October 27, 2024 • 44 mins
In this episode of The GSD Show, the leading fitness business podcast, we dive deep into the perception of sales and how it impacts success
Mike and Benji explore why many people are resistant to sales, uncovering common misconceptions and the mental barriers that hold them back. They emphasize the importance of shifting the mindset around sales from being pushy to seeing it as a way to help others achieve their goals. They share practical strategies for building confidence in sales teams, understanding and coaching prospects effectively, and creating a genuine connection to drive conversions. This episode offers valuable insights for business owners, gym managers, and anyone in a sales-driven role to redefine what selling truly means and inspire a higher level of commitment and results.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
what we're going to be talking about today is sales and
conversions, and we're going to be diving into what that means to me, and also what that means to Benji, who's my guest on the show today.
And Benji is the co-founder of Super Fit Grow in Australia, an incredible company that builds winning ad campaigns for gyms. All over the world. In fact, they're so good at what they do that we send them all of our business. We work something out, of course, but man, they're just fantastic. So really loud rumor just has their mastermind.
(00:27):
And as a reminder, I'm not only your host of the GSD show, but I am also the CEO of Loud Rumor, which is an incredible mastermind for some of the smartest, hardest working gym owners all over the world. In fact, some of these guys have multiple seven figure gyms, and they just really are great at sharing what it is they do and how they're successful, and also sharing where they failed.
So you can learn from that as well. So if you want to learn more about how to be a part of that, go to Louden Macom. Schedule a call and we'd love to have you in. Now with that, let's talk about sales conversions with Benji on the show.
(00:59):
All right, so, Benji, you and I see eye to eye when it comes to sales on a few things. In fact, quite a few things. And one of the things that we've talked about was this, perception around sales and how it's interesting because when you change the way you look at things, the things you'll look at will change the popular quote and I think a lot of people, they, you know, you meet people have been in sales for 20 years, 25 years or CEOs, they embrace it.
(01:25):
They're like, it's such an important part of business. So fun. so, so much good that comes out of sale. Because the truth is, nothing happens until a sale is made. Nothing. then you have other people, the other camp where they're just like, oh, I hate sales. I'm not a sales person. You're like, oh, you are sales.
No, I'm not, I'm not. It's like you're selling me right now that you're not a salesperson yourself. All right. So so what I want to talk about is, is that first. But we're also going to dive into how do we adjust the perception. How do we make it easier for people to embrace sales? because it's really just about changing the way you look at it.
(02:02):
You're not going to change sales. Sales. It needs to exist in the business, just changing the framing around it. How do we train our staff to be better at it? Because I personally believe that we tend to not like things we're not good at, and we definitely don't want to work at things that we don't feel like confident in.
So how do we increase the confidence, and then how do we measure it to make sure that we're actually good? Because some people are better than they think they are, but they just have like really bad understanding as to what good is like, what's a good conversion rate, what's a good contact rate, what's a good book rate. And you know, we talked about this before.
(02:39):
But like if Steph Curry is the best three point shooter in the NBA history,
but he
makes like 40 to 50% of his shots. So if he didn't know that that was best in history he would be like man, I suck. I missed more than I make
actually. Yep. And it's
like, yeah dude, that's amazing though. Like your percentage is amazing.
(03:00):
So we're going to also give the audience some understanding as to what could conversion rates are so they know where they really stand. So some good.
Yeah that's awesome. Let's do it.
All right. And we'll dive in Australia versus us I know there's different markets there. So let's talk about sales. So you know you've now worked with hundreds and hundreds of gyms.
you've you got to employ people at your gyms as well. Have you seen those two camps of people that love sales and people that don't love sales?
(03:26):
100%, 100%. And this is a little bit of a background as well. A little story before we started to grow, my little small consulting agency was purely based around selling, converting and lead nurturing.
And so I used to go into gyms and I'll do a secret shop
and
I'd say 90% of the gyms I'd walk into mostly boutique, I would sit down and it would be around five minutes before someone would even come in and even say hello, ask my name. Some gyms, I wouldn't even ask my I.
(03:57):
It
was absolutely horrible,
which was the birth of my first agency, which
was called Benefit Sales
Solutions, which transitioned into nurtured sales. All right. And my whole point was I was so passionate about converting
leads, selling,
if you will, but converting leads or converting prospects into members. I have to do something here. All right, so, I guess people are scared of sales because typically sales.
(04:25):
What do people think of tele sales? Car salesmen, real estate agents, something that feels a bit
slimy and sleazy and they're pushy. And typically
those type of people don't actually understand sales to its full at fullest depth.
Yeah, I think
I think sales is like for me, it's
understanding the other
(04:45):
person, understanding the human understand, be able to read that you understand what they want, asking the right questions.
That's there for
me to then help the other coaches or trainers understand
that you're not selling something, you're converting someone.
Yeah. You know, it's interesting. you know, habits build like habits. So if you're if, if, let's say you skip the gym today, you're like, you know what? I'm just going to hit the snooze button. I'm going to sleep in.
(05:13):
The probability of you snoozing it again in the next few days is increased. Then if you said, no, I'm getting out of bed. The problem if you do that, the probability of you getting out of bed next time is going to be hard. You know you can do it right. Whichever you choose, you know you can do it and everything's going to be okay, whichever you choose.
And the same thing goes with if you stay up late, you're more likely to stay up late again. If you eat poorly, you go to the drive through. You're more likely to go through the drive through again, you know? And so no matter what it is like, attracts like right habits to track habits. And so when we think about that, we say, okay, well, if that's the case, why are we in this industry in the first place?
(05:54):
Now you've got some people that are in it to make a buck, but you have some people that really are passionate about fitness. So let's focus on that. Right. Because a make a buck or whatever, you can't do much with it. But but with the people that are like, no, I really love when people say, you've changed my life.
I really love being a healthier me because of you. I really love that you help me. Okay, great. So we know that. So now check this out. Benji, that trainer, that coach, that sales rep, that front desk. Right. Whatever. Whoever's handling that prospect, when that prospect worked up the courage, which is what they had to do. Because, you know, we sometimes forget the gym.
(06:34):
People don't have to work up courage to go to a new gym.
Exactly right. You know, gym
people. Right. So for them, like we said, yeah, we're prepared for this, right? Yeah. Right. We're the weird ones. These guys had to work up the courage. I've talked to people that have said I was in my car in the parking lot for like five minutes.
(06:55):
Yeah, like mentally prepared to come because I was so nervous.
My wife's a perfect example of that. My wife is beautiful. She's
fit. She's like, yeah, you would think looking at a
oh, how she used to sit in the car when
she first like, got into
trading a group trading for at least 5 to 10 minutes. And she would cry.
She would
feel like she would shake.
She'd get shivers
(07:15):
before she'd even go in there. So again.
Yeah. Exactly right. Like
after the gym, people imagine that. But it's out there. And so that prospect, as cool as a cucumber as you may have looked. Yeah, they work with a lot of courage to be here. And they're not exact.
They got anxiety going on right now okay.
Exactly. You know, here's the
thing. If they make a decision to not buy and walk out of there, they just took one step towards the habit of not saying yes to their health.
(07:45):
Exactly. And we haven't done our job as
coaches or trainers. So now two things can happen from your either a they are the probability of them not even going into another gym is higher because they believe it's going to happen again.
Will that or
not? They do. Then they
like that. Yeah, exactly.
Oh Jim's exactly right.
Or number two, when they go in they have comfort. They know it's going to be okay. They know here as well. And so they're never going to say, yeah. Now if you can get them to say yes, I've surveyed, members from gyms that have done this.
(08:23):
Do you know that more than 70% of people that buy a gym membership within that same 24 hours spend additional money on something to help them with that journey, whether it's they go grocery shopping on the way home, they go on Amazon and buy new sneakers, whatever. Right? So supplements, they start binder vitamins. So that person that you just got to say, yes, you just took them towards a step in another positive direction.
(08:51):
Now you're helping. So forget about your ego. Oh they said no to me. Forget that. It's not that they said no to them. They said no to themselves. So the reason we want to work on sales and get better at this is because we want to help people change their lives. not because we want to sell and get a commission.
As soon as you get that framing around, you're going to change everything. Okay, good on that
(09:15):
100%. Definitely.
Now, one of the things that you said you've done is you've worked hard. I think you've even helped trained staff to be more confident around sales. How are some of the things that you've done that? I've got some mixed in what you've done as well,
definitely.
So this is a tip for anyone that's listening. And it's so fucking easy, is walking to if you've got a group of trainers there and I always open with this question, what did you get into the fitness industry for a why did you become a personal
(09:44):
trainer? They respond, I want to help people. I'm passionate about fitness. I want to change people's lives.
Okay. Then I'll respond with, so if we're then not converting that prospect to that person that's
coming into the gym, into a
member, are we doing our job? Are you doing your job?
(10:04):
That always was
usually a bit of an awkward silence and someone might say, oh yeah, probably not. No. I said, exactly what you're not doing your job, so let's get that first.
Right now, why do we come? This all comes into the self belief. Why do we come up
to why do we become a coach, a manager?
Why did I open a gym? I want to change people's lives.
Therefore I have to convert leads
prospects into
members. And
(10:26):
even if that we're not the right fit, drop the ego. I could actually send you somewhere that.
