This article focuses on the topic of technology and how it can be used to improve and grow your health club.
No doubt technology is a big part of the health club industry at the moment. If you go to any trade show you’ll see a lot of technology around in the equipment software etc..
But how do you get the most out of technology to effectively grow your health club?
Here are some ideas, tips and suggestions on how you can get the most out of technology and how you can get a competitive advantage when it comes to implementing technology in a health club.
The first thing on a cover off is why you should focus on technology in the health club and really becoming a leader in terms of technology in the health club.
Often I will come across a club owner or manager that will say something like “Oh we prefer the old school approach” “we like it kind of low tech and the old school personal approach”
When I hear this coming up I feel they are missing the point when it comes to technology.
Technology should enable you to provide a more personal experience to your members, look after your members and get them a better result with less time and effort.
I think it’s usually due to not understanding the power or the leverage that the right technology can bring. Often in those cases that person might be a bit tech phobic and that’s fine however that’s why it’s so important to try and educate yourself about technology. You don’t need to be an absolute guru but you need to keep up to date with know-how of the basics about technology and what’s occurring in the fitness industry with the latest technology.
The reason why it’s so important to embrace technology is because of the speed in which technology is moving.
There’s a concept called Moore’s Law which a professor developed in 1964. It was observed that every 12 to 18 months the number of transistors on a circuit doubled. So basically every 18 months or so a doubling of the capacity of technology occurred. This pattern has held true through to today.
If you look back over the last 10 years you can really see the evidence of this and how quickly things have moved because technology continues to accelerate. It’s not increasing at just a linear growth, it’s actually exponential growth. This means we can almost not fathom what technology will bring us in the next 10 years. You know things like Google, Facebook and social media have just changed everything so much just in the last 5 to 10 years.
The next five to ten years are going to bring us even greater change because the exponential curve of technology growth will continue.
With this rate of change it’s allowing businesses that implement technology to get a great advantage. It may be advantaged in terms of the number of people they can serve with less resource or the number of people begin a relationship with and acquire as a customer.
So when technology is implemented in the right way it will give you an advantage whether it’s a time saving benefit or a cost saving benefit. So it naturally makes sense to invest in technology and implement and find the right solution.
The health clubs that don’t invest in technology now and keep up to date over the next five to ten years will find that that they will be absolutely gapped by the competition that does embraces technology.
The gap may not look big now but as this technology development accelerates the gap between those who are implementing and getting the full benefits of technology might just put those who don’t out of business. This might be a big call but we have already seen companies go out of business due to a competitor mastering technology.
Now we have established why technology is important for your health club
Part 2 will focus on how to effectively find and implement the right technology for your health club.