Squash Club Development
Here's a short video of a series to help you grow your Squash Club - please post comments in the Forum section of this web site or on the Squash NZ YouTube Channel
Video Eight:-
Adding a Gym to Your Club
- Becoming a squash and gym club has many advantages. Firstly, you can easily double the size of your club without doing the same to your overheads. Secondly, the extra revenue will give you a chance to have part/full time staff – taking the pressure off volunteers.
- There are lots of people who wont go to a squash club but will go to a gym and join – through this, you have the chance to get them into squash
- A lot of your squash players are potential gym members – contribute some of your own.
- A gym without a group exercise program can be offered way more cheaply, and there is a market for this type of gym
- The size of the gym market is (maybe) 15 times bigger than the squash market. With the current economy, these people won’t stop going to a gym, but may look at a better value alternative like a squash/gym club.
- It has certainly worked for us – started in 1995 adding heaps, over 550 members. The same can be said for the Palmerston North SquashGym.
- Make sure you offer one or the other both.
Contact me for help at 
Video Seven:-
Open Day
- Great way to get your club focused on a membership drive
- Catalyst to get the place looking spic and span – make sure you have all the programmes in place ready for them
The Marketing of an Open Day
- When – Winter: after daylight saving has finished
- Dark/bad weather – from mid-April onwards
- Your Marketing Team: Plan it out – get your date, book your courts off.
- Marketing in house: posters advertising when it is on. I suggest a Sunday afternoon 3-6pm
- Really enlist in the support of your club members: send them a letter telling them about the open day – include three business cards each to hand out to their friends – really important.
- Do a letterbox mail-drop in your community, “Free Open Day! – Win a free six-month membership!”
- Get the above to your local school for the kids to take home – get the whole family down!
- Drop them off to your local tertiary institutions and hostels
- Enlist in your local community radio – some run ads one week for free prior to the event.
- Talk to your local community paper – see if they will do a free story on your open day – or buy advertisement space or and editorial. They might also want to run a story on a rising star – this may be a way to sell the story to the local paper.
- Use half a dozen signs close to your club a few days out to attract people to the event.
- Get an open day banner; have it on the road to attract the eye – keep it for future years.
- Have an e-mail version of the open day and e-mail it to your databases.
- Have the event on your website – maybe even make a youtube video to inspire people.
- Place flyers in holders in local cafes, video shops, doctors and businesses around your community.
On the Day
- Have your club looking great – have your most welcoming people present to incorporate new/prospective members into the club.
- Have your courts open and coaches around to give people a hit.
Contact me for help at
Video Six:-
Make the Club Their “Third Place” – Retention
- This is the sixth of a number of short videos to help you run and promote your club
- Starbucks talk about making their cafes their customers “third place” behind home and work. That’s what your club should be
- They should be proud to be part of your club as a member or as a regular
- Constantly be building your club brand- Lots of little things is how this is done
- Collect all your regular emails and send them a weekly email with what is going on at the club, upcoming events, put in our Club K weekly coaching tip! How your players and teams are going etc. This builds that advocacy towards your club. This is a fantastic way to build the “third place” feeling. You need the right person to be doing this.
- When a new member joins, have somebody ring them at 3 weeks, 8 weeks, 6 months and 11 months, check in see how they are going, suggestion etc
- Talked about bumper stickers before, have these available- build advocates.
- Have BBQs and social gatherings – bring a friend etc. Build the whole social side of the club.
- It’s the people that become real advocates for your club that willreally help you build it.
- Contact me for help at
Video Five:-
Reel 'em in - Turning prospects into regulars
- This is the fifth of a number short videos to help you run and promote your club
- So now you have attracted heaps of prospects from your prospecting and marketing—time to close the sale!
- You need one or two ‘sales-y’ type people who are going to deal with these prospects.
- Have a structured way to arrange to meet the prospect at the club, show them around, introduce them to your wonderful programmes and get them started.
- It’s really important to get the right people to be doing this, as that first impression is a deal breaker. It is as much about the person as it is about the Club.
- By any measure you like, Club Kelburn is a really successful club, but it is still an old building — not flash! We have made a silk purse out of a sow’s ear and half of this is the friendly greeting they get when they first come to see us, as well as a structured tour of our club and programmes.
- So spend some time on getting a structured approach to closing the sale!
