Caring (The Sequel): Valuable Insights Into Effective Club and Hospitality Management

By Herb Lipsman

Over 45 years of experience has led to Lipsman's series of essays about "What Matters Most" in achieving sustainability at any level of an organization. "The people make the biggest difference" rather than facilities, equipment, or any of the other "things" that many club or resort leaders delude themselves into devoting their attention to. This book is full of "nuggets" to help service industry leaders make better decisions and better judgment.

The overarching goal of this composition is to influence leaders at all levels of their organizations to care more for their people, ultimately leading to far greater financial success for their companies. Happy, enthusiastic, inspired employees serve the members and guests at a far higher level which leads to the customer becoming loyal to the brand, spending more, and referring more. However, common sense is not always common practice.

Leaders within any organization that relies on membership for its growth and success will find many parallels to the challenges they face in getting their arms around all the people issues driving their businesses, while also building their brand appeal. Conversely, focusing primarily on the bottom line at the expense of members, guest, employees, clients or customers is a recipe for unsustainable profits at best and certain disappointment as the business never performs up to its potential.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Sep 22, 2021
• ISBN: 9781098398552

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Praise for Caring (The Sequel)

This book, by one of the greatest health club operators in the history of the fitness industry, is the seminal guide to running a successful facility. Herb’s wise words also provide the pathway to a successful life. I will be giving this book to every member of my club teams.

Phillip Mills | Executive Director| Les Mills International

Caring captures a wide array of concepts that will help club junior staff to develop basic learnings and even more experienced club industry veterans to perfect existing skills. It uses a straightforward set of principles with a variety of examples and basic stories. It speaks to the staff challenges from hiring to training to motivating to evaluation concepts. It addresses the physical plant and housekeeping/cleaning lessons. It addresses the financial aspects of the business in a user-friendly manner.

It is very personal and full of real-life lessons. It is a tool to read and learn from as well a perfect vehicle to review all too much of what may have been forgotten. It is based on actual experiences from someone who has learned in a wide variety of facilities and business environments. It is an easy read but one full of nuggets.

Rick Caro | President | Management Vision, Inc.

GREAT read. Absolute primer for anyone in the business; new or at the end of his/her career. The stories you share bring back so many similar memories from my own personal experience or those I hear about traveling to clubs around the country!! Those stories give great clarity to the GREAT quotes throughout the book. So many of the topics you discuss are things we discuss at many clubs, but never have I seen them gathered in such an easily understood manner and presented so that anyone reading has MULTIPLE easy ‘takeaways’ that he/she could easily implement or enhance what they are already doing.

Kurt D. Kuebler, CCM | Partner | KOPPLIN KUEBLER & WALLACE

Herb Lipsman has turned club leadership and management into a practical treatise that anyone in our industry can benefit from. Every club operator talks about delivering a great member experience, but it is surprising how few really execute it consistently. The beauty of Caring is that it is a manual for how to deliver on your vision of excellence. Throughout Caring, Herb not only dispenses invaluable advice, checklists and processes, he also colors all of these with human stories from real experience. Some people will tell you they have 45 years of experience when they really have one year of experience repeated 45 times…Herb actually has 45 years of experience. Caring will allow any reader to benefit from those 45 years. Thank you Herb for making my job easier in helping others! I will be widely sharing this book.

Blair C. McHaney | CEO, MXMetrics | President, Worx of Wenatchee Valley 

For anyone involved in the club business. Herb is a legend in management and has shared his most valuable insights. Do yourself a favor and read this book - you’ll be glad you did!

Simon Meredith | Club Manager | East Bank Club (Chicago, IL) 1980-2015

Herb Lipsman’s new book Caring is one of the best books about club and hospitality management that I have ever read. Herb has been a leader in the high-end fitness and hospitality world for over 45 years and everything that he has learned is to be found in this book in a most clear and exciting way. As Herb has demonstrated throughout his career - the secret to being a caring club leader is to care. Herb understands that approach, with every step that he takes in life and in club management/leadership. More than anything else, Herb has shown what a wonderful opportunity it is to manage and lead in the fitness and hospitality world. Congratulations Herb, beautifully done.

Clive Caldwell | CEO, Cambridge Group of Clubs | Toronto, Canada

The club/hospitality industry might look easy to people experiencing it, but that is only because leaders like Herb Lipsman make it look seamless and effortless. Now instead of learning the hard way, those who want to make a profession of the industry have a veritable handbook to help them navigate all the important concrete as well as the nuanced elements of success.

