How to NOT sell a gym membership

Selling a prospect a gym membership should be a positive experience. 

2007 was my first experience working in membership sales. The competition was challenging and when I say the competition I’m not referring to other businesses, I’m referring to the other salespeople within the same gym. 

This wasn’t before Salesforce but it was definitely before the gyms incorporated sales software (we had binders). 

Immediately I was put in the furthest office & was given a list of past guests logs from the prior year to call. This was my first experience cold calling… I hated it. Looking back I don’t know why I hated it but if I had to guess I think it was because it was frowned upon and viewed as a waste of time. 

There I am making calls in the lonely office looking out the window between calls watching a salesmen walk to the floor and chatting it up with members & another salesperson was at the front desk next up for walk-in and the third employee was on standby for telephone inquiries & internet leads. 

Ahh, the infamous ‘ups-list’.  

I was told by the sales manager that the only 2 ways I could get on the ups-list were. 

1. Have an appointment show up that day (if you sold one that guaranteed you on the list the following day).
2. Have two sales minimum from the previous day with at least one appointment in the books for the following day. 

Back to me in the lame office with the old school guest logbooks. I’m calling leaving voicemails and when someone did answer I wouldn’t get more than 2 sentences into my script before I was hung up on. 

I remember asking my new sales friend Sam “how do you get your membership sales every day”? He smirked and said ‘I show up to workout at 7am & bring the front desk a bottled water and tell them to come to get me if someone has membership questions’. This was funny because his shift didn’t start until 9 am and that was when the GM arrived also. 

While I knew Sam was funny, I saw him as a genius for that move. Especially because he would almost always get a membership sale in the early morning. That was a solid strategy because sometimes Sam didn’t sell anything the rest of the day. 

Back to me and my not-so-great first week of working in sales at the gym. I remember the sales manager having daily briefings with the sales team & going over the daily need vs what was listed on the appointment books. 

He would keep me for a moment after the meeting to speak with me, He would follow up and offer encouraging words..Not! He would explain the expectation and remind me that the clock was ticking and I needed to have some progress before my first 30-day performance review. 

What didn’t help me was that the GM who hired me left the company & a new young GM took over and he was instantly clicking with the other managers & sales team. I still remember meeting him for the first time and him telling me to ‘Work Hard, and give me a reason to feel good about keeping you on’ he said that playfully but also, he did mention that the person who hired me wasn’t there and typically he wouldn’t move forward with someone else’s hiring candidates. 

Since I was new I had the graveyard shift. It actually wasn’t the graveyard shift but I would be done working at 9 pm. I didn’t mind it since I went to work at noon and I always stayed up late. I would usually start working out at 8pm and try to finesse the front desk by being like Sam and telling them I would be working out but come get me if someone showed up. It only worked out 3 of the 5 days I worked because the front desk guy working got passed up for the sales job and they hired me instead. So I learned the pattern that if I did that while he worked, the following morning I would get an ass-chewing from my boss. 

Thankfully the gym actually did well in the post 7pm hour and I would usually rack up some memberships. Also, since I was new I had to work Sundays. Working Sundays at a gym is slower than slow. It’s slow for the check-ins & membership traffic is almost non-existent. I was told that I should make calls and set up appointments but that never worked (at least that was my mindset). 

Again, I think I had such a negative experience because I was the odd man working for a sales manager who had hired a bunch of his friends so even though they weren’t out working me they were getting all the good leads and walk-in traffic. 

It almost discouraged me to work hard and instead I would just take what I could get and wait for them all to leave or go play basketball so I could swoop in and take all the traffic. 

Terrible attitude and perspective, I know. 

By the way, the story is going you would think that I hated my job and that was the last you ever heard of me working in a gym, except we all know that’s not what happens. 

I eventually figured it all out.. I just had to fail… A LOT!