Free FITNESS CONFIDENTIAL by Vinnie Tortorich, Dean Lorey Page B

salesman, while you’re taking a test drive, will ask if you’re interested in doing business that day.
    This guy won’t.
    He’s much smoother because, let’s face it, he’s got to sell you thin air. He doesn’t have a car—hell, there’s not even an actual object on the table. He’s selling you fantasy, and to do it, he’s got to engage in a little theater of the mind. The play he’s performing today is called The Fountain of Youth .
    So he takes you around, but he doesn’t show you the fitness equipment—not yet—because that will remind you of exercise which seems like work. No, he’s going to show you the spa, the whirlpool, the sauna. He’s trying to paint a picture in your head that you’re not actually joining a gym. What you’re really joining is a country club and you and the beautiful people around you will soon be taking a soak together while sipping lime spritzers.
    While this is happening, he’s asking you questions.
    He wants to know what sports you might have played in high school. If you played football, he’s got some free-weights he wants to show you.
    If you were a swimmer, just wait till you see their Olympic-sized pool!
    If you played golf or any other sport that didn’t require strength, there’s some state-of-the-art aerobic equipment for you to check out.
    If you were into dance, you have to see their yoga room with wall-to-wall floor mats and mirrors.
    If you say you just knifed your entire family, they’ll tell you about their advanced fencing program. What they’re trying to sell you is your past. They want you to look at their gym as a fountain of youth that can send you back to the body you had when you had one.
    Hang on. You smell that? That new car smell?
    In the car business, that’s called “the ether” and salesmen know that, once you smell it, you’re in the mood to buy. You get woozy. In the gym, they’ve had you “smelling the ether” in the form of all the good-looking people around you, and you’re getting woozy. But maybe you’re not quite there yet, so it’s time to pull out the big guns.
    If you’re a guy, the rep is going to walk you behind the hottest girl in the gym as she pumps up and down on the stair machine. And he’s going to give you that look. You know the look. I don’t even need to describe it. It’s a mental high-five.
    If you’re a woman, they’ll walk you past the free-weight area next to the guy with the glistening biceps and the tattoo that may or may not have come from prison. Either way, he’s dangerous … and you like it.
    In the car business, after they get you to smell the ether, they take you to “the booth.” Once they’ve got you trapped there, they want you to sign on the dotted line before you realize that it’s one of the biggest purchases you will ever make. How do they do this? They never talk about the big numbers—the purchase price and the insurance. Instead, they focus on the smaller numbers—the monthly payments and the “no money down.” They speak in low, unthreatening tones. In New Orleans, we called it “the lullaby” and it was the process we used to “put you to sleep.”
    The gym wants to do the same thing.
    But the difference between a car dealership and a gym is that, when you buy a car, at least you get to leave in it. You actually own a car. But when you buy a gym membership, all you really have is, well, nothing—except maybe that fly-fishing trip to Montana with your new best buddy and the girl on the Stairmaster.
    Now remember, when you started, this guy was only going to show you around and give you some info on the place along with directions to the next gym for you to check out. But he’s got to make the sale. Let’s face it, he just spent the last forty-five minutes with you and he’s got to convert this. He’s got to put you to sleep.
    He hasn’t gotten you in the booth yet, so he needs to make that happen in the least threatening way possible. He walks you to the front of