Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Do you feel the pain review

Do you feel the pain?

Sometimes it really takes a major amount of hurt to make us react to a problem. Most of the time we don’t act until it is too late. In most clubs, in the United States and around the world, sales are still coming easily; with clubs signing enough contracts to pay the bills and owners still able to enjoy the good life. What happens when the stream of prospects starts to decline and the front end of your business starts to suffer? Do you act or react in your business?

It is time to prevent the problem before it happens. Let’s first change the way that we look at the club business and start to ensure that our sales turn into long term clients. So many times our business model looks like a tube with as many members falling out the bottom as we are signing into the top. We need to change the shape of the tube and let it form a funnel. We can adapt our marketing plan, our staffs’ attitudes and install a system of member induction that will cause very few members to fall out of the bottom.

Recently, a friend of mine wrote an article stating that if we assume a new sale is a customer we are mistaken, and only after two to three purchases from your business, may we claim that right to call them a customer. In the fitness industry, this may be altered to read that they aren’t a customer until they become a regular user of your club and have purchased additional services at your club. It truly is a question of involvement and until the new members feels the value in your club, it will always be too much money and not worthy of their time to frequent your club.

As club owners/managers we should be proactive in setting up a successful system of member induction that is able to identify a new member’s true needs and goals. This system should encourage and provide a pathway that is challenging but completely doable. Our staff needs to understand that often we over estimate the condition of the new member and may prescribe a “standard” exercise like 30 minutes of cardio, when the new member would be sufficiently challenged with 10 min three times per week.

We so often miss the mark of what is the true desire of our new members. Out of habit or complacency we prescribe an exercise solution that is not going to bring them positive results, either in enjoyment or positive physical change. We falsely decide that everyone joins a club to lose weight, when that may not be the reason at all. We are missing the bull eye if we are not identifying the real need. This may be a desire for more energy, or even the realization of improved health and well being. People will join clubs to be part of a social circle, to enjoy the feeling of people around them. They need to feel that they belong in our strange world.

If you ever traveled to a foreign country you probably have experienced the inability to communicate the same way you are used to doing at home. The simplest task, like buying gum, turns into a humorous exchange of pointing and nodding your head one way or the other. It can be an extremely frustrating experience. You desire a translator; You desire to have a friend that will be able to help you get acquainted with the lingo and once you hear it a few times it starts to get easier.

It is much the same with a new member deciding to travel to your club and walk through those scary doors into a new and different world. We need to identify this situation and train our staff to speak as an interpreter in our strange land. By providing an environment where the new member is able to learn the "language" at a comfortable pace, we in effect help them to become comfortable and realize that it is a place they should visit often.

We can all succeed in this goal by informing our staff of this issue and teaching them to realize and pay attention to the words they use. Sending a member to the fitness floor, or telling them to meet you at the Smith Rack will accomplish more harm then good. Teach them to use common terms, like meet me at the water fountain.

With a few simple implementations, we change the world, one member at a time.

· Teach your staff to view every new member as a life long friend. Use language that helps the new members understand your goal. Teach your sales team to tell prospects that we are building long term members and that you main goal is to make them successful.

· Develop a club attitude that is about the member feeling successful.

· Smile and be open, encourage every member of your team to make friends with every member they meet.

· Implement coaching into your weekly team meetings and encourage your staff to use the same type of language that you would use outside of the club to a non exercising friend.

· Start to keep track every month of new sales and cancellation and ensure that your membership is growing. Be proactive with new members with low attendance numbers and contact them if you see a decline in visits.

· Purchase or build a system that will ensure consistency in your club and be certain that all members are given all the tools necessary to help them be successful.


How nice the thought of your club with a large membership that stays for years and purchases many types of products and services from your business.

Take a little time and change the way you review your business. Every new member is a stone in the house of successful club ownership.

Good Luck and Success in having Members for Life.

Thomas Kulp may be contacted at 717-490-8063 or emailed at coachtom@dejazzd.com. Visit his blog at http://fitnessclubconsultants.blogspot.com

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