MA Business Success 45: How to Develop a Fool-Proof Sales Process for Your Martial Arts School

Watch the video below Listen to the podcast below Phil: Whether you're at zero students, 100 students, 200 students, 500 students, we have, I believe, the tips, tools and strategies that can help you get to that next level of ability, next level of results, by implementing hopefully some of the things that we've used to get the success we have. Talking about that, just in case you're quite new to our podcast and don't know much about us, we're in Western Australia, in Perth, down in Australia, down under, and we really have three main schools where we teach to about 1,700 members. We have 20 full-time staff, a ton of part-timers and volunteers. Graham and I have now been able to be in the business of really just running it, sitting on the top of the ship, pointing a finger and helping, guiding the business. We really only spend probably one day a week of this business that we do. It's a multi-million dollar business. It feels really good to be out of there and get this content and get this advice out to people like you, so you can get, if not the same, but better results than what we have. So, Graham, I think we've got our brand new cool topic today. Graham: This is something that's new and dear to my heart, a simple secret for your sales team. For some of the guys who are going to be engaging with us now, they are already, "I don't have a sales team." A sales team, you can be a one-man band and you're it, but sales training is something that a lot of people don't have the time to invest in, they're not necessarily driven in that area, they don't like sales, but at the end of the day, everything you do in your business is all about sales. Sales is not a dirty word. It's just understanding what it is that we're trying to do. Really we're trying to take away roadblocks of students, whatever questions they may have, and try to help them make it, so that they can come and join in with our fantastic martial arts school. So, what we're going to do, first and foremost, I know that when we've done the training with their guys recently, Phil, the very first thing that we're talking about is getting them to do what we call diagnostic selling, or asking questions, understanding. What is diagnostic selling for the guys who are going to be listening in or watching in on this podcast? Phil: I guess, the best way we can explain it is like when you go to the doctors. You go in there, and let's just say you've got a sore knee. The doctor is going to ask you a string of open-ended questions to try and diagnose the issue. So, he might go, "Does it hurt when you put all your weight on it? What about when you walk? Does it hurt when you bend?" You're going to give all these answers, and then the doctor is basically going to give you his diagnose...how do you say that word? Graham: Diagnose. Phil: Diagnose. Here we go, a bit of a stumble on words there. Diagnose the issue and give you the correct medicine or prescribe a medicine that you may need. The same thing goes with a sales or a program director in that role, is we want to make sure that the person coming through our door is going to let us know really what they want. I know we've spoken about our little sales secret code, which is, find out what they want, go get it and give it to them. That's pretty much what we're doing in that particular section is going, "What benefits do you want from doing martial arts? Have you done any martial arts training before? Have you done any other sport? What do you do for work?" We're just basically going, "I just want to know as much as I can without having to hang out with this person for a year, so that I can best deliver the best class options or best experience that we can at our martial arts school." In saying that also, we're also disqualifying the people who aren't ready for our school. Now, that's a big point. If you're just starting in martial arts, you're going to want to take everyone, and that's fine. But as you get further on, you realize sometimes people join and they're just not the right fit. They're not the right type of person, for whatever reason that may be. Our sales process is exactly that. It's more like a disqualification while we're qualifying the person. So, yes, we want to qualify him but we also want to disqualify all the people who are not right for our business because I don't want somebody starting, stopping, or going to waste time and money and effort in chasing their light bills and all that sort of stuff. Graham: I must say, before you get away some of those little gym questions in there, we have our magic five questions that our entire team know offhand to gather the most amount of information. They obviously can deviate, depending on where the conversation goes. One of which you touched on is, "What are the benefits you want to gain from martial arts?" Bang, straight up. That is probably one of the most important things to ask because I know in the early days of sales or being that program director, I used to think I knew what the person wanted. They want this. To be honest with you, I couldn't be further from the truth. It's really important to make sure that you are listening to their needs and being able to, as you said, prescribe their right course of action. Some may want to fight, some may just want to do self-defense, they've got low self-esteem, whatever that may be. So ask those questions. That is vitally important. Phil: Again, moving from there though, you've got some great