INTERVIEW


Partnerships are key. Having recognised brands in-house brings something different and eye-catching to our offering


the four UK Total Fitness sites that closed in 2011. It’s a beautiful club and is well ahead of target on membership sales. “Meanwhile moving annual total NPS is


now +5 per cent overall; some clubs that are further on in their refurbishments are as high as +28 per cent. When I joined the company, it was worse than minus 30 per cent. People are starting to believe. “We’re now going to take it up a gear,


working with a software provider called Reputation.com to transform our use of NPS. Rather than just managing negative feedback, we’ll be focusing on making positive feedback work harder for us via online reputation management. As part of that, we’ll be installing tablets all round the clubs so members can provide live NPS feedback of that day’s experience. “So we don’t use the word


‘turnaround’ any more. We talk about growth, and we’ll certainly be looking for more opportunities to open new clubs. For now it will remain full-service clubs in the north of England, but I’d never say never about exploring new opportunities, either geographically or in terms of business model.” Indeed, although unconfi rmed by


Total Fitness at this stage, reports suggest the operator is entering into a partnership with supermarket chain Asda to pilot – and if successful roll out – a functional training studio concept. Millman continues: “We’re certainly on


a growth curve, and in fact that was what prompted the withdrawal of Barclays and Co-op: it marked a new phase of the business. They exited and we completed a management buy-out of the business in March 2015, backed by a £11.5m investment from NorthEdge Capital.”


People skills So how will the business ensure it continues to flourish and retain members in a competitive marketplace?


32


Beth Tweddle gymnastics clubs for young children have been trialled at two clubs “We’ve deployed a new people model,”


explains Millman. “Previously it only really mattered what level of fi tness qualifi cation people had. We now focus on their interpersonal skills, how good they are at representing the brand, whether their own values fi t with ours. “In Wrexham, top to bottom, we’ve


recruited on values and behaviour fi rst, and functional skills second. Now, across all the other clubs and in head offi ce, no-one – from receptionist to lifeguard to fi tness manager to fi nance director – joins the business without going through a values and behaviour assessment day before we even talk to them about functional skills. Because ours aren’t self-service budget clubs – ours is a supported model. If we don’t have the best people delivering the best experiences, we may as well not bother.”


Power of partnership


“We’re also doing a lot of work on ensuring members see relevance in the whole of our offering,” Millman adds.


“If we can do that, our membership fee – already good value at around £40 – becomes unbeatable. “For example, we’re taking the


dialogue from ‘swimming and swimming pools’ to ‘aquatic’. That can encompass swimming lessons for toddlers and children, but also aquatic fi tness and aquatic training programmes. We’ve realised our pools are a big draw for triathlon training: individuals and local clubs use our facilities because we have at a minimum a six-lane, 25m pool in every club. They can combine that with dry-side training – six of our clubs have four-lane, 200m indoor running tracks. “Partnerships are key to this initiative,


because having recognised brands in-house brings something different and eye-catching to our offering. For example, we were originally running


Read Health Club Management online at healthclubmanagement.co.uk/digital


our own swimming lessons for children and toddlers, but we weren’t doing it very well. So in 2013 we teamed up with Water Babies, which now delivers all our toddler swimming. And we then did the same thing with the children’s swimming lessons, teaming up with Becky Adlington Swim Stars, and it’s absolutely fl ying. Becky even comes along now and then to teach a lesson herself. “Our IT systems aren’t yet keeping up


with where we’re driving the business, so I can’t give you actual participation fi gures, but I can go into any club any morning or evening and the number of people in the pools is signifi cantly higher than it was two years ago.” He continues: “Importantly, it isn’t


just about playing catch-up to 2015, but also leveraging the opportunity to spring forward. We might do that ourselves, but equally we might fi nd the right partner to do it with. Becky Adlington is a great example, but there are others: we’re trialling Beth Tweddle gymnastics classes for young children at two clubs. It’s going down a storm so we’ll probably roll it out. “Those are just two children’s examples.


In the head offi ce club in Wilmslow, we’ve given 5,000sq ft to Royles, the leading high-end bike retailer in the north of England. It has a bike showroom and repair shop in our club. We’re going to start leveraging that in the club, with Royles-endorsed cycling training, Royles rides for members and so on. We also have a F&B partnership there that I believe leaves Costa or Starbucks for dead. And we’re now looking at potential partners to deliver value to the over-55s, who make up 27 per cent of membership. “Partnerships will be key going


forward. We might be 60 per cent through the refurb project, but we’re nowhere near 60 per cent through the opportunity of taking our offer and member experience to the next level.”


August 2015 © Cybertrek 2015


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