Digital Darwinism
Mon, January 2, 2012 at 14:00 | IHRSA Business is evolving and moving online. A question: Is your club?
By Liane Cassavoy
Your club has a Website. It’s packed with information about your amenities, your instructors, and your classes. It has your contact information and, maybe, driving directions to your location. Perhaps it’s even accessible via mobile devices, such as smartphones.
If you think this means that your club has embraced life in the Internet age, think again.
The health club industry may, at heart, be about “getting physical,” but, increasingly, the business is going digital. Today, clubs are turning to technology to market and sell memberships, schedule and bill for their services, keep their employees up to date, maintain their equipment, and, even, train their clients.
In fact, it’s now possible for clubs to conduct a great deal of their business online.
"The first thing you have to accept is that things are changing and changing rapidly," says Bryan O’Rourke, a principal and chief science officer (CSO) at Fitmarc, based in Ft. Worth, Texas, and an expert on technology and the fitness industry. "Things are going to change whether you want them to or not, and you have to reengineer your business model to keep up. If you fail to do so, you run the risk of being left behind.
“There are still a few drive-in theaters in business,” he points out, “but there aren’t a lot of them."
What’s driving the change?
Your customers! When they’re sitting in front of their computer at 11 p.m., they want to be able to access your scheduling system and book a personal training session. They want to review a log of their recent workouts. They want to pay for services easily and seamlessly. “Most of all,” says O’Rourke, "they want to belong. They want you to know who they are, and they want you to make their lives exceptional."
Web essentials
A solid Web presence—one that’s easy to find, polished, user-friendly, and comprehensive—is the essential first step. There are a surfeit of Website designers and online marketing companies, but not all of them are familiar with the needs of health clubs. For specialized help, you can turn to companies such as ClubWebX, in Gainesville, Florida, which designs and hosts Websites for fitness facilities, or Netsertive, of Durham, North Carolina, an online marketing firm that specializes in several industries, including health and wellness.
"We’re not trying to be everything to everyone. We’re involved only in industries where we have depth of knowledge," explains Buzz Truitt, the company’s director of business development. Truitt worked in the fitness industry for 20 years before joining Netsertive, and feels his background gives him a unique perspective on the challenges and opportunities facing clubs today.
“When researching a club, more than 97% of people go online first," he says. "If they don’t find you there, they’ll never know you exist.”
Once you’re an established Internet actor, you need to think about, care for, and invest in your site just as you would with any other part of your business. “You may not view your Web presence the same way you look at putting away the weights or sweeping the floors, but your Website is a virtual extension of your business,” says Truitt. “It’s how people find you, and you need to give it regular care and feeding.”
Your site should ensure that prospects can learn about the services you offer quickly and easily, and also provide existing clients with access to many of them. At a minimum, that includes allowing them to book classes and services online, whether they’re using their computer or a mobile device. Offering such features doesn’t have to involve a sizeable investment. A growing number of companies, such as USchedule , based in Mukilteo, Hawaii, can do the heavy lifting for you. It offers a Web-based scheduling programming that can be embedded into your existing site.
The software permits members to reserve a spot in an upcoming class, schedule a for-fee class or personal training session, pay for services, and, even, redeem coupons. It also tracks compensation for instructors who are paid on a commission or per-student basis.
“USchedule makes it easier to manage your business, your schedule, and your resources,” attests Brian Dawson, the company’s CEO. “But it’s also for your clients—it’s a tool that makes their lives simpler and easier.”
Equipment fundamentals
A number of relatively young firms now offer a way to monitor equipment maintenance online. One of them is Club Vitals, a Web-based equipment-maintenance program created by Skye Kaiss, the director of operations for two Gold’s Gym franchises in Canada (see “12 On 2012,” pg. xx). Frustrated by maintenance logs that frequently weren’t updated regularly, and that occasionally went missing, Kaiss worked with software developers to produce Club Vitals. The application allows members to report broken equipment, and lets club employees initiate and monitor the repair process.
“When someone walks up to the front desk and says, ‘Treadmill 15 is down,’ we can access the information about that device immediately,” explains Kaiss. “We can look at the log, tell them how long the equipment has been down, what’s being done to repair it, and when the work will be completed. They know that we’ve done something about the problem, and the satisfaction that members get from that is incredible.”
