Has your health club started to take a turn for the worse? Are your cash flow worries keeping you awake at night?
” If your members’ satisfaction isn’t a priority for you already, it should be now. Paper trails for every transaction in your health club can be an extremely effective way to guard against disputes and to keep an eye on quality control. ”
The following can help you to determine if your health club is heading for trouble. .
1. Increase in Staff Turnover Of Key Health Club Staff
If you’ve had a number of your key employees quit your health club recently you should sit up and take notice. Health Club staff is arguably a club’s most valuable asset and if your key people are leaving, it’s often the first sign that something is going wrong. The problem is not just the associated cost of employee recruitment, but also training new hires and the additional burden on remaining health club staff while the new team members get up to speed, that add further strain on the health club operation. Instead of cutting membership fees if sales wane, try to find the reason membership sales have slowed. Potential Solution: One of the best ways to keep track of staff morale in your health club is to hold regular reviews and training sessions where club employees can air their views on both the health club and their specific concerns without fear of losing their job.
2. You Lose A Key Corporate Account Or Long Standing Member
Many people believe that enrolling a new health club member is seven times more expensive than keeping an existing member happy. Many times, health clubs are too reliant on a couple of key corporate accounts.There are a number of reasons key corporate accounts could defect: Your health club service is not of the standard promised or expected, or you could be beaten on price, quality or service by your competitor. The business could be going through budget cuts. Potential Solution: Take a long, hard look in the mirror and discover the underlying reasons for your corporate clients’ lost faith. This way, you’ll have a much better chance of either winning the client company back, or at least making sure you don’t lose others going forward. If your members’ satisfaction isn’t a priority for you already, it should be now. Paper trails for every transaction in your health club can be an extremely effective way to guard against disputes and to keep an eye on quality control.
3. Waiting Longer For Member Dues To Be Collected
If your current health club members are taking longer to pay their dues, you’re going to start having problems. And it may happen sooner than you think.Potential Solution: Too few health clubs employ someone to specifically collect past dues payments and chase late accounts. If you’re starting to notice members taking too long to pay, it’s worth sitting down with the member and discussing a solution. Be understanding when you’re asking for a member’s past dues but remember that you have rights, including being able to charge a late fee on past dues.Potential Solution: Health Club billing companies or collection companies can also help on your outstanding dues collections.
4. Cutting Membership Prices
While a popular tactic for promoting health club memberships or gaining short-term market share, reducing your membership prices without reducing your costs can seriously damage the business prospects of your health club. Potential Solution: Instead of cutting membership prices if sales start to fall, try to find the reason membership sales have slowed. In some markets, it’s possible that your market has reached the saturation point or it could be a problem with the quality or perceived value of your health club.There are a number of ways to differentiate your health club from the competition. There might be an alternative to cutting membership prices that will strengthen your health club and its prospects, rather than eating into your profit margins. It’s often worth spending a bit of money to market your health club more effectively, or by hiring a professional to evaluate your current circumstances to help reverse the downturn in sales.
5. You’re not honest with yourself
Are you still trying to convince yourself that everything with your health club will be alright? Do you find yourself hiding from bills and avoiding contact with your accountant, investors and staff? Covering up the truth about your health club’s financial situation will not only stop you from getting out of the mess you’re in, it may get you into deeper trouble. Investors aren’t going to penalize you for getting into problems — every business faces financial difficulties; however, if they don’t know what’s going on with your health club, they can’t help. Potential Solution: Investors will be far more likely to help if you are open and honest with them, so that potential problems can be caught earlier rather than later. Your investors will have put a significant amount of money into the health club and would undoubtedly prefer to invest more money than to lose it all because they were never told of the difficulties.
If you wake up in the morning and dread the thought of going to the club or you feel that the health club has evolved beyond your interest or control, then perhaps it’s time to consider getting out.
6. It’s Not Fun Anymore
Think back to the reason you first got into the health club business. It’s generally because of the excitement and the challenge of an industry you believe in, rather than the opportunity to make a quick buck. If you wake up in the morning and dread the thought of going to the club or you feel that the health club has evolved beyond your interest or control, then perhaps it’s time to consider getting out. Many entrepreneurs enjoy the challenge of getting a health club off the ground but once the club has become reasonably self-sufficient, they lose interest and need to move on to the next challenge.
Potential Solution: Perhaps it’s time to start thinking about how you can start delegating more authority to health club employees that you trust as part of your exit strategy. By giving some of your key health club employees the authority to make decisions, you can free up more of your time to concentrate on the parts of the health club business that still excite you, and potentially even get the passion back that made you start the club in the first place. The main thing to remember in all of these cases is that they do not necessarily mean that your health club is on its last legs. If you catch any of these signs early enough, they can all be turned around so the health club ends up stronger in the long run.
Now, let’s get back on track!
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