Richard ToutounjiDirector, Meet Your Network · Connecting fitness & wellness suppliers to our marketing community.

The Real Reason Your Gym Members Are Cancelling

19 Jul 2024 · 1 min

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0:55

In this segment, the speaker identifies the core reason gym members cancel their memberships: a lack of community. He argues that fitness businesses that operate merely as equipment rental services—where members pay regularly to use machines without any sense of belonging—lack "stickiness" and are at risk of losing members. Conversely, gyms that actively cultivate a strong, supportive community and make members feel valued beyond the workouts create a compelling lifestyle component that encourages retention. The speaker emphasizes that without a community-focused model, fitness businesses should be concerned about churn.

Chapters

I think the challenge for fitness businesses are the fitness businesses where there is no community between the members, where there's no community. In other words, the member pays to rent gym equipment every week or every fortnight or every month in their payments. They're just renting equipment. So there's no stickiness between them and the brand or them and the club or them and the community. They're the businesses that need to be worried. But if you've got a strong community that you work hard to connect your members, you work hard to make your members feel special beyond just the workouts, then I think people will go, you know what? I need that as part of my life. So you don't need to worry unless your business model is people pay to rent equipment.