Tag: Business Advice

fitness business

The CEO Pledge

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Have you heard about the CEO Pledge? It’s a campaign promoted by the National Coalition for Promoting Physical Activity (NCPPA) to encourage CEOs to recognize physical activity as an important driver of employee health and business performance. In other words, it’s a great opportunity for health clubs to connect with corporate clients.
The idea is that company leaders promise to make their employees’ health and wellness — and their own health and wellness — a priority by providing opportunities and resources for physical activity before, during, or after the workday. They agree to implement at least six strategies from a list of suggested strategies to create a workplace culture of physical activity. The list of strategies is broken into three categories — behavioral, educational, and environmental/policy — and participants are encouraged to choose strategies from each category. Some of the suggested strategies include “organize onsite fitness classes,” “reimburse employees for purchases of fitness equipment or physical activity-related programs,” and “create an onsite fitness area or reimburse/subsidize the cost of an offsite fitness center membership.”

This is good news for fitness facilities, particularly because the campaign is pretty ambitious — its goal is to get every CEO in the United States to take the pledge. Why not make it easier for them to do so? Now would be a great time to reach out to companies in your area, asking if they’ve heard about the pledge and are willing to take it, informing them about it if they don’t already know, and offering special deals to organizations whose CEOs sign up.
While you’re at it, it might be a good time to review your corporate outreach program in general. Do you have one? Have you considered how corporate sales could positively impact your facility, and whether you have the infrastructure to support such sales? If you already have a corporate outreach program in place, is it robust enough? Have you kept up to date on the latest workplace fitness programs, read the studies about physical activity in the workplace, understood the issues, and come up with strong sales pitches?

With the CEO Pledge campaign under way, there’s an opportunity in front of you. Polish up your connections to corporate clients and knock on the doors of those CEOs getting ready to sign the pledge.

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How Do You Let Employees Know They Are Valued?

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“The quality of any club’s performance is directly related to how the employees are treated every day.” That’s Bill Brackman, Sports Manager of the Oak Hill Country Club in Rochester, NY, responding to a question posed recently on the International Health, Racquet and Sports Club Association’s (IHRSA) blog. The question? How do you let employees know they are valued?

It’s a crucial issue. If it takes a village to raise a child, it also takes one to make a health club successful — you can’t do every job that needs to be done yourself, after all. But it doesn’t take just any village; it takes one that’s dedicated, caring, loyal, energetic, driven, self-motivated, and content (for starters). How do you ensure that your staff is all of those things? Small, fun rewards help. At Brackman’s club, employees and their guests were invited to an open-bar dinner party at the clubhouse when Golf World Magazine named theirs the “Best Private Club in the U.S.” Also, the club provides a couple annual staff appreciation events — a poolside barbeque, a holiday party.
But be careful. You have to already have thriving employees before you start offering such rewards; otherwise, you might end up with a disgruntled crew feeling like you’re trying to buy their happiness without paying attention to their real needs. Are your employees fairly compensated? Do you offer them the best benefits you can? Do you appreciate their lives outside of work, and let them know it? Do you praise their accomplishments publicly (both the work-related and the personal ones)? Perhaps most importantly, do your employees voice to you their concerns? (If they don’t, don’t fool yourself into believing it’s because they don’t have any; it’s impossible to be an employee without having them. But if you’re not hearing about them, that may be a sign that the staff doesn’t feel free to come to you with them.)

Darren Kanwisher, owner of the Fifth Avenue Club in Alberta, Canada, takes a pretty radical approach to ensuring employee satisfaction: “Our members don’t come first—our employees do,” he explains on the IHRSA blog. “…[E]mployees know—even before they’re hired—that they’re our priority in terms of time, attention, and care.” Putting staff before customers, and boldly declaring that you do so, might seem like a risk, but think about the trickle-down effect: If your employees know how important they are to management, they have a model for understanding how to let customers know how important they are to your employees. At Kanwischer’s club, the importance of staff members’ personal lives is placed above the importance of the business — there is a sense that they are humans before they are workers. This must work wonders for morale, and the day-to-day positive effects of a high morale cannot be underestimated.

In general, giving positive feedback, emphasizing the importance of each employee, letting staff know they can approach you at any time with any concern, making sure their basic needs are taken care of, and giving them small extras all go a long way toward creating an upbeat, fulfilling place to work — and that goes a long way toward creating a successful business.

