Home > Company > Reference Materials

Reference Materials

Many of the members of the Twin Oaks management team have years of hands-on club operations experience, and our field staff are in clubs, working with clients, every day of the week. We have written articles about our industry, and would like to share some of those with you:

Feature Articles by Category

Assessing Solutions Providers:

Choosing a Solution Provider

Is Your Club Software the Most Affordable? Easy to Use? Flexible? Reliable?

Selecting a Collection Agency for Delinquent Monthly Billing

Upgrade Your Club Management Software

Business Process / Efficiency:

Build Your Business by Unlocking Your Software’s Potential

Computer Talk for Running Your Club

Increase Profits by Increasing Efficiency

Is Your Club Ready for the New Year?

Paperless Contracts and the Digital Filing Cabinet

Point of Sale... More Than Just a Cash Register

Understanding the "Simple Terms" of Revenue Management

Generating Increased Revenues/Profits:

Increasing Personal Training Revenues

Increase Your Revenues through a More Efficient Front Desk

Making Money Using Your Computer Software

Revenue Generators

The Value of Building Your Dues Line

Marketing:

Effective Mail and E-Mail Marketing Using Your Club Management Software

Promotions for the Holidays and New Year

Using Your Computer Software for Referral Marketing

Articles

Build Your Business by Unlocking Your Software’s Potential by Len Bell

Regardless of your business model, the two most important factors to a successful fitness facility are selling new memberships and retaining current members. There is no easier way to accomplish these tasks than to have a simple and efficient contact management system in place to help you track leads, build your database, and easily communicate with your prospects and members, as well as provide inspection tools so you can track the sales process. Read more>

Computer Talk for Running Your Club by Carole Oat

Try to imagine your club without treadmills or strength training equipment. It wouldn’t function properly or sell many memberships. The same applies with the use of computers in the industry. If you really want to succeed, you must utilize the available database management systems and take advantage of the tools provided with them. Read more>

Choosing a Solution Provider by Carole Oat

Club management software and billing solutions today are numerous with many viable vendors that will contend for your business. Today’s technology provides the most reliable software needed to run a club business easily, effectively and profitably. SQL databases using .NET framework are the most prevalent and reliable platforms to utilize. These allow for a synchronization vehicle to be built into the software for both in-club usage and remote access. Read more>

Effective Mail and E-Mail Marketing Using Your Club Management Software by Kate Dumas

Regular communication with your members builds brand loyalty, improves cash flow and increases revenue. But for that communication to be effective, it must be timely, focused and relevant. Fortunately, today’s sophisticated club management software can help you quickly and economically communicate with your members. And by using your software’s filtering options, you can target members to maximize your campaign’s effectiveness. Read more>

Increase Profits by Increasing Efficiency by Len Bell

A common concern I hear from business owners is the ever increasing demands on their time. I had the same issue when I managed facilities and realized the pressures on a facility manager can be overwhelming at times. Now that the “New Year’s Rush” is slowing down, it may be time to take a fresh look at your business to see if you can be more efficient. It takes time to implement new procedures and train staff, but it will be worth it when you begin to save on payroll; lessen “busy work,” and free-up time to do those things you have wanted to do to increase your profitability. Read more>

Increase Your Revenues through a More Efficient Front Desk by Kate Dumas

Your front desk is a profit center — help make it more organized; provide faster service to your members, and make more money with some easy-to-implement changes. Read more>

Increasing Personal Training Revenues by Len Bell

Personal training is a great member service for clubs to provide. Maximizing your profits in this area can have a big impact on your bottom line: personal training is typically the second highest revenue generator — second only to memberships. Are you doing everything you can to ensure the best results? There are a few areas where a little effort goes a long way. Read more

Is Your Club Ready for the New Year? by Kate Dumas

The beginning of a new year is a great time to conduct an annual audit of your club procedures. Over time, through data entry errors, membership rate changes, employee turnover and changing membership types, your data can be become inaccurate. An annual housecleaning of your database as well as a review of your daily practices are important — and often overlooked — steps to effectively managing your club. Read more>

Is Your Club Software the Most Affordable? Easy to Use? Flexible? Reliable? by Carole Oat

Your business is growing, your facilities and equipment are first-rate, your club staff is excellent and the services you provide are top quality. In fact, everything you’re doing on the delivery side is running well, your customers are happy and membership is expanding. You couldn’t be happier, except for one thing: The business side of your business is making you crazy, and you’re not sure if your current service provider is right for you anymore. Read more>

