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...

Introduction by Luke Carson - Discover Strength 

The blog was originally written for the Fitness Business Podcast. If you would like to read it in its original location click on the link at the bottom of this page.

While most people today know me more for work on retention, attrition and member loyalty, the first half of my career was as a fitness instructor, a personal trainer and a trainer of trainers. Much of this time was focused on anatomy, physiology, kinesiology and exercise program design. I thought I was pretty good at exercise program design but I could never understand why customers and clients wouldn’t stick to these programs that I had crafted for them, and that’s why I began to study psychology.

Two masters degrees, numerous short courses, workshops and a PhD later I am still just a focused on improving exercise adherence and retention.

Much of what I have been reading in the past two years has been in the area of experience design. My rational is if members have a better experience they stay...

What’s the best way to build confidence amongst members when it comes to reopening the doors of your club? How can you communicate rules relating to Covid-19 and ensure they are followed by all?

There's an increasing amount of speculation and information about the process of reopening gyms, but very little so far to do with training staff on how to cope and deal with reopening when it comes to the actual member experience.

Visual prompts to guide members

One of the things to be aware of, is that we often take our cues from visual prompts. When we see a red traffic light, we know it’s a signal to stop, but the traffic light doesn't actually stop us. It's just a signal.

When it comes to reopening gyms, we can use visual prompts to help our customers behave the way we need them to behave at this time.

Visual prompts need to be both before, during, and after their visit. Adam Zeittsiff's team at Gold's in the US are preparing to open some of their clubs and have...

Each week I get contacted by suppliers who have developed products that claim to improve retention. Some are existing companies and others are start ups. So I have decided to review them and publish those reviews. This is the first is with Shai from CoachAi. I discus the product, how clients are using CoachAi and the result they are getting. I summarise and give my evaluation a the end. 

You can also download the one year case study hear.  https://www.coachai.com/pub/coachai-one-year-case-study-2019.pdf 

Considering the current situation globally I decided to make a short video for my clients to help them understand what they need to do to retain customers at this time. It ended up being a little long than I had planned (14 mins), but in it I describe the three phases of change that need to be managed. 

These are the phases you need to manage as a health club operator 

1. Reduce Exercise Phase
2. Isolation Phase 
3. Returning Phase. 

As this week progresses I am sure I will have more ideas about what operators can do and will update within our lunchtime lesson posts on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

If you have any questions email me at [email protected] 

Please share the video 

If you are not comfortable sending people to this website to watch the video you can download the video from Vimeo and embed it somewhere you feel more comfortable. 

https://vimeo.com/397627889 

Paul Bedford PhD

Retention Guru Ltd

+44 (0) 7956 311 899 ...

No staff who sit on treadmills while clients workout are NOT what I am looking for in staff. Our research has shown that staff to member interaction has been hugely effective at increasing member retention. One of the characteristics of clubs who retain their members for longest, is the staff they hire.

The most effective clubs hire employees with specific traits and characteristics that will enhance the business. Hiring the ideal member of staff is not just about who is the most knowledgeable because information, technique, and systems can be taught. Recognising the best qualities of an ideal candidate is important in order to determine who will work best with other members of staff, who is most apt, and who will also become a strong asset. Assuming that our fitness staff have an appropriate qualification to do their job the following 10 items become the essential criteria for recurring staff that can assist in the development of a member and increase retention.

Here are 10...