Mike (00:02):
Some of your clients stopped using the shake weight after 10 minutes and those workout DVDs, they’re coffee table coasters now. The gym down the road, they’ve been there. They’ve done that. And they quit. Fitness is a fickle business. So how do you keep clients for years? Kevin Wood’s length of engagement is 4.5 years. He’ll share his secrets with you right after this.
Mike (00:57):
This is Two-Brain Radio. I’m Mike Warkentin and Kevin Wood of CrossFit Moncton is here today. He keeps members an average of 4.5 years. That’s an eternity in the fitness industry. We call this stat length of engagement or LEG. Kevin was one of Two-Brain’s LEG leaders in August of this year. Two-Brain founder Chris Cooper has reported that average retention is now just 7.8 months in gyms. Kevin’s crushing that. All right, Kevin, are you ready to share your length of engagement secrets?
Kevin (01:24):
Yeah, I don’t know how much secrets I have, but I’ll give you everything I got.
Mike (01:29):
Well, I can tell you, you beat my length of engagement when I had a physical location. So you know more than I do. So I’ve got a ton of questions for you and I guarantee the answers are gonna help our listeners. The first one is a simple one for some people, but it’s not so simple for others.
Mike (01:43):
How do you actually calculate length of engagement? Like, are you using software or something you developed? Like how can people get this number? Because a lot of people don’t have it.
Kevin (01:51):
So I’ve been with Two-Brain just over a year now. And when I first started, they had what’s called the big sheet and it was just metrics that we had to fill in every month. And so I still go back to that because that’s how I was taught, how to figure out our length of engagement. So I just copy and paste. I go into, we use Zen Planner as our membership software. I go in and just every month, copy and paste everybody and their start date, put it into the big sheet. It populates the number of months that they’ve been a member. I adjust the current date. And then I take the average and that’s my monthly LEG score.
Mike (02:33):
Now I use ZenPlanner actually at my gym as well. And it’s not super easy or possible to get length of engagement from that software. There are other software providers that are working with Two-Brain to make this easier for gym owners to find, because again, you’ve got a process figured out where you’re transferring things from, you know, to a sheet and so forth. It’d be great to click a button, wouldn’t it, just to see it.
Kevin (02:53):
And I’ve actually looked at that. I really like the way Arbox has presented themselves as kind of Two-Brain Two-Brain friendly. So, I’m tempted to look into their demos and see how they do—ZenPlanner hasn’t been too great to us with all their downtime recently.
Mike (03:12):
Yeah. I’ve heard that and Wodify is another one that has a Two-Brain dashboard with key metrics that Two-Brain is looking for, length of engagement is on there. So if people are looking for different systems, those are two to check out. Let’s go on from there. So do you recall your first LEG score? Like, did you check it a year ago? Like I know you’ve been in business for first of all, tell people how long you’ve been in business. Then tell me when you started tracking LEG. And if you remember what it was when you started, let’s have that number too.
Kevin (03:39):
Yeah. So, I’ve owned CrossFit Moncton now for 12 and a half years. Doing CrossFit myself for, geez, it’s going to be almost 15 years now. That’s crazy. I can’t believe it. So I’ve been around for a while. I only started tracking the length of engagement when I started with Two-Brain. So about a year ago, I think it was July of last year and it hovered around 50 to 52 for months. And now it’s kind of averaging 53 to 54 months.
Mike (04:10):
- So that’s creeping up and I gotta ask you this, like as a CrossFit affiliate, you probably, you must be in like double digits, if not, almost single at this point, I’m guessing.
Kevin (04:18):
In relation to?
Mike (04:20):
Your affiliate number, you’ve got to be very low if you’ve been around for that long.
Kevin (04:24):
Oh, I don’t know. I honestly have no idea. I know that we’re the longest running gym in the Maritimes. I’m not sure now.
Mike (04:32):
Yeah. You know, you’re old school one way or the other, so that’s cool. And what is really interesting to me is that your length of engagement was really high even before starting Two-Brain because we teach a lot of principles for how people can drive that up. But it’s pretty clear that you had some of those figured out, which is really interesting. So I’m really curious to see what kind of stuff you’ve got for us. So let’s talk about some of the things you’ve done to improve, like whether it was before you start with Two-Brain or after, and in fact, let’s start before, were there any things that you did specifically or was it just kind of a function of you being a great coach and a great gym?
