American Fitness Professionals & Associates

 By Pat Necerato

Quickly converting qualified prospects into personal training clients becomes easy when you learn to properly detect, expose, and destroy their procrastination before you show your rates or prices. Not properly dealing with procrastination is the biggest mistake some personal trainers make.

Not doing so could be costing you thousands of dollars per year in revenue and making you miss out on a ton of potential clients. Eliminating procrastination will immediately allow you to convert more prospects into clients fast.

The definition of procrastination is “to put off doing something out of habitual carelessness or laziness.” Procrastination is the reason why your qualified prospects don’t buy your personal training services, plain and simple. Think about it. Your prospect is in front of you telling you how much they want a personal trainer to help them get the results they want. You’ve explained the benefits.

You’ve painted the picture. They’re excited. They’ve even told you how much they want to do it now. However, for some reason, after spending the time learning all about why personal training is the perfect solution for their wants, needs, and problems, they justify, rationalize, and make excuses when it comes time to make the commitment and spend the money.

Why?

The answer is procrastination. Notice I didn’t say procrastination is “most likely” the reason they don’t buy, or “one” of the reasons they don’t buy…procrastination is THE (only) reason they don’t buy. “Oh but Pat you don’t understand, some people really don’t have the time, they have a packed schedule”, or, “Pat some people are different you see, sometimes they want to buy training from me, but many times they have a lot going on in their life…”

1. All procrastination!

2. Are they qualified prospects?

3. Are they sitting in front of you requesting information about your training services?

4. Are they telling you they need it? If the answer is yes, and they still choose not to buy, then it’s all because of procrastination, nothing else. Don’t get me wrong, there are many variations of excuses and reasons why people “say” they don’t buy your personal training services, but deep in the core of each one lays the element of pure procrastination.

For you to become financially successful as a personal trainer you need to learn to properly address, attack, and destroy procrastination. You must attack it during every sales presentation with every prospect…and its not going to happen by saying one or two neat phrases or rebuttals.

It must be tactically destroyed and that’s what I’m going to show you how to do in this article. Procrastination used to burn me all of the time as a personal trainer until I came up with 3 easy steps that allowed me to destroy procrastination forever, and to get almost every qualified prospect to purchase my personal training services from me that day.

Finally, the deceptive, sneaky, thing called procrastination (which was costing me thousands of dollars in personal sales each month) was about to be destroyed forever! Follow, adapt, and develop the 3 steps that follow and you’ll be on your way to converting 7 out of 10 qualified personal training prospects into clients within 15 minutes or less. Step 1. Perform an interview process with every prospect before you gave them your rates or prices. You must make a firm decision to interview each and every prospect before give out your rates or prices. This will give you a chance to expose, detect, and destroy procrastination with every qualified prospect! Beware, this may require a powerful (yet simple) change in your selling philosophy. You may be asking yourself, “How do I get every prospect to participate in an interview?” or “What if I don’t get a chance to explain procrastination to my prospects? What if they don’t allow me to interview them, what if they just want my prices?”

My answer: Simply make it your policy and refuse to give any qualified prospect your prices (or even discuss your services with them) unless they agree to participate in an interview with you first! Don’t tell your prospects, “I need to interview you to explain procrastination before we talk price…”

Simply tell your prospects when they ask for prices, that the only way you will give out your personal training prices is if they spend at least a few minutes with you first so you can ask them some questions to determine if they even have a true purpose in becoming one of your clients. This is key to getting the opportunity to overcome procrastination!

If they’re not willing to do this, simply refuse to give them your prices or any specific information about your services.

I made a commitment that I would never try to sell another personal training session for the rest of my life unless the prospect participated in a quick interview first. I was willing to “refuse” their request for prices so I could make the sale easier by having an opportunity to overcome procrastination. I remember one time someone persisted on seeing my personal training rates without going through my interview process.

I had to politely refuse. I told them, “I don’t advertise my rates. Only by spending time with a potential client before they buy allows me to discover if they have a true purpose in buying personal training. The last thing I want people to do is sign up with me just because of my affordable rates.” In other words I’d say, “I only consider training those people that are willing to spend 10-15 minutes with me so I can give them a good idea of what to expect from my services.

If someone can’t do that, I have no way of determining if we’ll truly be a good match so I don’t even bother going through all my rates and options.” The person was perplexed, they said, “You mean to tell me that you’ll only give me your rate package if I spend time with you first?” I said, “That’s exactly right.

