When it comes to selling club memberships, you’re up against a number of competitors: the at-home fitness options, the boutique fitness options, and the “other guy” down the street. It’s best to take a unique approach for each.

It’s fairly straightforward to position your club as the best option for someone evaluating you vs. at-home or boutique options, but things can get dicey when positioning your club against a club with similar offerings.

That’s why we’ve compiled the best ways to position your club against competing clubs in sales conversations and marketing materials. Read on.

Make a list of your most significant competitors. Next, write down everything you know about what they offer, being honest with yourself about where they excel and what challenges they face. If you don’t have information at hand, scour their website and social media profiles – you’re bound to collect some information from these sources about their offerings, hours of operation, membership pricing and more.

If you want to go the extra mile, send someone from your team to “secret shop” at their club. Have them pursue a membership and document the information they learn along the way.

Gathering this level of competitive intel is crucial to nailing the steps that follow.

With that competitive intel in hand, determine where your club really shines, and take note of those strengths.

Keeping your staff crystal clear on your club’s strengths, especially as they relate to other clubs in the area, helps everyone align on the most compelling messages in membership conversations.

Once you have solidified your club’s strengths, go the extra mile with sales scripts.

Sales scripts are strategized sets of talking points meant to aid your sales team when speaking with prospects. It helps keep you and your team laser focused on driving memberships by incorporating all the most effective talking points.

If you’ve never written sales scripts before, no worries. Check out our tips for writing a high performing sales script.

With sales scripts in hand, schedule some time for the team to get together and train on your competitive positioning and talk tracks.

This is your opportunity to brag internally about your strengths and get your team fired up!

And this isn’t just for sales employees. Everyone at the club should be well versed in your competitive advantages, from front desk staff to group ex instructors to aquatics directors. This empowers everyone on staff to speak the same language.

Connect with prospective members via email, Instagram, Facebook, phone. Whether you have email workflows built out or you do most of your selling through Instagram DMs, make sure you’re shipping the same message across all airwaves.

With competitive intel and strong sales scripts, you’ve tackled the science of selling, but personalization is an opportunity to master the art of selling.

In new membership conversations, learn the prospect. Get to know them and what they’re looking for in a fitness solution. Then, pull out the specific parts of the competitive positioning that apply to them. You’ll learn that tailoring your messaging is key to nailing the sale.

Your club management software can empower your team to achieve more, or it can stifle your growth and hold you back. Learn how Club Automation makes more possible.