I bet you don’t believe me, but it’s true.
I bet you’re thinking, “you’re a business, there’s no way you don’t have a sales process!”
“Sales” has become a slimy word for pushing things onto people they neither want nor need. It’s a crappy way of separating people from their hard-earned money. It’s making promises you don’t intend to keep. I don’t know about you, but I always think of discount car salespeople when I think about sales.
So we don’t do that here.
We interview everyone who expresses interest in the services that we offer.
And it starts with the first interaction.
Questions of “What are your rates?”, “What times are your classes?”, or “Tell me about the programs you offer.” are all met with a similar following response:
“As a goals-based gym we focus on helping our clients live the life they want. So before we begin talking about us, we get to know you first. Would you like to tell me a little bit about your health and wellness goals, and the struggles you’ve had reaching them?”
We start this way for a few reasons:
1. You may be looking for something we don’t provide (like a particular brand of fitness or to lose 20lbs in 20 days). We don’t pretend to be something we’re not and we don’t make promises that we can’t keep. So we would refer you to another facility or professional in our area who would be better suited to help you.
2. You may not be the right fit for our gym. There is a very particular type of client who finds success with us. These are clients who are tired of trying and failing to reach their goals. They’ve come to accept they can no longer do it alone and they’re ready to embrace & trust the process. They don’t let their ego get in the way. They’re coachable.
So, we use our interview process to determine if you, as a potential client, meets both of these very important criteria first.
If so, then we invite you into the gym to get further in-depth. We learn about why your goals are important to you, what your past fitness experience is, any pertinent medical history, what your lifestyle is like and even the types of things you like to do.
Then we tell you what you need to get started to successfully reach your goals. And it may be different than what you initially thought you were going to do.
We have clients from all walks of life that train with us. So, we offer a variety of programs and several different ways to get started because we’ve learned that one-size does not fit all. So, in order for fitness to work for you specifically, it has to be tailored to you individually.
For some that means personal training first. For others it means distance training or individualized programming outside of our group classes. Each client starts in the way that best supports them reaching their goals and fits into their existing lifestyle.
We know from experience that expecting you to turn your life upside down in order to “make your workouts happen” is a recipe for failure.
We know that the way we do things is non-traditional. And we’ve been told that our “sales” process is off-putting. But like I said to begin with, we don’t do sales here.
We do things this way for a reason. We’re weeding out the people who aren’t interested in or ready for what we offer. Not everyone is in the market for change. And we don’t compromise our values just to get you to lay down your credit card.
If you keep trying to reach health and wellness goals, and it’s just not happening for you, maybe a non-traditional approach can help you too – maybe you’re ready to start a conversation with us.