The members at Snap Fitness in Douglassville, PA, made a request through a recent member survey. It wasn’t a big request, but it was enough to get the attention of club owner John Stockton.

The problem? The TVs were placed too high in the club.

Members said that they sometimes got cricks in their necks when they looked up at the TVs while they worked out on the treadmills. Problem identified, problem solved for Stockton, who had the TVs lowered 14 inches.

Those 14 inches went a long way toward creating good will at the club.

“I had a couple of members come up to me and give me hugs saying thank you,” Stockton says. “When members feel that you’re listening to them, they’re going to tell you more.”

Club members expressed a lot more of their opinions in two member satisfaction surveys conducted by the Health Club Development Co., Providence, RI, in conjunction with the International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association (IHRSA) and Les Mills International.

About 7,600 members were surveyed in more than 20 health clubs in the United States and Canada. The clubs in the surveys ranged from coed multipurpose facilities to wellness centers. The responses also came from multiple- and single-location clubs that were both corporately and privately owned.

The majority of the respondents had previous health club experience and had been members at their current club for anywhere from three months to three years. Three-quarters of the respondents worked out at the club three or more times a week. Women represented 62 percent of the respondents.

“We’ve learned quite a bit about the industry and our members,” says Chris Gallo, president of Health Club Development Co. “There’s tremendous consistency. It’s very enlightening. You learn how to become better operators. You listen to your members.”

Price and Convenience

Given the condition of the economy, one might think that price was top-of-mind among the survey respondents in choosing or staying with a club, but that wasn’t always the case.

When asked about the factors that led them to join their current health clubs, members ranked affordability fifth in one of the two surveys. Convenience was the No. 1 response, followed by club facilities, club appearance, atmosphere and hours of operation.

Price ranked higher in a similar question that asked members what factors are likely to have the biggest influence over their long-term commitment to a club. In that question, their personal financial situation ranked third behind cleanliness and convenience.

What’s interesting is that local competition ranked a distant 14th after other factors — including staff interaction, fitness programming and social relationships. This led Gallo to question whether club owners are paying too much attention to the club or clubs down the street and not enough attention to their own clubs.

Programming ranked 10th in both questions, but that should not be a reflection on the value that programming brings to a club, Gallo says.

“Only a small percentage of people are interested in programming,” Gallo says. “But even if it’s 20 percent of your members, it does not mean you still can’t bring in some good revenue and creative value proposition by having [programming].”

That convenience ranked No. 1 or No. 2 in these two questions was of no surprise to Gallo, who presented the surveys at the IHRSA show earlier this year in San Francisco. It’s common knowledge in the industry that the majority of people join a club within a 5-mile radius of either their home or work.

Because convenience is all but a given in the decision-making of most members, Gallo took convenience out when he asked members what factors would prompt them to check out a new club next door to their current club. In that question, 35 percent said lower prices. (See chart on page 41.) However, a majority of respondents — 56 percent — selected one of these three factors: group exercise/fitness (25 percent), a new building (21 percent) or a larger facility (10 percent).

“It’s not surprising that lower price is the first thing that people think of when it comes to new clubs,” Gallo says. “Lower prices get people interested, [but] I think it’s what’s inside that counts. I think they still decide on value once they get in there. That’s why we’re looking for what deals we can put in promos to get them to come in the door.”

Branding and Value

Only 4 percent of respondents said that brand recognition would cause them to check out a new club next door. (For more about branding, see sidebar on page 29.) This is good news for mom-and-pop club owners, Gallo says, because it again illustrates what really matters to members: value.

“There is always that fear when someone bigger and better and more powerful invades a smaller guy’s market,” Gallo says. “Members don’t leave because that brand has come to town. They may leave because that brand puts up more facilities or is more convenient or is newer or has a better price.”

Giveaways

When asked to rank which club promotions would most entice them to refer a friend to the club, survey respondents ranked receiving the next month’s membership free as their top pick, followed in order by a luxury holiday package, a $50 restaurant gift certificate, a $50 gas card, complimentary personal training session, $50 in club cash and club merchandise.

One marketing executive who has been in the club industry for almost 20 years says club owners should be careful about giving away these items, especially the one month free, which would dilute the average price of the membership. Instead, club owners should give out as many free samples, such as gym bags and nutrition booklets, as they can, he says.

