How to Train Your Staff to talk about Cryo
A Tale of Two Cryos
One business that purchased the XR Cryotherapy Chamber quickly logged 10,000 cryo sessions and is growing. Another business that also purchased the XR has only sold 200 sessions. Both have owned the chamber for a similar amount of time. What is the secret to that difference in success? Motivation, training, and something called a sales blitz.
Cryotherapy Return on Investment
Let’s face it: a cryotherapy chamber is not cheap. For nitrogen gas chambers the prices range from 40k to 80k. Small business owners are often operating on a very limited budget, so an investment in a chamber can be a make-it or break-it moment. The XR Cryo Chamber retails at the time of this writing for 59k plus 1k in shipping. That’s a $60,000 outlay of cash for a piece of highly technical equipment. It would take 2000 sessions at $30 profit per session receive a full ROI. How do we know? Besides the simplified math we have actually observed it in our customer’s journeys.¹
ROI in under 17 weeks
Whole Body Cryotherapy has become a central point of new customer revenue at Studio 127 in Pueblo, Colorado. The salon offers nearly every service imaginable, including hair, nails, facials, massage, microblading, and now cryotherapy. To keep things simple Studio 127 offers a VIP package of unlimited cryotherapy with a 1 hour massage once per month. This may seem like giving cryo away, but it is not. Customers rarely come in for just a cryo, and every time they return for “unlimited” cryo they are presented with a special service or add-on. Cryotherapy sessions bring customers in more frequently, allowing the business to upsell more services. Using cryotherapy as an incentive brings more clients in for less than most forms of advertising.
Sales for them, not for you
Most staff in health and fitness have reported that they are not sure of how hard to push a sale. Train them to push hard. Your business depends on it. It is important to make it believable that your offerings of services are for clients, not for you. The sale must be about how it will benefit the client, not the business. Observe how the below statements feel when you read them.
BAD: You should try cryo! We spent 60k on this chamber and we really need people to try it!
GOOD: Cryo will help your skin and your workouts. It’s much more than a surface treatment because it helps your entire circulatory system to flush out toxins.
Sales Scripts
Sales experts are not born: they are made. While it is true that some salespeople are born talkers and can sell nearly anything they are few and far between. Seasoned sales reps are trained and ranked. Training your staff begins with sales scripts of how to introduce the subject of cryotherapy to clients:
Do you want to boost your workout by burning an extra 500 calories? Yeah? You should try cryo!
You already workout and eat clean. Cryotherapy can give a drug-free edge to maintain your gains.
Cryo isn’t really expensive if you bundle it with your regular treatments. You’re worth it.
Sales Techniques
“The law of reciprocity means that when someone does something nice for you, your hard-wired human nature determines that you do something nice for them in return.”
The most effective method of sales in all cultures is reciprocation. Give a gift: before even asking a client if they want to try cryotherapy offer a small gift. One successful business sold fancy coconut water for $4.00. The sales team was trained to hand a customer a coconut water and say “Want a free one? I like you. I’ll take care of the price for you.” The offer of this free gift made people feel obligated to return the favor and they were more likely to agree to an initial cryo than not. Receiving a gift creates a psychological pressure to return the favor.² This is why major companies such as Costco and Trader Joes offer samples. It is fairly inexpensive and it works. Free samples or gifts has worked so well that it has generated sales for over a century. Non-profit organizations solicit donations through the mail, and they know by experience that they will receive a donation about 18% of the time. But if they include a small gift the donation rate almost doubles to 35%. This is why you “randomly” receive free address labels from the Humane Society. They know that if you actually start using the labels you will be more likely to donate money out of sheer guilt.
Small favors
Train your staff to speak differently to customers. When people call in for appointments make each person feel that they are being done a favor. For example, if a client calls in and wants to make a specific appointment do not just simply book that time slot. That is what the caller expects to happen. Instead, have your staff seem unsure if that time slot is available, and then “do a favor” for that person by “changing things around” to accommodate them. Here is an example training script:
Caller: Do you have a 10:00 am massage available?
Staff: Hmmm, that’s a popular time. Let me see what I can do.
Caller: I really need that time.
Staff: Tell you what. I remember you and I like you. Let me see if I can switch some things around here…. Yes, I can squeeze you in as long as you are here exactly at 10.
Caller: I can be there.
Staff: Okay, I’m going to rearrange some time slots and get you in. See you soon!
While it may seem like a simple and common conversation it is actually constructed to place the caller in a position of debt: the caller owes a favor now. Observe how the trained staff person uses this to sell a cryo session after the massage:
Staff: Hi! How was your massage?
Caller: It was great. Thank you so much for helping get me in.
Staff: Every now and then we bend the rules a bit for our favorite people.
Caller: Oh, thank you. I really needed it.
