A quick check showing the definition of urgency to be; 1) to act promptly; 2) act with intention to make things happen; 3) doing what needs to be done immediately.
So, here’s what I see frequently in gyms…many time there are lots of good things going on but the business and staff have become stagnant because of a lack of urgency. Here’s the deal, without urgency, it simply doesn’t matter when something is done…it could be tomorrow, the next day, next week, next month or even next year. By simply acting with urgency can make all the difference in getting your business back on track or maximizing the opportunity.
Here are some things to consider if your gym needs a kick-start with urgency:
As an owner, manager, department head, sales person…make your own smart, quick decisions with confidence. It all starts with you, right? This is a way of thinking you want to act on immediately and your behavior will help train your team to act accordingly.
Identify obstacles to your staff’s progress and quickly remove them. Take a look around for obstacles that are getting in your way of acting with urgency. In many cases, I have seen the commission schedule or the lack of one being an obstacle. In the end, a simple process is usually a successful process.
Establish a culture that is focused on outcomes, not individual tasks. Here’s the bottom line on this, effort without results is meaningless.
Communicate consequences for inaction; clarify what happens if desired outcomes aren’t met. Too many managers think consequences mean they fire someone, not so. My favorite is to role play the telephone inquiry script in front of the group — if we’re not setting phone inquiries or not getting shows….that will normally get them to memorize the script. Or in the sales process, many times we will roll out a Love at First Sight Offer.
Identify what systems work for your gym and eliminate the systems that no longer serve you. Don’t keep old, tired ways of doing things in place just because “that’s the way you’ve always done it.”
Announce and celebrate small success to demonstrate what happens when desired outcomes are met. For example, break a sales record; the entire team goes out to dinner together to celebrate. Or celebrate when members sponsor in a new members and receive their gift before the deadline.
Agree on deadlines and provide reminders. Final day for a membership special. Final day to sign up for a class. Final week on the referral contest. You get the idea — then be sure to communicate across many different platforms….in club signs, email, phone, social media….
Keep meeting short by always providing an agenda. Always have a planned, crisp agenda for each meeting. Don’t allow the meeting to drag from the original intent.
When speaking, get to the point quickly; encourage your team members to communicate in a similar manner. Say what you want, when you want it and get to work — no long drawn out explanations necessary.
Demonstrate leadership by example by meeting your personal deadlines. This one should be simple enough; leadership by example.
Hold one-on-one meetings to secure each staffer’s buy-in to the team. Meet with EVERY team member and communicate the expectations and their understanding of each — you must get 100% acknowledgement and buy-in before you can get started…..and then be sure you follow-up.
Follow up. It will not be good enough just to express your expectations, you must continue to follow up and train where necessary. The culture of urgency will never be important to you staff until its first important to you.
Now, go get it done…now!
AnOutsourced CEO and expert witness, Jim Thomas is the founder and president of Fitness Management USA Inc., a management consulting, turnaround and brokerage firm specializing in the gym and sports industry. With more than 25 years of experience owning, operating and managing clubs of all sizes, Thomas lectures and delivers seminars, webinars and workshops across the globe on the practical skills required to successfully to overcome obscurity, improve sales, build teamwork and market fitness programs and products. In addition, his company will buy gym equipment from gyms liquidating or closing. Visit his Web site at: www.fmconsulting.net or www.youtube.com/gymconsultant.
cOr at the least that everybody could have a blog. We’ve all got something to say, everyone has something that they’re passionate about.
And a blog is a way for you to express that passion while also encouraging others who share this interest to further explore and helping them to discover new things about the topic that they may not already have discovered.
You can blog about pretty much anything and there will be some people out there who are going to be interested in reading it. People blog about entertainment, sports, food, business, and pretty much any hobby under the sun.
If fitness is your passion and you want to share that with the world, then there’s no better time to start than right now. But the other side of this coin is that a ton of people out there have got the same idea.
Especially for something that has as widespread of an interest as fitness does, so you are going to be facing quite a bit of competition. There are already thousands of fitness blogs on the internet and more are being started every day.
If you want to build up a readership amidst all of that, then you need to find a way to stand out. Because while there are those thousands of blogs out there, a lot of them don’t have a lot of thought or creativity behind them.
There are blogs which sort of just fade into the background because there’s nothing about them that sets them apart from the pack. You need to make your blog outstanding if you want people to pay attention.
Here are some ways that you can do that:
Have a Specific Angle
If you look for fitness blogs online and try to seek out the ones that aren’t getting that much attention, what you’ll notice about them is that they tend to be very generalistic. They’re not about any specific aspect of fitness.