“Anything that you can get somebody else to pay for is a good idea,” he says. “When a member joins, they should leave with something.”

Professionalism

The service that most influenced members to join a club was the club’s professional staff and knowledgeable trainers, according to one of the surveys. In a separate question, 78 percent of respondents said they expect their health club staff to be either extremely fit or have an average fitness level.

Several member prospects said they felt intimidated if the salesperson at a club wore a shirt and tie, Gallo says. In other words, members don’t want a club’s salesperson to look like someone who is simply trying to sell them something. Rather, a club’s sales staff should appear more like a trainer — someone trying to help potential members — by wearing polo shirts or some sort of athletic wear, Gallo says. The more credible a club’s sales staff is, the more believable and better suited they are to closing a deal, he adds.

“When you sit down side by side with people looking for solutions, you have to know how to sell solutions,” Gallo says. “There’s no better person to sell those solutions than someone who looks like they are there to help and knows about fitness.”

Staying in Touch

The underlying theme of the member surveys is that the basic rules of customer service apply to the fitness industry, as it does to all industries. That understanding might help new club operators who don’t have a fitness background.

Like a lot of Snap Fitness franchisees, Stockton had never owned or operated a health club before opening his Snap Fitness facility last year. But Stockton gained plenty of marketing experience from his previous business ventures, including fast food, insurance and computers. He also served as the chief marketing officer of a credit card company.

“Knowing and understanding your customers is the most powerful thing that a businessman should do,” says Stockton, who has since bought the rights to three more Snap Fitness clubs.

Stockton still refers to his club’s member survey every few weeks to see what else he should do to improve the club and keep members happy.

“We build a bond with our members so that they know we’re committed to their success,” Stockton says. “As long as we’re committed to their success, our success will follow.”

Let me ask you…

Are you sold out ?
Over subscribed?
Overcrowded?
Do you have a waiting list for new memberships?
Do you have a waiting list to get into your club on a daily basis ?

If you answered “No” well, Why Not?

In the words of that great philosopher, Yogi Berra, “No one wants to go there anymore, it’s too crowded”

Wouldn’t you like to be one of these places where, “No one wants to go”?

“Sold out clubs focus obsessively on the ever-so- fragile customer relationship experience.”

What is it about certain businesses that are sold out?

By adopting the 3R’s of business development, your club can be on your way to being sold out.

Think about the places you are aware of that are sold out on a regular basis. Maybe it’s a nightclub or a restaurant. Or perhaps a music concert or even a college course that is constantly oversubscribed.

What do these sold out examples have in common. But more importantly what do they have that you don’t have?

Let’s take a look at the sold out phenomena and see how it works. If you look carefully you’ll see they have some common factors:

First of all, the customer experience is extraordinary. It may be something extremely creative or something based on a theme such as Disneyland.

In other cases the experience is totally unique such as a hot musical group, or the great delivery style of a professor.

Other times the experience is created by a high level of service or uniqueness, or in the case of the Durgon Park restaurant in Boston, the experience is almost abusive service but great food. They have a two-hour waiting line.

The Common Thread

Anyway you look at it the common thread is that the customer is paying for some form of experience which creates a strong bond between the company and the customer. Interestingly enough the customer will continue to pay for this experience and will tell their friends they should experience it for themselves. They do this because they feel compelled to share their experience with others.

Industries such as the movie and the book industry live and die by this process. The up front marketing cost to launch a movie or book can be astronomical.

“The relationship dynamic between a customer and a business is a constantly changing process. “

Once the product is launched, the marketing budget is slashed to almost nothing. Success or failure is then left in the hands of the customers. If they liked the product and enjoyed the experience they will tell their friends. If they don’t, there is no marketing budget large enough to drive further sales to make the project profitable.

How do you fit into this up-front marketing process?

To find out, think about using my 3R’s of business development.

