The term "fitness" in Russia has already taken root. It took ten long years - but today in almost every city there are five to ten working fitness centers. Elena DARI, General Director of the Mark Avreliy network, tells how to effectively manage a fitness club.
Organize your space properly
Use the premises of the fitness club effectively, especially since there are already well-established rules in planning. For example, "passability" is calculated by a simple formula: one person - one square meter. Do not order a design project in an ordinary bureau - contact experienced professionals who feel all the subtleties of a fitness club layout.
A mistake at the design project stage threatens to result in permanent financial losses. It sometimes surprises me how people manage to earn money if only half of their 700 meters “works”, 90 meters are allocated for the corridor, another 50 for the wardrobe ... Obviously, a third of the space will be idle.
Another example of wasteful use of investments is duplication: when “for beauty” two bars are built instead of one. The desire for symmetry translates into a doubling of costs: after all, you will need two counters, two utility rooms, two kitchens, and, finally, two cash registers. For what? A typical mistake also is the ill-conceived placement of the halls. Say, in order to get to the cardio equipment room, you need to go through the aerobics room, where classes are held all the time.
Equipment: beware!
Never skimp on equipment! The level of a fitness club, starting conditions can vary greatly, and the initial price of equipment varies widely. However, the main thing is that these are professional sports, and not household simulators. You will not believe it, but suppliers manage to persuade start-up entrepreneurs to buy home “devices”. The rule "the miser pays twice" here, as nowhere else, is true.
Firstly, equipment that is not designed for intensive loads and operation begins to crumble before our eyes. And secondly, low-quality equipment simply threatens the safety of your customers, and you can simply lose your reputation and go broke on compensation if some kind of unpleasant incident occurs. How to choose suppliers in a crowded market? Turn to several experts, compare their opinions, study the specialized press, focus on well-known brands - then you will not be mistaken.
Divide and rule
So, you have purchased the equipment. But it is equally important to arrange it correctly. It seems to me optimal to divide the fitness club hall into certain zones: the aerobics hall, of course, is separate from the gym. Within one gym the cardio zone should be separated from the “power zone”. Some separate zones for beginners and "advanced", because they believe that the loads and methods differ greatly. Place equipment aimed at training one muscle group nearby, do not scatter it throughout the room. One simulator requires at least 5 sq. m. of area, complex devices - 6-8 sq. m. "Pancakes" should not lie away from the bar, select the dumbbell row.
Build a strong team
Service is people first. Your success directly depends on how well the staff knows how to sell services and communicate well with customers. A fitness club can have amazing equipment, but if there are mediocre trainers, it will be lost. And vice versa - the command "with open mind, with a pure heart and a clear head" will attract clients to you, even if your competitors have slightly better equipment. You can go to good people from afar.
The staff of the fitness club consists of very diverse specialists - from psychologists - whose duties vary. Each division develops its own “subculture”, which must be taken into account and respected. Any organization is strong with traditions. The more good traditions in the company (not just clearly spelled out job descriptions, namely traditions), the stronger the team. If there are no traditions yet, create them as a story, as a legend for your company!
By summer - winter!
Fitness is a seasonal business. Clients who have been joyfully and enthusiastically involved in sports all year long prefer outdoor recreation in summer. In seasonal businesses, recessions and declines are fairly predictable; the main thing is that sales figures do not fall below forecasts. It is important to prepare for the downturn.
Your salvation is in three hot months, if you have additional opportunities for seasonal sports: outdoor tennis courts, football field, basketball courts. In this case, sales in a difficult period have a chance to "resist".
If you don’t have competitive advantages in the form of open areas, then by the summer you will have to “tighten your belts”, come up with special programs, discounts. Every summer ends happily if you have a couple of suitable discount programs. The most famous and traditional move is “summer as a gift”, when two or three summer months are allocated to the client for free when buying an annual card. It is unprofitable to offer discounts to a card with a shorter validity period.
Another suitable option: a special card for the summer - because not everyone leaves the cities. In addition, against the backdrop of a general summer relaxation (unless, of course, you sell air conditioners and ice cream), office workers have more free time. This is where it is worth offering them a summer program.
