Successful Programs for Fitness and Health Clubs or Trade Offs

Successful Programs for Fitness and Health Clubs: 101 Programming Ideas

Author: Sandy Coffman

In today's world, a club needs to offer more than state-of-the-art equipment and certified fitness instructors to recruit and retain members. You need something that will appeal to your members and keep them coming back. In Successful Programs for Fitness and Health Clubs: 101 Profitable Ideas, you will learn how to utilize programming to meet your strategic and financial goals. Written by internationally-respected programming consultant Sandy Coffman, this book will teach you exactly what programming is and how to make it work for you.

Successful Programs for Fitness and Health Clubs: 101 Profitable Ideas presents more than 100 ready-to-use programs for use in fitness centers, group exercise studios, pools, gyms, and classrooms. The programs are designed to get hundreds of new members involved immediately. But the text is far more than just a program recipe book. Coffman addresses the challenges faced in programming, including teaching skills, communication skills, marketing techniques, and follow-up procedures. Her advice will help you design programs that unite members with common interests and abilities and foster a sense of belonging and commitment. Such programming leads to increased participation, reduced attrition, greater retention, more referrals, less downtime, and improved staff productivity.

The text will first lay the foundation for programming by presenting the key principles and concepts that need to be considered. Part I explores

• the five steps to programming success,

• the 10 keys to member retention,

• hiring and training the right people,

• why a programdirector is needed,

• internal and external promotions, and

• niche marketing.

By understanding and using the information in Part I, you can successfully implement the programs in Part II. Here you will find 101 actual programs, with numerous variations-including ideas for court sports, group exercise, and programs aimed at adults, families, kids, seniors, and women, covering a broad range of fitness levels, from beginners and intermediates to advanced participants. It also includes programming for specific time frames, such as the holiday season, spring, or summer. An activity finder located in the front of the text makes it easy to find programs based on criteria ranging from the type of activity or member to the type of special event.

In addition to providing vital information for planning your programs, Successful Programs for Fitness and Health Clubs: 101 Profitable Ideas comes with a CD-ROM containing more than 60 files that will help you create support materials to get your programs started. You will find printable quizzes, flyers, score cards, invitations, scoring systems, round robin tournament schedules, and logos-most of which can be customized to include information specific to your facility, such as logo, contact names, dates, times, and more. Additional files provide templates to create T-shirts, buttons, and other promotional pieces. Headings and icons in the text indicate when to refer to the CD-ROM for certain materials.

When it comes to enhancing your club offerings, follow the expert programming advice from Sandy Coffman. With it you will be able to create, implement, and deliver successful programs that will attract and retain new members and ultimately make your club a greater success.

Table of Contents:

Program Finder
Items on CD-ROM
Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgments

Part I. Programming Overview

Chapter 1. Programming and Retention
Do you know the five steps to programming success? What about the 10 keys to retention? This chapter will answer those questions and show you the steps your members must go through to be fully retained.

Chapter 2. Hiring and Training the Right People
Good employees need more than a degree or certification. They need to have a good personality and a willingness to improve their communication skills. This chapter shows you who to hire and how to train them to improve their professional personality.

Chapter 3. Program Director
Does your facility need a program director? You bet! This chapter shows you the role of the program director, looks at the four types of members the program director needs to know about, and shows you how to complete a program study analysis.

Chapter 4. Promotions
Your customers need to know about your programs-promotion is the key! This chapter looks at the internal and external promotions you can do to make sure everyone knows what's happening at your facility.

Chapter 5. Niche Marketing
Every member is different and looking for something unique out of his or her experience at your facility. This chapter identifies the different niche markets and how to tailor your programming to each market. We also look at niche markets throughout the day and year.

Part II. Programs and Programming Ideas

Chapter 6. Court Sports
Volleyball, racquetball, tennis, and wallyball. What do they have in common? They are all court sports. This chapter gives you lots ofprograms for your court sports.

Chapter 7. In and Around the Fitness Center
Cardio and weight training can be much more than putting a client on a treadmill or setting up a lifting schedule. Here, you'll find lots of unique ideas for keeping your members coming back for more.

Chapter 8. Group Exercise
Our group exercise programs give our clients a great opportunity to form friendships and social outlets, both of which are key to retention. In this chapter, you'll find a new twist on cycling, step, and other group exercise classes.

Chapter 9. Aquatics
Do you use your pool for lap swimming only? If so, you're missing out on lots of programming opportunities. This chapter gives you ideas of classes you may want to further develop at your facility.

Chapter 10. Baby Boomers and Beyond
The older members of your facility offer a unique challenge for programming. You'll find lots of great ideas in this chapter for programs on tennis, cardio, and other fitness and social programs.

Chapter 11. Youth and Teens
How do you get the youngest members of your facility involved and on the track to lifelong fitness? This chapter offers many programs and programming ideas to keep the kids coming back for more!

Chapter 12. Specialty Programs
Open houses, holiday programs, and DJ nights are just a few of the unique ideas you can implement to round out your yearly calendar of programming events. If you need a seasonal, annual, or one-time programming idea, look in this chapter.

Afterword
Index
CD-ROM Installation Instructions
About the Author

Go to: International Macroeconomics and Finance or The New International Money Game

Trade-Offs: An Introduction to Economic Reasoning and Social Issues

Author: Harold Winter

When economists wrestle with issues such as unemployment, inflation, or budget deficits, they do so by incorporating an impersonal, detached mode of reasoning. But economists also analyze issues that, to others, do not typically fall within the realm of economic reasoning, such as organ transplants, cigarette addiction, smoking in public, and product safety. Trade-Offs is an introduction to the economic approach to analyzing these controversial public policy issues.

Harold Winter provides readers with the analytical tools needed to identify and understand the trade-offs associated with these topics. By considering both the costs and benefits of potential policy solutions, Winter stresses that real-world policy decision-making is best served by an explicit recognition of as many trade-offs as possible.

Intellectually stimulating yet accessible and entertaining, Trade-Offs will be appreciated by students of economics, public policy, health administration, political science, and law, as well as by anyone who follows current social policy debates.