I don?t write promotional articles often?it just ain?t my style. But this one is way too timely and illustrates the ADVANTAGES OF YOUR CLUB?and YOU MAY NOT EVEN RECOGNIZE THEM! Allow me to veer off for a few sentences.

One thing that is for certain you must know by now, is that our industry has entered ?the digital age.? Apps, technological aides, software enhancements and much more are coming at us rapid-fire.

Consider that 80% of U. S. consumers own at least one ?smart technology? device. By 2016, 85% of consumers will own a smart phone. 62% of all Internet searches are now initiated on a smart phone!

Three out of four consumers ?shop you before they shop with you? ? meaning that they are reviewing your club?s website before they make any kind of decision to possibly go a step further and walk in your door. If you don?t have membership rates, a way to buy from you, and customer-interactivity as part of your site, you don?t even get to the preliminaries! Potential customers won?t come unless THEY THINK THEY ALREADY KNOW ENOUGH ABOUT YOU TO BE COMFORTABLE.

You have an existing ally that you rarely think about:                          

ABC Financial?s unparalleled customer service teams?and DataTrak! Yes?that which you have taken for granted and actually pay little attention to is a wallet full of bucks sitting in your pocket!I recently had the opportunity to spend hours and hours on ABC?s website?evaluating it from the perspectives of both industry veteran/expert and interested consumer. I learned a lot?and want to share some of YOUR BUILT-IN ADVANTAGES with you.

• DataTrak?s ?dashboard:? under-used and brimming with info that you can use to make stronger business decisions and to better monetize your customer base. (If you don?t know what I just said, you need to call me!)
• Owners? and Members? Login on www.abcfinancial.com. Incredible resources within a few seconds.
• MYiCLUBonline and ClubApps connections. Real-time services, scheduling, and much more at your fingertips.
• Scads of Online Video Demo Helps in A/V format. Just click ?n go to educate yourself and staff.
• News articles that offer cutting-edge info on everything from smart devices to workout buddy importance to healthy lifestyles. Like having your own library on-demand!

And there?s a heckuva lot more! I?ve rated ABC Financial?s website as the most useful and easiest-to-get-around in the entire club management software industry. If you?re not using these assets every day, I think you?re at best being short-sighted and at worst being foolish. Get in touch with your advantages!

(Michael Scott Scudder is Founder/CEO of Fitness Business Council, the independent club business network. He can be contacted at 575-751-1212 or mss@fitnessbusinesscouncil.com.)

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?Much of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to work.?

-Peter Drucker-

Peter Drucker has written more stuff about real management than any other; he will challenge your standard beliefs and push your thinking out of the box. So if you are ready to be pushed, read on.

Most clubs have solid procedures for managing their facility, cash and capital. A club?s total time budget is often unmanaged. Everyone?s time is consumed with phone calls, emails, instant messages, meetings, customer requests, reports and staff conversations. Few clubs have procedures for governing these interactions. Turns out that most clubs have little understanding of how their leaders and staff are spending their collective time. Unsurprisingly, that time can be squandered when organizations become loaded with long email sequences, elaborate meetings and review sessions.

Readily available advice for managing time focus on an individual?s actions. Yet even when an individual is using these tools well, their best intentions can be overwhelmed by the demands and practices of their club business. Andy Grove, former CEO of Intel said ?you would not permit a fellow employee to steal a piece of equipment, and you shouldn?t let anyone walk away with your time.?

The authors of this research by Bain and Company analyzed the time budgets of 17 large corporations. They found all were all awash in email communications, involved with an ever growing number of meetings, and that collaboration across departments and between headquarters and remote sites. Too often the communication that that occurred was for sharing and collecting information rather than solving problems and making improvements. In addition they found dysfunctional meeting behavior on the rise. For example, meetings often begin with members who have not individually prepared, involve unnecessary people and drag on and on. Then at the end there is no debrief or lessons learned about making the meeting better with specific changes and improvements. One study of large companies revealed that a quarter of the participants sent an average of three emails per half hour in meetings. Lastly, requests for people?s time are easy to make and there is little review of the value.

In the span of four decades from the 1970s to today the number of communications per executive annually has risen 30 times.

The comments from close to 100 club owners in this industry for close to 25 years tell me that the average well run, profitable club is wasting about 10% of its organization time at a low estimate; some may be as high as 20%. This means you are leaving 10-20% of your labor costs on the table when they could be profits. It also means that problems are not surfaced or fixed fast, that employees may not be fully present and committed when at work, and that the owner is frustrated about how some things happen the way they do.

