Hey, Spurling Family,
It's been quite the ride in 2020, huh?
Well, as much as we've had to pivot and change quite a bit, we feel super confident in the direction things are going and feel we are very well prepared to keep your experience here safe and engaging, all backed by our amazing coaching and community.
Before I get into the core of today's message, I want to first acknowledge and appreciate your continued support of the Spurling Family. I know my team and I and our families are forever grateful for you. Although we've taken a hit like every small business, we feel very well positioned as we head into the rest of 2020 and beyond.
I also want to voice appreciation for our team. None of what you experience on a daily basis is possible without all of them. They continue to show up daily giving their best self and are amazing at what they do. Also important to note, all of the ideas/direction outlined below has been a team effort, and they are constantly bringing great ideas to the table to make your experience better.
As many of you know I have the great fortune of consulting for about 65 gyms across the country, as well as some of those being in the UK and Canada. That not only allows us to share the Spurling Fitness experience from little Kennebunk, Maine worldwide, it allows us to have a really good pulse on where the industry is going, what's working, and be ahead of the game. All that means for you is we are a "lab" for constantly making your experience better. I share that because some of what you're about to read is to not only improve your experience but continue to adapt to where we see the industry going as a whole.
Now that we're in a bit of a groove (if there is such a thing this year) with indoor, outdoor, and online up and running, I wanted to send over a bit of a sneak peek into what we'll be working on behind the scenes for the rest of 2020, and what's to come.
To be fair, will all of this go as planned? No, of course not. Also, please see this as giving you a look under the hood, and not anything that should feel overwhelming. However, I hope if this does anything, it shows you that we continue to make your experience as a part of the Spurling Family our number one priority. Also, I hope it brings a lot of joy and excitement to you about the rest of 2020 and beyond as a client of Spurling.
Let's dig in...
1. Indoors: STRONG & SWEAT
We've seen an enormous percentage of our clientele (about 70%) back inside our four physical walls. The "pod" system is working really well for both STRONG & SWEAT, limiting them to 8 clients and everyone has their own individual workout area not needing to share equipment.
We also will continue to keep the sessions staggered on start times to limit large groups of clients entering at the same time, and each coach has 30 minutes in between each session to allow for proper cleaning.
We are in the early stages of planning what the pod system will look like into Q4 of 2020 and into 2021, for now, it's not going anywhere. We are looking at a new facility layout/equipment that will allow you to not feel like you're in a "box" yet give you your own "home base." Each session would have their own section of the facility, and each client would have their own workout area (see below). The vision of this is for people to feel safe, while having access to all equipment, and not losing that community feel of people socializing and encouraging each other with the coaches. We’ll see how things move along with safety and protocols, but I think long-term there’s a happy medium of the benefits of pod and free flowing open space.
Because of the limited session sizes, we do ask that unless you're on an unlimited membership you do stay within your monthly session limit for STRONG & SWEAT.
This has allowed us to get everyone in while not having too many sessions that are full and waitlisted several days out.
As always, we continue to evaluate the programming and coaching, while keeping it safe and fun. In short, small groups (STRONG & SWEAT) will be the foundation of our indoor model for the foreseeable future.
We are also empathetic that some people miss having "unlimited" sessions at the physical facility if you are not on an unlimited plan. I'm hopeful these next three solutions make you smile.
2. Community Sessions
Kicking off tomorrow with the charity workout we're going to be offering what we're calling Community Sessions.
During this hour it will be the only session happening in the gym. That will allow us to have 16 people, still, each having their own pod and not sharing equipment.
There will be one coach leading it, and we're also testing having another coach at the same time leading a group from home on STREAM...all at the same time. Very cool stuff, and you'll see it in beta testing tomorrow at the charity workout.
Most important to note, because of the larger capacity, all clients will have UNLIMITED access to these workouts, so keep an eye out for these on the app as we head into August.
3. Outdoor Workouts
Over the last couple of months, we've also seen the popularity of outdoor workouts continue to increase.
If we can bring the same great coaching experience outside 7-9 months a year, why not?
We're going to continue these as long as the weather allows through the fall, and more fun to note, we're in early approval processes of putting up an outdoor gym (similar to the picture below) in our front yard. This would allow us to bring a better experience with more equipment, more variety, better sound, all with the same great coaching.
The vision of this pavilion space also has some carved out areas for pre/post workout socializing/coffee, adirondack chairs, etc.
And again, because of the higher capacity similar to the Community sessions, these are available to all clients on an unlimited basis as a part of your membership.