A good opportunity to “survive” in the heat is to attract a new contingent of customers, such as students: instead of summer restlessness, offer them a special price. As a last resort, try the favorite tactic of the mobile operator's marketing war - "fog in the price list". The essence of the methodology is simple: tariffs and discounts are calculated according to such a complex scheme that it is almost impossible to understand them. However, you should not get carried away with this not quite correct method, because customers in our segment prefer a clear and precise pricing policy.
If you are not ready for the summer, there is a chance to suffer very badly. Mini-downs in fitness also occur in December-January, but they are not as painful as the "stagnant" summer, when people hungry for the sun rush "to nature" and do not want to work out in good, air-conditioned - but still rooms.
Take the client "warm"
Advertising, ideally, should take about 7-10% of the turnover. It is reasonable to spend 60% of these funds on external media, about 20% - on the Internet, another 20% - on various promotions. Of all the possible advertising channels for a fitness club, the most effective are "outdoor advertising" (pointers, signs, streamers), the Internet (operates in large cities) and direct mail. By using the last channel, trust an experienced company. With all the obvious advantages of direct mailing, a narrow and targeted selection gives more returns: in combination with PR, it works much more effectively.
It is worth emphasizing that the main mistake that small and beginner fitness clubs make is saving on an advertising specialist. Most often, an unprofessional person is engaged in it, as a result, cones are stuffed, which result in quite tangible money. So, for example, you can flood the Miners of the Urals newspaper with advertising modules about the opening of a new club in one of the districts of Moscow, spend a lot of money so necessary for development - and not get any result.
In the summer, it is quite possible to use advertising in the press and transfer funds to other channels, such as the Internet. Even on vacation, customers read mail and news, banner advertising will work here. Seeing tanned people next to me toned bodies, a person makes a vow to himself that he will start doing fitness, and one can hope to “catch” him, as they say, at his word.
Keep your nose to the wind
When planning the introduction of additional services (, a children's room), proceed from the market situation, take a closer look at competitors, if any. The experience of our fitness club suggests that it is better to experiment with programs, but not with redevelopment and construction of new premises. Fashion for certain services is a very changeable thing, and in order not to get involved in costly redevelopment, this should be taken into account. If I had opened a SPA-salon five years ago, then, of course, it would have stood empty for a long time; and today it is impossible to get to us - this service has become so relevant.
Here it is important to have what I call "the scent of the situation." It is also useful to involve marketing companies if working capital allows you to order the market. In the end, study the market in your own way, conduct surveys among club members. Often it is customers who are the source of new ideas. However, you should be aware that experiments with the premises cost a lot; building the same beauty salon inside an existing club is inconvenient, difficult and expensive.
Be flexible
But experiments in programs are welcome. Once a season you have to introduce something new. A powerful source of fresh ideas and fitness programs - international conferences, meetings and master classes. The most famous and effective I consider the World Class fitness convention, which I attend myself and to which I also send my coaches to improve their skills.
It must be admitted that Russia in the fitness movement, unfortunately, is not yet a source of innovative ideas and most of the finds come to us from abroad. The flagship is the United States, where fitness as an industry has existed for half a century. Creative programs allow you to save on equipment. So, this year we presented a program for kids called "stitch catchers" based on the Harry Potter novels, which is very popular and does not require additional investments.
To keep track of the popularity of programs, we create ratings: after each session, the trainer enters the number of participants in a table and records any of their opinions. This allows us to be flexible.
Price policy
The level of prices for services, as a rule, is calculated by the financial department; calculations are based on cost and profit margin. It is good, of course, to offer prices for any budget, but it is important to segment the different categories of customers very clearly (do not dump all your eggs in one basket) and, if possible, not push all groups in the same room. To do this, fitness clubs have a very effective mechanism: morning, afternoon, general membership and a weekend card. Morning is a blissful time for those who work; during the day - the kingdom of housewives, etc.
Protect your customer base
The client base of a fitness club is sacred! Under no circumstances sell it to the side and very carefully protect access to it, no matter what joint projects you are offered, no matter what fees you lure.