- If you need any help contact, contact me for help at rob@clubk.co.nz
Video Four:-
Go tell ’em – Prospecting and Marketing
For more info see www.nzsquash.co.nz
This is the third of a number short videos to help you run and promote your club
- The main area clubs can really improve on is prospecting
- We hardly ever try and attract people to our clubs - maybe an open day
- We can learn a lot from the gym industry — always prospecting for new members, everyday, in all sorts of ways!
- Your marketing sub committee should look after this.
- Plan activity for six months, so that something is happening all the time. Then re-evaluate and go again for the next six months.
Here are are some of the ways we prospect—build them into your plan
- Membership form—prospects - follow up
- Vouchers when somebody joins
- Lucky draw flyers in cafes, stores doctors etc.
- Letterbox flyer drops in local community
- Business card-sized vouchers mailed out to your members to give to friends/family
- Free trials — vital! Free week or free club day visits — whatever you need to do to get them to try you out. Maybe have ten or twenty free week memberships that people can use—give back—then you give it to the next one. This will get you plenty of new interest. Offer this free week on your website as we do on our website
- Open day. Have at least one open day a year. Put in a lot of effort. This is handled separately in another video.
- Community radio. Use this to promote a free club day, a free day for kids or a free for parents and kids day!
- Free local paper. Quite a large readership and much cheaper than the larger papers. Develop a relationship with the editor. Get local/national and international squash news in there See if they will give you a good deal on advertising. Maybe an advertorial
- Have a club bumper sticker. Great advertising.
- Have someone walk around your CBD area and give out fliers of whatever promo you have on. Go into all the shops and business buildings and give them out - people are always happy to help.
- Promote to other local sports clubs. Have a club day for the local rugby team/football teams/netball team.
- Do the same with fliers to local schools. Free day.
- Map out 6 months of activities from the above suggestions, and others.
- If you need any help contact rob@clubk.co.nz
Video Three:-
Put Your Stall Out - Branding and Marketing
For more info seehttp://www.nzsquash.co.nz/
- This is the third of a number short videos to help you run and promote your club
- The club’s looking great, you’ve got programmes sorted out, it’s time to do some branding/marketing!
1st thing — signage:
- Says what you are
- Says what you do
Website — Really important
- Have all the necessary visual info/programmes
- Have a virtual tour i.e. on youtube
- Have a look at our ones—squash/gym/shop
- I’ve had really good success with this
Other
- Community radio
- White pages/Yellow pages—okay
Organisation
- Sub committee—2-3 people—look after marketing.
Video Two:-
Give 'em Something To Do - Presentation Notes
- This is the second of a number short videos to help you run and promote your club.
- Now we have got the club looking good.
- Before we attract a whole lot of new people.
- Have some programmes.
1st Programme you need Club Day
At ClubK we have our Sunday Club:
- Good personable coach running it
- 1st date! Got to go well
- Tell them about other programs going on in the club
2nd Programme Leagues
- We have around 15 leagues of 6 players
- Monthly
- Prizes
- Have somebody in your club that drives the leagues thats all they do
- Contact them by email half way thru the month
- 1 week to go
- Two go up, 2 go down
- Email out results, prizewinners, new leagues on 1st on 2nd
- Prominent place in your club
- Leagues are really important to drive games in your club, Should be on
your website and updated everyday.
Video One:-
Be Ready!! - Presentation Notes
- This is the first of a number short videos to help you run and promote our club
- Before we can do Prospecting? Few things have to be right.
Club Presentation
- Start at the road- signage etc
- What about the outside of the building - signs - then the entrance - is it enticing?
Courts
- Lines Taped
- Clean
- Floor in good shape?
- Plaster falling off wall?
- Netting and ledges clean
- How do you paint the courts
- Where do you get court tape?
Changing rooms
- Smell like a wrestler's armpit?
- Urinals treated so they dont smell
- Carpets been cleaned properly?
- Walls clean/painted?
Club Cleaning - Who is in Charge?
- Probably a part time paid person
- Do they have an itemised list of what cleaning jobs to do on what day?
- Somebody needs to check it and keep cleaner on their toes
- Do you have a 3-5 year Repairs and Maintenance (R&M)plan? ??? A sub committee of 2-3 people to look after R&M in your club
- Make one person in charge of filling out grant applications
- Get grants going in all the time so you can get your clubs up to scratch over time.
We'd welcome your comments in the Forum Area of this web site or on the SquashNZ YouTube Channel - Contact Rob directly at
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