Turning Your Racquetball Court Into a Yoga Studio

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I love my gym. I do not, however, love my gym’s yoga offerings. The first time I went to one of its (few) yoga classes, I left with a longing for the studio I used to live near, where I’d gotten into the habit of attending daily classes. It was a struggle to fit the classes in to my busy schedule, but I loved the instructors, who had studied and taught nothing but yoga for years and who could even make me chant without feeling phony or self-conscious. I loved the wide, airy room, with candles and overgrown plants on the windowsills and a giant Buddha statue near the entryway. I loved the long, green, silky curtains that billowed out when a breeze came in through the open windows — it was the perfect space, with the perfect people, for a practice dedicated to awareness of the spirit/body connection.

At my gym, yoga, zumba, and something called Belly Boot Camp are all held in the same small space. There are no windows. There are no decorations. It smells of sweat. The fluorescent lights in the ceiling remind me of my high school homeroom. The instructors, while well-meaning and good class leaders, sound more like drill sergeants than dharma students. So, although I revel in my gym’s cardio court, run around its elevated track whenever I can, and have a great time with my son in the pool on the weekends, I go elsewhere for my yoga fix.

What if I didn’t have to? What if my yoga studio were inside my gym? According to a recent article in Club Industry, some health club facilities are beginning to create spaces solely for the practice of yoga, Pilates, or some other boutique-type exercise. Many clubs are reluctant to do this; the commitment required to create a dedicated space, find high-caliber instructors, and pull together a devoted marketing team seems too daunting. But, the article argues, the clubs that have taken the leap have reaped economic benefits and increased member retention rates.

In general, the article states, yoga and Pilates studios were among the top 10 fastest-growing industries in the United States in 2012 — despite the recession. Health clubs that have opened studios of their own have found members willing to pay extra for workouts that address both their body and spirit. Carol Tricoche, vice president of education sales for Toronto-based Merrithew Health and Fitness, told Club Industry about her experience as director of group exercise for Pilates and yoga programs at the Claremont Club in Claremont, California. While there, Tricoche helped convert existing racquetball courts into a Pilates studio. “[Members] embraced it as a Pilates studio, and they paid for it,” she said. “Pricing was very comparable to the Pilates studios in the area. They still had their showers, the day care, things they could not get at the studio down the street.”

That’s what I want — my studio, where there’s the kind of yoga I want to practice, inside my gym, where there’s a steam room and a sauna and a locker full of my things. Like the clients at the Claremont Club and at other clubs featured in the article, I’d be willing to pay extra to have that. And my gym would benefit — an added revenue stream, plus the ability to hold on to members like me, who sometimes wonder whether the membership fees are worth it when we spend most of our workout time at the yoga studio. Maybe it’s time to look into how your facility and clients might benefit from turning your racquetball court into a yoga studio. If you are thinking about transforming your racquetball court, checkout out our yoga studio software to make class check-in a breeze.

Reviewing the Basics of Gym Management

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I was talking the other day with a friend of mine who manages a gym in New York City. He had recently attended an informal networking meeting for gym managers, and he said they got reviewing the basics of gym management — the fundamental tasks that gym managers should undertake each day to make sure they’re doing what needs to be done. I got him to share his notes with me, and now I’m sharing some of them with you. Nothing here is earth-shattering, but even my friend, who’s been in the field for at least a dozen years, found it useful to have a refresher in the basics. Here’s what the group covered:

  1. The Importance of Walking Around: Every day, gym managers should stroll around their facility, looking at all areas of the gym and consciously seeing the spaces in the way clients and members might. Ask yourself: What problems need fixing here? Does everything look orderly? Is the equipment working properly? Are gym systems functioning as expected? What about the HVAC system? Lighting? Be as detailed in your observations as possible.
  2. The Necessity of the Notepad: With scores of details to keep track of each day, a good gym manager will never be seen without a notepad. During your daily rounds, note down anything that doesn’t meet your usual standards, any ideas you have for improvement, any significant comments you overhear from members, anything at all you think you might want to return to later.
  3. The Usefulness of Checklists: Make sure your notepad contains a checklist that tracks specific items to pay attention to each day. All the equipment working properly? Check. Safety standards being met? Check. Locker rooms and public areas up to cleanliness standards? Check. Let your checklist be a living thing, something that can change and grow each day. Never had “Water fountains functioning properly?” on your checklist before? Time to add it.
  4. The Primacy of the Immediate Problem: As you do your daily walk, some days you will encounter some problems that can’t just be noted down and attended to later – They need immediate attention. For example, if there’s a health or safety issue that could affect a client, it will be necessary to resolve it before moving on to anything else. Be prepared to make the fix yourself or to call on a staff member with the skills and training to do so.
  5. The Beauty of the To-Do List: The best thing about to-do lists is that they remind you of what needs to be done — later (but not too much later). Unlike immediate fixes, to-do items should be gathered in a list in the notepad, and that day or the next day the manager should assign the task to a staff member, give him or her a deadline for accomplishing the task, and follow up on the deadline or the next day to make sure the task has been completed.

