The little black dress of fitness

It’s 7:20 a.m. and Carl Daikeler hasn’t worked out yet. Not a big deal for the 49% of Americans who don’t exercise regularly, but it’s going to bother him all day.

The problem is the CEO of Beachbody, the company behind P90X and Insanity, doesn’t like to work out. So much so that he sometimes has to “trick” himself into the gym. Like the time he decided he couldn’t brush his teeth before he worked out for at least 10 minutes. That little ploy inspired Beachbody’s 10-Minute Trainer program.

The fitness industry is constantly coming up with similar tricks to get more of us off the couch, Daikeler said.

The result is a rotation of incoming and outgoing trends — from Jane Fonda’s VHS tapes in the early ’80s to Beachbody’s DVD programs that are popular today.

Daikeler compares fitness to fashion. “Somebody starts wearing a certain shoe in Milan or Japan and suddenly everybody wants to wear it,” he said. “It doesn’t just solve the problem — like shoes cover your feet. It makes you feel like it’s (a part of) your identity.”

Starla Kay teaches youth video classes at the Indiana Black Expo in Indianapolis. She has a 19-month-old son and not a lot of time for a workout program that doesn’t work.

P90X has earned $420 million in sales for Beachbody since 2005.She tried kickboxing, aerobics and just going to the gym, but nothing really stuck until she got one of this year’s hot trends, P90X.

“This is the first actual program I’ve done,” she said. “I feel stronger. I feel like I have more energy. I’ve lost 9 pounds so far.”

The American College of Sports Medicine publishes a yearly survey of the top worldwide fitness trends. The top 10 list for 2011 includes boot camps and programs aimed at older adults.

Trends depend on many factors, said the survey’s lead author, Walt Thompson. Take Pilates, which dropped off the survey’s list from No. 9 last year. Thompson believes the economy made Pilates equipment and specialized instructors too expensive for clubs to maintain. He’s not sure if Pilates will make a return to the top 20, but he doesn’t expect a few of this year’s trends to stick around long.

“The problem with the high-intensity kind of programs is that they deliver a punch like severe weight loss programs do, but they’re difficult to comply with in the long haul,” he said.

A huge key… is to make people feel like ‘Wow, I get it.’

–IDEA editor-in-chief Sandy Todd Webster
Remember the slide board? Tae Bo? Step aerobics? All trends Houston, Texas, YMCA senior program director Karen Behrend has seen come and go in her 28 years of teaching group fitness.

“The reason why programs like that don’t stick is because they’re too hard to do,” she said. “The things that really stick are programs that cross over multiple (ability) levels.”

Kay said when she first attempted the P90X DVD program it was “too much” so she dropped it after two weeks. But when she started attending a class with an instructor who taught her how to modify the moves, she found herself returning six days a week at 7 a.m.

Behrend cites classes like Zumba, body pump and spinning as success stories. They’re consistent, easy to follow and include that always important element of fun.

“They make people feel successful,” IDEA Fitness Journal Editor-in-chief Sandy Todd Webster said. “That’s a huge key in good programming is to make people feel like ‘Wow, I get it.’ “

IDEA is the world’s largest association for fitness and wellness professionals. It also does a yearly survey of fitness trends. This year, aerobics, water fitness and martial arts-based classes had the largest decline in popularity. Dance and boot camp classes showed the largest growth.

Judi Sheppard Missett, right center, continues to choreograph all the routines for Jazzercise.”Think Jazzercise classes — they’re fun. They combine good music, easy choreography (and) social aspects,” Webster said.

Jazzercise is one of those trends that stuck. Judi Sheppard Missett founded the company in 1969 and the dance-based classes are still popular across the world. In fact, Entrepreneur Magazine recently named Jazzercise 2011’s most successful fitness franchise.

“It’s not like you can take a six-week course and be fit the rest of your life,” Missett said. “It’s really good that people are coming up with different ways to move. I’m happy for anybody doing anything, anything that gets them off the couch and on their feet.”

She continues to choreograph routines to approximately 30 new songs every 10 weeks to keep her high member retention rate.

It is the beauty and curse of the industry, Behrend said. Old trends evolve into new ones, forcing gyms to stay cutting edge, but keeping customers excited about working out.

