Carolyn Fetters, the founder and CEO of Balanced Habits, shares how to get your customers to see you as essential to their lives.
“If you’re not moving forward, you’re falling behind.”
Sam Waterston
There is good reason to believe we are nearing the end of the biggest challenge the fitness industry has ever faced, but as the world begins to reopen it’s important to understand the ways your business environment has changed, perhaps permanently. How have your customers changed and what do you need to do to address those changes?
Your customers today are more savvy, skeptical, and demanding than ever before, and many have completely reevaluated what is important in their lives. Being considered an “essential business” in the eyes of local governments has been at the forefront of the minds of many business owners, but how can your company communicate to your customers that the services you provide are essential to them too?
While a certain faction of your membership always believed in the value of having access to a fitness facility, many more didn’t see it as a priority throughout this past year. So what would it take to change that? What would you need to offer in order for your customers to see your business as an essential part of their lives regardless of the circumstances?
Communicating this idea requires a bit of a visionary mindset. A visionary is someone who understands their members’ habits have changed and are prepared to push for new business models entirely.
The old business model relied on customers who continued to pay dues based purely on the possibility that they might use the facility at some point of time, even if they never showed up. Yet when that possibility was taken away, so did their willingness to pay. But what if the customer understood from Day 1 that your business is much more than workout equipment, and instead was a source of all kinds of health solutions? What if membership was inseparable from any other component of their healthcare? In order to achieve that, one must reimagine, rebrand and establish new language that will connect to your new customers.
Here are some ideas on services that can help you communicate and increase your essential value to the members you serve.
1. Specific fitness services.
2. Comprehensive nutritional programming.
3. Life skills and strategies education with a certified health coach.
4. Contracts with a healthcare program for both fitness and nutritional services.
5. Your fitness center provides wellness, healthcare or functional medicine.
All of these above services will not only create tremendous value in the mind of your customer, by allowing you to truly become essential in their lives, but also develop into new revenue streams that will positively impact your business.
