Since being appointed the CEO of Crunch in January 2013, Keith Worts has helped to drive the company’s success. Coming from the standpoint of a top executive in the health club industry, Worts shares a few tips for running a successful business:
1. Recruit, hire, train and develop your staff. When hiring and recruiting new staff, the common theme among those we hire is someone who has a fun and energetic personality that I think will represent our core values very well.
2. Have a differentiated offering. With a myriad of clubs and studios out there for people to choose from, it is important to choose a path and make sure you have a differentiated offering. Don’t get clumped in with everyone else. Make sure your brand message is clear and your offering is in alignment with who your target market is.
3. Stay true to your brand. We will continue to grow as long as we stay true to being fun, innovative, hiring the best people and having something that is different and unique. It is great to try new things, but make sure you are staying the course with your brand.
4. Understand your competitive landscape. If you take a look at the market that you operate your business in, it’s important to understand who else is out there that consumers can attend. Who are your competitors, what are their rates, what’s their pricing and what’s their value proposition?
5. Take calculated risks. It is okay to take risks. Don’t be so conservative. I think sometimes when businesses maybe aren’t doing well they start to pull back with their approach to the business. If you have a competitor that is coming in close to one of your businesses, make sure that you are investing more money than you normally would have.
6. Don’t wait until everything is perfect to launch something new. Even if the program is at 80 percent, launch it. You can fix the remaining 20 percent along the way.
7. Have a unique selling premise in all of your marketing communications. Every successful company out there does one thing very well. For Crunch it is our group fitness department. Our unique selling premise aligns with group fitness and making sure that we are communicating that. Our group fitness class offerings are out there in almost all of our messaging to the communities that we operate in.
8. Continue to reinvest in your product. We constantly look at our existing locations and how we can continue to reinvest money into the product, but also into the people that are out there touching our members every single day. For the clubs that may mean a fresh set of paint, some graphics, a new set of treadmills or more group fitness classes. For our staff it could mean additional training that we offer, a new perk that we throw out there for our employees or a fun contest that we run.
9. Don’t be afraid to increase pricing. Just ensure that your staff is ready to handle questions on why you are worth it.
10. Use any opportunity you have to communicate with your team. Make sure they are aware of the larger message about where your company is headed and are invested in the brand.
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Rachel Zabonick-Chonko is the editor-in-chief of Club Solutions Magazine. She can be reached at rachel@peakemedia.com.
