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I teach marketing to gym owners. I teach sales. I write books about them. But the real key to success in the fitness business is retention. Here’s how to program for maximal client retention, according to the data:
At BBT Fitness, we know how important it is to help deliver a consistent experience training experience every time you come to BBT Fitness! Here is what you can expect from the BBT Coaching staff ensure your maximal training experience.
Deliver a new workout every day. This is good for adherence. Read the difference between adherence and retention here. You’re probably already doing this one. Good start!
Deliver a new training session (workout) every day!) At BBT Fitness we know it's important that you stay committed to training. Thats why we make sure we deliver a new training session everyday.Knowing that everyday will be different is a great way to help adhere to the BBT Training program!
Customize every workout for each client. That doesn’t mean changing the program. It doesn’t mean “scaling” or using “Rx weights”. It means telling the client “Here’s how this workout will help you with your goals. Read: Customization vs Personalization
We Customize every workout for each member. At BBT Fitness, we understand that every member is different with different abilities and goals! That is why we customize every training session to the individual. Now customizing DOES NOT mean changing the training program for every person but rather helping our training programs fit the member training programsadd answer the million dollar question, “Here’s how this workout will help you with your fitness goals."
Teach your coaches how to customize the workouts. Use avatars to describe the benefit of your programming instead of its features. Benefits: weight loss, aerobic capacity Features: 400m run, thrusters, pullups. This is hard for a lot of coaches to grasp. So at Two-Brain Programming, we break every workout down for the 3 primary avatars at your gym, and give those instructions to your coaches every day
Coaches help you understand and apply yourself to get the most out of each workout!. One of the reason why our members choose BBT Is for the our coaching staff ability to educate members on how to reach their training goals through our coaching program. One way we do this is through our training notes our coaching program software. Use avatars to describe the benefit of your programming instead of its features. Example: For greater power emphasis, focus on the controlling the weight more with a slower tempo Benefits: Greater Muscle Development, increased difficulty And while we understand that this may be hard for many people to understand, that is why we provide session gameplans for members during the team huddle at BBT Fitness where coaches give all members instructions everyday during the training session.
Measure progress. Do Goal Reviews every quarter. Show the client how well they’re doing. Prove that your program is working. Make a different prescription if they need it. And if your whole gym is weak in one area, change your programming.
Measure progress. At BBT Fitness, we review your goals ! As a training department, we know that progress seen is progress accomplished! That is why we focus on showing our members consistent progress in their training program through the "BBT Success System" ! This allows us as a coaching staff to prove that the training program is working, make different prescriptions as needed and in some cases, even adjust programming going forward! That is just how committed we are to you!
Make your workouts feel like a game. CrossFit gyms are good at this. Barrys Bootcamp gyms are good at this. Most gyms are not. Games need rules and opponents. Show each client their personal best score on the workout before you start. Show them how to “win”. And then bring on the cheerleaders!
Make your workouts feel like a game. While we know that you may never love actually training, BBT Fitness speiclzies in making the training sessions feel like a game. From the incorporation of myzones heart rate monitors inside training sessions to using our training apps to show members their training PR's, at BBT we know how to help you make fitness fun! By showing our member your personal best scores on the training sessions before you start, we are able to show you how to "win". And when you "win", then we can begin the celebrations!
Measure client progress with recurring “tests”. For example, early CrossFit programming featured a lot of named workouts–like “Fran”, “Cindy”, or “Diane”. When was the last time you programmed a named workout like these?
Measure BBT Member's progress with recurring “tests”. At BBT Fitness we believe it is important to always test yourself! And while we aren't talking about you high school geography test that you never studied for (P.S. we didn't either!), by consistently testing our members, we are able to show a consistent pattern of success! You can always plan on BBT Testing Week at end of the month to showcase your abilities to yourself!
Host special events. We do “Murph” on December 26; we have a powerlifting meet in December; we do the Intramural Open in March. Hosting bigger challenges 3-4x per year will boost retention especially through slower months, like August. You have to walk a fine line with these; if the competition feels “elite”, you’ll turn people away. If the goal is to finish, you’ll scare people into sticking with their training.
We Host Special Events.
Keep your class size from 7-12. There’s good data on this for the first time. While adherence and retention is highest with 1:1 training, classes with 7-12 people are second-best. At the 13th person, retention drops. And with fewer than 7, retention numbers are also less (plus you might be losing money on that class anyway.)
We Manage Training Session Sizes. We know that attention matters when it comes to training, that's why we keep training teams. What does that mean, your training training team will.