Help First: How to Boost Gym Sales Without Slimy Tactics

If you own a gym, you must sell.

That probably makes you uncomfortable, but Chris Cooper is here to remind you that selling is actually the first act of coaching. If you can't get people to sign up, you can't coach them to improve their health and fitness.

Still, no fitness coach wants to feel pushy or slimy. In this episode, Coop explains how to sell while maintaining a philosophy of generosity and service.

He lays out the Help First funnel, which has four sections:

• Introduction
• Conversation
• Invitation
• Conversion

It's a system characterized by honesty, and it allows gym owners to move from "selling" to "helping":

• If you are trying to get only what you want, you are selling.
• If you are trying to supply what they want and need, you are helping.

This mindset shift will make all the difference when a desperate person is asking you how to lose 20 lb. As a coach, it's your duty to tell that person exactly how to solve the problem and offer your expert help. 

If you remember that, you'll change more lives and close more sales.

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0:01 - Intro

0:33 - The Help First strategy

3:29 - How to start conversations

6:35 - How to extend an invitation

12:22 - Sales: the first act of coaching

14:30 - The Prescriptive Model

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

If you own a gym, you have to sell. I know that makes you uncomfortable, and it did me for many years too. But here's the truth. Selling is actually the first act of coaching, and today I'm gonna share some lessons about selling to make you comfortable selling without feeling pushy. We're gonna be using some examples from my book, help First, and I'm also gonna be walking you through the process. This is Run a Profitable Gym . I'm Chris Cooper, and if I hadn't gotten over my fear of selling way back in 2008, I wouldn't be here talking to you right now. Ever since I wrote this book Help First in 2017, a lot of people have quoted it, I've got it on t-shirts and some people even mis explain it. And so today I want to just quickly walk through what Help First actually means. It's not just a marketing tactic, it is an effective marketing strategy, but more than that, it's a philosophy of generosity and service. Every gym owner wants to help. Uh , you know, and that's why we got into this business, but if somebody doesn't sign up for your service, you can't help them helping starts with conversations, but it has to end with conversions. If you truly wanna help somebody, you have to invite them into your service. But the difference between helping and selling comes down to one word, and that is intent. If I wanna help you get what you want, then I'm not selling. If I'm trying to get only what I want, then I am selling. Let's talk about the Help First strategy here, because some people who have really adopted this believe that helping first just means helping period or helping for free or helping at a discount or just producing a lot of content. Here's what it actually means. I wanna give you a new perspective on a marketing funnel that's built around helping. First, if you think back to all of the marketing that you've ever learned, the books, you've read, the podcast, you've heard, maybe you took a course in marketing in college like I did 30 years ago. You were taught that funnels basically guide a broad audience of people down into the one person that you can help and then sell. Here's how this looks in a help first context. First off, you're going to introduce people through providing free seminars, free content, helping online groups. I'm gonna give you a few examples in a minute. And there, there are literally dozens in this book. Help first , you know, running free, free seminars at your gym, going into the workplace, et cetera . The second step though is conversation. And the point of that help first marketing strategy is to start this conversation, okay? It's to move them down the funnel. You are showing up at their workplace to start a conversation. You are partnering with the bridal shop so that you have an opportunity to start a conversation. They are making the introductions for you after that conversation or , or the point of that conversation is to work toward an invitation to your service. You're not just having a conversation as a getting to know you. There's a point to the conversation, and the conversation should lead to an invitation, and that invitation should lead to a conversion. If you are having trouble remembering this, here's what I do. I remember I-C-I-C-I-C-I-C , introduction, conversation, invitation, conversion, introduction, conversation, invitation, conversion. Now here's how that looks in practice. The help first strategies that you'll find in this book, get people into the conversation stage. They make an introduction for you. So here's some examples from the book , um, telling client stories, people share these stories online, other people comment, and that is an introduction to you. Next, offering free seminars, going into the client's workplace and, and telling them how to de-stress at their desk. That's an introduction to you. Your client is introducing you to their coworkers , uh, founders' club launches where you're talking to local businesses and putting up signs outside your gym about your founders' club. These is are introductions to you , uh, giving help in occupational or social bubbles. So for example, hey, I know that you're golfing next weekend. Why don't you bring in all of the women that you're golfing with and we'll do a session together. Or, Hey, I know that you're in this wedding, let's bring in the wedding party and start a session together. That's a social bubble. Uh , media and newsletters are an introduction to you. Podcasts like this one are an introduction