Green Your Facility

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When the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) unveiled its Green Sports Resource Directory in August, I remembered the horse farm my son and I visited earlier this year. A sprawling establishment, with state-of-the-art stables, a vast indoor arena, 34 acres of beautiful land, and a big, old-fashioned farmhouse – the place must have cost a fortune to maintain. Or so I thought, until I noticed the solar panels blanketing one side of the barn roof. I asked the owner if using solar energy cut down on his costs. “My electricity bill is about $19 a month,” he said proudly. “No,” I said, “I don’t mean for the stables; I mean for the whole farm.” “Yep,” he said. “Nineteen dollars a month.”

Like the farm I visited, fitness facilities can save money by making “greener” choices — that is, by relying on sustainable energy sources. And not only can they save money; also, they can conserve valuable resources, reduce pollution, create safer environments for workers and clients, and use their investment in environmental protection to attract new clients and retain current ones.

The EPA’s Green Sports Resource Directory can help. A collection of online resources designed to help sports facilities, teams, colleges and universities clean up their acts, the website explains the benefits of green sports, offers inspiring success stories, and provides links to organizations devoted to helping sports-oriented businesses make environmentally sound decisions. It also links to tools that can help you track and control your facility’s energy consumption. These include EPA’s Energy Star Portfolio Manager and lists of products that perform well and are cost efficient — while also being safer for the environment.

Chances are your business already has taken some steps toward becoming greener. You reuse, reduce, and recycle; you advise your employees not to print out e-mails unnecessarily, you communicate with your clientele virtually more than on paper; and you choose machines that use energy efficiently. But you probably can take your efforts further. Gyms and other fitness facilities require a ton of energy to power equipment, keep pools functioning, provide heat for showers and saunas, wash towels, and run general day-to-day operations. Can you invest in solar energy like the horse farm does? Can you find products that conserve energy and/or products that clean without harmful chemicals? Can you boost efforts to get everyone in your facility — managers, employees, and members alike — wasting less and conserving more?

Once you green your facility, you can effectively advertise your accomplishments – because like that farm-owner, you should be proud. Your efforts will benefit you and your community in untold ways, beyond the foreseeable future. If you are looking to make your business more efficient checkout our sports facility management software.

Preventing and Handling a Tragedy

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In February 2012, a tragic event occurred: A 22-year-old woman collapsed in a stall in the women’s locker room at a Planet Fitness in Bay Shore, New York. An hour later, she was dead. The family of the woman is now suing Planet Fitness, claiming that the sole staff member on site at the time did not help her. That staff member, according to reports, was male, and when he was alerted by a female member of the gym that a woman had collapsed, he replied that he was not allowed to enter the locker room.

Her death is a horrible and unfortunate thing (it turns out she had a heart attack, caused by an underlying condition that had never been diagnosed). It would have been horrible and unfortunate no matter where it occurred – but what if it had been at your facility? What would you do if a tragedy occurred at your gym or health club, and you were facing a lawsuit? What steps should you take? And, perhaps more importantly, how can you prevent such a thing from happening in the first place?

Prevention begins with preparation. If possible, always have at least one male and one female staff member on site at a given time. More importantly, make sure that all staff members know emergency procedures. Make sure they recognize when an emergency situation, such as the collapse of a gym member, trumps the usual rules, such as no men in the women’s locker room. Also, have on site at all times an automated external defibrillator (AED) and an employee who knows how to use it. Train your staff in first aid. Teach them that, if they’re wondering whether to call 911, it’s better to err on the side of overreacting.

If the worst thing happens despite your efforts, your attorneys will work hard to achieve fairness and keep your business going (make sure you have good ones). Meanwhile, focus your energy on open and honest communication with your members. Try to make sure they find out from you, before they find out from the media or from rumors, what happened. Be clear about any oversights that might have occurred on the part of your facility and explain the steps the facility will take to avoid such oversights in the future. Reassure them that your business will recover from any blows and will be stronger from the lessons learned, and apologize for any discomfort or doubt the incident might have caused. Invite them to speak with high-level staff members to share any concerns they might have.
If the press gets involved, follow the advice of your attorneys, of course. Convey as much detail about the situation as you are able to, with an emphasis on steps you are taking to fix any errors. Deal with reporters straightforwardly.

