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

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.