Gym, leisure club and Fitness Business Re-Opening Strategy

Gym, leisure club and Fitness Business Re-Opening Strategy

Black Raccoon have created a comprehensive guide for Gyms, fitness clubs and leisure facilities to enable them to start planning their re-opening

Download the guide here

Club Re-Opening guide

Get your Gym ready to exit Hibernation

 Your Business Being in Hibernation is an opportunity!

If you own or manage a fitness business, you are not alone in having to sit out this crisis from the sideline.  You are in the same position as almost every gym throughout the world, so believe me when I say you are not alone.  What make our industry so special is the exact reason why we have been asked to close our doors.

Unlike may other businesses we bring people together, not only to participate but to be part of communities, to train together and enjoy the journeys each of us are on. 

Unfortunately, in a Pandemic like our business model actual becomes the enemy.  So, we have all followed guidance, we have closed our doors and gone online, we have continued to inspire our clients with online PT, group exercise and nutritional support. It’s an inspiring phenomenon to watch an industry full of bright forward-thinking individuals be able to change years of engrained thoughts and ideas and embrace a new reality.

For many clubs and businesses though, this amazing change in focus and product delivery has been done for free. Seen as a way of not losing members and not a revenue source or simply as a way of rationalizing why members should continue to pay.  Whatever the reason, it has been a shift that very few industries have been able to make and shows how strong our businesses really are.

The practical challenge now is how we survive and prepare our clubs, bootcamps, personal training businesses for re-opening.  The great news is you as a manager or business owner have never had such an opportunity to set your business up for success.  It does not matter whether you are a large multinational, a Franchise club, an independent fitness business or a freelance personal trainer you should be working now to make sure you are ready. There are 5 key point that you should be reviewing right now in preparation:

1Re-opening Hygiene and safe Distancing protocols

We all know we won’t be going straight back to business as normal and that we will have strict hygiene and social distancing regulations to adhere to.  Now is the time to get these processes in place, write them up and have the engrained into your business.  Some of which you may end up keeping long term so its worth the effort now.  These include:

·        New Equipment cleaning standards

·        Sanitizing protocols – hand stations on each piece of kit or just dotted around the gym

·        Do you have the ability to control member numbers in the gym? Do you need a gym usage booking system like classes?

·        Does your gym need redesigning to ensure social distancing?  For many small clubs this would involve removing some kit.  If you can’t remove kit or isolate certain areas how can you ensure social distancing

·        Do your opening times need to change? Along with this do you need to review your staffing structures. Those 24-hour clubs may have to consider restricting times to manned hours only

·        What training is required for your staff prior to opening to enable them to manage these new guidelined

2 Have you looked at your members communication channels? 

Now more than ever, the way you communicate with members will be the key to your success.  With this in mind do you have robust processes in place to ensure this is happening

·        Do you have an automated e-mail protocol to keep in touch with members, clients and prospects?  Time now creating these will reduce your workload massively once you open

·        How will you be communicating your re-opening and your new operational standards

·        Do you have a system in place that will allow you to set up automated e-mails and texts?  If not, take the time to investigate a CRM system that allows you to do this

·        Should you be having keep in touch calls with your members now?  The power of a quick call to see how members are doing cannot be underestimated.  Granted with staff on furlough this would fall into the hands of those still being paid or the owners of the business.  But hey, that isn’t a bad thing and shows how much their business is valued

·        What is your social media communications protocols?  Who is in charge? how often do you post, what are the standards to your posts, or does anything go, are you using design tools like Canva? What is your message response times and do you have any standard response to enquiries?

3Time to review your members journey

Your member and client’s journeys are your business.  This is what you will establish your reputation on.  If you don’t have a set journey that you and all your staff know and that is engrained into everything you do then this is time to sit down and create one.  It is vital you know who you are, what are you trying to achieve and how you deliver that message to every client who enters your business

Large corporate businesses spend millions on creating their brands.  This doesn’t start with a marketing strap line, its starts with an underlying belief in what they want their business message to be.  By knowing the message, you are able to create a set of rules and templates that your team can use to deliver this message.

To highlight this message lets take 2 businesses in the same industry. 