1.Repeat sales
2. Referrals
3. Relationship

The relationship dynamic between a customer and a business is a constantly changing process. For example, think about the changes that affect parenting or friendships or the relationship between a coach and an athlete.
Making the relationship a positive one should include these points. 1. The experience must meet or exceed expectations almost all of the time. This is usually defined by the customer as a strong value for the money paid,

2. The experience should be bilateral with communications flowing in both directions.

3. The experience needs to be refreshed regularly. Innovation, change, and improvement are a must. Next, we can classify the Consumer/Business relationship into several categories:

The Convenience Relationship

Your business is frequented and products are sold because your business is at the right place at the right time. To put it simply, you are convenient.

The Emotional Relationship

This purchase is usually driven by some motivating factor such as discounts, premiums, fear of loss or pain.

If the relationship or the experience is one that the customer would rather forget they probably will not buy the product again. In the case of a restaurant they will not eat there anymore. In the case of a tire store they will buy tires elsewhere. And, of course, in the case of a club they will stop going there and may resign their membership or even try to void their contract.

Most businesses survive on repeat sales for a simple reason. The cost to attain the first purchase or simply make the initial sale, is usually front-end-loaded with advertising, discounts, value added and other enticements including commissions and administrative costs. Simply put, it costs money to get the customer through the front door the very first time.

The other issue is that many times a first purchase is an emotional purchase where the customer is simply responding to a sales pitch, a discounted offer or good advertising copy. It can even be the pleading of someone else to try it out.

It is the down-line sales, or as we call it repeat sales , that works for most businesses. Think about how much your oldest customer or member has paid for your product over the last five or 10 years.

How would you be doing now if all of your repeat sales disappeared and You had to survive on new sales only? This of course is the plight of the Paid-In-Full type membership club that has low renewals.

So we see that First Time membership buyers, for which the average club’s closing rate is about 60-70%, is mostly based on emotion. The satisfied repeat buyer continues to pay you and to re-buy your product because it is perceived as a strong value.

Thus:
First purchase = Emotional Based
Repeat sales = Value Based

This of course leads us to ask the questions:

How does your customer or member perceive the value of your club?
What is their experience ?
How is it different than the club down the street?

Each month every member you have is asking these same questions. Each month they are making a value judgment based on their entire quota of personal information and experience.

As professional advertisers and quick talking sales people have proven, it is fairly easy to make the first sale of almost any product. Often even inferior products can be sold if marketed effectively.

The problem of course is, if there is no delivery and the experience is poor, the repeat sales stop right in their tracks. And, of equal importance, referral sales never happen. As a matter of fact dissatisfied people will go out of their way to tell others not to buy a particular product or service.

Think about your own personal experiences. When someone has treated you right aren’t you eager to share the news?

It’s easy to understand you can’t bribe members — no matter how big the prize — to make referrals if they are unhappy with your club. Simply running a referral program does not guarantee success because your members must be happy with their experience at your club before they will tell others.

Turn Your Members Into Zealots

You can probably see a breakdown like this within your membership based on the following categories:

One Timers

One timers purchased a membership as a one-time-only buyer. They probably don’t tell anyone about your product for any number of reasons

Occasional Tellers

will spread the word only when asked or bribed in some fashion.

Volunteer Spokespersons

How To Turbo Charge Your Referrals

Focus on the experience of your existing members. Be obsessive About the experience and do what it takes!

Understand that your entire universe is the surrounding area within six to eight minutes of your front door. Be obsessive about your message and image in this area and do what it takes!

Understand that news moves at the speed of light.

Thus your customers experience, which is your product, will pervade your marketplace almost instantly. Be obsessive about creating the buzz and Do what it takes!

Improve the communication process between your members and the non-member community.

1. Make it easy for your members to e-mail a friend about opportunities to try out the club. E-mail the program to your members and invite them to forward it to a friend.
2. Create a health-related web site with health-related chat rooms. Attach ways to be introduced to the club.
3. Offer to give a book, personal training session, certificate, article, or class-pass to their friends.

Referral sales have huge benefits over other types of sale

1. Lower cost per membership sold.
2. Greater initial loyalty on the part of both the new and sponsored member.
3. You may be able to re-allocate a greater portion of the budget to rewarding the sponsors.

Relationship = Valued Experience = Repeat Sales = Retention = Share The Valued Experience = Referral Sales

As you can see the sold out businesses are not necessarily the ones that spend the most on marketing. They are sold out because they focus obsessively on the ever-so- fragile customer relationship experience. They are the businesses that understand it is a forever process necessary to serve their customers and the people they know.