REX Roundtables improves the performance of over 100 clubs whose owners and executives are members of one of our Roundtables. That is our sole purpose. We bring together 12-15 owners/top executives in the club industry to act like an informal board of directors. Sharing, challenging, and caring for one another. Each Roundtable meets three times a year and has continuous interaction between meetings to solve problems, find information and hold one another accountable. No competitors, the same members year after year build the trust for deep honesty.

To find out more about REX Call or text Eddie Tock 914-643-3207. Eddie@rexroundtables.com

And don?t forget to request the FREE REX Follow up on SIX PRACTICES FOR MANAGING ORGANIZATONAL TIME. Remember this is totally different than individual time management skills.

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?Much of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to work.?

-Peter Drucker-

Peter Drucker has written more stuff about real management than any other; he will challenge your standard beliefs and push your thinking out of the box. So if you are ready to be pushed, read on.
Most clubs have solid procedures for managing their facility, cash and capital. A club?s total time budget is often unmanaged. Everyone?s time is consumed with phone calls, emails, instant messages, meetings, customer requests, reports and staff conversations. Few clubs have procedures for governing these interactions. Turns out that most clubs have little understanding of how their leaders and staff are spending their collective time. Unsurprisingly, that time can be squandered when organizations become loaded with long email sequences, elaborate meetings and review sessions.
Readily available advice for managing time focus on an individual?s actions. Yet even when an individual is using these tools well, their best intentions can be overwhelmed by the demands and practices of their club business. Andy Grove, former CEO of Intel said ?you would not permit a fellow employee to steal a piece of equipment, and you shouldn?t let anyone walk away with your time.?
The authors of this research by Bain and Company analyzed the time budgets of 17 large corporations. They found all were all awash in email communications, involved with an ever growing number of meetings, and that collaboration across departments and between headquarters and remote sites. Too often the communication that that occurred was for sharing and collecting information rather than solving problems and making improvements. In addition they found dysfunctional meeting behavior on the rise. For example, meetings often begin with members who have not individually prepared, involve unnecessary people and drag on and on. Then at the end there is no debrief or lessons learned about making the meeting better with specific changes and improvements. One study of large companies revealed that a quarter of the participants sent an average of three emails per half hour in meetings. Lastly, requests for people?s time are easy to make and there is little review of the value.
In the span of four decades from the 1970s to today the number of communications per executive annually has risen 30 times.
The comments from close to 100 club owners in this industry for close to 25 years tell me that the average well run, profitable club is wasting about 10% of its organization time at a low estimate; some may be as high as 20%. This means you are leaving 10-20% of your labor costs on the table when they could be profits. It also means that problems are not surfaced or fixed fast, that employees may not be fully present and committed when at work, and that the owner is frustrated about how some things happen the way they do.
REX Roundtables improves the performance of over 100 clubs whose owners and executives are members of one of our Roundtables. That is our sole purpose. We bring together 12-15 owners/top executives in the club industry to act like an informal board of directors. Sharing, challenging, and caring for one another. Each Roundtable meets three times a year and has continuous interaction between meetings to solve problems, find information and hold one another accountable. No competitors, the same members year after year build the trust for deep honesty.

And don?t forget to request the FREE REX Follow up on SIX PRACTICES FOR MANAGING ORGANIZATONAL TIME. Remember this is totally different than individual time management skills.

The post Total Time Management Advice from Peter Drucker, Founder of REX Roundtables for Club Executives appeared first on .

We recently took on a client club whose sales were on a steady decline. Of course, we heard the normal push-backs such as too much competition, time of year, rates are too high, marketing is not working, etc. One of the first things we will normally do is listen in to call-tracking results on incoming calls ? most of this is tied to direct mail marketing. In this particular case, a prospect called in asking about membership rates. Not only did the club representative not follow the provided script, but when the caller volunteered that she may have called the wrong club, the club rep offered to find the phone number of the competitor. You may be thinking this was a new rep that was answering the phone prematurely?..unfortunately, it was the club manager.

Do you know what your salespeople and front desk staffers are saying over the phone?

92% of customer interactions happen via the phone. 85% of customers report dissatisfaction with their phone experience.

Do you have a written phone script? If not, you need to get one and it should be memorized to the point of being second-nature. Regular training and role-playing should be done to be sure everyone is on track. And be sure to listen to your call tracking notes?this will only be important to your staff, if it?s first important to you. You must inspect what you expect.

A customer is 4 times more likely to buy from a competitor when ignored.

Are you ignoring your customers?