Marriott Hotels and Travel Lodge are both extremely successful hotel businesses, but both have a considerably different model and journey.  The profit per room however is not that different. One is a 4-5* brand the other 3* budget model.  They have both purposely deigned their brands to hit the market they are going after and the journeys they deliver to their clients matches this approach.

Marriott hotels lives and breaths the service delivery in everything they do, its customer centric with the moto’s and values of its founders still forming a massive part of what they do.  Travel lodge is a budget brand and so doesn’t push the service delivery but instead the quality of rooms at great value prices.  This isn’t just a marketing response, it dictates their future investments, their decisions on locations, their job specs and the way they manage their teams and their businesses.

As a leisure business you should be doing the same and asking who you are and what service you want to provide, once you establish this you can then create a journey for all your clients based on these criteria’s.  Having a well-designed client journey not only enables your staff to know your business model but its also allows you to identify the touch points to improve service and sales opportunities.

Some of the main journeys you should be dictating and not allow staff to create themselves:

·        The sales process – this should be the same whether it’s a gym instructor, the GM or the owner

·        The guest process – what happens when a guest arrives, a free tour, a Hussle pass.  This should be slick and a simple waiver and in you go.  These are potential future clients, and this is your opportunity to impress

·        The personal training journey – Why should you let the trainer dictate what that service looks like.  It’s a massive risk to your business by letting someone else determine what this service looks like

·        The member and new member journeys.  What are the touch points? How often will you message them, do they get an induction, do you book them into classes, what happens to low users etc. etc.

·        Your Group exercise journey – initially you may need to keep the virtual classes in place as restriction may remain, after these are dropped are you going to maintain your online service to run along side your studio based ones?

4Review your Operational Standards

We would all be lying if we said our clubs operating processes were perfect and that all staff followed what was set out.  Well this is your opportunity to change that and to review what is in place and what needs to either change or be managed differently to ensure it happens.  The need to ensure your operational checks and records are up to date will be paramount when you re-open.  I can see insurances companies requiring these documents in the event of an incident or a complaint and don’t be surprised if local Health and safety officers make visits to ensure your processes and records are sufficient. 

Things that should be at the top of your list:

·        Is your H&S file robust and up to date

·        Are your training records up to date and how are you going to ensure all staffed are trained prior to opening?

·        Are your cleaning and daily, weekly and monthly operations check robust enough?

·        Do you have the supply chains in place to ensure you can manage the new hygiene protocols?              

·        Do you have a regular auditing process to ensure these processes don’t break down and staff are held to account

5Review your 2020 business plan and projects and create Opening Sales Plan

Many independent, franchise and small businesses are very poor at ensuring they have effective plans in place to drive, manage and monitor performance.  Sometimes this is driven by just being stuck too deep into the business and not taking the time away to ensure these are in place.  Its always amazing to see how any business can run without knowing where they are going and how they plan to get there but that is the reality for many clubs.

Well now is the opportunity to look at this and put in place robust plans for your recovery.  It’s likely that clubs could re-open around July/August so clubs should be looking at a 5-6-month recovery business plan and projections.

Once these business plans are in place then sales and marketing plans for all aspects of their business need to be created for each month.  The first 2 months of which should be similar to their pre-sale plan. 

Any plans that are created need to take into account what the competition is likely to be doing.  This is going to unprecedented in modern times.  Every gym and fitness business in the country will be in pre-sale.  So any plans need to focus on how they can be different and stand out in a crowded market.

Whilst reviewing what revenues you can generate you should also be looking if you are not already at reducing your cost base.  The biggest one of these is staffing.  Is your staffing model correct, can you reduce the level of spend, can you change your model to less employed and more freelance?  Review all your operational costs and see if you can renegotiate contracts or changes suppliers on utilities, cleaning supplies, CRM systems.  Work out who adds value and if they don’t think of removing them from your costs.  There will be some difficult decisions, but those decisions could just save your business.