They’ll just be giving you the same advice and routines that you can find everywhere else on the internet. Conversely, you’ll see that the most popular fitness blogs do the opposite, they offer unique information about specific things.
A select few of the top ones are just general fitness blogs for sure, but there are always exceptions and chances are you aren’t going to be one of them. If you want to maximise your chances for success then you should follow a more reliable route.
So carve yourself out a niche. Analyze your own fitness routines and find out the things that you are especially good at. Centre your blog around that. Maybe you can focus on cardio or crossfit or calisthenics, or something that doesn’t begin with the letter C.
You want people to see your blog come up when they conduct a Google search and that’s more likely to happen if you have a particularly interesting niche.
Pick the Right Name and Host
You want every aspect of your blog to look and feel as professional as possible. If you just throw any old webpage together, using the most basic hosting site you can find and put little effort into the appearance, then people aren’t going to want to keep coming back.
It’s an unappealing site when so many out there are putting in so much more effort. Start right at the very top with the name. Come up with something good and also something that people will remember the name of.
Get a little creative, if you’re blogging then you’re a creative writer so you can come up with a creative name for your fitness blog that suits the niche. Now as for hosting, the best course of action for you is WordPress.
Reason being is that this will give you plenty of control over how your blog looks, it’s not that difficult to use and you have plenty of flexibility when it comes to including extra stuff like advertisements, which means that you can monetize your blog if that’s what you want.
There are a couple of others that you could consider too such as BlueHost, Siteground and Agathon if you want to explore your options a bit more, but WordPress is well-known for its reliability so it’s probably still your best bet.
Review Equipment
This is something that the vast majority of fitness blogs don’t do and it would attract a lot of extra people. Most of those who are reading a fitness blog will be looking for advice on routines and workouts of course, but equipment is important too.
If you offer them an insight into that aspect of your fitness regime then you’ll be giving them something that they don’t get from the other fitness blogs that they read and another incentive to come back to you.
And perhaps you could even end up in partnership with a company if your blog gets enough traction. You could end up being paid to post reviews of fitness equipment, which would mean that you would be expressing your passion and getting paid for it.
Consider this style of comprehensive review as a regular feature on your blog. It’s informative, it’s not on every fitness blog and it ties in perfectly with your discussions of the things that you are passionate about.
Stay Humble
One thing that you absolutely want to avoid when you’re running a fitness blog is alienation of your potential readership. Fitness is a topic that does breed egotism and there is nothing more off-putting than that.
Do not treat your blog as an opportunity to boast about how in shape you are, how big your biceps are and how much you can bench. That’s not what people want to see, your blog isn’t about you, it’s about your readers.
You will have people reading who are completely new to fitness and you should be aiming to treat them with as much respect as everyone else who reads. Your blog should be a place of encouragement, not a place of condescension.
Try to communicate with people on there as much as possible. Have a comments section and talk to the people who comment. If all goes well you will reach a point where there are too many comments for that to be feasible, but at the start make it clear that you are interested in how your readers are progressing.
If you make a concentrated effort to stand out with your blog, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t end up with a lot of people coming back to the page on a regular basis and that will be very fulfilling.
So if you’re serious about it, then put the necessary thought and care into making your blog something that’s worth reading.
AnOutsourced CEO and expert witness, Jim Thomas is the founder and president of Fitness Management USA Inc., a management consulting, turnaround and brokerage firm specializing in the gym and sports industry. With more than 25 years of experience owning, operating and managing clubs of all sizes, Thomas lectures and delivers seminars, webinars and workshops across the globe on the practical skills required to successfully to overcome obscurity, improve sales, build teamwork and market fitness programs and products. In addition, his company will buy gym equipment from gyms liquidating or closing. Visit his Web site at:www.fmconsulting.netorwww.jimthomasondemand.com.
While all of us in the gym business settle in and wait for the pandemic to pass, we need to recognize that this could end up being a significant opportunity for your gym if you choose to expand and advance into the market place. But, it will require work. Don’t just sit and wait, develope a strategy, so that when this is over, you’re prepared to advance.
Here is some impotant information to remember:
People will still buy from you, but you will have to ask. Don’t let anyone guilt or shame you into thinking that selling is a bad thing. In many ways, you can treat this like a pre sales.
The economy will prosper soon. This is temporary. This will end. Let’s be sure we’re ready.
Gyms will re-reopen. There will be pent up demand for your services and products. Be prepared.
Prepare a plan of action and business strategy for the new normal:
Keep Selling. For a visual, treat this like a presales, make it simple and easy to get started and add value. Memberships, paid trials, personal training, supplements, etc.