Staff: Did you know cryo can enhance your massage and make the feeling last longer? It’s a quick 3 minutes and you’ll feel great. It would be doing me a favor since we get a commission. Wanna try it?
Caller: Hmmm, you get a commission, right?
Staff: I do! And it will burn 500 extra calories for you. Let me show you the chamber!
This situation can be recycled for any type of business where cryo is part of a menu of services. When staff are trained that this is an acceptable sales method they will feel emboldened to try it. If you think that this may be ethically questionable you can rest assured that it is normal sales technique. Have you ever purchased a car? Ordered “today’s special” at a restaurant at the suggestion of a server? If you have then you have experienced this technique.
Reject & Retreat
This effective sales method is so effective that police departments, the FBI, and even religious missionaries use it. Reject & Retreat is simple: ask a big favor that you know will be rejected. Once it is rejected, “retreat” from that request and ask for a tiny favor. The customer’s guilt for rejecting your enormous offer will compel them to agree to the smaller favor. Observe the script:
Staff: I have a great deal today: 3 massages, 2 deep facials, and 1 cryo session for $900! Want to put it on your card?
Client: That seems pretty expensive and I don’t need all of that right now.
Staff: Dang. I know it is a lot. How about a discounted cryo for $35 bucks?
Client: Ok, that’s not so bad.
The training for your staff should focus on the big offer (and you might actually get that sale). But if you don’t get the big sale you have the option to convert the client to a new cryo subscribing customer.
I Like You
These three words have the greatest effect on sales, and yet they are rarely used. The psychology of liking (or neuromarketing) should not be dismissed: it controls how people act when they spend their money. Take this true story as an example: Chevrolet salesman Joe Girard sold more cars than anyone else in his entire state. He holds the Guiness Book of World Record for car sales. How did he do it? The secret to his success was not in making great deals, but in making his customers think that he liked them. He did this in one simple way. He mailed them cards on the holidays with the three words “I like you” handwritten on the inside. He mailed hundreds of cards over and over, year in and year out. Joe explained his method to neuromarketing researcher Robert Cialdini, stating that he wrote “I like you,” and “There’s nothing else on the card, nothin’ but my name. I’m just telling ‘em that I like ‘em.” That’s it. At his peak he sold an average of five cars per day.³ Sound too good to be true? It isn’t. His understanding of friendship marketing was perfect. He didn’t bombard his customers with endless sales calls. He didn’t call them when there was a “good deal” that he needed to press. He focused on making them feel liked because he knew that sooner or later they (or their friend, family, or coworker) would need to buy a car. Because he was liked in return he never had to make a hard sell. The customers would come to him and buy a car, even if it wasn’t on sale, because they felt liked. Train your staff to tell customers that they are liked and they will come back.
Things in Common
To develop liking it is important to connect with customers. If your computer system allows for you to add notes then add information about the customers. Ask their kids’ names and ages, what job they have, where they went to high-school or college, what they do in their spare time, and log this information in their file. Instruct your staff to then review the information when the client checks in and use the information to engage in actual conversations, not just front-desk conversations. Train your staff to ask about customers’ sports teams, favorite restaurants, and express an interest in the customer’s interests. Have your staff discuss how the customer’s work is going and celebrate their successes and empathize with their frustrations. The best sales people become friends with their customers because they know that friends buy from friends, even if the cost is a bit more than a competitor.
Sales Blitz
Do you want to boost sales? Then once every 90 days have your staff call everyone on your clientele list and offer them a sale price on your services. It is only technically a blitz if employees are competing: divide your clientele list by the number of staff participating and have everyone focus and call at the same time for a solid hour. Make it a competition with a significant prize for who books the most appointments. Here are some common phrases that top-sellers use in sales blitzes:
Hi, I’m calling because we had a recent opening in our calendar and we are offering XYZ service for 40% off. This is a really low price and a great deal. Do you have time this week to save you an appointment?
Hello! I’m calling from ABC cryotherapy and my supervisor just handed me a list of preferred customers to provide sales to and you are my first call today! We saw that you used this service before and we have a great deal that will save you a lot.
Finally, do not give up! Sales is tough businesses and requires training and frequent retraining and motivation. Your competitors are facing the same uphill battle, so don’t make it easy for them to take your customers to their business.
For more info read about the benefits of cryotherapy, find out how you can provide cryotherapy services, and read the guide on the cryotherapy business.
Founded on facts: for peer-reviewed articles, scholarly journals, and articles cited above please see the below sources.
$35 dollars retail assuming $5 for nitrogen. We chose $30 dollars as an estimate to compensate for the price difference between one-off sessions and subscription packages.
https://www.salesforce.com/blog/2013/10/sales-psychology-of-selling.html
Robert B. Cialdini Influence Science and Practice 5th ed., p.150.