The tragic incident at the Bay Shore Planet Fitness will be remembered and mourned. It will also be learned from, assisting other gyms owners in preventing and handling a tragedy in the future.

Obesity Is a Disease – What Does It Mean for the Fitness Industry?

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When I sat down to do some research before writing up this post today, I typed into Google, “Is obesity,” but before I could get any further, Google finished my question for me: “Is obesity a disease?” 61,600,000 pages came up when I hit enter. It’s the question everyone is asking — and now the American Medical Association (AMA) has answered it. On Tuesday, after considered debate, the physicians’ organization voted to extend official disease status to the condition. Yes, is the answer to the question. It’s a disease.

What this means for the medical community is immediately clear: Doctors will now be required to raise concerns about weight with obese patients and to prescribe a course of action to help treat it. As it is now, some doctors are reluctant to discuss obesity with patients, in part because addressing the issue can be a time-consuming process, the cost of which often is not covered by insurance companies. Now, with the AMA’s new designation, doctors will be professionally obligated to diagnose and treat the disease, which means insurance providers will feel greater pressure to provide reimbursements.

All well and good, but since obesity is a disease – what does it mean for the fitness industry? The implications are not so clear. The change could be very beneficial. With more than 78 million obese adults and 12 million obese children in the country, there is now a huge portion of the population — more than one-third — affected by what doctors consider a disease. Because this is a disease best treated, for most people, through changes in lifestyle that incorporate dietary overhaul and regular exercise, health clubs, gyms, and other fitness facilities stand to gain a slew of new members — members whose doctors will be monitoring them to make sure they’re sticking to their regiments.

While the AMA’s decision doesn’t require insurance companies to pay up, it does put pressure on them to do so. Does this mean that insurers will begin classifying obesity as a disease? And if they do, will they pay for gym memberships and personal training sessions? It’s possible, but if they do, the fitness industry could find itself bogged down in the same kind of paperwork that assails doctors’ offices, with only certain percentages of costs being covered and with endless red tape. Membership levels could rise, and rise dramatically, but membership could become a complicated new thing.

It’s impossible to know what all the ramifications will be, but now that the AMA has had a chance to debate the pros and cons and imagine a healthier future for obese people in this country, it’s time for the fitness industry to start a dialogue of its own. What does it mean for those of us who provide services that could potentially help a large number of disease-sufferers? What kind of relationship, if any, do we want to have with health insurance providers? How can we gear our businesses to be most beneficial to both diseased and healthy populations — while also remaining sound businesses? We need to start talking now.

Happy Employees Means A Healthy Business

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The fitness industry is winning accolades in the press these days. In this space a couple of weeks ago, we highlighted an article in Forbes that lauded the industry for its useful website content and its ability to make that content go viral. Now another magazine, Minnesota Business, offers praise of a different sort: Anytime Fitness has won recognition as the best Minnesota company to work for in the large business category.

Headquartered in Hastings, Minnesota, Anytime Fitness has 110 employees locally and more than 500 nationally. Each employee, first and foremost, receives a free gym membership. In addition, employees can take part in a special program that encourages them to try out a whole range of new activities, including, to name a few, onsite fitness boot camps, weight loss competitions, volunteer opportunities, skydiving, blood drives, and gardening. Thanks in part to the program, Anytime Fitness employees participated in more than 28 classes, wellness initiatives, activities, and charity programs in 2012.

The company makes relationship-building a priority. Through a peer lunch program, it pairs up two employees who do not interact with each other on a daily basis and sends them for an off-site lunch. Also, it hosts an annual conference, during which franchise employees, corporate staff, vendors, and members from all over the world come together to connect. Last year’s conference in Chicago saw more than 1,100 attendees, a record.

Finally, the company invests in its employees, encouraging professional development through a tuition reimbursement program and highlighting not an employee of the month but a “Hero of the Month.” What’s most appealing about the Hero of the Month program is that it calls for staff to nominate their peers for the title, encouraging not only pride in one’s own work, but also pride in one’s colleague’s work.

As with most fields, best practices — or, as I once heard a coworker say, “better practices”: “It’s more hopeful,” he explained, “because it implies that we can always find new and better ways” — all right then: As with most fields, better practices in the fitness industry are always worth studying. We all know that happy employees means a healthy business. Are there any Anytime Fitness practices you can adopt and adapt for your own fitness facility? If you do, who knows, you might find your business’s name splashed across a magazine one day too.