“The trick only lasts so long,” Daikeler said, going back to his fashion analogy. “The best designers aren’t looking for trends; the best designers set the trends. Will this capture a market audience or is this like Lady Gaga’s meat dress?”

Daikeler said he just hopes whatever the industry comes up with next is the end of the biggest trend in America right now: obesity.

Increasing Customer Retention at Health Clubs with Predictive Analytics

A major problem in the health club industry is customer retention – it may well be the industry’s single largest issue. Hence the constant aggressive push to get members signed up and in the front door, at a rate faster than they are exiting out the back door. I have seen figures showing that as many as 40% of members churn in the average health club, regardless of the exact numbers, it is a known fact in the industry that it is a higher number than any health club manager wants it to be; and obviously any reduction adds directly to the club’s bottom line.

Equally plenty of members renew their memberships year in, year out. Accordingly, any member retention strategy should involve two key components: 1) identifying those members at risk of leaving and 2) targeting those at risk with appropriate interventions.

It is beyond the scope of this article to go into intervention methods. However, I will address the identification of members at risk of terminating their memberships (‘at risk’ members) – and how predictive analytics can be applied to help with this.

Like all businesses health clubs have limited resources, and it is absolutely pointless for a club to invest resources to try and retain each and every member, when a good deal of them are not at risk in the first place. If a member is identified as ‘at risk’ there is a strong business case to be built around investing resources in trying to retain that specific member (theoretically you could afford to invest up to $1 less than the cost of acquiring a new member, and still be ahead of the game), conversely if they are not ‘at risk’ and are going to re-sign anyway, you may just as well burn the money as hand it over to that specific individual in the form of an incentive or time invested.

The other consideration is, it is far easier to pro-actively try to retain 2,000 members than 4,000 member, so by segmenting, and making the size of the task more manageable, it increases the likelihood that a health club will do something – and if we know nothing else, we know that doing something is usually better than doing nothing.

So we have a clear business case for identifying which members are most at risk of churning. Our next mission then, would be to take our database of current members and identify which ones specifically are ‘at risk’ and which ones are ‘loyal’. Ideally we would take it one step further than this, and be able to rank our whole customer database in rank order from those statistically ‘most at risk’ to those ‘least at risk’. The benefit of doing this, is that it provides our sales/retention staff with a sequenced work list, which they would start at the top of and work their way down sequentially. This simple act in itself would give us comfort that our resources are being focused on those that most require them – a form of retention triage if you will. This can even be taken one step further, and we can – again using statistical methods – determine the statistically optimal place in the list to stop.

Though we have a business case, and a reasonably clear vision of what would be useful, the problem is that for the managers of most health clubs, the scenario outlined above is closer to science fiction, than something they perceive they can practically deploy within their club. So the status quo prevails: 1) do nothing, 2) treat all customers as equally at risk, or 3) perform some random haphazard interventions with no real science behind who is targeted and who is not.

So to get to the point of execution, and movement from theory to reality, let’s discuss how we would take this utopian vision and turn it into an actionable reality. Ironically for many health clubs this vision can be actualized faster than it took me to write this article – literally.

Most health clubs have a reasonable amount of data on their members. Let’s imagine that we have all the data about every member of our club for the last five years, lined up in an Excel spreadsheet. Every row is a unique member, every column is the information we know about that member. The columns we call input columns as they are the inputs that help us make our prediction about that persons future behaviour, these would contain things such as: her age, her marital status, change of marital status, # of visits in January 2010, number of visits in January 2009, etc. payment method, # of address changes, average time she spends in health club, etc, etc it would be no problem to have 100 or even 500 columns, and in the very last column (our target column) we add a label ‘loyal’ or ‘at risk’. Anybody that terminated their membership previously is labeled ‘at risk’ and ‘anybody’ who re-signed is labeled as ‘loyal’. We would eliminate from the spreadsheet anyone who had not had been with us a year yet, as we don’t have any conclusive information about their behaviours.