I can’t do justice in this article as to what items should be included into these sales and marketing plans, but each club should look at the following key points:

·        What are your top 2 or 3 revenue generating elements of your business?  Focus on these first.  You can’t do everything, and your reach will be limited by government restriction so focus on what can make you the biggest returns.  Most often these are Membership and personal Training, but you may have other key lines you want to focus on

·        Start to build your network and client databases now so you have people engaging with your business who you can contact close to re-opening.  This can be done through member referrals, social media adverts and competition.

·        What is your social media strategy?

·        What is your current internet presence? Is your website sufficient, do you have a google, Bing, apple, yahoo business page? Is your business loaded on the various business directories nationally and in your area?

·        What is your corporate strategy and are you starting to contact these companies now?  Waiting until you open will be way too late.

·        What is your strategy to work with the various industry aggregators?

·        What are your opening offers, are they going to be price, service or product lead? I would suggest to stand out try and avoid price lead offers and the whole world will be doing these and are you in a position to take on the large companies in a price war?  If not go back to your client journey work and focus your campaigns on these strategies.  Be the best at what you do and not the cheapest

The world of fitness is going to go through an immense change, what this looks like none of us know.  There is a real chance we could lose up to 30% of the businesses currently filling this space.  This is both scary and offers huge opportunities to those who do survive.  Will we see a growth in virtual solutions? Will members rush back to their own clubs, will budget clubs with their large membership basis struggle to manage with the strict guidelines being enforced

Who knows, but as will all situations, those who are best prepared are more likely to succeed.  As the old saying goes “fail to plan is planning to fail”, don’t be that statistic, be the one that flourishes.

Review your Gym's client journey

What is your clients Journeys?

So you have great gym equipment, really good engaging and knowledgeable team, solid cleaning processes, your Health and safety is spot on, you post regularly on social media and feel like you have a good club.

The question though is, do you know what your client journeys are?

In other words, do you know where the touch points are and where you can effectively influence their decision making? Not always in terms of additonal revenues but also those touch points that encourage members to refer you to friends, that encourage them to stay longer than they may otherwise have done and yes of course those touch points that encourage your clients to spend more money.

Don't forget you will have a range of clients in your business and each one of these should have defined journey you want them to follow.  Once you know who these people are you can create the journey and train your teams to deliver them.  It is no surprise that the likes of Disney and Marriott hotels are known for their service levels. Whilst the staff are often very engaged and love to interact with clients, much of that interaction is pre-determined, its planned, its trained out and standards are then audited to ensure it happens every time.

Don't mistake your gym for being different.  If you set out these rules of engagement  and get your teams to deliver it seamlessly you will not only improve your retention rates but also your revenues, your customer satisfaction and your referral business.  Know who you are and deliver it consistently and with excellence.

So who are your potential customers?

Every club is slightly different so some or all of these may apply

- Your membership prospect (telephone enquiry, appointments and walk-ins)

- Your members (including current and ex-members)

- Club guests

- Aggregator members (Hussle, gympass, classpass etc)

- Spa clients

- Members friends/referrals

- Online clients

- Personal training clients (current and previous clients)

- Group X clients

- Group Personal training clients

- Corporate Members

There are bound to be more that are more bespoke to your business but you get the idea.  Your aim now is to look at each one of these clients and review what their journey should entail.  I will give you some examples to make the process easier for you.  If you want more detailed support please give us a shout at Black Raccoon Consultants and we will guide you through the process.

Remember throughout this process we all as humans have 5 senses? as much as possible we want to hitting all of those.  Also take into account that people communicate and take in information in 3 different ways.  We are wither Auditory, Visual or Kinaesthetic.  In essence we either like to here the information, see it or feel it.  Your journeys need to take all these types of people into account.

