I worked as a membership consultant for about 18 months all up. I used to believe that the reason people didn’t join gyms was all logical stuff. The reasons they gave me: It’s too expensive, the classes aren’t at the times I can attend, there’s no parking, and there isn’t enough cardio equipment.

The ridiculously named International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association (IHRSA for short) did a massive research study in America called ‘50 million members by 2010’ in 1999. It is the largest study done to date on the fitness industry. One of the things the study looked at was what stopped people joining fitness centres. 5 fears were identified as being why people ‘really’ didn’t join clubs:

1)      The fear of feeling stupid. People don’t know how a club works, they don’t understand fitness equipment and so they don’t    join for    fear of looking ‘stupid’

2)       The fear of feeling isolated. We often refer to gyms as clubs. People imagine that everyone else is part of the ‘club’ and if they join they will feel left out.

3)      The fear of looking and feeling like a klutz. Many people have bad memories of sport (for example getting picked last for teams at school) therefore the idea of voluntarily joining a gym where they will look uncoordinated is not appealing.

4)      The fear of having their body judged. Many people have what is known as ‘physique anxiety’. I have heard many people say they will only join a gym once they are fit enough.

5)      The fear of being ‘forced’ to join. Many people have heard about high pressure sales and believe that clubs are only after their money. They are scared of walking through the gym doors and leaving with a 3 year membership they don’t want.

So, not quite what I thought stopped people joining. The research showed that the ‘logical’ reasons people give are a cover for what is really stopping them. If only I’d known that when I was a membership consultant! So how can gym owners, membership consultants and personal trainers use this knowledge?

Club Owners

Think about your club’s advertising. Is it aimed at allaying the 5 fears? I have seen some advertising campaigns for fitness club’s that would scare the living daylights out of the exact group they are targeting. For example the sales campaign that used a weigh-in of potential members to give them a discount off their joining fee is probably not ideal for members that are scared of looking stupid and having their body judged. Another example of a sales campaign to think twice about: is a timed wall-sit in front of a busy reception area. If I’m sedentary, unfit and self-conscious, a painful and humiliating initiation will only stop me turning up.  

 What might work better? Maybe a picture of normal sized people working out rather bronzed Adonis types. There is a market beyond the what we currently have - ie the sector could grow 2-5% if it was promoted keeping it's old attraction but also becoming a 'soft in' for the fearful.  Currently many people steer clear of clubs altogether and use non threatening solutions (the ab king pro anyone?).

Also think about how you currently induct members. Does a new member get 30 mins with a fitness instructor and then nothing for 6 weeks? How would allocating a solid amount of time (4 30 min sessions over a the first month)  help new members get over the fears of being isolated, judged and feeling stupid? Would this mean higher retention? 

Membership Consultants

Dig around. In your initial chat to a member really get to know why they are there in the first place. Also find out what has stopped them until now. Avoid the pushy you must join because we have a great special. If the gym is right for them and can help them meet their needs then a discount isn’t needed. This is especially true if you know your staff will follow through and ensure they get the results they are after.

Personal Trainers

Think about how to make clients feel comfortable in early sessions. Is caliper testing right for everyone? Does someone need to know that they are obese according to the BMI scale? For a client that is worried about looking like a klutz, exercises that they can’t do or find embarrassing are never a good idea. Don’t start with a single leg squat on a bosu ball with bicep curl.

Think of something that terrifies you. Is it going to the Dentist? Public speaking? Getting an injection? Imagine how you feel in that situation: clammy hands, racing heart, nervous and anxious.

Most of us that work in the fitness industry enjoy exercise. A gym is not a scary place for us to be. As a result we find it hard to understand where our clients are coming from. The 5 fears are however very real for clients. A colleague of mine had a client get to the reception of his gym and leave in tears 3 times before she managed to meet him. Joining a gym was genuinely terrifying for her.

So what do I take from this? Walk in your clients shoes. Before anything else we must make clients feel comfortable. Don’t poke, prod or push your client until you know them very well and they feel at ease with you.

