The northern winter still has a way to run, but already there are signs of hope. The days are lengthening, the daffodils have poked their heads above the ground and you can once again have a lane to yourself in the swimming pool.

The new year's resolution crowd has abandoned the health clubs. They arrive as the year begins and soon go. We will not see them until September, when they return filled with a post-holiday determination to slim down and tone up, before disappearing again a fortnight later.

If you are a regular health club user, it is easy to be irritated by the temporary hordes puzzling over the machines or swimming, heads up, in the middle of the lane. Easy, but short-sighted, because irregular members make gyms possible for everyone else.

The economics of health clubs are simple: you need thousands of members who never come. The
gym could never accommodate them all if they did.

By paying their dues and seldom appearing, inactive members ensure health club owners have enough money to invest in aerobics halls and squash courts, while keeping membership fees at reasonable levels for the regulars.

There are other businesses where the owners count on only a small proportion of the customers using the service. Insurance is one; those DVD rental clubs where you pay a fee and order films one at a time are another.

Gyms are different because they require expensive sites, cannot outsource beauty treatments to Asia and need constant investment if their premises are not to look shabby.

London's gentlemen's clubs work on the same principle, except that shabby premises appear to be mandatory and the members do not see each other naked (at least not at the ones I have been taken to).

Gerald Ratner, the British businessman who ran a successful health club after losing his jewellery empire when he described some of
its products as “crap”, says about 30 per cent of his members dropped out each year.

Some clubs attempt to limit the attrition rate by telephoning inactive members and asking whether there is anything the club can do for them. Mr Ratner never thought this was a good idea as it might remind them that they were wasting their money.

It is a constant battle to attract new members, he says, and some clubs resort to desperate measures. He recalls seeing a gym representative outside Cape Town airport tearing banknotes in half, giving one piece to passing strangers and promising them the other if they came to look around. They did not even need to join.

He preferred to rely on discounting the joining fee (but never the monthly membership) and showing prospective members the heated outdoor pool. People demand a pool, he says, but most do not use it. Many clubs waive the joining fee altogether.

Mr Ratner estimates that about 5 per cent of his members used the gym every day and 50 per cent at least twice a week. That left half in that essential group who sign up but rarely come.

Two Californian academics, Stefano DellaVigna and Ulrike Malmendier, studied three US health clubs and discovered that 80 per cent of members used the gym so infrequently that they would have been better off paying the $10 fee for each individual visit. Many also left substantial gaps between their last visit and cancelling their membership.

In their paper, the academics concluded either that the gym members were making “time-inconsistent choices” or that they had “limited cognitive abilities”.

Of course, some people say the same about gym members. It is one thing to pay to use a swimming pool or a tennis court, but most of us know you could get half the benefit of the other facilities by walking up the stairs and all the benefit by running up them.

In his recent autobiography, Mr Ratner recalls taking his father to show off his club. Ratner Sr, who had never been to a gym before, looked at the members pounding away on a treadmill before asking: “What are they trying to achieve?”

No matter. Regular members go because they think it does them good, but they should not take their clubs for granted. Many gyms are having a difficult time. Most UK clubs are “in distress or struggling”, a banker told the Financial Times in November.

In the US, national chain Bally Total Fitness spent two months in Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last year after its New York Stock Exchange listing was suspended.

Clubs need more help from the regulars to attract new members. My own club is offering a mountain bike to anyone who persuades two friends to sign up. This is silly. If we were happy riding mountain bikes around the city we would not need the gym.

Far better to offer anyone who introduces new members the free run of the place when it is closed to everyone else. The other members will not mind. They are never there.

北方的冬天仍會(huì)持續(xù)一段時(shí)間，而希望的跡象已經(jīng)顯現(xiàn)。白晝?cè)谧冮L(zhǎng)，水仙花已從地里探出頭來(lái)，而你又可以在游泳池里獨(dú)占一條泳道了。

在新年里信誓旦旦的那群人已經(jīng)將健身俱樂(lè)部拋諸腦后。他們?cè)谛履暌潦紩r(shí)現(xiàn)身，很快就會(huì)消失。然后我們一直見(jiàn)不到他們，直到9月份，當(dāng)他們重返健身俱樂(lè)部時(shí)，滿懷著假日結(jié)束后的決心，想要瘦身，想要健壯，然后在兩周之內(nèi)再一次消失得無(wú)影無(wú)蹤。

如果你是健身俱樂(lè)部的�？�，你會(huì)很容易對(duì)這群“游擊隊(duì)”產(chǎn)生厭煩。這些人或是在健身器械的面前顯得一頭霧水，或是霸占著泳道的中央，一路昂著頭游來(lái)游去。厭煩他們?nèi)菀�，不過(guò)這有點(diǎn)短視：正因?yàn)檫@些會(huì)員隔三岔五才來(lái)一趟，其他的所有會(huì)員才能得以健身。

健身俱樂(lè)部的生意經(jīng)也比較簡(jiǎn)單：你需要有上千名從不會(huì)光顧的會(huì)員。如果大家都來(lái)了，現(xiàn)有的場(chǎng)館里根本就裝不下。

繳納了會(huì)費(fèi)，但極少現(xiàn)身，這些不活躍的會(huì)員能確保俱樂(lè)部的老板們掙到足夠的錢(qián)，去投資有氧體操房，或是壁球室，同時(shí)還能讓那些常客們的會(huì)費(fèi)維持在合理的水平。