The best, they are out there telling your story for you.

What makes people fit into one of these three categories? Simple answer: The experience your club provides.

More…

]]> http://trainertests.wordpress.com/2009/08/19/30/feed/ 0 trainertests Sold OUt http://trainertests.wordpress.com/2009/08/19/sales/ http://trainertests.wordpress.com/2009/08/19/sales/#comments Wed, 19 Aug 2009 14:25:09 +0000 trainertests http://trainertests.wordpress.com/?p=27 ]]> Prospecting and Positioning
You probably have heard that selling is a numbers game. To some extent, that is correct. However, approaching sales through cold calling takes time and energy, which could be better spent on other revenue-producing activities, such as training or ancillary services.   So, a better approach to increasing sales is to position your club in the market. Simply put, positioning is how your market defines you in relation to your competitors. You can establish a good position by answering the following questions:

1. What makes your club unique?
2. What benefits do your customers think you provide?
3. What is your competitive advantage?

It is critical that you answer these questions for positioning to work. Once you have established yourself in the marketplace as the expert, then people will seek you out instead of you having to cold call them.

Control and Trust
The typical sales situation puts the control in the salespeople’s hands, which puts clients in an apprehensive state of mind and makes sales more difficult. Clients are apprehensive because they have been burned before, so they already have a lack of trust even before a pitch is made. Instead of trying to control the situation, begin by building trust with your customers. Listen to their needs and show them that you are there for their benefit, not yours. By building trust, you create clients who will buy over and over and eventually may become your biggest fans. Remember, clients must trust you before they will buy from you.

Close and Value
Tons of books are written on sales closing techniques, and some of the techniques in the books are effective. However, people will buy because they believe the price you are charging is equal to the value they perceive they will get from it. Being shortsighted and concentrating on just the close of the sale can risk the lifetime value of the customer. Create value in a customer’s mind, and you will create a life-long customer.

1. Sixty-seven percent leave because of the club’s or employees’ attitude of indifference.
2. Thirteen percent leave because of dissatisfaction with the product and/or service.
3. Ten percent leave for other reasons that include moving, death, etc.
4. Nine percent leave because of competitors.

These numbers show that 81 percent of the reason members leave fitness facilities is preventable. The loss of revenue due to poor customer service is staggering. If fitness facility owners collectively improve the customer satisfaction level by ensuring that employees proactively connect with members and provide extraordinary service, members will stay and renew their memberships. Plus, they will refer friends and business associates, according to Bob Esquerre, owner of Esquerre Fitness Group Inc., Boca Raton, FL.

The fitness industry is in the business of making a credible return-on-investment. It is crucial to fully integrate new members into the facility, keep existing members and get member referrals, says Esquerre.

Where should this begin? It begins with the management team. Keep in mind that members are a business asset, and the staff also is a business asset. Personal trainers, group fitness professionals and other staff professionals are assets for the business. Managers must realize there should be collective engagement. Service should be referred and encouraged by each professional group to another. The member experience is the most crucial component of a happy member, according to Esquerre.

Service yields results every day. Maintaining member relationships is critical whether it is between the member and employee or even among members. In fact, clubs with strong member-to-member connections have higher retention than clubs with weak member-to-member connections, according to the 2004 book “Guide to Membership Retention: Industry Lessons On What—and What Not—To Do,” by John McCarthy, who was the executive director of IHRSA at that time.

Management must lead and learn. In 2007, the fitness facility rate of attrition was about 30 percent. Why? Fitness facilities over promised, and employees under delivered, according to IHRSA’s 2007 “Profiles of Success: The Annual Industry Survey of the Health and Fitness Club Industry.” Staff must be committed to growing the membership asset while creating a positive membership experience.

However, Harvey Mackay, motivational speaker, syndicated columnist and author of “Swim with the Sharks without Being Eaten Alive,” says that satisfied customers are just not good enough. If a company wants a booming business, they must supersede satisfied customers and create “raving fans.” Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles, authors of the 1993 book “Raving Fans: A Revolutionary Approach to Customer Service,” say that to create raving fans you need three key principals:

1. Decide the vision or what you want.
2. Discover what the customer wants.
3. Deliver, plus one percent.

So not only must you deliver what the customer wants, you and your staff need to deliver above and beyond member expectations.

