I’ve got to admit it, I can’t stand the whole ‘closing’ thing that many of the fitness marketing experts seem to be so in love with at the moment.

You know, that “Ok, I’d like you to come in for a consult but you’ve got to promise me that you’ll make your mind up either way by the end of it so that we don’t waste each others’ time” approach that many of them are teaching their students.

I get the idea behind it but, bloody hell, does that really seem like a good way to do business? To practically bully a person into doing business with you?

I like to think that I’ve got a very stringent selection process for clients joining my business. We have a very strict gatekeeper strategy in place that means that only the very serious people who are ready to follow our strategies come onboard but that’s a 2-way protection process that stops us wasting time and them wasting money when they’re not ready.

But we never close.

Not in the ‘answer all their objections and box them into a corner’ method I seem to be hearing more and more about lately.

In fact, we take a much more ‘coaching’ and consultative approach to our marketing so that we never really have to close.

In many respects it comes down to asking 7 questions, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly, but they’re asked just the same.

They are:

1. “What do you think are the 3 most important ways that I/we could help you?”

This is a simple yet highly powerful question that easily opens up the conversation, has the prospect qualify their actual expectations of you and allows you to explain how you could do all of these things for them.

It completely keeps you out of the ’sales zone’ and allows you to stay with the client and talk about THEM as opposed to spending all your time on you.

2. “What do you think would be THE most important thing I could do for you if we work together?”

What the prospect feels is important is often different to what you as the coach feel is important. While you may think that the speed of results is the primary concern, they may be more worried about keeping the workouts varied and enjoyable.

Yes, they want results but how they get there may be something that features very highly on their values list. Knowing THE most important requirement from their perspective allows you to ensure that the remainder of the consultation and, indeed, the remainder of your relationship together is focused on THE thing rather than A thing.

A great way to maintain and grow an excellent coaching relationship.

3. “How do you think you’ll be measuring the effectiveness of our time together?”

This is a POWERFUL question for both you and the client to get clear on!

For you, if you know that the client is measuring the effectiveness based upon how much fun they have whilst getting to the results they desire, you can ensure that you don’t make the process too ‘heavy’ and serious.

For them, they get to clarify that they may get their results just a little slower because the program has been built around their experience rather than ‘just’ chasing the result without regard to how they’re feeling.

4. “What would need to happen in order for you to feel that your investment of time, money and effort in working with me is worth it?”

This is another way of asking question 3 but puts it into more concrete ROI (return on investment) terms. It’s another opportunity for the client to clarify their goals and how important they are to them.

5. “What do you think I should do if you fall behind on your goals or break your commitments to yourself, me and them?”

Your clients are considering hiring you because they have never been able to achieve their goals by themselves. They ultimately want both accountability and results.

This question gets the difficult situation of non-compliance addressed before they even start working with you and allows THEM to explain how they should be brought back on track BEFORE the problem even arises.

Very powerful for you as a coach!

6. “What do you think would be poor coaching on my part?”

Asking the client to define poor coaching before you even start working together allows you to understand their needs even further. Knowing the answer to this question allows you to formulate a plan that makes sense to them and their values system and also keep you on your toes so that you don’t fail them by being what they don’t want.

Of course, it also allows you to head them off at the pass if at a consult they’re asking more than you’re willing to give too!

Ultimately, all six questions are the same.

They’re asking “what do you want from me?” but instead of making the whole thing about ‘closing’ they do something extremely powerful.

They make the prospect/client felt seen, heard and understood.

Ultimately, they utilise the Sawubona principle that creates connection and genuine caring between the coach and the client meaning that ridiculous ‘forced closes’ and all that other nonsense can be thrown away and you can simply do what got you into the health and fitness profession in the first place.

Coach!

Sawubona! : )

Dax

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Tags: dax moy fitness marketing personal trainer training

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 21st, 2010 at 7:44 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.