they have here, you're going to get some really high-level answers, okay? So, here's what he calls a survival curve. 85% of the members stay three months, 66% are there for six months, 43%, 12 months, 28% for 18 months. And now the challenge is, what's my real retention? Now, anecdotally, I hear the retention of the REX members, but this is the hard data. And this is the data that we got from all the REX members submitting the data from all the different software companies they work with. And Paul Bedford's team went in and actually cleaned up a lot of the data. So, and threw out about 20,000 records that weren't clean data. So, we know this is very accurate. What he saw as the average lifetime value across all these members was about 10 months. What he also saw, and that was in one snapshot, of all the REX, excuse me, all the retention studies that he's done worldwide for many big companies, where there's thousands of clubs within different organizations, what he found is that the average member stayed seven months. So, you've got to do your budget off. That's my revenue line. When he then compared this to me, and he said, you either have the smartest people in the business, or you're doing things so much better and different than the rest of the world. The average retention rate, broken down by age, with the REX members clubs, was more than double. It was 15 to 25 months. So, I can end my talk right there. There's a reason to join REX Roundtables. We're going to double your retention. You can't afford not to join, right? So, that takeaway was like something we didn't expect. We thought we'd be about the same as what he saw worldwide, because he worked with some really good operators in different countries, and then going to Germany, and Australia, New Zealand, etc. And, you know, these were not bad companies, but yet we were double the numbers, and triple in some cases. So, let me ask you a question. Have you looked at the different models we have? We have the high-priced clubs, and we'll call it, let's say, $80 a month and higher. We have HVLPs, which call it, with the two to three tiers, most of those have $39 and lower. Then we have mid-market. Mid-market being, let's say, $39 to $80. Which group do you think has the best retention? Is it the high price? The mid-market? Or the HVLPs? What do you think? Come on, announce in the morning. Who's got the best retention? High price. High price? How many people think high-priced clubs have the best retention? How many people think mid-market clubs have the best retention? How many people think HVLP, the $10 models, have the best retention? Okay. Statistically, 10. Yeah. We have to reward this behavior. I don't even know they're paying. So, Greg, I've got something for you. Okay, so we've got a registered academic doctor talking, right? Good job, man. I've been doing DNA, and I can tell that's a wellness. So here's what shocked me. So, Paul, Paul and I were on a two and a half hour Zoom going over the data one night. And he said, you're going to be surprised by this. And he asked the same question, and guess what my answer was? High-priced clubs. Because I have a roundtable where the average club is, you know, 100 plus. And I look at them, and they're really good operators, and I'm looking at their numbers, but I guess they're not the only regs clubs in that category. So when we look at it, if you come over here to the midline at 12 months, you'll see the HPLPs at 71% retention. Mid-market at 66. The high-priced clubs at 56. I would have bet a million dollars it would have been the upside down. All of us would have. So what this shows me is that take your opinion and push it aside and look at the data. Understand the data. Make sure it's accurate. That's enough of a study that you know is going to be accurate. I think we have 700,000 members. It's pretty accurate. If I'm looking at 700 members, it's probably not accurate. You know, we've talked to actually two other research companies that do research in our industry, and I'm sure some of you have seen some of their research. And they've asked us if we would, you know, support them and hire them to do research. But when I looked at their numbers, they were looking at 1,200 people. They were looking at maybe 2,000 people. I got 700,000. That 1,200 could be really skewed if they're not doing what I think is the right kind of research to give us a bigger picture. So when I look at this, I say, well, we've got some opportunities here. And if you're watching, going down to 24 months, it still holds true. Now, we can discuss why we think that is. Maybe it's because HPLPs are a lower price. Maybe because there aren't contracts. So we don't know that because the research didn't show us that. But what we do know is what do we have to go back and focus on and not assume that we know anything. Here's the next thing that was really interesting coming out of the study. Look at the months when people joined. Look what happens after August. In most markets, if I talk to club owners and operators, they'll all tell me, you know, first quarter's really high, second quarter's pretty good. If I have pools and outdoors, the summer's good. If I don't, it drops. But everybody comes back in the fall. Well, guess what? The data doesn't show that. Data shows that September to December, it's low. Now, does that mean we change our marketing because we thought they were coming back, we didn't spend enough money on marketing? Or does that mean you shouldn't spend enough money on marketing there and shift it to where you're going to make more money? So what this data now shows us, there's different opportunities. So in the roundtables, we like to do something called rifle shots, which means it's low risk, low disruption, low cost. If that idea works, then I fire a cannonball. And that comes from Jim Collins who wrote Great Boy Choice. And he talked about the English and the French ship captains that would fight each other. And if I fire a cannonball at Dottie and I missed, then Dottie was