Keep your current members. You’re only temporarily changing how you will coach your members (you’re not closing). Help your current members stay with you. Stay in touch with your members. Commnicate, even over-communicate. Such things as online classes, Q&A sessions, sending a work out of the day, check in on them, accountablity sessions, etc.
This one is big…be prepared for business after this ends. Don’t find yourself doing nothing and expect to flip the switch. Develope your plan and take action!
Are you ready to keep your members and capture market share?
Take control of the current situation and get a grip on things. Write out a plan that allows you to preserve cash, keep your current members, continue to sell, and develope a strategy that allows you to advance, not retreat into the marketplace. Turn off the TV.
Leverage an online and remote strategy to serve your members and prospects. Live classes, video, accountabilty calls, coaching calls, have fun with it just like you would inside your gym.
Prevent objections and sell during this time; Make this simple. Provide value.
Thank you.
Jim
AnOutsourced CEO and expert witness, Jim Thomas is the founder and president of Fitness Management USA Inc., a management consulting, turnaround and brokerage firm specializing in the gym and sports industry. With more than 25 years of experience owning, operating and managing clubs of all sizes, Thomas lectures and delivers seminars, webinars and workshops across the globe on the practical skills required to successfully to overcome obscurity, improve sales, build teamwork and market fitness programs and products. In addition, his company will buy gym equipment from gyms liquidating or closing. Visit his Web site at:www.fmconsulting.netorwww.jimthomasondemand.com.
I speak with many gym owners and operators who have concerns on how to hand out pay raises when times are tough. Although… difficult times can be nothing more than an excuse not to offer a pay raise even though there’s merit. My answer normally will surprise the concerned gym owner when I tell them my solution to pay raises is the same no matter if it’s good times…or not so good times.
Gyms need talent. There is a shortage of talent. Talent will cost money otherwise you will lose your best people to other industries.
As we all know, sales can have a way of being a moving target…so if you continually compensate your staff around a fixed compensation plan, you are setting yourself up for a fall. I like to see gyms offer some form of a guaranteed opportunity, but with plenty of upside based on production and job description.
· You have a budget, right? Give staffers responsibility for certain line items. Say the budget for towel service is $2,000 per month…any savings they can generate in that line item would result in a 50% bonus off the total savings. So, if they save the club $500, they would receive a $250 bonus. It’s a win-win.
· Additional compensation does not have to come in the way of direct dollars. Work a half day on Friday, but receive compensation for a full day.
· Make childcare available for a reduced cost or even free. This offers a potentially significant savings for the employee plus the added bonus of convenience.
· Where it’s possible, offer flex-scheduling. This is a nice perk for those who have children or simply like the idea of beating rush hour traffic.
· Everyone is in sales…or they should be. Have a commission plan for every employee in your club. And then teach them how to promote and sell.
· Offer more training and continuing education that’s job related. Help make them more valuable to you…and increase their confidence and self esteem at the same time.
· Have a monthly contest. Of course, a sales contest would work in many departments, but you could also have a cleaning contest based on daily inspection scores. How many more memberships would you sell or how many members would you retain with a cleaner facility?
· Combine duties. When someone leaves your company…instead of hiring someone else, take a look around, maybe you have someone who deserves more money and they can pick up some of these duties. The club will save and the employee will get an increase.
· A common mistake in evaluating compensation is to view the employee as an expense…if you can learn to view the employee as your most valuable asset, you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
· A final reminder…the most expensive person you have on staff is the lowest paid person who’s worth it.
Now, go give someone a raise!
AnOutsourced CEO and expert witness, Jim Thomas is the founder and president of Fitness Management USA Inc., a management consulting, turnaround and brokerage firm specializing in the gym and sports industry. With more than 25 years of experience owning, operating and managing clubs of all sizes, Thomas lectures and delivers seminars, webinars and workshops across the globe on the practical skills required to successfully to overcome obscurity, improve sales, build teamwork and market fitness programs and products. In addition, his company will buy gym equipment from gyms liquidating or closing. Visit his Web site at:www.fmconsulting.netorwww.jimthomasondemand.com.
Every two interactions a member has with fitness staff in a given month results in one extra visit from that member the following month. It is essential to understand the correlation between employee turnover and member retention. Members value engagement from staff, and the staff values happy members.
