While elliptical-ing recently, I thought to myself, “What would I change if I owned this place?”
I might warm up the pool a couple of degrees, but that really isn’t the kind of change I meant.
The things that came to mind were in the spirit of “Be indispensable“.
So what would make that place the ONLY place to be a member?
When I have these conversations with a client, the first thing we often talk about are their clients.
We start simple. Who are they? What do they need?
A Day in the Life
To answer the “Who are they?” question, let’s look around at a day in the life of a fitness center and see how we can segment the members (customers) into groups based on gender, age, level of fitness, “Why they are there”, and so on.
I don’t mean a group like “People who need/want to work out.”
I’m thinking about a list like this:
- Professional or semi-pro athletes, such as people who regularly marathon, triathlon and/or Ironman. Around here, include the Glacier Twins and Glacier Knights.
- Bodybuilders.
- Post-partum moms who want to get their “pre-pregnancy body” back.
- Pregnant women.
- Men recovering from heart surgery.
- Anyone newly diagnosed with diabetes.
- People new to working out.
- “Formerly disciplined workout people” who haven’t worked out in years.
- People recovering from an injury, possibly under the direction of a physical therapist.
Within these groups, you’ll find breakdowns for gender and/or age group. Don’t underestimate them.
Is your business catering to these groups? If not, is your business even passingly friendly to these groups?
I Have Needs
The second question on my list was “What do they need?”
Until you create the list above, your needs list might be simpler than it should be because you might just be thinking “What do my members need?”.
Once we’ve gone through the customer (and prospect) identification and segmentation process, we’ll find more needs.
What do they need?
Now look back at that list of customer types from a “wants and needs” perspective. Consider the needs of body builders, post-partum moms, heart patients, and semi-pro athletes.
They all need machines/weights, steam room, hot tub, pool, showers, restrooms and so on.
After that, the needs vary quite a bit:
- Some prefer instruction and/or working in groups.
- Some prefer private facilities.
- Some prefer gender-specific workout times/rooms.
- Some prefer age-specific.
- Some work evening or night shift.
- Some would prefer to find a workout partner for motivation, spotting weights and/or accountability.
- Some would like to be gently nagged if they don’t show up 3 times a week.
One example of many obvious ones: You wouldn’t necessarily have 20-somethings in a Yoga class with 60-somethings. Not because they can’t enjoy each other’s company, but because the instruction and goals for one group probably don’t parallel the other. That might drive you to have separate Yoga classes for singles, post-partums, “retirees”, physical therapy patients and so on. In each case, the instructor could be matched with attendees.
“What about me?”
Don’t own a fitness center? Use the thought process on your business and see what you can come up with. I think you’ll be surprised.
Want to learn more about Mark or ask him to write about a business, operations or marketing problem? See Mark’s site or contact him via email at mriffey at flatheadbeacon.com.