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

January is Here but its not too late to get your marketing Plans in Place

Leisure and Fitness Club Marketing Strategies

January maybe upon us and most clubs will have spent the quite period in December preparing their club for what is the most important time of the year for any fitness business.

It is important to point out straight that January & February are important for more reasons than simply driving new member sales.  

- For most fitness businesses this is the start of the new finacial year and so a solid start verus your budgtes and forecasts with set you up for a solid year.  A poor start will always mean you are chasing the ball all year.

- Any membership sales taken now allows you to maximise those monthly revenues for the full 12 months of your budget.  Every month delayed reduces the revenue potential in this new financial year by 1/12th

- Getting your club operations and service right is vital as with every club in the country providing great reasons to join them you do not want to give your members and excuse to try somewhere new.

- January is often very successful due to the additional motivation of your clients to want to achieve their goals. As a club you wnat to make sure you have programs in place to facilitate this success.  This does not have to be free and can include personal training, weight loss courses and seminars.  You do however need to provide support tools for clients

With all this said, your number one priority is to deliver on your membership numbers. Membership revenue will account for anywhere from 60-95% of a clubs annual income.  It is therefore imperative you get this right.  

The old saying could not be anymore true when it comes to membership sales

Fail to plan, Plan to Fail

So, it is very easy for us to say we need to plan but what are planning:

- Your offer - what are we doing to gove potential clients a reason to enquire? 

- Your marketing activity - how will we spend our marketing budget to attract new clients to come and see us or pick up the phone?

- Your outreach plan - how and where will the team go to actively find new clients?

- Your referral activities (In-Reach Activity)- we want our members to bring friends to join.  What is our offer and how are we telling our members?

Most importantly of all:

What is your club & teams targets?

Your plans mean nothing unless you know what you need to achieve.  Starting with the revenue you need to generate you can create your monthly membership targets.  From here you can then work out your activity targets to include:

- Number of new prospects 

- Number of completed calls 

- Number of appointments made

- Number of appointments shows

- Number tours in total including Walk ins

- Number of sales

- Number of referrals

By knowing your targets you can manage your team and ensure there is a consistant focus on the task in hand.  There is no point spending a penny unless your team know their goals and expectations and then these are managed daily

Some basic rules when setting targets:
- The average club will sell on a 4:1 prospect to sale ratio.  Meaning in order to achieve 100 sales in January you will need to generate 400 new propects

for more details read Setting up your Memberships sales team

Your Plans:

Your marketing plan is your back bone to how you will achieve the numbers required.  As a business we encourage all our clients to take time to create comprehensive plans to cover all the key area's.  These activities are then highlighted on a monthly day by day calendar for the team to follow through on.

Below are some ideas that can form part of each section.  Unfortunately you will have to do the research yourself as to what the exact options are available for your club but hopefully it will give you a guide:

Marketing:
As a basic rule marketing will include the things you put out to get your message out to mass audiences and include:
- Flyers - Whilst the return on a flyer is only 2-5% it still pays divident to book a slot for solus flyer drops in the peak periods.  Your competitors will be doing this so you shoukd do.  It depends on your location but 15-30,000 is the norm. Try and keep this within 5-7mile radius of the club
- Banners - these can be placed on the outside of the club, on the road side, at round-a-bouts, with agreements with other local businesses.  You may require permission from your local council so check first.

If you have a road side location then banners, flags and A-boards are essential to draw people attention to your location and your offer

- Static and Mobile Bill Boards - these can be costly but a well placed bill board can drive real traffic into your club

(The message on the bill board above got National coverage as complaints were made about it "Fat Shaming".  I dont believe that was the intention and they actually tried for humour,  The fact however a £750 bill board was on the national and local TV as well as being discussed over all social media outlets goes to show the impact a well positioned campaign can have)

- Print Advertising - Newspapers, Glossy agazines, Community free papers, business newsletters, school newsletter

- Other advertising options - These could include Taxi cab window adverts, flyers in local businesses  and coffee shops, 

- Social Media Advertising - Our suggestion is to pay to boost your posts.  The most effective ones to do this with are videos that people are likley to share.  a simple club walk through can work, however ones that are funny or interesting will support your investment with greater natural shares.

