Hello, parkour business owners! Jimmy Davidson here with Motion Mentors. Today, we’re diving into the concept of Assumptive Sales Language, a powerful tool that can transform your sales conversations and boost your gym’s success.
Introduction: The Power of Assumptive Sales Language
Mastering communication skills is essential in the world of sales, especially for parkour gyms. Whether selling memberships, classes, or any other service, Assumptive Sales Language can help you close more deals efficiently and effectively. This technique allows you to confidently steer conversations, reducing the friction and anxiety associated with sales.
Why Assumptive Sales Language Works
Assumptive Sales Language involves guiding the conversation based on logical assumptions, minimizing unnecessary questions, and directly addressing the client's needs. This method enhances the flow of the conversation, making it smoother and more natural. It helps salespeople:
Close deals faster
Increase the number of successful trial class bookings
Reduce anxiety during sales conversations
Avoid the pitfalls of rigid scripts
Practical Application in a Parkour Gym
Imagine a scenario where a client has just completed a trial class. Here’s how to use Assumptive Sales Language effectively:
Step 1: The Hand-off
Your coach brings the client to you, saying, "This kid did awesome today. Jimmy here will show you how you can come back next week." Notice there's no question; it's an assumption that the client is interested in coming back.
Step 2: The Conversation Starter
Instead of asking, "Would you like to see our membership options?" say, "Given that your child had such an epic time today, I’d love to see you guys back next week. Does Tuesday work for you again?"
Step 3: Presenting the Membership
Once you confirm a suitable day, present the membership without questioning their interest. "I see from the form you filled out that you’re interested in coming once a week. Our Bronze Membership is perfect for that. It’s $44 a week, and it includes X, Y, and Z. Let’s get you signed up."
Handling Objections with Assumptive Language
Even with this approach, objections can arise. Here’s how to handle them:
Pro tip: If you want a closer look at objection handling, read this article about addressing objections in sales in a parkour business.
Example Objection: Talking to a Spouse
Instead of asking, "Would you like to call your spouse?" say, "I understand you want to discuss this with your spouse. Go ahead and give them a call right here. I’m available to answer any questions they might have."
By guiding the client through each step without leaving room for unnecessary questions, you maintain control of the conversation and reduce the likelihood of them opting out.
Real Results from Assumptive Sales Language
At Freedom in Motion, our sales team implements this technique and makes upwards of 400 calls a month. This volume is vital because more calls mean more bookings and more bookings lead to more opportunities for trial classes to convert into paying members. This approach has been a crucial factor in our consistent revenue growth and profitability.
Practice Makes Perfect
To master Assumptive Sales Language, practice with a partner. Role-play your sales pitch and have them tally every time you ask a question. Aim to reduce unnecessary questions and replace them with declarative statements. Over time, you’ll find your conversations becoming more fluid and your sales closing more frequently.
Conclusion
Assumptive Sales Language is a fundamental skill that every salesperson should master. It’s about taking control of the conversation, reducing the client’s decision fatigue, and confidently guiding them toward a decision. Practice this technique, and you’ll see a significant improvement in your sales outcomes.
