Last month, L.A. Fitness opened up their brand new location in South Elgin. And prior to that, the marketing and sales department of said fitness center has been working triple time to promote their opening and sell memberships. And of course, they wasted no time in promoting themselves inside the halls of Elgin Community College. The gimmick? Hand out free passes to students to get their attention and convince them to sign up for memberships. The offer? A membership fit for your budget with a one time set up fee and no yearly contracts to manage, only a month to month membership. The price? Not cheap, but reasonable. A fully equipped gym with machines, weights, studios, work out classes in big air conditioned dance/exercise studios, three racquetball courts, a basketball court, a lap pool, Jacuzzi, and a spacious locker/shower room with a sauna for less than fifty dollars a month.
So how do we get these people to voluntarily walk through the doors of L.A. Fitness and sell them memberships instead of our sales team walking around and all over town in search of a clientele? Free passes. Or more specifically a 3 on 3 free work out pass: Three people can work out for free for three consecutive days at the gym. Who would want to try a new gym by themselves anyway? You need someone to exchange opinions with. So you bring two of your friends and explore the place. Work out and talk and whatnot. Sounds just about right. So you walk in with your two buddies with the golden free gym pass at a three week old fitness center. And right off the bat, a sales person will give you a “tour” of the place. Basically selling the gym to you, when the only thing you want to do anyway is just get your workout of the way. After the tour, they sit you down and bam, a sales pitch ensues. Now, I may not be an expert at selling stuff (trust me, I did it once and never doing it again.), but I am a Marketing and Retail Management major. So I know that the rule of thumb is not to sell something to a client, but “help them buy”. Meaning you stand at the client’s side, not be on the opposite side of the table (not literally of course.) They even went as far as calling upper management to see if they can “extend” a more appropriate offer. Something that is between you and them alone, a la customized membership fees. So you show the sales person your golden ticket to three free days at the gym and he tells you that you cannot possibly achieve results in three days, that it takes 21 days to form a habit, and instead of using it to work out for three days, you can cash it in for a discounted one time set up fee and a reduced price for a membership fee. So the regular $149 one time fee and 39.99 monthly fee is now $99 and $35, respectively. But you tell them you have nothing on you right now and it’s not the right time to set up a membership, maybe down the line, but for now you just wanna check the place out. Mr. Upper Management even “went there”, when he asked me and my friend “Not even $60 between the two of you?” And I’m just thinking, really? Seriously?
The one big thing that bothered me when I was sitting there with my friend and my boyfriend was that, as frank as we were that we were not interested in purchasing a membership, the sales person right off the bat showed no interest in doing his job knowing full well he will not be getting our signatures at the end of his spiel. It felt like he was just forcing himself to do his script and go through S.O.P., all the while you can tell by his body language, tone, and facial expressions that he just want to get this over with. And I even had this weird feeling that had I been able to literally read the tip of his tongue, it would have said that we can’t work out. So pretty much that whole 15 something minutes we were sitting there felt like a drag, a waste of time. He had no charm, no conviction, no sincerity.
Of course we still managed to work out and tried out their facility short of jumping into the lap pool and steaming our butts away inside the sauna.
But does this really bad marketing/sales training stop there? No. The gimmick actually doesn’t even start there. That was just the icing on the cake. A sneak preview, a peep show. The real gimmick, which leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth, starts the following day.
So my boyfriend and my friend ended up going back the next day to stake their claim on the second of three days of free gym pass. As if they purposely wrote our names down “just in case”, as soon as they walk into the gym and straight into the front desk, one sales person came up to them and said something along these words, “The 3 on 3 passes can only be used by people who want to purchase a membership in here.” Yes, ladies and gentlemen, these two future potential clients were denied access to the facility because they are not interested in purchasing a membership at that time. So my boyfriend tells them about what he thought about their cunning advertising. About how that’s false advertising right there because, as whoever handed out those passes to ECC certainly did not include or bother to say that those passes are only for people who are sure to purchase a membership. My boyfriend even went to say that he should then tell the students of ECC about their bogus promotion and that it’s not fair at all. And what did the guy do? He just shrugged his shoulders as if to say, “What can I do? I just work here. I don’t make the rules.” Too bad my boyfriend didn’t get his name, or it would have been here in my rant, in bold, underlined, italic and highlighted letters, font size 50.
I understand the concept of their promotion, I really do. I think it’s genius. Why give away one week passes to individuals (Fitness 19) when you can get 1 person to come in with two of his friends. That’s three times the chance to sell memberships and reach your daily goal. But I believe that everyone is a potential client. Not today, but somewhere down the line. And if these sales people have just taken a sales class, word of mouth is the strongest publicity one can have.
Here’s Sales 101 for you L.A. Fitness employees:
1.) People rarely talk about the good customer service they got. They are more inclined to go on a rant rampage because of bad customer service, bad quality, bad service, etc. Have you heard anyone ever say, “I had a good experience today at [insert business or store here]. They really filled up my cup of drink with just the right amount of ice.” Granted, maybe that person will say it once. But find me a person who will talk to anyone they come across ranting and venting about how he told the server “no ice, please” but ended up with an cup full of ice? People remember the bad stuff and will talk about it ten years from now even. So that window of opportunity you have to make an impression to a customer? Make it a good one. Because to that person, you will only have your fifteen minutes of fame one time.
2.) It is six times harder and more costly to gain a customer than to keep one. Confuzzled? Let me rephrase. It only takes 1/6 the effort to keep a customer than to gain one.
3.) Here is the Pareto Principle, also known as the 80/20 rule: 80% of your income will come from 20% of your customers. Meaning you better make nice with everyone that walks in your gym, aka potential clients. Because the 20% that walk through those electronic doors will give you 80% of the funds you will need to maintain your facility, your equipments, and your employees.
4.) AIDA: attention, interest, desire, action. You got my attention, now I’m showing interest. How will I establish desire when you’re action is to disqualify me as a potential client?
5.) Sell the sizzle, not the steak. A car is just a box with wheels until you make me realize that the world is too big to discover it on foot. A school is just a brick building with books until you make me see I need an education. A gym is just a museum of gadgetry until you make me experience it.
6.) Don’t focus on the price, but on the value. And you’re telling me that my access to the facility is denied unless I come into terms of payment with the price of your membership.
My final thoughts on this proud representation of bad advertising is this: When you go down the food court of your local mall and you see “Free Taste” on one of the food chains, it doesn’t come with the watermark of “Only When You Buy It Afterwards”.
So here’s a little something for you, Mr. L.A. Fitness Sales Person: Fitness 19 is just down the street, and they certainly don’t twist your arm before/during/after you use up your free pass. Because everyone knows you just have to “make nice.”
Jaja
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