Frustrated TSI trainer

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    • Tue Mar 18th 00:32 AM | Rating: 0 0
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      Town Sports International: Gaining Strength
      I'm a current trainer for NYSC.

      Tony Kent, with all due respect, you are completely wrong, and honestly, sir, I advise you to sell all your stock in CLUB right now. It's almost certainly a horrible investment.

      In your response to OhReally, you mention that training fees have risen more quickly than membership fees. Unfortunately, that is a meaningless statistic.

      Personal training revenue only represents around 10% of the company's overall revenue. So the fact that it is growing faster than the membership rates does not translate to significantly greater revenues.

      Besides, NYSC (apparently) is not trying to grow personal training as a business. If it is, it's doing a lousy job of it. There is no advertising or marketing for training, trainers are poorly educated, and around 90% of members do not use trainers (this 10% PT penetration rate is not to be confused with the fact that coincidentally, training represents only 10% of overall revenue).

      I truly believe that the company does NOT view personal training revenue as an important or viable income stream.

      But honestly, Mr. Kent, that is small potatoes as a reason to invest elsewhere. There are bigger reasons.

      Consider:

      Employee moral is at an all-time low. No one is PROUD to work for NYSC; rather, we tend to be embarrassed. We feel unappreciated, and isolated and out of touch from the corporate office and the big bosses. (I've never even SEEN the vice president of fitness, Timothy Keightley, in person, let alone met him...and he's supposed to be my boss. I hear he's a nice guy, though, if somewhat goofy. I realize TSI is not a mom-and-pop operation, where everyone knows everyone, but for god's sakes, it's not IBM or American Express! You brag of an open door policy in your employee manual, but this doesn't seem to be the case. Be accessible!) This resentment is true from trainers to front desk staff to housekeepers, and usually, even local club management.

      And members notice.

      Fitness managers, poorly paid and underappreciated, are stepping down left and right. The company is so desperate for management that just last week, an assistant fitness manager was promoted to fitness manager after being an assistant for 4 months. Problem is, he doesn't even have the most basic certification the company requires of its trainers. Worse yet, he couldn't even perform the most basic tasks associated with fitness management as an assistant. Now he'll go manage his own club, and "train" a new assistant fitness manager under him. Then in 3-4 months, this poor knowledge-less assistant, having been taught by someone who himself is clueless, will be promoted to fitness manager of another club, and train a new assistant under him...and so on. Talk about the blind leading the blind! Unqualified fitness managers are the rule, not the exception. And they are unqualified both in knowledge of fitness, and management ability.

      Fitness managers receive a tiny salary (generally around $30-40K). They do get 2 monthly bonuses, one based on PT sales that month (called sales), and one based on the dollar value of actual personal training sessions completed that month (referred to as revenue). But the bonus based on actual PT sales is capped at 120% of the monthly quota. For example, if the monthly quota is $100,000, and the club does $120,000 that month, they get a percentage of the 120K. But if they do $130,000, they only get a percentage based on the 120K. So there is no incentive for managers to do better than 120% in sales.

      Probably because of the low pay and low level of quality, fitness managers run very sloppy businesses. The training revenue books are kept horribly, at least on the local club level, which of course, must by necessity translate to the global level. Many trainers enter, and therefore, get paid for, sessions they did not perform, then do the sessions days or weeks later, if at all.

      Trainers are frequently late or miss appointments altogether without even alerting the client in advance. So-called floor trainers, whose job it is to provide basic customer service such as spotting, helping members with exercise technique, answering members' questions, and so on, are rarely to be found. Some of them simply clock in and leave the club altogether for hours, return, clock out, and go home.

      This next thing is not so much an indictment of the fitness managers, but of the corporate office (with whom, I suppose, the buck stops with ALL my complaints, not just this): Trainers (and managers) are often paid incorrectly, and somehow, these mistakes always seem to be in the company's favor. When pressed, the payroll department claims that they simply don't have enough staff to meet the demands of a few thousand employee's payrolls every two weeks. Really? Well, be that as it may, as you know, Tony Kent, some trainers and managers are now suing the company for that very reason. And trust me, there are more such lawsuits to come.

      Equipment is constantly broken, and often takes weeks or even months to get serviced. Members constantly complain to us, and all we can tell them is that "we are working on it". That response only goes so far. Honestly, it's embarrassing. The CEO doesn't have to face irate and angry members every day. We do.

      The clubs themselves (apart from the personal training aspect) are extremely poorly managed (from an operations standpoint). They are filthy and crowded. Again, members are constantly complaining to us, and we have no answers for them, so we simply shrug our shoulders.

      Essentially, everything I've mentioned boils down to two things: horrible management, and and almost no attention to customer service and quality in general. All of the clubs' growth has led to a huge decrease in quality. The extra-structure (meaning the sheer number of clubs) far outpaces the growth of the infrastructure (for example, the number of people in the payroll department). The infrastructure can't support all the clubs, so everything is crumbling.

      Yes, Mr. Kent, I'm familiar with all the "changes" TSI is making - demanding business plans from trainers, forcing membership consultants to follow a standardized system, and so on.

      But these "changes" are cosmetic, sir. They are designed to fool investors into believing that the company is running a tight ship. It is not. These are band aids, like trying to save the Titanic by bailing the water with a teaspoon. What's necessary is change from the inside out.

      That being said, CLUB people, if you are listening, here are some ideas for improvement.

      1) Take the personal training business more seriously. And I mean this on a number of levels:

      PT IS a viable source of revenue, as other gyms such as David Barton have shown. Hire better fitness managers. Screen them better. Pay them better. Don't cap their bonuses.

      Also, look at the QUALITY of the personal training being provided. Currently, all personal training "quotas" are based on dollars, and trainers are never evaluated on the training itself. The quality of the personal training service is low. Very low. If you increase the quality, you can actually charge more - at least for the best trainers - pay the trainers better, and make more money all around.

      Demand more of trainers. Educate them better and make them accountable for fitness knowledge and training excellence. At the same time, show them more respect (it CAN be done).

      Also, I know member retention is an issue - but check the stats: members who train with trainers quit NYSC is much smaller numbers than those who don't. Getting more people to use trainers (remember: 90% of the membership don't) is probably THE number one way to increase member retention.

      2) You have professional sales people selling club memberships, yet you expect personal trainers (barely qualified in fitness, let alone selling) to sell personal training. Why not have a separate, fulltime professional salesperson to sell PT?

      (I guess both of these ideas boil down to one simple point. Invest money in PT as a business - both in quality and quantity - and it will respond favorably. If you continue to treat it as merely gravy, it will never be more than that. Keep in mind that PT is the highest form of customer service. It matters.)

      3) Hire more and better housekeepers, and manage them better.

      4) Pay general managers better so they will care.

      5) Pay front desk attendants better, and train them better.

      6) (and this is most important): You, big-time TSI bosses (yes, YOU!), need to show both members and employees that you care...from the chairman to the CEO and on down. Your apathy is most evident from the current stock price of 6 bucks and change...and your apathy trickles all the way down the food chain to directors, district managers, cluster managers, general managers, fitness managers, master trainers, pro trainers, floor trainers, membership consultants, front desk attendants, and housekeepers (did I leave anyone out?). If you don't care, no one does. Things won't get better until both members and employees sense that you give a damn.

      In other words, never.

      Good luck, Mr. Kent. You'll need it.



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