Why you pay for the gym but rarely go — and what that reveals about other purchases

The useful part

Advertisement Advertisement I was on a call with a client, and the subject was how to get their customers to complete the onboarding process for services they had already signed up for. It turns out the struggle begins soon after people swipe their credit cards. What makes this particularly interesting is that the sales process leading up to that swipe is intense.

How it works

• This got me wondering: what is the motivation behind someone's consciously making a purchase, then not taking the actions necessary to make that purchase work?
• I showed up a few times here and there, and then month after month, the charges kept stacking up.
• That lasted until he followed up with a whole bunch of emails asking me to do the hard work.
• That's when I realized I still had a lot of work of my own to make this succeed.
• There was still work to do, and if there had been no risk of the Canada Revenue Agency's coming knocking, I suspect I might have hired the accountant, deferred the work, and eventually blamed him for not...

What to take from it

It gets even more curious because this is a monthly business-to-business subscription service. Advertisement Advertisement The purchase itself had become emotionally satisfying, not because I'd achieved the thing I wanted, but because I'd finally committed to achieving it. The problem isn't spending money or even paying for it before you do the work.

Example or evidence

• I'd been talking about wanting to take it for months, spent weeks doing the research to find the right one, and when I finally signed up, I told my family and we celebrated.
• The research is particularly interesting when you think about how concrete that first action is.
• Knowing how this works might allow us to be a little more mindful about what happens immediately after.
• I can think of so many times over the years when I woke up one fine morning motivated to get fitter, did the online research, made the in-person visits, took the free trials, and did everything that comes...

Details worth keeping

Please use another browser to view this site. Think of those before you swipe your credit card. By the time they sign up, they've made a fairly considered decision.

Related coverage

• Unbelievablefactsblog: A 2020 US survey found that 3.3% of people with gym memberships never used them. Another 9.45% went...
• Scmp: Property agent Raymond Heng had suspected True Fitness was struggling, but he did not expect the gym he had visited for more than a decade to disappear overnight.
• Fodmapeveryday: The first few weeks at the gym can feel surprisingly easy.
• Youngupstarts: Lumipo is an activity gated rewards marketplace for people who have already quit two or three fitness apps and are not especially interested in quitting a fourth.
• Dollarsandsense: Over 20 different gyms have closed in the past decade, many without any warning. sg.