to you thanking everyday heroes. So thanking up, you know, sharing posts about people who are doing amazing things in your community. These are an introduction to you team building and community events. Going to the clients who own businesses and saying, why don't you bring your your team in here and we'll do a team building night? Or going to , uh, the clients that you have who are on sports teams and saying, why don't you bring your team in here for a fun little combine or a year end party. Uh, these are introductions to you. Another one is something like a wine and wad, where on a Friday night you tell your clients, bring in one friend, we're gonna have a little , uh, fun little workout, and then we're gonna just drink some wine together and just have a fun little party or a Christmas event or whatever you want. These are all introductions to you. It's usually your clients introducing you to their friends, right? The goal of these introductions is to start conversations. This is why just doing a free trial group at your gym doesn't work because it's just an introduction, but it doesn't lead to a conversation. Well , you have to keep in mind in what some people miss in the book Help First is that they just produce content, but then they never further the conversation. If you really wanna help people, remember, you have to get them into your gym. It's not enough to give them education. Education will not change their lives alone. You have to actually coach them, and that means you are going to have to take them by the hand after the invitation and lead that into a conversation, okay? Because when your clients know that they need your help, you'll never have to sell anything again. And the way that we help them best, or we help them more, is through conversation. So what you wanna do here after you've posted the media or done the seminar or given the partner workout or whatever, is that you have to lead that into a conversation. And so what I always ask myself is, how can I help this person get what they want faster or better than what they're doing right now? And that's what's in my brain the whole time I'm having a conversation with them. So for example, if , uh, somebody comes up to you after a seminar like they just did with me yesterday, I was presenting, and they're like, Hey, I've got this quick question. The the question that should be in your head is, how can I help this person get the result that they want faster? The answer is always gonna be the same. It's always going to be the next step in this funnel. It's an invitation. You know, why don't you come into the gym and let's talk about this in private. Why don't you come into the gym and I'll show you what to do? Why don't you come into the gym? I've got this great habits plan that I can show you there, okay? It's an invitation. And an invitation flows naturally into a conversation if that's what you think of it as. If you think of it as a sales pitch, you'll feel awkward about it. Like you're asking somebody out for a first date that you've just met. That's not what this is. This is an invitation to join a party, an invitation to join the community that will actually help them . When I had that epiphany, I started getting really excited about inviting people into my gym. Okay? Now, the invitation, it still feels hard the first few times you do it, but here's how to do it anyway. Most gym owners struggle here with, Hey, why don't you come into my gym and let's talk about it? Because it feels like you're asking somebody on a date and you're scared of rejection. Subconsciously your ego is at risk, and your ego is like, no, no, no, no, no. Protect yourself. Don't take risks. You know, don't invite them out. Don't be the first to introduce yourself and say hello. And instead, what you have to do is say, do I care enough about this human being to show them how to solve their problem? Years ago, I was down in Minneapolis and we were there for a , a nephew's hockey tournament, and they had this kind of room for people in the hotel where you were staying, and you could go in there and you could get snacks, you could watch tv. It was quiet. I would go in there and do work for a couple of hours in the morning before the kids got up. And uh, one day in this room comes this guy who, you know, he's walking with two canes and he is barely mobile. He's dramatically overweight. He's probably early sixties, but he walks like, you know, he's on death's door, his wife is there, she's small kind of bird-like, you know, she's fluttering around him, helping him out. Let me get you this, let me get you that. He's drinking a coke for breakfast at 7:00 AM He's also having like a yogurt. And so, because I saw these people one day, two days, three days in a row, it was awkward not to start a conversation because we were the only ones in this little room. And so I was like, Hey, what are you guys doing in Minneapolis? And it turns out that he was there to have his leg amputated because he's so diabetic. He had lost feeling in his toes, and the doctors were gonna take his leg. And his fear was that they were gonna take his second leg a year later. And his wife even said something like, they can't take both at once. And so on the third day, I was like, oh man, I , I really feel for this guy. Oh, I can't imagine this, but here he is, drinking a coke at 7:00 AM eating this sugary little thing of yogurt for breakfast, sitting down. He's not moving. The , the wife is like, you know, fluttering around doing everything for him, man. And that really sat with me for the rest of the day. And so on the fourth morning, my last morning there 7:00 AM Alan like clockwork, they come tottering into the room and she's holding the door and you know, he's working his way toward the chair and she's going up to the breakfast bar to get him his cup of coke. And I was asking