We’ll only spend about 15 minutes, but it will truly give us a good idea if it will even be worth your time to buy personal training from me. Besides, if you’re truly ready to get into the best shape of your life, 15 minutes isn’t going to matter.” He finally agreed to spend the time with me going through the interview process. I explained procrastination using some of the verbiage I’ll explain in a minute, and after 15 minutes he wrote me a check for $650 for ten training sessions.

Why? Because I exposed, detected, and destroyed procrastination though a strategic, structured interview process. This allowed him to realize that he needed to make a commitment in order to achieve his goals.

This is what you must do if you want to quickly and easily sell a high percentage of your personal training prospects.   Stop giving out your prices to everyone and concentrate getting prospects in front of you so you can interview them, strip them of procrastination, and get them ready to buy. Unfortunately some trainers are too anxious to give their rates hoping people will see them and buy right away.

As a matter of fact, its exactly the opposite. When people see your rates it make them think. Thinking usually means procrastination.

Step 2: “Brag” about procrastination during each interview

This is something you must discipline yourself to do with each prospect…brag about procrastination. Literally brag about procrastination and explain how much it prevents people from getting into shape. “Bragging” about procrastination, means to explain it to each and every prospect with frankness and with a straightforward, serious attitude. Give them examples and illustrations.

This spearheads the issue, deals with it head on, and brings it out into the open. Also, be sure to do this with every prospect, regardless of how sure they seem. Don’t be fooled by enthusiastic prospects that swear they’re going to buy today, then in the end give you a boat load of excuses and put off their buying decision. You know exactly what I mean.

We’ve all fooled ourselves by thinking, “I don’t have to worry about this prospect procrastinating, they told me there was nothing stopping them from buying, they practically told me they’re definitely buying today!”

Then in the end, the excuses are flying in from everywhere and they even promise you they’ll be back tomorrow only never to be seen again (or at least they hide from you when they see you around the gym). Avoid this by completely by bragging about procrastination with each and every prospect. Educate them on the truth about it and why it’s the main reason people don’t get into the shape they want to be in.

Step 3: During the interview, be sure to tell your prospect outright that the reason they won’t buy training today (if any) is going to be because of procrastination and nothing else.

Do this immediately after your prospects explain their goals to you. After they get done specifically telling you all about how much they want to get into shape, take a second, pause, then ask them, “What would prevent you from achieving these goals now?” Let them answer. Let them answer some more. Chances are they may say, “Nothing is going to prevent me!” or, “Only the money!” or “Lack of time!” Regardless of what they say, immediately tell your prospect outright that procrastination may be a problem for them regardless of how serious they think they are.

Immediately say to them with compassion, “Mary, it really sounds like your serious. But I have to tell you, I’ve seen some very serious people talk about making the commitment but they never do. Why? Because of procrastination.

The only reason people don’t reach the level of fitness they desire, and the reason why sometimes even the most motivated people don’t purchase personal training from me is because of procrastination and nothing else. It’s not because of the time, it’s not because of the money, the only reason people don’t get into the shape they want (and the reason they don’t buy personal training if any) is because of procrastination.”

Tell them that regardless of how important their goals are, and regardless of how great of a trainer you are, you- nor anyone else- will be able to help them unless they stop procrastinating and make the commitment.

After you get done explaining this, immediately ask them, “How about you? Do you feel you’re beyond procrastination and ready to make a commitment to getting in the best shape of your life?” Wait for their answer. They’ll probably say yes, and then you say, “Great, because without a commitment backed by action, nothing is going to change.

Now let me explain what it will be like as one of my clients…” Once you do this, then you can go ahead and explain your services, talk more benefits, show them your features, get them excited about their goals, and finally qualify them for the package that best suits their needs. So, to destroy procrastination in your personal training prospects:

* Step 1. Perform an interview process with every prospect before you give them your rates or prices.

* Step 2: “Brag” about procrastination during each interview.

* Step 3: During the interview, be sure to tell your prospect outright that the reason they won’t buy training today (if any) is going to be because of procrastination and nothing else. Bye-bye procrastination!!

Don’t make the biggest mistake any personal trainer can make. Interview every prospect, then destroy procrastination by using the steps above to get your prospect mesmerized, excited, and ready to buy within 15 minutes or less.

Pat Necerato, creator of the Ultimate Personal Training Sales Tool, Shows Personal Trainers How To Convert 7 Out Of Every 10 Prospects Into Paying Clients Within 15 Minutes Or Less… Guaranteed!”

Pat is a professional speaker and sales trainer and has more than 15 years of experience in fitness sales and management. Thousands of fitness professionals each year maximize their selling potential through his books, audio programs, seminars and workshops. He can be reached at pat@ultimatepersonaltrainingsalestool.com