When the Boss Does the Dirty Work

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Did you hear about Eric Casaburi? He’s the CEO and founder of New Jersey-based Retro Fitness, and on Friday night he appeared on CBS’s Emmy award-winning reality TV show, Undercover Boss. The show features senior executives working undercover in their own companies to investigate on-the-ground operations in their firms.
In the episode, Casaburi poses as Barry Goshe, an employee being trailed by a film crew because he’s trying to land a spot on a game show. Casaburi grew a beard, dyed it for the role, and donned a wig. He also wore padding under his shirt so he wouldn’t look suspiciously in shape.

Disguised as an employee, Casaburi did everything, including hanging heavy bags, cleaning dumbbell racks, leading sales tours, and making prospecting phone calls. He faced a few challenging situations: a failed sales attempt, a disaster at the juice bar, the need to keep his mouth shut when a fellow employee told him that sometimes she wants to punch customers in the face. (Happily, to make up for that, he also met an employee who credits Retro Fitness with having changed his life.)

Casaburi told the online fitness industry news outlet Club Industry that appearing on the show was his own life-changing experience. “No one is going to try to let the ball drop when they’re juggling when you’re there. But when you go in as an undercover guy…everybody is themselves, and you learn more,” he said.

Those are the words that caught my attention. Obviously, not every health club CEO can go undercover in his or her own facility, but thinking about Casaburi’s experience made me wonder what would happen if every boss took more time out to be on the ground. It’s true, you might see everybody on their best behavior, without getting to witness who they are when you’re not around, but you’d probably still garner a sense of how things work day-to-day, what needs improving, which employees need some encouragement, and which ones deserve recognition for hard work.

What if you put on an apron and got behind your own juice bar? What if you took over front-desk duties for a day? Maybe you’d set an example for your employees; seeing you getting your hands dirty with the nitty-gritty work might inspire them to work harder. Or what if you gave tours to prospective clients for a day? How impressed might they be, knowing that you care enough about what you do to meet with them face-to-face? Or, what if you actually could go undercover in your facility for a day? What kind of knowledge might you gain to help you improve your business?

Casaburi’s experience was something of a spectacle (and fun to watch). Yours might be quieter, less sensational, more like reality than reality TV — but it could still be extremely effective. Give it a try. Let us know how it goes.

Giving Gives Back

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Last week, the New York Times Magazine ran an article about giving. “Is giving the secret to getting ahead?” the article asked, profiling organizational psychology professor Adam Grant. Grant, 31, not only studies the role of giving in motivating workplace productivity, he also serves as his own best example of how selflessness increases efficiency. As the youngest-tenured and highest-rated professor at the Wharton School, Grant has, the article reports, “published more papers in his field’s top-tier journals than colleagues who have won lifetime-achievement awards.” He regularly advises companies on getting the most out of their employees and helping their employees get the most out of their jobs. He sets aside a four-and-a-half-hour chunk of time each week to meet with students, and he writes approximately 100 lengthy letters of recommendation for students each year.

That’s for starters. Grant often finds an inbox of 200 emails waiting for him when he gets home in the evenings. He is dedicated to replying, even to the ones coming from people he’s never met who seek his help. When a student at Warwick Business School in England wrote to ask him how he manages to publish so often, Grant took the time to write back to him and even added, “I’m happy to set up a phone call if you want to discuss!” That’s par for the course for him. You get the idea. As the article puts it, “For Grant, helping is not the enemy of productivity, a time-sapping diversion from the actual work at hand; it is the mother lode, the motivator that spurs increased productivity and creativity.” Did I mention that he’s the guy Google calls when they have “big problems” to solve in the people analytics department?

Grant’s studies about the effectiveness of giving are astonishing. At one university fundraiser call center, bringing in a scholarship recipient for a ten-minute talk about how the scholarship changed his life resulted in workers spending 142 percent more time soliciting donations on the phone and reaping 171 percent more revenue. A follow-up study showed that revenues continued to increase over time, to more than 400 percent. Simply knowing their work was having a profound effect on the lives of others made the callers work harder, Grant concluded.

In another study, Grant put up two different signs at hand-washing stations in a hospital. One read, “Hand hygiene prevents you from catching diseases”; the other read, “Hand hygiene prevents patients from catching diseases.” When he subsequently measured the amount of soap used at each station, he found that doctors and nurses washing their hands at the station with the sign about patients used 45 percent more soap or hand sanitizer. Again, when other people stood to benefit, more effort was made.