其它一些商業(yè)領(lǐng)域也有這樣的情況：老板指望有一小部分的客戶會(huì)使用服務(wù)。保險(xiǎn)業(yè)是一種；繳納會(huì)費(fèi)點(diǎn)片看的DVD出租俱樂(lè)部則是另一種。

但健身房則有所不同，因?yàn)樗鼈冃枰�租用昂貴的場(chǎng)地，不能把美容理療外包給亞洲，而且為了不讓場(chǎng)地顯得寒磣，它們還需要進(jìn)行經(jīng)常性的投資。

倫敦男士健身俱樂(lè)部的運(yùn)營(yíng)法則也與此相同，唯一例外是，場(chǎng)館似乎不可避免地破舊不堪，而會(huì)員們也不必看到對(duì)方赤身露體的樣子（至少別人帶我去的那些俱樂(lè)部是這樣）。

英國(guó)商人杰拉爾德•拉特納(Gerald Ratner)經(jīng)營(yíng)著一家成功的健身俱樂(lè)部。在此之前，他曾將原本經(jīng)營(yíng)的一些珠寶產(chǎn)品形容為“廢物”，從而終結(jié)了自己一手打造的珠寶王國(guó)。拉特納表示，每年他都有30%的會(huì)員出局。

一些俱樂(lè)部會(huì)給不活躍的會(huì)員打電話，問(wèn)俱樂(lè)部能否為他們做些什么，從而試圖限制損耗率。但拉特納從不認(rèn)為這是一個(gè)好主意，因?yàn)檫@會(huì)提醒那些人，他們正在浪費(fèi)錢(qián)。

他說(shuō)，吸引新成員是一場(chǎng)持久戰(zhàn)，一些俱樂(lè)部會(huì)無(wú)所不用其極。他回憶，有一次在開(kāi)普敦機(jī)場(chǎng)外見(jiàn)到一位健身房促銷員，那個(gè)人當(dāng)時(shí)把鈔票一撕兩半，給過(guò)路的陌生人每人發(fā)上一張，并承諾如果他們來(lái)健身房看看的話，就能得到另外半張。他們就連入會(huì)手續(xù)都不需要。

拉特納則更愿意通過(guò)入會(huì)費(fèi)打折的辦法（但對(duì)月卡會(huì)員絕不這么做），或是向那些潛在會(huì)員展示一下加熱的戶外游泳池。他說(shuō)，人們都需要一個(gè)游泳池，但多數(shù)人都不會(huì)去用它。另有許多俱樂(lè)部則免除入會(huì)費(fèi)。

拉特納估計(jì)，在他的俱樂(lè)部中，約有5%的會(huì)員每天都在使用場(chǎng)館，另有50%的會(huì)員至少一周來(lái)兩次。剩下近一半的人只是簽名入會(huì)，但很少光顧。

加利福尼亞的兩位學(xué)者斯特凡諾•德拉維尼亞(Stefano DellaVigna)和烏爾麗克•馬爾門(mén)迪爾(Ulrike Malmendier)研究了3家美國(guó)健身俱樂(lè)部后發(fā)現(xiàn)，有80%的會(huì)員極少使用健身房，以至于如果他們單次支付10美元的費(fèi)用，也許還更省錢(qián)。還有許多人從上一次健身到取消會(huì)籍的間隔時(shí)間非常長(zhǎng)。

在這兩位學(xué)者的論文中，他們得出的結(jié)論是：要么是健身房的會(huì)員們做出了“時(shí)間不一致的選擇”，要么就是他們的“認(rèn)知能力有限”。

當(dāng)然，有些人對(duì)健身房會(huì)員也持相同的說(shuō)法。付費(fèi)去使用游泳池或網(wǎng)球場(chǎng)是一回事，但我們大多數(shù)人都知道，通過(guò)走樓梯你就能得到其它健身設(shè)施所能提供的一半好處，如果跑步上下樓梯，你就能得到所有的好處。

在近期的自傳里，拉特納回憶帶自己父親到俱樂(lè)部炫耀的情景。老拉特納以前從未進(jìn)過(guò)健身館，他看見(jiàn)在跑步機(jī)上跑得咚咚作響的會(huì)員們，然后問(wèn)道：“他們想干嗎？”

不要緊。健身館的�？蛡冎�所以經(jīng)常光顧，是因?yàn)樗麄冋J(rèn)為這樣對(duì)自己有好處，但他們不該認(rèn)為參加俱樂(lè)部就理當(dāng)如此。許多健身館的日子也不好過(guò)。一位銀行家在11月份時(shí)向《金融時(shí)報(bào)》透露，多數(shù)的英國(guó)健身俱樂(lè)部或是“陷于困境”，或是在“苦苦掙扎”。

在美國(guó)，全國(guó)連鎖的倍力健身(Bally Total Fitness)去年被紐約證交所(NYSE)停牌，然后處于破產(chǎn)保護(hù)狀態(tài)下兩個(gè)月的時(shí)間。

俱樂(lè)部需要常客提供更多的幫助來(lái)吸引新會(huì)員。我自己所在的俱樂(lè)部就承諾，向任何成功勸說(shuō)兩位朋友入會(huì)的會(huì)員提供一輛山地車。這是個(gè)蠢辦法。如果我們騎著山地車滿城跑得很高興的話，誰(shuí)還需要健身館呢。

最好的辦法是：向那些介紹新會(huì)員的人提供不對(duì)外開(kāi)放時(shí)段的全免優(yōu)惠。反正別的會(huì)員也不會(huì)介意。因?yàn)樗麄儚牟蝗ツ抢铩?nbsp;