“If you do not measure it, you can not improve it”

…as Lord Kelvin (Sir William Thompson) once said.

Is this why so many health clubs struggle to improve their member (and staff) retention and are so focused on sales?

Sales are very easy to measure in any industry, hence the focus, I guess. However retention seems to be much more difficult, particularly in the relatively young fitness industry. There are many different ways of working out member retention figures, and countless experts to tell you how to do it. A relatively straightforward formula is explained very clearly here.

Most retention definitions look at a 12 month membership percentage retention, which is a good measure, but this can be difficult to affect in the short term. Improving your 12 month retention from 60% to 70% will not happen overnight, but is a good target for 6-12 months time.

Member attrition is a more fluid metric, and more straightforward to calculate. (Attrition rate – The [average] number of members per thousand who cancel every month)
Attrition is easier to affect each month, and it's also easy to set individual or club targets. If you improve (reduce) your attrition rate, you will increase retention.

Ultimately, as Lord Kelvin told us, if you want to improve something, you need to measure it. Work out how you’re going to do this to start with, then set your targets, and you’ll soon be making a difference.

Tower of London 10k - British Heart Foundation

This week marked the third of my six 10k runs, and the second leg of the British Heart Foundation London trilogy, this time 10 laps around the moat of the Tower of London. The GG Fit team consisted of Kate & Emily from CEC, and Brent & Richie, with Bill taking photos. The sun was shining, and there was a great turnout noted to be around the 2,000 mark by the BHF officials.

The boys stretched their legs halfway around the first lap, but the girls didn’t let us get too far ahead. Brent stopped for a quick pause on the seventh lap to let Richie catch him up, but all this helped keep my pace and spirits high, and I finished in 45mins & 45 secs. Rich then Brent came in on a sprint finish about a minute behind, with Emily & Kate a minute behind them.

Immediately after the run, as we were stretching, there was some debate about the distance, with the girls surprised at their time, and Richie’s GPS phone/mainframe claiming that the run was slightly less than 10km. I put this down to the hooky software he was running, and he wasn’t able to confirm the accuracy of the app, so we’ll just call it 10 laps. We were all very happy to have finished, and no-one considered running around again.

Mr Steve Niker, my original inspiration for the Tower Jog, had very kindly provided for us all at the Abbey (part of the Santander Group) refreshment tent as usual, and we left a couple of hours later feeling very refreshed.

We are now up to £891 in sponsorship, and looking forward to the final jog at Canary Wharf on 3rd June.

How can a personal trainer make more money while their clients pay less?

It sounds like a conundrum, however it is possible for personal trainers to take less money from their clients, and yet increase their own revenue. Do you know how? A simple answer is to work longer hours, but there is a way of doing the same amount of work, charging each client less, and making more money.

Let’s say as a PT you see 5 clients per day, 5 days per week for £50 per 1 hour session (to keep the maths simple). That’s 25 sessions per week, making £1,250 each week.

Here’s how to make up to another £500 each week. Firstly, you need to find out more about the systems in the gym and work out how to monitor your members performance, and how to e-mail or text them from those systems.
The secret is to see each client less often, but contact them more regularly with feedback on their workouts, and charge them a little more.
Starting with 5 weekly clients, explain that you’ll see them every two weeks instead of every week. However, in between PT sessions, you’ll monitor their workouts and send them a motivational mail, tips, and inspiration. Charge £70 per session with the value added feedback included. Each client is now paying £70 every 2 weeks, instead of £100.
Now you can gradually double your client base, and increase the value of your PT, while clients pay less. Eventually, you could have 50 clients every 2 weeks, charging £70 per session, making £1,750 each week!

Note that the feedback is the most important part and something that you should set time aside for (probably at the start of the day). You might spend 10-15 mins each morning looking at a client report and adding a personal note to your template, but making sure that the client gets the text or e-mail from you via the system is crucial.

The better the system you work with, the more feedback you can give, and the more you can charge. This could range from “You’ve worked out 4 times this week, well done” to “You’ve improved your Perfomance Index on cardio by 5%, and lifted an extra 1,500kgs with your legs today, keep up the good work!”

BHF Hyde Park jog - warm up

So the warm-up for the BHF Hyde Park Jog was a strange affair led by Fitness First.

For those not in the know, the warm-up normally consists of 5-10 minutes of organised stretching, bending, and making friends, led by a couple of people from a local gym with a microphone, PA and some loud music. It’s good fun and hopefully reduces the pulled muscles and general aches and pains after the run.

So in Hyde Park on 15 April, a couple of girls from Fitness First got up into the bandstand as the crowd of 2,000 or so people all gathered around, and they launched into a Boxercise class! A few people joined in by following the moves, punching and kicking, but fortunately for the gathered masses, most just did their own stretches and I didn’t see any injuries.

I think that Fitness First missed a great marketing opportunity this year at the Hyde Park Jog. Promoting the local gym and brand in general is easily done with a good warm-up, and then by actively participating in the jog, if possible with a few members and trainers.
I doubt very much that they sold any Boxercise classes, and I’m pretty sure that the girls didn’t take part in the 5 or 10k run themselves (based on their boxing shoes & tape around their hands)

Let’s hope that the BHF invite a more pro-active gym to do the warm-up at the Tower of London on 6 May and Canary Wharf on 3 June.

Hyde Park 10k - British Heart Foundation

I ran in the second of my six 10k runs on 15 April, this time in aid of the British Heart Foundation, in Hyde Park as part of the BHF London trilogy. I was joined by my colleague Nigel who travelled up to London from Hastings to support me for the first half of the run, as it turned out. There was a great turnout of around 2,000 people mostly kitted out in red BHF t-shirts.