Is
that is has got what
you're looking for,
if that makes sense. So I'll
start with that. Then I'll go into their mindset before we even talk about sales or techniques and it's mindset. And usually actually 99% of the time self belief. I'm going to give you an example here. Might I've got a guy, he's 50 years old now.
(10:49):
He's one of our head
coaches in my gym, which I'm standing in right now. He
had two two and a half years experience. His name's Brett
and he's one of the best coaches I've ever, ever seen.
When we asked him to sell a membership and convert, he said, oh, that's not me. I'm just a coach. I'm just a coach.
I can't do that. I can't do that. I spent about four weeks with him, about probably an hour, maybe two hours a week, going into mostly his self-belief. And then helping him and showing him and role playing with. This is how easy it actually is. Now he's our head salesperson for the gym, so he's a head trainer and and a best salesperson.
(11:28):
And now we've had another guy come in and he's now coaching him all because he believes. And basically I broke it down. I said, Brett, you are the scout. You are the converter. You're the salesperson. Because what you deliver on the floor, that's 90% of the sale done. Then all you have to do is understand the structure and framework you how to talk to someone and
convert them into a membership.
(11:50):
So again,
it's all belief. And the ability
I have is to get inside people's heads and make them believe. Another example, we had a coach here and I was Jackie and she was a
hockey player. She was fit. She had legs bust like crazy, like incredible looking rope. Bülent. And
we came in and we
all like she said, I can't sell
(12:11):
memberships.
And we put a, a process
in place that everyone has to
sell a membership awake every trying to sell one membership. She
then that afternoon, after spend about half of that 40 minutes with her
sold to memberships.
Couldn't believe it. Oh my gosh. So like oh but how did I do this? Well, because first you believed
in yourself, then
you followed a structure and a
process.
(12:32):
It's as easy as
that. And I know people listen. You might go, it's not that easy. It's solid holidays.
It actually it's all self-belief.
And it comes from the leaders and the managers of the gym. So if I'm the owner of a gym, it's my job and duty
to educate my staff and help them
because it adds gym.
It's a non-negotiable. You don't have a job here if you can't convert a membership.
(12:52):
We don't accept. Oh, I'm just a trainer,
I love that.
yeah.
You know what it's like Benji. It's like you know you ever you ever have somebody that never been in a roller coaster before then. Like, you were the one that convinced him to go on a roller coaster. And so it's like, you go, hey, come on. They're like, no, no, no, they're it's going to be scary.
Come on. It's going to be fine. No, it's going to be great. It's going to be great. And they're like freaking out. And you're like, you can do this. You know they can do it. You know it's safe. You know you know they're going to like it once they do it. And then they do the roller coaster. And now when it's all over, what do they typically say.
(13:25):
Let's do it again. Yeah, let's do it again. And so sales is kind of like that too. It's so fun when you watch somebody make their first sale, you could see the excitement. You could see the energy. And even if that person was skeptical before, once they make it, it's so exhilarating. And so we just got to get them on the ride.
(13:46):
And once we get them on the ride, it's so much easier to to get it there. The other thing that you mentioned that I really liked is don't wait, or actually this is my take on it, but you talked about them being a coach, like, okay. Yeah, your coach, this is what you do. I've always said don't wait until they sign to be their coach.
(14:06):
Be their coach from the beginning. Now you've been a coach before. I've been a coach before. Who if the client that you're coaching, if you say go do ten push ups and they're on eight and you know, they could do two more, you know it, but then they kind of like, stop,
What do you say?
Do you what do you say. Keep going. Exactly. You don't say, oh you could stop if you want. You say, keep going. If the person's doing burpees and you know they got five more in them, but they stop because you're like, I'm tired. What do you say?
(14:38):
Go, oh,
hey, we're not done. We're not done, right? We're coaching them so we know how to apply that friendly pressure for their benefit, for their benefit.
We know how to fly that friendly, but without crossing a line. And we do the same thing in sales. So when somebody is like, yeah, I don't know. I don't know if I'm going to be able to make it in here, you know, 3 to 4 times a week. I know maybe you can't, but if you could, how would you what would you adjust?
(15:10):
You know, they start thinking that's you coaching them, not convincing them. Convincing them sounds like this. Well, you know what? If you did, instead of coming in at night, you came in in the morning and you know, if what if you didn't, you know, work until this. What if you didn't watch Netflix? What if you did? You could do that.
But now you're convincing. And that's icky coaching sounds like. Yeah, maybe you're right. Maybe you can't come in four times a week, but if you were able to figure it out, what adjustments would you probably make to make it happen? And now you're coaching,
(15:44):
right. And so we can coach along the way. Yeah I don't know if I can afford this.
The selling persuading way that people don't like is well you know if, if you if you don't do Starbucks every day and if you, you know, like if you do all that stuff, if you don't eat out every, you know, you said you eat out every other day, if you don't eat out, you can you can afford it, whatever.
(16:06):
Or you can say, yeah, maybe you're right, maybe you can't afford it. Benji. But let me ask you if, if you were to figure out a way to afford it, what adjustments would you make in order to make that true? Like, just think about your current life. What would you do differently? How would you afford it? And now you're coaching them.
You're helping them solve a problem. That's what coaching is. So I think that's a big thing that a lot of people don't leverage. They work so hard on persuading. They think sales is about convincing somebody to do something they don't want to do. And it's really about coaching somebody to figure out how to get something done that they do want to do, because they wouldn't be there if they didn't.
(16:45):
Nobody goes into a gym to not be in better shape. Nobody goes into a gym, even for a trial to stay unhealthy.
Right.
Exactly right. Exactly right. And it all comes like, what you decide then makes so much
sense with the coaching aspect
and then language as well. You need to
listen to the
(17:06):
language and listen to your own language.
How you speaking to the people? So for instance, if someone comes into the gym and this is another example, I was I was training a gym, here in Queensland. And
when we were doing the sales training, I had to lock the front door and someone actually came
in this really large guy. you could tell
he needed to lose weight.
(17:27):
So I
looked at him. I was as I was walking out to the desk
because someone said in the all get. I said, no, no, I'll get it. What's this? All right. So I was
coaching them, walked out there
and he walked in and came up to the desk and said,
I want to join the gym. That was his language.
I want to join the gym. Right? So I said, okay, excellent. Great step. What's the main reason you want to join the gym? And he started talking to me about excellent, right. Really good goals have right. These other three membership options we have typically everyone goes towards the six month. That's what their most popular membership is. All
(18:01):
right mind you most people would have gone out and sold him a trial.
I come in in trials for three days or seven
days. But through his language, his body, body, body stance and
his the way he carried himself, I could tell he was in pain and I could tell he needed
to join the gym. So we signed
him up. Well, I signed him up there and then on the spot and
join him at the gym because that was his language.
(18:23):
If he had to come in saying,
I want to
check out this gym, I want to see if it's might be the right fit for me, obviously. Then we move into the trial or whatever that intro pack might be. So but if an
inexperienced salesperson
had got up to him, he. They probably
would have started the trial.
And I've got to ask the question after that, why did you sell him one of the trial? I said he didn't ask for that. He walked in very comfortably
(18:46):
in a lot of pain, and he wants to join
the gym, so it's my duty to convert him and then coach him along the way. And I'll coach him. Right.
We're going to start with two sessions a week because he was in
pretty bad shape. Then we're gonna move that to three sessions after the first
month. Then we're going to go into four sessions.
So within the next six months you're going to be exercising minimum of five days a week within six months. How does that sound. And he absolutely loves it.
(19:07):
He's like, that's that's incredible. That's amazing.
You know I think I think one of the lessons in that in sales is really helping that person get to where they want to go, like at the end of the day, that's what really what we're wanting to do. And, you know, sometimes people just need to see it. And I think I think people have a hard time.
(19:28):
You know, there's this really, interesting thing I remember I was I was talking through with a mentor. It was a, a long ride back from we went out we to the desert here in Arizona. We went shooting. and and that's something that's popular here in Arizona. You, like, go in the middle of the desert, you shoot like crazy guns, and then, you know, it's like a two hour ride back into town.
And we were talking and. And we were like, man, you know what's interesting? I notice, because we were both talking about the future, the our vision for our companies in our lives. We are both very, very clear on that. But when I've asked other people like friends, family that aren't entrepreneurs, hey, what does the next 3 or 5 years look like?
(20:06):
They have a hard time answering that question. But now what we also realize on that car ride is, well, something else is in reverse. What that looks like is I have a really bad memory for the past. Like if you were to say, like, remember in high school when this happened, I forgot. I don't remember it at all.
Meanwhile, yeah, like I was at a high school reunion and a couple of people were talking about this, a few stories, and I was like, I don't remember any of this. And they were like, what are you talking about? So clear. And, and, and I talked to Dave, this person I was driving with, and he was like, I, I'm always made fun of because I don't remember things that happened a year ago, two years
(20:44):
ago, like things that everyone remembers.
And so, okay, now I'm tying this in to sales. I'll show you where I'm going. But we're so I play you play any instruments? Benji?
no. So
I play piano, I play guitar. Here's what I'll tell you. I can learn a song, and I get really good at that song. And as long as I play that song every other day or so, I'll never forget it.