So what’s the lesson here for owners and managers of gyms, health clubs, and other sports facilities? In a word: Give. How the principle of giving best applies in your context is up to you, but the numbers prove that, in general, giving gives back. Maybe it’s a matter of opening your door to your employees and providing them with whatever kind of help they need. Maybe it’s about giving more to your clients. Maybe, for you, it means adopting a philosophy like Grant’s: “He virtually never says no to the five-minute favor,” the article says, “something that will help someone out — an introduction, a quick suggestion — but cost him very little, relative to impact.” Whatever it is, you’re likely to see the results — and to gain the benefit of feeling good about what you do.

Reward Your Clients to Reward Yourself

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A recent Mayo Clinic study found that, probably unsurprisingly, giving people financial incentives to work out helps them lose more weight. Researchers paid some study participants $20 every time they hit a monthly weight-loss goal and charged them the same amount if they failed to hit the goal. The result? Participants receiving the financial incentive — or trying to avoid having to pay — lost 6.74 more pounds than participants receiving no financial incentive.

For gyms, sports clubs, fitness centers, and the like, this is good news. Now, obviously, you can’t stand at the door handing out money to each member who meets his or her weight-loss goals each month, but maybe you can consider using other kinds of incentives. No doubt you already have some in place — have a friend sign up for a class and receive a free class yourself, or work out a certain number of times over the course of six months and receive one month’s membership free. Whatever you might be offering, great. In addition to that, can you offer something in exchange for members meeting stated weight-loss goals? A free class, a gift certificate for a health drink in the cafe, a free or reduced-cost session with a personal trainer?

Granted, the Mayo Clinic study looked only at cash incentives, so it’s not clear whether other types of incentives would have the same effect. But it’s worth a shot. If members meet their weight-loss goals because you helped them get there by providing small rewards, they’re probably more likely to stay members. They’re probably also more likely to get their friends and families to become members as well, or to sign up for classes, or whatever makes the most sense at your facility.

Your management software can help you keep track of who is taking part in an incentive program you offer, how close they are to meeting their goals, what incentives you’ve offered, and which ones you’ve paid out. As an organization devoted to your clients’ health, it makes sense to do what you can to help those clients get to where they need to be — while also solidifying a loyal customer base for yourself, not to mention a reputation for being a facility that really cares about its clients’ wellbeing.

FIRE DRILL! Get 100 NEW Clients FAST!

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The following guest post is by Sean Greeley, President of NPE, an organization dedicated to supporting coaches and fitness business owners in mastering the “business” of fitness. We are excited to have one of our most supportive partners share some amazing business tips and strategies.
Good questions lead to good thinking. One of my favorite quotes I share when teaching sales training is that “The income you make in your lifetime will be directly related to the quality and quantity of the questions you ask.” It’s from a book called […]
Continue reading “FIRE DRILL! Get 100 NEW Clients FAST!” →

How To Make 2013 Your BEST YEAR EVER and Build a Business That Supports Your Dreams

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As we begin 2013 we’re pleased to announce exciting NEW content and guest blog posts we’re adding to better support all our customers in growing their businesses this year.

The following guest post is by Sean Greeley, President of NPE, an organization dedicated to supporting coaches and fitness business owners in mastering the “business” of fitness. We are excited to have one of our most supportive partners share some amazing business tips and strategies.

I LOVE the New Year.

It’s the best time to review and assess the previous year while planning for the year ahead. You get the opportunity to list out and remember all the things you did that worked out well. And take another look back at the things that didn’t work out so you can learn from your experiences and get better for challenges you’ll face again in the future.
One of the MOST important things I recommend to all our clients is to take some time to reconnect with the reason why you started your business in the first place.

When you’re caught up in all the “hustle” of day-to-day operations that go on in every company, it’s easy to get bogged down and forget why you went into business.

Why Did You Start Your Business?

At some point in time you got the crazy idea to begin working for yourself and thought it was a good idea to start your own business. You thought you could do what you do better than others in the marketplace. And you were passionate about making a difference, having fun, and enjoying the freedom and the success that come from being your own boss. Well…sometimes come from being your own boss.
In the early days, or when you’re in a fast growth mode, or when staff leaves, it sure doesn’t feel like freedom; when you’re running around wearing multiple hats in your company! It can sometimes feel more like you’re in prison!

Remember Your Dream

That’s why it’s so important to reconnect with your dream. Running a business is hard. And you need a LOT of fuel to persevere, overcome, and grow bigger than the obstacles and challenges in front of you. Because without that fuel… it’s easy to become overwhelmed, tired and fatigued, and want to give up on things when the going gets tough! THAT’S WHEN YOUR DREAM MATTERS MOST! Your DREAM holds the power to catapult you through anything that stands in your way. It must be STRONG and you must hold on tight in order to steer your company through the storms that everyone faces on their entrepreneurial journey.

