Integrating technology solutions into your club is a challenge every club operator faces. The key to success is ensuring that technology positively impacts the day-to-day operations of your facility without disrupting these very same operations. What if this challenge became the ultimate opportunity? An opportunity to dramatically impact every area of your club? That is exactly what the Visual Fitness Planner (VFP) technology solution delivers. This technology is designed as a complement to operate seamlessly at the center of your operations.
The technology system dramatically impacts three key segments of your business:
• To the Member – Motivation, Education, and Results
• To the Employee – Recruitment, Training and Performance
• To the Club – Revenues, Retention and Profitability.
Why is technology important in solving the major needs of health club operations?
Member after member of health club facilities have joined and subsequently failed in their attempts to change their health or their body. Health clubs have continually failed these members when they do not provide an experience that encourages them to continue and succeed. Technology solutions can dramatically impact this experience.
According to Dr. Jim Annesi, “Alone, almost every new member will fail at starting and maintaining an exercise program”. Additionally, his research has shown that up to 65% of all beginning exercisers will quit within the first six months. It is critical that these research findings be analyzed, understood, and utilized to drive change in member retention.
Prospective members do not come to a club only to purchase a membership card. They come for one of three reasons: vanity, health or socialization. They want to change the way they look. They want increased energy, better health, decreased pain and the lift in mood that exercise can provide. Some people come just for the socialization; they just want to be around people who already exhibit these desired attributes. Therefore, health clubs should give these new members what they want – not only a membership, but a total solution to their needs. They need a solution to one of the three reasons they have already told us will prompt them to join and stay.
Selling only memberships without a truly different member experience has set the health club industry up to fail in the area of member retention. The Visual Fitness Planner provides this member experience. It helps clubs identify the prospects or members needs and plugs them into the appropriate program. This starts them on the cycle of results attainment that ultimately leads to higher retention.
True member retention is connecting the sales-service-results attainment circle. If a member achieves the results they initially desire, the chances of them remaining a member are exponentially higher. In addition, these raving fans will then share their success within their sphere of influence which will lead to more referrals and increased profitability for their club.
Below is an outline of how the Visual Fitness Planner connects the sales-service-results attainment circle with a turnkey New Member Integration System.
In order to make any New Member Integration program succeed, you mu st educate the consumer on the value of coaching. In addition, the member must understand how critical this integration period is to their success. Finally, new members need to be educated on the downside of going it alone without the needed support.
The Visual Fitness Planner technology solution solves all of the issues of New Member Integration. This system sets the health club industry standard for sales and marketing by providing a turnkey system for marketing, capturing and integrating new members into a healthy lifestyle change. This platform provides the capability to automate your existing sales, marketing and orientation systems with visually impacting technology. VFP calculates a person’s health risks for diseases; it predicts their “health age”; creates a 3-D image of their body, and calculates exactly how long it will take to achieve their goals…And in this process, it increases new membership sales, personal training sales and member retention.
This solution for your club’s sales and retention systems is based upon a completely customizable technology platform that identically mirrors existing processes. Your club does not have to “implement another new system”. Visual Fitness Planner takes the time to completely understand your business and your business model: what you sell, where you sell it, when you sell it and how you sell it. By taking the time to truly understand your business, the technology becomes one with your existing systems with the added emotional power of visual education and motivation. This custom system will also streamline the process of employee training since, by utilizing the system, the employee is learning how your club does business. This technology solution is not simply adding “one more thing” that must be launched and implemented…By utilizing the system, the employee’s performance improves.
The Visual Fitness Planner provides the ideal technology solution to three of the primary issues facing health clubs today. By customizing this technology to match and mirror a club’s sales and retention systems, the members benefit through increased education, motivation and results. In addition, the employees benefit through better training and increased performance. And finally, the club benefits through increased membership and personal training sales, increased membership retention and increased overall profitability.
True New Member Integration Includes:
• Education
• Motivation
• Visualization of Goal Achievement
• Short-term / Long-term Goal Setting
• Plan of Action
• Program Selection
• Workout Accountability
• Periodic Assessment
• Behavior Modification
– Excercise Adherance
– Nutrition Improvement
• Next Steps
• Feedback Loop
• Repeat
Top 5 Technology Benefits:
• Educates and motivates members to begin and maintain healthy lifestyle change
• Through customization, the system becomes THE TRAINING PLATFORM for new employees
• System is adaptable to your changing company needs
• Increases members emotional readiness to purchase additional services
• Drives increased sales of memberships, personal training and other paid for services
Top 5 Technology Features:
• Health Age Calculation
• Complete Health Risk Assessment
• Before & After Imaging
• Automatic E-Mail Function
• On-demand Web-Cast Employee Training
Daron Allen is the President and CEO of Visual Fitness Planner, the industry standard for New Member Integration. For more information email info@vfp.us, or call 877.837.1212. You can also visit the website at www.vfp.us.