(21:10):
Once I go a month, I'm probably forgetting big pieces of it. Once I go three months, I probably forgot the whole song, and I think the same thing goes with vision and memory. If you constantly talk about your best days in high school, you'll never forget your best day. You'll always noble stories because those are your that's your prime.
You talk about it right? But if you're always thinking about the future and you're always talking about your vision, it's always easy to remember the future and see clear as day because you keep touch on it. You never lose it. And I think for a lot of people that we deal with in sales, when we're when we're selling these prospects, they don't think about the future.
(21:48):
They think about the past. They think about what got them here. They think about why they failed in the past. They think about how this hasn't worked before, no matter how hard they've attempted this. But they don't think about, okay,
if I do this every
day,
by next Christmas, I could be here. They're not even
thinking about that.
(22:08):
So we change that. And so we never say like 3 to 6 months or five months. We should get here. What we do is we paint a picture. So Benji, what this would look like is let's say I said, hey, look. So, Benji, you want to lose 20 pounds? And based on that, if we can get about a pound a week, which I think we can easily do, if we can get a pound about a pound a week off.
(22:29):
we're looking at about 20 weeks from now, which is roughly around 4 to 5 months, let's call it five, in case we have some cheap weeks. Right. So five months from now. So right now we're July, August, September, October, November, December, December 25th is five months. So what this means, Benji, is when we wake up on Christmas morning, the biggest gift we gave ourselves was this goal.
(22:58):
We say we
did it. How's that sound?
What? That also looks like Benji, is New Year's Day one week later, when everybody's committing to losing their weight or getting to their goal, you've already done it, and we're already thinking, what else can we do now? The same thing if it's in November by the time you sit down at the Thanksgiving table, if it's October.
(23:20):
So when everyone's deciding what they're going to be for Halloween, if it's September. So just when the weather's starting to cool down and everyone's starting to decide what they're going to be dressing their new wardrobe for the winter when it's summer, right? No matter what, there's always a picture you can paint. And instead of saying in 3 or 6 months we can get you there, we can get you there.
(23:42):
No, not we in five months, when you're sitting at the Christmas table for dinner, you will be. Now you're helping them create and shape their vision. It's so easy to sell it because that's what they want to buy. It's equivalent. If you ever sold a physical product, what do they say? Let them hold it because they need to feel it.
(24:04):
They need to see it. When you paint a picture that's creating it and making it real,
So that's that's something in sales training that I really like working in my people is create that vision, help it, help them. They got to see it so clearly they could taste it. now with you've done sales training quite a bit, how often do you recommend gyms do sales training with their with their employees? And what does that look like?
(24:29):
Minimum. Minimum.
Once a once a week minimum. You have to be doing it weekly. So
I would like I recommend gyms have an hour team
meeting every week often air that
is going through obviously the challenges
the winds pick three.
Give each
coach 2 to 3 rocks if you will. What are their rocks? What do they need to get to right.
(24:50):
What's their KPI? They go through that most of the time they're not going to hit all three. They might hit two. So if the 80% of the way there, that's great,
right.
and then basically the second half of the meeting
is sales coaching and sales training, because that is the majority of our job. And that can mean not
just sales role play
back and forth and coaching.
That, but
(25:10):
also the delivery
on the floor, the delivery
as a personal trainer.
So if it's in a big box gym, how
is that trainer walking through
body language? What, what how many people are you speaking to every single day? So if you're only speaking to three a day, let's
up that to ten. Even if they're not your client yet, go over them, give them a tip.
Give them free value.
Right. Exactly what we say
(25:32):
value, value value. They see
the passion people
buy from people they like trust and the
passion that person has. If someone hasn't got any passion, they're not going to buy from you. Yeah, they don't
like you. They're going to buy from you if they're a
trusted you, giving that free value in going ever beyond which, as we do as coaches or trainers, we should, because that's what we got into the industry.
(25:53):
For your walking billboard, you were you were walking
billboard like that. You were advertised as yourself.
I think that is one of the the best assets that a salesperson can have is conviction, which means you as their leader, whether it's the owner or the manager, whoever's overseeing the salespeople, you need to be really, really good at helping them believe in the product.
(26:18):
So it's funny, when I was 20, I started working in the gyms when I was 20. And, you know, I would say 20, 21, 22, I was already one of the top salespeople there, and I thought I was so good at sales, I really did. And then I met somebody like in my early or late 20s, early 30s, I didn't know I was 29, 30 years old and this person was a sales trainer.
(26:43):
I've never met a real sales trainer before. I met the ones that were like given to me, like within the companies I worked at, but never like somebody that does what you do for a living. You're a sales trainer and we went to lunch and I was so confident I was like, oh man, I'm gonna teach him stuff.
This guy
was he blew my mind and he was labeling things that I thought about, but I didn't know they had names, like rebuttals. I didn't even know that was a name for a rebuttal or anchoring or, you know, vision casting or picture painting. I never thought about that stuff. I just did it right, but I didn't really do it.
(27:19):
Well. The reason I was good at sales was not because I had great sales skills, was because my conviction was so strong. My passion, I, I at that time, I was blessed, whether it be by God or whatever experiences I had. I was blessed with seeing sales as no, like, you're going to do this because I know you can and I'm going to be the one that help you forget there.
(27:45):
Like I wanted to do that. And so every person that came in it, my brain, I was like, oh, I'm so like, I already know you're going to lose weight or you're going to get stronger. You're going to be more confident and like, we're going to do this. Like, I was so excited to sell it, because I knew I was already thinking of the end.
And I think if you don't have that conviction and you're not thinking about that and you're just technical with it all, you're not going to do very well.
(28:11):
It's also exactly
right. Mark. And
also the like getting
learning how to have uncomfortable conversations, because
some of those sales conversations are going to be extremely uncomfortable. I'm going to get to get it.
Give an example in a minute. But holding people accountable to what they say they wanted to and things that have happened in their lives always asked, what's
(28:32):
what is the last couple
of years look out for you like just
nice and casual? Oh, this has
happened. That's happened. Okay. It starts. Give you an idea. We can go deeper because usually the first
objections are really surface
level and it's deeper and deeper issues.
So
in the gym that we
we own
a guy came in with he was he was pretty overweight. He's
probably 20,
30 pounds overweight.
(28:53):
he
came in, he did the session
and he I could see he was getting quite emotional. I could say he was like he was he was upset with himself. His facial expressions were
like, you're doing well, but he's like
half like shaking his head and doing stuff like that.
Anyway, I was sat down with him at the end and I was talking to
him, and then
we got into the deeper level
conversation. Like, I can see you're quite frustrated and like, you look a little bit upset. And then he started like tearing up and actually gets me choked up. But his
(29:21):
his mother had died, I think it was,
say a year earlier from bad
liver.
What liver problems
and caused by being overweight. And basically I let him talk and let him get it out. And then I ran through some some options and I told him which option I thought was going to be best for him, best suited for him. And then he sort of thought about it. I said, look, let me ask you one question.
(29:44):
If you want to end up the same as your mother did, and I'll shut up. And I said it with that said, because I really I fucking cared for this guy. I wanted him to to get it done. And
now no, that's important really quick. I want to I want to stop you there because that's important for everyone listening right now.
That goes, oh my God, I can never ask that. Listen, in the context in which Benji, you just said it. No, you can't because you're thinking of it like you're just saying it to the person.
(30:11):
But if you
really think about it, Benji and him at a deep level. So there was a if you think about like some of the people you're closest with, you can be real with them.
And if you don't have people in your life that you could be real with, you do not have deep relationships. You have very surface level relationships. Right? But I've talked about the friend that you can say like, hey man, you just need to shave your head now. Like it's that time. Like, if you don't have that kind of relationship in your life, you're not deep enough, right?
(30:38):
Like, you need to feel like you you just, you see even now, right? but anyway, the the point is, you and this guy were able to talk about, like, his mom. You got deep. So, yes, you can definitely get to a point where you can say like, hey, man, look, I'm just going to ask you and I
need you to know I'm coming from a great place here.
Do you want to end up like your mom again? Like the way she was? Do you want to be there
(31:00):
without the conversation that preceded it? That's super disrespectful. But
right with the right
rapport building and really getting deep with someone now, man, it's a great question. And you've now entered that circle of someone I trust, because the only way someone can get that deep with me is if I have that trust with them.
And you don't want to leave those people, those people in your circle now, and you just immediately almost close the sale at that moment,
(31:26):
I'll finish off. Not only did he grab the board out of my hand or the iPad and said, let me see, I need to do this. And he grabbed out of my hand
and he started feeling that
I had a big hand on his shoulder
saying, it's going to be good, but you're going to be fine.
You're in good hands.
At that moment. That's exactly what he said he knew, and I
get goosebumps so that he trusted me. And every time he came in and he saved me, he gave me a hug. He's like, thank you so
(31:47):
much. Not only did he join, he called his wife that same night and she came in and did the last class and joined as well.
Yeah, because
the only the only way you're going to make deep impact if you get deep,
if you want to get deep.
But too many people are afraid and it's like, what? Why? Like you're scared or like,
(32:08):
yeah, but then you wonder why. But then you wonder why people cancel via email.
Oh yeah.
The person that you got deep with can never do that.
Don't never cancel via email.
So that sale is that's the part of your attention process. Is that sales process as well.
