If you follow us on Twitter and/or Facebook, you may have noticed several photos last week pertaining to the Kentucky Derby. Well, last week marked the inaugural Club Solutions Magazine Leadership Summit at the Kentucky Derby — so your eyes weren’t fooling you.
We brought together 25 of the top minds in the fitness industry for three days to discuss their clubs, the state of fitness and how they would lead the industry into the future. Also, we did a little networking at the horse track.
There were a multitude of takeaways from the event, but two stuck out to me the most — results and community.
Results and community were discussed at great length from the first roundtable through the last round table. As we all have realized over the past 30 to 40 years, members crave results. However, what they search for, possibly equally to results, is a sense of community established within their fitness facilities.
A sense of community welcomes personal belonging, but for your clubs it can improve sales as well as retention. We see community established in fitness clubs through group activities and forms of personal training.
Steven Schwartz, the CEO of Midtown Athletic Clubs, perpetually echoes the importance of tennis. However, it’s not due to the sport itself that he sees the value, but the fact that tennis in his clubs builds community. To paraphrase his words — no one quits their tennis group.
Tennis is simply one aspect of a club that can build community. Many clubs hold a multitude of other leagues and events that establish camaraderie between members — basketball leagues, nutrition events and seminars are all examples.
Second, how do results play into the equation? Initially, one wouldn’t look at established community and recognize results, but club leaders over the past several years have realized the correlation and begun to capitalize, regardless if they vocally present it or not.
Results come through repetition, which cannot occur if members don’t continually utilize the club. When members develop community within the facility, they are more likely to use the club. When they do so, either in tennis, personal training, small group training, etc., they are moving towards achieving results.
Finally, how does this improve sales and retention? If it’s not obvious already, retention is the recurrence of a member using your club. When community is established, retention is a side effect. Coincidentally, when community exists, results occur; and when results occur, referrals increase, thus improving sales.
The 2014 Club Solutions Leadership Summit at the Kentucky Derby may have been one of the most unique and enlightening events ever to grace the fitness industry. We continually heard that nothing like this has ever existed in the past, and were thanked for bringing such an event together.
This event not only gave leaders a way to network and learn from one another, but it also helped myself to learn more about our industry in three days than I had in almost five years at Club Solutions.
Tyler Montgomery is the editor of Club Solutions Magazine. Contact him at tyler@clubsolutionsmagazine.com.