Attribution theory is a concept involved in sports psychology that investigates what people attribute their successes and failures to. Tiger Woods for example would attribute a tournament win to his ability, determination and mental toughness whereas a new gym member who has lead a very sedentary lifestyle and has very low self confidence might see any success they achieve as being lucky. By understanding how your clients attribute their success or failure, you can influence their thinking and emotions to ensure they continue to strive for their goals. Attribution theory can also help you to understand the consequences of both success and failure for you and your client.

Attribution theory looks at two areas: The Locus of Control and the Outcome.

Locus of control is broken in to two components and refers to how much individuals believe their result is due to an internal or external factor. An internal factor is an aspect that is within your control (e.g. Effort), whereas an external factor is an aspect outside of your control (the weather, someone else).

Outcome refers to the final result of the task; success and failure. When a client succeeds they can attribute it to either an internal or external locus of control. What they attribute their success to can alter the emotions that they feel and exhibit. When a client loses 5kg and attributes it to hard work and dedication on their part they will feel proud, have more confidence in their ability to achieve their long term goals and be satisfied with their gym experience. This will lead to increased adherence to their exercise programme and are more likely to renew their gym membership.

If that same client who lost 5kg attributed this result to luck or another external factor such as their personal trainer, they will feel thankful and show gratitude towards their trainer. Unfortunately they will still lack self belief and will still be expecting to fail at some point.

Looking at the other side of the coin, in failure clients follow the same process and attribute it to either an internal factor or an external one. We’ll take the same example of a client wanting to lose 5kg but after 8 weeks they have only achieved a weight loss of 2kg. They blame themselves. They feel guilty, that they’re incompetent and that no matter what they do they won’t achieve their goals. Alternatively if that client attributed their failure to an external force, such as their personal trainer who promised results, they will be surprised that it didn’t happen and could even feel anger that it didn’t occur.

The Fitness Environment

So when applying attribution theory to a fitness environment you can see that a client’s emotions are strongly influenced not only by success or failure, but also by what the client believes was the cause.

Straight away you can see how important it is to ensure your client achieves their goals. While that’s a fairly simple and obvious observation, you only have to look at the emotions that come with failure; guilt, shame, incompetence, and depression to see the damage that can be done.

If a client doesn’t achieve their goals and they decide that an external factor such as their trainer is to blame again you can see the damage that can be done to your reputation and business. So your client’s failure has ramifications for all involved.

If a client succeeds you can see pride, satisfaction, and improvements in confidence that will help drive them to keep exercising. If they attribute it to an external factor such as their trainer they will most likely stick with you and spread the word.

A note of warning here, no matter how good it feels for them to attribute their success to you, if you really want to make a difference to them, you need to make sure they attribute their success to themselves. This is particularly important if they have low self esteem and confidence levels due to years of trying and failing to achieve their goals.

So now I know what Attribution theory is how do I use it?

1. Internal Attribution Statements  

Continually motivate and encourage your client using statements that link their training to internal factors and explain why they have achieved. These are statements that tell them they are achieving their goals because they are putting the work in.

 Examples:    You really work hard in our sessions.

                       You are really sticking to the nutritional plan we devised.

2. Give feedback when they do things right

Continue to give feedback when clients are doing well. When instructing exercise many fitness professionals only communicate the negatives (technique correction) and go silent when the client is performing the exercise correctly.

 Example:       Your form looks really good on that exercise.

3. Try to link their efforts with success.

If a client has achieved their goals, emphasise the fact that it was of their own doing even when they believe you had a big hand in it or it was luck.

4. Attribute failure to external causes where necessary.

If a client fails, emphasise the external factors at work.

Example:          

Work commitments caused the client to miss a few sessions so you need to make sure that the client is aware of this, discuss any planning issues and identify an intervention strategy or back up plan if this occurs again in the future.

This can really only apply to situtations where there really were external factors at play otherwise clients won’t take responsibility for the internal control they have.

