http://www.buildcoaching.co.uk/

Tom Blackman - BUILD Your Fitness Business, c/o M*F GYM, Bristol (2026)

06/06/2026

I used to take membership cancellations personally.

It can be really difficult especially if you've built your business from scratch.

I was like the B&B owners on Four in a Bed who couldn’t handle feedback…

“They don’t get it”
"Good riddance"
“Wouldn’t want them back anyway”

That used to be me.

Until one of my mentors said

“They didn’t like it, it's your job to find out why.”

So I built a simple cancellation form with 7 questions - 3 of which were asking what we did wrong and how could we fix it.

And removed any artificial barriers to cancelling that caused the member more stress in the process.

I wanted honest answers not made up "I'm moving away" "My leg has fallen off" stories that told me nothing so I said

"We will ALWAYS cancel so you don't need to make up a story, please tell me honestly WHY you're leaving"

What I found was

Most people left for life reasons (moving/job/cash)

The rest? Fixable niggles that for the most part were low cost things

I did have a few weird ones like "the benches are 1 inch too high" but that was from someone who was otherwise complimentary

Rarely anything big or personal and most people left positive comments, even if they left negative ones as well.

So we went a bit further than this, rather than fixing the problem after the member had left, we aimed to fix them before they got to that stage

Now we survey members twice a year
Spot issues before they turn into membership ending reasons

Our churn’s dropped.
Retention is up.
And my ego feels a little bit better

And no one’s ever said
“Tom’s a wa**er, I hope his gym shuts down.”

It’s not personal.
It’s business.

And if you're an independent you have the advantage that you can move quickly to make decisions.

Big commercials, everything's done by committee, which means their churn rate is much higher

The higher the churn the more you need to spend in lead gen

And it's between 5-25 times more expensive to get a new member than retain an existing one.

04/06/2026

How can you make more membership sales?
By removing the thought processes that are in the way - called Cognitive Load Reduction

Boots have done this brilliantly with this piece of marketing, rather than having an aisle full of cold meds and leaving the decision up to the customer (who already feels pretty horrible and mentally drained) they’ve said

“Tell us what stage you’re at and we have a solution for you”

It’s framing the problem before framing the solution.

Once a person accepts the frame, the solution is an easier sale

There’s less deliberation and fear of choosing the wrong thing, which leads to a quicker decision and less fear of regret.

And possibly a bit of placebo effect because they’re confident that they’ve made the right choice.

I’ll bet they sell more from this than they do from their massive shelf full of meds. I wonder of they leave some of the gondola deliberately empty to show social proof that people have picked up the items?

The choice architecture here is not MORE choice, but BETTER choice

Rather than pitting products against each other they’ve set specific solutions for each one.

Makes sense?

Now look at your gym memberships
Are they increasing or decreasing cognitive load?

Making choice easier or harder?
Are they problem framed or features framed?

Having 3-4 different options which are very similarly framed makes choice harder not easier

Eg having cash only, contract, non contract, off peak, peak, full access, class access only

And multiple variations of all of those combinations doesn’t give more choice to a future member, it gives them more decisions, more stress and less action.

We removed all the membership variations from Ministry over 5 years ago

Got rid of cash monthlys, classes only, off peak, blue light etc

There’s one membership, 2 ways to pay

We very rarely get objections or questions about the membership.

And our admin is very low.

Our problem frame is “do you prefer a 12 x monthly or yearly in full payment option?”

Simple decision.

Each gym is different of course, but what isn't different is people's behaviour. Humans making decisions are like cats swimming. They can do it, but prefer not to.

03/06/2026

DM me "30" for a free 30 minute analysis of where your gym could be improving:

Tools - what you provide to help your members get the results they want

Accountability - how you help them do the stuff they'd said they'd do

Belonging - how you can make them feel part of a community they want to stay in.

We can also look at your visibility,

how to stand out from the other gyms, create better ads and build systems that save you time while onboarding your members smoothly.

Worst case - you're doing everything right and don't need any help

Best case - you have a clear direction of what you need to do.

Owning a gym can be a lonely experience when you're the only one making the big decisions

Having someone with a second brain in your business, viewing from the outside without blinkers can be an invaluable resource.

DM me "30", you've got nothing to lose from enquiring.

In most cases, it's a simple fix

Complex problems (or the appearance of them) and not knowing where to start can be the only real thing that's in your way.

