New Year – Old Members

Right now, many clubs are planning their New Year sales campaigns, and hopefully it’s going to be one of the busiest Januarys ever. Many existing members also come back in the New Year though, so work out how you’re going to recognise them, and make them feel just as special as your new members.

It’s important to focus on the new members and get their journey right (whether or not they’re paying an induction fee). However, the members who are coming back may have already paid 12 months or more, so why not have a returning member journey, programme & goal review.

If you can, set up a trigger/flag/reminder in your system for any member who has not visited for a few months, so that when they do visit, you get a reminder to talk to them. Know the outcome you want from the interaction; whether it’s to try and offer a review, get them on a ‘return journey’ or simply to make them feel welcome. Find out what’s prompted them to come back, record this information, and track their visits and/or progress for the next few weeks.

This practice is especially important in January, but is also valid when a site re-opens. The new members often get treated like royalty, but respect and spend time with your existing members with their New Year’s resolutions, or uncertainty about the new kit. Sure it’s going to be busy, but second chances don’t come along often, so when they do, you’ve got to grab them!

Recipe Suggestion – A Member Retention Stir-fry

Here's an alternate take on our Member Retention introduction - we hope you like it!


Recipe Suggestion – A Member Retention Stir-fry
Serves many, feel free to add or remove ingredients depending on your policy or focus


Ingredients:
- Mixed People (staff, management, members)
- Systems (database, card file, processes)
- Various Communications – internal interaction & external messaging


Preparation:
Marinade the people in goal setting and aspiration coaching for a few hours or overnight to get buy-in to the systems and processes
Soak the systems until straightforward and understood
Roughly chop the internal and external communications

Method: Add the people to a well oiled gym with good air-conditioning, and stir fry until sealed. Add the chopped internal interaction and mix for a couple of minutes, before adding the external messaging and turning the air-con down to medium. Drain the systems and add to the gym and stir well

Serve: With a side order of social media apps (strategy prepared beforehand), and an ice cold bottle of positive feedback loops for members, staff, and management

Member Retention - a 4 minute introduction

Here's a 4 minute introduction to Health Club Member Retention, 
prepared for the IOU Panel debate "The Independent Operators Guide to Fantastic Retention Results" at LIW on 22nd September 2010

Health Club Competition

September brings a plethora of new member offers from clubs trying to lure people in after the summer holidays. And competition for custom is really hotting up. The traditional gym is facing more pressure as the health and fitness industry evolves, and it is moving in several different directions.

The first big area of competition is from low cost clubs. The budget gym sector has been picking up pace, but the announcement that easyGym is on the way will raise the profile of budget clubs in the public eye, and the budget club will be seen as a viable option to many. It will be interesting to see how easyGym will differentiate from other budget clubs, and what retention tactics they will bring from their other businesses.

Secondly, the Wii-fit is no longer new, but is still seen as an alternative to the gym for many of the public, and more is on the way with Playstation Move and the Xbox Kinect interface. The British Medical Journal say the energy used when playing active Wii games is not of high enough intensity to contribute towards the recommended daily amount of exercise in children. Where the Wii succeeds is in goal setting, reminders and encouragement towards your targets.

Finally, there’s a growing market in exercise shoes. There’s been a big crossover from exercise to fashion (many sports stores feel more like fashion stores these days), but now the trend is reversing with MBTs, FitFlops and Skechers shape-ups selling footwear to help you to keep fit, shape up and tone while you walk.

These are just a few things that are eating into the traditional health club market. Clubs must evolve too, rather than offering no joining fee, or no payments in September. A health club’s strengths should be twofold. Firstly its staff’s motivation; there is nothing like a really good instructor coaching and encouraging you to achieve. Secondly a club is defined in the dictionary as an association of persons for social, political, athletic, or other ends… Clubs that fit this definition have more success.

Coaching on Time Management

Time management has to be one of the most popular problems that people want to improve through life coaching. Clients might be looking to improve productivity, increase sales, get a new job, or get fit, but the coaching often involves an aspect of time management. A fitness analogy is that members of health clubs nearly all want to lose weight. This comes in different guises; tone up, fight the flab, drop a size, etc, but the basic goal is the same for many.

People who are new to coaching are often looking for advice or expertise; in other words they want the coach to provide the solution. This is not what coaching is about, because 9 times out of 10, it will not help the client. And I believe that this is also why time management is such a common problem. Many managers impose their ways of doing things on employees, or when people ask a friend or colleague for help, they’re often given a solution that works for the friend, which may be a short term fix, but doesn’t normally stick.

Different strokes work for different folks. There are a lot more distractions these days, but there are also more tools to help us to manage time and focus. Making lists works for some, while others use prioritising, planning, scheduling… personally, I’m a big fan of eating frogs. The key is to find what works for you.

Coaching helps with the motivation to make a change and to keep up momentum. We check on the desire for change (if it’s not there, it’s not time to change yet). If the time is right, we set smart goals, investigate options, identifying what might work, gauge the way forward, and move towards the goal with purpose and belief. Good coaching is non-directive, i.e. the client comes up with the options and solutions themselves, and 9 times out of 10, these stick.

Helping people to seemingly create more time is very rewarding!

Rewards for existing members

How many times have you been embittered by new member offers when you are already a member? To sign up afresh would actually get you a better deal than the one that you are locked into.

Department stores (e.g. Debenhams) often give new cardholders a 10% discount offer for signing up that day. These are advertised on banner displays around the store, but not available to existing cardholders. Sky TV offers fantastic bundles to new subscribers, while existing customers need to (try to) cancel their subscription and start again to benefit from similar deals.

Compare this to the mobile phone industry, which rewards users on contract renewal with discounts of 20% on new call packages, in addition to free handset upgrades. In this highly competitive market, phone companies know that loyalty is key and focus on the positive existing customer experience, knowing that it will bring more friends and family onto the network.

