Selling More Gym Or Health Club Memberships Is Not Everything In Your Club!
The forgotten key to your gyms success is the billing and collecting of your receivables
. In the health club business we can sell all the new gym memberships and personal training we want but if we never see the funds enter our bank account then we have wasted time and effort as well as based our budget and future spending on funds we will never receive.
Many small gyms try to handle their billing on their own. I am here to tell you that this is a big mistake. Do you think it saves you money? While it may save you a few dollars on the billing side you lose thousands of dollars on uncollected gym dues. We must remember that a gym is a business and must be run like one. Having a professional billing company is a must. Why would you not have an expert in the field of billing and collecting handle your clubs dues? Why would you trust the money you work so hard to generate to sustain your club to the hands of a part-time billing person?
Professional billing companies have the time and the resources to make sure things do not slip thru the cracks as well as provide great customer service on the billing side. They are also able to remove emotion from the equation. While we want to handle certain situations with compassion I have seen clubs drop hundreds of members who willingly signed membership agreements just because gym owners or managers did not have the heart to say no to someone who wanted to cancel just because they have not used the club.
You can use a billing company and still make judgment calls on certain things with a member and their membership but you will not need to try to deal with each one all by yourself. If I have not convinced you to use a professional billing company then pull a report and see how much uncollected membership money you have floating around from the last year! Can you even generate a report to show you that information! Get my point?
by: Matt York owner of IHCC Health Club Consulting