Examples:

A new Member Prospect

- The telephone enquiry:

    i. Who handles the telephone enquiry? does a receptionist answer the phone and pass the enquiry to the sales team or is the receptions and the sales consultant the same person

    ii. Is the telephone answered the same by all staff? sounds simple but most clubs I work with allow their teams to answer the phone anyway they wish, some staff are therefor great, others are downright unprofessional.  Clients wont remember the professional but the will recall the bad?

    iii. Do you have a telephone script that every member of staff follows?  This is important to ensure consistency and also allow you to ensure clients are set up for the tour properly when they arrive.  The tours starts at this initial enquiry so it needs to be right.

    iv. Have all staff been trained properly.  Not just shown the scripted but has the process been roll played

    v. Do you have a process for ensuring solid data collection 

- The Tour

Remember throughout this process we all have 5 senses? as much as possible we want to hitting all of those.  All take into account that people communicate and take in information in 3 different ways

    i. What is the customers first impression of the club.  Is the front doors and outside clean? Is the entrance area inviting and easy to find? Is a members of staff available when they arrive at the front desk? Does the reception smell inviting? what is the music playing?  

   ii. Is it clear where they need to report to?

   iii. What is the meet and Greet process?

   iv. What is your needs analysis process and where will this take place? Sounds strange but often the reception is not the best place for this. Its too busy, to impersonal and not a great place to discuss goals and personal information.  Or you can decide not to do a detailed needs analysis and just chat about training on your walk around the club.  (I am not a fan of the second but some clubs chose this as their journey)

   v. What does the tour look like?  It should be the same, hitting the same key points, showing off what you do well.  It shouldn’t be a wander around the club with statements like "here is the treadmill".  All tours should be needs specific, show them what will help them or what they want to see and show them what you do well.  Show them pictures of members working hard, introduce them to members of staff, get them on the kit and show them how it works.  

You need to know how that looks for your club, but it should be exciting, vibrant, tailored to the client and show off why they should join you

   vi. The price presentation: Where will this take place, reception or the bar? How are you presenting the price? what collateral are you using, at what point do you mention personal training and other services in the presentation?

    vii. What is your process for closing and overcoming objections

    viii.  If the clients decided not to join what information are they given to take away

     viiii. What is your follow-up process? is this automated, how often are they called, texted, emailed.  How is this process managed?

The sales process is probably one most clubs are familiar with but the example about should be applied to all clients and their various journeys.  Probably the most ignored is the new members/current members journey.  We spend thousands on advertising, dragging new enquiries in, we then sign them up, some may do an induction/orientation into the gym but that’s about it and then we simply forget about them and hope they keep paying

What is amazing, we then decide to send these members adverts to buy pt., protein packs or group training sessions having not engaged with them for weeks or months.  We then wonder why our amazing new offers don't get any bites.

In the same way you create and train your sales process, you should do the same for your members.  So when creating the members journey you have to consider the following points

- What/where will be the touchpoints for your members.  In other words what opportunities do you have to interact with members:

     i. On reception, every time they enter and leave the club.  if you don't man reception, how do you plan to meet and greet every member every time

     ii. The induction/orientation.  When does this take place? i would suggest to aim for at worst within 7 days of joining.  How often do you intend to offer this support in the future? if not at all, then how do you push them to the personal trainers without consistently just throwing PT offers at them

     iii. What is the contact journey from the club manager. I would suggest every member gets a welcome call from the GM/Owner with 1 month

     iv. What is the process of staff supporting members on the gym floor?

     v. Do members have a program card, an app with their program and how often is this reviewed

     vi. Are members allocated their own coach who's job it is to maintain regular contact each month? If not how are you planning on keeping the touchpoints personal?

     vii. What is your automated e-mail process?

     viii. Do you Send a Newsletter every month or Bi-monthly?

     viiii. At what point are you introducing members to the personal training team

- How do you encourage members to sign up to your social media pages 

- Do you have social events to encourage member/member interaction

- The physical club - do you need to review how your club is set out to maximise comfort and use of the club.  Whilst you may like the look of the club, does it allow for nervous members to train away from the 'Crew'. 

taking in all the above you also need to think:

- Is my club clean, 

- Does it smell right

- Are the posters and marketing up to date and informative

- Are the staff in uniform and do they look smart and portray the right image.

- Are the staff trained and understand the journeys

I appreciate there is a lot of things to consider for each client type.  What you do need to remember though, by setting out what you want and how you want it delivered you are able to create the right atmosphere, manager and deliver the service levels you want and manage the performance of the staff based on these guidelines.

