Successful Membership Pre-Sales Strategies To Open a Gym

So you want to open a gym and you can’t wait to get started. Not so fast! Before you can enjoy the fruits of your labor, you’ve got to do some heavy membership pre-sales to build momentum and help your new venture launch on the best possible foot. Who wouldn’t want to open the doors and already have a successful membership base established?

Every entrepreneur knows that starting a new business is risky. Currently, the data shows that about 20% of businesses fail within their first year of operation. Fortunately, you don’t have to become a statistic. By investing some time and effort in the pre-sales process, you can give your new gym a boost from day one and help increase your chances of success.

In this article by Rick Mayo, Alloy Founder and CEO, we’ll discuss the ins and outs of pre-sales: what it is, why it matters, what you need to be thinking about, and how to do it.

What is the Pre-Sales Period?

The pre-sale period is an important window for introducing any brand. During this time, you start early marketing and sales to prospects while creating brand awareness and business relationships in the community.

At Alloy, pre-sales is the two-month period that begins during construction and continues through the studio’s grand opening. This is the time to pre-sell memberships to ensure you open with a head start. While members can sign up for memberships during the pre-sale period, we do not charge them until grand opening.

The major benefit for members of signing up during pre-sales is they receive a discounted rate. At Alloy, we call this a “Founder’s Rate,” which is only offered during this special time. Members who sign up during this period lock in this rate. At Alloy Personal Training Franchise, our pre-sale limit for each new gym is 100 Founder’s Rate memberships.

The Pre-Sales Playbook

Executing a picture-perfect pre-sale playbook sounds good, but how do you do it, exactly? Don’t worry. When new franchise owners sign on to open an Alloy location, we provide them with our complete pre-sale playbook. This playbook includes:

Sales Team Training
Sales Techniques
Product Knowledge
Marketing Collateral
Digital and Community Marketing Strategies
Starting Point Sessions
Daily Production Models
And Much More!

Pre-Sales Strategies For Alloy Franchises

Goal Setting and Production Goals

What gets measured gets managed. It’s as simple as that. Instead of heading into the pre-sales period with lofty, abstract goals you can’t track, we recommend concrete goal-setting and production markers.

When you open a franchise with Alloy, we’ll partner with you to help you establish SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely) goals. We’ll also help you establish specific production goals to help you identify how to reach the goals, and how to close the gap, if one exists.

The Appointment Process

Understanding the various appointment types and knowing how best to set them is critical during the membership pre-sales phase.

Fortunately, our pre-sale playbook provides detailed information about how to handle different appointment types, when to set them, how to follow up, and how to boost your gym’s chance of success during the pre-sale phase.

Setting and Confirming Appointments

Closing the deal is a critical part of every pre-sales period. Our handbook guides franchisees through the process with how many appointments you need to set, how to set the appointment, the importance of confirming the appointment, and the closing process (more on closing in a second). You will learn how to ace it time after time.

Prospect Show vs No Show

Prospect no-shows can kill your goals and monthly quota numbers, especially during the important pre-sales phase. Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be that way. At Alloy, our playbook walks franchise owners through how to avoid prospect no-shows, how to handle them when they occur, and what to change if your no-show rates start increasing.

Overcoming Objections

When a prospect has an objection, it doesn’t mean that is an absolute “no” or an end to the conversation. In reality, an objection is actually a need to know more information. So, in sales training, we learn how to ask leading questions to uncover the objection and resolve the prospect’s concern.

6 Primary Pre-Sales Objections

Price
Uncertainty (Want to think about the membership)
Talk to Spouse
Time Commitment
Shop Around
Try before joining

Since the actual studio space is under construction during the pre-sale and not officially open, objections a potential member may have are a natural part of the sales process. A comprehensive pre-sales strategy and detailed sales training that includes a process to identify and overcome objections is important to help assure the prospect they are making the right decision.

4-Stage Process For Overcoming Objections

Empathize
Isolate the Real Objection
Re-State Fitness Goals
Resolution and Solutions

Close Rates

Finally, let’s talk about close rates. High close rates are a sign of a job well-done for your company. The better you are at handling appointments, prospects showing up for the appointment, overcoming objections, and closing the sale will help you reach your pre-sales goals successfully. In our pre-sales strategies, we help franchise owners understand the importance of close rates during pre-opening sales and master the tactics needed to increase them.

Your Most Successful Membership Pre-Sales Period Starts Now

If you want a successful gym, you can’t afford to neglect or, worse, overlook the pre-sales period. Besides jumpstarting your company with a solid customer base, a comprehensive pre-sales strategy helps bridge some of the financial gap most companies face in their first few months of business. When you focus on driving pre-sales before you even open your doors, the process of opening a gym gets much smoother, easier, and more streamlined.

Article by Rick Mayo. Alloy Founder and CEO

To learn more about the pre-sales strategy or how Alloy helps support franchise owners during and throughout it, contact us today.