For more tips and training resources, follow Motion Mentors on Instagram, join our newsletter at motionmentors.org, and connect with us on our Facebook group for parkour business owners. Together, we can continue to grow and succeed in the parkour industry.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTS
00:00 What's up parkour business owners? It's me, Jimmy Davidson with Motion Mentors. So on this one, we are continuing our journey down making sails. 00:09 The last episode we talked about some objections. What are they? How to overcome them? Three-step process. In the future one, we'll talk more about making sails. 00:17 So I'm going to come at these from the perspective of a parkour gym, but whether or not you're selling clothing, services to like school districts or the government or other companies or really anything, a lot of these sails principles absolutely still apply. 00:32 So whether or not you're a parkour gym, whether or not you're in the parkour industry, if you are in sails and most people do some form of sails. 00:40 in their life, whether it's just person to person negotiation or as part of their business or the company that they're with, these skills are hopefully going to be as valuable to you as they were to me. 00:51 I know that when I learned in particular the thing I'm talking about today, Assumptive Based Sales Language, uhm my ability to negotiate my business, my ability to pivot from that, the talk, pivot to a, alright let's get this deal done, let's close the sale, the ability to pivot and the ability to guide 01:11 the direction of the conversation where I wanted it to go as a salesperson uhm went way up. And I noticed that the salespeople in my group, my organization, when they master this skill, when they master this communication skill that I'm going to give you today, uhm they can get through calls faster, 01:29 they close more successful like trial class bookings or in-person sales, uhm and they just generally have less anxiety because it really clears things up without having them to, uhm. 01:40 uh memorize an entire script. This is one of those tools that when you have it, you can freestyle and you can, uh, really navigate anywhere you want in the sale conversation without being trapped in a script whereas as soon as you're off the script, you're screwed. 01:56 You know, not all the time. Scripts are still good. I'm just saying this will help really fill in those gaps. 02:00 And in making this, I just posted over on the Facebook group, parkour business owners, um screenshots of my parkour gym's profit and loss statement for the last month. 02:13 We had like $289,000 in top line revenue and $103,000 bottom line. I mean profit in just one month. Now not every single month is that good, but a lot of them are. 02:26 And these skills, these sales skills are a piece of that total pie of how we were able to take our parkour gyms from consistently losing money a decade ago to, you know, now we're profitable, we're looking at growth. 02:40 We're building. We're building our team and we're going places. These are the little skills. Umm, a few of my mentors and people that I follow like to say that there's no silver bullet. 02:50 There's no one thing that you can do that just make your business all of a sudden skyrocket. It's just a smattering of bold and little babies, a smattering of just normal lead bullets. 03:01 You have to just sink into the problem one by one and then continue it and keep it all proficient and then you get there. 03:09 This is one of those little bullets. Alright, let's pivot to a sum to sales language. So what is it? The sum to sales language is when you're in a conversation, the two of you, both have a context. 03:23 You know where the conversation is going. And when you make a phone call, as an example, if you make a phone call and someone answers it, you know, they say hello and the unspoken agreement is that you're gonna say who you are and why you're calling and you're gonna get to the point. 03:40 Right? That's, That is where you, listener, are probably already using a summative language. You're assuming where the conversation should go. 03:48 You're assuming what the person needs you to say for this conversation to even have proper social lubrication. But what if we remove that? 03:59 Someone gave you a call and- Thank you. You know ring ring and they said hello and then after they said hello you just were silent. 04:08 And you said oh uh hi do you want me to tell you who's calling? And they would be like uh yeah and you'd be like okay. 04:15 Yeah so my name is Jimmy. Oh do you want me- do you want to know why I'm calling? and at that point they'd hang up on you or they'd be like what in the world is this a prank phone call? 04:25 Because you need to assume that they want to know why you're calling and who you are. That's just the phone etiquette. 04:32 And that makes sense to us because it's part of our culture of answering a phone. But that same necessary lubrication can exist in sales conversations also. 04:41 So. So in a park or gym environment, let's say your client just did a tribal class and they loved it. 04:48 And your coach walks them back up to the front. Which would be a really great handoff. And the coach tells your salesperson like this kid did awesome all these things about the class. 04:59 Okay, I'm gonna leave you guys with the. Jimmy here, he's gonna sell you a membership. I don't say that. I'm gonna leave you here with Jimmy. 05:04 He's gonna show you guys how you can come back next week. And I would love to see you then. The coach leaves. 05:09 But then you as a salesperson, what if you were like uh oh you want me to talk to you guys now? 05:17 They'd be like uh no thanks. We're gonna leave actually. Or if you were like you know if they said oh we loved it it was awesome. 05:26 And then they stopped talking. They stopped talking on a statement. Not a question. And then you just said okay. Oh would you guys like me to explain our entire schedule and our membership pricing? 