3 Vital Coach Metrics You Should Track to Grow Your Gym

I am passionate about helping businesses see the truth of what their business really is, whether that is outstanding or brutal. The awareness of whether they are performing or not allows for massive growth as soon as they recognize where they really sit.

I have had the privilege of working with thousands of gym owners in different settings and am now working closely with OPEX Gyms and, unfortunately, I’ve found that a large percentage of small gyms are initially clueless about their numbers and it’s costing them dearly in lost member revenue.

The focus of this article is how to measure the effectiveness of your coaching service(s). Here are the three most important coach metrics that will directly benefit the short and long-term growth of your business.

1). Member Retention

You owe your members a great service. For that service, they owe you a cash commitment. It doesn’t need to be more complex than that. The trouble that most gyms have is that members, for whatever reason, do not believe the service they were promised is as valuable as the cash they are paying each month, so they eventually stop paying and churn out of the system.

The first step in lowering member churn is to have a deep understanding of what your retention metrics are so that you can take steps to improve the number, keep more members and earn more revenue each month.

To understand your retention rates you need to track it at a minimum of two levels:

• As a facility
• By each coach

The key idea behind tracking your coaching retention is that you need to understand if you have a leader and laggard coach or service. If a coach or service is consistently below your average retention, you have an opportunity to work with them on their behaviors that are leading to members walking out your door.

Knowing, forecasting and driving coaching behavior off of retention metrics will give you a major boost to the continued improvement of your top line revenue.

2). New Members

If retention is about supporting your member base, bringing in new members is about expanding that same member base. You need to work with your coaches to help them understand how to network with the community around them, how to grow their digital presence with social media and content and why these things increase their influence and reputation in the community. You will have to work with them to learn how to take a prospective member from cold to hot so that they sign up for your gym.

I am not insinuating that the business doesn’t have to drive new members through marketing efforts. Rather, I am saying that your coaches have to show consistency in bringing new people into the system to help grow the business over the long run. While at the core, they need to be great coaches, you need to hire people who have great personalities and who are natural connectors or influencers. From there you need to design and manage their monthly new member goals so that they are putting more people into their coaching basket while also retaining their current members consistently.

With consistency from both your company’s and coach’s marketing efforts, you will open up another key marketing channel that helps your business grow more quickly and effectively.

3). Quality of Service Surveys

Where member retention and new members are tangible metrics that are viewable after the fact, surveys can give you extremely helpful insight as to whether or not you are delivering great service prior to any negative reactions or member losses happening.

I recommend a simple Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey because it puts a quantifiable number to how you and your coaches are performing. Within an NPS survey, you can ask for written feedback on top of the score itself.  I like to put these surveys strategically throughout the member lifecycle so that I can gauge the likelihood of a member either referring other members or walking out the door upset.

The key with surveys is that you cannot simply send a survey; you have to analyze the results and then take steps toward improving the areas that are lacking. Surveys aren’t just helpful to highlight what needs improvement. They are great motivators for your team and showcase key milestone achievements. Make sure you promote both the positives and negatives of what you are seeing from the member feedback.

Wrapping it All Together

If you are not tracking these metrics, you need to start today. The awareness that you will gain will show you where you need to prioritize your time and energy into upgrading your business. If you are constantly reacting to things that present themselves in your gym, you will not actually build your business; you’ll be stuck putting out fires every day. When you implement these metrics into your business, you will go from reactive to proactive and you will see positive scale come to your company far more quickly!

Looking for additional ways to keep your members coming back? Get your copy of our free gym member retention guide!

Guest Post by Jim Crowell, Director of Business Development at OPEX Fitness

Jim Crowell is the Director of Business Development and Operations for OPEX Fitness where he created the OPEX Gym Licensing Program with James Fitzgerald. Business, fitness and working with coaches and owners are what inspires Jim and what he was designed to do! When Jim isn’t working with OPEX, he loves spending time with his wife, Katie, and enjoying the Scottsdale weather(most of the year).