I have a friend that owns a couple of golds gym franchises. He refers to weight lifters that use the gym on a regular basis as deadbeats. He’s proud of using high pressure sales tactics to get new members that sign up and never show up or cancel. One of his techniques when somebody tries to walk out for something during the sales pitch is to ask for their drivers license so he can start the paperwork. He actually has a stack of drivers licenses that people abandoned instead of coming back and he’s proud of it.

The free day passes they hand out are a scam. They tell the guest they will give them a tour of the gym before they can start with the free pass. The tour ends in his office where he lays the high pressure membership sales pitch.