questions, that could be on the phone, it could be face-to-face. We talk another thing, another little tip and strategy here, a little bit of secret called the chameleon effect. To touch on that, this is all about...well, you think about a community, they match their environment very, very well. As a sales person, you need to match the particular client that you're dealing with. This can be a challenge if you're dealing with multiple personalities, not in the same person but multiple personalities in the same room. So, for example, dad who may be a very reserved person or a fact finding personality, mom may be shy and quiet, could be the opposite [inaudible 00:06:06], the kids are a bit of a live wire. So, how do you swap between those personalities so that everyone is engaged and you don't have just one paint brush to, I guess, mark them all? I know we've got mirror and matching body language. Phil, what does that mean? Phil: It's basically building rapport, and it's exactly if you're doing fantastic classes, you should be teaching that in the instructor program. He's mirroring, he's standing in front of a person and almost mirroring exactly the same position. So, if you're watching the podcast today, you'll notice that I'm pretty much mirroring Graham. I've got my arm up on the wall. He doesn't even know that I'm doing it but I'm doing rapport and he doesn't even really know this yet. Matching it or if you're standing stand by them, you're matching exactly what they're saying, what they're doing with their body posture as well. Now, you can do the same thing with voice fluctuation. So, if you've got someone who is speaking quite reserved and quiet and slow, you would match that ever so slightly as well. If they're quite punchy and direct with their questions, and then you'd be quite punchy and direct with your answers. But, as I said, at the end of the day, it comes down to people want to do business with people they know, like, and trust. So if you are completely the polar opposite of the person, then there is going to be already some sort of barrier of, "You're different." People don't want to do business with people who are too different, especially when they're handing you money, a good sum of money, to be able to teach them something. So it's not that we're trying to be someone that we're not. We're just trying to break down the barriers of this person liking us by mirror-matching and building rapport. Graham: But going along with that, Phil, you talked about people wanting to buy from those they like, trust and have got a good rapport with. You notice the change in words there. Our guys, yes, we call them the sales team but really, their job is not to try and sell. Their job is to try and allow that person to buy our services. That means, choose to welcome it in as if it was welcome into your family home. Open the doors and show them the great benefits that we have at our school and it was very much back to then the individual to choose. It's always one of those things, though, that we find that we have some great ways that people would go and feel that, great rapport, that brilliant connection with us in a short amount of time. That really was knowing what they want, being able to make sure that we match the person's personality types, and build that great rapport. You mentioned about mirror and matching their behaviors. What about being honest? How do you run when you've got a student that might not be right for your school? How do you find them there? Phil, what do we do? Phil: There are a few ways that we can manage those situations. Let me just point out something that's probably happened before. We teach at our school freestyle karate, we're a big family-focused club, but yet we do have a mortal [SP] program as well. A mortal program, we do compete, it's not our focus. It's a very small percentage of our school. Let's just say that an unsavory top character might come through. I'm never a person who judge a book by it's cover, but that's the purpose of our sales process as well is to disqualify them. So, as I'm asking these questions and someone goes, "I just want to learn to fight." I was like, "Okay. Do you just want to compete?" He said, "No, I get in fights outside and I just want to look after myself." I'm already getting red flags here, and this guy is going outside in the real world and wanting to fight and beat people up. One of the techniques that I pretty much do straight off the bat is tell them the price and maybe even add a little bit of money onto it to be honest, trying to show him that we are a world class school, professional school, we charge x amount, this will be the level of commitment. If you can't commit to this price and this amount of training, then this might not be the right school for you. Then I would offer him advice on which school that might be best suited for them, one down the road or whatever it might be. Graham, you've got a couple? Graham: Honesty counts. I guess I'm going to go right to the other end of the scale, where you've got a student who is just not mature enough in age to jump in the program. So, what we talk about is the parents that want their kids, maybe three or four, to start martial arts. We take some of those kids in our school and we straight up honestly go, "The kid is three years old but they're not ready yet. They're not ready for the program. Maybe in six months' time. To be honest with you, people respond well to that honesty over trying to convert and get a sale. Once they're in the program, they realize it's not