Brenda Abdilla | PCC Career Coach and author of Outsmarting Crazytown:

A Business Novel About How Derailed Professionals Can Get Back on Track 

As I read Herb Lipsman’s new book Caring (The Sequel) I couldn’t help but smile at the many stories of his adventures in health club management. Being in the health club management business myself for over 40 years, Herb’s many stories brought back a lot of memories and reinforced the many principles and philosophies on people that we both share. I truly enjoyed the section on culture. It’s a critical component of successful businesses that is often overlooked. The health club industry is poised to play an even more essential role in the overall mental and physical health of people of all ages. This book will serve as a great learning tool for upcoming general managers as well as seasoned veterans. Well done Herb.

Carol Nalevanko | President, DMB Sports Club |

Village Health Clubs & Spas | Scottsdale, Arizona

"What if you could sit down and have an industry expert share decades of wisdom with you in a fun, engaging, and organized fashion? That is exactly what you can expect with Caring. Herb brilliantly shares his success, lessons, humility, and humor from his renowned career in a way that offers immediate application and perspective. Industry beginners and veterans alike will leave each chapter with takeaways and tools that will help them, their teams, and their clubs grow and thrive in an ever-changing marketplace."

Will Pickering | General Manager | VillaSport Athletic Club and Spa |

San Jose, California

Herb Lipsman’s book Caring (The Sequel) is an excellent book for club management. I have been with The Houstonian Club for over three decades and the concepts that Herb outlines in this book are essential to effective club management. I can personally attest to the fact that Herb modeled all of these behaviors in his management style. In his book Herb talks about being effective versus efficient. Effectiveness begins by caring for your employees and then your members. If you care about your employees, they will in return care for your members. I highly encourage anyone in the club business to read this book. It is an excellent read!

Colleen Kennedy | Membership Director | The Houstonian Club

Herb’s new book Caring, is akin to a well-defined roadmap of the many challenges, opportunities, successes and hurdles we all have faced in the industry and must ultimately overcome to be successful. His stores and examples drive home the need for a broad base of knowledge and experience from customer service to finance, programming to facilities maintenance. Herb highlights the multiple facets of facility and staff leadership that it takes to build a winning team, noting on several occasions that success is truly a team effort, and great leaders such as Herb know how to drive success and member satisfaction through a winning culture. Caring is a great read and one that all of us, from new to seasoned managers, will benefit from reading and sharing with our teams.

C. J. Joe Bendy, Jr., CCM, CCE Chief Operating Officer | River Oaks Country Club | University of Houston Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management | Adjunct Professor

This is a wonderful resource for managers working in any service industry, not just our own. I love the way you have intertwined the traditional wisdom of thinkers like Covey et. al. with gems from your own experience, and wrapped it all up in story telling format that makes the book highly engaging. You could write a thesis on each of the topics you have covered but you have managed to succinctly capture the essence of the subject in relatively few words. Quite simply, anyone who wants to make a career in club management should keep this tome on their desk and refer to it often.

Tim Webster | Exercise is Medicine, New Zealand

"Caring (The Sequel): Valuable Insights into Effective Club and Hospitality Management

Copyright©2021 by Herbert Norman Lipsman

Herb Lipsman

12515 Cove Springs Drive

Cypress, TX 77433

Some names and characterizations have been changed.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book

or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

For information, address

Herbert Norman Lipsman rights department, 12515 Cove Springs Drive

Cypress, Texas 77433.

Certificate of Registration

Copyright Office

Registration Number: TXu 2-258-971

ISBN: 978-1-09839-854-5

ISBN eBook: 978-1-09839-855-2

Table of Contents

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgements

1. Introduction

2. Your Culture Is Your Brand

3. Fundamentals

4. Safety and Risk Management

5. Employees

6. Members

7. Embrace the Pied Pipers (the Influencers)

8. Know Your Numbers

9. Decisions, Decisions…

10. The Customer Is Not Always Right

11. Membership Sales

12. Marketing and Public Relations

13. The Importance of Your Professional Network

14. Conflict Management

15. MBWA – Manage by Wandering Around

16. Lessons Learned

17. Dealing with Stress and Adversity

18. Embrace Technology

19. Managing Up

20. A Message to Owners and Private Club Board Members

21. A Recipe for Success…or Failure

22. It’s not about me.

Foreword

For any young man or woman considering a career in club management, or for any college professor looking for the best single text on club management, I cannot imagine any book that can provide a broader or better understanding of the business of Club Management than Herb Lipsman’s new book entitled ‘Caring.’

The fruit of over 45 years of experience in managing some of the finest athletic, tennis and fitness clubs in the country, this exceptional book covers in-depth every dimension of club management from facility management to financial management to staff management, and, above all, to the fine art of member management.