Kevin (05:08):
Yeah, so I think a lot of, well, the majority of it has to do with the fact that we’ve been an affiliate for that long. And so our LEG goes up as we age, right? Like we’re 12 and a half years into it. We have members that have been with us still since day one. So we have 12 and a half year members that are part of the gym. So obviously they really help drive our number up. And then, previous to our call here, I actually, I’ve never ran these numbers, but I wanted to see, so we have 23 members currently that have over a thousand classes and two that are almost at 2000 classes. Then I ran some numbers for who has 500 or more classes and 58 of our members do. So that’s about 37% of our entire membership have been here for 500 or more classes, which is roughly the average length of time it takes for like four and a half years to get to 500 classes.
Mike (06:07):
Wow. Those are some incredible numbers. So I guess the first thing that you can say, and this is kind of an extrapolation, but if you want a high length of engagement, your business has to survive long enough for you to acquire long-term members. And then the second obvious thing is that you have to keep members and the most obvious part of that is that you can’t be crappy as a coach and as a gym. Right?
Kevin (06:27):
Correct. Yeah. So, you know, specifics, I dunno, we do a lot of celebration of individuals we’ll call it. So we celebrate milestones along the way, when they reached 500, we give them their 500 shirt. So they get a t-shirt, you can’t buy it. They have to earn it. Once they’ve reached their 500 class, we do a big presentation in front of the class and they get their shirt and then they wear it with pride. They’ll wear it out or they’re wear it in the gym. Right. Then we started getting people into the thousands. We’re like, OK, we gotta do something really big here now. So we have a thousand club banner that we put up in the gym and we have an entire wall and it kinda went back to the old CrossFit Games athlete banners that they would have, it would have the name and then the athlete number, whatever lane they were in. So we have their name, our little logo in the middle, and then 1000 on the other side and we have an entire wall. So right now we have 23 names up on the wall and that wall is filling up pretty quick. We have two more members that will be added to that wall within the next month or so.
Mike (07:39):
So this is like, kind of the video game thing where you’re adding quote unquote badges and awards and loot and so forth, right? So you’re putting your members on podiums, you’re showcasing their accomplishments. You’re publicly, you know, saying these guys are great they’re leaders in the community and so forth. So that’s definitely something that Two-Brain has definitely talked about is really celebrating your members. Talk to me about, I’m gonna ask you a specific question here, cause I’m curious, what it is. Tell me about your intake process. And do you think that contributes to your length of engagement?
Kevin (08:09):
It’s funny, you asked that, that’s something we’re actually in the process of figuring out. So I wanted to run some demographics on our 500 plus members and figure out who is it that’s sticking around the longest. And so I wrote down all the things that I want to track and I just put my own guesses beside it. So I want to track age, I think our average age for the 500 plus members would be about 40, gender, mostly female, married, I’m guessing about 70% are married. A few of them have a spouse or family member in the gym. All are employed, but mostly would probably be office workers. And then the last question was how they were onboarded. And that’s something that we haven’t really tracked specifically, but something that I’m going to be looking into to see which has been the best way of bringing people in and retaining them for that length of time.
Kevin (09:06):
So back in the day, when we first started, we did that free intro where they came in and they did the baseline workout. Some people would throw up, some people would stay and some wouldn’t. So that was back when I didn’t really know much. We’ve since moved away from that. And now we do no sweat intros, super successful. Like our close rate is 90% or higher for most months. So we’re pretty happy with the way that process is going now. But then from there we used to have, we currently do private sessions. We call them our fundamentals, where they come in, one-on-one with a coach and they go through the level method. And then we used to offer what was called a prep course. And it was more like a group fundamentals that would last eight sessions over four weeks. So I’m not sure the retention rate comparing those two, whether that group training retained more or whether it was that private fundamentals that retained more.
Mike (10:08):
So if I were to characterize it, though, I would say your intake process tends toward more toward robust than accelerated. Would you agree with me?
Kevin (10:18):
I would say that.