Of course your front end is
a reflection to you. Yeah I
(32:30):
could talk about this out. So I'm so passionate
about words of course. And someone that you can't get deep was not going to bring their friends
if they're if it's transactional, if it's a transactional sale, you can I can see one coming a ball off.
And with our coaches I'll say that was
two transactional wasn't
it. Yeah. They all
cancel probably within three months. Let's work on
(32:50):
how to get deeper and deeper.
Look, I'm not saying it's it's easy for everyone. It's harder, especially with the young generation coming through because
they're on their phones all the
time and they don't have that.
Not as much depth.
I would say they
don't have as many reps.
Exactly right. So that's another thing to the reps. The only way to get better at it is every single
day get rejected and be comfortable with getting rejected and saying no. But people are afraid of that
(33:14):
now here's the thing. You know, they say, there's a surface level belief that, the number one cause of divorce is financial.
but then there's
a deeper belief that it's the number one cause for divorce is poor communication because. Yeah. Is it financial or is it that we're communicating poorly around finances? Like what it means, what it means to you, what it means to me, what we could do about it, you know, like so. So I believe it's that I believe it's poor communication.
(33:48):
And here's a funny thing. Poor communication is usually, a reason why somebody could lose their job or why somebody feels like they shouldn't have lost their job, or why somebody feels like somebody should. At work. They're, partners. You see, a lot of partners go. Bad communication could fix that. Right? So there's a lot of communication that's a big part.
And yet nobody really trains on it. And, you know, one of the wealthiest people of all time, best investors in the world is Warren Buffett. And if you ask Warren Buffett because he says this, he publicly came out and said it's the best investment he's ever made. He he's invested in Coca-Cola and Apple and candies. He said the best investment he ever made was when he was in a few hundred dollars weekend seminar on communications,
(34:37):
because he knows that achieving the levels that he needed to achieve could only be done with being a great communicator.
And here's the thing if you worked at McDonald's, or if you worked at Taco Bell and you're that person that takes the order, your communication could be okay because even if like, let's say you do like Taco Bell, then she let's say, I don't even know if you have Taco Bell in Australia, do you?
(35:03):
Yeah. Okay.
A kangaroo meat in there.
Kangaroos around the
carpark. Yeah.
So, so like if you really like Taco Bell and let's say you go to Taco Bell and the guy who takes your order is a complete idiot. Let's say he's like, rude to you. He doesn't say thank you, please. Nothing. You barely smiled. You're still going back to Taco Bell. You're not like, screw this.
(35:27):
No, you're still go back because you don't go to Taco Bell because the people. However, at the gym, it's different. We're not a transactional business. We're a relational business. So improving your skills and communications has a massive advantage in being able to grow your company. And it's also not transactional when it comes to the employees and the relationships with the employees.
(35:48):
Whereas with McDonald's, I mean, let's face it, the owner may not ever even go to the location. You just give him the book is the system, follow it, and we're good to meet as well. Scalable. Can't be like that. Right? So, for those of you that aren't studying and getting better communication, a really good book. I'll give you two really good books.
One of them is Average Sucks by Michael Burn Off, who spoke at our conference. And if you haven't, listen to any of Michael burn off stuff, I highly recommend you check out his stuff. And the other one is a book written by the, I think, either founder or co-founder of NLP, Richard Bandler, and it's the ultimate it's the ultimate introduction to NLP.
(36:24):
I think that's what is NLP stands for, neuro linguistic programing, but just a really great way to be able to understand how to communicate a lot better, which that's really what sales is selling is not convincing somebody to do something they don't want to do. Selling is communicating with somebody. Being able and communicating is not just talking, it's listening and talking.
So it's your ability to really listen to what they're saying and what they're really saying, and then be able to communicate back to them clearly how their problem in our solution is perfectly aligned, so that it makes all the sense in the world that this will help them get to where they clearly now understand they want to go.
(37:01):
That's sales at its highest level. we talked earlier before the show and you said there could be a difference between Australia and the U.S when it comes to sales, which I learned by the way, by losing a sale to a guy with 21 locations in Australia. I was so pissed about it. In my eyes, we were going to close it.
(37:24):
What I learned, at least from his perspective, was Australians like to go a little slower and I was ready to make the deal right now, and he was turned off by me, ready to make the deal fast. So talk me through the Australian culture versus US culture. What that looks like more is I'm just interested in curious.
Yeah.
Yeah, definitely. Like, look, I lived in, la
(37:46):
San Diego and and Southern California as well for a good 9 to 12 months. And the differences are exactly that. So us
is the whole it's American dream
was built on sales door like he was built on that. So it's in the culture to be very aggressive, a lot harder, a lot black, a lot more vocal where Australian
culture is be right, like laid back.
(38:07):
It's crazy.
It's like it's
almost like, oh, what? They don't, they don't even care.
But yeah, it's just
that. It's just that, that culture, it's just too laid back. So I've found with being living and
working a lot out of the US and Australia,
there's a perfect mix there. but yeah, it's definitely different. Like for instance, a credit card grabbing credit card details over the phone.
(38:30):
That's normal in
the US doing it here in
Australia it can be done, but it's a lot more challenging. A lot
really just have to.
It's a lot about yeah, a lot more. People are skeptical. It's still can be done. If you've got a great salesperson, they'll do it. But the mindset two of
the Australians here is I cut off someone's credit card over the phone.
You have to be exceptionally good and confident at sales to do that, whereas in the US
(38:52):
it's almost the norm. Oh, to save your spot and I love it. I think it's fantastic
and I want to introduce it here more in Australia. It's just the mindset of people that's I spoke about it. Yeah. Completely different. yeah.
Yeah man.
Yoshua I'm excited to to go out to Australians in spite of our messaging going back and forth. you know, I was really looking forward to going to Australia and then Benji and Michael were messaging me like videos of 4000 spiders coming out of a shower head and, you know, like, snake in the little girl's bed, like she opened up the covers and just, like, massive poisonous killer snake in there and, and like, my wife, my wife's.
(39:31):
Hell, no. By the way, she has no interest in going to Australia, so might be a solo trip, which sucks. It's a long ride, but at GSD con we were. We actually did this whole thing where I was like, Australian, can you imitate an American? Which I actually, I might even do on this episode, just to kind of hear an Australian imitated American, because we have a lot of American listeners, obviously.
(39:52):
but I want to know, for my own entertainment, like Americans have phrases that we believe, like when we imitate an Australian, we say some phrases like, for example, good, I might like that's us imitating an Australian or putting another shrimp on the Barbie. Like, that's,
that's a different we never
we never say that because we
(40:13):
we do, we do, we
say broads, we say broads.
But we you guys, we're we're there. It's, You got it. You got it. Like, every like for you. Oh. Can I please have a coffee? You got it. You got it. So,
so so for you guys, the most common American thing to say, like, the most, like somebody in Australia is going to imitate American. You've got it's coming out of their mouth.
(40:34):
You got it exactly
right or
anything. or if you. Michael, then everyone thinks Michael's name is Marco. And I'll still call him Marco now. Hey, Marco, what's going on?
Dude, I
don't understand how.
Oh, like, I love that, I love that, yeah. I mean, I'll tell you, I there's a lot of killer. There's a lot of animals that can kill you in Australia.
(40:56):
And, so I really just, I when we meet, if I go down there, we need to go to the proven to be least
dead frog. We go for a trial run in the bush, but right beside my house,
that's what we know. No, no, I'm not going to do it. So, All right, so to close this out, I thought this episode was good because it helps, you know, for everyone listening, it's an owner or a manager, and you have salespeople working for you.
(41:21):
This is a good episode for them to listen to, because it really should change your perspective around sales and what it is and what it is. And at the end of the day, if you're not in this industry to change people's lives, then you're in the wrong industry. And if you are in the industry to change people's lives, then understand that no life gets changed without a step forward and there is no step forward that happens without them saying yes.
(41:48):
And your job is to be so good at understanding where they want to be and painting the picture of how they're going to get there and how they're going to feel when they get there. So that yes, is the only real first step that they can take. And they've got to trust you and they've got to believe in you.
And these things are easier with practice. But your first step is saying, yes, I'm going to practice. And then from there you practice, you put the reps in, and then the harmony begins between you're really good at communicating. They're really good at seeing the big picture and the decision is made and we continue to grow. So Benji, I really appreciate you coming in and sharing your insights and talking sales with me.
(42:27):
I love talking sales, so it's always great to have a sales guy on the show.
Excellent. Yeah. Thanks, Mark.
It was very awesome I love it. It's
I could talk about it for hours and hours. So maybe a few more episodes go deeper
I love it, I love it, you know I'll give I'll do a giveaway too for anybody that's on this call right now.
if you go to loud rumor.com forward slash, no objections. That's a really good sales trade you can get for free that you should go check out. And then another one that I want you to go to is scorecard dot loud rumor.com. You can take a free test to understand like is it is is like sales. Even my problem right now sometimes you think it's your problem.
(43:08):
It's not really your problem. You're actually doing okay. And so I think that's important as well. And then I honestly for everybody listening Benji knows his stuff and and they've got everything lined up really well. So just go to super fit grow.com as well. Super super fit grow.com and check out their stuff. I mean these guys are doing killer work for the industry.
(43:31):
I essentially I close out my agency and give super fit grow all of my clients because they're just that good. And I'm not in it necessarily to make a buck. I got passion for what the work I do as well, and I love watching people like Benji and Michael work. So thank you guys so much for tuning in.