Another company that keeps an eye on a club’s equipment is Fitness EMS, based in Chamblee, Georgia. Its product, which will be making its IHRSA debut at the association’s 31st Annual International Convention and Trade Show in Los Angeles, facilitates exhaustive oversight. Using it, club operators can, among other things, track equipment expenditures; reduce equipment downtime; track real-time repair life cycles; view and maintain single-unit, facility, and organizational history; and maintain risk-mitigating records.
“Fitness EMS is a Fitness Equipment Management Systems,” explains Tony Pinkerton, the company’s operations and technical development director. “It provides what none of the other customer relationship management (CRM) products offer, which is a way to manage a facility’s most important asset: its equipment.”
Educational options
Online educational options have proliferated dramatically, and can now be utilized to obtain everything from a college degree, to a personal-training certification, to information on how to repair a particular manufacturer’s elliptical crosstrainer. Now, however, you can utilize the digital domain to train your employees directly—whether you want to make sure that individuals understand franchise rules, or are up-to-date on their certifications. Among the firms that can simplify the process is LightSpeed VT Health, based in Eugene, Oregon.
LightSpeed offers a virtual training system that takes your content and delivers it to employees in an interactive online environment. You provide the content—LightSpeed provides the technology and the delivery platform. Your staff can access the training online when it’s convenient for them, and you can create tests, complete with a proctor, that can be administered online.
“We take the training manual that would sit on someone’s desk and put it online, in a virtual setting,” explains Troy Finfrock, the owner of LightSpeed. “We’re not replacing a pen and paper, and we’re not replacing one-on-one employee training. We’re augmenting and enhancing what you already have and increasing accountability.”
Training applications
Personal training is another area where the Internet is having a significant impact, addressing some of the inherent limitations of the service—e.g., expense, time restrictions, questions about trainer qualifications, lack of innovation, etc. PumpOne, based in New York City, tackles some of these problems, via technology, with mobile fitness apps designed both for consumers and industry professionals.
Founded in 2005 as a service offering downloadable apps, PumpOne evolved into a provider of mobile apps with the dawn of the iPhone era. Since then, it’s released a series of programs, culminating with FitnessBuilder (for consumers) and FitnessBuiilder Pro (for professionals). These apps, along with a companion Website, allow both consumers and professionals to create and track workouts and log progress, features that PumpOne cofounder Craig Schlossberg suggests could revolutionize the personal-training industry.
“We know that something like 90% of trainers don’t track their clients at all,” he says. “Now a trainer can track clients and review their recent workouts paperlessly—without doing so much as pulling out a folder…So you have this progression happening—clients get stronger and leaner faster because their trainers really understand how they’re performing.”
The apps also allow trainers to generate workouts for individual clients or large groups, offering a virtual way to increase their income. “Trainers have always been limited by the number of hours they can work in a day,” says Schlossberg. “This share-workout feature frees them from that restraint—it introduces the idea of remote training, of digital training, and provides them with another source of income.”
Another product that frees trainers from the restraints of time and geography is Wello, which uses the Web to pair trainers with clients who may not have the time, funds, or desire to meet them in an actual gym, says Leslie Silverglide, the cofounder of the San Francisco-based firm. “You can work with your trainer while you’re at home or in your office, or anywhere in between, using live interactive video for the connection,” she explains. Clients benefit by having a real trainer and receiving professional feedback , and trainers can use Wello to fill in time when they don’t have clients scheduled. That, she points out, can help club operators keep their trainers busy.
“I tell people that, if they think their physical facilities are the exclusive domain of exercise, they’d better think again,” advises O’Rourke. “Just look, for instance, at Nike Plus and Walk with Walgreens— they’re both nontraditional health club systems. Technology is evolving, expanding, and forever changing what we think of as the traditional club business model. Club operators can’t ignore what’s happening.
“It may make some people nervous, but it’s not a bad thing,” he suggests. “You simply need to adjust, to modify, your mindset…It’s what I call digital Darwinism: The speed of change is such that some organizations won’t be able to keep up, but there are others who will get it. The difference between the two is their ability to adapt. So, keep your mind open and be willing to learn.”
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