- Google Adwords - I am personally not a fan unless you are part of a large chain of clubs who have the financial clout to cover the costs centrally.  A small independent, franchised or a club supporting their own marketing spend cannot compete with the pay per click costs that ammount in january.  Some key words such as Gym and your town can cost upwards of £2.50 per click.  No w a wsie investment.
You can however, invest your time and ensure your Google business page and your website are up to date with your offers, information and contact details.  A strong website and Google business page can ensure you always appear 1st page of Google and always on the google Maps

Google my business information

- Classified Listings - These are Business Directory websites that with further expand the range of websites your information appears on.  They are largely free, although some you can pay for an advanced listing.  It is also worth checking for local business directories.  Here in Nottingham we have a few such as inottingham.co.uk.  Your area is likley to have some too.  Below is a list of a few that are worth using:

- bizify.co.uk
- Yelp.co.uk
- hotfrog.co.uk
- businsslinedirectory.co.uk
- Freeindex.co.uk
- Classfinder.co.uk
- Gymuser.co.uk
- thefitmap.co.uk
- mylocalservices.co.uk

As we are talking online marketing, it is also worth placing your club details on the day pass gym site such Payasyougym.co.uk.  It is a good way of driving people into your club but also adding revenue.

Also you discount sites such as Wowcher, Group-on, Living social all allow you to offer discounted passes to yoyr club that allow you to increase traffic.  Dont devalue your facility, but by offering a discounted trial pass it will provide you with additional new leads for you to aim to convert. Remember you are not trying to make money on these passes but provide prospects, Any revenue you do make is just a small bonus.
Offers such as 10 Days for £10 - this is 10 consecutive days and so once signed up you have a set end date to be able to follow the client up with.  Remember you will only make about £3 or £4 from these by the time commission is taken.

Your Outreach Plan:]

Outreach differs from marketing in the way that this is your teams opportunity to get out and about, be visible and attract new fans and new prospects.  The aim for any outrach activity is for the tean to return with a minimum number of new leads for them to invite to the club, either for a tour or a day pass.

The key is never use it as a way to hand out flyers but to obtain genuine names and numbers from clients.

Outreach activity includes:

- Text Messages - Text to all prospects and ex-members including all your blowouts.  Its January and their mind set may have changed
- E-mails - E-mail all prospects and ex-members including all your blowouts
- Erecting a gazebo in the street and attracting people to tlk to you, sign up for a challenge or take a free pass.
- Outreach in high trafiic areas such as train stations, town centres, bowling alleys and cinemas, shopping centres and supermakets

• Supermarkets are a great way of getting high traffic yield.  be bmindful though you are likely to need a solid pull to ensure people stop to talk to you.  Try having competitions (use spit bikes or gym equipment), wellness surveys (Heart rate, Blood Pressure and body fat measuring), or even a wheel of fortune for a chance to win a free membership amongst other prizes.

- Corporate companies - Send E-mail, fax backs to all companies 10 emplyees or more within 10 miles of your club.  It may time to gnerate the leads but will be worth it. You can offer free  passes to your club and even health awareness days or weeks.
- Attend local fayres, park runs, 10k's
- Speak to your local schools regarding creating a relationship so that you provide suppoird for their healthy eating or activity week and they place your flyers in their bag
- Run a free bootcamp once or twice a week at your local park to get leads

In reach (Referals)
Referrals are your cheapest and most effective way of generating solid leads.  An effective referral program will generate 30%+ of your membership sales each month.  There are 2 ways to achieve this

1) Point of sale referral - this is where new members are encouraged to provide you names and numbers of those they believe may join your club.  Done at point of sale is the most effective as the client is excited and noyd by their own new purchase.  There is a skill in asking for this but as with all great skills they can be learnt.

2) Post sale referral - This is often more difficult a the contact points with clients are often more brief and as with all marketing people can become blind to messages posted in the club.  Keep your message brief but pointed.  What are you asking for and what do they get in return.

In addition to putting up posters and banners, regular new member and member calls will give you opportunities to ask for referrals.  It is also a valuable tool to create a newsletter that can be e-mailed monthly or bi month. This 2-4 page newsletter needs to be brief, exciting and full of content not just offers.

If you do not already have a plan in place then don't dispair. January doesnt really start until the 3rd week of the month when pay day arrives.  Most people are like you and me, all spent up at Christmas and so dont have the opportunity to join right now.  Take this first week to create and devise and train out your plan to your team.  Most importantly of all dont be afraid to get the team involved in the plans.  If they have supported its creation they are more likley to buy into the plans.

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!