Benji, thanks for being on the show, brother.
Thanks, Mike. Appreciate it. Look forward to the next couple.
(43:53):
Same here man. We'll have you back. And for everybody else, we'll see you next time.
what we're going to be talking about today is sales and
conversions, and we're going to be diving into what that means to me, and also what that means to Benji, who's my guest on the show today.
And Benji is the co-founder of Super Fit Grow in Australia, an incredible company that builds winning ad campaigns for gyms. All over the world. In fact, they're so good at what they do that we send them all of our business. We work something out, of course, but man, they're just fantastic. So really loud rumor just has their mastermind.
(00:27):
And as a reminder, I'm not only your host of the GSD show, but I am also the CEO of Loud Rumor, which is an incredible mastermind for some of the smartest, hardest working gym owners all over the world. In fact, some of these guys have multiple seven figure gyms, and they just really are great at sharing what it is they do and how they're successful, and also sharing where they failed.
So you can learn from that as well. So if you want to learn more about how to be a part of that, go to Louden Macom. Schedule a call and we'd love to have you in. Now with that, let's talk about sales conversions with Benji on the show.
(00:59):
All right, so, Benji, you and I see eye to eye when it comes to sales on a few things. In fact, quite a few things. And one of the things that we've talked about was this, perception around sales and how it's interesting because when you change the way you look at things, the things you'll look at will change the popular quote and I think a lot of people, they, you know, you meet people have been in sales for 20 years, 25 years or CEOs, they embrace it.
(01:25):
They're like, it's such an important part of business. So fun. so, so much good that comes out of sale. Because the truth is, nothing happens until a sale is made. Nothing. then you have other people, the other camp where they're just like, oh, I hate sales. I'm not a sales person. You're like, oh, you are sales.
No, I'm not, I'm not. It's like you're selling me right now that you're not a salesperson yourself. All right. So so what I want to talk about is, is that first. But we're also going to dive into how do we adjust the perception. How do we make it easier for people to embrace sales? because it's really just about changing the way you look at it.
(02:02):
You're not going to change sales. Sales. It needs to exist in the business, just changing the framing around it. How do we train our staff to be better at it? Because I personally believe that we tend to not like things we're not good at, and we definitely don't want to work at things that we don't feel like confident in.
So how do we increase the confidence, and then how do we measure it to make sure that we're actually good? Because some people are better than they think they are, but they just have like really bad understanding as to what good is like, what's a good conversion rate, what's a good contact rate, what's a good book rate. And you know, we talked about this before.
(02:39):
But like if Steph Curry is the best three point shooter in the NBA history,
but he
makes like 40 to 50% of his shots. So if he didn't know that that was best in history he would be like man, I suck. I missed more than I make
actually. Yep. And it's
like, yeah dude, that's amazing though. Like your percentage is amazing.
(03:00):
So we're going to also give the audience some understanding as to what could conversion rates are so they know where they really stand. So some good.
Yeah that's awesome. Let's do it.
All right. And we'll dive in Australia versus us I know there's different markets there. So let's talk about sales. So you know you've now worked with hundreds and hundreds of gyms.
you've you got to employ people at your gyms as well. Have you seen those two camps of people that love sales and people that don't love sales?
(03:26):
100%, 100%. And this is a little bit of a background as well. A little story before we started to grow, my little small consulting agency was purely based around selling, converting and lead nurturing.
And so I used to go into gyms and I'll do a secret shop
and
I'd say 90% of the gyms I'd walk into mostly boutique, I would sit down and it would be around five minutes before someone would even come in and even say hello, ask my name. Some gyms, I wouldn't even ask my I.
(03:57):
It
was absolutely horrible,
which was the birth of my first agency, which
was called Benefit Sales
Solutions, which transitioned into nurtured sales. All right. And my whole point was I was so passionate about converting
leads, selling,
if you will, but converting leads or converting prospects into members. I have to do something here. All right, so, I guess people are scared of sales because typically sales.
(04:25):
What do people think of tele sales? Car salesmen, real estate agents, something that feels a bit
slimy and sleazy and they're pushy. And typically
those type of people don't actually understand sales to its full at fullest depth.
Yeah, I think
I think sales is like for me, it's
understanding the other
(04:45):
person, understanding the human understand, be able to read that you understand what they want, asking the right questions.
That's there for
me to then help the other coaches or trainers understand
that you're not selling something, you're converting someone.
Yeah. You know, it's interesting. you know, habits build like habits. So if you're if, if, let's say you skip the gym today, you're like, you know what? I'm just going to hit the snooze button. I'm going to sleep in.
(05:13):
The probability of you snoozing it again in the next few days is increased. Then if you said, no, I'm getting out of bed. The problem if you do that, the probability of you getting out of bed next time is going to be hard. You know you can do it right. Whichever you choose, you know you can do it and everything's going to be okay, whichever you choose.
And the same thing goes with if you stay up late, you're more likely to stay up late again. If you eat poorly, you go to the drive through. You're more likely to go through the drive through again, you know? And so no matter what it is like, attracts like right habits to track habits. And so when we think about that, we say, okay, well, if that's the case, why are we in this industry in the first place?
(05:54):
Now you've got some people that are in it to make a buck, but you have some people that really are passionate about fitness. So let's focus on that. Right. Because a make a buck or whatever, you can't do much with it. But but with the people that are like, no, I really love when people say, you've changed my life.
I really love being a healthier me because of you. I really love that you help me. Okay, great. So we know that. So now check this out. Benji, that trainer, that coach, that sales rep, that front desk. Right. Whatever. Whoever's handling that prospect, when that prospect worked up the courage, which is what they had to do. Because, you know, we sometimes forget the gym.
(06:34):
People don't have to work up courage to go to a new gym.
Exactly right. You know, gym
people. Right. So for them, like we said, yeah, we're prepared for this, right? Yeah. Right. We're the weird ones. These guys had to work up the courage. I've talked to people that have said I was in my car in the parking lot for like five minutes.
(06:55):
Yeah, like mentally prepared to come because I was so nervous.
My wife's a perfect example of that. My wife is beautiful. She's
fit. She's like, yeah, you would think looking at a
oh, how she used to sit in the car when
she first like, got into
trading a group trading for at least 5 to 10 minutes. And she would cry.
She would
feel like she would shake.
She'd get shivers
(07:15):
before she'd even go in there. So again.
Yeah. Exactly right. Like
after the gym, people imagine that. But it's out there. And so that prospect, as cool as a cucumber as you may have looked. Yeah, they work with a lot of courage to be here. And they're not exact.
They got anxiety going on right now okay.
Exactly. You know, here's the
thing. If they make a decision to not buy and walk out of there, they just took one step towards the habit of not saying yes to their health.
(07:45):
Exactly. And we haven't done our job as
coaches or trainers. So now two things can happen from your either a they are the probability of them not even going into another gym is higher because they believe it's going to happen again.
Will that or
not? They do. Then they
like that. Yeah, exactly.
Oh Jim's exactly right.
Or number two, when they go in they have comfort. They know it's going to be okay. They know here as well. And so they're never going to say, yeah. Now if you can get them to say yes, I've surveyed, members from gyms that have done this.
(08:23):
Do you know that more than 70% of people that buy a gym membership within that same 24 hours spend additional money on something to help them with that journey, whether it's they go grocery shopping on the way home, they go on Amazon and buy new sneakers, whatever. Right? So supplements, they start binder vitamins. So that person that you just got to say, yes, you just took them towards a step in another positive direction.
(08:51):
Now you're helping. So forget about your ego. Oh they said no to me. Forget that. It's not that they said no to them. They said no to themselves. So the reason we want to work on sales and get better at this is because we want to help people change their lives. not because we want to sell and get a commission.
As soon as you get that framing around, you're going to change everything. Okay, good on that
(09:15):
100%. Definitely.
Now, one of the things that you said you've done is you've worked hard. I think you've even helped trained staff to be more confident around sales. How are some of the things that you've done that? I've got some mixed in what you've done as well,
definitely.
So this is a tip for anyone that's listening. And it's so fucking easy, is walking to if you've got a group of trainers there and I always open with this question, what did you get into the fitness industry for a why did you become a personal
(09:44):
trainer? They respond, I want to help people. I'm passionate about fitness. I want to change people's lives.
Okay. Then I'll respond with, so if we're then not converting that prospect to that person that's
coming into the gym, into a
member, are we doing our job? Are you doing your job?
(10:04):
That always was
usually a bit of an awkward silence and someone might say, oh yeah, probably not. No. I said, exactly what you're not doing your job, so let's get that first.
Right now, why do we come? This all comes into the self belief. Why do we come up
to why do we become a coach, a manager?
Why did I open a gym? I want to change people's lives.
Therefore I have to convert leads
prospects into
members. And
(10:26):
even if that we're not the right fit, drop the ego. I could actually send you somewhere that.
Is
that is has got what
you're looking for,
if that makes sense. So I'll
start with that. Then I'll go into their mindset before we even talk about sales or techniques and it's mindset. And usually actually 99% of the time self belief. I'm going to give you an example here. Might I've got a guy, he's 50 years old now.