Mike (10:19):
Yeah. Yeah. And that’s something that Chris has kind of talked about. Chris Cooper, the Two-Brain founder, we’re seeing that longer onboarding processes and more personalized onboarding. And that’s, you’re talking about the no sweat intros, that seems to do a whole lot better than just dumping people into a group class or the old school free trial. It’s that personalized connection, helping people get into it. And Brian Zimmerman in our archives, Brian Zimmerman talks about his intake process. He’s got a very, very intricate, you know, lengthy, very carefully managed intake process. He’s got good length of engagement. He’s got an average revenue per member. I think it’s close to, if not over $300. And he does a very, yeah, crazy, right? So he’s got a very specific intake process and he is 100% convinced and his data backs him up that his intake process is the key to his average revenue per member. And we’re seeing that it’s also key to length of engagement. So what you’re talking about here syncs up, right with what Brian said.
Kevin (11:18):
For sure. Yeah. So it’s the kind of things that we’ve always done and I’m never satisfied with the status quo. Like that’s what we’ve been doing, but it’s not what we just want to keep doing. We always want to do more. So you may ask me later, but what can gym owners do right now to kind of put something into practice? And my first thing, and I just did this recently was to find the leaks, where are people leaving your gym, at what point in time? And what we found is that people are leaving somewhere around that 30 to 50 day mark. That’s kind of when people start to drop off. So we’re trying to figure out how can we make it so that those people stick around longer? What can we use as a carrot or as motivation for them to keep coming past that 30 to 50 day mark.
Mike (12:15):
So for people that are listening, what Kevin is talking about here is essentially he’s analyzing his client journey. He’s figuring out why people come to his gym, what makes them sign up? And then what their process, their arc is through his gym, right? So some people are staying for 12 years. Some people are leaving after 30 to 50 days, he’s going to find the leaks or the weak links in the chain and then put some stuff in place to rectify. And one of the things that gym owners have done in other cases is putting in, say a goal review session at the 90 day mark, after three months, if they find they have a leak there, they might put in a goal review session where you meet with a client, refocus, readjust a prescription. Talk to me about what you’re thinking about. And if you’re still in the process, just, you know, give me some ideas of what you’re thinking about. What is going to happen at that 30 to 50 day mark to help you stop that leak?
Kevin (13:03):
Exactly what you just said. I’ve been talking with my mentor. That was my goal for the last month was to include more goal reviews. We obviously got shut down and we couldn’t have people into the gym, but yeah, I have some booked for next week already, so I’ll get that ball rolling again. I’m a visual guy. I like things written on paper or on whiteboards. Like I need to see things. So we actually have a whiteboard in the office and myself and the CSM see it every day. And every member that walks through the door, we write their name down and then we check them off as they’re going through their client journey. So it’s a giant board filled with check marks. So we can see when they started, where they are in the journey. If they’re at class one, five, 1530, and if they’re lagging behind with other people that started around that same time, then it’s time to reach out to them and say, Hey, what’s going on? How can we help? What can we do to help you get in more often? Or if you can’t make it in more often, is there something else we can do to help you? Maybe it’s nutrition, maybe it’s whatever it is, right? The solutions are as vast as there are members here.
Mike (14:15):
So if you were to just, I’ll put you on the spot here and ask you for it, what does your gut say about why people leave in that 30 to 50 day mark? What do you think it is?
Kevin (14:25):
I think it’s the, I’ll say the difference between the people that leave and the people that stay is the people that stay feel like they fit in. And I don’t know how to fix that yet, where we can make everybody feel like they’re fitting in. So we’re doing small things. We actually have a lot of international members here coming from all over the world. Just this morning we made a giant wall filled with all of the flags from all the countries that these people come from. And we’re going to do a little promo video with that one. I have one of our members kind of, she gave us a good testimonial, not too long ago. So we’re going to have her read part of that and then have a picture of everybody holding their flag up while she’s talking over that slide show.
Kevin (15:16):
So it’s things like that. We want people to feel like this is not just a gym. This is a family. We take care of each other. We truly care about our members and there’s a difference between caring about your business and caring about the individuals that come to your business. So I had a meeting not long ago with a member that kind of fell off the wagon. And I said, look, just come in. I just want to talk to you. I just want to have a little chat. He goes fine. I’ll come in. So we came in, he thought it would be like a little 10 minute chat or whatever. We were here for an hour. Like I could have been home having supper with my family. I didn’t have anything plan that night, but I said, I’m going to meet with you after work.