Many clubs will put a significant effort into getting the phone to ring and people to walk through the door, but then don?t maximize the opportunity to increase membership sales when the salespeople fail to follow up.

48% of salespeople never follow up with a prospect.

25% of salespeople make a second contact and stop.

12% of salespeople only make three contacts and stop.

Only 10% of salespeople make more than three contacts.

80% of sales are made on the fifth to twelfth contact.

The biggest reasons we find salespeople do not follow up like they should ? they simply don?t know what to say. Web leads, for example, on average, require 8 attempts before contacting?.you may speak to some web leads right away which means someone else make take 16 attempts.

The key to successful follow up is to commit to it, get creative on different ways to do it and understand that speed is power.

Do you know what your salespeople are saying? Can your salespeople pass the test? If you would like for us to phone shop your club, just email jthomas@fmconsulting.net or call 800-929-2898.

Now, go learn that script!

Jim Thomas is the founder and president of Fitness Management USA Inc., a management consulting and turnaround firm specializing in the fitness and health club industry. With more than 25 years of experience owning, operating and managing clubs of all sizes, Thomas lectures and delivers seminars and workshops across the country on the practical skills required to successfully build teamwork and market fitness programs and products. Visit his Web site at: www.fmconsulting.net.

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We work at both ends of the fitness industry ? with those gym owners who are just starting out and want to shorten the learning curve and those who have been in business are in need of a turnaround (and everything in between).

There are many reasons why some gyms grow and others become stagnate. Of course, there are factors like market size, competition and consumer demand. But there are also other factors that have to do with operations, leadership, accountability and systems.

Based on what we?re seeing across the country, here are some thoughts on why gym owners and their business become stagnate.

1. Success apathy. Just because you have had success in the past, it doesn?t guarantee success in the future. Simple complacency?we take our eye off the ball. . An independent gym is usually a reflection of the club owner?s needs, desires and personality.

2. The right staff. You cannot build a successful gym without the right people in place. This requires both the proper hiring and training process and the willingness to make the changes that become necessary as the business grows. This is easier said than done for many gym owners. It takes dedication to the process.

3. The lack of standards, systems and controls.  It?s not enough to have high standards in your gym without implementing the control systems that assure those standards are met. Without the controls, you will have good intentions accompanied by bad results.

4. The member attitude. Not the member?s? attitude but the gym?s attitude toward its members. There is nothing more destructive than gym staff who dismiss difficult members as ?nutty? and conclude that there is no way to make them happy. The problem is that most nutty members have not so nutty friends, and word of mouth travels fast these days.

5. Technology. New technologies can do many great things but can also be overwhelming and time consuming for gym owners. Acquiring the financial, technical and staff resources necessary to solve a technology problem can be very difficult for a small gym, but there?s not much choice; the marketplace does not stand still.

6. Marketing. This includes everything from branding to advertising to market analysis. How your gym executes may be the major driver of its success, but how your gym is perceived is also crucial. The other reality is that small gyms can have a difficult time finding resources to help them with this critical part of their business. That means that the success or failure of a small gym?s marketing frequently comes down to the abilities of the club owner. Few people are good at everything.

7. Stale fitness services. Whether you are talking about fitness products or members, the market is always changing, and your products and services have to change with it. If you are fortunate, the changes are slow and subtle; sometimes, they are dramatic.

8. Lack of investment. Whether it is for more new gym equipment and accessories, new technology, a bigger facility, or more employees – growing gyms require more cash than non-growing gyms. Getting this cash may require borrowing money, finding more investors or using up whatever cash is on hand. It?s ongoing. Some gym owners tire of the demands and decide to slow down the investments ? and that slows down growth of the gym.

9. Stubbornness. It is stubbornness that helped the gym owner get the club off the ground, get through the learning curve, survive the recession and cope with every problem along the way. At some point, though, focused adherence to what you know can limit a gym?s ability to adapt to change and get to that next level. Policies and strategies that might have worked when you had 10 employees can hold you back when you have 30 ? a common example is when you start to hire higher-priced managers who have different expectations than a $10-an-hour employee.

10. Leadership. This includes vision, courage, fortitude, attitude and gym culture ? all of which should create an inspired staff. And of course there?s the often-used word that is many times called the secret to it all, passion. Here is the real secret: passion is critical, but it can?t make up for deficiencies in the other categories. I have seen many owners struggle in the gym business that had plenty of passion. It will not be enough.

Jim Thomas | Fitness Management & Consulting | 800-929-2898

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In the ultra-competitive world of health and fitness, where less than 50% of new gyms and fitness centers are expected to survive beyond the first 5 years in business, Jim Thomas has many answers to questions most gym owners don?t even know to ask.

