Health Club Profit Centers

It's not the number of members you have, but how much each member spends that is most important. Personal training is important, and is obviously your biggest potential profit center, but there are many ways to get your members spending more

If you're relying on new member sales to increase your monthly revenue, you're completely missing the boat! Profit centers and member upsells are the key to financial success in our industry. While the number of health clubs is increasing, the number of people joining clubs remains steady. That means for you to stay ahead of your competitors and above break even, you need other profit centers to get your existing members to spend more money.

Obviously personal training is your bread and butter profit center, but there are many other methods to get your members more involved and spending more. From tanning and massage to group fitness and nutritional supplements, your members will pay more if it helps them reach their goals.

One of the best ways to implement appropriate profit centers is to simply ask your members what they want. Once you know the services they are looking for, you can begin implementing. Don't spend $10,000 on an aqua massage machine until you know your members want aqua massage.

And don't mistake childcare as a profit center. Sure you might make a few dollars from it, but how much time and money is spent in this program. Many health clubs continue offering child care only to appease the small handful of members who actually use it. Chances are good that if you take a hard look at the profit and loss of this program, it will fall more so into the loss category. Think of the other amenities you could put in that space, that a larger number of your members would appreciate.

Tanning is typically a pretty safe profit center to implement, but again, you should ask your members if they want it. Adding a $25 unlimited tanning package to someone's membership is a great upsell for a new member. It won't take long for you to cover the cost of that tanning bed.

Make sure you have a great selection of ready-to-drink and ready-to-eat selections for your members. Protein bars and energy drinks are a popular trend. You might as well profit off of it. If someone needs a caffeine kick every day, and they are in your gym three times a week, and your margin on an energy drink is $1.50, you just increased the value of that $30/month membership by 60%. Pretty powerful when you look at it that way isn't it?

Your front desk staff should be asking every person on their way in and asking every person on their way out if they would like something. Make it easy for your members by creating a credit-based purchasing system. If your club management software has a point of sale feature, use it! Don't force them to remember to bring in cash, make it easy for them to pay. If your club management software doesn't come equipped with a point of sale system that allows for this, sell a prepaid punch card. They buy it for $50 and have $50 worth of credit on it. When it runs low, they can buy another one.

There are many ways to increase the value of a membership. You should be selling extra items every day. The trick is to incentivize your staff to sell more of these things. Give them a commission for selling nutritional supplements, or personal training, or tanning, or even a protein bar. Everyone works harder when they too benefit from the sale. Commission every sellable item in your gym.