Kevin (15:57):
And he said, why do you do this? Why are we doing this? I said, because I actually care about you, man. Like, I want you to be successful and I will do whatever it takes to make sure that that happens. And he started crying. A 50-year-old man sitting in my office, crying, bawling, like a little girl, right. It just, it hit him that we actually care about him and he doesn’t get that elsewhere. Right. You don’t get that at work. You don’t get that at school. You might not even get that at home. But when you get that here, it’s something different.
Mike (16:32):
Wow, dude, that is a great story. And that really brings forth, you know, something that like, you can run all the metrics in the world and you can do all the spreadsheets and do all the tracking. But what it really comes down to is client care. Right. And that’s to say you shouldn’t track those metrics or you shouldn’t have those spreadsheets, but if you don’t actually care about the individuals you’re tracking and if they’re just data on a sheet, they’re going to sense that. Right. So like your personal connection with that guy and him breaking into tears and, you know, basically feeling the love. I imagine that that has a huge effect on retention, even though it might not show up on a spreadsheet until later.
Kevin (17:07):
He came back the next day, right before we closed down. But he was there almost every day since, since that meeting.
Mike (17:15):
Oh, you know what I used to do, and this is just like, this was just like a, you call it a sniper effect. Right. I would just like, if I knew a member was flagging, I would put their picture up on a daily workout post. And inevitably that person would see the picture and know that they had to come to the workout. Cause they were the showcase person.
Kevin (17:31):
Yep. Yep. We’ve used that before. We’ve actually put their faces on milk cartons and posted those. Have you seen Justin? Oh yeah, there he is.
Mike (17:38):
That’s great. And like, these are, these are just like kind of one-off things that wasn’t the bulk of it, you know, my retention program, obviously, but it was just like one of those little tricks that I often would use with very specific people who I knew were stuck on the website. Right. That’s really interesting. So obviously you’re basing a lot of your retention on just straight up client care, meeting with people, knowing who they are caring about them as people. Do you have any systems in place to facilitate that meeting besides the goal review? Do you have, whether it’s automated or real, do you have like a client success manager, or do you yourself message text your members just outside of these goal review sessions? Or what’s that communication look like on a day-to-day or weekly basis?
Kevin (18:20):
Yes and no, we don’t have a system other than the whiteboard that I mentioned that we have in the office with all the checks and everything. I do have somebody hired, she takes care of our new members. She does, most of our no sweat intros, her close rate is higher than mine. She’s amazing. Her name’s Ingrid, if you can find an Ingrid, do it. Cause she’s freaking awesome. She tracks members, she’ll call them, she’ll send them video messages. She’ll check in, she’ll send them cards. Like she’s got that locked down and I can’t thank her enough for it. So, it’s been one of the best, I guess decisions we’ve made as a gym is to bring her on in that role because it’s made it much easier for me to get other things done.
Kevin (19:11):
So she, more or less focuses on newer members, the ones that are just coming in and then special events like if babies are born or birthdays or holidays or anniversary, stuff like that. And then I spend more of my time with those longer-term members that have been here for a while. So like that guy that I mentioned, Tim, hadn’t been here for a while, reached out to him, came in, you know, he was with me almost since day one, he’s a ten-year member. So, you know, we go way back and it felt right for me to reach out to him. So that’s really the only systems I have in place. It’s so that’s why I kind of said yes or no, cause it’s not really like, there’s no SOP for it. It’s just give a crap about your members. That’s really all it boils down to. So when I found out about this, that I had one of the highest LEGs, I didn’t know why. I did some introspection, like trying to ask myself why do I think that is? But I said, you know what, why don’t I just ask them? Ask my members why they stick around.
Kevin (20:19):
And one of them said, the fact that you asked us is a good sign. That’s a sign that that’s why we stick around because you actually care about what we think. And one comment stuck out to me and cause I was trying to figure out what metrics or what have we done? And it was nothing that we really did. So this is one quote. I just want to read you this one, quote, she goes, you can teach people to give certain cues to correct. You can teach business skills that should garner success, but you can’t make them care about people in such a tenacious, persistent, unwavering and authentic manner. I think you have that as part of who you are or you don’t.
