The Old Rules of Sales are Dead
By Doug Miller
Your future members will likely come from world of mouth.
Over thirty years ago, when I first started selling clubs memberships, the rules were different. The industry was new and people were curious about all the new choices like racquetball, Nautilus equipment, LifeCycles and aerobics. Thus, in the beginning, membership salespeople were simply order takers. About 70 percent of the prospects were first-timers and they’d never been a member of a club before.
It wasn’t until the late 80s, when the business started getting more competitive, that actual selling became necessary. Unfortunately, most of it was hard pressure.
My company, Sales Makers International, had a different approach. We pioneered what we call “aggressive hospitality.” Our motto is “kill the customer with kindness,” and we believe that membership retention begins the day a member joins.
About four years ago I realised how powerful the Internet could be in selling memberships after reading a book by Seth Godin called Meatball Sundae. Its basic premise is that 98% of all businesses don’t use their websites and the Internet effectively in promoting their businesses. His argument is that to properly use the Internet you need to rethink your business from the ground up. This inspired me to apply his philosophy to my company.
Word of mouth used to give us most of our sales, but now it’s all about world of mouth. Before, the saying was, “A satisfied member tells three people, while a dissatisfied member tells ten.” Now a satisfied member tells thousands of others through Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and the dozens of other social networking sites. And, of course, a dissatisfied member tells thousands.
To properly utilise the Web you need to engage your members and your prospects. I believe that this begins and ends with your blog. A blog showcases your club’s expertise and becomes a valuable component of your sales and retention program.
Say, for example, you post a healthy recipe on Monday and an imbedded streaming video on YouTube on Tuesday. If they like them, they’ll Tweet or post about them with a link back to your blog. If you have a link on your blog to your online sales portal you’ve gone full circle.
We use www.joinonline247.com, which is a simple link to our sites that visually stimulates and engages prospects to join. It is customized for each club and can pay for itself with about two extra sales a month. It doesn’t replace a sales team – but it can add fantastic new sales to monthly targets.
I’ve actually taken on a full-time person to manage all of our social marketing using money from our advertising budget. After the initial set-up, everything else is free.
Doug Miller is co-founder of Sales Makers International in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He has worked extensively in the U.K. and Scandinavia and with over 900 clubs throughout North America and Europe. Contact him at www.salesmakers.com.
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