WHAT DOES A “DEEP CLEAN” OF MY LEISURE CLUB, REALLY MEAN, IN THE CONTEXT OF REOPENING AFTER LOCKDOWN?

It's clear that cleanliness hygiene and safety will be vital for returning members and therefore, for clubs’ success, even their very survival.

One national chain’s Twitter feed saw a 3,900% increase in tweets regarding cleanliness & hygiene just before lockdown versus an increase of only 1,363% of tweets regarding membership cancellation or postponement. Snippets of data from live member surveys during lockdown have also confirmed this point: in one example, social distancing was named as very important by 64%, but 87% cited cleanliness as very important for them to return to clubs.

What though does cleanliness, actually mean? What should we be aiming for? How do we go about achieving it? There are lots of competing viewpoints on this topic. And so, in this article, we'll try to demystify the subject for you.

Clean vs sanitise vs disinfect

The first, critical point, you must understand is the difference between cleaning, sanitising and disinfecting:

·        Cleaning is the removal of contamination

·        Sanitising is the reduction of viruses and bacteria from the surface

·        Disinfection is the removal of viruses or bacteria from the surface

You cannot sanitize or disinfect a surface that is dirty.

The NHS says: “Disinfection is only effective if the surface is thoroughly cleaned beforehand”

What members expect

Some commentators have stated they don't believe members will be expecting a “medical level of cleanliness” when clubs reopen.

However, if your goal is to be hygienically clean, you absolutely do need to aim for an “as new” standard of cleanliness. Otherwise, any attempt to disinfect or sanitise will not be fully effective.

If we are increasing cleaning with a goal of ensuring safety, we absolutely must do effective cleaning to remove all contamination from surfaces.

If members return after lockdown and see pristinely clean facilities, their reaction will be: “Wow, my club has gone above and beyond. They really care about me. And I believe this is a safe environment to visit.”

If, conversely, they walk through the door and you still have grubby changing room floors and body fat stained shower walls, they're going to think: “What the hell have these guys been doing for the last three months? Why don't they care about my safety? If they can't even be bothered to clean the place properly, how on earth can I believe that there's no coronavirus here?”

What is clean?

The leisure sector has suffered for many years from poor standards of cleanliness. There are all sorts of drivers for this:

One of the results is that managers often don't really know what true cleanliness is. I don’t believe managers want the poor standards that have perpetuated; they seem not to notice just how bad things are.

Fortunately, there are three ways to assess true cleanliness, which I call 3D Cleanliness:

1)     Standards: How does a surface look? How does it feel? How does the area smell?

2)     Hygiene: this can be scientifically measured

3)     Slip safety (for floors only): which, again, can be scientifically measured

As mentioned above, you cannot have a hygienic surface without it first being cleaned. However, it is possible to have a surface which appears to be clean, but is not hygienic and / or a floor surface which appears to be clean, but is slippery when wet.

Cleaning has moved on from “does it look okay” and “are we doing it cheaply” to “is it being done properly?” “Are we getting the outcomes?” “Can we prove this to ourselves and our clients?”

How to achieve true cleanliness

We’ve developed a model called ROTAS to help you.

This sets out the five factors you need to get right in a deep clean process. Or, indeed, this is applicable to ongoing cleaning and maintenance too. Remember that, whilst it's critical your club is clean for reopening, it also needs to stay that way!

Work through each of the factors and consider what you could do with each. They are all interconnected and interrelated, though: If one of the five fails, the cogs will grind to a halt. You need to tick all the boxes.

Trying to do a deep clean too quickly (therefore cheaply) will see it fail to achieve the outcomes you need because you’ll fall foul of the ROTAS model.

What's the best way to deliver a deep clean? Can I do it myself in-house, or should I outsource it?

It's certainly not beyond the realm of possibility to achieve a good standard of deep cleaning yourself.

However, there could be various barriers: from the availability of time, to the availability of labour, to the skill and experience of that labour, to the products and equipment that you have available and, critically, to the condition of the club before you start.

Overall, if you want to try doing a deep clean in-house, I suggest you review the ROTAS and 3d Cleanliness models and try a small area to see if you can achieve an acceptable result.

If you can’t, try a different process and keep iterating until you succeed, or give a specialist a call. If you can, then crack on but remember to check that you are replicating that standard. For example, you can clean 2 floor tiles for 20 minutes and get them very clean, but trying to replicate that across a floor is almost impossible.

Can my daily cleaning company do it for me?

Across the sector, clubs with outsourced cleaning are, in my experience, just as poor as clubs cleaned in-house.