close, I fire a cannonball and I'm dead. Not a good strategy, right? So these are the opportunities we have to look. Here's another assumption that we all long on. It doesn't matter when they join, the cancels are the same. Everybody always thought, everybody joins in January and they quit by St. Paddy's Day in March, right? Not true. That's not only it. The difference is in January, you have a lot more sales. So in March, you have a lot more cancels. But if you start looking at percentages, it's pretty steady throughout the year, all the way through. It didn't matter when you joined, cancel rate's going to be the same. So here's the top three takeaways we have from this one. Next member clubs are staying double to triple than non-next member clubs. Sorry, you had to change to five, my typo. It doesn't matter what month you join, cancel rate's the same. Here's one takeaway that really shows you why we need to look at the data and make a difference. One of the things he showed, and I don't have the slide up here to back it up, but I'll tell you what it is. If you get a member to go from three times a month, not a week, but a month, to four times just that one group, they will stay for two more months. Anybody here want two more months news? Think about the numbers. Whether these are $10 or $100, what would you do right now to get two more months retention? So the opportunity's there. How do you go back now and find your data and say you came in three times and now I'm going to push it to four times because you're going to stay two more months? Forget about going after the one-time-a-month person or the 10-time-a-month person. Only go after that one. We could talk about these different segments we came out of the data, but of all the segments, this one moved the needle the most and we thought the easiest. So that's the one why I'm sharing this one for you. So now let's talk about outside-the-industry experiences. We want to get you out of the box and think differently. Anybody here know Savannah Bananas is? Okay. So last year, I took three groups to Savannah Bananas and spent 12 to 14 hours in one day behind the scenes with their president, marketing director, HR, ticket person, salesperson, and figured out the secret sauce. How does this team sell out their entire season in like 20 minutes? Only a sport team can do this. They changed the rules. What they do on the entertainment side, you know, that's the banana-nanas, which are fun. Yes, and now you can tell I'm getting old. I fit in. But what they do really smart and what they do really well help give us some takeaways. We can then look at changing our culture, our hiring process, our marketing. And we have two groups going this year. I have one group going in June, another one going in August to spend time behind the scenes. By the way, it was $15,000 for one day last year. So of the groups coming this year, I have one new group that we didn't plan on last year, and they raised the price just a little bit. that would fight each other. And if I fight a cannibal with Dottie and I missed, then Dottie was close to fight a cannibal and I'm dead. Not a good strategy, right? So these are the opportunities we have to look. Here's another assumption that we all long on. It doesn't matter when they join, the cancels are the same. Everybody always thought everybody joins in January and they quit by St. Hattie's Day in March, right? Not true. That's not only it. The difference is in January you have a lot more sales, so in March you have a lot more cancels. But if you start looking at percentages, it's pretty steady throughout the year, all the way through. It didn't matter when you joined, cancel rate's gonna be the same, okay? So here's the top three takeaways we have from this one. Next member clubs are staying double to triple than non-next member clubs. Sorry, you had to change the five, my typo. It doesn't matter what month you join, cancel rates are the same. Here's one takeaway that really shows you why we need to look at the data and make a difference. One of the things he showed, and I don't have the slide up here to back it up, but I'll tell you what it is. If you get a member to go from three times a month, not a week, but a month, to four times just that one group, they will stay for two more months. Anybody here want two more months dues? Think about the amounts. Whether you're $10 or $100, what would you do right now to get two more months retention? So the opportunity is there. How do you go back now and find your data and say you came in three times and now I'm gonna push it to four times because you're gonna stay two more months. Forget about going after the one time a month person or the 10 time a month person, only go after that one. We could talk about this different segments we came out of the data, but of all the segments, this one with the needle the most, and we thought the easiest. So that's the one why I'm sharing this one for you, okay? So now let's talk about outside the industry experiences. We wanna get you out of the box and think differently. Anybody here know Savannah Bananas' list? Okay. So last year I took three groups in Savannah Bananas and spent 12 to 14 hours in one day behind the scenes with their president, marketing director, HR, ticket person, salesperson, and figured out the secret sauce. How does this team sell out their entire season in like 20 minutes? Only support team to do this. They change the rules. What they do on the entertainment side, you know, that's the Banana Nanas, which is fun, yes. And now you can tell I'm getting old when I fit in. But what they do really smart and what they do really well help give us some takeaways. We can then look at changing our culture or our hiring process, our marketing. And we have two groups going this year. I have one group going in June, another one going in August to spend time behind the scenes. By the way, it was $15,000 for one day last year. So of the groups coming this year, I have one new group that we didn't plan on last year