You should be very careful about the selection of personnel with access to the corporate database; During the interview, pay attention to the decency and reliability of the person. Our experience shows that it is not worth it to allow aggressive excesses in relations with clients using contact information from the database. Never force services; it is better to make a direct mailing, which will be perceived less aggressively than a call to a mobile phone. Practice only the correct methods of promoting sales, otherwise the pressure will cause persistent disgust in some customers. This line is very thin, and it is important to feel it.
Tips wrote: Ekaterina Chinarova
All about running a fitness club. What you need to know the owner and manager to achieve high financial results.
Monitor your health and be in excellent sportswear is trend 21st century. Human health in the modern world affects many areas of human activity: both in career and personal development, and in personal life. Therefore, the fitness industry is gaining momentum. And here arises question: what is a fitness club and fitness club management?
Fitness club management. Where to begin?
Among the growing number of competitors and increasing customer demands for successful fitness clubs and studios allocate professionalism And quality V organization of work all departments and specialists. It’s not enough just to open a club / studio with high-quality repairs and fill it with new equipment or offer new training programs - you still need to be able to present it correctly so that the client is interested and buys.
Effective fitness club management will bring leadership on the market and success entrepreneur.
There are few educational institutions or centers in Ukraine that provide knowledge of successful leadership fitness industry, so the workshop “Effective Fitness Club Management Skills” CURRENT.
Fitness club can be compared to a living organism, which It has certain structures, each performing its own functions And interaction among themselves which gives RESULT.
Key points of management effectiveness
Correct building a business plan strategy, organization and distribution responsibilities, financial planning and accounting documentation, market research of the fitness industry will give positive results and improving work efficiency.
Successful team. What is she?
Very important for success running a fitness club TEAM. Trust and interaction between the team gives the rapid development of the club. When each structure is doing its own thing, this makes it possible to solve the daily tasks and quickly respond to situations at critical moments.
Quite a few important role plays TOP MANAGER(MANAGER) of the fitness club and SUBDIVISION HEADS(MIDDLE MANAGERS).
Knows what difference between them? Many are confused and cannot clearly distribute and delimit responsibilities between them. This is the main problem of many clubs and leads to incompetent and inefficient running of a fitness club or sports studio.
Differences: top manager and department heads
TOP-MANAGER (Manager) is a thought leader. It depends on him many things, in particular assessment of the effectiveness of the management of a fitness club by financial indicators. He must be able to understand how his enterprise will develop. This is influenced by the ability to master planning skills (strategic, tactical, operational). This makes it possible set goals correctly And tasks that decide all divisions of the fitness club.
HEADS OF DIVISIONS (Middle managers). These are the managers provide operational management associated with the daily monitoring of the implementation of tasks and manages the work of the team. Fast reaction on the progress of the implementation of the tasks and finding solutions, task distribution, further analysis of results work is art backed up knowledge of management tools, which should own every manager.
Elements of good management
Of great importance is working structure of a fitness club. Responsibility and authority distribution zones, from managers to specialists of all departments. The work of all employees fitness club, qualification And willingness to help improve people's health, attach to healthy lifestyle life and influence changes their quality of life for the better and there is a main target all well-coordinated team work.
This helps competent management and in the direction effective communication with the client fitness club and organizations effective personnel management. And it is an indicator that determines the effective work of a fitness club / studio as a whole.
Internal organization
Is there some more important points Keywords: financial planning, SWOT-analysis, accounting documentation, formation of the cost of services, marketing and advertising promotion, service management. Daily maintenance of financial and accounting records help you analyze your work. and business dynamics.
What will Smart Fitness Academy give?
In order to make work easier And give management tools for managers of fitness clubs/studios and was developed a practical course "Management of a fitness club" at Smart Fitness Academy Svetlana Biryuchinskaya. His uniqueness is that You get working tools successfully proven in practice and adapted to reality And economic situation today.
Who should run a fitness club: a professional athlete or a professional manager?
Is, for example, a highly skilled builder a suitable manager for a real estate firm? Being engaged in construction, he participated in the creation of the product, but without proper training and practice, he does not understand how to effectively sell this product. This applies to any other profession as well.