Have you provided customer service training to your staff? Are you recruiting, not just hiring, people with emotional intelligence (EI) skill sets? EI is the art and science of personal and intrapersonal effectiveness. Furthermore, it is the ability to process emotional information, particularly as it involves the perception, assimilation, understanding and management of emotions.

Connecting with members’ emotions can offer a huge financial benefit. Establishing strong emotional connections with your members can mean the difference between creating rational advocates—members who merely talk about your company—and emotional advocates—those who talk about it passionately, according to John Fleming and Jim Asplund, authors of the 2008 book “Customer Satisfaction Is Not Enough.”

Excellent customer service may never be perfect, but that is something for which to strive. Timothy Bonomo, author of “Customer Service: Aiming for Excellence,” states that observing and meeting the customers’ needs is important, as is determining their reaction when service is provided. Simply stated: everyday extraordinary service equals extraordinary results everyday.

Bonomo writes, “Our job is to be sensitive to all of the circumstances that a customer might have occurring and to be prepared to try any techniques to satisfy the customer.” However, fitness club owners and professionals should anticipate problems, rather than have to defend a problem.

Listening is another fabulous skill. Regardless of the issue or problem, meeting the member on the same page with empathy is absolutely critical, Bonomo says. Often, members don’t want quick solutions; they want understanding of the original problem. Losing a member for lack of attention to detail is unnecessary and costly. Addressing the needs or problem solving in a timely manner retains memberships.

Retaining a member is much more cost effective than initiating a new membership. According to IHRSA, member acquisition costs are high and rising, thus making membership retention more important every year.

Servicing customers and providing a positive experience in multiple ways begins with teamwork in fitness management. For some, it is innate, but for others it is not. Regardless, creating raving fans and tuning in to EI can create a return on investment, positive member experiences and a secure industry for years to come.

1. Follow up consistently after the sale. Many times, sales are lost because your staff did not follow up with the prospect. Similarly, participation as a member is often dependent upon consistent follow up and accountability, especially within the first 30 days of membership. Call and find out how your new members’ workouts are going. Find out why they haven’t worked out in a week. Find out what you can do to help. The key is to show that you care. Many people need to know someone else is recognizing their struggles and is willing to help.
2. Allow new members to experience personal training. Orientations are not enough. You must allow your new members to experience a personal training session, and more importantly, they need to learn what a good workout feels like. If they learn how to exercise safely and feel how amazing an effective workout is, not only do they view exercising as a positive thing, but they also find out how much better a workout is with a personal trainer.
3. Involve new members in other programs. Many members sign up at a club and are immediately bored. Don’t allow this to happen. Many of these new members have the best of intentions, but then without excitement, support or a reason to participate, they stop coming in. Allow all new members to experience all of the things your club has to offer—and allow them to try it at no cost. From personal training and group exercise to boot camps and sports programming, your new members should be allowed to experience everything your club has to offer to find what motivates them most.
4. Introduce new members to other members. For many members, your health club is their social outlet. It is their opportunity to be near other like-minded people who are all striving to reach goals. But it may be difficult for a new member to make friends because other members may have headphones on during their workout. Others already seem to have their own clique established, and many of the other members may be just as shy as they are. Introduce your new members to a few people who will help them feel welcome, members who work out at the same time they plan to work out, and members who share the same goals as the new member.
5. Have all of your staff introduce themselves. Even if a new member prefers not to make friends with other members, it is still good to get to know the staff and for the staff to know you. It is a comforting feeling when you walk into a business and the owner and staff knows you by name and seems genuinely excited to see you. Many times, this is enough to keep your members feeling happy and involved.
6. Get new members to refer a friend. The buddy system is very powerful, yet often underutilized. Although we consider referrals one of the best ways to generate new business, it is also one of the best ways to keep your members involved, spend more money, and refer more people. Convincing your members to refer new business not only helps your business, it also helps new members stay involved and actively participating in the club offerings.
7. Find out where they are and where they want to be. Even more powerful than any of the other ideas above is to have your members set goals for themselves. You need to find out their baseline measurements and how those measurements make them feel. You also need to find out where they would ultimately like to be. Have them write down their goals. You or your trainers can help them determine milestones to stay motivated along their journey.