and they raised the price just a little bit. So everybody here raises prices regularly, right? They raised their price from 15,000 to $25,000 for one day. But we're still going. Next thing we do is we've taken 70% of our roundtables to Gettysburg and spent a day and a half of leadership development training for everybody in the roundtables to teach them how to be better, smarter leaders, to make different decisions. There were some pretty good decisions made that day or during those battles and there were some pretty dumb ones. And so there's opportunity there because not all the learning happens in a conference room. You've got to get you out of the box. If you look at Pickett's Charge and you sit there and you look in the course that's open, let me see if I can get, okay. Can you reset the slides for me? Thanks. Okay, great, thanks. So one of the other places we've taken people to is Nick's Pizza in Chicago. So Nick has family style restaurants. It's a really hard business to be competitive in and his restaurants are in the top 5% of the country. It was a cover story of Nick Magazine. Nick and I have become good friends over the years. We've taken groups there to learn about culture and hiring and pay scales. Nobody asked for a raise at Nick's. If you want to get a raise, he has a whole chart, a whole university where you go learn other skills and you automatically get a raise. If you don't want to learn the other skills, you don't get a raise. So there's no conversation going on there. And on hiring and making a difference. I've got four groups going this year to Glacier National Park and we had one group go last year. So what can you learn from the National Park? Well, we happen to be lucky enough to be able to talk to the superintendent. You know what his problem is? How do we get less people to show up? We'd love to have that problem, right? So how do you manage customer experience is what we've learned from that. So I've got four groups going to Whitefish, Montana to get them out of the box. Are we going to see a co-op there? Yeah, there's an ex-member co-op there if we want to see, but that's not the goal. The goal is getting you to think differently. We took another group last year and I have one going next year up to Yosemite to do a meeting. We've taken groups to Yellowstone to learn about different things. In Boston, there's a company called Seafresh Express and the catch of the fish is sold based on the freshness. So the first catch is the least expensive. The last catch is the most expensive. And so they talk about logistics of delivering their service and their products and they learned what it's like in the culture. I mean, it's not an easy business to be in and definitely a smelly business to be in. And how do you get that balance in there and learn? We've taken a few groups up to Fastenal, which is a nuts and bolts company. What are you going to learn from a nuts and bolts company that's going to help us in fitness? Well, the 95-year-old CEO spent the full day with our round tables talking about culture. And based on that culture, it gave them the ability to grow substantially, all based on culture. So there are things you can learn from other industries that can make a difference. For three years in 2018, 19, and 20, we were the biggest customer for the Versace mansion in South Beach. We were giving them almost 300 room nights a year and doing our meetings down there and doing something that's different and trying to learn from what he did really well in his life and his business. We've spent a day with the Portland Trailblazers at their training center behind the scenes and looking at what they were doing. And that was back in 2017. And what they were doing in wellness was way ahead of what we were doing. They already had, they had cold plungers in the locker room. And those guys are pretty big. You know, the average guy is 6'8". And their cold plunge was monstrous. We're going like, cold plunge, it was 17 years ago. But they were so far ahead of us on the modalities. You know, every year before the HFA, now before URSA, we always do a big gathering. This past year, I rented the stadium in Vegas for an event. Next year, I already signed a contract to San Diego with Petco Park, where the Padres play. And I just signed another contract when we go back to Vegas in two years with the stadium again. So we're trying to bring three to 400 Rex members our trusted suppliers together to network and wine and have a really cool experience. So we do things differently. I've taken a whitewater rafting. This is up in Idaho. Then I took them in California. And we only lost three people, thankfully. And they're still friends. They still talk to me. That's even the best part. But you got to have a plan and not to panic. And two out of three didn't panic. One did. And he ended up on the raft. So part of it is, with all the challenges we got doing our own business, this is a lesson in life. But when you put four type-A personalities, and I won't share who they are, together, when we were down South Beach, I worked out something with a woman who was on the Cuban Olympic rowing team. And she had a school where she was teaching mostly drama school and high school kids how to row. And we would take each group out, Well, we had four type-A personalities here that all had a different idea of what leadership is. And nobody wanted to follow, right? So all you need is one person not following, and everybody cares. This is a lesson that we can all learn in our business. And Jeff was your roundtable, just so you know, before you even joined it. So we do things differently to try and help you get to that next level. We partnered with ITR Economics. And what we found with ITR Economics is, if you don't know, they're a forecasting company for economics over the last 40-plus years, but 94% accurate in predicting the economy, four quarters out, okay? First year with them, I spent $50,000 to get access to their data. Now, thankfully, I have a Rex member who is an economic