“Midtown Athletic Clubs was looking for clarity and to get everyone on the same page. We had lot of projects and ideas, but needed to make them more cohesive. With the Giraffe Strategy Process it became fairly obvious very quickly what made us unique and identify areas that needed to be addressed. Two years later we’re still using the Giraffe process!”
Situation
Midtown Athletic Club, with locations in Illinois, New York, Georgia, Florida and Quebec was going through some major changes in many aspects of business, and brought in a new CEO, Jon Brady, to help drive the business forward.
There were many great ideas, and many projects happening, but they didn’t always mesh together well. They realized they were trying to be too many things, to too many people, and in the end, not pleasing anyone.
Clarity of direction, and cohesiveness for the teams was much needed, but they faced a major obstacle. First, they had to figure out what made them different, and better, than the competition.
A fellow member of the club introduced John Delany, owner of Giraffe Strategy, to Jon Brady, and the collaboration began.
Solution
The 2-Day Giraffe Strategy workshop started by focusing on the things that Midtown could do well, with team members writing down 1 word on a sticky note to describe what was most important.
As they discussed, debated and moved the notes around on the conference room wall, the team had a truly ‘WOW’ moment. They realized exactly what made them different, as well as how they could be genuine and realistic to themselves.
From this, they crafted the Midtown One Breath Promise “Inspire You Through Movement, Community and Personal Attention.”
From there, the team identified areas to be addressed in order to live out the promise every day, and included 4 main points.
- Improve the member experience
- Redefine the brand, including the company vocabulary, sales process and sales training
- Update IT infrastructure and redesign the website
- Communication and training of the staff to deliver a new experience to members
Result
As Midtown refreshes their Giraffe Strategy Plan for the second year, they report huge progress towards their goals.
By first focusing on infrastructure and IT changes to build a stable platform for business growth, other projects could be allowed to flourish. A marketing team went to work rebranding the Clubs, complete with a recent launch of the new website, midtown.com.
These efforts have increased sales to record levels and improved member retention rates.
This new level of member happiness is driving Midtown to take it to the next level with a new, major program focused on further improving user experience.
