|
|
Post by snaplongtimer on Jan 16, 2018 3:43:10 GMT
If your single rate is $30/month apparently, it's not enough. Will you raise it to $31? That's an odd number. I guess it's $35/single. Well, do you offer prepaids? Any variations of prepaids cannot fall at or below $30/mo...4 month? 6 month? 12 month? Not much of a savings when you have multiple options for prepaying. If you increase your monthly to a higher amount then it makes more sense, but in my state it's ridiculous to pay $40/mo when there are so many low priced competitors.
I see that corp is pleased with the larger clubs opening that have more to offer (ie classes) rent more space and charge more per person. Never mind the old club style that helped put Peter on the map to bigger and better things. That older club is obsolete and struggles to charge more for smaller offerings.
I suppose my club will turn into more of a private club over time until my contract runs out. I can't help to think of the comment one of you made in another thread about speaking to Peter at the last convention where he made a comment about somehow getting hundreds of clubs out of the system. Perhaps this action will help with the removal process. It took 1 week from announcement to implementation for this change to come about and years for the cc updater to finally see the light at the end of tunnel. I guess February is launch date on that...if we're lucky.
Maybe if we had the cc updater years ago, we wouldn't have hundreds of struggling clubs that Peter wants to get rid of. Think of all the lost revenue.
In any case, for those of you that can get the higher $$...congratulations.
|
|
|
|
Post by cheryl on Jan 16, 2018 17:24:18 GMT
We find new ways to improve our club in order to justify not spending $5, $10 or $20 a month. The problem we have is that we have 3 other snaps around us which have low end equipment, which is typically broken down for months on end, limited staff hours among other problems. So what do they do? They advertise low rates and the ability to use ANY snap. With social media good luck preventing them from reaching prospects in your area. So now these new members never step foot in the crappy snap and make a B line to your club. The crappy clubs also charge $0 program fee and sometimes a free month. Again never using the crappy snap. When their membership is transferred they cancel their credit card and bail. Then they join up at another crappy snap and start the process all over again/ If they come in during staffed hours then you can confront them and tell them they owe you $X. That never goes well. So what do they do after that? They become midnight gym goers. The crappy club doesn't care, they just want to collect the money. We keep looking for more and more ways to deny access to certain services to those who joined a crappy snap and use our facility. For some it's worked.
So how do you do that? Expand. New equipment goes into the VIP area and visiting members only get access to the old equipment. We've also started construction to reduce the size of our standard club, which will now be part of the VIP area and move equipment out into our VIP area. The goal being to bring the standard club down to the level that the crappy snaps offer. Want high end equipment, myzone and a cardio theater? Well you're no longer getting it by joining one of the local crappy snaps and coming into our club.
|
|
|
|
Post by snaplongtimer on Jan 16, 2018 20:26:18 GMT
So you have another door swipe access on the vip area. Lowlifes always walk in while the door is open. They do it at the front door. Interesting idea if you have the space to expand.
What about ending prepaid memberships for those members that want to use other clubs? Seems like a fair idea yes? If a club signs a new member for 18 months and they transfer to your club your screwed. They pay the new $30.01 minimum charge per month to the other club owner and you get nothing for 16 months.
|
|
|
|
Post by cheryl on Jan 17, 2018 13:55:11 GMT
I have about 8 people who use my club about 10 to 15 times a month from other clubs. Of those only one was transferred to my club and he was on a prepay. When his prepay ended he opted for m2m and was transferred back in about 3 months. There are all sorts of inequities in the model.
If we apply your prepaid algorithm to m2m memberships then the monthly should be split among clubs as well. Pay $36/month. Come into club X 10 times and club Y 10 times then each club collects $18.
What I've seen happen most is that a prepay member goes on vacation for a few weeks, uses another club for that time period (spans 2 consecutive months) and gets transferred. Of course his prepay ended while it was with the other club. The other club wanted months of dues for using their club 4 times. We simply issued a new card and started a new membership.
Of our members we find that only about 1% use any other club and usually when they do they come back and tell us how much they love our club. Some have come back with good suggestions, which we incorporated.
We have a sign at our VIP area which states it's a VIP area and has a daily rate of $20. We've confronted different visitors and let them know of the daily rate. All have said they didn't see the sign. We forgave the $20 fee as long as they agreed not to enter without paying again. If they did enter again without paying that $20 along with the new $20 would be due. One who was caught twice was told that he now owed us $40 and wouldn't be allowed back in the club without paying. Never saw him again, which was fine.
We ran a promotion for a while where we charged a low monthly fee, $20 and no program fee. It was a home club membership and you got no amenities (eg no fit score, no equipment orientation, no VIP area, no WiFi, no buddy passes, no guest passes). We thought it went well until we discovered that fitware changed the dues on every home club membership to $0/month. That ended that. That fitware f%$ up cost us about $2K. Almost everyone's attitude was, hey, sucks to be you. A couple paid the back dues. If it happened with any other software company we'd ask to have that money refunded in fee credit. snap tells you to go f^&% yourself, basically. Of course that's only after they tell you it must be your fault.
No room to expand? Have you tried leasing space from a local dance studio or karate studio? They typically have empty space at certain times. (Typically not premium times). We did that for several years. Is it a pain in the ass? Yes. However, it lets you build up a base, get instructors on board and establish a new area for you while you wait on an opportunity to expand.
|
|
