Holding a grand opening for your fitness facility can be a lot of work. To prevent yourself from being overwhelmed, keep these pre-sale steps in mind before your health club’s grand opening:
Establish goals. You must set your sales goal and communicate that goal with your staff. Break down your overall goal into daily objectives so that you do not overwhelm your staff and yourself with a number that feels unattainable. Establishing and setting your goals give you a good idea of your direction and a gauge of progress. Setting goals gives you a better chance of prioritizing what must be done to achieve your sales goal.
Recruit your team. To get the most out of your pre-sales, you must have a hiring process in place, and you must hire a team of people who can be part of the overall vision of your gym. Your sales goal will determine the size of your team. You need the energy and commitment of your staff to get the word out. Salespeople are some of the most important people in the process because if you do not get sales, then you cannot survive and pay back the banks or investors. How people view your sales staff is how they will view your club, so hire salespeople who are positive and value-oriented. Do not hire someone just because they are good at getting sales, especially if their tactics are unethical.
Set up your processes. Put in place good software and accounting processes to help you track key metrics and keep the data necessary to run an organized gym. Shop around some of the software companies in the industry to see which one will provide the best option for you. With professional services in place, you come across as professional to members and prospects, and you reduce the headaches involved in keeping track of everything. The more you focus on getting things organized and structured before you open your doors, the more successful you will be.
Market your club. Determine your target market and do not waste time or money marketing to anyone else. Do not make the mistake of trying to be everything for everyone or you will confuse people and slow your momentum. Determine where your market lives, where they like to shop, what websites they use and their buying patterns. Figure out how members of your market like to communicate and how they do research. Some markets may be more inclined to use the telephone, while others might be interested in emailing or using an online process. Knowing these details helps you figure out how to base your marketing efforts, what you should focus on and what you should have prepared for potential members.
Find a place to sell. While your gym is being built, you should do pre-sales in a trailer or marketing office near the club site. Because you do not have an actual facility to show yet, you are selling a vision of what will be. This can make it more difficult to sell, but people will buy if you are prepared, sound professional and paint a clear picture. It often helps to have architectural renderings that show what your gym will look like and the floor plan. You should also be able to provide details about how the club will operate, its amenities and its size. Introduce the prospects to some of your staff. The fitness business is a people business, and introducing prospects to warm and friendly staff members can be a huge selling point because most people buy things based on what they stand for and the people involved.
Greg Marshall is the co-founder of Elite Training. He has run the personal training departments in up to eight locations at once, owned his own personal training company and has been in the industry five years. He has more than $1 million in personal training sales and has hired and trained personal trainers and staff. He has an extreme passion for the personal training business industry and is always looking for ways to improve it. To contact Marshall, call 801-513-8056 or email him at gregmarshall17@gmail.com. You can read his blog at www.fiture.tumblr.com.