Know Why You’re Here and What’s Important

Have you defined your core values? Core values are the guiding principles that define what you stand for. I like to refer to them as your “stars in the sky.” When the great explorers sailed out across the ocean in search of new lands, they had no idea where they were going. There weren’t any maps. And they certainly didn’t have any GPS systems! All they had to navigate their journey was a compass and the stars. By looking up at their position in relation to the stars, they could adjust course, plot their way, and eventually return home. Being an entrepreneur or business owner is very similar to being a great explorer. When you decided to start your own business you embarked on a big journey, full of risk. And if you’re like most folks, you didn’t leave with a clear map of where you were going! That’s why you have to have something to look up to when you’re feeling lost.

Core values serve that purpose in your company. They also become the guiding principles by which you can evaluate who is a good fit for your organization and who isn’t. Core values are first and foremost in creating alignment with yourself and your team. In addition to core values, you must also know your purpose. Why do you do what you do? What gets you out of bed in the morning to go to work? Why do you love your customers?
And I hope you love your customers, because if you don’t then you’re going to continuously struggle. Sure you can make money, but building a great company that lasts for generations and transcends YOU only comes out of a real love, passion, and guiding principles that become larger than life.

Get Clear On Your Vision and Targets

Once you’ve reconnected with your dream (your fuel), you’ve defined what’s important and why you’re here (core values and purpose) it’s time to get clear on your mission, vision, and targets. Without a destination, you’ve just got a ship drifting at sea. In working with the clients we coach and mentor, we help business owners get clear on a vision for the next 1, 3, 5 years. Once that’s accomplished, we can effectively develop a strategic plan that gets you where you want to go. The big problem here is most business owners have no plan and have no vision at all! They’ve simply worked themselves into a job. They don’t have an exit strategy. They have no plans to hit a target or a certain capacity in their business. They are only looking out a few months at a time.

As the leader in your company, it’s your responsibility to look out farther down the road. You must continuously work on and develop the vision for your company and team. Only YOU can do this work. No one else can do it for you.

Define Your Priorities and Get After It!

When you’ve completed all the groundwork to this point, you can now clearly define priorities for your work. Most business owners spend their days and weeks in what I call, “random acts of business development.” Doing a little bit of this one day, a little bit of that the next, then running to put out another fire next week. This is not only unproductive… it’s exhausting! For 2013, make a pledge to do things differently. Define 3 priorities for the next 90 days in context of your core values, purpose, mission, and vision… and then ONLY focus on those priorities. First things first… second things never.

Summary

As we begin the New Year, find some quiet time to review and assess 2012. Then engage in strategic planning to make 2013 your BEST year EVER in business. As a good friend of mine often says, “The strategist always wins!”
 
Sean Greeley is President of NPE, an organization dedicated to supporting coaches and fitness business owners in mastering the “business” of fitness. Check out NPE’s new 3x Telly award-winning documentary The American Dream: Freedom, Prosperity, and Success in the Fitness Industry, featuring 17 industry leaders who share their STEP-BY-STEP strategies, systems, and secrets for building highly profitable fitness businesses and show you how you can do the same at: www.AmericanDreamMovie.com

Hiring the Right People in order to Create the Perfect Team

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The average staff turnover rate is 50% or more for many businesses in the US, which means staff turnover can be expensive due to the time and resources spent training replacement personnel. The truth is traditional hiring doesn’t always work well, so we recommend you try a different tactic to lower the turnover rate for employees in your business.
Behavioral Interviewing                
While traditional interviewing focuses on education and career goals, behavioral interviewing asks candidates to tell and show you how they would apply their past performance, job skills and life experiences to challenges they will face in your business. This technique will help you pick new employees based on their demonstrated success in taking on situations required by the position you’re filling.
Sample Questions

  • Ask potential sales managers to explain how they have handled performance issues with reps.
  • Ask wellness coaches to tell you how they worked with an especially challenging client.
  • Have billing clerks tell you about the worst customer experience they have had and how they were able to handle the situation.

Example Demonstrations

  • Request that trainers show you how they would explain the same technique to different level of skill players.
  • Ask yoga instructors to show you how they would instruct a client to properly perform a specific pose.
  • Have fitness instructors show you how they would modify a class for attendees with ROM (range-of-motion) limitations.

By asking the right questions during the hiring process, you’ll find your business will run with ease because you have the right people working for you. These simple questions and techniques can make the difference in creating the perfect team to help you run your fitness or sports business successfully.

