Attendees of the 2022 Club Solutions Leadership Retreat share their biggest takeaways from this year’s roundtable topics.
One of the highlights of the Club Solutions Leadership Retreat is the roundtables, during which attendees and sponsors tackle big ideas such as “Reaching the Other 80%,” “Attracting and Retaining Talent” and “Top Trends in Fitness.”
During these roundtables, participants are challenged to share ideas, and ultimately, come up with solutions they can bring back to their businesses post-event.
With this in mind, Club Solutions asked attendees of the 2022 Club Solutions Leadership Retreat their biggest takeaways from this year’s roundtable topics, and how this will impact their businesses moving forward.
Greg Maurer | Vice President of Fitness and Education, Workout Anytime
“Recovery is the wrong word. The idea of the nomenclature we use to encompass newer health club modalities — such as redlight, infrared sauna, cryo, Theragun — is not correct to attract new members who are not fitness enthusiasts. Recovery implies you must workout and is negative — because it only benefits you if you are ‘recovering.’ That is not the right message or term to use. Instead we want to convey these modalities ‘make you feel better now’ and that they provide benefits in and of themselves and do not require a long commitment before seeing results.
We also need to market the benefits of these modalities in and off themselves. The fact EK Navan from The Covery Wellness and REGYMEN was at the event was very beneficial because his success with his model, along with Restore, proves there is a significant market for these services that is not dependent on fitness enthusiasts and could greatly expand our market.”
Deb Heisler | Regional Vice President, Tampa, Florida, Active Wellness
“My biggest takeaway from the 2022 Retreat is the idea of recovery and fitness to enhance mental health has been around for years, but the discussions around these topics this year were on a different level, with higher importance being put on how we can reach those not currently engaging in fitness. The thought of coming back from COVID and rebuilding the same fitness model is an antiquated thought process, as no one is quite the same post-pandemic. The most impactful piece to me was realizing we need to shift our mindset, marketing and programming from the sole focus on cardio, strength and typical fitness club activities to more passive health and wellness items. The goal is to draw in those not currently engaged in our clubs, and provide an enhanced comfort level and knowledge, resulting in more active participants in our clubs.”
Alaina Jarrell | Assistant General Manager, Stafford Hills Club
“Whenever I attend a conference, my goal is to leave inspired with an action plan of items ranging from small tweaks to larger, long-term projects. Upon returning from the retreat, I was able to right away put to work a handful of actionable items based on ideas gleaned during discussions. We’ve already refreshed some of our hiring practices to better capture the attention of our ideal candidate and we have plans to put into action topics related to further engaging and empowering our team.
Most exciting though was to be in a room of individuals so committed to the well-being and health of our communities. In our current climate, our industry has a responsibility to change the narrative and shift our focus toward overall, holistic wellness. It’s vital we provide offerings that feel inclusive to individuals who aren’t yet active participants in their health care within our establishments. I’m excited to get to work on programs that better support our communities at every stage of their wellness journey and add value to the individual and our business alike.”
Andrew Gunberg | Executive Director, Cedardale Health & Fitness
“The No. 1 idea I took from the amazing roundtables was how to market/target the ‘other 80%’ of individuals who are not currently using a club or gym. Utilizing other facets of ‘active and passive’ strategies to market and attract those individuals who are part of that 80% via a ‘biohacking spectrum’ was compelling.”
Eddie Davila | Owner/Operator, Urban Fitness
“One of the biggest takeaways for me was that we, the fitness industry, are our biggest resource. While we may be in different markets, have different business models and deal with different challenges or opportunities, we can share and learn a great deal from each other that can be applied to our relative environments.”
Ann Glor | General Manager, Wisconsin Athletic Club
“I took away many ideas from the roundtables at the 2022 CS Retreat. Some will be implemented immediately, some are for continued exploration. But, the most impactful takeaway from this year was truly prioritizing the employee experience, from start to finish. We’ve hit a culture drop, where the shift for hiring new talent has gone from ‘why should I hire you’ to a buyer’s market of ‘why should I come and work for you.’”
Donnie Oliver | VP, International Franchise, UFC GYM
“A takeaway, and more of a reminder to myself, is the various health and fitness concepts that exist. It is so easy to get myopically focused on how you’re doing things in your own space. Being in a room with people who have totally different day-to-day experiences, different ‘set-points’ and customer service standards, expectations and offerings — I feel it’s a great opportunity to think outside your own self-imposed ‘box.’
The ideas most impactful to the business in the immediate include:
- Confirming our decision to lean heavily into the recovery space. It’s at the heart of many of our decisions over the last two-plus years — so I feel confident we are, and can stay, ahead of the curve.
- Reminder that we need to be as ever evolving on the talent recruitment front as we always try to be on the member-recruitment front.
The idea most impactful to the business in the more long term included:
- Putting faces to many names that I share emails with often. And striking up ‘real’ in-person relationships with people who we’ll work with in the future.”
