Dynamic Duo:	11/2004
John Atwood and Beth Wald	by Kristen A. Walsh

Driving down Chestnut Street in Needham, Massachusetts, it’s easy to blink and miss HealthFit. The small club is tucked 50 yards back from the main street in the quaint New England town. Other than a small, understated sign, the exterior reveals no hint of the unique happenings taking place inside.

The 7,000 square-foot club, which opened in 2000, was the brainchild of John Atwood, 52, and his wife, Beth Wald, 46.

‘I was only supposed to be involved at the beginning,’ explains Wald. ‘But John and I realized we had complementing skills and that the club would benefit by having us both involved.’

Along with Atwood, who has taught tennis and managed clubs since the tennis boom of the 1970s, Wald developed a model unlike that of any other club in the area.

‘We wanted to serve the sedentary and older markets not as add-ons, but as the club’s primary markets,’ says Atwood. ‘We wanted to make a difference in the world in addition to running a profitable business.’

‘Fit people are pretty good at staying fit,’ explains Atwood. ‘Our passion is finding a way to move people from inactive to active.’

A Community Benefit

HealthFit’s owners are committed to making a difference in the community. They offer several programs free of charge — many in conjunction with Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital’s Needham Campus. These include programs for people with diabetes or arthritis as well as senior strength training programs.

‘We’ve built strong relationships with a number of doctors and physical therapists in the area,’ says Wald. In fact, anyone who is referred to the club by a doctor or physical therapist gets a free month of membership, including instruction and support.

HealthFit also runs a scholarship program which gives away $25,000 in free or discounted memberships each year to people who have health issues and can’t afford to exercise.

The club also boasts a Lifestyle Change Resource Center, which serves people who are not even in the contemplation stage as far as being ready to exercise. ‘They’re just thinking about it,’ explains Atwood. ‘They come here free of charge and meet with an exercise physiologist, who acts as a lifestyle coach and refers them to resources in the community that may work best in terms of exercise. It’s a clearinghouse. We might send them to Weight Watchers or the YMCA. It really depends on their needs.’

Why would a for-profit business fund a resource center that sends people to its competitors? ‘Our belief is that in the next 12 to 18 months, there will be a substantially bigger pie,’ explains Atwood. ‘And out of that, we will get some people back.’

Atwood views the resource center as ‘the ultimate solution for physicians who want their patients to exercise,’ says Atwood. ‘The first step for these people isn’t to sign up for something – it’s to talk about signing up for something.’

Another way the club contributes to the community has nothing to do with fitness. HealthFit allows local artists to exhibit their work on the club’s walls at no cost, and sells these pieces commission-free.

No Midas Touch

Not every community program launched by HealthFit has been a success. Its most notorious disaster was a program called ‘Exercise at Home,’ which was advertised on the radio. Participants could go to the club and be taught how to exercise at home. Despite the best efforts of the club’s staff, the program failed. ‘The few people who did sign up, didn’t follow through,’ recalls Wald.

‘Our attrition rate for that program was…about 100 percent,’ jokes Atwood. One of the lessons learned, he says, is the benefit of ongoing emotional support in addition to instruction. ‘If people have a place to go regularly and get the support they need, they have a much better chance of sticking to a wellness program.’

Stretching the Continuum of Care

Atwood describes how HealthFit ‘stretches the continuum of care’ by creating a bridge from rehabilitation to regular exercise. ‘Rather than asking people to jump from rehabilitation to a traditional fitness center, we put them into our physical therapy transition program,’ he explains.

The club has three physical therapists on staff who work as personal trainers, focusing on helping people who are transitioning from physical therapy to a regular exercise program.

A Great Partnership

‘Ours is a truly great partnership,’ says Atwood of his working relationship with Wald. ‘We have different strengths and complementing styles. We have a good division of labor, and we respect each other’s roles. My wife picks up where I leave off.’

Atwood spends much of his time on industry and community networking. He explains, ‘My role is such that I often ask myself, ‘Did I do anything of value today?’ and at the end of the day – or week – I don’t know. At the end of the month, when I look at the club’s numbers, I see the results of all the long-term planning.’

