Life Cycle of a Member - Part 1
ARE YOU CONSIDERING THE LIFECYCLE OF A MEMBER?
The Abs Company founders have a combined 40+ years of experience in the fitness business as personal trainers, health club owners and exercise product developers. Our experience has helped us to see how a typical health club member or personal training client changes over time as they use our services and gain better health. We call it the “life cycle of a member,” and we believe it is important to keep this concept in mind when building or designing a gym or personal fitness studio, and especially when purchasing exercise equipment. We will explain this concept over a series of blog posts, and this is part 1 of the series.
As fitness professionals, we love to work out. We love going into a new club for the first time and seeing what they have to offer. We love attending industry events to check out the latest offerings, and we’re guessing by the fact that you’re reading this blog that you feel the same way! We are fitness geeks and we love it.
Unfortunately, most of your members and prospects do not feel the same way. Sure there are the hard-core fitness enthusiasts that share our passion -- the passion of a committed professional -- but many of your members are stepping into your club for the first time in a long time - or ever! What are they feeling? What are they looking for? How often do you stop and think about their experience and what it is like for them when they arrive at your club? As an experienced fitness professional, sometimes it’s not easy to remember what it’s like to be a beginner. But it is important to try to recapture this feeling so that we can better understand what our clients and customers are going through when they come to our facility.
Most likely these members are nervous, intimidated, or feeling uncomfortable. They are probably unfamiliar with fitness and training. It might be hard for us to understand this kind of cautious feeling, because we love fitness so much. But surely everyone knows how it feels to be in an uncomfortable situation. It’s something you tend to avoid, and you are not enthused about repeating it!
These are very real feelings and when it comes to our appearance or physical ability, these feelings tend to become magnified. It’s personal, not business. And when it’s personal, it becomes emotional. It’s no wonder that the majority of people don’t exercise and certainly no surprise that over 50% of those who do start, tend to quit in under 6 months.
If we can get new members to overcome the problems that so many of them face when first joining a club or studio, we are sure these dismal statistics can be reversed. Our goal is to keep members coming back for more, and to find continuous success and good health by using our services. More on how to do this in our next blog post - Stay tuned!