Evaluating Evolution

It seems Darwin’s finches are not alone. The health and fitness industry is evolving as well.

But how do you take this bull by its horns — or rather finch by its beak? Change can be terrifying, so where do you begin with evaluating your club?

For Sport&Health, located throughout Virginia, Maryland and D.C., evolving has been part of its regimen as new Group X classes and functional training grow in popularity, demanding clubs dedicate more space.

Why does Sport&Health know to instill this change? “We see the evolution happening and we try to go with that trend because we want to do what’s right for the member,” said Mitch Batkin, the senior vice president of fitness at Sport& Health. “We want them by all means to love their experience in our facility, so we evolve whenever we see a trend happening and we do it with the member in mind.”

Members play a large role in determining how the club is going to change. Batkin said they look at what is in use, what isn’t, what is new, etc. Head counts in classes tell them what members are attending, and upcoming technology in equipment can show how often a treadmill or elliptical has been used.

“For us, all the decisions are about: how do I make the member experience exceptionally good?” explained Batkin. “How do I ignite the staff morale and motivation to come to work and love their job? If I can do both of those … then you’re going to have a successful club, and it’d be worth spending any amount of money if you’re going to have those two things occur.”

It’s also crucial to evaluate what that investment will do, said Batkin. Will it make the staff happier and not the members, or vice versa? Will it help the club gain more members? Will it boost retention? “It’s a very easy conversation with us at times, if you have enough experience and enough smart people thinking about it,” he said. “We’re always happy to invest money if we think it’ll make more members stay or attract more members to us.”

While evaluations of this kind happen all year, Sport&Health does have some strategy when it comes to the December-January time of year. During that period, Batkin said, is when all of the new stuff is implemented. “The most amount of people that are ever going to visit your facility will probably be in January, so you might as well put your best foot forward,” he explained.

Batkin said over time, it gets easier to see patterns of what’s being used and what isn’t, and some of the best people to pinpoint those patterns are the employees constantly in the gym. He will go to the club’s general manager, fitness director and a personal trainer, asking which equipment they have seen used the least. Often, the decision is easy.

“A lot of it’s experience; a lot of it’s member feedback; a lot of it’s staff feedback … It’s so smart to just be aware of your investment and what kind of return it might get you,” said Batkin.

By Rachel Zabonick