Now I will skip over the math here, which nobody would want to try at home, but you can take it on good authority that there are patterns within all the input columns that can help to predict the customers propensity to churn. This is as you would well expect, for example prior to terminating a membership, a member may start coming in less frequently, and if this data is recorded this would show up, or a change in marital status may impact an individuals propensity to re-sign, and most likely it is an aggregation of many factors. Typically a human cannot detect these patterns, but there are software applications that can, and once the patterns are defined, the software can look at the patterns in an unseen group of members and make a prediction as to each individuals propensity to churn, and then output these members in a sequenced list as described previously, complete with the optimal point in the list to stop making interventions.

To explain it a slightly different way, we are: 1) consolidating historical data about behaviours that we think may be correlated to an individual churning from historical members 2) we are letting software examine that data for patterns and how they relate to how a member churned or did not 3) that relationship is frozen in a ‘predictive model’, and finally 4) the model is applied to unseen members to statistically predict their behaviour (vis a vis churning or not).

I would encourage anybody interested to visit www.11AntsAnalytics.com and watch the 11Ants Model Builder QuickStart tutorial video, which will better show the process (the data is different, but it won’t require much imagination for it all to make perfect sense). Feel free to email me if you have questions about this – doing this sort of thing is ten times easier than most people imagine.

6 Fitness Sales Tips That Will Improve Your Salesmanship

Salesmanship is a critical skill necessary for all fitness professionals to master. Whether you like it or not, much of your livelihood will depend on whether or not you can “close the deal.” And just like any other skill, you can always improve on your ability to sell others on you and your services.

Here are 6 unique sales tips that will improve your salesmanship:

1) Know the difference between a prospect and a client. A prospect is someone who is interested in learning more about you and your services. A client is someone who has made the commitment and hired you by paying you money to train them.

2) It’s NEVER a sale until you have the money in your hand. That is why it is imperative you obtain payment before the meeting has ended. Too many things could happen to make the prospect change their mind if they haven’t committed any money to becoming physically fit. When money exchanges hands only then does the prospect become a client.

3) Be sure you set a distinct consultation time when you are trying to sell them your services. In other words, don’t try to “sell on the fly.” If you know it takes you a minimum of 45 minutes to close a sale then be 100% certain before the meeting starts your prospect has allotted that amount of time in their schedule. It’s your job to make sure they know exactly how long the meeting is going to take. Never assume anything. People are extremely busy and the last thing you want is for your prospect to leave before you have had a chance to close your sale.

4) Create a list of questions to ask prospects to determine whether or not they would make a good client. You don’t need to meet with every single prospect who in interested in hiring you. If you don’t feel someone would make a good client, someone who would become a “walking billboard” for you, then feel free to turn them away. Your time is too valuable to spend talking to people who aren’t serious about doing what it takes to get the results they claim they want.

5) Find out what your prospect wants to achieve and then explain to them how you can go about helping them achieve that. NEVER abdicate your expertise by allowing them to pick a training package based on price alone. When you present several options and ask your prospect to choose it is the same thing as saying “I’m really not an expert and I don’t know what I’m doing.”

6) If they become a paying client, before leaving your meeting you should give them one last chance to back out of the deal. Why? Because it allows you to alleviate and concerns they may have while you are still face to face. You want to be sure when you leave your meeting the new client is 100% committed to working with you. Otherwise, there is always a chance they will have buyer’s remorse and seek to back out of your deal. This gives you your best chance of eliminating that possibility.

These tips are easy to follow and will improve your salesmanship considerably. They will save you enormous amounts of time and effort.

Jim Labadie 

 

More Ideas for closing sales deals:
Get beyond “yes”: Time is your enemy. Once you’ve gotten your target to agree in principle that you’re going to make this deal, move them as quickly as possible toward getting it into writing. That’s because into the narrow opening between “yes” and signing on the dotted line can creep things common sales problems like second thoughts, competition or unforeseen events. So if you get a verbal expression of interest, then move resolutely toward a verbal commitment, then as quickly as possible to a written agreement that hopefully closes out the sales cycle.

 Create a sense of urgency: Sometimes the person on the other end of the deal will be happy to close it – when they can get around to it. Timing may be much more important to you. So if necessary, you want to create a sense of urgency to get their commitment, and that may require some final concessions to refocus their attention. This may involve offering a 2% greater discount, net-30 terms instead of net-10 requirements, or offering a two-year service agreement instead of one-year coverage. You’ll know what it takes.

