The secrets of the work of a fitness club administrator are a kind of small nuances, the realization, and implementation of which significantly increases the efficiency of a specialist’s efficiency. Some of them are obvious, some need to come with time or experience, but one way or another, they all depend only on you. Realize that success or failure at work lies only in your area of responsibility and proceed to study this article.
Introduction
It often happens that a person, having got a job as an administrator of a fitness club, after some time loses interest in it, becomes unproductive, and ultimately changes the club or leaves the industry altogether. Why does it happen? There can be many reasons. There is no common language with the management, conflicts with clients or employees, low income, and so on.
The secrets of the work of a fitness club administrator are intended to help to be a more effective employee and thereby eliminate the possibility of conflicts with superiors, improve their communication skills and avoid possible conflicts with clients or employees, learn methods of influence, persuasion and reasoning to increase their earnings and not only. These are kind of little tips that are not talked about in the training courses for administrators and that you can only learn about from more experienced colleagues or from your own experience. However, I will share some secrets with you here.
TIP. This article is the fifth in a series of articles on the craft of a fitness club administrator. In addition to this one, I also recommend that you familiarize yourself with the articles “Who is an administrator of the fitness club“, “Job description of an administrator“, “The profession of a fitness club administrator“, and “How to become a fitness club administrator“.
The secrets of the work of an administrator
The qualities that an administrator should have are charisma, charm, and the ability to win over. Of course, they will not tell this in the courses, nevertheless, from a psychological point of view, this is an incredibly powerful tool for influencing the client. Whoever says anything, but the first impression about a person is formed literally within the first 10 seconds after the greeting. The smile, good humor, and friendliness shown to the client often win his heart even before you open your mouth. This is the first secret of being a fitness club administrator. It often happens that a customer who feels that they are being cared for is ready to buy anything out of a sense of gratitude.
After you open your mouth, skills such as communication, the ability to reason, and persuade are used. The ability to win over (see the previous point) will help to establish contact with the client, and the ability to listen, analyze, propose and justify will help to choose the most suitable option for a person to solve his problems. The more competently your speech is structured and the better all the conversation moves are calculated, the easier it is for you to manage the situation. Competent speech + knowing your product/service + well-developed soft skills = perfect result. This is the second secret of being a fitness club administrator. Continuously improve your speaking and your argumentation, influence, and persuasion skills.
In order for the administrator to be able to calculate in advance all possible dialogue options, I strongly recommend getting a script. A script is a certain algorithm, painted in steps: what to say, how to say, and when to speak, in order, on the one hand, to give the client the necessary amount of information, on the other hand, to lead a dialogue towards the main goal – to close the deal. This is the third secret of being a fitness club administrator. Both objection handling and argumentation should be written in the script, but remember that the script doesn’t need to be followed blindly. Use a script, because it significantly increases the likelihood of closing a deal due to a specific algorithm of actions.
In order to be able to convey to the client information about your club as fully and deeply as possible, you must use its services yourself. This is the fourth secret of the work of a fitness club administrator, which allows you to conduct club presentations with the highest quality, thereby increasing your authority in the eyes of the client. When he knows that the club employees themselves use his services, this increases their value in his eyes, which means he will be ready to pay for them. The management of the club almost always provides its employees with a full or partial discount on the use of its products or services. Once again, use the product/service you are selling yourself.
Of course, the administrator’s authority is also influenced by his experience. The more experience a person has, the more familiar he is with how the mechanism of interaction with customers works, from establishing contact to closing a deal, that is, a sale. Customers are the same people as you are and always see or feel false. An administrator who says “now I’ll tell you everything,” and at the same time can’t connect two words, will immediately give the client the impression that he is being deceived. Don’t try to show yourself as a know-it-all, especially if you just got a job. The fifth secret of the work of a fitness club administrator sounds like this: don’t tell the client “I don’t know”, say “I will clarify” and offer to call back or come up after training.