Making Money Using Your Computer Software by Carole Oat

Cash in now by using a tool that’s right at your fingertips — your computer software. You have the technology, now put it to work. Begin with the big thing, managing your dues line. The most successful clubs put 70 percent or more of their members on monthly billing because, in most markets, and providing your EFT processor is reliable, you will make 20 - 30 percent more per member for no more effort. Doing this ensures your monthly recurring revenue covers expenses, grows the value of the business and provides you with a track record of income. This is important to show banks if and when you need it for resale value or for new capital financing. It’s also been proven that only about 40 percent of paid in full members actually renew each year. Read more>

Paperless Contracts and the Digital Filing Cabinet by Susanne Marchese

Do you have drawers, boxes and file cabinets full of paper? Are you tired of having to run across your club to access member files or repeatedly retrieve them from storage? A digital file cabinet may be the solution for you — why not create a paperless contract system? Read more>

Point of Sale... More Than Just a Cash Register by Kate Dumas

If you are not taking advantage of the full benefits of today’s point-of-sale (POS) systems, you may be overlooking an easy way to increase your revenues and dramatically improve the efficiency of your club. A well-written POS system can also assist you with revenue tracking and create more effective, targeted marketing campaigns. Read more>

Promotions for the Holidays and New Year by Carole Oat

Happy Holidays everyone. It’s that time of year to make money and you have the tools to do it right at your fingertips. Ideally, you have three or more databases within your club management software to whom you can market. I’m referring to your existing member database, prospects and guest database, and your archived membership database — meaning all of your former members who are currently canceled or expired… Do whatever can be done to help in growing the monthly dues revenue line and generating revenue right now. Read more>

Revenue Generators by Carole Oat

Begin with the big thing, managing the dues line. The most successful clubs
put 70% or more of their members monthly billing because, in most markets, and providing that your EFT processor reliable, you will make 20- 30% more per member for no more effort. Doing this ensures your monthly recurring revenue to cover expenses, grows the value of the business, and provides you with a track record of income. This is important show banks for resale value or for new capital financing. It’s also been proven that only about 40% of paid-in-full members actually renew each year. Read more>

Selecting a Collection Agency for Delinquent Monthly Billing by Carole Oat

The typical club averages three to seven percent returns on their monthly EFT and credit card billing file. This means they’re really receiving 93 to 97 percent of the projected gross billing. Thus, if the projected billing is $50,000 per month and billing actually received is 95 percent, that’s $47,500. That leaves $2500 of revenue uncollected for the month, which adds up to $30,000 annually. Let’s see now, I’d say that’s equivalent to about seven brand new treadmills. Read more>

Understanding the "Simple Terms" of Revenue Management by Carole Oat

Being in clubs all the time, talking with owners and general managers, it’s quite often that the discussion leads to questions when the subject comes to revenue tracking and receivables. It’s amazing how infrequently a club is aware of its outstanding balances, deferred revenue, held deposits, or even gross/net billing per month. Read more>

Upgrade Your Club Management Software by Carole Oat

If you haven’t had your club management software upgraded in the last three years, it’s time. In fact, you’re overdue. Ideally, you should be receiving upgrades, free upgrades, from your software provider at least once a year. Make sure you’re getting them. Don’t let the provider charge you thousands of dollars to upgrade. A lot of new features have come out on the market lately; many of them are very valuable and all are designed to make the management job easier and more effective. This is your investment and some of these new perks can provide great tools for member communication and overall functionality. Read more>

Using Your Computer Software for Referral Marketing by Carole Oat

When it comes to generating high quality sales leads in the health club business, any industry consultant will still tell you “buddy referrals” are the best source. And getting the leads while they’re hot is key. Meaning, within one week to a month after a new member joins your facility, get a marketing piece out allowing them to easily bring in their friends. Most club management software has a marketing piece already established which you can send to all your new members, from the prior week or month, to offer those members a chance to bring in their friends for free. The piece typically has built-in “guest passes” for members’ friends. Read more>

The Value of Building Your Dues Line by Carole Oat

Starting in the early 1980s, large multi-purpose health and racquet clubs developed and perfected the system of monthly dues billing for health clubs. Many of these clubs have dues receivables of $40-60,000 per month; a significant number are over $80,000; and a small elite are over $100,000 per month. Read more>