Chris (21:00):
Chris Cooper here. This episode of Two-Brain Radio is brought to you by Wodify. Wodify is an all in one solution for member management, appointment scheduling and tracking. Wodify’s insights tool includes the business health dashboard co-developed with Two-Brain to provide average revenue per member, length of engagement and more key metrics. Gym owners, to receive 20% off your first year of Wodify Core visit wodify.com/twobrain.
Mike (21:26):
Wow. OK. That’s a big deal. This is, that’s two things here. I’m just going to reiterate again, because this is really interesting. First of all, you’ve got just an unwavering care for clients. Like that’s just, you know, and gym owners have that, but they definitely have it to different degrees. And so your clients feel that and they need to feel that. So whether, you know, wherever you fall in that spectrum of care, your clients need to know, right. And yours do clearly. The second thing I’ll point out is, you know, this doesn’t need to be the most complicated system in the world. You’ve got a huge length of engagement, better than just about anybody else’s. And yet you’re using a whiteboard and a spreadsheet and not even a, you know, some of the technical software solutions that exist, right? So you’re getting huge, huge results with just simple basic systems and a huge amount of care.
Mike (22:13):
Like that’s fascinating to me.
Kevin (22:14):
Absolutely. One more story, I guess, just like I will go to bat for any of my members, regardless of the situation. So we had a workout. This was just before we closed down, there were a few of our female members running. It was our 8:30 class. They were out running and there was a worker like a street worker, a street sign worker, whatever construction company worker that was starting to make comments at them, nothing crazy, but still inappropriate. So I called that company and I said, what happened. And they ended up having a meeting with that guy and I let my members know what I did. And they said, that’s why we continue coming because you have our back, no matter what, you always do the right thing. And that it’s little things like that. It’s just part of my character. It’s who I am. Like, I’ve always had the help first mentality. You know, I come from a physical education background. I was a phys ed teacher for five years before, before doing this whole gym thing. So for me, it’s always been about helping and long-term health and, you know, make this a lifelong thing. So just do the right thing regardless of who’s watching.
Mike (23:22):
And I agree with you and I’ll take it one step further. And I’ll say, you know, you have to tell your members what you’re doing for them. And I don’t mean that in the sense of like bragging or showing off, you gotta tell them, right? You gotta, you gotta build that value by telling your members here’s how much I care. And here’s what I’m doing to show you what that I care. Because a lot of times they don’t know. You can’t expect them to know about the hours you spent unclogging the toilet at 2:00 AM. You know? So the morning class gets to work out. You can’t really show them that kind of stuff, but you can tell them like, yeah, you know what? I am going to act on your feedback. I took the steps. This is what happened. I’m here for you. And if you keep doing that, you become that lighthouse for them where they know that you are a rock, right. You are a huge part of their lives. Let me ask you this, I haven’t been around for quite as long as you have in the gym industry. We affiliated, I think 2010. And so we’re in the same vintage to a degree. Did you ever assume, cause I made this mistake. Did you ever just assume that your clients were just sticking around because Fran was really awesome and it hurt your hands and man, I can’t, you know, I’m coughing for three days. Like you, did you ever just, you made the mistake of thinking that your members cared more about the stuff that you cared about than they actually did.
Kevin (24:32):
Yes. When I first started, that was entirely it, I’m like, people love this CrossFit stuff because it’s underground and it’s so hard. And you know, you might meet pukey. We used to have a pukey wall where if you threw up, you’d sign the name on it. We got rid of that. That’s not here anymore. Right. Cause it wasn’t inviting for new members. They’d be like, what’s that? And be like, ah, if you throw up, no, you can’t do that now. So it was like that when I first started, but I’ve definitely moved, moved away from that as we’ve evolved.