You cannot simply ask staff for exceptional behaviour, you need to set out and train out the expectations.  You cant train anything if you don’t understand what this looks like 100%

I work with so many Franchise clubs where the message gets lost.  The only things that makes each one recognisable is the brand above the door.  This is often because the message of what the journey is gets lost.  If you want to see clubs that do this well, visit the likes of 1Rebel, their service delivery is exceptional and you can see this in any of their clubs not just the odd one.  Outside of our industry, check out the big hotel chains.  Gyms can learn a huge amounts form hotels, they have developed guest journeys that are delivered time after time to make your visits feel special. Trust me whilst you believe its personal, they do this to every client but because its so well trained and delivered its fells personal.

With so much potential time on your hands during the lock down, you would be silly not to take some time to review your business.  Yes, looking at costs savings and potential revenue opportunities are important, so is being in a position to take your club to the next level and being able to wow your clients simply by doing the basics.  None of this should be rocket science but simple processes that can be repeated time after time but which when done well deliver the desired outcome for you and your customers

Here at Black Raccoon we have experience of working not only with gyms, leisure clubs, spa and golf clubs but also within hotels and can support you on creating your own personal set of client journeys

Get in touch today

Black Raccoon Consultants

www.blackraccoon.org

ryancharlesworth@blackraccoon.org

07929369658

   

Gym Marketing Activity during the Corona Crisis

Marketing Activity During the Corona Virus Crisis

The biggest question our clients are asking during this testing time is, "should I still be marketing my business, and if so, How?"

My instant response is of course "YES".  Don't stop selling.  Even if you have taken the decision to furlough staff and to mothball the business for the next few months.  You need to keep your business and brand in front of your clients and your potential new customers. 

You don't want to be in a position where you are starting from scratch once the Prime Minister announces are re-opening.  When that happens, the big players such as Virgin, Pure gym, David Lloyds, Banatyne will switch their marketing spends on and as a franchise or independent club operator you simply won’t get a look in as they will simply outspend you on Google Ads, Facebook and Instagram.  So now is the time to build your brand, let people know who are, get more followers on your social media, more clients in your database and make sure you are ready to fire out of the blocks with a solid plan.

I appreciate many clubs are running online classes, virtual PT sessions and even nutrition advice support.  These are all brilliant and great ways of maintaining contact with your members and clients. Don't stop doing this as its important to maintain what you have.  The ideas below are set out to help you move beyond those who are already avid supporters of your business.

So below are just some of the activities you should be considering over the next few months:

Google/Bing Places/Apple Maps

Whilst your website and its SEO are important to your visibility, more importantly is being registered with the various search engines.  Search Engines drive the internet and the maps section is one of the biggest search criteria.  You may not be able to compete with the big companies via ad spend, but you can on ensuring you are visible on the organic searches and on the map’s sections of Google, Bing and Apple.

These are easy to create:

Google - https://www.google.com/business/ & https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/google-my-business

Bing Places - https://www.bingplaces.com/

Apple Connect - https://mapsconnect.apple.com/

Yahoo - https://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/local

You should see Google Business an additional Social Media channel and ensure you load offers, images and activity regularly.  Once or twice per week is sufficient. 

Online Business Directories

You want to ensure search engines not only sees your website but also sees your business on as many other outlets and websites as well. The more your business appears in searches the more trusted it becomes, and the more likely search engines will push you to the top.  Below are some of the national sites you should be on but also don't forget about local business directories that are specific to your area.  Almost all of these directories are free and there should be no need to pay for advanced features

Yell.com - https://www.yell.com/

Thomson Local - https://www.thomsonlocal.com/

Scoot - https://www.scoot.co.uk/

Foursquare - http://business.foursquare.com/

Hotfrog - http://business.foursquare.com/

192.com - https://www.192.com/

Cyclex - https://www.cylex-uk.co.uk/

Approved Business - https://www.approvedbusiness.co.uk/

Best on the web - https://botw.org

Yalwa - https://m.yalwa.co.uk/

Brownbook - https://www.brownbook.net/

Bizify - https://www.bizify.co.uk/

Classfinder - https://www.classfinder.org.uk/

Gymsnearme - https://www.gymsnearme.org.uk/

Yelp - https://biz.yelp.co.uk/

Free Index - https://www.freeindex.co.uk/

Locanto - https://www.locanto.co.uk/

Uk Small Business Directory - https://www.uksmallbusinessdirectory.co.uk/

Opening Times - https://www.opening-times.co.uk/

UK Business Directory - https://www.uk-businesses.co.uk/

Tapology - https://www.tapology.com/gyms/country/gb

The above are by no means a definitive list but they are a good starting point.  It will take some of your time to load your club’s details, but the benefits will be well worth it.  It will increase your exposure.