After a questionable warm up from Fitness First, we set-off and I decided to keep to Nigel’s pace to begin with, particularly as he had travelled up specially. We were slightly below my normal speed but the conversation and spirit was good, up until about the 4k marker, when both the banter and Nigel started to flag.

A two lap 10k run is always tricky at the halfway point, and even I wasn’t able to motivate Nigel to start the second 5k, so he called it a day and collected his medal. I plugged the music into my ears and stepped up the pace, managing a 24 minute time on the second 5k, after running 30 mins on the first 5. I’m reasonably happy with 54 minutes, which is the same time as I did last year around Hyde Park, and I think I may have struggled more had I started faster.

Sponsorship is now just past the £650 mark, so roll on the next jog at the Tower of London where I’ll be joined by a few more GG Fit team members.

2009 Goals update

How are your personal targets for 2009 looking? Completed, not started, or a quarter of the way there? It’s the start of April, spring has sprung, and it’s a good time for a review.
If you don’t have any, get some, and write them down now! Mine are here.

And here’s how they’re going…

Fitness

• One 10k done, 3 lined up for April, May & June in aid of the BHF, so will be past halfway in Q2
• Knees feeling the pressure of snowboarding & running, but warming up properly for both!

Business

• Life coaching starting to have effect on staff in gyms & clubs, but at least 6-9 months needed demonstrable results on motivation and member retention

Personal

• Guitar going well, helped by new guitar for birthday!
• Charity events – join me here

Next update June, or sooner…

Gym 2.0 - Motivating Sedentary Users

Ann has been going to various gyms on-and-off for a number of years now. Her favourite equipment is the exercise bike; she finds it easier to read Grazia magazine. She doesn’t really like classes, and avoids the instructors because they’re quite toned and much thinner than she is, so tends to sit on the bike and read her magazine.

She likes going to the gym, but she never seems to get any results, which is why it’s been an on-and-off relationship. Until now…

This January, she was attracted to the New Year New You offer at a new local club. Deb, the (toned, thin) instructor showed her round all the cardio equipment and explained a new system for recording her exercise. Instead of giving her a program card (which Ann had previously ignored), Deb said she could use any of the cardio equipment for as long as she wanted, and get a printout or e-mail of how many calories she burned.

Ann goes straight for her comfort zone, spending 30 minutes on the exercise bike with her magazine. As she leaves, she gets a printout showing that she’s burned 120 Calories. This doesn’t mean much to Ann until she goes to buy her sandwich on the way back to the office, and finds that her normal post gym Tuna Mayo Baguette has 535 calories in it! She opts for a Chicken Fajita Wrap instead at 263 calories.

On her next visit, she spends 15 minutes on the stepper, and pedals a little faster on the exercise bike for a further 15 minutes. Her printout shows 140 cals on the stepper & 110 on the bike, and 250 cals total burned, which feels like a better balance for her lunchtime fajita wrap.

Now it’s March, she only spends 5 minutes on the bike at the beginning & end of her 40 minute workout, with 10 minutes each on the stepper, rowing machine and elliptical trainer. She regularly burns over 400 calories, and never has mayo in her sandwich. Next she wants to try the treadmill, or perhaps even a group class, as Deb says they count even more towards results, and towards the monthly graph that she receives by e-mail.

a follow up from Harbinger Scenario - Gym 2.0

Disclaimer – it is not the intention of this blog entry to balance “calories out” with “calories in”, but rather to raise awareness of possible applications of technology and motivation of the more sedentary gym user.

Battersea Park 10k - Action Duchenne

Took part in the Action Duchenne Valentine’s fun run in Battersea Park on Saturday. There was a great turnout early on a cold February morning, an electronic timing chip for your shoe, and a nice yellow t-shirt to run in.
I was pleased to get round 4 laps of the park in just under 50 minutes, (49:52) according to the text I received from the (very clever!) chip, which also told me that I came in position 299!
Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy is a severe and progressive muscle wasting disease. Young boys will face much of their life confined to a wheelchair and without treatment will die in their late teens early twenties. Find out more here. It’s time to stop wasting.

Gyms - 10 ways to beat the crunch

1. Incentivise your staff on member retention
2. Offer existing members a new benefit for free in order to make them feel at least as important as the new members
3. Invite recent cancellations back for free session or two, & a coffee & chat
4. Contact the customers about to cancel. You know who they are
5. If someone asks to cancel, offer to reduce their payments for 3 months
6. Show fitness improvements or offer refunds
7. Entice recent redundancies into the gym during the day (for less?)
8. Set an attrition target. You don’t have to reduce drop-out, your target could be to keep it the same for now
9. Demonstrate value to all members, all the time
10. Incentivise your management on staff retention

…or you could spend more money trying to get new members through the door with “no joining fee” offers, give them a free rucksack, and keep repeating the mantra – “the fitness industry is not affected by the recession”

Some of these ideas may seem controversial, in which case, terms & conditions would of course apply, but please feel free to comment on any of the points.

Jog Blog - Feb 09

I hate treadmills. Not only are they boring but I also find it harder to run 5k on a treadmill than outside in the real world.

Last week there wasn’t a lot of choice though, unless I was going to dig out the old football boots and slide round the park in the snow, and I really didn’t fancy that. So I added in a treadmill run to my regular gym workout and did a couple more 5k treadmill runs at a couple of the clubs where I was working. Not fun, although on Friday, I had a good view of the gym’s fish-tank, and the fish looked even more bored than me!

The snow’s almost gone in North London today, so I went for a beasting around Ali Pali again, and while it was far from easy, the treadmill runs have certainly helped my fitness levels, which is good ahead of the Valentine’s Love Run in Battersea Park this Saturday. It’s in aid of Action Duchenne, a muscular dystrophy charity. Come and join us!