made you cringe, or you couldn’t do it - that’s where I was about 8 years ago. Around this time I signed up for an Ethical Sales course by Greg Mack and it completely changed by life.
Understanding these key concepts will change your life to:
You are a sales person. Or you are out of business. Pick one.
Sales people are required to facilitate any transfer of value.
Customers need sales people to buy the solutions to their pains.
Sales does not have to be unethical, sleazy, or any of the terms you immediately think of when you hear the word.
Protect your time: Refuse to dance in “normal” sales.
Protect the customer: Provide honest value and clarity.
Yes or No are the only answers we accept. (and a no is ok!)
I’m going to embark on a small collection of posts that dive into these topics.
The secret to being a great yet ethical sales person: Do the opposite of what you would expect a sales person to do - every time.
You Are A Sales Person
I think it’s worth repeating. Say it again.
Also, look in the mirror and realize you didn’t grow any horns.
Why We Cringe When We Hear “Sales"
Before we dive into the course work, which I’ll post in follow ups to this one - we need to first analyze why we immediately associate sales with a negative feeling or word.
Generally speaking understanding why someone feels one way is a great starting point for trying to work with them.
So this is important as we work to be great, ethical sales people.
Experience
Often times, sales people are incentivized to win the sale. Thus their focus is more on closing the deal than it is your perceived or realized customer value.
This often creates a “pushy” environment where we feel rushed to make a decision and we feel like we have incomplete information to make that decision.
It doesn’t feel good to be in the middle of a hard sale.
Emotions and feelings stick with us and the rank smell of a sales pitch is easy to identify.
We will use this to actually help our customers in the sales process later.
Zero Summed Sales Games
In general, sales people are trained to win deals. To them winning is a “yes” resulting in you handing some cash over to them.
Winning does not include your value during or after the sale.
This creates a zero-summed game (something you all know I hate). We have one winner and one loser.
And anytime you make someone feel like a loser, they remember it.
Similar to above, the feeling sticks - and we do what we can to avoid these bad feelings.
We will also use this to create a fair and ethical sales environment later.
Media
If there’s one thing I think we’ve all collectively learned about the media recently - they love playing to our emotions to draw us into the story.
Countless movies and television scenes have been built around the “pushy sales person” selling snake oils from a soapbox. Boiler rooms and con man form the very plot and themes of movies.
These images and stories reinforce one idea - Sales people are bad people.
The Table is Set
Now you understand why people hate sales. It’s embedded into us from years (decades!) of poor experiences, negative emotions, and media reinforcement.
What do we do about this?
We flip it on its head.
In doing so, we create an alternate sales universe where your customer:
Develops trust in you.
Sees alignment in incentives and outcomes.
Feels satisfied with information exchange and decision making.
However, we will do so without disrespecting our own time, knowledge, expertise or sanity.
The Art of Zagging When Others Zig
If you follow anything I write or talk about, my game is simple. When others zig, I always look to zag.
Why? Because opportunists always pile into the opportunity - which creates a natural imbalance. Opportunity lies in the imbalance.
In the posts to follow this I will show you exactly how to be a great ethical sales person. And the simple secret: do the opposite of what you would expect a sales person to do - every time.
The Anti-Sales Person
Lesson one for you to begin to retrain your visceral disgust at calling yourself a sales person. You will be the anti-sales person.
Anything you can assign to a stereotypical sales person, you can generally do the opposite. Without fail and every time.
Sales people are pushy. You will be anti-pushy.
Sales people are rude. You will be empathetic.
Sales people are scripted and polished. You will be vulnerable and imperfect.
Sales people want to take your money. You will focus on their value and make them bring up money first.
Sales people corner you into a demo. You will guard your schedule and only let people get your valuable time if they prove they deserve it.
Sales people won’t take no for an answer. You will defer to no and make the client push for the yes.
But… how? I gotcha. It’s coming. Subscribe to my blog so they hit your inbox for the easy read.