Aggregator sites:

There are definitely reasons for and against registering your business on these sites and this will be covered in a separate blog post.  However, what cannot be underestimated is the marketing impact they can play. 

By loading your business onto their sites, you get to feed off the back of their huge marketing budgets that these companies have.  If you set up your arrangements correctly you won’t feel the negative impact of lost members to a pay as you go system but will benefit from the potential exposure on their site.  

I have personally used all of these business at a variety of sites and never seen any negative impact on the business.  This is not to say, if not managed correctly they could but as with Group-on, wahanda etc, managed effectively they can bring great benefits

These companies include:

Gympass - https://www.gympass.com/uk

Hussle - https://www.hussle.com/

MoveGB - https://go.movegb.com/

If you are unsure how you should be setting up relationships with these companies then feel free to get in touch with us at ryancharlesworth@blackraccoon.org and we will be happy to advise.

Social Media:

Now your social media activity is a blog or even 2 in itself but I will try and give you a few ideas of things you could be doing now that will help you create a following as well as leads for when your business re-opens.

Remember we are focusing on building your brand here and not on member retention

 - Set up a private group page on Facebook for Members.  This allows you to offer those who continue to support you a private service just for them as well as an opportunity to engage with fellow members, many of those who know each other but not well enough to be friends

       i. Discounted virtual PT sessions

       ii. Members only competitions

       iii. Nutrition seminars via zoom

       iv. Encourage members to post their home activity or food images

       v. Post recipe idea's

       vi. Group challenges - set a challenge and get members to post their results and videos

The aim is to create a strong community online.

Other Ideas:

 - Create a regular fitness blog and post 1 article a week. The subject can be anything fitness related
 - Run a competition each week for people to win free months, free PT sessions, free t-shirts (or other stock).  Make them fun, get people to send in their at home training pictures. 

 - A workout of the week for people to follow

 - As with pre-sale activity, run a campaign for people to register their details for fantastic membership offers when you open. Limited number of places available

 - Push posts about your unique Selling Points (USP's) why are you different, why do members love you so much

 - If you are continuing to run online classes and PT then don't be afraid to advertise this as something non-members can pay for.  Encourage new members to join your club now.  Maybe have an incentive to do so.  Obviously don't undercut those members who have agreed to continue to pay, instead give them an incentive they can take up once you re-open.

 - If you are confident enough run Facebook or Instagram Live events to answer people fitness questions.

 - You should join as many local Facebook groups in your area as possible.  This can include local selling groups, mother and baby groups, fitness groups etc etc.  Many local communities have their own communication groups. Ones I have dealt with before and worth a look are Ruddington Mums and Epsom and Ewell families.  Both these groups have huge influence in their communities and well worth you making a connection with and building a relationship.

Members:

Don't forget to continue to sell to members.  Its great if members are continuing to pay for your online services and continuing to support your business.  You should though:

 - Be sending regular communications to members - possibly as a newsletter

 - Send referral offers to encourage them to get friends and family to join your online classes

 - Offer free trials of online personal training with a discount for those who sign up. Discounting now will mean less revenue but get the client engaged now and they will continue as a full paying client when you re-open.

