Whether your competition is down the road or across town, big or small, old or brand new, hip or old-school, competition is still competition. Your job then becomes marketing a difference or competitive edge that brings new members through your doors, not theirs’.

So, how much do you invest in each new member?

You probably already know what it costs you in dollars to have a member go through the entire membership cycle – sales time and commissions, marketing and promotions, processing cancellations, and all the other “hidden” costs of the membership cycle.

I can already hear you saying that you invest a lot in your members and I haven’t even mentioned the operational costs of the bells and whistles that get members excited about joining the club – group fitness, new equipment – and on it goes as we try to market ourselves as something different than the competition.

However, there’s more to it than the financial or operational costs of memberships. Another way to ask the question is, how invested are you in each new member? It’s not all always about the dollars. Are you investing in time, education, personal relationships, follow through and the steps to success?

There’s real value placed on the feeling of being genuinely cared about, and there are a lot of success stories that are built on that foundation. Think of the number of times that you’ve read or heard or seen someone succeed because someone else took the time to listen, or educate, or care for, or something – something genuine.

It’s a difference between investing in the building, the equipment and the programs, and investing in your members’ success. New equipment and an updated facility won’t, in and of themselves, lead to success stories. How and what you invest in with your new members will. As we’ve iterated before, it’s the difference between a member and a member forever.

Steve Jobs once said, “[B]e a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.”

Make your difference be your investment in your members’ success and your competition will always be measuring your quality.

As holiday greetings fill mailboxes and we read letters from friends and family scattered around the world, it’s difficult not to experience, at least once, the feeling that yet another year has quickly passed.

At the beginning of 2011 we challenged you to take your new members on a different journey. Knowing that every January there is a significant increase in new memberships, we used the example of Courtney who was featured in a Wall Street Journal article. Courtney joined a gym to improve her fitness level. Instead of achieving her goals, she ended up leaving cycling class early because it was too difficult, and felt additional frustration and confusion with the equipment on the main floor. Chances are Courtney is no longer working out at her gym. There are many more members like Courtney who have come and gone in 2011.

If you have let yet another year pass without changing the journey for your members, at least half of the new members who join your gym in January 2012 will stop exercising within a few months. Another year and the story still won’t change for you. The faces will be different, but their experiences will be similar.

You already know the consequences of the revolving membership doors and you already know the benefits of members who join for the long-term. We’ll issue the same challenge to you in 2012 – In 2012 take your members on the Members4Ever journey. You’ll spend less time negating the “outs” and more time building on the “ins” of members passing through your doors.

Best wishes for a safe and healthy 2012,

Sharon Hurst

Fitness Club Consultants

717.569.5396

sharon@fitnessclubconsultants.com

“Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time.” – George Bernard Shaw

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Like editorial clock-work, headlines such as, “A New You in 2012,” “Top Fitness Trends in 2012,” and “Run Your Best Marathon in 2012″ have started appearing in the January issues of magazines. Soon, newspapers and television news shows will join in on the New Year’s resolution bandwagon. It happens every year, and every year you can count on new members who have made resolutions to “get in shape,” or to lose weight, finally.

There will be great tips and ideas in those articles and stories on how to transform our lives. There also will be competing information that confuses more people than it helps. For many people who are not in the habit of daily exercise, it all feels overwhelming and many just give up within weeks of starting.

Too often many of us in the fitness industry fall in to the same mindset as the editors of magazines and newspapers – we concentrate on fitness, and sometimes, fitness only. We talk up great group fitness classes. We sign new members to personal training contracts. We sell fitness. And yet, fitness may not be the goal of many of your new members. It almost sounds counterintuitive. Fitness club should equal fitness – maybe, and maybe not.

If you stop selling fitness and start listening to your members, you might just learn that fitness may be a nice side effect of coming to your club, and not necessarily a top goal. Success comes in different shapes and sizes, and in different ages and abilities. Success to one member may be that there’s a safe, warm place to walk. Success to another member may be that blood pressure medicine isn’t necessary any longer because the member learned that canned vegetables are high in sodium. Success to yet another member may be that there’s a place to sit and have a cup of coffee with friends. None of it has anything to do with “fitness,” but it does mean success to many people who join health and fitness clubs.

By taking the time to truly listen to your new members, you will discover that success is defined differently by every single person who walks through your doors. By fast-tracking members into group fitness or personal training, you might be missing out on the key to their success. That key to success is what will keep that member coming back week after week, month after month, and year after year – and it might not have anything to do with group fitness or personal training.