Mike (25:01):
Yeah. And we did too. And it was an evolution for us because we were kind of like on that rugged ragged edge, right. Where, you know, we all thought, yeah, it’s underground. This is amazing. And it was this cool effective program. But then we started to realize that people were literally walking in and saying, this is not for me when in fact it was. And it wasn’t really, until we had a group of seniors that we started working with that we realized that it’s the exact same principles. We’re still doing CrossFit with them and we’re still doing functional fitness, but it was just presenting it differently and then actually listening to what they care about. Right. Rather than saying, Oh, you got to have intensity and you got to, you know, fall over at the end of the class. It was more about listening to the client and it seems like you’d have the same experience.
Kevin (25:37):
Absolutely.
Mike (25:37):
So let me ask you this, you are, tell us a little bit about your COVID situation because I know you’re in a spot where it’s a little bit harsh. Tell me about the COVID situation, the lockdowns and tell me about length of engagement during those lockdowns.
Kevin (25:53):
For sure. So the first lockdown was about three months from March til mid June. I believe. We managed to retain, I want to say 70% of our members. So we transitioned everybody online. So we went with true coach. I was training some, a few online members using that program, previous to COVID. So I was familiar with the program, but not to that extent with that many people. So what I did was I came up with six different streams that people could choose depending on the equipment or whatever they had available. So there was, just body weight, kettlebell, dumbbell, full CrossFit, rucking, sandbag. And there was one other, so I created all these separate programs for them. They’d get obviously emailed out every night and then I would make it a point to respond to every single workout result that came into my inbox, regardless of what, even if they just did a checkmark and that was it. I would respond to that and say, great job on getting that workout done or whatever it was. And that’s what kept people engaged throughout the lockdown. So that when we reopened, it was like, all right, we’re ready to go. Everybody was, they came out of COVID maybe not better than they were, but definitely not worse than they were.
Mike (27:20):
- So you were able to retain a large number of members, despite the fact that you’ve been closed for, I guess call it three and a half weeks in total or almost four or four months or sorry, three and a half months. Almost four months at this point. You’re in the second lockdown, you said? Correct? Just about at the end.
Kevin (27:35):
Yeah. So we just had a two week lockdown now because of an outbreak that happened. So there’s going to be an announcement in two hours if we can open tomorrow.
Mike (27:43):
Oh dude, I am pulling for you. And I sure hope that you get the news that you need. But it’s fascinating for me that, so of the people who left during the lockdown and I have my own perspective, cause we went through the same thing at my gym in Manitoba, did a lot of them come back after you guys opened up or why do you think they left? And are you able to bring them back now?
Kevin (28:04):
So it’s yeah, it’s a weird situation. When we were closed, a lot of people bought their own gear. They found it online or, you know, on marketplace, whatever it was and they created their own little home gyms. It’s those people that didn’t come back. So they’re now doing their own programming at home doing their own thing. So those are the ones that are hard to get back into the gym. I think once it starts to snow and their garages get cold, we might see them again. But we didn’t get a huge influx of people back once we opened, it’s been fairly flat. Now we were gaining some really good momentum up until about two weeks ago when we closed down again. And since then, I’ve kind of been an advocate for moving our industry in new Brunswick out of this orange phase.
Kevin (29:00):
So if we go back into lockdown, we want gyms to be considered essential, not only for physical health, but for mental health. So I threw up a very passionate video about how I’m angry with the system and how it’s not fair to us. And it’s not fair to our members, it’s not fair to our society to have us close. That’s garnered 50,000 views. It’s been shared almost 800 times. And so since then we’ve had a lot of people say, you know what? That place looks really damn safe, more safe than a grocery store. And so we’ve had a lot of interest in people joining the gym once we open. So again, I guess it all comes back to caring. Like I give a shit, I care about people, their health, and I want people to be better. And I see when we get locked down, how that goes down in the drain.
Kevin (29:46):
Where can people find that video? I just threw it on our Facebook page on CrossFit Moncton.
Mike (29:52):
So we’ll get that link in the show notes for you guys, if you want to click it there and watch this video. That does come back to client care. And again, when you see your members, you know, fight or sorry, when your members see you fighting for them and fighting for their facility and their fitness and their health, that definitely is going to have an effect on that caring thing. Tha care factor goes up and that’s going to be a retention tool. Let me ask you one other specific thing of the people that haven’t come back, you obviously care about them and you probably have a pretty good relationship with them. Do you have any plans to reach out to them over the next month to just check in and see how they’re doing and perhaps get them back?
