I work in many gyms around Sydney and one of the biggest issues they face at the moment is competition.
With more specialised gyms opening up and with the rise of smaller 24-hour gyms, it becomes more challenging than ever to attract new members and harder to retain existing ones. Many businesses lose up to 20% of their members when another gym opens nearby. This can represent the majority of a fitness centre’s profit margin.
If you are losing members or market share, you need to know why. Are you contacting your lapsed members to find out why they didn’t renew with you? If they joined a new gym, why did they? More importantly, are you able to win them back?
You also need to take a close look at what your competition is doing? How do their facilities compare to yours? What are their fees? What promotions are they running? What do they offer that you don’t? And are you their Facebook friend?
Of course market research, internal audits, analysing the competition, all takes time – time you usually don’t have. But the question is, can you afford not to be looking over your shoulder?