03/06/2026

This 'hack' to reduce member cancellations is so easy to do that you probably already do it, or have the ability to implement today.

Positive interactions with your gym or staff aren't just chatting on the counter.

And if you've got a 24 hour facility where you may not see people all the time you can still engage with your members by...

Sending regular emails keeping members up to date and asking for feedback

Posting engagement stickers like 'ask a question' 'what do you think' on your IG stories

Resharing members posts on your stories and messaging them about their lifts, achievements and updates on their training

Hosting monthly Q&A sessions remotely for members to get help if they need it

Those are just 4 examples.

And if you are a manned facility,

ensure that your staff aren't sat on their phones on reception all day, ignoring people who come in.

That they walk the floor engaging with the members

They welcome people into the venue and wish them farewell on exit

You only need 3 positive interactions per month to reduce your member cancellations by 33%.

What's that worth financially compared to the time investment?

Retention is one of the KPIs I look at with all gyms I work with. Keeping members long term is a more cost effective focus than new member recruitment.

Joining numbers are sexy, it's what all the agencies will sell you on.

Retention numbers aren't, but they are the foundation of a stable gym business.

Big numbers in aren't great when you've got big numbers going out.

But i don't need to tell you this,

If you're looking to reduce your cancellation rate but not sure where to focus on drop me a DM for a quick chat about your gym.

03/06/2026

What if you could add an extra 5-6% of extra cash flow back into your business every month without doing anything except tweaking how you present and sell your memberships?

I helped Miles set this up about a year ago and it's been a massive cash flow boost for his gym which has helped him buy new kit and pay off some bills faster.

All he had to do was

1. Streamline his memberships to have a clearer offer and remove confusion for his members

2. Change the frame of the sale from a monthly anchor to yearly i.e it's £275 or 12 payments of £30. (this also helped sell the monthly price easier)

3. Submit a spreadsheet 4 times a year to HMRC with his tax return showing how he's reclaiming the VAT on part of the monthly payments

That's it, and with over 2000 members, that 5% is a significant amount of money.

If you're fully VAT registered you'll be able to take advantage of this very legal tax saving opportunity.

in 10 years I've reclaimed over £120k as a result of implementing this

It didn't affect my membership sales, in fact Ministry's membership grew as a result.

And once it's set up (which takes about 4 weeks) you only need to complete a simple spreadsheet that I will give you that formats everything nicely for your accountant to make the reclaim on the VAT return.

Comment "VAT1" to see how much you could be reclaiming every year.

It's your money, don't let it go to the government

02/06/2026

3 very low cost ways to market your gym.

Direct Proof you probably already do - member wins, testimonials etc.
It's the element a lot of agencies will focus on when helping you market your gym with facebook ads etc.

And it works, people like seeing people like them getting results, makes it more relative to their situation.

But if you focus too much on directly showing results you may start to come across as a pushy gym, only focussed on results

And while people like getting 'results'

They also want to belong to a tribe or community of people like them, with the same goals and interests.

Which is where Indirect and Residual proof can help

There's many ways you can show proof your gym is awesome without getting members in their pants talking about weight loss.

This should be part of your marketing plan. The things that sell your gym without you having to say "Hey look at this thing which is intended to get you to sign up"

Little touches, right down to the fabric that your hoodies are made of, so people want to wear them as day to day clothing, are important considerations.

It's not what just people see consciously when they are aware they are being sold to.

It's what they see without seeing it, the evidence of success, community and a place they feel comfortable in.

Your gym can be clean, but if its too clean, people might feel uncomfortable getting messy in there.

Your content can be edited to look better, but if it's perfect makeup people, always smiling, never struggling, then it feels fake.

Have a think about how you can show more proof of your gym's qualities, WITHOUT getting on a megaphone.

This makes the sales process so much easier, members are pre sold before they even come into the gym.

And when you're ready to have a chat getting my help with any of this - DM me "proof"

02/06/2026

Gym owners daily struggles

02/06/2026

I pride myself on being able to tell new visitors to the gym how many different bits of kit we have.

More is gooder, right?

Totally, and I'm not going to say you should have less kit.

But something made me think differently about this.

I visited an absolutely massive gym which from an owners perspective was inspiring but when I went to train I started feeling a bit overwhelmed because there was so much choice.

