Are you the crème de la crème?

There is only a week left to get a 10% early-bird discount on entry to the FIA & Matrix Flame Awards 2012. Have you entered yet?

Established in the 90’s and receiving more and more entries year on year, the longevity and desire to win a Flame award is plain to see. But what is it that makes these the hottest awards in our industry?

Delivered by the FIA for over 15 years, the Fitness, Leadership And Management Excellence (Flame) awards are our crème de la crème industry awards that recognise excellence and best practice within the health and fitness sector.

The strict Flame award criteria and in-depth three stage Flame assessment process offers clubs and centres a rigorous independent business assessment to help benchmark their facility and honour the people who make such a profound contribution to their communities and organisation.

The assessment process may be tough going but this gives the Flame awards their credibility and therefore any club or facility who succeeds in getting a Flame award knows that they are delivering the best quality service in their category.

The 2012 FIA and Matrix Flame process encompasses; stage one qualifying information through an online entry form and participation in a Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey, stage two, the formal assessment through an onsite visit by an independent auditor, Leisure-net Solutions in partnership with Right Directions and stage three a customer satisfaction survey. The winners are announced in front of a large audience of over 800 industry peers at the prestigious Ball of Fire at the Flame Conference in the summer.

You may have seen that earlier this year the Health Club Awards, run by HCM and the National Fitness Awards, run by Workout magazine were launched. These are consumer awards voted by members, which are valid in their own right but do not follow the in-depth and diverse Flame award assessment process. 

To enter or to find out more about Flame, visit www.fia.org.uk

All I want for Christmas….

With Christmas fast approaching, you may be surprised to hear that the Flame Awards are at the top of my priority list and indeed many of the Industry’s finest!

There’s just a final few days to take advantage of the discounted early bird entry fee so clubs are busy finalising their entry forms, hopeful to remain in the competition until that adrenaline-fuelled final stage – the Flame Awards Ceremony on 13th July 2011; where the winners will be crowned!

Flame began over 15 years ago, born out of a need to recognise those in our industry that are a beacon of Fitness Leadership and Management Excellence.

Over the years, winners have varied and competition has heightened – turning the Flame Awards into the most prestigious and desired in the industry!

Attending some site visits last year (which take place in Stage 2 of the assessing process), it was staggering to experience the intricate planning that sites put into their assessment day. The motivation, energy, eagerness to please and sheer pride is absolutely phenomenal – you really have to admire the professionalism of our assessors that are forced to compare these clubs and not come to the conclusion that everybody should be a winner! With standards so high across all entrants, every single point really does count…

Dawn Spink, 2010 Flame Winner for Club of the Year, The Valley Health & Fitness at EIS Sheffield said:

“Winning was a great achievement for us and the fitness team at EIS. We were short listed the year before, but winning last year showed just how much we improved – enough to win!

After receiving feedback from the Flame assessors, we improved our programme cards by working with head office to change the format. By getting to the final, we learned from the customer satisfaction surveys to improve on our more social aspects and now we do member football tournaments! We have also implemented classes into our timetable; things like outdoor military fitness classes.

My advice to hopefuls is to keep trying and really motivate your team. Make it the best time it can be by including the members, making sure they know it’s their gym, not yours and therefore a reward for both of your hard work!”

So, what are you waiting for? Send me your entry form now!

Merry Christmas,

Hayley Bevan, Events & Sponsorship Manager at the FIA
Email: Hayley@fia.org.uk

2010 FLAME Conference - The Little Things Are Now the Big Things

Dave Stalker's assertion that in order to stay relevant in the next decade and beyond, the industry needs to change its DNA, is right on the money.

Having said that, our service standards remain the elephant in the room, and unless we improve them, everything else has that Dave refers to has the potential to become mere window dressing.

Phil Dourado, one of this year's speakers (more from Phil in a few weeks), believes that simply delivering on our core competencies is no longer enough and that the new competitive edge lies in the detail. In short, the little things - the moments of truth - are now the big things. He's right.

What we have done extraordinarily well over the past twenty years is drive the big things - more facilities, better facilities, more members, better programming and so on. But if we want to increase our overall market penetration we have to both explore ways of attracting people who are not turned on by the current fitness model i.e. the majority, and do a much better job of looking after those who are.

While Dave is, quite rightly, looking ahead and talking about change at the macro level, I am still focused on the day-to-day experience of the average club member right now. And one of the questions I have is this: Are our current operating systems designed to suit the needs of the organisation or the needs of the customer?

That's a big question that is probably beyond the scope of this blog, but here are a couple of thoughts:

1. Suffocated by the need to generate an ever increasing amount of management information, I wonder how much time our managers spend getting a feel for their businesses in the old fashioned way i.e. by interacting with customers and staff on a daily basis? It used to be called management by walking about (MBWA). In short, would the average health club member benefit from our managers (who should set the tone for their teams) being much more visible? I know of at least one major operator who thinks they would and is adapting its systems accordingly.

2. Research says that starting the member's visit on a positive note and - even more importantly - ending on an "uptick", significantly enhances the customer experience. Given the technology at our disposal, shouldn't reception staff be able to use my name when I arrive and say goodbye when I leave? This is just one small example of how we miss little opportunities to make a big impression, but I wonder if it is symptomatic of a much broader malaise?

Dave paints an intriguing and exciting vision for the industry going forward - one that we can all buy into - but we should be mindful of the fact that it's what happens to our customers on a day-to-day basis that will determine the size, scope and sustainability of our businesses going forward.

Tim Webster
Consultant
Fitness Professionals