Use the threat of competition: Unfortunately, in order to get the other side to close, sometimes an entrepreneur will have to get them to understand that if they don’t do the deal with you, you’ll do the deal with someone else. Sometimes this involves bluffing, sometimes enhancing the appeal of what you’re offering. But if you can convince the target of your deal making that you’re doing something that’s going to become powerful, everybody wants a piece of that.
Generate “late-breaking news”: Throughout the relationship-building and negotiating process and beyond, be funneling helpful new information to the other party. This might be a press release about a new product, a copy of a story about your business that you’ve managed to land in the local newspaper, the result of a new independent test of your service, or that one last testimonial from an existing customer that you’re keeping in your back pocket.
Be prepared to not close: The reality is that most deals don’t close, if you measure by the number of potential relationships and transactions that your company pursues. Something happens. There isn’t a fit. The timing isn’t right. You must disdain losing any deal and fight hard to land every last one. But you also need to be sober about the percentages – so you can raise them.
Closing Must Be Organic
Of course, every deal worth its salt must not be lopsided – it should stem either from mutual compromise or a true “win-win” scenario. And empathy goes a long way.
 
“The deal is actually closed before the deal happens. Courting and building relationships over time are the only guarantees of succeeding in closing a deal. And that can take years.
“Be the best listener you can. Hear the other guy’s pain; what can you do to solve it? And if there’s pleasure you can add to his equation, focus on that.
“Tricks aren’t good: If you need them, you’re not in position to close anyway. Create true value. That’s what will help you sell faster at the price you want.”

Our Bottom Line:
The last thing you want to have happen is see your hard work throughout the sales cycle come to naught – so learning the sales techniques you need to become a more effective sales closer is vital. Closing is like eating your spinach – it’s something you may hate to do, but doing it well can be the strength of your business-development efforts.

Sponsored by: Fitness Life Marketing 1-888-541-0714 ext2

 Article Research Contributor: Amerishape Weight Loss

Fitness Sales

Health Club owners if you think that your sales staff personalities and how they interact with customers and prospects doesn’t effect their closing rate, then maybe you need to take a closer look..  Today’s market is just going to get more competitive and price is not what is going to make sales.  Customer’s realize they are in a buyer’s market so they can afford to be critical of every step in your presentation, so being dry and boring are life threatening in regards to your sales career.  You must enjoy dealing with people and it has to show otherwise the customer will find someone who does.  Prospects want partners these days and if they have their choice they will partner with someone they enjoy interacting with.  You must engage the customer, tell good jokes and appear genuine all the time.  It doesn’t hurt to let the customer feel like they are in control either.  When it’s all  said and done, people buy from people.  I would much prefer to spend what I felt was a fair rate to work with a vendor who pals up to me and seems interested in my business.  With less money sitting on the table today, people are going to spend it with the most interesting and capable person they can.   So make sure your personality is energetic, respectful and encourages trust.  Just remember in this business, rude = unemployed.

Sponsored by: Fitness Life Marketing 1-888-541-0714 ext2

 Article Research Contributor: Amerishape Weight Loss

Health Club News For Health Club Owners!

http://www.healthclubnews.com/

http://www.healthclubnews.com/

Going the Distance
With 23 clubs and counting, Sport & Health is the largest fitness chain in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area. Locally owned and operated for more than 30 years, the company is led by CEO Jonathan Adler and President and COO Mark Fisher, two dynamic leaders who have created a plan that will allow the company to grow systematically over the next five years, while also improving its existing locations.

Left to Right: Jonathan Adler, CEO; Mark Fisher, COO and President, Sport &  Health Clubs, in the virtual cycling studio at Old Town Sport & Health fitness center in Alexandria, Va.

Anyone who has been lucky enough to live in or visit our nation’s capital knows that it is truly unlike any other place in the world. Brimming with diversity and steeped in history, the Washington Metro Area is comprised of innumerable neighborhood enclaves that often retain unique identities within the larger construct of D.C. Recently, Washington was named the “fittest city in the USA” by the American College of Sports Medicine – a distinction that happens to perfectly coincide with Sport &  Health’s plans for expanding its presence and upgrading its clubs.The network underlines a prejudice.