05:38 You know that just gives them a question. And that they have to answer. And it also gives them an out. 05:43 So if they perceive that that's like a lot of information they're like wow tell us all your pricing and the membership. 05:49 No thanks. We'll go look it up online. And then they leave. Or we'll call in when we're ready. We'll call you. 05:55 And then they leave. So that is not having a summative based sales language. Here's what that might look like if you do assume your assumption is that after the class they loved it. 06:09 And they are here in your parkour gym because they want to learn parkour. And you are here the salesperson, the owner, the coach. 06:16 Because you have conviction that parkour is going to transform the. So you should assume that, and you should assume that the only reason why they're talking to you is to build the community between me and you and the gym and to get started in a membership. 06:40 And so when you. You have that a lot of those extra dumb questions can be totally thrown out. So you don't have to say, would you like to see our membership options? 06:49 You don't have to say that. So when they come and they say we loved it. End of sentence you can say, oh that's so awesome. 06:56 Given that your kid had such an epic time and the coach said that he did X, Y and Z thing. 07:01 He's extraordinarily well and he had an awesome day today. I would love to see you guys coming back next week. 07:07 Um, what you got, you're already here on Tuesday. Do Tuesdays usually work for you? And you know they might say yes. 07:14 Okay awesome. So Tuesdays usually work for you. Uhm. My gyms. We actually have this little form that they fill out and it asks them on the parent while they're waiting while they're watching the class happen. 07:28 The little form has a bunch of questions on it that just gets the parent in like a consideration purchasing mindset. 07:35 And one of the questions is how would you be able to attend parkour at least twice or a week and it says like circle. 07:41 called you. In amount of days that would be ideal for your family. So a lot of times I actually know already that they want to come once twice or four times or whatever a week. 07:50 So let's say I know that they want to come once a week because they filled out my form. Um I would say oh awesome Tuesdays already work for you. 07:58 I see in your form that you wanted to come once a week. So I'm going to. I'm give you my recommendation for the best way to join the gym so you guys can keep coming to those classes and little Tommy your son here can just turn into an absolute parkour monster. 08:11 Alright then I pick up my sales binder. I have like a little like printed designed nice looking uhm laminated folder that just has the price, the mn- membership type and what they get and that's it. 08:23 There's no other information uh as to make it not visually you know chaos. It's just easy to look at. So I open that up and I show it to them. 08:32 I say this is our bronze membership. You know this is 44 bucks a week with that you get x, y, and z. 08:38 Umm you know this is our recommendation I think. Your kid is going to absolutely love it here given how well that class just went. 08:45 With that let's get you signed up. So wait. So what I did at the very end there was I said this is my recommendation. 08:54 Your kid loved it. You love it. We love it. Let's just wrap it all up into a nice little bow. 08:59 Let's get you signed up. That is my ask for the sale. Let's get you signed up. But I'm doing a lot of assuming along the way. 09:07 So when I said great you're I I confirmed that Tuesdays work for you because you're already here and you said let's keep doing Tuesdays. 09:15 If not they just tell me whatever their day works. Um their form told me how often they want to come. 09:20 So I'm going to assume that they want to see the membership pricing for exactly that. You know how many days you want to come what level you're at the age group. 09:29 So I don't need to say do you want to see a membership prices. I don't need to say like do you guys want to come back next week. 09:35 I don't need to say any of that because I'm going to assume all of it. The more questions I. Ask these people the higher their anxiety is going to get the more I chip away at their health bar of ability to make decisions without running into like decision fatigue or decision burnout. 09:55 So the fewer questions I can ask the more I can assume and just the and also with my personality. And my tonality with how I talk to them. 10:04 The quicker and the more lubricated I can get right to that final ask for a sale with my best recommendation in their hands. 10:12 They still have plenty of health bar on their decision fatigue meter. You know you want as much health on that bar as possible because there's less anxiety the more. 10:22 The more moxie that they still have left in them for the day. Umm and then if I just go if I give it right into a recommendation you know they have that authority validation behind me on the wall is a giant poster of testimonials so they are seeing social proof they just saw a bunch of kids in class 10:41 for more more. Umm my pricing binder makes it easy for them and I just say here's what I recommend it comes with this the price is that let's get you signed up. 10:52 More often than not they're going to say that's awesome let's do it. And if they do have an objection they just tell me it they say the price they say my schedule. 11:02 They say I have to talk to my spouse and then I just handle their objection and if you saw our last episode about how to handle objections the three steps empathize authority and then ask for the sale again you just follow that flow. 11:15 And while you're in that flow you you maintain your assumption of sales language. So. So, you wouldn't say you're like oh the you got to talk to your spouse okay go and call them actually you wouldn't say do you want to just give them a call you wouldn't say that because I'm assuming that they do want 11:35 to sign up. The only thing that's in their way is that they need to connect with their spouse so obviously yes they do. 11:42 You want to talk to their spouse right now because that's what they told me and I have to take their word for that and assume the close here so I'm going to say oh you need to talk to your spouse no problem I want to be on the same page with my partner whenever we do any new decisions that's empathy. 