"It’s like giving the keys to a Bentley to someone who hasn't got a driving license.”

So goes Retention Guru Dr Paul Bedford’s analogy illustrating where health clubs fall short when welcoming new members.

“We've significantly improved the quality of almost everything over the last 20 years and have some beautiful facilities to showcase, but we’re seriously lacking when it comes to onboarding,” he adds. “Doing onboarding well doesn’t need to be daunting and it can make a massive difference to the bottom line.”

Strong sales in January – the most important month in the club calendar – can set operators up for a stellar year, but as Bedford says, once a sale is complete and that member starts hitting the gym, many operators lack a solid strategy to aid their success. This is incredible considering acquiring a new customer can cost five to seven times more than retaining a current one (Source: Forbes).

The hard facts
HFA/IHRSA figures suggest half of new joiners leave their facility within the first six months and 52 per cent of all cancellations are silent (Xplor/Active Insight) – meaning members stopped an upcoming payment without prior notice, or quit the gym without sharing a reason.

So how can clubs protect the revenue from their hard-earned sales and avoid being ghosted by new members? New research from the Les Mills Lab, in conjunction with Iowa State University, has identified positive touchpoints in the member journey – some of which happen before people even set foot in the gym – and once those critical habits are baked in, the results can be transformational (www.hcmmag.com/touchpoints).

The study saw 1,134 people – all new to exercise – split into eight groups. Each group was assigned a set of interventions, including goal-setting, motivational support, a ‘preparation habit’, and an ‘instigation habit’ to assess which combination of intervention had the greatest impact on retention.

At the end of the trial period, researchers found the group assigned preparation and instigation habits, along with goal setting, had the strongest adherence to exercise, achieving 200 per cent greater attendance than the group that had no interventions and 29 per cent more than the group that only did goal setting.

Preparation and instigation
So what’s the key to developing strong preparation and instigation habits and how can you help members adopt them?

Preparation is defined as an event regularly preceded by a consistent environmental or behavioural cue. For example, members might have time to pack their gym bag every evening after dinner, so “finishing dinner” becomes the cue to trigger a habit of preparing their bag, thereby starting the process of committing to exercise the following day.

When preparation is coupled with instigation, exercise adherence becomes even stronger.

The rule of instigation comes into play when we appreciate that we're better at starting and maintaining a new behaviour if we partner it with an existing one.

In practical terms, this means asking members to think about their daily schedules to identify good opportunities to exercise that are regularly preceded by another routine or behaviour and occur on at least 3-5 days of the week.

For example, they might have time to exercise every day if they’re always in the same place before lunch. That place can be set up to be the trigger for exercise instigation – prompting the decision to go and exercise.

Bryce Hastings, head of research at Les Mills, notes that when both preparation and instigation habits are introduced, it makes it much easier for people to stick with exercise in the early stages of their journey.

However, he adds that understanding the value of establishing preparation and instigation habits is just part of the equation. "The research shows what's most important is taking action to bring these habits to life,” says Hastings.

“This means planning and noting down preparation and instigation intentions, thinking about what you might do to overcome obstacles or barriers, and visualising what success looks like.

“Adding these strategies to the setting of clear, adaptable goals and selecting exercise programmes members enjoy, significantly increases the chances of them establishing new exercise habits.”

What do these findings mean for operators?
As we head into high season, millions of consumers around the world will join health clubs in the hope of embedding a new fitness habit and a huge number will fail.

Insights from the Global Fitness Report, published in 2021, show the majority of new gymgoers don’t set out with a plan and lack a clear, achievable goal for their first six weeks of membership, meaning many routines fail to last more than three to six months. Only 38 per cent of beginners are motivated to stick to an exercise plan. What’s more alarming is that less than 23 per cent of beginners consistently see exercise as a positive experience and 70 per cent of these members don’t enjoy being challenged.

The majority of those who quit their memberships do so due to lack of guidance and induction and 51 per cent of new-to-fitness members said they experience a lack of social support (Global Fitness Report 2021).

“Without social support, the only thing keeping new members coming back is willpower and that often isn't enough”, notes Dr Alison Phillips, professor of psychology at Iowa State University, who co-led the study.

“If you're relying on motivation to stick with a behaviour, it will be problematic because motivation changes, our goals change, and life gets in the way,” she says. “This is why habits are so important: they become automatic and happen whether you want them to or not.

“Habits are easy to enact once you have them, but they’re not easy to form. Establishing an exercise habit doesn’t come quickly or easily – you have to do something long enough and consistently enough to form a habit.”

So as January edges closer, here are five crucial steps health club operators can take to help members build unbreakable habits…