Further, deep cleaning and daily cleaning are two wholly different animals. Typically in leisure, a “deep clean” has involved asking a handful of people to stay late, getting take away pizza, and deck scrubbing the changing room floors manually to within an inch of their lives. But, with little regard to the outcome or the process. Your daily cleaner, who is used to running a mop around, is probably not the right person to be attempting a deep clean.

Take my business as an example: I can show you countless examples of successful, transformative deep cleans. But I can’t show you any examples of us doing average-to-poor daily cleaning (because we don’t do it).

Your daily cleaning company might talk a good game about deep cleaning. Though, if they are so good at it, why are outsourced clubs across the sector not noticeably cleaner?

When should I start?

Remember you absolutely cannot leave this to the last minute. Any specialist cleaning company worth its salt will be incredibly busy in June and July (not just in the leisure sector). You should be starting this process now, however you want to do it.

If your club was deep cleaned effectively next week, it wouldn’t get dirty again before you reopen. Better to get it done and then you know that’s one thing ticked off your long to do list.

I've decided to outsource my deep cleaning. How should I choose a supplier?

Every man and his dog seem to be purporting to offer “Coronavirus deep clean and disinfection” services.

I’d advise you to carefully consider the following factors.

1)     Can the company prove that it has a long successful history of deep cleaning leisure facilities? There is a huge difference between a poolside (where you need to consider pool contamination as well as the unique contamination on / in floors) and cleaning an office.

2)     Does the contractor have any relevant partnerships or accreditations? Are they known, liked and trusted by industry bodies or other authoritative third parties?

3)     What evidence exists that risk management is a core competency of the contractor? We’re not just cleaning for aesthetics here; we are cleaning for safety too. Do they have accreditations? Do they have experience working with risk management focused professionals such as insurance companies, insurance brokers, lawyers etc?

4)     What disinfection / sanitisation method are they using? Countless companies have been offering” COVID-19 sanitisation” but only undertaking “Ghostbusters” fogging. Without a thorough, effective deep clean, this is, frankly, a bit of a waste of time from an infection control perspective. It also doesn’t alleviate concerns members will have about cleanliness standards and aesthetics.

5)     Is their pricing model realistic? If you consider how long it would take you to physically to a deep clean to high standard and then to successfully disinfect surfaces, you might be surprised at the hours required. A typical wet facility would need six people for six days, in our experience. No doubt companies will be offering to clean and disinfect that size of a club for £2,000+VAT. You therefore know before they’ve even started that they simply won’t be able to deliver what you need. (£2,000 divided by minimum wage plus National Insurance is 199 hours (so 6 people for only 4 days) not allowing for any materials, equipment, PPE or profit.

6)     Can they provide recent case studies and references? You should ensure to get variety of up to date, relevant references.

IF YOU’D LIKE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT CLEANLINESS & HYGIENE AND THE LEISURE SECTOR’S RELAUNCH FROM LOCKDOWN, PLEASE VISIT WWW.SLIPSAFETY.CO.UK/LEISURE-CORONAVIRUS-RELAUNCH/

Christian Harris

Founder

Slip Safety Services

charris@slipsafety.co.uk

WHY YOU NEED TO TELL YOUR BRANDS STORY

“A brand is a person’s gut feeling about a product, service or company. It’s not what you say it is, it’s what THEY say it is” – Marty Neumeier

The idea of ‘brand’ is by no means something new, but something that only a very few really grasp the full potential and value of, and those that do, change the world. This might seem like a cliché, can everyone really expect to change world? Maybe not, but you have the chance to build something with meaning, a reason for being outside of making money, to build and enrich the lives of others, to build community, bring people together and share what you’re passionate about.

We live in a rapidly and constantly evolving digital world which is endlessly trying to get our attention, sell us products and services, there are so many alternatives, so many choices, so many decisions to be made as a consumer, there’s always a new collaboration, always a new model, always a new colour, always a new feature, so why should I buy your product or service?

‘Only one competitor can be the cheapest - the others have to use branding. The stronger the brand, the greater the profit margin’ - Marty Neumeier

Ask yourself about the last meaningful or big purchase you made. Why did you buy it? Did you really buy the Apple computer because no other computer will be able to get the job done? Did you really buy those pair of Nike trainers because the other trainers won’t help you run as fast? Does that expensive watch help you tell the time any faster and does that specific car get you from A to B any quicker when you’re sat in endless queues of traffic? Deep down we all know the answer, you made those purchases because of what they stand for and because for you, they help to represent who you are and what you stand for. They elevate the story we tell ourselves of who we are. The truth is, this is no different from the gym you choose or the personal trainer you hire. Build and offer a product that people believe in and that there is no substitute for. Price then has nothing to do with it, people will find the money for what they truly value.