THE HISTORY

Adler happens to be a native D.C. resident, with a background as diverse as the metro area he serves. A true entrepreneur with a head for sales and marketing, Adler has achieved success in publishing and Internet start-ups over the years. He began working full time in the publishing business at the tender age of 19, while studying business at the University of Maryland. In December 2005, Adler was already a member of Sport   Health when he jumped at the chance to buy the company with four other friends and colleagues who were real estate partners and fellow club members. “I was looking for a business with recurring revenue and, more importantly, one that would allow me to positively impact people’s lives,” he shares.

As the other half of this executive team, Fisher brings a wealth of industry-specific experience to the table. Having worked in clubs since graduating from college in 1982, his first real gig was at U.S. Swim and Fitness – a growing company that also served as a training ground for Bahram Akradi of Life Time Fitness and several other industry veterans. The company was eventually purchased by Bally’s, prompting Fisher to open his own club. After locating a strong market in Wichita, Kan., he opened six clubs in the area over the course of 14 years. In 1996, he decided to take some time off and sold the clubs to private parties. By 2002, after several years of owning a hospitality-based business, Fisher was ready to jump back into the industry. He knew the CEO of Sport & Health at the time from his involvement in the exclusive Young President’s Organization (YPO), and opted to take a position upon joining the company that was beneath his real experience level in order to become familiar with the many changes that had occurred in the industry. By 2006, after several promotions, Fisher had assumed his current role and was deeply involved in making the company the best it could be.

PUTTING MEMBERS FIRST

Over the years, Sport &  Health has capitalized on the unique makeup of the Washington Metro Area by tailoring its approach to doing business accordingly — from programming to marketing, the clubs choose options that will appeal directly to those who live and work within a three-to-five mile radius of each location. The result is a wide variety of sports, mind-body and fitness programming for members.

“Our clubs are not cookie-cutter,” says Adler. “We choose the programming for each club by analyzing extensive demographic information which outlines the preferences of each club’s membership base – and the surrounding community as a whole.” For example, programming in one club may be more family-oriented, while programming at another location would be more focused on attracting active businessmen and women. According to Adler, being a locally owned and operated company allows them to more easily manage this variety, especially since both he and Fisher believe in getting out of the office and into the clubs on a regular basis. “I don’t manage from my office – our entire management style is very inclusive,” states Fisher.

Technology has also played a leading role in allowing Adler and Fisher to properly evaluate the performance of the clubs’ many programs. When Adler assumed his position at the helm of Sport & Health, the company was still using an outdated DOS system that was very slow to generate reports. They turned to CSI for help, and systematically updated the company’s hardware and software. Now, they are using a real-time system which everyone has access to, that can easily track and determine member preferences – an essential component in managing multiple locations that offer such a wide variety of programming. “We can look at the percentage of our membership that is engaged and determine how it is affecting retention,” Adler says.
Perhaps one of the most important ways Sport &  Health stays in contact with members and keeps a finger on the pulse of the communities it serves is through systematic communication with members when they are outside of the clubs. “We are big believers in e-mail and using online technology for keeping in touch with our members,” says Fisher. According to Adler, they reach out to all members on a monthly basis – either to let them know what’s going on in the clubs, or to ask them for feedback, or both. In addition, spot surveys are conducted quarterly and every member is surveyed annually using in-depth metrics designed to measure all aspects of each club.

    Community involvement is another key component of staying in touch. Sport & Health has raised more than $1 million in the last few years for charity, and managers and employees are expected to get out into the community where their clubs are located. This grassroots approach also applies to the company’s guerilla marketing choices, which Adler says have driven down the cost per sale while driving up closing ratios. And, the company’s record sales the last few months are solid proof that this technique is working. “Our member referrals are up because we are actively encouraging members to bring new people in, while our employees’ involvement in the communities has gone a long way to build trust,” Fisher shares. Adler agrees, stating, “With my business and marketing background, I’m a big believer in the power of the Internet and using marketing techniques that involve an unconventional approach, relying on time, energy and imagination instead of a big marketing budget,” he says.

