People get marketing and sales mixed up pretty frequently. In fact, I think a lot of people expect their marketing gurus to be amazing at sales and vice versa. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. I once heard, “Marketing is how you talk to strangers. Sales is how you talk to friends.”
Marketing people should have the following traits:
- Good at reviewing analytics and insights
- Great at copy writing and communication
- Adaptability in various marketing methods and ability to pivot during split testing
- Creativity in thinking outside the box
- Great storytelling skills across a variety of platforms
- Someone who consistently thinks ahead
- Preferred skills in social media, graphic design and basic videography
While the last one is not a requirement for all marketers, we tend to have just one person really head up the marketing for our gyms. (That might be you!) It’s unlikely you have an entire team of people pitching in to develop creative strategies for your gym. You may have staff who are there to provide support to your marketing department (this might be headed by you with you as the only staff member in it as well), but it’s not likely you have a team of people with marketing as their sole focus.
Now let’s look at a sales person. It’s super important that you have someone at the gym who has insight into your programs and can close the deal when a parent is inquiring about one of your services whether that’s an event, trial class or birthday party.
Here are some ideal traits in a sales associate:
- The ability to ask questions and listen carefully to the answers
- Recognizing key indicators to identify what people may be looking for
- Analyzing body language, tone and dialect to communicate effectively with others
- Loves answering questions and lack defensiveness
- Persuasive communication to help someone weigh out why something might be the best choice for him/her
- Excellent verbal communication and manners
- Adaptability in communication styles
As you can see, the skills sets are very different in these two positions, and yet we tend to be looking for someone who embodies both. While I’d love to have someone who can teach level 4 cheerleading and level 7 gymnastics, that’s about as rare as finding someone who has the skills to be both a marketer and a salesperson. Why? As you saw, they’re very different skill sets. The marketer is someone who, by nature, is communicating to a target audience while a salesperson is a listener and adapter.
Both positions are incredibly important for your gym. You know why marketing is important, but how helpful is it to have a killer marketing department who is always bringing new prospects through the door just to have a mediocre sales person who is more focused on talking than listening? The role of a sales person is really to find the need of the prospect and meet that need. I’ll give you a hint. No one is actually looking for tumbling or cheer for their child. They’re actually looking for something deeper. They want their child to make friends, get fit, develop focus and have fun away from electronics. That’s why you see so much of our marketing plays to those core needs. Our best sales person in the gym always asks questions about the child first. Is the child shy? Is he/she outgoing? Does the child have a ton of energy or are they pretty mild? What are their primary reasons for wanting to join a program?
By finding the why behind the inquiry, a great salesperson can help parents find a long-term fit. Just because you need a tall backspot on Junior 2, doesn’t mean the shyest 13 year old in town is the right fit.
So, if you don’t have a marketer and someone to close the sale, you’re going to want to start looking for these people in your gym. Work on developing your skills to be pretty good at both. It’s challenging, but it’s not impossible to do that until you have the right people in the right places!