4. STREAM
Like many of you have experienced through this pandemic, online fitness is here to stay. You've been able to experience the same great coaching, all from the comfort of your own home. We know that some clients are using STREAM exclusively right now, some are using it as a supplement to their week at Spurling, and some use it if they are visiting family or traveling. We're going to continue to make this better, and are working on ways to make it more than just a workout via zoom. Ideas that we're working through include STREAMing at the same time as a session is going on in the gym, hangout time before and after the session on Zoom, multiple coaches running the same session, equipment bundles at home so you have equipment to use, and we will be increasing the quality of the production by filming them in our very own studio (see #6)!
Like always, the STREAM service is an unlimited feature to all memberships.
5. The Spurling App
We are in the process of beta testing a couple of different versions of what will become our very own app. This will be able to do several awesome things including track all of your workouts, show you in graphed visuals all your progress, and store all of our programs/workouts so that you can access them anytime you're not at the gym, whether that be at home or on the road, all on an easy to use app.
This will be 100% optional (no extra $), and a really cool value add if you want to use it. We will be looking for beta testers in September before we roll something out towards the end of the year.
6. Infinity Center
We're excited to announce (many of you already knew) that we are going forward with our plans of a ~5300sf addition on the back of the gym, a division of our brand we're calling the Infinity Center. We are scheduled to break ground the first week in August, and there should be minimal to no disruption to Spurling Fitness.
If you're not familiar with the IC plans, it's 80% for us and 20% for our friends :)
The majority of the space will be a large studio room and multi-purpose space. This will allow us to have a separate space for things like recording STREAM, hosting indoor STRETCH classes, as well as seminars, additional programs, and events. We'll also have some overflow office space for the coaches, and we're bringing on some of our friends in the industry who will be there should you need their services including physical therapy, massage, reflexology, etc.
Again, you don't need to use anything over at the Infinity Center if you don't want to (it will have it's own entrance/exit, see picture below, so no disruption to Spurling), we're just really excited to be able to expand our program offerings for additional variety, have some separate space outside of the chaos of the gym to do things, and bring on some really great people.
7. Retreats
One of our major goals is to always make things an experience, not just another workout. We've also been thinking about how we can decentralize our offerings, meaning in a controlled way, how else can we deliver our services outside of just our four physical walls. Of course offerings like the outdoor workouts and STREAM are two great examples, but we've always wanted to have destination experiences.
We're working to have a trial wellness retreat this fall, but depending upon logistics we may have to wait until 2021. This will allow us to take a small group of people to a destination (like a lake house or set of cabins) and offer an outdoor getaway to recharge while pulling small components of Spurling with us like morning STRETCH, a group hike, or some cooking lessons. Think 50% social/getaway, 50% wellness recharge.
8. Specialty Programs
This is a bit of internal lingo, but if you're curious, we have programs that coaches put on under their "specialty." It's a nice way to add additional program offerings to our clients, and it's a nice way for our coaches to continue to grow. You've seen it in the past with things like Trent running his nutrition programs, and Kim running her life coaching programs. We're excited to continue to give the coaches the opportunity to put those programs on and add variety to your choices at Spurling. In conversation with some of the coaches this year Trent will continue with his nutrition programs, Chris continues to help our running and endurance clients with that programming, Kim will be launching a new life coaching program, and Jess will be putting together some workshops and courses for those looking to get better at barbell exercises.
9. Events
As we continue to practice social distancing, we're getting creative with community-wide events we can put on to keep the "fun factor" strong. Ideas that are in the works in the next few months include a community-wide MYZONE Challenge, group hikes, a cornhole tournament, a mini-golf outing, and more.
We're excited to hang out outside of the gym just as much as inside the gym :)
10. More of The Same
Well, I like round numbers, and I couldn't just end with number nine :).
I mention all of the above not to overwhelm you, and please remember all of these are additional/optional offerings, but to continue to communicate our excitement for all things Spurling. I feel it's very important as a leader to continually communicate the direction we're taking things, and hopefully, this did that.
However, I also think it's important to note through all of this turmoil in 2020, that our vision and values have not changed and the core of what we do at Spurling will not change; great coaching and accountability backed by a strong community.
Although my goal in this memo was to shed some light behind the scenes of what we're working on and build some excitement for the rest of 2020, I also hope you know that the same great coaching, accountability, and community is not going anywhere and nothing is changing, you just hopefully have more options, should you choose to participate in them.
Once again, from the bottom of my heart, if you read it this far you must really love Spurling, and for that, I can't thank you enough.
I'm looking forward to a strong second half of 2020 and beyond with you.
1% Better.
Dedicated To Your Success,
Doug Spurling
^ A visual sample "pod" where each client within the group would have their own "bay" yet have open space. This is obviously dependent on where CDC social distancing guidelines go as we head into 2021.
^ A visual sample of what the outdoor gym would look like
^ A visual sample of the Spurling app used to track progress and show results better
^ A drawing of the side of the building as you turn and enter the parking lot. Nothing will change at Spurling Fitness with the exception painting the outside of the existing building to match the shiny new space (no more ugly brown)!