(10:49):
He's one of our head
coaches in my gym, which I'm standing in right now. He
had two two and a half years experience. His name's Brett
and he's one of the best coaches I've ever, ever seen.
When we asked him to sell a membership and convert, he said, oh, that's not me. I'm just a coach. I'm just a coach.
I can't do that. I can't do that. I spent about four weeks with him, about probably an hour, maybe two hours a week, going into mostly his self-belief. And then helping him and showing him and role playing with. This is how easy it actually is. Now he's our head salesperson for the gym, so he's a head trainer and and a best salesperson.
(11:28):
And now we've had another guy come in and he's now coaching him all because he believes. And basically I broke it down. I said, Brett, you are the scout. You are the converter. You're the salesperson. Because what you deliver on the floor, that's 90% of the sale done. Then all you have to do is understand the structure and framework you how to talk to someone and
convert them into a membership.
(11:50):
So again,
it's all belief. And the ability
I have is to get inside people's heads and make them believe. Another example, we had a coach here and I was Jackie and she was a
hockey player. She was fit. She had legs bust like crazy, like incredible looking rope. Bülent. And
we came in and we
all like she said, I can't sell
(12:11):
memberships.
And we put a, a process
in place that everyone has to
sell a membership awake every trying to sell one membership. She
then that afternoon, after spend about half of that 40 minutes with her
sold to memberships.
Couldn't believe it. Oh my gosh. So like oh but how did I do this? Well, because first you believed
in yourself, then
you followed a structure and a
process.
(12:32):
It's as easy as
that. And I know people listen. You might go, it's not that easy. It's solid holidays.
It actually it's all self-belief.
And it comes from the leaders and the managers of the gym. So if I'm the owner of a gym, it's my job and duty
to educate my staff and help them
because it adds gym.
It's a non-negotiable. You don't have a job here if you can't convert a membership.
(12:52):
We don't accept. Oh, I'm just a trainer,
I love that.
yeah.
You know what it's like Benji. It's like you know you ever you ever have somebody that never been in a roller coaster before then. Like, you were the one that convinced him to go on a roller coaster. And so it's like, you go, hey, come on. They're like, no, no, no, they're it's going to be scary.
Come on. It's going to be fine. No, it's going to be great. It's going to be great. And they're like freaking out. And you're like, you can do this. You know they can do it. You know it's safe. You know you know they're going to like it once they do it. And then they do the roller coaster. And now when it's all over, what do they typically say.
(13:25):
Let's do it again. Yeah, let's do it again. And so sales is kind of like that too. It's so fun when you watch somebody make their first sale, you could see the excitement. You could see the energy. And even if that person was skeptical before, once they make it, it's so exhilarating. And so we just got to get them on the ride.
(13:46):
And once we get them on the ride, it's so much easier to to get it there. The other thing that you mentioned that I really liked is don't wait, or actually this is my take on it, but you talked about them being a coach, like, okay. Yeah, your coach, this is what you do. I've always said don't wait until they sign to be their coach.
(14:06):
Be their coach from the beginning. Now you've been a coach before. I've been a coach before. Who if the client that you're coaching, if you say go do ten push ups and they're on eight and you know, they could do two more, you know it, but then they kind of like, stop,
What do you say?
Do you what do you say. Keep going. Exactly. You don't say, oh you could stop if you want. You say, keep going. If the person's doing burpees and you know they got five more in them, but they stop because you're like, I'm tired. What do you say?
(14:38):
Go, oh,
hey, we're not done. We're not done, right? We're coaching them so we know how to apply that friendly pressure for their benefit, for their benefit.
We know how to fly that friendly, but without crossing a line. And we do the same thing in sales. So when somebody is like, yeah, I don't know. I don't know if I'm going to be able to make it in here, you know, 3 to 4 times a week. I know maybe you can't, but if you could, how would you what would you adjust?
(15:10):
You know, they start thinking that's you coaching them, not convincing them. Convincing them sounds like this. Well, you know what? If you did, instead of coming in at night, you came in in the morning and you know, if what if you didn't, you know, work until this. What if you didn't watch Netflix? What if you did? You could do that.
But now you're convincing. And that's icky coaching sounds like. Yeah, maybe you're right. Maybe you can't come in four times a week, but if you were able to figure it out, what adjustments would you probably make to make it happen? And now you're coaching,
(15:44):
right. And so we can coach along the way. Yeah I don't know if I can afford this.
The selling persuading way that people don't like is well you know if, if you if you don't do Starbucks every day and if you, you know, like if you do all that stuff, if you don't eat out every, you know, you said you eat out every other day, if you don't eat out, you can you can afford it, whatever.
(16:06):
Or you can say, yeah, maybe you're right, maybe you can't afford it. Benji. But let me ask you if, if you were to figure out a way to afford it, what adjustments would you make in order to make that true? Like, just think about your current life. What would you do differently? How would you afford it? And now you're coaching them.
You're helping them solve a problem. That's what coaching is. So I think that's a big thing that a lot of people don't leverage. They work so hard on persuading. They think sales is about convincing somebody to do something they don't want to do. And it's really about coaching somebody to figure out how to get something done that they do want to do, because they wouldn't be there if they didn't.
(16:45):
Nobody goes into a gym to not be in better shape. Nobody goes into a gym, even for a trial to stay unhealthy.
Right.
Exactly right. Exactly right. And it all comes like, what you decide then makes so much
sense with the coaching aspect
and then language as well. You need to
listen to the
(17:06):
language and listen to your own language.
How you speaking to the people? So for instance, if someone comes into the gym and this is another example, I was I was training a gym, here in Queensland. And
when we were doing the sales training, I had to lock the front door and someone actually came
in this really large guy. you could tell
he needed to lose weight.
(17:27):
So I
looked at him. I was as I was walking out to the desk
because someone said in the all get. I said, no, no, I'll get it. What's this? All right. So I was
coaching them, walked out there
and he walked in and came up to the desk and said,
I want to join the gym. That was his language.
I want to join the gym. Right? So I said, okay, excellent. Great step. What's the main reason you want to join the gym? And he started talking to me about excellent, right. Really good goals have right. These other three membership options we have typically everyone goes towards the six month. That's what their most popular membership is. All
(18:01):
right mind you most people would have gone out and sold him a trial.
I come in in trials for three days or seven
days. But through his language, his body, body, body stance and
his the way he carried himself, I could tell he was in pain and I could tell he needed
to join the gym. So we signed
him up. Well, I signed him up there and then on the spot and
join him at the gym because that was his language.
(18:23):
If he had to come in saying,
I want to
check out this gym, I want to see if it's might be the right fit for me, obviously. Then we move into the trial or whatever that intro pack might be. So but if an
inexperienced salesperson
had got up to him, he. They probably
would have started the trial.
And I've got to ask the question after that, why did you sell him one of the trial? I said he didn't ask for that. He walked in very comfortably
(18:46):
in a lot of pain, and he wants to join
the gym, so it's my duty to convert him and then coach him along the way. And I'll coach him. Right.
We're going to start with two sessions a week because he was in
pretty bad shape. Then we're gonna move that to three sessions after the first
month. Then we're going to go into four sessions.
So within the next six months you're going to be exercising minimum of five days a week within six months. How does that sound. And he absolutely loves it.
(19:07):
He's like, that's that's incredible. That's amazing.
You know I think I think one of the lessons in that in sales is really helping that person get to where they want to go, like at the end of the day, that's what really what we're wanting to do. And, you know, sometimes people just need to see it. And I think I think people have a hard time.
(19:28):
You know, there's this really, interesting thing I remember I was I was talking through with a mentor. It was a, a long ride back from we went out we to the desert here in Arizona. We went shooting. and and that's something that's popular here in Arizona. You, like, go in the middle of the desert, you shoot like crazy guns, and then, you know, it's like a two hour ride back into town.
And we were talking and. And we were like, man, you know what's interesting? I notice, because we were both talking about the future, the our vision for our companies in our lives. We are both very, very clear on that. But when I've asked other people like friends, family that aren't entrepreneurs, hey, what does the next 3 or 5 years look like?
(20:06):
They have a hard time answering that question. But now what we also realize on that car ride is, well, something else is in reverse. What that looks like is I have a really bad memory for the past. Like if you were to say, like, remember in high school when this happened, I forgot. I don't remember it at all.
Meanwhile, yeah, like I was at a high school reunion and a couple of people were talking about this, a few stories, and I was like, I don't remember any of this. And they were like, what are you talking about? So clear. And, and, and I talked to Dave, this person I was driving with, and he was like, I, I'm always made fun of because I don't remember things that happened a year ago, two years
(20:44):
ago, like things that everyone remembers.
And so, okay, now I'm tying this in to sales. I'll show you where I'm going. But we're so I play you play any instruments? Benji?
no. So
I play piano, I play guitar. Here's what I'll tell you. I can learn a song, and I get really good at that song. And as long as I play that song every other day or so, I'll never forget it.
(21:10):
Once I go a month, I'm probably forgetting big pieces of it. Once I go three months, I probably forgot the whole song, and I think the same thing goes with vision and memory. If you constantly talk about your best days in high school, you'll never forget your best day. You'll always noble stories because those are your that's your prime.
You talk about it right? But if you're always thinking about the future and you're always talking about your vision, it's always easy to remember the future and see clear as day because you keep touch on it. You never lose it. And I think for a lot of people that we deal with in sales, when we're when we're selling these prospects, they don't think about the future.