Unfortunately, the health club industry is still like the former in general. Banners call out to new members as they arrive in the car-park advertising “no joining fee”, “August for free”, “2 for 1 membership”… none are aimed at the existing member. A highly motivated, positive thinking member might tell their friends about the offer, but most will just be disappointed that new members are getting a better deal.

The existing member must feel that they are equal if not better off than the new member. Paying last year’s rate is a safe, revenue protecting strategy (if fees have gone up this year). More audacious clubs will offer a month or more free after a year or two, a less exciting offer might be a free bag. The key is to make the existing member feel really appreciated for staying for another year, and to keep rewarding them and turn them into members (and fans) for life.

BHF London Jogs - GG Fit raise £1,535

We’re really pleased to announce that GG Fit raised over £1,500 for the British Heart Foundation by taking part in the London Jogs Trilogy in 2010.

The Justgiving page closed today, and our total sponsorship was £1,205, with an additional £333 in good old Gift Aid.

The London Jogs Trilogy are three 10k runs around London’s Hyde Park (April), Tower of London (May) and Canary Wharf (June). The main reasons we take part are to raise money and awareness for the BHF, but the trilogy is also a great excuse to set some fitness goals, get colleagues together, and to motivate others to exercise and raise a little money for charity. Asking for sponsorship for all three events ‘allows’ us to send 3 or 4 e-mails to our contacts, maximising donations for the BHF, which is a very important charity.


On the subject of motivation, it is a big help knowing that you have 3 or 4 team mates that are relying on you to help them through the 10k. On the loop circuits, it’s great to encourage each other on, or to try and catch and lap team-mates. Looking forward to the team beers afterwards is more of a motivator for others, with the inevitable “I wasn’t sure at the start, felt worse in the middle, but feel fantastic now!” The finish buzz always feels great.

Well done to BHF for organising such great events (more here). If you know of any other interesting 10k runs that we should consider taking part in, please let us know in the comments below.

What really motivates members - Programming vs Goals

What really motivates members and increases membership length? We’ve discussed programming before, and seen impressive results from talking to members about their exercise programme. We know that it’s the staff-member interaction that actually helps improve visit frequency. Members’ goals are the critical factor in member retention; understand each member’s goal, and then support them in move towards the goal. Simply recording a member’s goal can have a profound effect on length of membership, as you can see here:

The graphic above compares average length of membership for members with goal(s) recorded in the Wellness System against members whose goals were not recorded. For both Casual and Contract members, membership length is considerably longer (over 60% longer for Contract members) when a goal is recorded in the system.

The figures are taken from a local authority club with around 2,000 active members and historical data for over 4,000 members. Other analysis shows trainers that record their members’ goals are more successful in terms of active member status and member retention. We were really pleased to see goal recording, and it will be actively encouraged moving forwards.

Taking a similar comparison using active exercise programmes shows quite a different picture:

There is very little difference between members who have current programmes and those whose programmes have expired. In fact, members with old programmes seem to stay longer. Changing the filters to included members whose programme recently expired does not change the trend significantly.

We’re not saying that you shouldn’t focus on updating exercise programmes, this staff-member interaction is important. What is clear is that during programme reviews, checking goals and aspirations is vital, and if you can record the member’s goal, especially a SMART goal (more soon) you will help to prolong their membership, which is good for everyone.

10k Run to Finsbury Park – why?

I’ve not been for a run for a couple of weeks, and have been slack during July to be honest, with golf, conferences and work trips getting in the way. What motivated me to go on a long run today then? Watching le Tour riders incredible efforts probably helped, an Eddie Izzard DVD last weekend always inspires, the fact I was slacking could have something to do with it, but I think the main reason was the extra pint at the end of the pub quiz last night, and wanting to redress the balance.

Here’s the route I took:

View Muswell Hill Runs in a larger map

My target was to see how far along Parkland Walk towards Finsbury Park I could get, and turn around after 30 mins, as that would be over 5km. From Muswell Hill to the Parkland Walk is very up and down, but Parkland Walk itself is a disused railway track, so relatively flat and straight. There were quite a few other joggers, some accepting my high-fives, some nodding hello, but a couple disregarding me altogether. Offering motivation to like minded people helps my motivation too, and there’s nothing like an unexpected high-five to cheer up your day.

Music helping me along the way came from the usual playlist, including Faithless, Rage, & Armand. Must set up a new playlist for August.

Got to Finsbury Park at 29 mins, checked in on FourSquare, and headed back along the track looking out for returning high-fives. Getting back up to Muswell Hill required a lot of effort, but thoughts of Schleck and Contador, and that Survivor tune helped a great deal!

Parkland Walk is a great track for a walk or a run… getting there from Muswell Hill (and back) is hard work, but it was great to do a 10k for July, looking out for events in August or September to join and help the motivation. Let me know of any 10k runs you’re considering in the comments below, and I’ll join you!

Preparation, Adaptation and Education: How to improve your member contact methods to get your absent members to return

When it comes to maximising member retention, we all know communication is vital. Face to face contact is paramount, which is fine for the members who are in your club. But what do you do about the members who are not present, or who haven’t visited for a few weeks, or perhaps longer?

Re-motivating absent members
Visiting their home or office would be very effective, but economies of scale make this impractical for most clubs. Alternatively you can phone the member, which is often the first choice in retention policies. Although 55% of communication is visual, the tone of voice and words still come across on the phone. If you actually get through to the member there’s a good chance they’ll come back in, but often there’s a voicemail or no answer, which reduces the probability of success in bringing the member back. If this is the first phone call you’ve made to this member, this will also reduce the effectiveness of the communication.