This is one for your sales staff, receptionists or anyone that has a channel of communication with members or potential members. It’s these staff that will have the opportunity to convert leads or to change the mind of members that want to leave your club. ll-rehearsed system for dealing with objections.
Like many things we discuss in high-performance sales work chance is taken out utilising well-crafted scripts and a choreographed process.
Here’s how it rolls.
Consider the acronym: P.R.E.K.C.
P stands for Pause.
The first thing that you do if a customer comes up with an objection is to do nothing, is to just pause for a few seconds. Take your time in responding.
Remember what they said they don’t mean. It is not true, they are not telling you the truth. This is because they are just having a little last-minute panic.
What you do next is to repeat back to them what they said to you.
The R is “repeat”.
‘You don’t think you’ve got the time?
You’re worried about the money?’
And you leave the words hanging so the prospect can hear what they said again. You both know it’s not true and they need to know you know it’s not true. So, you leave it hanging.
Now because you just put a little bit of pressure on this relationship you must do then a process called “empathise”. To show “empathy “with the client inability to decide.
The E in P.R.E.K.C stands for “Empathise”.
We use a technique called “Feel, Felt, Found.” To overcome it.
Here’s how we build a sentence with these three words in it.
#1 Money or the price.
It’s more expensive than I thought it was going to be, it’s more money than I was hoping to pay. The second one is the time. ‘I’m not sure I’ve got the time to use the club to get the value out of it.’
The third is the competition. ‘I’d like to look around the other clubs in the town before I make a decision.’
The fourth one, is what we call the spouse or the partner objection. ‘I’d like to go home and discuss it with my partner before I decide about joining.’
And the fifth one, ‘I will think about it.’ Also known as the procrastination objection. Now when you look at the needs analysis interview that we’ve done, every single one of these five has been asked about in that interview. So, all this is a complete shock to you if you’ve done the system right. That doesn’t mean it isn’t going to happen because people are saying these things even when they don’t really mean them.
So it goes something like this,
‘It’s more money than I thought it was going to be.’
Look them in the eye and pause for a few seconds.
Then you say; ‘It’s more money than you thought it was going to be?
I know exactly how you feel.
Lots of my customers at this point felt it was a huge amount of money to invest but once they got started and they started to feel the benefits and see results within the first four to six weeks they realise it’s the best money they spent.’
K is the key Question.
I’m then going to move on and ask the key question. ‘Is it the only thing stopping you from joining today Kelly? Is it the only thing stopping you from joining today? I just need to make sure that it is.’
Then I’m going to close.
The final C of the jigsaw is the closing question.
Now if you are working with a club of any quality at all you will be using some sort of money back guarantee. Money Back Guarantees can be anything from 7, 14 to 21 days long but any club of any value should be using that. Here’s how we use it in the close.
‘Kelly, will you know within the next 14 days whether you’ve joined a club where you are going to get value for money?
Would you know in the first two weeks whether you’ve made a good decision?
Yes?
Great, here’s what we’re going to do then. We’re going to sign you up today, I’m going to get you started because I know that you’re keen to achieve that result that we’ve talked about. And if at any time in the next 14 days you’re not happy or you’re not feeling as though you’re getting the value you want from the club, we will give you all your money back.
And here’s the certificate that you can carry to prove that. Let’s get you started.’
And that is the way you use the money back guarantee.
It really is a badge of honour.
You see right now in our industry we’ve got people joining clubs without money back guarantees who then fall out of love and they get hit for the whole membership and they tell everybody they know about what a terrible club it is.
What you want to be doing is for the 5% of people, the five people in 100 who bring this back is they all go and say, ‘I went and used that club and they were really nice and really friendly, but it wasn’t for me and they gave me all my money back.’ How about that PR compared to, ‘I’m not going to join Club X because they’re awful and it cost me £450.00?’
You can’t lose with this, you really cannot.
So, what we’ve got to do is we need to just work that process with each of these five different objections.
‘On the money one is it the joining fee or the monthly dues that’s causing you the problem?
Bearing in mind all the things you get when you join the club, how much were you expecting to pay as a joining fee? “
Or if the objection is the monthly dues amount:
“Bearing in mind the facilities we’ve got and the services we’ve talked about how much were you expecting to pay for the monthly due?’
So you are thinking about £24.00 ? Our membership costs £36 per month and the prospect was thought that £24 per month was their budget. You were happy to pay £24 so the difference of £12.00 per month is what’s stopping you from joining today right ? That’s about £3.00 a week?
(Empathise) I know how you feel, lots of people felt it, then found that we are better by far than any other club in this area.
Can I ask , is it the only thing stopping you from joining?
Will you know in the next 14 days whether you’ve made the right decision or not?
Yes.
Great, then here’s what we’ll do, let’s get the paperwork out.’
The competition objection– this is my favourite one.
‘I’d like to look round at other competitors.’
‘Well I can help you with that because every club in this town we’ve got members from them so I know all about the good and the bad of those clubs, what do you want to know?
I’d like you to join this club, I think is right for you,
Let me ask you, do you think you will know in the next 14 days whether you’ve made the right decision or not?
Yes.
Great, here’s what we will do, let’s get the paperwork out, get you set-up and I’ll give you the Money back certificate to take away today.’
So that’s the competition one. The partner one. ‘If you went home and you said to your partner I’ve joined the gym what do you think they’d say?
Is it the only thing from stopping you from joining today?
Here’s what we’ll do. I want you to join up today, I want to get you started but if for any reason your partner is not happy about the decision I will give you a full money back guarantee in the next 14 days.
What I’d also like to do is to give you a guest pass for your partner to come down and train with you. Does that sound fair?
Great, let’s get you signed up.’
Finally, the think about it – and this is where as a sales person you really do earn your corn because these people are the worst buyers and they need to be helped. ‘I know how you feel, lots of people have felt this concern that they were making this step into the unknown and not sure if they’re going to get value but found it was the best money they’d spent. Would you know in the next 14 days whether you’ve made a good decision or not? Here’s what we do, join you up, give you the certificate, take it away.’
So, it’s about your confidence and it’s about using the tools that you’ve got and it’s about really having this attitude of mind that what is the worst thing that can happen from somebody joining your fitness club?
They get slimmer, they feel great, they have less chance of dying a premature death, they are going to meet people, they’re going to feel more energised, they’re going to feel a sense of control, emotionally they’re going to feel better.
You owe it to them to really, I think, let’s not call it hard sell but let’s just not take no for an answer. Let’s make them say no, not I want to think about it. Customer indecision is a sales “crime”
Yes or no; your job is to help them decide.