After I posted my last sports training sales tip and offered my free e-book on the Business of Sports Training, I had a lot of people contact me to say the information was very helpful. That made me think that I might be on to something here, so I figured we’d keep it going.
I notice that a lot of trainers get really nervous when they think they have to sell their program. I figured this out years ago when I notice my staff getting kind of tongue-tied when talking to a prospective client. It’s like we want to launch into a full sales script or something and we skip over all the important stuff – learning more about who we’re talking to and what they want.
So, I started teaching my staff to ask some very simple questions whenever a new client walked in the door or called on the phone. This started off by asking very basic questions like:
“How old is the athlete?”
“What sport does he/she play?”
“What are your goals for this program?”
“Has he/she ever done any training like this before?”
Not only do these simple questions give us a better understanding of who we’re talking to, they also tend to lead to natural follow-up questions and the person we’re talking to really starts to feel like we care about them. We do care, and this is a very simple strategy to let them know.
This approach also takes some pressure off of you because you don’t have to launch into your sales message. It gives you some time and allows you to soak in some information before spouting off.
This short video talks more about this strategy, and I hope the “Ask Questions Approach” helps you feel more comfortable talking to a new client.
[…] Sports Training Sales Tip – Asking Questions […]