11:56 Why don't you go ahead and take out your phone stand right over here in this space give him a call that way when you get a hold of them if they have any questions I'm still right here to answer them so go ahead and stand right there and give him a call and I'm actually telling him what to do I'm not 12:11 asking any question I'm saying take out your phone stand right there do not walk out my front door give him a call and I'm qualifying it with because I'm the expert in the gym literally Early. 12:22 Any question your partner could have I am the expert to answer so give him a call you know and then if their partner is on the international space station and literally cannot be reached right now then we have flows for that and now you just are following your internal sales playbook which you hope. 12:51 So I'm reducing how many questions I need to ask I'm not I'm really really trying hard to not use woods like would you or should you or could we or do you or a new or if you don't if you which are all just like weak sounding like would you like to see your membership prices oh if you like that class 13:10 could you maybe consider coming back next week it's all just weak and you can just scrub it all out of your rhetoric when you're speaking and just assume they yes assume that they effing love it assume that they do want it is assume that they want to overcome their own objections with you and if you 13:27 can just have that practice in your brain to navigate through the conversation on as few questions asked as possible and replace as few questions as possible with you just taking the yes action so instead of saying do you want to see your membership you just say here's what I recommend now you're looking 13:46 at a membership let's get you signed up right you just skip all that and then at any point along the way you let the client slow you down and you let them say here's my objection here's my consideration we need to talk about this first and then you just meet that and you keep going that is sales some 14:03 to sales language it's really powerful in sales I didn't make it up you can pop on YouTube right now and look it up and you'll see a bunch of different lectures and people talking about it it is one of those fundamental layers of being a good sales person it's like it's like the layer of first put on 14:19 your shoes and then I can teach you how to be a runner for her, you know. You have to have your good shoes or else it's going to be really hard to run, you know, a Olympic track a sum of sales language and understanding objections and why they occur and understanding future things we'll talk about like 14:34 price anchoring and making an offer all of those things are the fundamental pants you have to put on before you can even show up to sales practice you know so learn that think it over here's how you practice you get with an actual person and you practice your sales pitch you practice your over the phone 14:55 first class trial booking pitch and you you literally have someone tally every single time there's a question mark in your in your speaking do you if you would you could you do you want to like all of those are probably able to be removed and try to get down to as few questions as possible and those 15:13 questions should be on the script you know like on the in-person sale how many days do you want to come how many times per week do you want to come here's what here's what I recommend Amen. 15:23 Let's get you signed up which is the ask for the sale do you want to buy this so there's only three questions there cool all the rest non-needed okay that's a sum to sales language you need to practice get a person in front of you trade back and forth tally all the questions you make when you accidentally 15:42 your verbal static your speaking static just you just word vomit questions accidentally because you're not good at this yet that's okay but re say the sentence have your partner say oh you ask me do you want to see your membership say that again in a way that has a some to say a some to base language 16:00 and is a declarative state I'm not going to say it that way I'm going to say given that you loved our class and little Billy did an epic job with his wall climbs and clearly wants to come back next week I recommend our bronze membership it's XYZ price. 16:17 Umm we do have it on Tuesdays like you said you wanted to come. So this is what I recommend let's get you. 16:22 You sign up and then your partner gets to go oh man you nailed it sweet now let's move on to the next one or let's run it all over again. 16:30 That's what practicing in person role playing would look like. Okay that's it that's assumption based sales language that is something that I teach my sales people that I've taught other park or gym owners so that. 16:42 . . They can be in the seat of the lead sales trainer for their organization and now it's free for you. Enjoy that. 16:49 Alright guys. My name is Jimmy Davidson with Motion Mentors. If you want more free content just like this head to motionmentors.org and sign up for our newsletter. 17:00 I am sending out communications. . . training like this and other stuff that go out exclusively just to the email list. We also have a Facebook group parkour business owners. 17:11 Look for the business owners that way. You know like all of us in the parkour industry can get together and grow this together. 17:18 And we also have a discord discord motion mentors and you can find the link on our website. Alright, thanks a lot. 17:24 Again, Jimmy Davidson. Good luck out there parkour gym owners. Peace out.
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