About Michael Gelfgot

Showing 1 - 11 of 11 Articles

Are You Charging Enough For Your Membership?
December 2019 - High Volume, Low Price (HV/LP) clubs are on the rise, but the market is willing to pay more. According to the International Health, Racquet & Sports Association (IHRSA), between 2005 and 2014, average monthly spend for a membership was between $33 - $37 per month. In 2018, it was $43. As of 2018, Planet Fitness, the largest HV/LP club chain, had over 1,800 units, but the average monthly rate of a membership keeps increasing. The question is how can you justify increasing the cost of your membership when HV/LPs are popping up left and right? Read Article...

Attracting Talent
It's a System
November 2018 - According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. unemployment rate in September of 2018 was 3.7%, the lowest it's been in the past ten years. Although that's wonderful news for the economy, as small business owners, it's been more challenging to find great people, especially if you are operating in smaller towns (5,000 - 30,000 people). Books such as Stop Hiring Failures, 13 Fatal Errors Managers Make and How You Can Avoid Them, and Coaching Sales People Into Sales Champions are wonderful resources to use when interviewing and managing people. Read Article...

David and Goliath
August 2018 - In his book, David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell talks about the art of battling giants. What's interesting about the story is that everyone else besides David fought Goliath, Goliath's way. Goliath's way was up-close, hand-to-hand combat, with a sword and a shield. Goliath outpowered and annihilated every opponent. David knew that, if he were to fight Goliath, Goliath's way, he would lose. David was a sheep farmer, not a veteran fighter with tremendous strength and size, so David implemented guerrilla tactics to beat Goliath. David fought Goliath, David's way, and took down an undefeated giant. Read Article...

How Trainers Can Get Better With Referrals
September 2019 - All studios and gyms know that referrals, word-of-mouth advertising, is the way to go. In fact, according to the Association of Fitness Studios (AFS), up to 70% of studio business comes from referrals. All studios and gyms also realize that, in order for there to be a referral, bottom line, clients MUST be moving in the right direction; they MUST be seeing results. And, in order for there to be results, any great coach knows that they must set goals with each client then review, interpret and put forth a new plan every eight weeks if the client is not on track. Read Article...

Let's Roll The Tape
January 2019 - "Let's roll the tape" is what my wrestling coach would tell us at the end of every wrestling practice. The entire wrestling team would sit around a TV, and we would all watch a few wrestling matches from the previous weekend. The goal was to find one thing that a wrestler did well during the match and one thing that the wrestler could improve on during this week's practice. Once that was discovered, then at least 20% of the time during practice, the focus would be on that one thing that wasn't done so well. The impact this approach had on our skill set as wrestlers was massive. Read Article...

Mindshift
April 2019 - We all know that a profitable personal training department is the linchpin to long-term success of your business. And, we all know how critical it is to our business to help members stay motivated and see results. I believe we all recognize that, without a booming personal training business, it's going to be really tough to compete in this highly competitive market. If we are all on the same page with the above statements, then why is it that our personal training department is reactive VS proactive? Read Article...

Pain + Reflection = Progress
June 2019 - Ray Dalio, one of the most successful investors and entrepreneurs, wrote a book called, Principles. In his book, Ray shares unconventional principles that he's developed and used for forty years to run his business and work with people. Although there are many principles that I could talk about, this principle hits the mark in terms of the current state of the fitness business. Today, 20% of the population is a member of a gym, but gyms are opening at a faster rate than members are joining. More and more money is coming in from private equity groups. As a result of the fitness business maturing in the marketplace, there are a ton of gyms that aren't doing well and looking to close their doors. One of the reasons this might be happening is that these gyms aren't taking the time to reflect or there might be something more painful for that business than closing their doors. According to Ray, the only way you are going to progress is the threshold of pain needs to be high enough for you to take the time to reflect. Read Article...

Results and Experience-Based Marketing
December 2017 - In less than a month, 2018 will begin. One of the main questions that most of us ask ourselves this time of year is: How can we retain more members and clients to make it easier for us to turn a 10% return Year Over Year (YOY)? Most of us know that close to 40%, maybe even 50%, of our sales will come through in the first trimester of 2018. In a hyper-competitive market, winning is the end result. Read Article...

Special Population Marketing
February 2020 - Casey Conrad, President of Communication Consultants, and a 30-year veteran in the business has been saying this for years, "you get rich in the niche. What's your niche?" When I owned and managed 21 locations, I heard what she said, but I didn't listen. It wasn't until we sold off and downsized our operation to one club that I truly figured out what she was talking about. In the past 18 months, we have generated over $250,000 in revenue from running programs for folks who are struggling with metabolic syndromes. In this article, I will tell you what we did and how we did it. Read Article...

Stop the Bleeding
March 2018 - While operating 21 Anytime Fitness locations, most are doing well, a few are rocking and there are a few that are dogs and MUST get turned around. No one ever plans on having a club or two hemorrhaging money, but when it happens, it's what you do next that matters most. First of all, what happened? How did we allow such a thing to occur? Aren't we better than that? No one plans on this, but here is what happened... Read Article...

The Biggest Lead Generation
March 2019 - If you were to take an inventory of where the majority of your membership and personal training traffic is coming from, what would you say the number one source of lead generation might be? If you aren't screaming out the words, "Buddy Referrals," then you have a problem. But, troubleshooting this problem might be easier than you think. Here are a couple of questions to consider... Read Article...

About Our Authors

Showing 1 - 11 of 11 Articles