Cliff Buchholz, owner of Miramont Lifestyle Fitness, Fort Collins, CO, also is looking at membership growth to stay afloat. To grow membership and retain current members, Buchholz is putting a greater emphasis on non-dues revenue programs at his three clubs, such as Silver Sneakers for seniors, a weight-loss program, a lifestyle nutrition program and programs that deal with arthritis and diabetes. He wants more non-exercisers to come to the club, so he has instituted six-week programs for nonmembers in which Miramont staff keeps close tabs on its customers. ("We hold their hand for six weeks," Buchholz says.)

Other clubs are emphasizing programs and wellness services more these days, too. The Dedham Health and Athletic Complex in Dedham, MA, has put as much emphasis on the "health" portion of the complex as the "athletic" portion.

Lloyd Gainsboro, owner of the Dedham complex, says his wife encouraged him to change the club's model about 20 years ago to include physical therapy and other medical services. The club partners with a local hospital and a local diabetes center and has affiliations with other medical centers in the area. Since 1996, Dedham has increased its physical therapy patient visits from 500 a month to about 4,000 a month, Gainsboro says.

Dedham has a 60/60 ($60 for 60 days) physician referral exercise program. The 60/60 program is for people who are sedentary or have specific health issues, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and weight management problems. The medical services at Dedham also include orthopedics, as well as X-ray and MRI machines.

"Certainly, it's made us a very profitable company," Gainsboro says of his club's medical services. "We have no complaints. It's helped to increase our stability."

Services helped Orchard Hills Athletic Club in Lancaster, MA, enjoy a successful 2008. Cindy Curley, the general manager of Orchard Hills Athletic Club, says her club had a 53 percent increase in EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) and improved member retention by more than 7 percent over 2007.

Curley says she has seen a shift in her club's philosophy over the past five years. The club now wants to become a destination, with a multitude of services in one location.

Orchard Hills, a 75,000-square-foot club, contracts with a local hospital for physical therapy and has a separate Pilates studio, a high-performance bike studio, a sports enhancement center, a massage therapy center and a gymnastics and cheerleading center.

"Our goal was to say, ‘What else can we do?’" Curley says. "We try to be different from the many gyms that have popped up in our area. We were careful in who we picked as our business partners. If it came down to a gym is a gym is a gym, we didn't want to be lumped into that category."

Kevin Buck, owner of the Newport Athletic Club in Newport, RI, wants his club to be different from the competition as well, but he doesn't want to differentiate just for the sake of doing so.

"We try to stay focused on what it is we do best," Buck says. "Many times, I've seen businesses try to spread themselves too thin, to be all things to all people. We recognize that we've been in business for 29 years, and we know who our market is."

As a service to its members and community, Newport Athletic Club has extended free two- and three-month memberships to those who have been laid off. The Montana Athletic Club in Bigfork, MT, last month instituted a similar free membership program for both members and nonmembers, as have other clubs.

"It's a small thing that we can do, but the good feeling that it brings out, you can't put a price on it," Buck says of the free memberships, of which he has issued about a dozen over the seven years he's made the offer. "When you do it, it's a powerful example of how important that person is to the business. They come back and use it and appreciate it. They'll always come back in the future. Then, they'll tell everybody, too, which helps."

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