I’m going to take a quick side note here to mention some brands that I personally love and believe really have a grasp on their brand identity; Nike, Apple, Vans, Under Armour and Patagonia to name a few. These are obviously huge brands, but every brand no matter how big started with humble beginnings, Phil Knight, the founder of what became Nike, started selling his shoes from the trunk of his car and Steve Jobs created the first Macintosh in his garage. Want to know what propelled these brands into the behemoths that they are now? Marketing.

“Things don’t have to change the world to be important” – Steve Jobs

So you’ve got a strong grasp of your brand’s identity, you know your purpose, your mission, your why, how are you going to communicate that message? As we’ve established, people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it. You’ve got to communicate that why to them. Why is your product or service irreplaceable? Why is there no substitute? You’ve got to tell them your story and your mission.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlItYKCtQ-8

Above you can see a Nike advert produced with Lebron James the NBA great. I’m going to largely let the video speak for itself, but what I will say is that the one ingredient that makes this  advert so powerful, is the story it’s telling. This is the most effective way you can truly connect with your audience, it’s your biggest asset, we’ve all got a story, we’ve all come through struggles and adversity, we’ve all got dreams and aspirations, we all want to reach our full potential, there’s nothing more relatable than your story. So tell it.

What’s the best medium to tell this story? Without a doubt, the most effective way to communicate this is through video. You’ve got access to a laptop or phone and the internet, it costs you nothing to create a social media account, any serious business will have a website, you must, MUST be utilising video. Look at every social media platform and how it’s adapted for video. Even Twitter, traditionally just 140 characters of text now has automatically built in video playing features for its feed. I’m not going to begin throwing statistics at you to explain the effectiveness of video compared to plain text or pictures, you can do that yourself with a quick search in google, but what I will say is this: when you’re scrolling endlessly through Facebook to see what colour socks your neighbour was wearing today, keep in mind what kind of content is grabbing, then keeping your attention.

The good news is you can be utilising video right now. Right this second. Pick up your phone and press record (just made sure that your thumb is out of the way). Recording from your phone has its obvious limitations, but it can be a vital part of your video strategy. Tell your story, for a lot of organic content your phone will suffice to get your message across, if you want to take other pieces of content to the next level to have even more of an impact and add to your brand value, feel free to chat with a Video Producer like myself (my details should hopefully be listed below). Be wary though, I would suggest not every platform is suited for every brand or individual. Want to keep a premium and professional image? I wouldn’t recommend creating a TikTok of you talking to yourself getting dressed in the morning. Want TO tell a well crafted, cinematic and emotive story? Get right to the core of your purpose and impact people the most? YouTube is perfect for that.

People can see when businesses are only interested in making money from a mile away, I truly believe that ironically the more you do something without the sole purpose of making money the more people will buy into it and what you do. But you still need to put it out there. You won’t just grow your audience, but you’ll create a fierce loyalty if you have the right intentions. Create your brand and communicate your message. Look around you (on your phone) and realise how visual the ever-growing ever-evolving digital world is. How are you going to tell your story?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sMBhDv4sik

“Art is difficult, risky, and frightening. It’s also the only option if we choose to care” - Seth Godin

Wriiten by Nathan Cullen

www.nathancullen.co.uk

Email: Nathancullen93@gmail.com

Tanita Body Composition– helping you come back stronger.

Tanita Body Composition– helping you come back stronger.

Why Tanita Body Composition Analysis?

Successful fitness businesses all have something in common; they put the member at the centre of everything they do. There are a number of ways in which this can be done but one that is utilised by successful operators at a multinational level all the way down to single PT’s operating out of studios, is professional body composition analysis.

There are many benefits of utilising professional body composition, too many for a short blog so we will focus now on two: the levels of engagement it helps to create with members, the knock on effect this has on retention and secondly the levels of personalisation you can offer across the whole business.

