Elevate - Raising the Bar for Fitness Conferencing, plus GGFit Awards

We really enjoyed the Arena of Physical Activity, Health and Performance that is the Elevate event this week. There was a real buzz at the event on both days, and we had some great client and partner meetings. As always, the hard work now starts with follow-ups.

The diamond floor-plan exhibition layout was inspired, creating traffic flow in almost all areas of the hall. It was slightly confusing to navigate, but we're all for moving people's comfort zones!

If we were handing out awards, here's who we would like to thank:

Adopting a Zero Tolerance Approach to Absentees: Guy Griffiths at the Sales & Retention Convention

In the final session at the Sales & Retention Convention, Guy talked about how clubs can improve member retention by working hard at preventing absentees
This section taught delegates what to do if the earlier session on keeping active members active is not as successful as you hoped.

Mystery Shopping / Joining Benchmarks: David Hopkins at The Sales & Retention Convention

David Hopkins from Proinsight presented in the style of a pub quiz, taking delegates through the mystery shopping and joining journey from over 600 facilities over the last 5 years. He highlighted some key benchmarks, such as:

Keeping Active Members Active: Guy Griffiths at The Sales & Retention Convention

The afternoon sessions at the Spring ’17 Sales & Retention Convention kicked off with Guy Griffiths talking about how to keep active members active. Most clubs will have around 50-60% of members visiting regularly, and if you can grow this segment by making your members more active, you will have fewer absentees to worry about, and better member retention overall.

Prospect Benchmarking: Jenni McFaull at The Sales & Retention Convention

Jenni McFaull from GymSales delivered some incredibly insightful stats, taken from 11 million interactions with 4 million prospects.

One headline was the conversion rate from different prospects, from Walk-in to Outreach, shown in the diagram below. With a little more work on speaking to, and booking appointments for referrals or guest visits, for example, conversion rates can climb rapidly.

The Tour and Closing More Sales: Dave Reeves at The Sales & Retention Convention

Dave’s presentation at the Spring ’17 Sales & Retention Convention focused on the tour and closing more sales. He talked about looking for objections when there sometimes aren’t any. Price is regularly seen as an objection but there are many ways around this, such as asking your prospect to give you their daily or weekly budget, which will often exceed your prices.

The Sales & Retention Convention - Spring '17 Feedback

There was a great turnout at the Spring 2017 Sales & Retention Convention at the Warwickshire Golf & Country Club. Regular hosts Dave Reeves and Guy Griffiths were joined by guest speakers Jenni McFaull and David Hopkins. We explored lots of different ways of improving member sales and retention, presenting ideas, statistics, and benchmark figures.

It was one of our more interactive conventions, with real-time surveys, quizzes, workshop sessions, group exercises, and even a pub quiz.