Often times, the most detailed parts of a sales process make the biggest impact. Although it takes some time to create these processes, they pay off in terms of membership sales and ancillary revenue. That is why we created a Follow-Up Cadences E-Book to help you and your sales team master the art of lead nurturing. The three types of prospects you should be following-up with include leads, guests, and members. Yes, we even count members as potential prospects for up selling opportunities.  

Learn when and how to follow-up with leads with our brand new e-book.

Web Lead, Walk-In, Referral

A web lead and a walk-in are warm leads because they have made the choice to contact you about their fitness journey. Although this seems like a small feat, that means that you beat the competition, and you should be proud! A referral is more of a cold lead, but you have a warm introduction from your current member who referred them. Because each lead is different, they have different needs. For example, you wouldn’t want to call a walk-in lead immediately after they leave, but you would want to call a web lead as soon as they submit their form online. As you can see, each lead will take specific communication styles, and it may take some time to even find which one works best.

But the first contact isn’t where the communication ends. Sales wouldn’t be doing the job correctly if they weren’t following-up with the prospects after the first contact. Lead nurturing is the process of taking that lead and slowly turning them into a customer. Sometimes, this process can happen in one day, while other times it can take months. Once you have a lead, their journey with you has just begun.

Active Guest, Missed Guest, Expired Guest

Although there are different names for each of these statuses, these titles give a good overview of what each status means. Each of these types of leads have their own separate follow-up schedule, just like before. This time, they are hot leads who have shown interest in trying your gym.

An Active Guest is someone who is currently using a guest pass in your gym. Everyone offers different guest pass durations, but not everyone is using a follow-up schedule during and after the prospect is using the pass. A good rule of thumb is to follow-up with the lead about halfway through their guest pass. This lets them know you are checking on them, but also offers a great opportunity to see if they are interested in buying a membership after testing it out for a few days.

A Missed Guest is someone who came in for a tour, but didn’t sign up for a guest pass or a membership. This type of lead is a little more difficult to sell to, but they should absolutely have a follow-up schedule that keeps them engaged with your gym in case they changed their mind, or decide the time is right for them. The beauty of follow-ups is that you are able to be top-of-mind for leads no matter when they are thinking about joining.

An Expired Guest simply means they used the guest pass, but didn’t buy a membership after. These leads are often time the hottest leads, and can turn into members very quickly. Don’t give up following-up after a couple of tries! They were interested enough to try out your gym or studio, and if everything went well they probably fell in love with everything you have to offer.

Members

It may seem odd to treat your members the same way you would treat a lead, but there is so much value in not only up selling members, but keeping communication open to increase retention. The follow-up schedule for members is much more drawn out than the follow-up schedule for a warm lead, simply because they don’t need to be hounded by you once they already bought a membership.

A follow-up call every month to check in on their progress, ask for feedback, and most importantly, ask for referrals, is extremely important. The more you ask for referrals, the more you will get them. Although it seems simple, a lot of times it slips the mind of gym or studio owners.

Also, if you sell personal training, small group classes, or more, these monthly check-ins are great for reminding the member about your add-ons and talking them into testing out these services. Overall, kindly following-up with members, leads, or guests will increase revenue, retention, and membership sales in your gym.

We have created a Follow-Up Cadences E-Book that covers when, how, and why to follow-up with prospects and members. Download the e-book below for in-depth schedules for each lead, guest, and member status.