By Richard Quinn, President
Helping Health Clubs, LLC
Within the past ten years, the health club industry has evolved in many ways. Due to the increase of people seeking healthier lifestyles, the industry is far more competitive with large “players” aggressively putting up “Home Depot” style clubs which are nothing more than big boxes with an enormous amount of space to fill with the latest equipment. Both publicly traded and private venture capitalist companies have moved into our industry with very “deep pockets” and intentions on dominating market share. They realize the consumer’s interest, however, they fail to understand that flashy lights and loud music cannot compensate for true service and knowledge of the industry.
The result of this evolution has caused the consumer to become savvy in regards to joining a club including recognizing shady sales practices and understanding the different types of services that a health club should provide. Clubs can no longer reap the profits and sales that they were once accustomed to solely as one club, nor are they enrolling as many new members as in previous years. The membership sales department of a health club used to dominate a club’s revenue stream, but now it has become like the manufacturing business in the sense that a person can join a club that offers a wide variety of incentives to sign up such as no contracts, month-to-month options, no enrollment fees, enrollment fees, all-inclusive, non-inclusive, ala carte and short term options. Rather, it is all about the services a club offers and how the club can make money through internal profit centers while focusing on a high retention rate. To sum it up, their ultimate goal is, “Maximize the Amount of Money You Make per Square Foot.” Do we call this service? Or greed?
Personal training has become the service that will double, triple and even quadruple membership sales revenues. It has now become the dominant revenue generator of a club. Personal training also assists a club with its year-to-year membership retention as well as club referrals. Naturally, consumers are used to paying for a service. To us, personal training is as important as seeing a chiropractor, a doctor or a dentist. We actually believe it to be more important because you, the personal trainer, is providing preventive maintenance and overall well-being to the most important thing that we all possess: our bodies. The body is ‘the vehicle to life.”
On numerous occasions, we have witnessed a consumer walk into a club and doggedly refuse to pay enrollment fees and negotiate until they get their way. Surprisingly, those same people came in for their first orientation and actually purchased a personal training package for more than $2,000! Consumers highly value this service.
People want a lifestyle coach; they want (and desperately need) to be motivated. As well, they strongly desire for their health and fitness hopes and dreams to finally become a reality. There are different reasons that people use personal trainers: of course, for results; for motivation when they workout; or, for social status. Many clients are motivated by all of these reasons. Therefore, their personal trainer becomes more than just someone who assists them with their health and fitness needs. To them, their trainer is a motivator, lifestyle coach, friend and mentor.
Personal training has become a necessity, not an option, for a club owner to offer to today’s demanding consumers. Not having a personal training department in your club is like a hotel room not having a bed. Can you imagine that? Of course not. It’s absurd to think such a hotel would be successful. Well, the same principle applies to personal trainers.
Not offering such a service will surely lose you hundreds, if not millions, of dollars each year. Bottom line is that if implemented properly, personal training can be sold to 20-25% of your new membership base within seven days of their enrollment to your club. This yields an average contractual value of over $1,000 per new client and sets your new member on the path to true and proven health and fitness success!
In conclusion, personal training is on the rise. It dominates today’s consumer demands in relevance to fitness, and it far exceeds all other health club revenue generators. Consumers would rather pay a “low membership fee” and spend their money on obtaining results through a service such as personal trainers instead of a system of working out on machines.