junkie, and he takes all this and interprets it for us, and does a video and a PDF to send out to all the Rex members. You don't have to figure it out. We'll help figure it out for you, okay? But if you're not looking outside the box, your business is going out of business if you just don't realize it, until it's too late. Remember the box I said? Box. Same idea. You gotta be thinking differently. Here's some of the KPIs that the 50, now it's a 50-page Excel file, share. And most importantly, if you look at the EBITDA, they're mostly pulling, and the 11% pulled us down, and there's a reason, I can't share why, but there was a reason for that. It's a new company. But we're driving EBITDA at 25, 30, you know, 40% in a lot of cases. Another round table that shares everything from revenue per check-in to revenue per member, and then the change. So my question is, what are you measuring? Are you sharing data? And are you trying to stay relevant? Last part I wanna talk about is professional development. This is the Rochester Athletic Club, where they're trying to train lifeguards, and do it internally, and really, that's a big challenge for all of us, is how do you get enough lifeguards in there? Well, part of it is, do you have the right training and development best practices? All training programs that are one-size-fits-all, they don't work anymore. These training development practices we suggest, and we see that at work, in 15 minutes or less, they're specific to the individual and to the role. The employees like training that's created by peers, okay? So that's what we've gotta focus on. They wanna feel that they're seen, they're heard, and they're valued. 35% of employees said that they don't think the company's listening to them. They're not paying attention, okay? So, what we wanna do is get you to be a better leader, and to be a better leader, you've gotta spend time cultivating what's the best in your people. And there's different ways of looking at that. There's a lot of assessments, some that are free, and some that you pay for, and I can share this list with you, and there's even more you can add to it. You need to understand who's on your team. If they don't know that and try and do it one size fits all, they're not gonna pay attention to it. One of the things we did this year was a big life plan. That big life plan really asked some really tough questions that most of us don't pay attention to, and think about where we're going in our life from here to wherever, in the big picture. And here's some examples of staff training some RECS members do, with the frequency and how often they do it, and they do everything, including financial. We've got several RECS members trying to teach their teams how to manage their money, so they can live more comfortably. With the Columbia Association, their training was developed by the team, and I know somebody who's in there from CA, but the training's developed by the peers. It's not top-down, it's across all the peers, and that seems to be better. I know one of the new RECS members we have is Kathleen from Coach 360, and she's doing a great job of trying to help a lot of us find trainings. Just like life plans, we can't find enough personal trainers in the industry, so that's a challenge of what we're looking for. So, with that, I want to say thanks to RECS Initiation. Okay, so our next speaker that's coming up happens to be Daniel, who's gonna talk about recovery. So, he didn't realize it, but he's actually, that was the very first cold sponge he took in the Merced River in Yosemite. So, if you have an interest in sending any of your team to the Leadership Academy, here's a QR code that should give you $100 off, and if it doesn't, send me a text or an email, and I will. So, with that, I want to tell you, my good friend who's a RECS member, and also on clubs, but also was one of the smartest people I know in the recovery business. So, with that, I want to say thanks, Daniel, for letting us, he didn't know about it. Thank you. That was good. So, I did join RECS about two years ago, and conversation was, there was a language barrier because you have a guy from New York calling me and talking a million miles an hour, and I'm going, hey, man, I don't know what you're saying. Like, slow down. So, I'm from Georgia, if you can't tell, and I usually tell everybody when they ask me, hey, where are you from? I go, from New Jersey. They go, yeah, you're not from New Jersey. So, I will say that RECS Roundtable has benefited me, my clubs, my business. It's also benefited my family. That's one of the things that Eddie did leave out that I'll give him some representation on, is that we do talk about family, and that's one of the things that kind of helps get the group a lot closer. I am one of the youngest in my old guy's group, as well as me and Carl from Club 16 Call out of Canada, and man, we have just the best time, from the field days and just the Roundtable events. We eat breakfast together, lunch together, dinner together, go to the bar and have drinks together. I mean, it is an all day event, day in and day out. I attend a lot of Roundtables, a lot of Roundtables. I travel pretty frequently, and I'll say that when I leave every RECS group, I have sheets and sheets and sheets and notes, and those that are part of RECS understand what I'm saying.
The discussion focuses on membership retention insights and strategies shared within REX Roundtables, a network for fitness clubs. Paul Bedford's analysis reveals that REX member clubs have significantly higher retention rates than average clubs globally. The conversation also covers various pricing models for clubs and the findings from extensive data research on member retention duration. Networking and learning opportunities through visits to successful organizations and unique events are highlighted as a part of REX Roundtables' approach to helping members innovate and improve. Lastly, the benefits of participating in REX Roundtables, both professionally and personally, are shared.