In contrast, Wald excels at managing the details of the business. She explains that if HealthFit were a typical company, Atwood would be the CEO, who is externally and strategically focused, and she would be the COO, who makes things happen.

On Their Staff

‘Everybody in every business says how important employees are,’ says Atwood. ‘In order to have a great staff, you must be willing to go after the people you want.’

While the club owners take a no-pressure approach to membership sales, the same is not true when dealing with prospective employees. When Atwood and Wald find someone they want to hire, they don’t let that person walk out the door. ‘They may tell us ‘no’ five times, but we keep going back,’ says Wald. ‘Several of our current employees fall into that category!’

What do Atwood and Wald look for in an applicant? ‘We look for physical therapists or exercise physiologists with excellent technical expertise and an understanding of exercise and the body,’ says Wald. ‘We also look for wonderful personalities. This business is relationship-driven. We care how people work with others, and lead others.’

The two admit to their share of hiring mistakes. ‘But over the years, we’ve gotten incredibly good at figuring out who is going to work for our business,’ explains Wald.

One thing they’ve learned is to take their time. ‘A lot of people get nervous that they don’t have somebody to open the club,’ says Wald. ‘I would rather open the club myself than hire the wrong person.’

The pair promises employees a part in a unique intellectual environment that happens to be about fitness. ‘Everybody on staff interacts with each other and shares their expertise,’ says Atwood. ‘They love the fact that they’re among equals – smart people who are incredibly well-educated about what they do.’

Atwood and Wald also make it a point to support the careers of their employees. ‘We understand that people aren’t going to stay at HealthFit for the rest of their lives,’ says Atwood. ‘We want to create an experience for them so that when they leave, they can say ‘I really made a contribution.”

Every effort is made to put everyone on staff ‘on the map’ in the industry, by giving them the opportunity to do consulting or public speaking at industry events, such as NEHRSA conferences.

HealthFit employees are also rewarded handsomely for their contributions to the business. ‘Early on, we made a strategic decision to pay our staff significantly above the industry averages,’ says Wald. This summer, the club introduced a revenue-sharing program through which each full-time employee is expected to receive an additional $5,700 in compensation.

When Tragedy Strikes

In January 2003, Atwood developed an excruciating pain in his right leg. He thought he had a torn his quadricep while playing soccer with his son. It turned out to be necrotizing fasciitis – more commonly known as flesh-eating bacteria, since the infection can quickly destroy skin and the soft tissues beneath it.

The disease is very rare but serious. Around 30 percent of those who develop it die as a result. Atwood spent 17 days in an induced coma and underwent 12 operations during his five months of hospitalization.

‘He had to learn how to walk again,’ recalls Wald. ‘He was unable to work for an entire year. I ran the club by myself, in addition to caring for our six year-old son.’ During that year, the club ‘maintained, but did not grow,’ she says.

Atwood’s illness made the couple think hard about the business and about how they spent their time. A tragedy like this ‘creates relationships with people that you never thought could exist,’ explains Wald. ‘As painful as it was, it also really was very positive. Now that we’re out of it, we both look at it as something that changed our lives for the better.’

Sharing Their Knowledge

This year, Atwood and Wald started a consulting firm, called Atwood Consulting Group. Their specialty: helping people who are developing small or mid-size clubs either begin the process of thinking about success and working with small to mid-size clubs who are changing direction. Atwood spends 40 percent of his time consulting, while Wald spends 20 percent of hers on consulting. Two of their many areas of expertise are developing medical networks and attracting and selling to the deconditioned market.

‘Since Curves came along, opening a small club is all the rage,’ explains Wald. ‘There really aren’t a lot of people who’ve done it. John and I sit down with our client together — because we bring different expertise – and we talk about everything from soup to nuts.’

‘Clearly, whether you have a small business or a big chain, you need to have good systems and good people,’ says Atwood. ‘Very often, chains can be and are strategically run by systems, and small clubs should be strategically run by people. There’s a reverse order of what’s most important when it comes to small versus large.’

Source:

http://cms.ihrsa.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Page.viewPage&pageId=17286&nodeID=15