for them. So we have definitely found that being upfront and honest on that regards has built a great rapport and trust. You generally are going to find that you'll have a great referral basis off of that because they'll go and tell their friends, which is great. The final thing I really want to touch on here is a sales person. Again, this is a little bit more around those kids because again, that's where you're dealing with multiple personalities, where you need to meet the needs of the parents, but you need also to be able to show the kids that you're going to have some fun but you can also be firm. So be firm and fun. What that means is, during your introductory program, it's all about getting them excited to be in classes but that doesn't mean that you sacrifice on your discipline and the respect aspect and just have fun and games. So, there's a couple of things that we obviously do Phil in regards to the eyes and the ears and the listening stance. Fill me in for the benefit of the listeners and the viewers, mate. Phil: Once again, you're probably going to get more benefit from watching this podcast than maybe just listening to it in your car but you need to just create that imagination of that picture in your head. I'm going to give you a strategy away that Graham and I, probably both...it's not our own thing but I don't know if anyone else is not doing it. We've taught it to a lot of people who are not doing it, and it's pretty much at go-to. It's that go-to move with kids up to a certain age. So, you're coming down out the area where the parents and the child are waiting and then you introduce yourself and you should already know their name. Introduce yourself to the parents. Then you say, before you chat to their parents, "Little Johnny, can I get you to do something for me?" They're quite responsive or whether they are or not, you still get them to do this, put your feet together, put your hands in front, what stance is this called? Well, we call it a listening stance. What is it called? That's what a listening stance. We're always asking that question back so that they can reiterate that back to us. Parents are looking above us, going, "This is pretty cool." Then say, "Little Johnnie, what are those two little funny things in your face called, or in front of you?" "My eyes." "What are the eyes used for, little Johnnie?" "They're used for looking." That's right, focusing. We're going to been focusing a lot today, do you think you can do that for me? "Yeah." "Okay, give me a high five, excellent. What are those two funny things on the side of your head called?" "Ears." "That's right, ears." "What are ears used for, little Johnnie? They're used for listening." "That's right." "So, today, we're going to be using our eyes for focusing, and our ears for what?" "Listening." "That's right." Low five and you'll pull it away. Low five, pull it away. What kid doesn't like that game? I've got kids who do that all day. Low five, pull it away. Eventually, you've got to give it to them and make a big deal out of that, and then, come back up to the parents and say, "Look, guys, today, we'll be going on a bit of a tour, showing you about our school and what it takes to be a member here. A lot of the stuff we do focus on is character building and listening skills, and that's what I'm going to do with your child today." Then, the next tip would be, as you're going through your introductory lesson, is make sure the child is always in that listening stance. The parent is just going to go, "What magic powers have you got?" Graham: Phil, you have just given away the secret. So, if you guys are listening, you don't realize what you have there. I would definitely apply this. It's a great line, really, even up to the point, right up to, I would say double digits. So for those 10 years old, nine years old, of course, again, how we explain, it might be a little different but still listening, still ears, still focused. I tell you what, wow, this has really helped us to build that great rapport, show value of our program, and the parents walk away going, "Holy moly. These guys are fun, but they're firm, they understand." Phil: Guys, if this confuses you or the video doesn't make sense, we actually have the full sales process in video form, in audio and written process. It's in our online membership area. So, as we say in most podcast is, because you're a listener, you get a special deal. For $99 a month, you get access to the silver level and gold, and then the gold level, we have the sales process. Everything we ever do, from when the phone rings to when you become a member and the first month or so after, you can get that in video form and practice that with your team. Graham: Most definitely. Guys look, enjoy. Make sure that if you can't go, as we always have these lovely little feedback sessions where there are questions for the boys, something that we love to do and answer. So, don't forget, send us a ton of questions, we'll create a podcast around there. We've got some great questions that we've already had come through and we created things just for those people. So, don't forget, [email protected]. Throw out some questions, and we'll certainly do our best to answer them and give you the right materials so that you can sell them yourselves. Phil: And always guys, make sure you believe, begin, become. Believe in yourself, begin the amazing journey, and become the business and the person of your life. We'll see you on the flip side, guys. Ciao! Announcer: TIMA, innovating the martial arts industry.