Community

In April 2004, Joyce Freeman opened her Golds Gym franchise in Camp Hill (“GGCH”), Pennsylvania.  7 months later, Joyce, her General Manager, Cindy Magnuski and her Group Fitness (“GF”) Manager, Jennifer Silvetti, decided they need to make some radical changes to improve the performance of group exercise.  So they launched BODYPUMP® and reduced the 42 strong Instructor team to 20 people, following the decision to introduce pre-choreographed GF.  As they explain, it took “strong and unwavering leadership” to transform the team from freestyle teachers to pre-choreography. It was very simple -“either people were on the bus or they weren’t.”

Building a quality GF offering

Today, GF has 30 Instructors, 20 of whom are Les Mills certified, while 10 continue to teach freestyle classes, which enjoy solid attendances.  Offering 59 classes in 3 dedicated GF studios each week, 6 Les Mills programs represent 66% of the timetable.  Prior to introducing Les Mills programs, GF was contributing circa 10% of total attendances which increased rapidly to over 20% in 10 months and has held steady at this level ever since.  With 13.4% of GGCH being dedicated to GF, Joyce views GF as punching above its weight and is now planning to grow GF’s contribution from this established attendance base.

Retention success factors

With circa a fifth of attendances consistently being provided by GF, Joyce considers group exercise as a key factor in GGCH’s strong retention* of 68.8%.  Joyce also attributes consistent retention to the club itself, which she describes as “a country club of fitness”. GGCH was designed to deliver each fitness experience to be larger than every day life due firstly, to the scale of the facility and secondly, to the attitude of the staff.  GF has enhanced this strong customer service culture by working closely with reception to bring GF alive at front desk with both friendliness and knowledge of what programming is available.  In addition, GGCH expect staff to know members’ names wherever possible and to make every contact with members personal and sincere.  Staff recruitment has played a huge part in this with GGCH attracting people to work throughout the club who are passionate about fitness and are excited to help people improve their health and wellbeing. 

Proud of Instructor excellence

Joyce highlights the importance of having Instructors who are role models for members and who also inspire less experienced teachers.  Until June 2006, the team of 20 Les Mills certified Instructors included 2 Master Trainers and 2 Assessors.  Unfortunately 3 out of those 4 top players have recently moved out of town in addition to a further 2 top BODYPUMP® teachers leaving Camp Hill, so GGCH is managing the loss of 5 elite Instructors.  However their legacy carries on, so that improvement is continuously strived for.  This is backed up by the majority of the 20 Les Mills Instructors being assessed quarterly, with all Instructors being reviewed a minimum of twice each year.  And to ensure quality is fostered from Day 1 of teaching, newly certified Instructors are allocated a buddy post Module and team-teach on average 6 - 7 times over 1- 2 months before they go it alone.  Joyce states -   “you earn your right to a class at GGCH”.

Recruitment and rewards

Recruiting to replace top Instructors is always a challenge.  To date, GGCH has recruited most successfully from members yet is beginning to enjoy its reputation for GF, having recently attracted a strong BODYPUMP® Instructor who is moving into the area.  She is currently undergoing a rigorous yet friendly evaluation by Joyce, Cindy and the program team before she can hit the stage!  Recruitment is also backed up by good financial rewards so that Les Mills Instructors are paid USD 18 – USD 22 per class depending on the number of programs they teach, their level of mastery and general contribution to the team.  Additionally GGCH has provided a clothing subsidy for Instructors to support their wearing branded outfits, an allowance to part pay for each new quarterly release and provides subsidized membership.  GGCH will also advance the cost of certifying on a case-by-case basis and recoups half the costs from payroll over time.

Quarterly events locked into the marketing calendar

The GF team works hard to maximize the impact of quarterly re-launches of Les Mills programs.  In Joyce’s words “ we really play it up” and spend at least USD 500 each time we hold an event. “ Our Instructors enjoy putting on a show and members love it.  It always creates a lot of buzz around the whole facility.”  Each re-launch is themed with a vengeance.  For example, one event was called “Club Golds” where there was a disco theme in the main Studio with velvet ropes to manage entry, windows papered over, a disco ball and Instructors dressed up in style.  Launches of new programs are also themed if possible, so that BODYCOMBAT® had the tagline “get into the zone” with combat outfits for Instructors and military style decoration of the stage.

Untapped potential

Having altered the timeslots in the timetable and replaced 5 top Instructors since June 2006, Joyce and the team are taking up the challenge of both maintaining and growing GF attendances.  Additional strategies for attendance growth include plans to leverage GF more effectively outside the GF studios and also beyond the facility itself.  Internally focused initiatives include consistently embedding GF into sales tours to bring new members quickly to GF.  Also, the team is planning to profile GF within club-wide competitions and challenges so that existing members are encouraged to try GF within a specific club fitness promotion.  A further source of untapped potential under review is for GGCH to use their established success at re-launches to hold 1 or 2 re-launches per annum geared towards attracting non-members to the facility. 

With their commitment to excellence and determination to grow their successes in all areas, we have no doubt GGCH will continue to impress.

Golds Gym Camp Hill is an independent franchise of Gold Gym in Pennsylvania, USA and has 7 Les Mills programs

*Retention has been calculated using the IHRSA formula of [1-(Aggregate dropped memberships for 12 months/12 month average beginning memberships) *100%]
 
Phillip says….

Joyce and Cindy demonstrate that commitment to quality and customer service pays dividends with strong retention of 68.8% in the 3rd year of operation. 

Their focus on Instructor excellence and the importance of role model Instructors shows they have a strong understanding of Key Elements 3 and 4 of the Group Fitness Management System – Recruit World Class Instructors and Keep Them & World Class Training.  It’s always difficult to fill the gap that top Instructors leave when they move on, which highlights the need to always be on the hunt for top Instructor talent to minimize the impact of staff turnover when it occurs.

With their keen sense of what it takes to build growth, GGCH is well placed to continue their successes.