In this blog I will help you understand how to help members master self-control and stick to their exercise goals.

"Self-control is strength. Right thought is mastery. Calmness is power." This timeless quote by James Allen encapsulates the essence of what many of our members strive for at the start of a new year. They set lofty goals—to exercise more, eat healthier and reduce stress. But by February, up to 80% of these New Year's resolutions are abandoned. Why? The answer lies in understanding how self-control works and how we can leverage it to our members advantage.

The Self-Control Dilemma

Self-control is often viewed through two competing lenses. Is it like a battery that depletes with use? Or is it like a snowball, gaining momentum and strength as it rolls downhill? Recent research by psychologist Marco A. Palma (2018) suggests it might be a mix of both. Recognising this duality is crucial if we want to help our members master willpower and achieve their results.

The...

Helping members successful change behaviours comes down to understanding how we think. You could create the perfect workout, but unless you can get the members to complete it, it will not have the desired effect. While not exhaustive these six actions will increase the likelihood of your members achieving success, and you getting the credit for it.

1. Make It Personally Relevant.

Make sure that any exercises included in a workout can be directly related to the members outcomes or goals. When you teach an exercise, a member will be evaluating the benefit cost of that exercise in relationship to their overall goal.

If I give someone a squat to do and their goal is general fitness, they can recognise the relationship between the exercise and the goal and will continue to include that exercise in their routine. If however, they cannot see the relationship between stretching and general fitness they will drop that exercise in favour of doing more of the exercise that they...

The health and fitness consumers are changing faster than ever before. In the past, your customers used to compare you to the competition. Those people who were in your town, maybe in your local area, the same sector, and then slowly they started to compare you to online. Now your customers compare you to every customer experience they have with every brand they interact with. Not only that they look online at images of gyms from around the country, around the world and ask, why doesn’t our gym look like that?

Brands like Uber, Amazon, Netflix, Airbnb, among others have not only disrupted their respective industries, but have changed how consumers shop for products and services.

When customers are exposed to far better and more engaging and personalized customer experiences, they apply these newly raised expectations to other brands and industries.

You know that, far better, more engaging, personalized and more memorable customer experience. Remember when experiences are...

 As consumer behaviours change, so the product offered at gyms and fitness studios must also change to keep up with expectations. Dr Paul Bedford reports.

As part of our ongoing research into, and monitoring of, the health and fitness market around the world, earlier this year we conducted a fascinating piece of research into how consumer behaviours have shifted pre- to post-pandemic – and what this means for the product offered at gyms, clubs and studios.

Before I dive into the implications, let me quickly run through some of the behavioural changes we’ve witnessed.

First, membership lifetime is down, whether you’re a big box operator or a boutique studio. If that doesn’t apply to you, I’m absolutely delighted. It’s certainly the case for a large proportion of the operators we’ve both spoken to and worked with.

Second, people are working out in more, and more varied, locations. As a result, pay-as-you-go is increasingly favoured over...

The post-pandemic consumer

A new set of post-pandemic consumer behaviours are impacting fitness operators of all shapes and sizes. Dr Paul Bedford shares the findings of new research, and offers insights into how operators might respond. 

Earlier this year, I put together a report into changing dynamics in the fitness marketplace: new post-pandemic nuances in consumer behaviour compared to pre-COVID norms.

The report was inspired by a request from one of my customers, concerned by some of the changes they were seeing and wanting to know what they could do about it. Their question: ‘Are we alone in this?’

My answer: ‘Absolutely not.’

Because – although all the headlines show club operations returning to pre-pandemic membership numbers, and great news that is – some things have nevertheless changed. And they’ve changed across the sector and around the world, with consistent themes emerging around customer usage patterns.

I’ll...

There’s no one thing that will fix your member retention, but clarity of mission, a strong culture and an eye for data will drive significant change. Kate Cracknell reports from the 2019 Retention Convention

“The fitness industry today is a place of blurred lines between a proliferation of business models,” said Dr Paul Bedford at last month’s Retention Convention. “Before you can define your customer experience, or create your customer journeys, you need to define who you are.”

Bedford was speaking at his fifth annual Retention Convention – this year sponsored by Precor, The Retention People, DFC, Coach AI and Willmott Dixon – which saw a series of high-performing operators sharing their retention best practice.

Bedford’s message: Be absolutely clear about who you are and who you’re targeting, and build a company culture that reinforces this at every touchpoint. Only then will you be in a position to deliver the...

Nike have announced they are to open the first of a series of studios later this year.

We have already seen Hermes, H&M, alo, Resolve and Aviator Nation deliver concept studios both as an addition to their brand offering or as pop-up location to grab media attention.

Nike will launch with two Californian locations the first will both be Nike Training Studios (NTS) with Nike Running Studios (NRS) to follow.

I will be keen to see if this is truly an attempt to enter the fitness studio market or a marketing project to create content for use across platforms. It will certainly attract the one and done influencers and the fitness tourists who will want to post their views of the studios, to their social media following, but have no intention of becoming a regular visitor. I would imaging mainstream media will also jump at the chance to feature this extension of the Nike brand.

Now while the marketing is suggesting all-inclusive the images representing the participants is very much...

How To Create and Implement Minimum Service Standards in a Health Club

In order to have a successful Health Club you need to deliver a standard service to all of your members. Creating and implementing Health Club minimum service standards lets your employees know what you're expecting of them and helps gain loyal members. In this article, we explain what Health Club minimum service standards are and why they're important, list the steps for creating and implementing Health Club minimum service standards and provide you with several examples. Don’t let the term minimum lead you to thinking low service standards. Here the term minimum is a level that service will not fall below. Hotels like Ritz Carlton and the Four Seasons have minimum service standards that are higher than most of their competitors’ best efforts.

What are Health Club minimum service standards?

Health Club minimum service standards define what a Health Club guest or member can expect from their...

Introduction by Luke Carson - Discover Strength 

Retention Convention is all about teaching you how to create memorable and meaningful experiences for your clients so they keep coming back for more.

www.retentionguru.com/register2021