The reality is many clubs around the country are not back to 2019 numbers. Some are showing greater profit than 2019 on less revenue. Some are above 2019 numbers but, in many cases, it’s a result of other clubs closing.
At the 2023 Club Solutions Leadership Summit, attendees and sponsors dove into proven, effective projects, programs or opportunities that have been executed and drove profitability for clubs. On the latest installment of the Thought Leaders digital roundtable series, some of those attendees shared their biggest takeaways.
One being to simply go back to fundamental principles.
Back to the Basics
“Going back to the basics is a good way to put it,” said Brad Houx, the vice president of operations for Midtown Athletic Clubs and a panelist on the digital roundtable. “Ultimately, I think most of us are in the subscription business. Recurring revenue is really where our bread is buttered. I think how you leverage your technology and your technology stack to link your sales and marketing functions is to me the place to invest right now.”
Houx explained clubs should create a sales or prospects journey from before someone even knows they’re a lead to the time they join the club. Then understand how that works with your digital marketing team — what campaigns are having success, how they’re having success, etc.
“If done right, then you just start pouring your investment into that,” said Houx. “And I think at the end of the day, reoccurring revenue is to me the place where I think we still prioritize our investment. We’re always looking to improve. I think we’ve made significant improvements by really being able to leverage new technology, and really sort of rethink our prospect journey and what that looks like.”
Monetize Your Square Footage
Steve Padis, the senior vice president of strategy and finance for Barry’s and a panelist, agreed that going back to the fundamentals is a top takeaway. As part of his discussion at the Summit, one main talking point was monetizing your square footage.
“Whether it’s having retail goods, food and beverage, or ad space, things like that are interesting unlocks I had personally not thought of for our own locations,” said Padis. “For us, any type of partner we’d want to work with would have to be brand aligned from a values perspective. But I think it’s a way to unlock additional revenue that we hadn’t otherwise considered.”
You’re Not Alone
For Lori Lowell, the owner of Gold’s Gym NOVA Group and a panelist, her biggest takeaway wasn’t necessarily a proven practice but rather knowing she wasn’t alone.
“Even though we’re all in different places in our regrowth post-COVID due to many variables, we’re all looking at the same things which is really important,” said Lowell. “We have to constantly reinvent ourselves. Not necessarily the business, but ourselves. We’re all on the same page. We scaled back some of our group fitness and we’ve increased our membership pricing as a whole.”
However, revenue options she encourages other operators to look into include:
• Boosting posts so you’re not talking to the same people on social media.
• Website content is key.
• Google reviews.
• EyeRate, a customer communication platform that turns feedback into powerful marketing by incentivizing your employees to get mentioned online.
Lastly, Scott Draper, the owner and founder of Club Northwest and a panelist, said one of the biggest revenue opportunities for the industry is to look at The Bay Club’s new family membership model.
New Membership Model
“Chris Birdwell at The Bay Clubs has created a new type of membership I haven’t heard before,” said Draper. “He’s changed what the family is because, as he said, the definition of families is changing anyway. He allows people to bring five of their friends in as family on an essence of a family membership. And the first question that pops up is, ‘Your income per membership must have gone down when you did that.’ He said it actually went up.”
Whether your facility is back to 2019 numbers or not, there’s always new revenue opportunities you can look into in order to improve your facility.
Do you have an effective project, program or opportunity that’s driven profitability at your facility? We’d love to learn more. Email taylor@peakemedia.com.