But if the builder knows the product to be sold, then the athlete, during his professional career I have never come across a "fitness product", because the goals of sports, especially professional ones, have nothing to do with the goals of fitness, and the effect on the human body is diametrically opposed. Compare: the result is at any cost (at the cost of health), and health is the highest value. Therefore, the automatic transfer of experience from the field of sports to the field of fitness can be not only unproductive, but also dangerous for the health of clients.
There is also a psychological aspect that makes it difficult for most athletes successful work in the club: it is usually difficult for them to "pick up the key" to people with low motivation to work hard and achieve results. About 80% of those who renew the club membership did not achieve their goals, although when joining the club they name improvement as the main motive for joining physical form. So there's something in the club besides training process and results, which allows you to attract and retain members of the club. If a member of the club is ready to train purposefully, then the coach provides him with highly qualified assistance, but such purposeful and strong-willed people are a minority, about 20%, for the vast majority the club is a place of pleasant leisure, an opportunity to relieve stress, get rid of back pain, find a new social circle and so on.
If this specificity is not taken into account in the management of the club, the club will not be able to offer anything to the absolute majority of its clients and will inevitably lose a significant part of its income.
The same obstacles can stand in the way of a professional athlete's success as either a fitness director/manager or fitness coach.
All of the above arguments are by no means intended to taboo the work of professional athletes in the fitness industry, but only help to draw the attention of club owners and managers to the fact that sports achivments cannot serve as a "passport" to work in a fitness club. In order to independently, it is necessary to undergo professional training and possess the necessary personal qualities, as, indeed, to work in a hotel, restaurant, real estate, tourism and other business areas related to the sale of services.
Product Specifics "Fitness"
Let's deal with the terminology. This is important, because even the participants in the fitness services sales training cannot agree on what kind of service it is that you need to learn how to sell.
What everyone says is different from what everyone else thinks! And all this is the opinion of people working in the same business, doing the same thing, some of them even work in the same club! How to sell something about which the sellers themselves cannot come to a consensus?
According to the participants of the seminars, fitness is
- weight gain, i.e. increase in muscle mass;
- weight loss;
- muscle training due to their tension or, conversely, due to relaxation;
- stress relief;
- Lifestyle;
- source of income;
- allows you to escape from all the problems in the world;
- a way to strengthen the body and spirit;
- the ability to maintain good health;
- preparation for a marathon;
- flexibility, endurance, strength;
- good appearance;
- making new friends and acquaintances
- etc. and so on.
The list of opinions about what constitutes fitness is almost endless... Sometimes opinions contradict each other, it seems that each person has their own opinion. It all depends on who you ask this question to. Let's try to define terms.
Fitness is an English word that is used quite widely, it has many meanings, and not only in the fitness industry. People use the word "fit" to mean a lot of things: not only to be physically fit, but also, for example, to be suitable for a certain job or, say, to be a good parent, or even sometimes means to deserve something. And it seems that people want to "deserve", "be fit" for completely different things. Contrary to such disagreements, there is an easy enough way to define what "fitness" is. It all depends on whether "fitness" is your hobby or your profession.
If fitness is your hobby, then fitness for you is exactly what YOU want, what you like, what is interesting to you personally. For example, if you want to lose five kilograms of weight, then for you fitness means exactly that.
And if fitness is your profession, then in this case fitness is what your CLIENT wants.
Another feature of fitness as a service: like any other service, it cannot be taken off the shelf and sold to a customer. We cannot sell a ready-made result to a person who wants to lose five kilograms. The subject of the transaction in this case cannot change hands. In fact, we are selling the promise that when regular classes our client will get the desired result. Since the concept of "fitness" cannot be defined precisely enough, it can only be measured by the degree to which some goals are achieved and expectations are justified. Therefore, you need to sell fitness in a slightly different way. You can successfully sell a fitness service only on the basis of trust. Imagine that you know the client for a few minutes and offer him to pay a significant amount, assuring that, most likely, he will get the desired result. Sounds like a daunting task!