We can help you find that key to success for each and every member in 2012 on his or her own terms. That’s how you define success.

Contact Sharon at Sharon@fitnessclubconsultants.com or 717.569.5396 for more information on Members4Ever.

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal reported that many gym “regulars” despise this time of year when newcomers invade their classes, leave behind sweaty machines and equipment, and encroach on their space, spots, and machines.

Like most clubs around the country, you’ve probably seen your new member numbers jump significantly this time of year when many people make the New Year’s resolution to finally get back in shape. Your “regulars” might not like the influx, most club owners and operators enjoy seeing the numbers this time of year.

But what happens in a few weeks and a few months from now? Are those new members still making regular trips to your club? Are your group fitness classes still packed with participants? Or are your newest members becoming part of the stats? How Many Courtney’s are at Your Club?

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal reported that many gym “regulars” despise this time of year when newcomers invade their classes, leave behind sweaty machines and equipment, and encroach on their space, spots, and machines.

Like most clubs around the country, you’ve probably seen your new member numbers jump significantly this time of year when many people make the New Year’s resolution to finally get back in shape. Your “regulars” might not like the influx, most club owners and operators enjoy seeing the numbers this time of year.

But what happens in a few weeks and a few months from now? Are those new members still making regular trips to your club? Are your group fitness classes still packed with participants? Or are your newest members becoming part of the statistics? You’re probably very familiar with the statistics:

•    84 percent of people who make New Year’s resolutions give up on them before January even ends, and

•    50 percent of people who start an exercise program quit within six months.

Are your new members like Courtney, who was featured in the Wall Street Journal article?:

One newcomer, Courtney Hopkins, doesn’t deny her limited fitness, which, of course, is why she’s at the gym in the first place. One day last week Ms. Hopkins began a spin class at an Arlington, Va., branch of Gold’s Gym—a chain that can see as much as a 100% increase in member sales in January. After 20 minutes on the stationary bike, “I was panting,” she says, and from then on “was pretty much coasting.”

Rather than just sit on her bike until the hour-long class ended, Ms. Hopkins summoned the courage to get off and walk out. “I tried not to make eye contact and just bee-lined to the door,” she says.

Ms. Hopkins says she often meanders the floor aimlessly in search of the right equipment, or “stands there for five minutes trying to figure out where my machines are.”

How many Courtney’s do you have in your club? Moreover, ask yourself, how many times do you think the Courtney’s of your club are going to come back again and again to experience this kind of failure and humiliation before they too give up on their resolutions?

There is another journey for your newest members. It’s the Members4Ever journey that leads to success, not failure. It’s a journey that provides your newest members with education, value, experience and results. It’s the journey that all of your Courtney’s should experience.

Contact Sharon today at 717.569.5396 for more information about implementing the Members4Ever program in your club.

Click here to read the rest of the Wall Street Journal article published on Saturday, January 15, 2011.
You’re probably very familiar with the statistics:

• 84 percent of people who make New Year’s resolutions give up on them before January even ends, and
  
• 50 percent of people who start an exercise program quit within six months.
  

Are your new members like Courtney, who was featured in the Wall Street Journal article?:

One newcomer, Courtney Hopkins, doesn’t deny her limited fitness, which, of course, is why she’s at the gym in the first place. One day last week Ms. Hopkins began a spin class at an Arlington, Va., branch of Gold’s Gym—a chain that can see as much as a 100% increase in member sales in January. After 20 minutes on the stationary bike, “I was panting,” she says, and from then on “was pretty much coasting.”

Rather than just sit on her bike until the hour-long class ended, Ms. Hopkins summoned the courage to get off and walk out. “I tried not to make eye contact and just bee-lined to the door,” she says.

Ms. Hopkins says she often meanders the floor aimlessly in search of the right equipment, or “stands there for five minutes trying to figure out where my machines are.”

How many Courtney’s do you have in your club? Moreover, ask yourself, how many times do you think the Courtney’s of your club are going to come back again and again to experience this kind of failure and humiliation before they too give up on their resolutions?

There is another journey for your newest members. It’s the Members4Ever journey that leads to success, not failure. It’s a journey that provides your newest members with education, value, experience and results. It’s the journey that all of your Courtney’s should experience.

Contact Sharon today at 717.569.5396 for more information about implementing the Members4Ever program in your club.

Click here to read the rest of the Wall Street Journal article published on Saturday, January 15, 2011.