Forming Ties

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Last week a small contingent of people from EZFacility visited with a variety of counterparts at our sister company, Member Solutions, in Pennsylvania. The purpose of the meeting was to exchange ideas in order to find out in which areas each company excelled, and in which areas we could use some improvement.  We’re happy to say that this meeting was quite the success in that both companies were able to glean a vast amount of knowledge from each other and exchange additional ideas for the future.

At EZFacility, we encourage our own clients to keep up to date in the industry and swap tips with colleagues in order to remain relevant. One of the best environments to accomplish this is at a trade show, which is what these events are all about in the first place.  At a trade show you’ll not only find vendors that can be incredibly helpful in solving various problems, but other business owners like you that can offer up advice on how they run different aspects of their facility.

Staying informed on what’s going on in your industry is one of the most important things you can do for your business. Continuously being aware will ensure that you always know what your current and future customers are looking for in a gym, health club or sports facility.  This all goes back to the basics of opening a business: finding a need in your market, then meeting those needs for a variety of customers within your demographic. How do you go about identifying those needs? Forming relationships with others in your industry and finding out what is particularly successful for them, in addition to of course, listening to the needs of your customers.
Come back soon for more tips and ideas for building your business.

Using Member Triumphs to Boost Your Success

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As many of our clients may have noticed, we’ve been doing a big push around securing testimonials and success stories from our customers. There’s really no better way of showing potential clients that we provide an excellent product than having a happy client say it!

That being said, we’re going to pass along some tips on how to get the right testimonials from your members for your club or facility. One or two sentences from a satisfied member can go a long way to improving your company’s image.

  • Reach out to members that have gone out of their way to give you a compliment in the past. The likelihood of them being open to giving you a positive review is high and therefore should be taken advantage of.
  • Ask members to use different resources to give comments or reviews. A few examples can include your company Facebook page, Google reviews, or industry sources. These are areas where potential members will be looking to see what others are saying about your club or facility. Set up your member so that they can easily find whatever resource you want them to post a review on. For example, if there is a specific industry source that you would like for them to comment on, send them the link in the email for quick and easy access.
  • Make extra use of these same testimonials by placing them in their own section on your company website; the first place people will look to get information. By finding testimonials and success stories easily on your website, potential clients will have little reason to look for them elsewhere.
  • Finally, go the extra mile to get a video testimonial. Maybe you’ve helped a member achieve their goal or attain a noteworthy result, take advantage of their hard work and your own hard work by asking them to do a video of their story. Your management software should allow you to keep track of member results; access them for reference in determining who may be a good fit for a success story. This will give you great content to put on your website or should you have it, your YouTube channel.

The process of searching for the right members for customer testimonials should be easy if your club or facility is in good running order. Starting off with those that have come to you and let you know that they love what you’ve done for them is the simplest. From there it should be easy to reach out to them with a quick email.
Thanks for reading and come back soon for more tips and ideas!

Is Your Club Primed for Growth with Personal Training? Part 1 of 3

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Software that offers strong personal trainer scheduling and management functionality is gaining attention as a critical component for improving the operational processes that impact your club’s growth on a daily basis. How well your club streamlines its operations, improves trainer productivity, reduces costs and increases profits, will be a determining factor in your facility’s overall future success. With the popularity and revenue gains that club owners have seen with their personal training business in recent years, implementing a powerful club management software and billing system that includes a very strong trainer scheduling and management component has become that critical “must have” for a club of any size.


If you haven’t yet implemented a scheduling and management system within your club (either as a part of your core club management system or on a stand-alone basis), there are a variety of key items for you to consider as you begin the selection process:

  1. Is it user friendly – i.e. can it be used by staff with just novice computer experience?
  2. Does it offer detailed management of training packages and other service offerings?
  3. Does it allow for detailed tracking of trainer payroll, commissions and varying pay rates?
  4. Does it provide personal training specific management reports for club performance & financial analysis?
  5. Does it give your personal training clients access to book new sessions or buy new packages right from your website?
  6. Does it offer the ability to integrate credit card or direct debit functionality so that you can charge your customers for services in real-time? Or better yet, does it offer the option for a full-service billing and collections component as part of the software, so you don’t have to worry about chasing customers for overdue payments?
  7. Can it be accessed from any web-connected computer – both inside your club or out?

A good trainer scheduling and management software system focuses on these sets of issues with an eye on executing and managing them more efficiently on a daily basis. This attention to detail can result in improved operational control, better visibility into your business, improved customer service, and more consistent employee performance.


In the next post in this three part post I will begin to outline the 4 key reasons for implementing a strong personal trainer scheduling and management solution as a component of your club management software.