Implement these seven actions, and you will find yourself with loyal members who will continue to spend more money and generate new business for you throughout the year.

You no longer have to fear this stage of the sales process. Wouldn’t it be nice if nearly every time you walk back from the tour, your prospect says, “I can’t wait! Sign me up!”  It does happen sometimes, but you can make sure it happens more often by implementing the following five strategies:

1. Don’t be a salesperson. Health club guests—and consumers in general—are tired of salespeople. They are much more inspired by a person who genuinely cares about their health and well-being, not someone with cheesy canned responses and an aggressive closing style. The first rule of closing more membership sales is to genuinely listen to your guest. You have two ears and one mouth for a reason. It is amazing how much people love talking about themselves.  Your guest will love you if you simply listen to them and stop trying to sell to them.

2. Make sure you take the time to pre-qualify everyone. It seems like such a hassle to take the time to go through a pre-qualification form with a guest, but do not skip this stage of the process.  Sit down with your guest and go through your list of questions, write down their responses, and take time to understand their goals and needs.  Doing this before the tour allows you to be able to ask even deeper questions, enabling you to build a more meaningful relationship with the guest much more quickly than if you had not pre-qualified them. This also allows you to understand any concerns they might have and to overcome any objections long before prices are presented.

3. Each tour should be different for each guest. It is easy to get into a routine of taking every guest to the exact same areas of your facility in the exact same order you have shown every other prospect. However, no two tours should be alike. The No. 1 rule of a customized tour is to begin in the area of the club that the guest has expressed the most interest in. If someone mentions that they will mostly be participating in the group exercise classes, don’t show them the free weight and cardio areas first. Take them directly to the group fitness room. If you show your guests the areas they really want to see first, they will be more open to learning about the rest of the facility.  Keep the tour entertaining, and keep your guest talking throughout the tour.

4. Make assumptive statements throughout the tour. Assumptive statements are statements that cause the prospect to feel as if they are already a member. For example, “The next time you come in, this is where you’ll scan your membership card for access into the facility,” or “How many days will you be coming in to work out?” or “Is someone joining with you?” All of these are assumptive and allow the prospect to feel as if they are already a member. Remember to always replace the word “if” with the word “when” to help them begin feeling that the decision has already been made.

5. Have your guest make mini-commitments throughout the tour. This simply means getting them to say “yes” or to agree with you as many times as possible. Throughout the tour, ask questions such as, “I can really tell you’re determined to make these changes, aren’t you?” or “Isn’t the club beautiful?” or “It feels good to know you’re about to make some big changes, doesn’t it?” Ask a variety of questions, but make sure the question causes the guest to respond positively. This will help reinforce in their mind how important it is to get started. Telling someone they need to improve their health or that they need to join today is not as powerful as getting them to admit it themselves.

By following these five strategies, you should be able to close membership sales more easily. More importantly, you will notice that there is not as much pressure put on the price presentation because you have already overcome objections and motivated them to decide that they need a membership. Implement these strategies into your sales process, and you should immediately see an increase in your closing percentage.

2) holding a biggest loser contest advertisement in paper, inviting entries for the competition. the selected participant be allowed to workout for free.

Assemble Your Lists. To effectively market, every business needs a list of targets. Everybody (even a brand new business) has a list, but you may or may not have taken the time to assemble your list into groups. Here are five lists you can assemble right away:

active members and clients,

inactive members and clients,

prospects,

referral sources

publicity contacts.

• Assemble Your Lists. To effectively market, every business needs a list of targets. Everybody (even a brand new business) has a list, but you may or may not have taken the time to assemble your list into groups. Here are five lists you can assemble right away: active members and clients, inactive members and clients, prospects, referral sources and publicity contacts.
• Build Your Database. After you’ve assembled your lists, it’s time to organize your contacts into a database. Many programs, such as Microsoft Excel, can help you do this, but I recommend that you move toward a good database management program as quickly as possible. The right program makes it easy for you to sift, sort and segment your list into various groups so you can target your marketing. It also tracks other important information, such as transactional data (who spends money with you, when they spend it and how frequently they buy) and demographic information, such as gender, age, birthday, etc. All of this data is important because it gives you marketing ‘intelligence’ about your best customers.
• Install Contact Capture Tools. After you’ve assembled your lists and put them together in a database program, you need to install contact capture tools. These tools capture and collect data on new prospects to grow the size of your database. For instance, you should have an opt-in form on your Web site and an offline version of the same form at the front desk so you can capture contact information on everyone who walks in your door or calls requesting more information.

