Dana Milkie, the general manager of North America at EGYM, recently discussed various challenges and fitness innovations within the industry during a Q&A with Taylor Brown. Milkie shared tips on how operators grow and increase revenue, improve member retention and how to engage and bring on professional staff that want to be in this industry. He also shared why fundamentals continue to be important, why operators should continue to provide members with the latest and greatest technology and other opportunities, and how to find a way to hyper-personalize member experience both outside and inside the four walls.
Below is part of the transcript from the video.
Dana Milkie: The probably the biggest challenge we’ve always faced as an industry is how do we deal with retention? Right, member churn. And I think that’s always been sort of the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. So, I mean, depending on what the numbers you look at, churn is as high as 50%. You’re losing half of your members in the same year. And anything that can be done and can impact that, I think is critically important for operators. I think the operators want members to stay because that gives members a better chance of reaching their goals and the positive outcomes they’re looking for. How do we impact positively impact churn is something that operators continue to struggle with.
And then finally, I think this is more of a recent phenomenon, but I won’t say it wasn’t there before, but certainly, again, post-COVID, is staffing. How do you continue to engage and bring on professional staff that want to be in this industry that want to be part of this long term? And then depending on what type of model you talk with, this impacts them more or less, but I think across all models — whether it be lifestyle, HVLP mid market, boutique — I think finding good staff, that you can develop into leaders within your organization is a huge challenge clubs are facing.
Taylor Brown: I think a lot of people will agree that those are some big pain points, do you have any perspectives or solutions to these problems you could share?
DM: When you look at retention, it’s gotta be the way you treat people, right? I mean, I think you’ve got to engage with them. Even if you’re a low staff model, you’ve got to make sure members understand that you’re there for them and their goals, right. That can look a bunch of different ways. But I think providing solutions that will help encourage them and bring them down the journey to their fitness journey to their outcome is a really important thing. So, staff is hugely important. When you have staff, you need to make sure they’re well trained to engage with their members, because people want to feel like that’s part of the community almost a third place. But even in the in the those situations where staffing isn’t at a premium, making sure the solutions and some of the technology you bring will also help engage members. Use gamification. Use a bunch of different techniques that people frankly expect, right? They see so much of technology outside of health clubs in their everyday life. It really begins to how can I bring some of that technology and some of those consumer behavior solutions into my club to really engage with members? Then it’s how can I make sure that my staff is constantly aware of members, where they’re at what they’re doing and how they’re reaching their goals. People want support along their fitness journey, and that’s important to provide.
