If you have worked in the fitness industry for a while, the main themes of each January can start to blend together.
An influx of sign-ups, a spike in enthusiasm, weeks of packed classes and occupied equipment, all with the quiet awareness that for many of these new members, motivation will fade and many will stop returning to your facility.
If you are a gym or fitness club owner, you don’t just know the statistics, you’ve watched it unfold.
We have witnessed the January flood turn into a March trickle. It is easy to write it off as just an inevitability beyond our control.
But what if we are looking at this all wrong? What if the real challenge that January brings isn’t about the fading willpower of the January Joiners, but about the systems we, as gym and fitness club owners have in place to mitigate that waning motivation?
The truth is, motivation is a fickle thing. It can get a member through the door, but it isn’t discipline. Once it is gone, the desire not to return will invariably grow stronger.
So what can we as an industry do to help as many January Joiners beat the trend and turn their New Year Resolution into a habit. Let’s take a look.
The Easy Part and the Hard Part
Every new member who walks through your door in January made a decision. After the turmoil and disruption that December and the holidays bring, they made the decision that January was going to be different.
It is an admirable decision, but as we all know it is easy to say that January will be different. And it is only slightly harder to click the buttons or tap the screen in order to sign-up for a gym membership.
Turning up every day though? Getting out of bed two hours earlier, or getting home two hours later after work? That is much harder, especially during a time period with diminished daylight. Some people need more than just that initial spark of discontent for motivation, they need systems, support, and structure.
This is the shift in thinking that needs to occur. The question stops being “How do we keep members motivated?” and becomes “How do we make continuous up as easy and painless a decision as it can be?”. It’s about removing friction wherever reasonable. A check-in process that takes seconds not minutes, a class booking system that’s intuitive and reliable, an environment and community they look forward to returning to.
These might seem like small details on an operational level, but to the fragile morale of a January Joiner it can make all the difference.
Structure
If you asked ten members why they’d choose gyms and fitness clubs over their home to workout, you’d get 11 different answers. From better equipment to the community to the expertise, there are many reasons. But one that is frequently overlooked is the sense of structure that gyms and fitness clubs provide.
Home workouts are prone to being either aimless, easily interrupted or both. The Gym is a sanctuary for many, a third place that is separate from their work and home. It is also full of many more options than their home or a park could ever offer.
Whether the member is aware of it or not, your gym is offering routine and structure. Make sure that your contribution to the structure of their day is as pleasant and frictionless as possible and watch that January retention rate rise.
A Seamless Start: A member’s routine starts before they ever enter the doors to your facility. When they made that New Year’s Resolution, they imagined pumping iron, not standing in a queue. Ask the following questions
- Is accessing your facility a smooth process?
- Is the car park well maintained?
- Is the front desk or reception area a pleasant place to be?
- Is the first interaction with your staff or your systems a positive one?
Access controls, customer facilities and check-in procedures aren’t just about security. If your January Joiner is dreading the strange and anxiety inducing journey into your facility, they might not last long.
An Endearing Environment: We have said it many times before on this blog and we are about to say it again, your staff are vital to the feel of your facility.
If they are busy putting out front desk fires and battling software bugs, they aren’t going to be creating or contributing to the sort of atmosphere that is going to make our theoretical January Joiner return.
Never underestimate the power of a friendly chat, a remembered name or preference, or a bit of encouragement. These are the small touches that will help your members push on during the cold winter months. They make a member feel seen, and we are all far more likely to return to places where we feel we belong.
- Is accessing your facility a smooth process?
- Is the car park well maintained?
- Is the front desk or reception area a pleasant place to be?
- Is the first interaction with your staff or your systems a positive one?
Access controls, customer facilities and check-in procedures aren’t just about security. If your January Joiner is dreading the strange and anxiety inducing journey into your facility, they might not last long.
Support
Providing support without it costing the earth in man-hours can feel daunting, but it doesn’t have to.
Insight
Business Intelligence (BI) dashboards aren’t just for tracking revenue, they allow a window into the conduct of your members. Are your new January joiners actually attending? Which classes are they going to? Which classes do they keep coming back to? What time do they typically visit?
This is the sort of data that lets a gym owner move from relying on intuition and feedback to knowing the full picture.
From there, you and your team can start to tailor your support, nudge members who are fading, and celebrate those who are building momentum. It allows you to be proactive in supporting routine formation, rather than reactive to dropout.
Recently Ashbourne has made this easier still on our own membership management system, introducing a flag mechanic that identifies at-risk members automatically, perfect for managing the flagging morale of the January influx.
- Is accessing your facility a smooth process?
- Is the car park well maintained?
- Is the front desk or reception area a pleasant place to be?
- Is the first interaction with your staff or your systems a positive one?
Access controls, customer facilities and check-in procedures aren’t just about security. If your January Joiner is dreading the strange and anxiety inducing journey into your facility, they might not last long.
Community: Hell is other people. Heaven is each other.
Some newcomers to a gym can be daunted by the prospect of a facility full of people, all moving around and making odd noises. But once your member gets to know those people? Well then suddenly that is a community. As gym owners, the challenge is making that leap from ‘other people’ to ‘each other’ as seamless as possible.
Luckily we have tools in our arsenal, from events and social areas to classes. Encourage your January members to engage with classes and try to arrange those classes in such a way that they will meet similar members. Encourage them to share their stories with staff and one another and, if they consent, make sure those stories make it to a social media channel that they can all connect over.
With a little effort and even less cost, you can start to knit together these individual January Joiners into a community they won’t be keen to abandon.
Systems
Our goal in reframing January as a challenge isn’t about shame, but empowerment. We want to try and change the focus of the narrative from the uncontrollable (a member’s fluctuating willpower) to the controllable (the environment, processes, and support you provide).
It’s about building a club that works so smoothly in the background that the member’s only concern is to show up and do their best. Not about judgmental stares, long queues or malfunctioning turnstiles.
There will always be member attrition of course, especially among January Joiners. But there is still a great opportunity to start the year right and increase that retention rate. That opportunity lies in the quiet day-to-day, business-as-usual operations of your club. The one where, if you’ve done a good job, members will hardly think of them at all. The reliable scan of a fingerprint for entry, the effortless class booking, the staff member who has the time to smile, and the data that helps you support those members
Because motivation can be a fragile thing, but habits, a supportive environment and good service? Those can last well beyond spring.
