Originally Posted by rightyho

Consumer credit licence info all here, including contact number... http://www.oft.gov.uk/advice_and_res...redit-licence/

Nice one, I'll look into that right away

Talk to John at Ashbourne Management as well - one of the best collection companies in the business and WELL UP on the law. Even if you don't decide to use them, he'll give you sound advice, including some contracts you can sell WITHOUT a licence. http://www.ashbournemanagement.co.uk/

We decided to consciously steer away from the collection company route at first, as it can send negative signals & we lose the personal touch. As we are taking the D/D ourselves, we get notified of any returned unpaid immediately. As we have 3 of us running the place, one of my roles is chasing these things up daily. We may decide to change it if we get snowed under, but if we can contact the members personally, I think we'll retain more members. I know the agency would make damn sure to get the money, but sometimes it's percieved as very impersonal by the member as they think they have a contract with you, not a collection agency. You are highly likely to lose them when the renewal is due if the agency have to start issuing proceedings. I may be being a little too trusting here, but I'll see how we go.

Found one of the banners. It's sat here for you. Excellent. I'll probably pop up between Brum & the British.

Your sign price is decent. Ours is a few quid cheaper, negated by the cost of postage.

For insurance, if you haven't got it in place already, John Ansell and Partners is hard to beat - hugely comprehensive cover and very helpful staff. They are very much on the gym's side and provide cover to, I'd say, the majority of small private gyms in the country. Reckon on £1600 a year for full equipment replacement cover against all perils, plus turnover cover and £5m liability insurance. There are cheaper out there but none so comprehensive IMO. Stuart McConnachie is the contact:

John Ansell & Partners Limited Insurance Brokers, Overseas House, 19-23 Ironmonger Row, London EC1V 3QN Telephone: 020 7251 6821 | Fax: 020 7490 0708 | e-mail: enquiries@ansell.co.uk We have insurance sorted now & very extensive cover too as spent years in insurance work so I got us a cracking deal, but I'll keep this on file for sure, thanks.

For a pre-opening sales campaign you might want to have a chat with Dave Wright or Chevvy Kelly of Creative Fitness Marketing. They've got us over 1200 members in the last three years. Yes, they take a big cut but they can proper sell..... http://www.creativefitness.net/ And wouldn't it be nice to have 300-500 members signed up before you even open....

Now this is interesting. I have already spoken to a guy from a fitness marketing company who used to work for CFM. His campaign projections were iffy to say the least (presented on a spreadsheet with loads of incorrect formulas designed to confuse IMO) & we got the distinct impression we were being had over (as did another local gym owner we know). He was talking about an 8 week promotion (starting 4 weeks prior to opening) but I could not get past the £20K he said it would cost us & TBH I really didn't like his methods (telemarketing for example, who joins a gym on the back of a telesales call, and how do we know for sure it's actually being done?). His leaflet ideas were terrible & the whole think smacked of hard sell. His idea of getting the volume in was to discount the memberships so heavily (24mths for the price of 12??!) that they would be inundated. Anyone can sell anything if they rip the a*se out of the price IMO. we do not want to discount the memberships as this creates percieved decrease in value.
I'm already doing our marketing & have a massive response, way in excess of his projections & haven't discounted a thing, and it's only costing us about a grand, not twenty. Let me know when you are having a promotion again bud, I'll do it for a fraction. Ten years being in car sales must have done me some good I suppose!

I really appreciate the input there Righty, you're a gentleman. It's great to have friends in the industry & I'm sure we can swap a lot of ideas between us. It's not like we're direct competition, being 150 miles apart!

Originally Posted by rightyho

Don't confuse CFM with others mate. Yes, they do discount but not that heavily. We reduced my monthly on a 24 month contract by £2.71 a month and just did close on £100,000 trade over 5 weeks.

That money comes in over the next 2 years.

The £20,000 is a typical figure - paid for out of any paid in full up front memberships they sell. It covers the campaign costs. Not sure of the crew you talk about but CFM lays this out of their own pocket and recoups it AS the sales progress.

Worst case scenario - they're down £20k and you've lost some TIME.
This is where they differ then, we'd still pay the campaign costs from what I can tell, but like I say, they seem to make it all sound very confusing on purpose to cloud the nasty bits. Also, there was some profit share after the promotion & I can't see why on earth any money left taken from members should go to them after we have paid thier costs? It sounds very iffy indeed. I'm totally convinced I can do a better job myself as two of us have been in sales & marketing for years so I'll stick with my original plan for now, as following our phone call this morning, you know what competition we have & the 'chimney pot' count is massive so we can do quite well without.

Telemarketing sales account for 6% of all our sales, referrals are 43% and leaflets 51%.

As for collection agencies chasing - we have over a 70% year-on-year retention rate - 10 times the national average and we use collection companies. The difference however is that we also offer a very personal service at the gym and retain our members by use of interpersonal skills.

The d/d agencies aren't aggressive chasers and you can set "the pace" with Ashbourne. I only get them to heavily chase the assholes who use the gym for 3 months, bouncing every payment along the way, then disappear.
I'll get onto ashbourne today, thanks, it does sound interesting.

Perhaps it's different up by you but the majority of members here don;t feel it's an imposition when Ashbourne write and say "you owe us". Afterall, they KNOW they're in a membership agreement with the gym (never use the word contract, always membership agreement. equals treble the sales through next to no objections).

Anyway, you'll do as you see fit mate and I'm sure you'll get it spot on. I just posted to try to put the point across that marketing companies don't have to equal huge discounts and d/d agencies aren't all bad news though I can think of one that I'd never use again.

You'll spend hours every day chasing your own d/ds Paul.

Originally Posted by Nine Pack

Evolution is not a process you can stop.

Watch this space....