Retaining and engaging employees is as important as retaining members. Many costs are associated with hiring and training new employees, so keeping the high performers in order to minimize hiring and onboarding costs can save your facility serious money and a lot of headaches. Here are some tips to keep employees engaged while boosting your facility’s efficiency:
1. Create a thorough onboarding process.
Supply employees with all information needed to prepare for the job: introduce them to the tools and team they will work with, and orient them to the facility. This process should be standardized, making it repeatable and reliable. When new employees are trained at the discretion of whoever is working that day, significant details could be left out. Helping everyone stay on the same page builds trust among your employees while relieving you of actually training new people yourself.
2. Invest in employee education and training.
Similarly to the onboarding process, weekly staff meetings — as well as training sessions on gym equipment, software, and POS systems — keep everyone aligned in terms of club goals and how to use technology. Employees should also be familiar with new workout routines and techniques so they can help any member that might need assistance. The ability to recommend specific classes or trainers based on desired goals gives employees a greater sense of knowledge and credibility to members. This education creates more inherent value in whatever role that employee has and also instills a greater sense of trust between the member and employee. Members should feel confident that most questions they have can be answered by the staff at hand.
3. Offer employee incentives.
Reward employees when they do a great job. This incentivizes them to continue striving above and beyond and demonstrates that you recognize this behavior. How you measure the benchmarks for rewards is up to you. Consider things like the number of new members signed up or positive reviews left online or in a suggestion box. If this is clearly spelled out to employees, you offer them a clear line to rewards. These prizes should not be given out randomly, but rather enshrined in a well-defined and circulated document. You’ll be able to tell if this works by analyzing the metrics that the awards are based off. If your employees truly feel incentivized, you’ll achieve those goals much faster. Also, if this ends up costing your gym more than it produces, consider revisiting how you reward employees. Cash is always nice, but free membership packages or gift cards to local restaurants might prove more sustainable.
4. Test employees’ knowledge.
Quiz employees regularly to ensure they understand all processes and procedures thoroughly. This can be done through multiple choice quizzes or in-person roundtable discussions. Give them the opportunity to ask questions in weekly meetings and provide their feedback for overall facility improvement. Sometimes a shy employee might not bring up what he does not know for fear of losing his job or your trust. Encouraging a welcoming environment of learning without stigma will eventually create an educated workforce unafraid to ask a question or speak up when something is not clearly explained. You can also reward employees for their knowledge of your gym, as mentioned before. Be sure to keep tabs on the people trying to learn the most. The more your staff knows, the more helpful they can be to members.
5. Adopt a Member Focus Approach
Adopting a member focused approach, offering different experiences, products, and services to different customers based on their individual needs, is a key ingredient and philosophy for success in the health club industry today. This approach puts customers at the center of business strategy, places an emphasis on customer service training, and aims to maximize the lifetime value of health club members. The lifetime value of members being one of THE most important key performance indicators in the health club industry today. Do you want to get your staff to adopt a more member-centric approach in your health club business?
6. Create a Personalized Member Experience
Consumers in general along with gym and health club members expect personalized communications and services tailored to their individual preferences. Personalization in the health club, gym and fitness industry c needs to go beyond basic tactics like addressing customers by their first name in emails or providing one size fits all workout or exercise programming. Creating new fitness solutions and messaging using technology helps to Hyper-Personalize Health Club marketing and services.
Genomics to Personalize
3D Body Scanning
Artificial Intelligence and Predictive Analytics
AnOutsourced CEO and expert witness, Jim Thomas is the founder and president of Fitness Management USA Inc., a management consulting, turnaround and brokerage firm specializing in the gym and sports industry. With more than 25 years of experience owning, operating and managing clubs of all sizes, Thomas lectures and delivers seminars, webinars and workshops across the globe on the practical skills required to successfully to overcome obscurity, improve sales, build teamwork and market fitness programs and products. In addition, his company will buy gym equipment from gyms liquidating or closing. Visit his Web site at:www.fmconsulting.netorwww.jimthomasondemand.com.
“While we share the ‘how to’s,’ we help you effectively apply success principles yourself. Our programs are designed to give you quick measurable results.” ~ Jim Thomas
A Recommendation of Jim Thomas, President of Fitness Management and Consulting
by Norm Cates, Club Insider Publisher and Tribal Leader Since 1993
Jim Thomas is a talented, experienced, dedicated, determined, and very professional expert in the health, racquet and sportsclub industry. A club industry veteran of over 30 years, Jim has been a Club Insider Contributing Author since March of 2006, when he joined our Club Insider Contributing Author Team. During that time Jim has written and contributed 50 articles which have been published during our 284 months of Club Insider publishing. Jim Thomas is a truly great asset to our publication, and to our wonderful industry, and he can be trusted to deliver great results, over and over, no matter what the challenge.