myself, Chris , like, do you really care enough about this human being to tell 'em the truth? That was an enormous ego risk because I knew that they probably wouldn't hear what I had to say. They might get offended, I might get embarrassed. They might tell me to f off. And I realized like, I, I just care too much to not say anything. Like, what if this person is in this position? Because nobody's ever told them the truth in a way that they understand it. And so I sat down, looked him in the eye, and I said, Hey, my name's Chris , by the way. I own a gym and I work with a lot of people who are diabetic. There are some things that you can do to make your life easier. Would you like to hear them? Now, it felt like I was trying to hand out Bibles on the street corner, I'll be honest. But he said, yeah, I would. And maybe it was just because they were from the Midwest and they were polite, but maybe they actually had never heard this before. And so we started talking about sugar and we started talking about carbs and we started talking about insulin. And I resisted the urge to sit down and draw pictures of insulin spikes, you know, on a piece of paper because they didn't need to be lectured. They needed some help. And so I said, if all you do is you get a little bit of protein at every meal, you get off the Coke, you move as much as you possibly can. There's a way that you can avoid losing the second leg. It's probably too late. You're already here for the surgery. And this guy had tears in his eyes and he didn't praise me. He didn't say, oh, nobody's ever told us that before. Of course not. But hearing it from a stranger who genuinely wants to help might have been different. And I offered him to stay in touch. I gave him my cell phone number. I never heard from him again. Did I make a difference? Maybe not. Did I just do that to make myself feel smart? No, I did it with the honest intent to help. So for you to be comfortable making the invitation, just remember you're not inviting them to a sale, you're not trying to trick them, you're inviting them to a party. And usually it's your own ego that stops you. Okay? Just remember, like people are too scared to bridge the gap. They're not gonna invite themselves to your place. They're not gonna invite themselves to dinner. They're not gonna invite themselves to your party. They're waiting to be invited. And the reason that they haven't signed up yet is because they don't feel like they have been invited. Alright ? The fourth stage here is the conversion. What you have to remember in this stage is that sales is the first act of coaching. You have to coach them to sign up because you know, and I know that if they don't sign up, nothing is going to change in their lives. You can give them all the free resources in the world, but knowledge will not solve their problem. They can find a diet online in 30 seconds. They can find a new workout program on YouTube in about four seconds. They have access to all the knowledge they need, and it's not making a difference. If you own a gym like I do, people are coming in your door to be coached, not to be sold, but to be coached. And so you have to coach them, tell 'em what to do based on what's best for them, not what's cheapest for them. That's honesty. And the no sweat intro process is all about honesty. Telling people the truth. Here is what you need to do, not sugarcoating it to make it sound easy, not sugarcoating it because you think, well, I know what they can afford or what you can afford. Not putting those limitations and filters on people. They deserve honesty. They expect honesty. That's why they're there. And if you aren't honest with them, that's when it will feel like a sales pitch. If you are saying in your brain they don't let , like they can afford it, it will feel like a sales pitch. If you're saying in your brain they're a teacher, I should give them 20% off, it will feel like a sales pitch because it is sometimes just because you're desperate and you need this sale so bad, it will feel like a sales pitch. But I promise you the cure for that is an honest intent to help you know what is actually gonna help this person. It's personal training and reps, reps is the other thing. You have to practice this. My close rate at my gym is very close to a hundred percent because I don't feel any pressure to close anybody. I do feel a lot of pressure to tell that person the truth, because best case, they sign up for my gym and we help 'em . Worst case, they leave with the truth and maybe they come back to my gym, maybe they don't. But now somebody in their life has told them the truth. And there are probably very few people who are telling them that, okay, use the prescriptive model. So in the prescriptive model, if you just follow this, you won't feel like you're selling, you'll feel like you're prescribing. So you tell 'em where they're starting from. You show them what's realistic, you give them their options. Would you like to do this one-on-one with me? Or in a group setting? You prescribe the best path. Here's what should happen. And you don't project anything else onto them. You don't assume you know what their wallet is. Like, you don't assume you know what their schedule is. Like you don't assume that they want group coaching or that they want one-on-one. You don't assume that they're gonna hate this. You don't assume that they're gonna ask for a discount. You don't assume anything because you can't read their mind. You don't project any of these limitations onto them. You tell them the truth and then ask them how they feel about it. Now, look, caveat, you're probably underpriced already for the value that you provide. And the reason that you're underpriced is all about your confidence, not about what they can actually afford. That's in your head, not in theirs. So before you go any further here, remember