Another factor that increases the administrator’s credibility in the eyes of clients is attentiveness. This applies primarily to names and surnames, as well as dates and events. This is the sixth secret of a fitness club administrator when communicating with clients. You can remember, you can write down this data, but the very fact that you are addressing a client by name disposes him to you and increases your reputation. Clients know that there are a lot of them, and there are very few administrators, and when you show a person that you know him, you thereby demonstrate that you make him stand out from the crowd. Customers appreciate this very much. Maintain a database of clients and enter their names, names of their children, birthdays, and other information there.
A person after getting a job can prove himself either as a whole person or spineless. Competition among administrators encourages a person to either show character or bend over to others. A newcomer can be blamed on many unnecessary or meaningless responsibilities that are outside of his area of competence. The job description clearly states what the administrator should do and what he should not do. If a second or senior administrator or someone else forces you to run to the store for cigarettes during business hours, you can safely refuse. This is the seventh secret of being a fitness administrator: learn your job description and don’t be afraid to put people in their place.
Forget about what a bad mood is. There is no such concept for an administrator. Each person has their own worries and their own problems. The administrator is the face of the club, this is the first person the client sees when entering the reception. If the administrator is not in the mood, he will most likely cause negative emotions in visitors, and if he starts being rude to them, then this may generally serve as a reason for dismissal. Remember that the administrator’s instruments are his face and his speech. No one cares if you have loan debt, a headache or a car broke down. The eighth secret of being a fitness club administrator: learn to manage your emotions and always be positive.
The administrator’s reputation can be tarnished by such seemingly elementary things as ignoring customers, surfing on the phone, or eating sandwiches in the workplace. The visitor can be repelled by the strong smell of cigarettes, bad breath, as well as elementary rudeness towards him. Selling goods or services of the club “under the counter” is prohibited by both the employment contract and the job description. You can sell any of your goods or trainers’ goods in the club only with the prior permission of the management. The ninth secret of the work of a fitness club administrator: in any situation, keep your dignity, be decent and follow the administrator’s job description.
As you know, the salary of a fitness club administrator consists of a rate and a percentage of sales. The rate is constant and usually quite small, which means that the amount of your earnings is determined by the number of main (memberships) and additional (goods and services) sales. As a rule, one person buys one membership. At the same time, this one person can buy many extra services, whether it be a solarium session, spa treatments, massage, water, coffee, gloves, shaker, etc. Often earnings with additional sales allow you to earn more than selling memberships. The tenth secret of a fitness club administrator: offer clients extra services and goods, as it increases your earnings.
It’s no secret that fitness is a seasonal business. Administrator’s earnings are sales of goods or services to clients. When the flow of customers is continuous, the administrator earns a lot, when the flow decreases, the income also falls. The eleventh secret of a fitness club administrator: since you cannot influence the seasonality, influence the frequency of sales. In the low season, when attendance drops, it is necessary to actively promote additional club services. It is also necessary to correctly distribute the number of long (year) and short (month) memberships. If you sold an annual subscription to a client, answer the question immediately: how will you replenish the cash register next month? Sell one-, two-, or three-month subscriptions.
Most, if not all fitness clubs have a so-called sales plan. This is the number of memberships that the administrator must sell in a month. This plan has a lower limit, but no upper limit. The point is that the administrator must sell at least a specified number of memberships per month, and if he falls short of this minimum mark, he can be reprimanded. The next month, if the picture repeats, he is given a warning. If in the third month the sales plan is not closed, the administrator can be fired. The twelfth secret of being a fitness club administrator is: don’t treat the plan as an enemy but take it as an incentive to be more active in your work.
Conclusion
The secrets of the work of an administrator are, by and large, not-so-big secrets. The success of a specialist in any field depends primarily on how inclined he is to continuous learning and self-development. The learning process may have a beginning, but it certainly has no end. As I said in previous articles, for the industry, employer, and clients, a specialist who is constantly improving in his craft is valuable. Learn from classes, read specialized literature, attend conferences, watch lectures, listen to audiobooks and improve your qualifications in every possible way, and then even in a budget fitness club, you can earn more than your colleagues in premium clubs.
Felix Palmer – author of the blog crusfit.com
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