It’s never a popular time to suggest taking a cut in income, especially right now, during what most believe is a recession. But, here goes. I strongly believe that for fitness center operators to keep as many of their members as possible — especially those who lack the knowledge and the motivation to succeed in their health and fitness goals — fitness instruction (a.k.a., personal training) needs to be included in the membership price.
There are two compelling arguments for this. First, in an industry trade show seminar about selling personal training, the speaker, a facility owner, said, “Most of your members know they don’t know how to get real benefits from exercise, and those who think they know, don’t know either.” The point was that most members need personal training to succeed. However, since the majority of members don’t pay for personal training, mostly because they can’t afford it, they’re not reaping the fitness benefits of their membership. Typically, that means that they don’t stay members.
There is a strong perception by the public that fitness centers and their staff simply don’t care about them. All they care about is selling them the membership, and then the member is forgotten. In the majority of cases (no, not all), this really is the truth. But, as Carl Liebert, CEO of 24 Hour Fitness, said in an industry trade show panel discussion titled “Fitness Business at a Crossroads,” the fitness industry’s membership numbers are never going to change until we earn the public’s trust: “It’s about earning people’s business; giving first, and then receiving.” It just seems logical to me that if we can show members that exercise really does work if they do it correctly, they will reward us by staying members and recruiting others.
Second, if you Google “free personal training” on the Internet, 27 million results turn up. Not all of these results actually offer free personal training, but a lot of them do. Free online fitness programming is exploding. How, then, when pinching pennies is a necessity for most people, are fitness center operators going to compete with that if they don’t offer something comparable? The online freebies may not be as good as the hands-on personal training you would get at an actual fitness facility, but tell that to the cash-strapped consumer, especially since it’s free.
There are fitness centers that have set the example for how offering free exercise instruction works. And, it’s paid off for them. A couple of these include two Anytime Fitness centers: one in Wabasha, Minn., and the other in Lake City, Minn, and West Virginia University Recreation Center.
Maybe this isn’t such a popular suggestion right now, but maybe it’s one solution that may get our industry through some tough economic times, and, in the long run, it may be one of the solutions to altering public perception.
2 comments:
Interesting idea. One of my concerns is how do we pay our trainers a decent rate for their services that allow them to be looked at as experts in their field. What about the idea of offering small group training sessions of 2-4 people max. This allows the members to still see and feel the results that fitness offers while allowing the trainers to maintain being seen as the specialists that they are. Just a thought.
Sincerly in Balanced Health,
Glenn Stark/Fitness Director
Bay Tennis & Fitness
www.baytennisandfitness.com
gstark@baytennisandfitness.com
Group training sessions have been very popular as of late, and I think they're a great way to bring down the cost of personal training to members. But, that still doesn't solve the issue of helping our members achieve real results without having to shell out additional dollars.
I'm not sure that personal trainers can't still be perceived as the experts in their field, just because they aren't getting additional pay for their services from the members themselves. It would certainly be up to the facility owner/manager to ensure that the trainers are adequately compensated, and that the trainers credentials are well-advertised. I guess that's where we need to weigh the issue of whether offering personal training as part of the membership dues price is worth the payoff in satisfied members who remain members and who bring in other loyal members, as well. In the end, if you have this, the expense of replacing members might be offset by the expense of paying personal trainers out of the club's pocket vs. out of the members' pockets.
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