Just remember that you don’t have to wait until something major happens to raise rates. For instance, says Caro, “Not all clubs in the country have to have major physical plant expansions or huge equipment buys in order to justify increases. We have fallacies that if you only buy hard goods, you can justify a price increase.” Basically, says Tock, “If you can show that you’re giving more services, or make cosmetic changes, you can raise your dues.” (more…)

“There’s almost no really good way to decide upfront what the price is,” explains Gerald Faust, president of Faust Management Corp., San Diego, Calif. “You can look at what other people are charging, you can look at the market in terms of cost of living, you can look at the market around your club in terms of what the demographics are in your area.”But in reality, Faust says, the market determines what a membership price should be. (more…)

But that “kind of upfront planning and market analysis is still not done very well in our industry,” says management consultant Rick Caro, president of Management Vision Inc., New York, N.Y. This industry doesn’t have a sophisticated financial model that says, if we had this number of members and this number of expenses, then we would charge this, explains Caro. (more…)

Ours is an industry that has underpriced its product and services. But we can turn that around by showing our members the value in what we offer.

Healthcare is a highly valued service, and few individuals would say that the rates they pay to receive that care aren’t deserved. Years of training and research have resulted in highly skilled practitioners to whom people entrust their care. (more…)

While eBay had gained a large grass-roots following by the time Whitman joined in February 1998, its financial success was hardly guaranteed. In fact, Whitman and other executives feared the worst last fall when the stock market fell comatose just as they were gearing up for an IPO. (more…)

Few college students during the disco-driven 1970s read The Wall Street Journal. But Margaret “Meg” Whitman had the paper delivered to her dorm room at Princeton University, where she was an economics major. (more…)