Retention booster

Many leading advisers on retention for the fitness industry talk about the importance of communication with members, you don’t have to read too much of the work done by Guy Griffiths or Richard Earney to realise ‘creating a culture of feedback’ has a seriously positive impact on member retention. This may beg the question ‘how’ do you create this culture? Building body composition measurements into your member packages starts this process for you all by itself. You have the initial ‘consultation’, followed by the development (if required) of a personalised training plan based on these health metrics, naturally, regular check ins follow this. Before you know it, you are communicating and feeding relevant information back to members on a regular basis, you can then choose to tie any other amount of messages/information or offers into this feedback and really develop that relationship with each and every member. This results in members becoming part of your gym community and really taking on responsibility for their own health journey which brings us perfectly to point number two –

Personalisation

If a member or client feels like it’s all about them, they are much more likely to be happy and continue their memberships. Utilising health measurements from professional Tanita body composition devices allows you to have a real ‘health’ conversation and shift the focus from weight and BMI. What could be more important right now!? The public are more health focussed than at any other time in most of our living memories, there has been article after article emphasising the importance of exercise and maintaining healthy body fat and muscle mass ranges in boosting immunity, the challenge may be to encourage them back through your door! Offering health assessments and personalised training programmes based around their body measurements, with the ability to track this on a regular basis will be a real selling point for any health and fitness facility.

Personalisation doesn’t just stop at members measurements, it also opens the door for you to build bespoke membership packages ranging from ‘virtual’ members who may only attend the gym for check ins and access all their content online through to ‘premium’ membership packages which could include regular health assessments, full gym access, PT sessions, clothing…..you name it!

The numbers don’t lie!

This is certainly true for body composition measurements over weight and BMI but in a study carried out by Tanita it showed that ‘conversion of prospect to signed up member’ increased by 21% when body composition analysis was utilised as part of a trial or tour. ‘Personal trainer bookings’ also doubled from an average of 8 sessions to 16 when body composition measurements were reviewed on a 4-weekly basis.

As we reopen our doors, many industry leaders are talking about a ‘new normal’. How you adapt to this as a fitness facility will most certainly shape your business’s future. Tanita professional body composition analysers are already prevalent within the fitness industry and there is a solution to suit each and every facility. Right now Tanita are offering discounts across a range of professional packages including software to help you come back stronger.

For further information contact Simon Wilkinson on simon.wilkinson@tanita.eu or 07795278733.

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

Why should you consider a Consultant for your Fitness Club Pre-Sale?

They could just be the missing piece!

As a fitness professional, investor or entrepreneur you have invested in a new business venture to open your own fitness facility.  First of all, CONGRATULATIONS!  You have an adventure ahead of you that you will never forget.  Fitness is an exciting and hugely rewarding industry to be part of and to be a business leader in our industry can not be beaten.

For many, this investment is no pocket change and so whilst the end product is exciting when fully operational and paying back its investment, getting there can be filled with many ups and downs.  What I want to try and do with this article is ensure you have the relevant skills, resources  and support to deliver your project on time, on budget and with the maximum success.  

So what should you consider:

1) Are you going alone or have you bought a Franchise model.

There are benefits to both models and I have covered this in previous articles (Is buying a Fitness franchise right for me?).  What is important to understand is what level of support do you have access too?  

As an independent club you will rely on your own knowledge as well as that of colleagues you have connected with over the years.  As a Franchise you will get support from the Franchisor.  Be mindful that this support may not be as much as you require and some are better than others at providing on the ground support.  

I have worked with many Franchised clubs over the years as they still believed that having access to a third party with their interest and not the franchise business interest at the forefront was important.

2) What are your own skills?

Its rare to find a fitness business owner or in fact any business owner who is a professional at all the elements of business they need to run a profitable business from the start on their own.  Just for consideration these include:

• Business planning, modelling, funding and finance
• Target setting, pricing decisions, yield management
• Project management 
• Club design, equipment decisions and supplier management
• Sales and Marketing
• Fitness service delivery
• Client Journeys and customer service planning and delivery
• Staff recruitment
• How well do you know the industry, your competitors, and how you fit in 

It is not a weakness to not be an expert in every field.  The strength is being able to identify what are your skills and ensuring you have access to someone with the skill sets that you need.  If this is through the staff you hire, people you know or hiring a specialist for the short term, its important you know where to look.

3) The workload is always greater than you initially expect.

Building a club as well as setting up and selling a new business can be a full time job for not one person but for a whole team.  Its important not to underestimate the effort that is required to get a new fitness club of the ground.

Unwise investment or lack of investment in a strong team or support network can have a massive impact on your success

4) Your pre-sale is the first and only time your club will be brand new

If there is one stage of business you don't want to take a risk on and that’s your pre-sale.  You get one chance to be brand new.  You get one chance to set the tone and your initial impression on the community your about to serve.  Making mistakes at this early stage can be the death nail to a new club. 

