Selling INDUCTIONS at the Sales & Retention Convention

One of the best ways to improve your member retention is to link your retention initiatives with your sales processes and scripts. Sell the actions and experiences to your members, and then deliver them!

This is what we presented at the Sales & Retention Convention last week – a joined up approach to getting more members into your club and getting them to stick around longer. In these blog posts, we’ll sum up a couple of hours’ presentation in a few hundred words.

The first session on selling retention was about selling the induction. Put simply, members who have inductions stay longer on average. How much longer depends on the club, quality, and a variety of other factors, but broadly speaking, members who have inductions, stay longer.

So why do we need to sell the induction? It comes down to experience...

• Experience of previous inductions
• Being an experienced exerciser
• Knowing what other clubs do… and because some (particularly low-cost) clubs have taken away the induction as a barrier to sale

So to really sell the induction, we need to look at the member benefits, and find out what makes a great induction from a member point of view.

Try listing the member benefits of attending the induction session at your club. Start with ‘you’ll stay longer and get fitter’, and don’t allow ‘health and safety’ as a reason. Even better - get your members to list the benefits of the induction, either after their induction, or via an online survey once they've completed the appointment.

In terms of KPIs, from 100 joiners, do you know how many have an induction?
And of those inductions how many were of a good quality, or made the member feel good? A simple Smiley Face/Sad Face survey will help you with this answer.

Tips to improve induction rates:

• Rename the induction – getting started, welcome session, Step1, Stage1, first appointment, etc. After all, not many people enjoy being induced!
• Offer a fast-track or quick induction as an alternative. It’s a better alternative to nothing.
• Monitor induction booking vs attendance and send appointment reminders if needed.