Don Harbich, CEO, Steve Nash Sports Clubs of Canada, says that club owners must have a solid foundation for stimulating internal referral business. Club owners must emphasize promoting from your most loyal and active customers, perhaps through a loyalty program where members receive discounted dues, merchandise, cash or even trips for recommending new members. By doing so, you can maintain a steady revenue flow, even if your daily guest traffic has been affected. Plus, members who work out with partners or friends usually stay longer, which means you improve member retention by turning their family, friends and work associates into members.

Your daily sales and production requirements can be easily tracked for maximum efficiency using software programs, Harbich adds. These programs can help you efficiently track your sales team duties from leads, calls, appointments, shows, sales, referrals, corporate sales, etc. Efficient reporting helps you properly manage your sales and fitness team to maximize production.

Maximize your marketing, Harbich says, by extending the period of your promotions to stretch your marketing dollars. Instead of changing promotions every month, extend them for two to three months. Include mini incentives along the way so the promotions have legs for the extended periods.

Irina Razumova, president of Planet Fitness, a 35-plus club chain in Russia (not affiliated with U.S.-based Planet Fitness), says that today's economic situation is not new for her club company.

“We faced such a situation in 1998,” Razumova says, “and even earlier when we were in the process of building our first club in 1990, during the beginning of the ‘Perestroika’ (the reinvention of the social and economic structure of Russia in the 1980s). We had to operate under the condition of an absolute market economic collapse.”

Many companies use crisis as a legitimate reason for inside restructuring, Razumova adds. For Planet Fitness, this period, like all previous periods of crisis, is an opportunity for new business development, a reason for executive system perfection and for finding new methods of workouts and programming for current and potential clients.

In the past, clients who wanted to participate in separate programs, such as Pilates, boxing or swimming, had to purchase a full membership package. Now, Planet Fitness clients may pay for just the programs in which they want to participate, Razumova says.

I am sure many of you have fantastic ideas to share with the industry, so please feel free to e-mail me at mark.mastrov@fitnessbusinesspro.com, and I will be happy to pass along the ideas.

Just remember one thing: In times like these, great leaders lead — they don't follow.

Mark Mastrov, founder of 24 Hour Fitness, is now an investor in various business opportunities. You can reach him at mark.mastrov@fitnessbusinesspro.com.

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© 2012 Penton Media Inc.