That may sound dramatic but having a successful presale not only makes you feel great about your project and gives you a busy, bustling club but it also has massive implications on the clubs financial position

For example:

A club opening on 200 members with an average yield of £50 would provide you with £10,000 in monthly revenues.  If you missed your target by 50 you would lose £2,500 per month until you reached your target.  However, it is not just the 50 members you have to find but also the next months budget too.  So chances are it could take 2-3 months to claw back the deficit.  For every month you are short you are losing money against your revenue forecast.

Not only does this shortfall impact your monthly subscriptions but it will also impact your secondary revenue such as personal training, retail items as well as the possibility of referrals and thus easier membership sales.

A club that opens short of members also runs the risk of not being able to create an inviting atmosphere that again impacts your ability to sell more memberships and again impacts your financials.

On the flip side, a club that opens ahead of target is clearly more likely to be in a better financial position both short and long term.  With an average membership length of  say 12 months, being 50 members ahead of target is not only £2,500 but in fact potentially £30,000 better off in year one just on membership revenues.  add the additional secondary revenues, referrals, personal training and that figure could be far higher.

Being a new club in the community only lasts for so long.  After a while you will become the brand that you have created, whatever this.  By being the new, exciting, shiny club is great to attract new clients and so its at this stage you need to maximise this affect.

5) Its important you enjoy the process

I won't lie to you.  Presale is hard work, long hours, plenty of stressful evenings but they are always FUN.

It will be up to you to create that fun for you and your teams but ultimately that’s what will keep you going through the hard work, the days spent handing out flyers, making hundreds of telephone calls.  Your project should be exciting so if its not then why are you doing it.  

Even as an owner/investor the project are fun and I have not met and owner yet who has not got more involved than they planned.

So Why Hire Someone to Help?

1) First of all the cost of having support is never as expensive as you may first think.  For instance Black Raccoon has packages from remote support from just £349/month to a full service pre-sale package for £3999.

2) A consultant has the experience to advise on or will know an expert who can advise on all the points in point 2 above.  Any good consultant will harness your skills and add value to the areas you need additional support.

3) A consultant is often and expert in Pre-sale.  they will have seen what has worked elsewhere, what pitfalls to avoid and how to set up your club for success.  By avoiding mistakes that others have made you to achieve success without the same level of pain.

4) The support will reduce the pressure on you as a business owner and allow you to enjoy the process

5) You will have a sounding board throughout the process allowing you to think big whilst still maintaining focus on what your original goals and vision was.

Having worked with a range of clubs from franchise business to independent clubs and company owned businesses I have really seen the value that a consultant can offer.  Don't see them as a cost, but instead as a resource to achieving success.  If you would hire a builder to build your club, why not hire a professional to help ensure you business is also create on solid foundations

Take advantage of your quiet times

Dont be caught out by the Christmas Joys!

November and December are notoriously quiet for the Health and Fitness Industry as prospective clients shift their focus from personal wellbeing and joining to partying and Christmas purchases.

So with this in mind in never fails to escape me how many clubs join this Christmas spirit by switching off and relaxing.  In fact this is the perfect opportunity to prepare your plans and train the team ready for the New Year.

Whilst it is not as vital as it once was, January and February are still the busiest time for membership sales and a failure in this early period will have an impact on your clubs performance all year.  It was not uncommon for many hotel leisure clubs to back load their budgets so that any poor performance did not have an early impact and any big success put the clubs on a real footing for the year ahead.

So what should you be preparing?

1) Your Budgets
2) Your sales and Marketing plans for the year.  These can obviously change as you go but having an annual plan allows you to to deliver rather than be planning as you go.  Adapating to changes is far easier than having to create a new plan every month. Especially if its busy.
3) All of your internal and external marketing material. Book your leaflet drops, create and print your mail drops, create newsletters and media adverts and press releases.
4) Train your team.  This is a perfect opportunity to take the team aside and work on any operational challenges, retrain the sales process and the customer journey.  Work on customer service standards and instill new practices.  It is also a great time to send team members on CPD courses, first aid, pool lifeguard and pool plant as the club will be quiet allowing for skeleton staff shifts.
5) Carry out club audits and ensure any preventative and essential maintenance is carried out now.

I still remember the old saying FAIL TO PLAN, PLAN TO FAIL

This quote ring so true when it comes to the New Year for most leisure Clubs.  This rings even more true for those in Hotels where traditionally November and December will be one of the busiest times for the hotel.  Come January the hotel business dies off and leisure pics up.  Its therefor easy to get caught up in the hotel's hecticness and fail to put in place what is needed for the clubs busy period.

Working hard now will pay dividends in the New Year!