Jim Thomas is the well-known founder and president of Fitness Management USA, Inc., a management consulting and turnaround firm specializing in the fitness and health club industry. The tagline for his company is an apt one. ?When the going gets tough, the smart get help.?

The health and fitness industry, like so many others, is one in which many businesses are spawned through passion. For example, a personal trainer loves what he or she does so decides to open a gym hoping that the old axiom, ?Do what you love and the money will follow? will hold true. Unfortunately, it rarely does.

?Other than being under-capitalized, the biggest reason we see for health club failure is lack of business know-how and lack of proper implementation of sales and marketing strategies,? points out Thomas. ?Another common misconception that many new gym owners have is that the gym will sell itself.?

It is rare to find someone that is both passionate about providing health and fitness services and adept at marketing and sales. The result is often that one side of the business falters and may drag the entire operation down with it.

In these cases, Thomas suggests, ?If you are not an expert in gym sales and marketing find someone that is. Embrace sales and marketing. Get some training. In an effort to provide good service, you can?t give up key steps of the membership sales process.?

After 25 years of owning and operating gyms as well as speaking and consulting extensively on the subject, Thomas has seen pretty much all the industry can throw at gym owners. When asked what precautions or research new gym owners could undertake to improve their odds of success, Thomas responded, ?For people entering this business, be fully aware the biggest mistake is a failure to grasp and implement proper sales and marketing programs.? He also added, ?Keep fixed overhead low. Newcomers need to shorten the learning curve and not learn based on trial and error ? it?s just too costly.?

It seems that gym owners ? like many entrepreneurs ? may be overly optimistic for their own good at times. When asked what the greatest challenge he faces in helping aspiring or struggling gym owners, Thomas was very up-front, ?Club owners often wait too long to engage professional help. Instead, thinking the problem will miraculously be fixed without help.?

The lesson to be learned here? Running a health and fitness facility is a high-overhead and sometimes complicated business requiring a diverse skill-set. To ensure the greatest likelihood of success, anyone thinking about entering into this industry should either have the proper skill-set or be willing to work with someone that does.

http://www.fmconsulting.net/ or call 1-800-929-2898

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Those of you who?ve attended my business seminars over the years have often heard me say: ?Your numbers are the sum and substance of your business practices.? If your numbers are up, usually it reflects some solid business practices. If your numbers are down, take a look at where your systems are faltering.
One of the things I try to accomplish with my Fitness Business Council efforts is to get a clear ?take? on what the business numbers are for the independent health club sector. That?s why I deploy three (3) quarterly surveys every year and an annual survey. In seven (7) years of polling the independent club sector of our business, I?ve learned a lot that I?ve shared with all of you. The initial results from my FBC 1st Quarter 2014 Business Results Survey show where the industry is at present?and also reflect on some longer-term trends that can be very challenging to club operators.

Growth of New Membership Sales is a key indicator. Whenever we?ve seen a consistent 60%+ of clubs reporting growth in new memberships for 3 consecutive quarters, we?ve generally been able to predict the beginning of an uptrend. Unfortunately, new membership sales were up in only 49% of reporting clubs?and that is a continuance of a slightly downward-slipping pattern that has been in evidence for over three (3) years. Growth in Total Sales (which includes the all-important Ancillary Sales categories) is another critical benchmark. While total sales and ancillary sales growth are higher in slightly more than 50% of clubs, we still do not see a breakout uptrend occurring here. Alarmingly, these categories have been accompanied by a consistent downtrend in single-member-monthly dues?which presently stand at an average all-time low of slightly less than $28 per month across our industry.

The latter may well be influenced by Unbundling of Membership Prices, which 45% of clubs reportthey have done in efforts to compete with budgetclubs and HVLP (high-volume-low-price) players intheir marketplaces. One-to-One Personal Training sales growth stillpersists in a gradually-downtrend mode, with only
45% of clubs reporting sales growth. This may be in part because Small Group Training revenue growth continues in an upward pattern, though not yet definable as a ?definite uptrend.? Group Exercise Class Attendance growth, which until early last year had been in a defined uptrend, is slipping into declining numbers, with only 45% of clubs reporting increases in attendance. Finally, the percentage of clubs with Increases in Profits are inching higher?but Profit Margins themselves are continuing to slowly erode, with the national average pre-tax margin at approximately 9% – its lowest in several years. While the above ?numbers? overall might look negative to the reader, they are not. What they are, are ?benchmarks? whereby clubs can measure their own progress, or lack thereof – and gauge their business strategies accordingly. !