HANDS-ON MANAGEMENT STYLE

According to Adler and Fisher, another major component to the success of Sport & Health has been the company’s outstanding Senior Leadership Team, general managers and employees – basically, the people who are out in the clubs running the show every day. “The most important thing to remember is that companies are always driven by the people who work there,” says Adler.

When asked how they have been able to locate and foster such a strong team, Fisher says they looked for “drivers” and were fortunate to find many already within the company. “We want to be the premier employer of fitness personnel in the region,” he shares. Adler agrees, stating, “We are both a great place to work and a tough place to work – our interview process is very detailed; our general managers typically go through seven or eight different interviews prior to joining our team.” In addition to exceptional management, Sport &  Health prides itself on the quality of its personal trainers; they accept fewer certifications than many other clubs, and all new hires must do an audition and interview with multiple general managers.

According to Adler, they also pay above average in order to attract and retain the best employees. This has allowed them to feel comfortable empowering managers and giving them real responsibilities – they are expected to understand what it takes to operate all aspects of the business. “We expect them to know members’ names and to spend three hours a day at the front desk, but we also expect them to be involved in discussions on marketing, pricing, compensation, etc.,” says Adler. “Our managers have a very strong influence and can really impact their club’s performance,” adds Fisher.

Neither Adler nor Fisher believe in a “top down” management style. Instead, both prefer to have as many heads as possible contributing to the betterment of the company. “You have to align your goals and expectations by developing a clear purpose, mission and value statement,” Adler shares. Fisher agrees, adding, “We have shifted the focus of the company culture and now everyone is committed to, and focused on, being a progressive, driven, energized health and fitness corporation.” To them, this means becoming better than they were last year, last month, last week, even yesterday. In practice, having regular inter-club competitions is a key part of this philosophy. Achievements like having the highest retention rates, the best member surveys or breaking a sales record do not go unnoticed, and rewarding positive change creates urgency and fosters a dynamic, high-energy environment.

More than 20 years ago, Fisher’s mother gave him a book that has now become an integral part of the culture at Sport & Health. An outwardly unassuming volume, “Rhinoceros Success,” by Scott Alexander is often mistaken for a children’s book at first glance. Its content, however, illustrates the importance of being “like a rhino” in life by taking charge and staying focused on your goal, while also being unafraid, thick-skinned and unstoppable in the face of challenges. “Today, this philosophy is enmeshed in the company – our screen savers are rhinos, clubs that “crash through” their sales goals get “Rhino Awards” and our conference room is called the “Rhino Room,” says Fisher. And it’s obvious that both he and Adler are willing to walk the walk. “Everyone needs to know what good performance looks like,” Adler says. “We are in front of them enough and are consistent enough to set the example.”

FIVE-YEAR PLAN

In case you haven’t heard, Sport & Health received $25 million in financing through PNC Mezzanine Capital and CMS Mezzanine Fund earlier this year, which has allowed the company to restructure senior debt — enhancing its capacity to grow and improve its network of clubs. Over the next five years, Sport & Health will continue to upgrade existing locations and has plans to acquire or build three new clubs per year in the D.C. area. For new clubs, they have a 20,000 square foot urban model and a 40,000 square foot suburban model, both of which have the capacity to provide the variety members have grown to expect. – CS

Keys To Success:

BECOME incredibly efficient at managing expenses, but always make sure that any changes will not have a negative effect on the member experience. Instead, focus on getting better terms from vendors and doing away with unnecessary waste.

INCLUDE key employees in the decision-making process. Get them involved in finding solutions to your club’s challenges – they are on the front lines of your business and will have important insights to share.

MOTIVATE your staff by creating inter-club competitions and rewards for outstanding achievement.

KNOW your community and service its needs. More people today are joining clubs that are conveniently located close to home or work, so understanding what your club’s dominant demographic really needs will help you keep members happy.

FIND ways to get managers and employees involved in community events. This is a great way to earn trust, and remember: You get what you give!

ASK your members to tell you what they think. Staying in touch with members and actively engaging them in the direction your club takes is paramount to remaining relevant in their lives.

Sponsored by: Fitness Life Marketing 1-888-541-0714 ext2

 Article Research Contributor: Amerishape Weight Loss

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