05/01/2018
“Eat healthier and go to the gym”, these two goals are in the top 3 of our new year’s resolutions.
January is by far the easiest month to get new members in your gym. Most searches, website visits and gym subscriptions are in the first month of the year.
Unfortunately we often need some help to hold on to our promises to ourselves.
Gym owners have the important task of keeping these enthusiast starters motivated and coming back.
Here are some strategies you want to use to keep your retention high:
**Push them hard
Nobody likes going to the gym (I absolutely hate working out), it’s the feeling afterwards that counts.
Doing a half-hearted workout will get them no satisfaction whereas if they really push themselves beyond where they thought they could go, they’ll feel more satisfied. Personal trainers of course are very good at this, they’ll stand next to them and encourage them to do "one more". Unless you are a personal trainer or have a lot of time on your hand, this will be impossible to do.
There are however some other ways you can achieve this. Create a hard working culture. Culture is an important factor for retention. In our gym, everyone who comes, comes there to give everything, people who don’t, will actually be called out on it. You’ll never hear someone say, you can’t do that, only, can’t you do more. Either you or the trainer will be the limiting factor to prevent injury.
I still remember a workout in which we had to do push ups for 10 minutes, we have this strong baseball player who is twice my size. I couldn’t make it past the 6th minute, but he was well on his way to make it till the end. So everyone started cheering him on and he managed to do his 30th push up just in time. He said he wouldn’t have done that if we weren’t standing next to him yelling at him. Also he had sore muscles for 3 days straight (thanks to us).
**Culture
Creating a culture in your gym is by far the best thing you can do, it increases member satisfaction, increases retention, gives you more satisfaction, gives you an edge over other gyms and saves you time educating your members. Surrounding new members with healthy people will make them healthier. They’ll pick up the right mindset regarding nutrition, exercise and rest. Also your group will hold new members accountable, asking how their new diet is going or where they’ve been the last week.
If you’re like the average price fighter, you’ll not have this, people might start skipping the gym and if they’re not held accountable either by you or your group, they might stop altogether, “Maybe next year”.
**Make them see results fast
Does this phrase sound familiar: “I have been going to the gym 3 times a week for the last month and I haven’t seen results yet”? We are used to getting instant gratification for our actions, with overall health it doesn’t work that fast. Your body has to get used to the new lifestyle changes and that takes time. However, if their membership ends the first of February and they don’t see results at that time, they’ll be very discouraged. That’s why you want to take a bit more effort the first month. Offer a free measurement at the beginning of the membership and at the end. The results might not be visual yet, you will be able to measure them:
* A fat percentage drop
* A muscle mass increase
* Increased endurance/strength/speed.
Use a weigher with electrodes and invent some test they have to perform once as an introduction and once before the end of the month. They might have only increased by a few points. The results are evident and that motivates.
“You don’t know what you don’t measure”
**Hold them accountable
This is (partially) the reason these memberships exist, the 3 month program, people quit in the second week, but because they paid for 3 months they might as well continue. Also some gyms will measure how long someone hasn’t come to the gym and call them if they haven’t checked in for 2 weeks or more. Something that a local gym here does very well, is rewarding couples/friends/family to sign up together. When they sign up in pairs, they both get a 35% discount and some additional perks. When you don’t feel like going, you still have to go, because you promised to the other person and you don’t want to disappoint the other person by letting him or her go by themselves.
These are the best strategies to keep your new members motivated and coming back to your gym.
If you have another one that you use in your gym, that you would like to share, post it in the comments.
