I have a confession to make: I'm the world's WORST salesman.
My clients know this. I've told them. In fact, one piece of our lore centres around this fact: when Melanie Rose came to the gym to see what CrossFit was all about, she said, "OK, sell me on this."
I said, "Well, I'm the world's worst salesman. I don't have a pitch. Come and try it."
She said, "Let me hear your pitch anyway."
I launched into my 2010 Elevator Pitch (trademark pending) and luckily, she stayed anyway. She hung around all summer, and the next; during her winters teaching in Kuwait, she tried to stick to CrossFit programming as much as possible. Her sister joined CrossFit Kingston; her brother showed up in 2011 to train for his competitive swim meets. Her mom, Fran, is a fixture in our 7am group.
And Melanie? She's given up the Middle East to teach and write for Ignite fulltime. She's building our Tutoring program from the ground up. But this is about sales, right? Back on track....
I'm bad at sales because I dislike the idea of selling. I don't like the word, and despite Zig Ziglar's admonishment that EVERYONE sells, even Jesus, I just don't like having a "sales process" or calling new friends "leads."
I'm so bad at it, in fact, that I have other people do my dirty work. My clients, unsuspectingly, are lured into my sneaky trap to avoid selling. They love Catalyst, each for their own reasons, and want to share that love with others. Just this morning, a Masters-aged 7am CrossFitter told me that she "thanked God every morning that she can get up and come to the gym to do this stuff."
Yesterday, another bragged on facebook that she hadn't had hip pain since starting her training here. Last week, a local MD told me that we'd fixed his shoulder, and he wouldn't have believed it possible until we showed him.
Sneakily, I let them all tell their friends; post to facebook; bring their kids and spouse. At perhaps my lowest point, I've written stories about them and put them in our newsletter - I'll go to any length to avoid selling. It's true. I'd much rather waste my time being a coach, a cheerleader, and an occasional therapist than wax up my moustache and give myself positive pep talks in the bathroom mirror between clients:
"Boy, everybody had better get out of my way today! I'm a SHARK! Self-five! Okay, Always-Be-Closing and.....break!"
Yes, I'm a lowlife. I avoid salesmanship. Luckily, things seem to be going okay anyway.
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