We retained 85 per cent of annual members last year, all paying
upfront, which allows us to re-invest
The Third Space has developed a compelling concept and brand, creating a true club experience rather than simply being a facility
employ PTs, who also act as gym fl oor instructors, and they all have a sport science degree or equivalent, and at least three years’ experience.”
male changing room to make sure it’s spotless at all times. All the members know him, he chats to them, maybe gets them a towel if they’ve forgotten one. He enjoys his work and his job fi ts into his life – he got an MA in political science last year. Our business depends on people like Libardo. “As a result of our employees, we have
what I believe are the best retention rates in the industry. Our year ended on 30 September and we retained 85 per cent of our annual members. If you include everyone on monthly direct debits, our retention is just over 70 per cent. That’s ignoring all new sales – simply looking at the people we had at the beginning of the year and seeing how many of them we still have as members.” It’s clearly a strong business model
that’s bolstered further by revenue streams such as pilates and personal training. “Our pilates studio – which is
november/december 2010 © cybertrek 2010
also open to non-members – offers one-to-one classes and we’ve found it to be a big driver of growth,” says Dunmore. “A couple of years ago we took about £68,000 on pilates and last year we took in excess of £256,000. “Personal training accounts for about
25 per cent of our turnover at the moment, but that’s already grown hugely in the last few years and I think we can take it much further; Equinox in New York is quite similar to our club and it’s believed that its PT revenues are almost as high as its membership revenues. “I think the growth opportunity is in
showcasing what personal training can achieve for people. However, ours is a retail business – you can’t force people to buy something by making it the only option, so everyone has programme design included in their membership, plus all our PTs are on the gym fl oor to answer members’ questions. We only
medical offering The club also has a medical centre as part of its offering, covering a wide range of services including acupuncture, reiki, shiatsu, podiatry, chiropody, physiotherapy, osteopathy, colonics, nutrition, counselling and massage. “Running a medical centre is the most diffi cult thing we do,” says Dunmore.
“It has to be a separate legal entity as it’s regulated by the Care Quality Commission. We employ our own full-time GP and he’s the gatekeeper for the whole practice. He carries out internal audits of the medical outcomes of patients to ensure that, clinically, we’re producing good results. He’s then audited externally by another GP, and we have a panel of self-employed senior practitioners who vet any new practitioner we put forward. The integrity of the centre is very strong. “We market it as a separate entity –
approximately 40 per cent of custom comes from the club and around 60 per
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healthclubmanagement.co.uk/digital 29
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