Showing Your Boss You're Working!

Tony writes:

I have been selling membership for over a year and I am very successful selling 35-50 members a month. I recently transferred to a new club, where I thought it would be a better opportunity but I am struggling at about 20 a month. My prospecting is not working and I am struggling with leads and show rates. The manager here thinks I am not trying. Everything seems different in this club and I am giving a good effort. Any suggestions?

Tony,

Changing from one club to another will result in your basically starting over; new relationships with members for referrals, empty lead pool, and potentially a selling environment that could be radically different than what you were accustomed to (this could be internal among the sales staff or simply socioeconomically with the prospects walking through the doors). I do not know how long you have been at the new club but everyone must be patient and give the transition some time.

That said, there are some key questions that need to be asked. First of all, what is your closing ratio? If your closing ratio is between 60-70% then you are facing a lead generation challenge, not a closing problem.

Next, when you look at the number of tours you are giving each month, do you know how many are walk-ins and how many are self-generated leads? If they are all walk ins then you move to the next question; what type of lead generation activities are you doing every single day and—more importantly—are you documenting your efforts?

I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that you aren’t having a closing problem but rather a prospecting problem given your comment about “nothing you are doing is working.” Therefore, the most important thing you should be doing is documenting your daily activities. Write down every single thing you are doing each and every day to generate leads. This means everything; new member referrals, existing member referrals, guest passes handed out, lead boxes placed/serviced, flyer postings, joint marketing relationships with other businesses, etc. Once you have tracked your activity then you can go to your boss and show him/her “see, I really am trying.” From there you can better diagnose where the problem exists and what you need to do to try and fix it. For example, if you aren’t getting any POS referrals then I’d want to role play with you your presentation to make sure you are asking correctly.

The great thing about sales it is a numbers game; the more you make the more you make. This applies to both prospecting and presentations. So, if you manage your daily activity and talk to enough people you will eventually succeed (unless you have a closing problem, which is another discussion for another day).

Hope this helps. Happy Selling!

Casey