By the Numbers: Getting More Clients—Close Rate

A closeup of a blue keyboard button that says "closing sale."

Remember when you opened your gym and every person who came through the door was already sold on your service?

In fact, if those early adopters didn’t sign up, it was because you basically turned them away, right?

Yeah, those days are gone.

When you run ads on any platform, you attract strangers to your gym. That’s great—you wouldn’t have met these people without your ads. On the other hand, they don’t know much about you yet. So many won’t sign up—unless you’re good at selling them on your coaching.

Your close rate is the number of prospects who sign up for your service when they show up to appointments.

Below, you’ll see the numbers for the top gyms in the world. The gyms that closed the most sales—28 apiece—closed in 88 and 90 percent of appointments. The next two gyms closed in 66 percent of appointments, and the one after that closed in 90 percent of appointments. One gym went 18 for 18!

A leaderboard showing the top 10 gyms for close rate in December 2022, from 15 to 28.


Top Lessons From the Leaders


Here’s how these gym owners do it:

“We encouraged them to join in 2022 because in 2023 rates were increasing. This hasn’t dampened the signups: 13 so far in January!”

“We hired a new person that we put in charge of sales. She’s part-time client success manager and sales, and she’s been working out really well.”

“We prequalified the leads—how? Doing calls to prequalify them. That’s why we are able to close at such a high rate. We use the free trials as a softer sale. We would always offer an initial phone call, and the goal of that call is to book a trial class. Most will do this unless they want to meet first. After the free class, they finish the workout and meet with the coach or now the new salesperson. They’ll speak with the person and get them signed up. Before they come in for the free class, they have filled out the consent form and the membership agreement.” 

“We just built a brand new gym. On the second floor there is a big office for NSIs (No Sweat Intros), with windows looking out onto the gym floors and a hallway with progress photos on the way to that NSI office. The pricing binder is set up the ‘car wash’ way: good, better and best packages. Basic, Committed, Determined.”

“I always hit the core values of the gym in the NSI—help first, progression, community (and I get to talk about our community events, which keeps them engaged and on the radar).”

“We added the NSI and on-ramp (by PT sessions—6, 8, 12 sessions). Before Two-Brain we used free trials, so the big difference now is that we earn a lot more because now folks pay $400-$700 to start with us. Now we have less attrition with this system.”

“We made an NSI script sheet for me, my partner and the coach to follow. But basically we just try to be personal, appeal to the mom’s self-care needs—we dig a little deeper. My coach is so personable and makes them feel comfortable.”

And here’s what a few other top gym owners said about close rate in the past:

“I just make the decision for them and tell them the price.”

“We just do the NSI exactly as (Two-Brain Business) teaches it. Some clients have told me they were shopping around and this was way different than the other places. … They were overwhelmed at the other places and say that I care and give thought to their path. I try to empathize with where they’re at in their journey, then follow through with a prescription.”

“I spent time teaching my staff to sell NSIs.”

“Our close rate has been getting better as we got more quality leads.”

“We do a deep dive into motivation. Clients who have done intros or trials at other gyms sign up right away. They all say, ‘None of the others asked me these questions.'”


Closing Secrets


The keys to getting people to sign up? Care and clarity.

Care enough to go deep: Ask what they really want and ask why.

Be clear: Tell them exactly what they need to achieve their specific goals. Remove complexity. You don’t have to explain CrossFit to them or show them your equipment. You don’t have to worry about their reaction to your pricing. Just tell them the solution and what it will cost.

It will take courage at first. But you’ll build confidence. And when you do—well, we’ll see you on the leaderboard!

Like
Tweet

One more thing!

Did you know gym owners can earn $100,000 a year with no more than 150 clients? We wrote a guide showing you exactly how.