Kevin (30:25):
We have. We’ve done that. I’ve sent my other trainers off to them. I gave them all of our trainers, a list of all the members that haven’t come back. I said, reach out to those, like, so keep a track of who you’re doing, who you’re contacting so that we don’t hit everybody six times. But yeah, reach out to those that we haven’t seen in a while and let them know that you miss them. You miss them at the gym, you miss seeing their faces and you would love to see them back at some point. And if not, wish them all the best.
Mike (30:56):
And we’ve seen good results with people. When coaches and gym owners do this, and there’s a 10 word email that our mentors often recommend that the client send out and I forget the exact wording, but it’s just something simple. Like, Hey, you know, X, how is your fitness going right now? And the idea is a lot of people may have the gear in their home, but what they don’t have is accountability. They don’t have care. They don’t have programming, they don’t have coaching. They don’t have support. They don’t have the, you know, nutrition, sleep, mindfulness advice, all the stuff that good coaches provide. And we’ve seen that email, that simple email get members back because sure they have the gear, but how many treadmills do we know are clothes racks? You know, so many of them, right? It’s classic. So that’s something that you can definitely do to reacquire members.
Mike (31:41):
I’ll take this back as we close out, I’ll take this back to length of engagement. I’m going to ask you for two specific steps that gym owners can do today. Simple stuff that they can do. I’m going to take step one from you, and then I’ll get you to talk two and three on. So the first one is just going to be calculate your length of engagement, whatever software you have, you should either use the features available, or you should email your software provider and say, why can’t I have this? OK. And if that doesn’t work, then you get out the spreadsheet and you start doing the math. It will be worth your time, no matter what to figure out what that number is. So Kevin, four and a half years of length of engagement, give me two steps for gym owners to take.
Kevin (32:19):
So I’ll give you well I kind of mentioned one before about finding your leaks and finding out when people are leaving. So I’ll keep that we’ve done that already. So the other actionable item would be do it right now. Like don’t, don’t hesitate. As soon as you’re done listening to this, grab your phone, look into the camera and send a message. A video message to one of your members that says that you value them and that you appreciate them. And that’s it. You don’t have to say anything else. I’ve done that a few times with a few members. And they said it made not only their day, but their entire week, just to hear that because they don’t hear that from people in their everyday life. So I want them to know that they hold a very sincere place in my heart and that I value them as a member and as a person. And that’s just so simple, but so deadly effective, right? A hundred percent. I sent one to a one girl and she hadn’t been at the gym in a little bit. And she goes, she signed up the next day. She’s like, well, I can’t not come to the gym now. Thanks for that message.
Mike (33:25):
It’s really tough to say no to a person and a face. It’s really, it’s really easy to say no to silence. And it’s easy to say no to emails and things like that. And we’ve always talked, Chris has talked about the hierarchy of communication, so forth, pick up the phone, send a video text, call someone, send a text, send an email at the last resort. But I really liked that one. And the thing that I really want to bring forward as we close this guy out is like, you have this great, great number to rely on. And there’s all these different systems that we can teach people, complicated this stuff that will drive it up. And there’s very targeted things you can do. But at the end of the day, you’re using, you’re simply tracking some metrics and you’re caring and you’re talking to people and telling them how you can help them and change the lives. It’s just fascinating. Thank you so much, Kevin, for sharing all this with us.
Kevin (34:11):
Thank you very much for having me.
Mike (34:13):
I want to get you back later on when you get up around five years, we’ll see what you figured out more of the leaks in your system, because once you’ve targeted some of those, I can’t wait to see what your length of engagement does.
Kevin (34:22):
Going to be exciting.
Mike (34:23):
All right, we’ll have you back again.
Kevin (34:24):
Appreciate it. Thank you.
Mike (34:27):
That was Kevin Wood on Two-Brain Radio. You can get the Two-Brain Guide to Retention for free. Click free tools in the show notes and look for the ebook “Never lose a member again.” You’ll find it among a host of other great resources. All of them are free. Click that link now to improve your length of engagement. Thanks for listening to Two-Brain Radio. We’re back with another episode Monday. Don’t miss it.