(21:48):
They think about the past. They think about what got them here. They think about why they failed in the past. They think about how this hasn't worked before, no matter how hard they've attempted this. But they don't think about, okay,
if I do this every
day,
by next Christmas, I could be here. They're not even
thinking about that.
(22:08):
So we change that. And so we never say like 3 to 6 months or five months. We should get here. What we do is we paint a picture. So Benji, what this would look like is let's say I said, hey, look. So, Benji, you want to lose 20 pounds? And based on that, if we can get about a pound a week, which I think we can easily do, if we can get a pound about a pound a week off.
(22:29):
we're looking at about 20 weeks from now, which is roughly around 4 to 5 months, let's call it five, in case we have some cheap weeks. Right. So five months from now. So right now we're July, August, September, October, November, December, December 25th is five months. So what this means, Benji, is when we wake up on Christmas morning, the biggest gift we gave ourselves was this goal.
(22:58):
We say we
did it. How's that sound?
What? That also looks like Benji, is New Year's Day one week later, when everybody's committing to losing their weight or getting to their goal, you've already done it, and we're already thinking, what else can we do now? The same thing if it's in November by the time you sit down at the Thanksgiving table, if it's October.
(23:20):
So when everyone's deciding what they're going to be for Halloween, if it's September. So just when the weather's starting to cool down and everyone's starting to decide what they're going to be dressing their new wardrobe for the winter when it's summer, right? No matter what, there's always a picture you can paint. And instead of saying in 3 or 6 months we can get you there, we can get you there.
(23:42):
No, not we in five months, when you're sitting at the Christmas table for dinner, you will be. Now you're helping them create and shape their vision. It's so easy to sell it because that's what they want to buy. It's equivalent. If you ever sold a physical product, what do they say? Let them hold it because they need to feel it.
(24:04):
They need to see it. When you paint a picture that's creating it and making it real,
So that's that's something in sales training that I really like working in my people is create that vision, help it, help them. They got to see it so clearly they could taste it. now with you've done sales training quite a bit, how often do you recommend gyms do sales training with their with their employees? And what does that look like?
(24:29):
Minimum. Minimum.
Once a once a week minimum. You have to be doing it weekly. So
I would like I recommend gyms have an hour team
meeting every week often air that
is going through obviously the challenges
the winds pick three.
Give each
coach 2 to 3 rocks if you will. What are their rocks? What do they need to get to right.
(24:50):
What's their KPI? They go through that most of the time they're not going to hit all three. They might hit two. So if the 80% of the way there, that's great,
right.
and then basically the second half of the meeting
is sales coaching and sales training, because that is the majority of our job. And that can mean not
just sales role play
back and forth and coaching.
That, but
(25:10):
also the delivery
on the floor, the delivery
as a personal trainer.
So if it's in a big box gym, how
is that trainer walking through
body language? What, what how many people are you speaking to every single day? So if you're only speaking to three a day, let's
up that to ten. Even if they're not your client yet, go over them, give them a tip.
Give them free value.
Right. Exactly what we say
(25:32):
value, value value. They see
the passion people
buy from people they like trust and the
passion that person has. If someone hasn't got any passion, they're not going to buy from you. Yeah, they don't
like you. They're going to buy from you if they're a
trusted you, giving that free value in going ever beyond which, as we do as coaches or trainers, we should, because that's what we got into the industry.
(25:53):
For your walking billboard, you were you were walking
billboard like that. You were advertised as yourself.
I think that is one of the the best assets that a salesperson can have is conviction, which means you as their leader, whether it's the owner or the manager, whoever's overseeing the salespeople, you need to be really, really good at helping them believe in the product.
(26:18):
So it's funny, when I was 20, I started working in the gyms when I was 20. And, you know, I would say 20, 21, 22, I was already one of the top salespeople there, and I thought I was so good at sales, I really did. And then I met somebody like in my early or late 20s, early 30s, I didn't know I was 29, 30 years old and this person was a sales trainer.
(26:43):
I've never met a real sales trainer before. I met the ones that were like given to me, like within the companies I worked at, but never like somebody that does what you do for a living. You're a sales trainer and we went to lunch and I was so confident I was like, oh man, I'm gonna teach him stuff.
This guy
was he blew my mind and he was labeling things that I thought about, but I didn't know they had names, like rebuttals. I didn't even know that was a name for a rebuttal or anchoring or, you know, vision casting or picture painting. I never thought about that stuff. I just did it right, but I didn't really do it.
(27:19):
Well. The reason I was good at sales was not because I had great sales skills, was because my conviction was so strong. My passion, I, I at that time, I was blessed, whether it be by God or whatever experiences I had. I was blessed with seeing sales as no, like, you're going to do this because I know you can and I'm going to be the one that help you forget there.
(27:45):
Like I wanted to do that. And so every person that came in it, my brain, I was like, oh, I'm so like, I already know you're going to lose weight or you're going to get stronger. You're going to be more confident and like, we're going to do this. Like, I was so excited to sell it, because I knew I was already thinking of the end.
And I think if you don't have that conviction and you're not thinking about that and you're just technical with it all, you're not going to do very well.
(28:11):
It's also exactly
right. Mark. And
also the like getting
learning how to have uncomfortable conversations, because
some of those sales conversations are going to be extremely uncomfortable. I'm going to get to get it.
Give an example in a minute. But holding people accountable to what they say they wanted to and things that have happened in their lives always asked, what's
(28:32):
what is the last couple
of years look out for you like just
nice and casual? Oh, this has
happened. That's happened. Okay. It starts. Give you an idea. We can go deeper because usually the first
objections are really surface
level and it's deeper and deeper issues.
So
in the gym that we
we own
a guy came in with he was he was pretty overweight. He's
probably 20,
30 pounds overweight.
(28:53):
he
came in, he did the session
and he I could see he was getting quite emotional. I could say he was like he was he was upset with himself. His facial expressions were
like, you're doing well, but he's like
half like shaking his head and doing stuff like that.
Anyway, I was sat down with him at the end and I was talking to
him, and then
we got into the deeper level
conversation. Like, I can see you're quite frustrated and like, you look a little bit upset. And then he started like tearing up and actually gets me choked up. But his
(29:21):
his mother had died, I think it was,
say a year earlier from bad
liver.
What liver problems
and caused by being overweight. And basically I let him talk and let him get it out. And then I ran through some some options and I told him which option I thought was going to be best for him, best suited for him. And then he sort of thought about it. I said, look, let me ask you one question.
(29:44):
If you want to end up the same as your mother did, and I'll shut up. And I said it with that said, because I really I fucking cared for this guy. I wanted him to to get it done. And
now no, that's important really quick. I want to I want to stop you there because that's important for everyone listening right now.
That goes, oh my God, I can never ask that. Listen, in the context in which Benji, you just said it. No, you can't because you're thinking of it like you're just saying it to the person.
(30:11):
But if you
really think about it, Benji and him at a deep level. So there was a if you think about like some of the people you're closest with, you can be real with them.
And if you don't have people in your life that you could be real with, you do not have deep relationships. You have very surface level relationships. Right? But I've talked about the friend that you can say like, hey man, you just need to shave your head now. Like it's that time. Like, if you don't have that kind of relationship in your life, you're not deep enough, right?
(30:38):
Like, you need to feel like you you just, you see even now, right? but anyway, the the point is, you and this guy were able to talk about, like, his mom. You got deep. So, yes, you can definitely get to a point where you can say like, hey, man, look, I'm just going to ask you and I
need you to know I'm coming from a great place here.
Do you want to end up like your mom again? Like the way she was? Do you want to be there
(31:00):
without the conversation that preceded it? That's super disrespectful. But
right with the right
rapport building and really getting deep with someone now, man, it's a great question. And you've now entered that circle of someone I trust, because the only way someone can get that deep with me is if I have that trust with them.
And you don't want to leave those people, those people in your circle now, and you just immediately almost close the sale at that moment,
(31:26):
I'll finish off. Not only did he grab the board out of my hand or the iPad and said, let me see, I need to do this. And he grabbed out of my hand
and he started feeling that
I had a big hand on his shoulder
saying, it's going to be good, but you're going to be fine.
You're in good hands.
At that moment. That's exactly what he said he knew, and I
get goosebumps so that he trusted me. And every time he came in and he saved me, he gave me a hug. He's like, thank you so
(31:47):
much. Not only did he join, he called his wife that same night and she came in and did the last class and joined as well.
Yeah, because
the only the only way you're going to make deep impact if you get deep,
if you want to get deep.
But too many people are afraid and it's like, what? Why? Like you're scared or like,
(32:08):
yeah, but then you wonder why. But then you wonder why people cancel via email.
Oh yeah.
The person that you got deep with can never do that.
Don't never cancel via email.
So that sale is that's the part of your attention process. Is that sales process as well.
Of course your front end is
a reflection to you. Yeah I
(32:30):
could talk about this out. So I'm so passionate
about words of course. And someone that you can't get deep was not going to bring their friends
if they're if it's transactional, if it's a transactional sale, you can I can see one coming a ball off.
And with our coaches I'll say that was
two transactional wasn't
it. Yeah. They all
cancel probably within three months. Let's work on
(32:50):
how to get deeper and deeper.
