Converting to Full Membership

 If you’ve done your job well, your trialists should want to become members without too much typical ‘sales’ being necessary. 

For the training gym model, we’re looking for a conversion rate of around 50-75%. Any less, and you may have an issue with standards or your trial process. Any more and you may need to ask yourself if you’re undercharging for your service.

Here are some questions to ask if you find your conversion rate isn’t what you expected or hoped:

• Is there a disconnect between the people you’re targeting with your marketing, and your eventual offering?

Remember that if you’re not attracting the right people, however good your trial is, they’re unlikely to stick around. 

• Are you setting expectations and preparing the ground for the sale? 

As we showed in the nurture sequence breakdown for the trial, you need to have multiple contact points where you’re communicating what’s going to happen next. You should also be getting a sense of how the trialist is finding the experience – this gives you the chance to address (and hopefully overcome) any objections they have BEFORE they reach the end of the trial. 

• Have you got the timing right?

Although the experience of the trial itself should be your main selling process, there may be one crunch point where you need to push your trialist over the line. Timing this ‘ask’ correctly is really important. Don’t do it too early in the trial, or you won’t have had the chance to show off the best bits of the experience. But by the same token, don’t leave it until right at the end of the trial. Initiate the conversation sometime in the third week (or ¾ of the way through) to give yourself and the client some time to take next steps before the trial ends. 

• Is the experience selling itself?

If your conversion rate isn’t where you want it to be, the most important question you should be asking is: am I giving the best possible experience of being a member at my gym? Are my Three Ps (People, Product, Place) on point? Are my systems and service standards bombproof? Is the customer service seamless and consistently above and beyond? If the answer to these questions isn’t a resounding ‘yes’, it’s time to sharpen up your operation. 

If you’re looking for more specific guidance on building your skills as a salesperson, check out our in-depth sales course.