 - If you have the skill base, offer members nutrition planning and support

Your Lead Database:

Don't allow your leads to go cold.  You have worked so hard to generate these leads over the last 6 -12 months. Don't now leave them to become cold and worthless as you really will be starting from scratch.  There are some easy and low impact items you can do now to keep contact with those potential new members

- Weekly E-mails - Simply send your prospects some fitness updates or articles each week.  These don't need to be long just quick snippets of advice and could include:

      i. A weekly workout

      ii. Link to a fitness article

      iii. How to train through the crisis advise

      iv. Stretching advice

      v. Nutrition advice

      vi. Exercise from home for beginners

      vii. Exercise with your kids

Let’s be honest the key here is to send something that people will read and thank you for sending. It needs to be regular and it needs to be friendly and informative

- Send them an offer to join your club now if you are running online classes.  Many people are stuck at home and yearning to be part of a community.  Give them an incentive and don't be afraid to continue to sell.  The aim though is that these offers should form part of a communication set and not as individual emails.  Start by sending advice, information, help and support articles first to build trust.

- Don't be afraid if you have time to call your prospects and thank them for their enquiry and ask them how they are getting on with their training from home.  They will appreciate the call and your concern.  This is not a sales call but simply a keep in touch call.

Corporate Activity:

Now you might think I am going mad here but here me out.  This really is a great opportunity to start making connections with potential corporate partners.  Remember who your audience is here.  Even those who are furloughed will still be reading e-mails, linked in and other business channels.  The nature of their work and position will mean they will not have switched off.  The big difference now though is your message won’t be a hindrance to their work but in fact a highlight and something they can get stuck into.

There are a number of ways you can start to build your corporate database:

 - LinkedIn - There are a number of ways you can find the right people:

       i. Google search businesses in your area and use this as a search reference for you to use on Linked in.  Once you have found appropriate people look for HR directors or managers in those companies.  They can either support directly or push you to the right person

       ii. Complete a LinkedIn search for your area

       iii. complete a job title search in your area

Remember when sending connection requests, always include a brief comment to explain who you are and what you are looking to achieve.

 - Hunter.io - This website allows you to search for individual actual direct e-mail address if you know the company name.  Be aware that the site cannot tell you whether those people are based in your area and so for large multinational companies this can increase the work required.  It can though give you a good starting point.

 Local Business Relationships:

The above can also be used to connect to local businesses who you would like to create a future relationship with for when you open.  A good connection point is you are trying to create a member’s discount scheme and would like local companies to join you in creating this.  There are benefits for both parties and no money needs to change hands.  You should look to create links first with high traffic businesses who can help you as well in return, independent businesses are also best as there are no corporate chain to worry about

     i. Restaurants

     ii. Cafe's

     iii. Running/sports shops (independent ones are best) - Up and Running are always up for linking

     iv. Barbers, hairdressers and beauty salons

Don’t forget, not only can these companies help by putting out your flyers and maybe putting up a banner in their shops, but they are great at word of mouth but usually have high street or prominent locations for future outreach activity

Review your Website:

Spend a few hours going through your website page by page. Look at how you can improve it.  You should look to revamp it even if just a few minor changes.  Your members, clients and prospects will be spending large amounts of time on the internet.  You need them to want to stop on your site again.  If nothing has changed then there is no reason for them to revisit

The design may be hard to change but you can change some images, update some of text and add some new features

Only you will know how you want the design to look but this is your chance to make it better and more engaging

Your future Plan:

While working on all of the above you should be looking at creating your pre-opening plan.  Everyone will be treating their opening as a pre-sale.  We know we probably have another 6-8 weeks minimum in lock down.  You need to take this time to create a plan. 

We will talk about this plan in a future blog but to get you started you need to start thinking about:

- Pre-sale/Pre-opening offer - launching 4 weeks out

- Members "Thank You" 

- Your Ex-member offer and campaigns to bring them back - a Rescue plan

- Your Personal training offers

- Your Group PT offer

- Your Outreach activity plan - the big boys will be everywhere!

- Your social media plan

- Your staff training strategy

- Your Business plan/Budget numbers for the rest of the year

- Your brand design material, internal and external.

- Start to interview for new staff or new freelance PT's

I will attempt to expand on all the sections mentioned above to give you more ideas and support at this time.  If you would like more a more personal approach to how I can help, please don't hesitate to get in touch.  We offer remote support for businesses from Just £349/month and with no onsite visits at the moment we have the time to take on some new clients and support your efforts. Get in touch today

ryancharlesworth@blackraccoon.org
07929369658
www.blackraccoon.org