Look, I'm not saying it's it's easy for everyone. It's harder, especially with the young generation coming through because
they're on their phones all the
time and they don't have that.
Not as much depth.
I would say they
don't have as many reps.
Exactly right. So that's another thing to the reps. The only way to get better at it is every single
day get rejected and be comfortable with getting rejected and saying no. But people are afraid of that
(33:14):
now here's the thing. You know, they say, there's a surface level belief that, the number one cause of divorce is financial.
but then there's
a deeper belief that it's the number one cause for divorce is poor communication because. Yeah. Is it financial or is it that we're communicating poorly around finances? Like what it means, what it means to you, what it means to me, what we could do about it, you know, like so. So I believe it's that I believe it's poor communication.
(33:48):
And here's a funny thing. Poor communication is usually, a reason why somebody could lose their job or why somebody feels like they shouldn't have lost their job, or why somebody feels like somebody should. At work. They're, partners. You see, a lot of partners go. Bad communication could fix that. Right? So there's a lot of communication that's a big part.
And yet nobody really trains on it. And, you know, one of the wealthiest people of all time, best investors in the world is Warren Buffett. And if you ask Warren Buffett because he says this, he publicly came out and said it's the best investment he's ever made. He he's invested in Coca-Cola and Apple and candies. He said the best investment he ever made was when he was in a few hundred dollars weekend seminar on communications,
(34:37):
because he knows that achieving the levels that he needed to achieve could only be done with being a great communicator.
And here's the thing if you worked at McDonald's, or if you worked at Taco Bell and you're that person that takes the order, your communication could be okay because even if like, let's say you do like Taco Bell, then she let's say, I don't even know if you have Taco Bell in Australia, do you?
(35:03):
Yeah. Okay.
A kangaroo meat in there.
Kangaroos around the
carpark. Yeah.
So, so like if you really like Taco Bell and let's say you go to Taco Bell and the guy who takes your order is a complete idiot. Let's say he's like, rude to you. He doesn't say thank you, please. Nothing. You barely smiled. You're still going back to Taco Bell. You're not like, screw this.
(35:27):
No, you're still go back because you don't go to Taco Bell because the people. However, at the gym, it's different. We're not a transactional business. We're a relational business. So improving your skills and communications has a massive advantage in being able to grow your company. And it's also not transactional when it comes to the employees and the relationships with the employees.
(35:48):
Whereas with McDonald's, I mean, let's face it, the owner may not ever even go to the location. You just give him the book is the system, follow it, and we're good to meet as well. Scalable. Can't be like that. Right? So, for those of you that aren't studying and getting better communication, a really good book. I'll give you two really good books.
One of them is Average Sucks by Michael Burn Off, who spoke at our conference. And if you haven't, listen to any of Michael burn off stuff, I highly recommend you check out his stuff. And the other one is a book written by the, I think, either founder or co-founder of NLP, Richard Bandler, and it's the ultimate it's the ultimate introduction to NLP.
(36:24):
I think that's what is NLP stands for, neuro linguistic programing, but just a really great way to be able to understand how to communicate a lot better, which that's really what sales is selling is not convincing somebody to do something they don't want to do. Selling is communicating with somebody. Being able and communicating is not just talking, it's listening and talking.
So it's your ability to really listen to what they're saying and what they're really saying, and then be able to communicate back to them clearly how their problem in our solution is perfectly aligned, so that it makes all the sense in the world that this will help them get to where they clearly now understand they want to go.
(37:01):
That's sales at its highest level. we talked earlier before the show and you said there could be a difference between Australia and the U.S when it comes to sales, which I learned by the way, by losing a sale to a guy with 21 locations in Australia. I was so pissed about it. In my eyes, we were going to close it.
(37:24):
What I learned, at least from his perspective, was Australians like to go a little slower and I was ready to make the deal right now, and he was turned off by me, ready to make the deal fast. So talk me through the Australian culture versus US culture. What that looks like more is I'm just interested in curious.
Yeah.
Yeah, definitely. Like, look, I lived in, la
(37:46):
San Diego and and Southern California as well for a good 9 to 12 months. And the differences are exactly that. So us
is the whole it's American dream
was built on sales door like he was built on that. So it's in the culture to be very aggressive, a lot harder, a lot black, a lot more vocal where Australian
culture is be right, like laid back.
(38:07):
It's crazy.
It's like it's
almost like, oh, what? They don't, they don't even care.
But yeah, it's just
that. It's just that, that culture, it's just too laid back. So I've found with being living and
working a lot out of the US and Australia,
there's a perfect mix there. but yeah, it's definitely different. Like for instance, a credit card grabbing credit card details over the phone.
(38:30):
That's normal in
the US doing it here in
Australia it can be done, but it's a lot more challenging. A lot
really just have to.
It's a lot about yeah, a lot more. People are skeptical. It's still can be done. If you've got a great salesperson, they'll do it. But the mindset two of
the Australians here is I cut off someone's credit card over the phone.
You have to be exceptionally good and confident at sales to do that, whereas in the US
(38:52):
it's almost the norm. Oh, to save your spot and I love it. I think it's fantastic
and I want to introduce it here more in Australia. It's just the mindset of people that's I spoke about it. Yeah. Completely different. yeah.
Yeah man.
Yoshua I'm excited to to go out to Australians in spite of our messaging going back and forth. you know, I was really looking forward to going to Australia and then Benji and Michael were messaging me like videos of 4000 spiders coming out of a shower head and, you know, like, snake in the little girl's bed, like she opened up the covers and just, like, massive poisonous killer snake in there and, and like, my wife, my wife's.
(39:31):
Hell, no. By the way, she has no interest in going to Australia, so might be a solo trip, which sucks. It's a long ride, but at GSD con we were. We actually did this whole thing where I was like, Australian, can you imitate an American? Which I actually, I might even do on this episode, just to kind of hear an Australian imitated American, because we have a lot of American listeners, obviously.
(39:52):
but I want to know, for my own entertainment, like Americans have phrases that we believe, like when we imitate an Australian, we say some phrases like, for example, good, I might like that's us imitating an Australian or putting another shrimp on the Barbie. Like, that's,
that's a different we never
we never say that because we
(40:13):
we do, we do, we
say broads, we say broads.
But we you guys, we're we're there. It's, You got it. You got it. Like, every like for you. Oh. Can I please have a coffee? You got it. You got it. So,
so so for you guys, the most common American thing to say, like, the most, like somebody in Australia is going to imitate American. You've got it's coming out of their mouth.
(40:34):
You got it exactly
right or
anything. or if you. Michael, then everyone thinks Michael's name is Marco. And I'll still call him Marco now. Hey, Marco, what's going on?
Dude, I
don't understand how.
Oh, like, I love that, I love that, yeah. I mean, I'll tell you, I there's a lot of killer. There's a lot of animals that can kill you in Australia.
(40:56):
And, so I really just, I when we meet, if I go down there, we need to go to the proven to be least
dead frog. We go for a trial run in the bush, but right beside my house,
that's what we know. No, no, I'm not going to do it. So, All right, so to close this out, I thought this episode was good because it helps, you know, for everyone listening, it's an owner or a manager, and you have salespeople working for you.
(41:21):
This is a good episode for them to listen to, because it really should change your perspective around sales and what it is and what it is. And at the end of the day, if you're not in this industry to change people's lives, then you're in the wrong industry. And if you are in the industry to change people's lives, then understand that no life gets changed without a step forward and there is no step forward that happens without them saying yes.
(41:48):
And your job is to be so good at understanding where they want to be and painting the picture of how they're going to get there and how they're going to feel when they get there. So that yes, is the only real first step that they can take. And they've got to trust you and they've got to believe in you.
And these things are easier with practice. But your first step is saying, yes, I'm going to practice. And then from there you practice, you put the reps in, and then the harmony begins between you're really good at communicating. They're really good at seeing the big picture and the decision is made and we continue to grow. So Benji, I really appreciate you coming in and sharing your insights and talking sales with me.
(42:27):
I love talking sales, so it's always great to have a sales guy on the show.
Excellent. Yeah. Thanks, Mark.
It was very awesome I love it. It's
I could talk about it for hours and hours. So maybe a few more episodes go deeper
I love it, I love it, you know I'll give I'll do a giveaway too for anybody that's on this call right now.
if you go to loud rumor.com forward slash, no objections. That's a really good sales trade you can get for free that you should go check out. And then another one that I want you to go to is scorecard dot loud rumor.com. You can take a free test to understand like is it is is like sales. Even my problem right now sometimes you think it's your problem.
(43:08):
It's not really your problem. You're actually doing okay. And so I think that's important as well. And then I honestly for everybody listening Benji knows his stuff and and they've got everything lined up really well. So just go to super fit grow.com as well. Super super fit grow.com and check out their stuff. I mean these guys are doing killer work for the industry.
(43:31):
I essentially I close out my agency and give super fit grow all of my clients because they're just that good. And I'm not in it necessarily to make a buck. I got passion for what the work I do as well, and I love watching people like Benji and Michael work. So thank you guys so much for tuning in.
Benji, thanks for being on the show, brother.
Thanks, Mike. Appreciate it. Look forward to the next couple.
(43:53):
Same here man. We'll have you back. And for everybody else, we'll see you next time.
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