This is a book that is ultimately, as its title indicates, about ‘caring,’ - caring for the club’s facilities (its maintenance, upkeep and continual improvement), caring for the personnel who work there, and caring for the members’ and guests’ experience at the club.

Bottom-line, this a book about the all-important and crucial financial management of a club, how to make it grow and how to make and keep members happy as well as how to sustain superior staff commitment and of what should be done to give every single member of the club the best possible experience every time they visit.

Finally, this text does not hesitate to discuss how to deal with difficult members, difficult staff, and challenging facility issues. In short, I know of no better text on the fine art of successful and effective club management than Herb Lipsman’s Caring, the culmination of his almost 50 years managing some of the finest athletic, racquet and health clubs in America.

John McCarthy

Executive Director

The International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association (IHRSA) 1981 – 2006

Preface

I grew up in a small town in Iowa. Tennis was my life from the time I was ten years old. Bettendorf, Iowa, was not exactly a tennis mecca, but I was addicted to the sport during most of my youth. I made the Northwestern University varsity tennis team as a walk-on in 1975-76 at the age of 19. Title IX , requiring educational institutions to provide women’s sports with greater financial support, resulted in a reduction in my financial aid package at NU. This led to me leaving college to take a teaching pro job at an indoor tennis club in Dubuque, Iowa, while promising my parents I would only take a year off and then return to school.

I was very successful as a teaching pro during this first year and opted to make this my chosen profession. As with many of these small mom-and-pop clubs in the late 1970s, the romance for the original owners of having their own club wore off as deficit spending increased. In this case, they eventually sold to a local doctor, who was attracted to this investment for emotional reasons rather than sound business analysis.

During the ownership transition, I was offered the job of head tennis pro at the Dubuque Golf and Country Club (Dubuque, Iowa). I jumped at the chance. Nearly all of the members of this private country club could afford lessons, and I found immediate success in building my book of business and income. I earned $45,000 in my role as a teaching pro in 1979 at this seasonal position.

Ironically, the doctor who purchased the indoor club where I previously was employed decided that one club wasn’t enough, so he acquired the Cedar Rapids Racquet Club in Cedar Rapids, Iowa (about 90 minutes from Dubuque). He wooed me to come back to work for him, offering me the combination position of Head Pro-General Manager, which I gladly accepted. This was how my career in club management began. I still recall my first day walking into the Cedar Rapids Racquet Club. I put on my suit, because of course I wanted to look like a manager, not a tennis bum. As I stepped into the club reception area, I saw a long-haired guy with a ponytail sitting behind the club front desk with his feet up.

He took one look at me, without removing his feet from the desk, and glanced at his watch. Then he said: Good morning HL! I’m Doug Mackert, head of maintenance for the club. Don’t worry. I’m on the…7:07 a.m. break. Doug was a Vietnam vet who was a handyman at the time. This was my initiation into people management. I spent the next four years as Head Pro and GM at this six-court indoor facility in a community of 150,000 people.

My club management education took off at a time when the health-club industry was in its infancy. Indoor tennis was in vogue, and metal buildings and air structures were springing up all over the country. Next came the racquetball craze. I recall converting one of our indoor tennis courts to three racquetball courts during this period.

This was also the period when group exercise first came into the mainstream. I recall one day when two energetic women marched into the club with their boom box, leotards, and leg warmers and asked if they could teach an aerobics class on one of our tennis courts. They came in at the slow time of the early afternoon, so of course I said yes. Why not earn a little extra income from an idle court? Little did I know that this same phenomenon was occurring across the world at the time.

Cedar Rapids happened to be the home of Universal Exercise Equipment. Hence, I had direct access to one of the top equipment manufacturers of the day in my back yard. So I closed in a small space (on the same former tennis court where the three racquetball courts were now located) and turned it into our first fitness studio. Voila! We were no longer a tennis club or racquet club. We were now a full-fledged multi-purpose athletic club and I was permitted by the owner to make all of these changes and additions based upon my instincts at a very early period in my career.

Managing the Cedar Rapids club was a four-year crash course in business for me, and I learned many lessons the hard way. Most importantly, I learned that cash flow was king. Try as I might, the club just couldn’t cash flow. I, like many at the time, was in a constant state of scraping to make ends meet, make payroll, and keep the lights on.

Around this time, a former tennis friend, Ed Williams, invited me to join a new start-up club management firm in Denver called Club Sports International. I jumped at the chance to take all that I had learned and get a fresh start, so I sold my interest in the Cedar Rapids Racquet Club, sold my home, and packed my personal belongings and my Golden Retriever, Player, into a U-Haul and headed for Denver. In Littleton, Colorado, I managed the Valley Racquet Club. It was a small tennis and swim club in the foothills just west of