Access FIT

Strategic Business Development for the Health, Fitness, and Wellness Industry

How much time do you really spend on strategy? In our experience owners and managers operating within the health, fitness, and wellness industry are far too heavily invested in operations to dedicate the time, intellectual capital, and resources necessary to develop, test, implement, and execute serious strategy.

In fact, most owners and managers will typically dedicate less than 10% of their time to genuine strategic issues and, most often, only in response to an imminent external threat (e.g. competition). The number one reason… lack of time. The numbers two reason… no good ideas. We have both.

We dedicate all of our time to industry analysis, strategy development, testing, implementation, and execution. We will act as your de facto Chief Strategy Officer (CSO)… without the payroll expense. Read More...

First-mover advantage program closing in 14 days

Attention everyone… our First-Mover Advantage program for The Lead Box Is Dead…Long Live iPOS: The Humble Lead Box Concept Reinvented for the Twenty-First Century will be closing in 14 (fourteen) days and the price will be reverting to the regular retail price of $498 and a bunch of other bonuses you can read about here,

So if you were considering buying The Lead Box Is Dead…Long Live iPOS: The Humble Lead Box Concept Reinvented for the Twenty-First Century I recommend you buy now and save 50% and get the First-Mover Advantage bonuses.

Your prospective members don’t exist in a vacuum

As owners and managers we tend only to think of our prospective new members when we need them… or more accurately when we need their cash. We only think of them when they materialize at our front door, usually in response to our marketing (if we are doing it right), their own motivations (New Years resolutions, or significant birthdays, for example), or sometimes they are brought in by an existing member.

The point is that we only think about them as they relate to our business… and when they are in our business. We don't really think of where our next member is coming from.

Of course, our best prospective members don’t just exist for our financial gratification. They are shopping in the local community in health food stores, in sporting stores, in weight loss businesses, Subway restaurants, juice bars, clothing stores, swimwear stores, buying fitness/weight loss book and magazines, playing sports…

Imagine if you could get your message in front of these highly qualified prospective members as they go about their business in your local community and when they are already spending money… oh that’s right you can with iPOS advertising.

Be better today... but first you have to decide to be better

"The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do." - Amelia Earhart

Constructing a sale

The Australian Open tennis is on at the moment and keeping me up nights. But one interesting thing I did notice is how the expert commentators discuss how a point is well constructed.

What they mean of, course, is how a player takes advantage of their strengths, exploits their opponents weaknesses, and strategically out-thinks their opponent to win the point.

Now someone like me who brushes the cobwebs off his racquet a couple of times a year and tries to hit winners off every shot is unlikely to make it into the Open.

It reminds me of how a lot of owners and managers approach their sales... trying to make a winner (sale) off every shot (prospect). The problem, of course, is that not every prospect is ready to commit... or at least make the kind of commitment you want them to (lucrative long term contracts).

Today, more than ever, the sale has to be constructed. You can't rely on blasting winners off every shot... you have to be smarter. Set up the prospect with a trial membership, allowing them to recruit their friends into the club with them for support, give them the attention they need during their trial, and make their early experience a positive one.

That's how you construct a sale... not as spectacular as those miracle shots (that rarely come off) but much more reliable.

Want to improve your retention…

…then focus on your beginners.

Why?

Because it is your beginners who quit very early into their memberships… 30, 60, or 90 days. And it is these early dropouts that drag your retention figures down.

Why?

Because retention is calculated using average beginning monthly memberships and average’s are sensitive to outliers (an outlier is an observation that is numerically distant from the rest of the data). Outliers actually skew your data, often significantly.

For example, imagine you have a club with 10 members and their membership terms (in months) were 36, 42, 24, 18, 56, 36, 2, 1, 3, and 1. The average membership term is 21.9 months… not bad, but the average actually hides the fact that there are two cohorts of members, 6 who maintain reasonable membership terms and 4 who don’t.

The average membership term for our first group is 35.3 months and the average for our second group is only 1.75 months.

If we could bring the average of our second group up to even half of the average of our first group (17.65 months) our overall average membership term would be a much healthier 28.5 months.

That’s an additional average 6.6 months of membership dues… now if our members are paying $40 a month that’s $246 per member or $2460 for our 10 members.

Of course, if we had 1000 members that’s an additional $246000 of revenue.

All of those beginners who dropout very early into their memberships are actually pulling your retention figures, and your profits, down… so eliminate the outliers by improving your beginners experience in your club.

Buying the sale vs. earning the sale

You might have heard this advice from a number of sales consultants in our industry, “You buy the sale”.

Of course, the implication is that you have to incentivize the sale with various freebies (t-shirts, water bottles, workout towels, caps…) to convince the prospect to buy your membership.

Sure, buying the sale works on some people, at least for a while… but sooner or later the “freebie high” wears off and buyers remorse is never far away.

It is much better to earn the sale by focusing on negative reinforcement techniques, removing their barriers, and moving them up the expertise curve. These have a much more profound effect on the member/client experience and also have a much longer lasting effect on retention.

When you buy the sale you pay for it in terms of retention… but when you earn the sale you also earn their loyalty.

Selling made easy

 “Selling to people who actually want to hear from you is more effective than interrupting strangers who don't,” - Seth Godin

Thom Plummer on trial memberships

Thom Plummer has a terrific post on his Blog explaining a couple of different types of trial membership options.

Personally, I am a big fan of the paid trial membership (it generates better qualified prospects and sorts out the “buyers” from the “tryers”), in fact, paid trial memberships are one of the cornerstones of the iPOS advertising system.

Thom knows his stuff when it comes to trail memberships but one point I differ on is the $9 trial membership to compete with the low-pricers. I think that it is smarter to offer a higher priced trial but to add more value to it with personal training and/or group training session(s).

The reason being that you don’t want to compete with the low-pricers on price… that’s their strength not yours. Better to provide them with something that the low-pricers can’t or won’t offer, adds to the trial member’s experience in your club, and moves them up the expertise curve.

So rather than merely getting prospective members who are only loyal to price, you can begin to demonstrate to them why it is better to pay a little more with you to get personal assistance in your club. And by the end of their trial they can see the value of your membership as opposed to the low price of your competitor’s membership.

Anyway have a read of Thom’s Blog post if you want some sensible advice on trial memberships… my recommendation is for a value added paid trial membership.

Advice for 2012…

My advice for 2011 was to become the best at something (…something that your members care about) in your local market. If you have done that my advice for this year will be so much easier to accomplish.

My advice for 2012… know where your new members are coming from (after all they don’t exist in a vacuum outside of your club).

Of course, if you are the best at something you’ll know why your new members are coming to you, you’ll know what they want, and so you’ll have a head start on understanding where they are coming from.

Here’s why it’s so important… the global financial situation will persist through 2012… consumer confidence will stay low… competition will remain tight… and traditional marketing will continue to produce a declining return on investment.

But… people will still pay for the best and if you know how to get your message to them effectively you will always outperform the competition.

So for 2012 understand that your prospective new members are real people, with real problems, looking for real solutions and they are out there looking for something… you’ve just got to convince them that it’s you.

P.S. If you need help getting you message in front of your best qualified prospects don’t forget you can still get a copy of The Lead Box Is Dead...Long Live iPOS: The Humble Lead Box Concept Reinvented for the Twenty-First Century for only $24.90.

Change by design

"Everyone designs who devises courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones." - Herbert Simon