And in order to cope with it, you need to learn some basic knowledge, master a certain technique, own the theory of sales, have a positive attitude and focus on customer needs.
Who should sell club memberships?
The answer to this question is absolutely obvious for large fitness networks and ambiguous for those who run small clubs. Fitness industry experts agree that the club must have staff whose duties include only attracting new customers. A separate employee in attracting new members of the club, in expanding the business is much more efficient than distributing these functions to the entire line staff.
If we talk about the financial feasibility of such a solution, then just one or two new customers per month is usually enough to recoup the costs. Therefore, the club has absolutely nothing to lose if the special staff is exclusively engaged in consulting on club membership! Whether it's a small club or a chain club, it always makes financial sense to hire staff whose only job is to recruit new club members. The club will only benefit from this!
Prospects and problems
According to experts, the fitness industry in our country is one of the first in terms of development dynamics. The boom in fitness development in Moscow has swept through the regions like a wave and continues to gain momentum. With a favorable economic situation, the rapid growth of the fitness industry is inevitable, since every person can improve the quality of his life by doing fitness, therefore, can be considered as a potential client.
Sounds like a very optimistic outlook for all opening clubs.
Why, then, does it often happen that clubs fail?
Here are some common mistakes:
Wrong concept and positioning (trying to be "everything for everyone")
- wrong pricing policy
- wrong marketing policy
- no sales system
- the service system is not built
- failed to create command
- untrained staff
- bad location
- not a serious attitude (rather something "for the soul", a "toy", a hobby than a business)
- gross errors in planning, technical solutions, and selection of equipment
(Try using these points to test your strengths and weaknesses)
So how do you become successful in this huge fitness market valued at hundreds of millions of dollars?
The answer is this: you need to deeply study the fitness business or enlist the help of professionals. You can conquer the market in this segment by offering a first-class fitness product and selling it professionally.
Many fitness entrepreneurs constantly live in time trouble, for them this has already become a familiar state. How to deal with it? How to build a workflow so that managing a fitness club does not take up all your time?
Make a complete to-do list for the head of the fitness club
You can start this process by making a list of short and long term tasks. It should include everything from writing an article for your fitness club blog to accounting and employee training.
I do this with Wunderlist.
Highlight the main tasks of the head of a fitness club
When the list is ready, you can go through it again and determine if there is anything that can be removed. If yes, do it. Sometimes such lists include tasks that are not of particular value, or the complexity of which does not justify the result.
For example, you still lead a fitness club group in Odnoklassniki, but your entire target audience has long since moved to Facebook and Instagram. With full confidence, you can cross out this task.
If launch new fitness programs cost you more money than you can earn, stop it.
If the meeting with partners does not require personal presence, hold it via Skype.
Automate your work as a fitness business manager
Some of your tasks can be automated. If you see that a task can be automated, do it right now. For example, in online banking, you can set up recurring payments. On a monthly basis, the system will write off the set amount and pay the necessary bills, for example, for telephone communications and the Internet.
Sometimes potential clients can't get through to a fitness club just because someone forgot to pay their phone bill on time.
Employee tasks can also be automated. The tool for automatic publication in social networks will come to the aid of the SMM manager. Using services like NovaPress, you can schedule publications, duplicate posts on different social networks, automatically send materials from the site to Vkontakte, Facebook, Twitter, Odnoklassniki and Google+ groups.
Effective fitness club management also requires that you maintain a work schedule in Google Calendar, and staff (administrators, sales managers) have access to it. So employees will see when it is possible to present you a sales report, or at what time to schedule an interview with a new coach.
Delegate tasks to the heads of departments of your fitness club
Once you've figured out what can be eliminated and automated, it's time to delegate.
Perhaps the person to whom you delegate this or that task will not do it as well as you. This is important to understand. But if the quality of its implementation can be estimated at least by 70%, this is normal.
By delegating four tasks that typically take about one hour a week, you'll free up 16 hours a month to focus on important strategic tasks.
If you do your own tax reporting, flyer design and website redesign, you will hardly have time to think over a strategic plan for the development of a fitness club, find new partners or go to study.
Outsource everything you can. This will save you time and ultimately money.
