Every fitness facility, large or small, well-established or just barely opening their doors, is faced with the retention riddle. Health and fitness is a commitment toward a better lifestyle. It requires time, conscious thought, planning, and let’s face it, a lot of hard work and effort! Everyone can agree that hard work and no play is no fun. What causes no fun? Lack of interest! So, at the very least, one can deduce that at least one step towards solving the retention riddle is to incorporate fun at your health club. How do you do fun? Keep your members socially [...]
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If you have opened a new gym, you must know that it is, after all, a new business. So you should be prepared to run and develop that business as a business. To do so, you must acquire knowledge about the fitness business industry, and also be aware of the pitfalls of why new gyms fail so you can be sure to avoid them. In my opinion, here are the top 10 reasons why new gyms fail... #1 - No proper business plan No business plan can be fatal to your new gym. Before starting a gym know: Successful gyms watch finances, [...]
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We’ve all bought something we’ve not used. The question is why didn’t we use it? Maybe it was aspirational – something designed to change us or make us a better person, but actually using it becomes the challenge in itself. Gym memberships are a lot like that – our clients sign up because they have goals and ambitions for their health and physiques. Showing up, however, means facing their own insecurities and lack of knowledge. So they don’t go — ever. Targeting Low-Usage New Members The best time to curtail this sad outcome is right within the first 30 days [...]
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What does it take for a person to show up at the gym after they've paid their dues? What is the difference between the individual who exercises regularly and the one who drops the ball? Scientific research suggests it may all boil down to competency and support. People need to feel good at what they're doing and know others are in the game with them. Recent psychology research on motivation calls this the self-determination theory (SDT). How interested a person is in continuing something is driven by how well an activity meets one's need for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Exercisers [...]
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Glittering Membership Management Performance Indicators If you can do things that keep and reduce change to the minimum your club might just be on the path to finding diamonds. Retention is the key concept of club management. It brings your small gym business dreams to life. That is a constant, but, unless your retention rate is one-hundred percent, it means change is the only constant. Setting Retention to Maximum If you have a limit to your membership management capacity, the longer members stick around, the less you have to invest in recruiting new ones. The difference is like that of [...]
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Management Metrics and Where You Find Them Like fitness programming, gym business management is about setting goals and defining improvements. It's how you measure them that provides the framework to get the work done. You can't know what you've achieved until you've measured it. Whether it's measured in lean body mass, inches of muscle, or maximum deadlift weight, measurement tells you how much progress you've achieved relative to your workout goals. It's the same for business goals. If you want a leaner company, better sales performance, or higher rates of retention, you measure your actions to hit your targets. The [...]
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Gym Management Software And An Inquisitive Mindset I think there is only one way to survive in the fitness industry in the next few years. As a gym business owner, be ready to make changes quickly and often. Be curious about what's around the corner. The changes that are going on around us right now are world-shattering, and you have to keep up to survive. There will be many companies that get lost along the way. Insight gives you the gym management software tools to respond proactively to changes. Of course, other things demand your attention too. But First, The [...]
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Powering Your Way Out of The Twilight Zone Picture yourself on a treadmill and the faster you walk or run, the more new clients you add to your gym membership base. At the same time clients are dropping out and, to stay in business, you have to keep adding new ones to replace them by running faster. The metaphor of the treadmill could become a nightmare if your client acquisition doesn't keep up with your cancellations. This picture shows the paradox of retention, and if you're struggling, it's like watching yourself in an episode of the TV classic series, the [...]
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Just because you have happy fitness club members, it doesn't mean that you're going to be completely free of issues. Even the most smooth-running gym business is going to have occasional payment disputes. When it comes to questions about customer credit cards and payments, you have to get it right. In this case, satisfactory resolutions can mean the difference between customer retention and cancellations. Payments and the records that report them are some of the most problematic parts of consumer businesses, particularly in fitness. Misunderstandings in these areas can quickly turn happy customers into annoyed ones. Situational Responses And Maximum [...]
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Sometimes it's when you go against the grain that you do your best work. If you're in a competitive marketplace, (and let's face it, in this industry, who isn't?) you have to fight for every advantage. Your membership retention rate is one of those things that can make an impact in the profitability and survival of your small gym business. I certainly don't think small gym business owners should completely ignore how well they retain their membership. However, if you're working on a shoestring budget and living in the back office because you can't pay yourself a salary, maybe it's [...]
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As a professional fitness operator, with interest in the Gym Insight Blog, you probably know how to prompt reflection and planning for your members and clients. Working with clients and giving them feedback on their workout regimens and redirecting them for better results is a fundamental part of the fitness profession. When you use the tools of your business as the keys to leadership, you'll go much further, stay in business as long as you want, and make a higher level of profits in return. Like the classic leadership book by Stephen Covey, reflection and planning give fitness club owners [...]
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The retention versus attrition club membership tension is never going to end in the gym business. It's sort of like the battle of the waistline, never-ending and more desperate around the holiday season. If your small fitness club or studio is getting quiet and new membership inquiries are tapering off leading up to the holidays and New Year, it's time to respond and take action. Of course, the pre-holiday season lull is the calm before the storm, as we then roll swiftly into the busiest time of the year for the fitness industry. Even so, now's a good time to [...]
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New gym memberships make owners and managers feel great, no doubt! But it's even better if you can hold on to the old memberships longer. Reducing your rate of club turnover and increasing the customer lifecycle are critical practices in building successful fitness businesses. Here on the Gym Insight Blog, I have made the point many times before that retention matters as much as sales. But getting these numbers right is so important that it doesn't hurt to dive into retention and selling gym memberships once again. If you structure your sales and onboarding process well, saying "no" at the [...]
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Retention, Retention, Retention! The subject of retention keeps coming up on the Gym Insight Blog because it keeps gym owners in the business. In fact, any business that depends on periodic payments and satisfied customers must make retention a priority. As long as you maximize the length of time that you retain your members, you'll minimize the cost of replacing them. Retention touches on issues such as membership turnover and the lifetime value of a customer. So let's review some of the things that you can do to hang on to your clients for the long haul. Build Trust In [...]
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Trainers Adopting Tech Could Create New Potential A recent American Council On Exercise (ACE) Survey, quoted by Club Industry Magazine turned up the conclusion that trainers need to be more aware of the potential offered by wearable technology. This refers to the wristband devices such as FitBit that record all your activity throughout the day, from your sleep patterns, to heart rate and calorie expenditure. Well, my natural reaction to that was "don't we all?" However, the point here was that the spread of wearables is making consumers curious about the potential in the data. According to the survey, they [...]
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