that the client's sense of value is not the same as your sense of value, especially if you're a broke gym owner. You have no idea what they value. You know, there's this old story by Zig Ziglar. Uh , when I was trying to sell treadmills, my boss would get me sales coaches and she'd give me books. And one of the books that I really liked was , um, the Art of Selling by Zig Ziglar. And he told this story , uh, he was going door to door in the Great Depression, and he was selling pots and pans and you know, he had this really amazing , uh, frying pan that people could use to cook just about anything. And it , it was easy to clean. And so he'd go door to door to door and he would knock on the door and people didn't have television or radio back then, really? So just for the entertainment, they'd invite him in and he'd pitch and pitch and pitch, and they'd ask questions just to string up the conversation. And finally, they would not buy anything. And so he is down in rural Georgia, he's exhausted. It's the end of the day. He's dry, he's in this family's living room, they are broke. I mean, they are poor. And he's pitching this frying pan and he's like, they're, they're not gonna buy this frying pan . And he's right. And at the end of the pitch, they're like, we don't have any money. Sorry, thank you for your time. They're kind of embarrassed that they've kept him there for an hour. He's kind of embarrassed that, you know, they have this clear poverty. And as he's packing things up, he is putting his like brochures back in his leather briefcase. And the mom of the family says, what's that brochure there? And he says, oh, it's, it's fine China. We also deal in fine China. And she's like, let me see that. And so she opens it up and she's looking at the fine China, like, wow. And you know, he's kind of humoring her and she's like, I'll take a full set. And he said, well man, that's amazing. But a full set of fine China, even in those days was, you know, hundreds of dollars. And she said, that's okay. I don't have any money for a frying pan, but I've been saving money since I was a little girl for a set of fine China. I have money for that. And what you need to understand is that when somebody comes in your door, maybe they're not dressed in the newest Lululemon because they don't have money for that, but they do have money for their health. And we cannot project our feelings about, you know, money or priorities or value onto our clients. Now , uh, we've gone through kind of like the help first sales funnel, right? We've got introduction. You do a help first marketing strategy to be introduced to more people. You turn that into a conversation by asking yourself, how can I help this person even more? And that conversation should lead to an invitation because that is how you help people more. You coach them. That invitation should turn into a no sweat intro. You do the prescriptive model and that should lead to a conversion because you're coaching them to take the next step. But what I want you to remember here is that one of the things that we teach people is to have a lot of social proof. So in the office where you do your nose , sweat intros, you wanna have lots of pictures of help happy clients. You wanna have pictures of them holding up whiteboards and saying, I did it. I lost 20 pounds. I did my first box jump . I rode my bike 30 kilometers, I ran a five KI didn't think this was possible, but it was, my life has changed. I'm happier, I'm healthier, I'm leaner, I'm smarter, I , whatever that is, right? You wanna have these pictures and testimonials all over your office, but it's not just for your clients. The reason that you want these client success stories in your office is for you. Because yes, the client will see these and they will imagine their own success, but even more importantly, it reminds you that your service works. That you're not tricking anybody. You're not selling them an old lemon that's gonna break down when they drive it off the lot. Your service works, it's so valuable that I guarantee you it's already underpriced. And so the no sweat intro is just your first act of coaching. It's not a bait and switch. It's not a trick. It's not convincing somebody to buy when they're not comfortable or pushing them or you know, having them spend more money than they planned. It's coaching them into taking the first step, the first real step, not the first discount step, not the cheapest step, not the easiest step, the step that's actually going to change their lives. That's what good coaching is, alright ? Helping first is the beginning, but it's not the end. You have to invite people, you have to convert them because if you don't, you're not truly helping them. Helping doesn't feel like selling to you and it doesn't feel like selling to the potential client either. Help, first could be called marketing, but you can also call it generosity. And so this is your invitation. I'm giving you this to invite you into a conversation with my team because I know that while the knowledge is helpful and valuable, and that's why I deliver it to you, it's only the first step in a conversation. You can find me on Facebook, you can send me a DM and continue the conversation. But I wanna take this opportunity because I care enough about you, even though it feels kind of awkward to invite you into what will actually change your life. This is me getting over my ego, having done this thousands of times, putting in the reps to be at a point where I want to invite you into mentorship because I know the program works. So you can click a link below this video to book a call with my team and let us help you help more people. I'm Chris Cooper, this is Run a Profitable Gym and I really would love to continue the conversation with you. Book a call with my team and that's how we progress to help you help more people.