“Yeah the first month was great, but not really anymore. The owner messaged me a few times seeing how I was getting on, but now that’s stopped. They said we would have monthly check-ins with a trainer, but I never got one. I’m not sure if I will stay, it’s not really what I signed up for. I could do classes like this at my old gym for half the price.”
DON’T LET THIS BE SAID ABOUT YOUR FACILITY! It’s true that you need a fantastic offer to get people through the door. With competition hotter than ever before, you need to stand out. But don’t let your introductory offer outshine your regular membership. Or even worse, don’t pretend you include services in your membership that don’t actually exist!
I’m sure, just like mine, your phone is flooded with adverts from marketing agencies bragging about X many leads, Y many sales made for their clients. It’s easy to be brainwashed that this is the most important factor to building your member base. Any multi-site gym owner, or gym business consultant knows that retention is the key to filling your gym. Yet all the agencies have convinced gym owners that “new leads” are the answer to their problems, and not retention!
Now retention isn’t some rainbow galloping unicorn that only the chosen ones know about. It’s actually very simple when you break it down: care = retention. Now care can be shown in a variety of ways. Care could be actually doing the check-ins that you said you would (or even better, doing check in’s that weren’t promised). Care could be going out of your way for a member on their birthday. Care could be putting on an event for your members, both inside and outside the gym. Care can even be calling members who haven’t been to the gym for a while to see if everything is okay (rather than ignoring them and being happy they’re paying for nothing!). The more you show members that you care through various means, the more likely they are to stay.
Let’s talk about Churn Rate. If you don’t know the term “Churn rate”, it means the percentage of members that leave you per month. To calculate your churn rate, look at your total cancellations last month, and divide that by your total membership count last month. 20 cancelled members at a 200 member facility means your churn rate is 10% . Back when I was working at an agency I was told the average churn rate for a gym was 10%. I now know that this is only an expected churn rate if you have no retention practices in place! The gyms I work with now try to keep their churn at 5% or under. Having a churn rate below 5% is a sure way to grow your memberships… otherwise you’re just signing members to replace the ones that are leaving!
A business mentor of mine once told me “What if you never lost a customer?”. Now it’s impossible to never lose a member in the fitness industry as people move location. But if you are only focussing on getting new people through the door, instead of putting equal attention into those who are already in your building, you’re destined to fail.
Here’s how the conversation at the start should have gone:
“You HAVE to come to my gym, it’s incredible! The trainers are all so nice, and they give you home workouts and food plans to follow outside the gym. There’s an event next month I can’t wait to go to. I’ve never done a competition before, but it’s very exciting! If you do fancy it, I’ve got a discount code for your first month too. You’ve gotta come down… it’s the best gym ever!
Regan Phillips – Gym Marketing Consultant
The Fitness Marketspace