10 Words You Must AVOID When Selling Memberships

Words Have Power

10 Words you must AVOID when selling Martial Arts memberships.

Written by Christopher Allen, Kickfit Consulting Ltd.

ROBIN SHARMA said, “Words can inspire and words can destroy. Choose yours wisely”.

Only this morning I needed to pick up a member of my team on the use of language in the context of selling our membership. It’s not his fault, I just need to spend time with my team refocusing them on the words that they use, and bringing them back to the training they had at their induction. The difficulty is knowing what to say, how to say it and when. What if they are words you use when selling a membership that are actually working against you? Well now you are in luck! Here is my top 10 Words you must AVOID when selling high value memberships

1. Honesty / Honenstly - usually found it a sentence such as, “now let me be honest with you” or “honestly, it’s one of the best classes we have”. When you use this word in any context it may imply that everything you have said before it isn’t truthful.
2. Cheap - usually found in a sentence such as, “this membership is cheap because....” Replace with Budget such as, “this is our budget membership because it only features X and not XX”. This word implies that the budget membership is somewhat of a lesser quality.
3. Cheaper - ,"well I am sure you can find a membership cheaper elsewhere but..." regardless of the amazing reasons you are going to tell them about your membership you may have already planted the seed in their minds that they need to look around. 
4. Expensive - expensive can imply that you could find the same item or service cheaper elsewhere, we instead use words like, Premium, Professional, and Elite. High Value. Quality.
5. Contract - Contracts seem very final, like you are going to be bound into a contract that is going to be hard to leave. Instead, we like to use the word Agreement. NB - When we sell memberships we only talk about Agreements, when we are dealing with a cancellation we switch our terminology to Contracts so we have less issues with them adhering to our cancellation policy.
6. Hope - sometimes found in a sentence “I hope you enjoy your trial”. Hope implies that you are not sure, so why should your potential new client be sure? Be 100% behind your school and try replacing Hope with Know. “ I know you are going to enjoy your trial”
7. Obviously - some people may take this word as condescending, as in they’re not smart enough to understand. A good example of this is where we might be explaining to a parent why we don’t offer a once per week membership and the conversation goes along the lines of, “unfortunately if your daughter can only train once a week they obviously she won’t be at the same fitness or technical level as their peers who train twice a week”. In this sentence, remove obviously with unlikely “it’s therefore unlikely that they will be at the same fitness or technical level as their peers...”
8. Competition - don’t bring up your competitors, they are not part of this process. We never talk about them in the academy and never during a membership enrolment meeting.
9. Discount - we never talk about discount in an enrolment conference, we talk about "extras or benefits".  For instance, the conversation might sound like this, "when you enrol into our gold programme you'll get 30% discount on equipment and clothing".  This has led some parents to think that if you are prepared to discount equipment you might discount membership. Never offer discount on a membership.  Sure, maybe offer a reduced rate for a 2nd sibling but don't be too quick to devalue your school. 
10. Perhaps / Maybe / If - okay, I cheated that’s three words but they mean the same. Just like Hope, these words sound like you aren’t 100% sure about the programme. For instance, "If you join our school..." instead replace this with "When you join our school"  Be confident!