If internal factors are the reason for failure, remain positive and implement strategies to overcome these factors.

Example:         

A lack of effort could be due to being tired from previous sessions therefore the trainer needs to adjust the FITT principles or implement more effective support and monitoring activities to pick up on this problem earlier.

Attribution theory shows us two main things. 1) Making sure our clients are successful is vital. 2) We need to make sure our client takes ownership of their success. While it’s a great boost to the ego if they believe that you played a big role in their success, the true benefits come from making sure that the client attributes their success to themselves.

Most clubs will agree that it’s much easier to keep an existing member than it is to find a new one.  Most clubs will also agree that a good way to know whether you are keeping the members you have is by measuring retention. Surprisingly however, in my experience most clubs aren’t measuring retention.

It’s understandable. Most of us didn’t get into the fitness industry to work with maths and statistics. But retention is a valuable tool to use in understanding your business and ensuring long-term success. In this article, we’ll discuss how to measure your member retention and how to use the measurement regularly to make sure you’re on track with your business goals.

First lets agree on what retention actually means: retention of members at your fitness club refers to how many members remain members after their minimum contract period expires.

 How to calculate year on year retention:

How many members did you have in January (or choose your month) last year?

How many of those same members are still with you in January this year?

Take the second number, divide it by the first and voila! Your retention percentage.

Example

In January 2008 my club had 1800 members. In January 2009, 1343 of those same members are still members at my club.

So, I take how many members are still with me (1343) and divide that by how many members I had 12 months ago (1800) and the answer is my retention percentage:

1343 / 1800 = 74.6%

This sort of measurement will give you an indication of whether your member retention services and programmes are working. Track this each month and you’ll be able to start to see patterns over the seasons. What time of year do your most loyal members join? Are your new retention programmes effective?

Of course, waiting 12 months to find out what your member retention looks like is a bit risky. You would want to know how well you’re doing during those 12 months. Ensuring your members are attending will have a huge impact on whether your members decide to stay once their membership is up for renewal.

One way of measuring how well your member retention programmes are working is to track the attendance levels of your members from month to month. You can also do this when you change your membership retention programme to track how well the new programme works in comparison to the old one.

For example, let’s say that you design and implement a new member retention strategy with increased staff and member interaction that starts on February 1^st 2010. You might have outlined the number of contacts a new member has with a fitness instructor over their first few weeks, and then over the following months. For tracking, you might also have defined an active member as a member who attends 2 or more times each month.

 If you tracked each members attendance who started on that new retention programme each month vs. the members attendance who joined in the previous month on the ‘old’ retention programme, you would get an idea as to how well your new programme is working.

Example

January 2010 – 40 new members joined and started on our old member retention programme

February 2010 – 45 new members joined and started on our new member retention programme

Over the months, you would track the number of active members to get an indication of whether your new member retention programme is working:

From the example above, we can see that our new member retention programme has been a raging success. After 6 months at our gym on the old programme 65% of our January members are still attending the gym. After 6 months at our gym on the new programme 73% of our members are still attending the gym. We can assume from these outcomes that our new member retention programme, which is showing a higher number of active members at 6 months, will also result in higher retention of the same members at 12 months.

Retention and attendance can also be used in measuring the service delivered by fitness instructors and business planning for new member sales in the future.

For example, if we have two fitness instructors who are both assigned 20 members to look after in January 2009 we can track their success in retaining those members over the following 6 months.

If Bob and Jane are both using the same member retention programme, it’s clear from the comparison above that Jane is producing a better result.  Your job as a manager is to work to understand what Jane is doing to produce such good results, and what Bob is doing that is resulting in less than ideal results.

Jane is obviously good for your business, so perhaps it’s worth including a performance bonus for fitness instructors who help retain your members.

If you think that measuring retention would help your business and you’re not sure where to start, why not give us a call? We’re always interested in meeting fitness professionals and helping them get better at what they do.