When I first moved to San Francisco, I worked as a personal trainer in gyms. Gyms are intense sales environments. The folks at the front desk are trying to close new members, and personal trainers prowl the gym in search of new clients and the “packages” they’re hoping to sell.
I got a job working at World’s Gym, a bodybuilder’s gym in the Potrero Neighborhood. Every Saturday mornin,g professional bodybuilders would oil up and flex in front of the mirrors. I taught step aerobics. Those 5 AM classes were the only part of the job I got paid for. The rest was “eat what you kill.”
After about two weeks, the manager of the gym got angry with me because I didn’t have any clients. He gave me an ultimatum: close a client today, or don’t come back.
It was already a sales-heavy environment; this pressure made it insurmountable. I didn’t sell any new clients and was fired the following day.
I left World’s Gym, and without quotas hanging over me, something shifted. The first client I ever landed came not from a sales script, but from walking out of a contact improvisation dance jam onto the street and noticing a woman holding her knee in pain. As a runner, I was intimately familiar with knee pain. I walked over – not as a salesperson, not even consciously as a trainer – but as someone who had been where she was.
“Hey, I’ve had a bunch of knee pain,” I said. “I’m a personal trainer. Would you like me to give you a free session and see if I might be able to help?”
She said yes. The next day, she came to my house, and that free session turned into a working relationship that lasted six years, three days a week. I earned tens of thousands of dollars in lifetime value from a single moment of noticing someone else’s need and offering help.
My second client arrived just as strangely. I was driving my parents’ Toyota pickup down Valencia Street in the Mission when I saw a man hunched over on the sidewalk, holding his lower back. Without thinking, I stopped the truck in the middle of the road, jumped out, and approached him, “You look like you’re in pain. I’m a personal trainer. I might be able to help. Do you want to talk more?”
We ended up working together for three years. I didn’t give him a pitch. I didn’t have a package prepared. I wasn’t even trying to land a client. I was responding to someone in pain, and I had a possible solution.
Those stories sound bold in hindsight; dramatic, even. Who jumps out of a truck in traffic to approach a stranger on the street? They sound like courageous examples of proactive outreach. Or what Internet marketers would call “lead generation.” But I wasn’t approaching strangers out of a desire to do business or to fill a quota, but because I sincerely wanted to help.
At World’s Gym, when I was told I had to close clients or be fired, I froze. But with that pressure removed, I was able to ask people if they wanted help that I was prepared to offer.
In last week’s “How to Sell Yourself” workshop, I shared that I’ve never been good at “closing” – at trying to pressure or persuade a prospective client into buying anything. I avoid closing in favor of asking, “Would you like what I have to offer?” and making it easy for them to say “yes.” Those early experiences as a personal trainer showed me that the most transformative opportunities don’t begin with a close, but with an invitation.
Homework: Approach a Stranger
This week’s homework is about practicing connection without pressure – strengthening the muscle that makes asking possible.
Approach a stranger. Not from a place of asking for anything, and especially not in an attempt to close. Leave off your agenda. Don’t try to sell. Instead, just say hello to someone. Maybe ask their name. If you’re feeling bold, compliment them – their clothing, eyes, or hair.
So much of getting comfortable asking someone for something comes from a place of authentic human connection. The pressure to get your way is antithetical to simple human connection.
Focus on the connection, not the close.