Michael Scott Scudder is Founder/CEO of Fitness Business Council
575-751-1212
mss@fitnessbusinesscouncil.com

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Recently launched by Jim Thomas? Fitness Management & Consulting, the MyFitnessCareer site provides job seekers and employers in the fitness industry with tools and resources to build their businesses, careers, or both.

Club owners and other employers looking for experienced fitness personnel can post job listings on MyFitnessCareer for just $35.00 for 90 days. The site?s integration with Indeed, SimplyHired, LinkedIn, and Careerjet employment search engine gives employment listings a potential exposure to 30 million people.

Since motivated fitness job seekers searching for a new career may not find an ideal position using traditional methods, MyFitnessCareer gives the opportunity to post their profiles and resumes free. Additionally, fitness teachers, gym managers, sales consultants, administrative professionals, child caregivers and more can easily browse listings of full-time, part-time, and freelance positions all over the country.

The new MyFitnessCareer job site offers all fitness verticals additional resources to find the right employees as well as help job seekers search for the ideal career opportunity. “We?re excited to deliver the MyFitnessCareer site to the fitness industry to address needs at many levels?, says Thomas.

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The fitness industry was an early adopter of retention tactics.  Most added no value for the customer and were designed specifically to make cancellation difficult.  More recently, our industry is adopting new tactics to extend a membership or to influence renewal.  This view can be short sighted, requiring gyms to focus on driving an incremental relationship with members.  It can also be very expensive and will not always yield great results, yet most gyms still don?t focus on loyalty strategies. Loyalty strategies don?t just focus on a one-time renewal, or a tactic for those most likely to quit, but rather they focus on creating fans for life.

The latter causes one to think more deeply about the design of the business and how it interfaces with a customer in everything it does.  It forces more of a philosophical approach that can transform the way owners think about their strategy overall. It?s also harder to do, as it requires owners to step back and really define the elements of strategy on which they will differentiate.  That?s why we see parity in the fitness business, especially for fitness-only type clubs competing in the lower and middle of the marketplace.   There are many clubs competing in the high-end of the marketplace asking the right questions; how do we create loyalty?  But no matter where you compete across the pricing spectrum, those willing to move from mere retention tactics to a loyalty strategy will be rewarded.

How can you tell the difference between strategies that are tactically focused on retention, versus strategy focused on long-term loyalty?  Look no further than HOW you use data. The kind of data you lean on and how you use it to inform decisions and actions reveals your focus.

The more you lean on usage data and other member behavioral data, the more tactical you end up being.  It looks something like this; you call people when they stop using the club and try to re-engage them; you find people in your club that are most likely to quit and make it a point to go talk to them. You use customer behavioral data to try to predict what an individual might do next.  Doing this is not a bad thing at all, but doing it without really looking into the reasons why a customer will possibly churn is a missed opportunity to create real changes in your business that lead to real loyalty.

Imagine if the broader member experience is horrible or even just mediocre.  What if members feel staff is unfriendly, the club is unclean, services are difficult, and management is uncaring?  What if they feel the club is just indifferent to their experience?  How genuine will your retention tactics seem to the member over-time?

Take ownership of your loyalty strategy and build your brand with data that measures YOUR behavior.  This is only captured through the members? eyes.  It is their PERCEPTION. Once you understand how customers perceive YOUR behavior, you have the information to move to ?great.?  Perception data includes friendliness metrics captured for each critical touch-point.  Servicing metrics that reveal the customers? perception of how easy you are to do business with.  Cleanliness and equipment condition metrics that measure how the customer is experiencing your plant and equipment. All of these things represent the quality of your overall product as seen through the experience of your customers.  Remember ? your behaviors ARE the customer experience and you have total control over YOUR behavior.  The value of understanding your members? usage and behavioral data will greatly increase when you have ?member perception? data and use it to build loyalty.   The big AH HA and empowerment that comes from doing CEM right, is that you seek to understand and adjust your own behavior and align it to improve the customer experience.

Suppose you have a friend that never exercises, is overweight, smokes, only eats junk food, and drinks way too much.  He asks you for advice on what vitamins to take to get healthy.  Your say ? ?You have to change your behaviors.  You must start exercising, stop smoking, eat better, and drink less.  Then let?s talk about vitamins.?

You know to address the behaviors that are causing him to be unhealthy – then let?s add the vitamins. The same thing holds true for the health and fitness of your business.

CEM stands for Customer Experience Management ? not Customer Experience Manipulation.

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