Health club managers have long touted the obvious benefits of member retention because it costs them a lot of money to market their services in order to sign up new members.
As a result, almost every product sold to club owners today is presented as a way to improve member satisfaction, and thus to achieve better retention results. It can actually be easier to retain a loyal member than interview a lot of new prospects to find the few who join, as long as you know what you are doing and have the best interests of your members at heart.
It should come as no surprise that most individuals who join a health club are hoping for, or actually expecting, they are going to improve their own health as a result. If you are specifically promoting your business as a fitness or wellness center, it is logical to assume your members will be expecting to realize realistic and reliable results in the areas of physical fitness and overall wellness gains.
One of the best ways to engage your members in this process is to provide a comprehensive fitness and wellness assessment experience at the very beginning of their enrollment period. This will:
- Help provide them with important baseline information about themselves.
- Assist your staff in consulting intelligently with members concerning their specific strengths and weaknesses in order to establish realistic fitness and wellness related goals.
- Help them develop safe and effective fitness activities and wellness strategies for progressive improvements over time
- Allow you to offer a follow-up reassessment within the first 60 to 90 days to demonstrate that they are, in fact, realizing realistic and reliable results so they will stay motivated to continue with their program(s).
This may all seem very obvious — however, some clubs find it is easier to simply be in the “exercise equipment rental business,” with little concern about the actual results their members are getting.
That is why a membership without personal training, in most cases, is such a poor investment for the average person who is not already an avid fitness enthusiast, knowledgeable in the use of your facilities, or highly motivated to get their expected results, with or without your assistance.
So realizing realistic and reliable results really adds up to your member’s own success story — and who doesn’t want to be successful? It is in our nature to want to be the best we can be. When your staff helps members achieve the success they are striving for, you can expect the profits that will naturally follow as their retention and occasional referrals help maintain and grow your business even more.
If you take the same process a step further and provide evidence-based outcomes to your local medical community, municipalities and corporations, you will be positioning yourself for an even greater expansion and influence throughout your community.
Rob Rideout is a co-founder and vice president of sales at MicroFit, Inc. He can be reached at rob@microfit.com or by visiting microfit.com.