Which isn't a negative comment, the gym was awesome.

But I thought

"𝘐𝘧 𝘐 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘢 𝘣𝘪𝘵 𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘐'𝘷𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘰𝘳 20 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘴, 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘰'𝘴 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘯𝘦𝘸 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘨𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭"

Which led me to rethink our onboarding at Ministry so that new members coming in can get a helping hand with using the equipment and ideas for training with our coaching app.

It's like an induction, but useful

Because people forget everything on an induction after you've shown them 4 machines.

There's plenty of apps on the market that you can use, but the one I use has a very specific benefit that makes it stands out from the rest.

Comment "PTAPP" and I'll be happy to give you the low down.

31/05/2026

This may not be popular but....nobody cares that your gym has 37 classes a week.

Which could be why your social media is a bit quiet.

A lot of gym posts sound like a menu:

24/7 access
30 classes
New glute machine

And although it's informative, it's no different from every other gym listing the same stuff

Don't get me wrong, you need the information posts, otherwise you'll get people messaging all the time asking. TBF that will still happen but not as much.

𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗮 𝗺𝘂𝗰𝗵 𝗯𝗶𝗴𝗴𝗲𝗿 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗰𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝗻 𝗰𝗼𝗹𝗱 𝗳𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘀

And people remember moments rather than figures, where they can see themselves in someone else’s shoes.

A story about a mother and daughter who train together and support each other in the gym and out of it hits way harder than “we’re beginner friendly.”

And I get that maybe writing out these things isn't your strong point and you're doing your best.

So this isn't intended as a dig, it's a helping hand

You can apply this simple story formula to most things to make it more interesting and engage your future (and present) members better.

1. Set the scene - when, where, who

2. Name the struggle - details matter

3. Show what you/they did - just the main things or you'll be there all day

4. Share what changed - show the impact not just the data

And if you can't think of where to get this stuff....You’ve already got the stories.

They’re in your emails, surveys, your DMs, your member conversations.

This can be

𝗠𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝘄𝗶𝗻𝘀 - doesn't have to be epic

𝗕𝗲𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗰𝗲𝗻𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗴𝘆𝗺 - what's going on that people don't see

𝗣𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀 𝗮𝘀 𝗮 𝗴𝘆𝗺 𝗼𝘄𝗻𝗲𝗿 - your reasons for business decisions and your life

𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗰𝘂𝗹𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝘄𝘀 - to show that you're "not just a gym"

Next time you write a post, don’t tell people what you offer. Tell a story about what happened.

That’s what makes people stop scrolling and think "that's a community I'd like to be a part of" not just "that's where I go to train"

PS you can also tell stories with b roll video 😉

30/05/2026

These 6 questions have helped shape my gym and make it a place that people love coming to.

I've trained at a ton of gyms in 27 years, and hardly any do this regularly.

Sometimes it's because the owners are afraid of getting negative feedback,

Sometimes it's because they don't GAF about what the members want,

Sometimes it's because they are so busy that they haven't got time to send the questions out and even less time to look at all the answers and make a plan based on what people say.

Here's what I've found

𝗡𝗲𝗴𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗙𝗲𝗲𝗱𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗶𝘀 𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗱𝗹𝘆 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹.

It's normally because those people are loyal customers and they want to help improve the gym. You can't please everyone, but there's normally small things that you can implement right away that don't cost a lot and you'll get a massive amount of positive feedback for doing.

"𝗜𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗱𝗼𝗻'𝘁 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝗶𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝘃𝗲"

I've heard this a few times normally from older gym owners who either have a fixed view of what a gym should be, or they are worried about change and so stick their head in the sand.

Either way, you'll end up with less members, they'll be very niche which could be good, but you'll probably struggle filling the gym

"𝗜 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲𝗻'𝘁 𝗴𝗼𝘁 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁"

Sometimes the value isn't seen, sometimes it's because of a combination of the 2 things above.

But if it's really because you don't really like tech, or don't know how to analyse a large amount of results quickly, but really do want to improve the gym and get more members in, that's something I can definitely help with.

Comment "BIG 6" and I'll send you a video showing the process I use, but also how to turn all that info into social media posts that build your membership and create a strong community.

Tom Blackman - BUILD Your Fitness Business

06/06/2026

04/06/2026

03/06/2026

03/06/2026

03/06/2026

02/06/2026

02/06/2026

02/06/2026

31/05/2026

30/05/2026

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