• Commit to Ongoing Follow-up and Internal Marketing. Internal marketing refers to the follow-up type of marketing activities you do to convert prospects in your database to new members and clients, but it also refers to everything you do to re-sell, up-sell and cross-sell your existing active members and clients. Consistent, weekly e-mails and monthly mailings of your offline print newsletter to your list go a long way towards building relationships with your customers, thereby insuring they stay, pay and refer.
• Plan, Track and Review. Now it’s time to put everything together. It’s vital that you take time to plan, track and review your marketing results. Start by listing all your monthly and weekly marketing activities on paper. Then, build those activities into a marketing calendar and block time to complete them (hint: delegate where you can.). Once you’ve installed strong marketing systems, the secret to continued success is your commitment to track results, review your plan and make adjustments where appropriate to ensure consistent improvement.

There is a reason that diets, diet pills, miracle potions and the like sell so well — they promise easy weight loss. It’s mostly because these companies are selling what people really, really want — weight loss. If your personal training department is promoting to your members how you can help them fit into their “skinny jeans” again, well, you’re completely out of touch with reality.

When you provide a solid program of nutrition and exercise that delivers terrific weight-loss results, it’s like hiding medicine in applesauce. Members will receive health benefits as a natural matter of course, along with the weight loss they want.

Let’s do a little exercise together. Go to the Yellow Pages and look at all the ads in the health club category. Look at the message of each of those ads.

Do you see any messages or clubs that stand out from the rest? More than likely, the answer is no. Everybody is saying the same thing. All the ads and promotions look the same and convey the same basic message.

So the question you need to ask yourself is: Why would people call you instead of anyone else in the marketplace offering what appears to be exactly the same features and benefits as yours?

You must give prospective members a reason to call you that is different from that of everybody else out there. You need to develop a marketing message that sets you apart from all other fitness providers and states clearly and concisely to your prospective members why they should choose you.

This message is called a unique selling proposition (USP). Your USP is a marketing message that separates you from your competition. Your USP tells people what makes you different and unique from all the other health clubs and fitness providers and, therefore, why a potential member should choose you over any and all other options. It also announces the main benefits your club has to offer.

Your USP should answer this question: Why should a prospective member choose you versus any and every other health club, fitness provider or weight-loss center?

If you don’t have a USP that sets you apart from your competition (and all other options), you give your prospect little choice but to base their decision to use you on price. Maybe the only other deciding factor for your prospect would be convenience, such as another club is closer to their home.

If you permit yourself, your club, or your services to be perceived as a commodity, your prospects must choose between you and your competition solely based on price.

You do not want to compete based on price. It undermines everything you are trying to accomplish. Besides, what kind of message does, “We’re the cheapest!” broadcast? It’s definitely not the image you want for your club.

Almost all clubs who compete on price alone go out of business in a very short period of time. Here’s why: There is always another club willing to undercut your prices in order to steal your members. If you have nothing unique about you and you’re competing on price alone, why would your members stay with you? They won’t. So you need a strong USP to attract and keep members.

There are five primary ways to differentiate your club other than price:

1. Process
2. Personality
3. Product
4. Service
5. Marketing

Within these five areas, you’ll find the right one (or ones) on which you can create a powerful USP.  The basics for developing a compelling USP are:

1. It should offer something truly unique that sets your club apart from everyone else.

2. It should be a clear, concise statement with meaningful specifics, not vague generalities.

3. It should convey specific benefits to your members, and you should be able to communicate it in 60 seconds or less.

4. It should communicate an emotional want in a way that makes an emotional connection with people.

It’s important that you dedicate the time to developing your USP now … one that will differentiate you and make a difference in your marketing and your club. Once you do, marketing and sales becomes much, much easier.