By a quirk of standards adapted from the Federal government's SIC codes, you will find gyms for sale on business broker sites under recreation. Whether you're in the market for a gym empire or not it helps to know what's going on in your neighborhood, state and industry in the way of gym businesses for sale. Information Is The Ultimate Resource There may come a day when you wish to put your gym on the market. The more information you have, the better you know what to aim for when the time comes. Alternatively, you might decide to buy [...]
Read more...
There are people in the world who are naturals at selling and performing in public situations. Personally, I am not one of them. It amazes me when someone seems to be naturally cool and confident when eyes are all on him or her. Also, those people tend not to be trainers or managers working in gyms. I suppose that figures, helping people motivates most of the trainers that I know but they tend to have a history in jobs that are not sales related. I love working out and hanging out in the gym So do most of the trainers [...]
Read more...
What To Expect As A New Gym Business Owner Founding and operating your own gym is as demanding as any other business you can decide to build. As the owner and founder you are going to be constantly called upon to make choices, decisions and judgments that seem to demand the wisdom of Solomon. In fact, if you're thinking about starting your own gym, it will help you very much if you can see this as a positive situation and a challenge. The irony is that the more rapidly you get to the point of takeoff, the sooner you'll lose the business [...]
Read more...
There are lots of interesting ways to do promotions. Once again, with the holidays upon us, I think it's time to take another look. One of the most accessible is selling gift cards as part of your retail operation. Even if it means just a desktop display at your reception you can boost your return on investment by offering this popular, high margin product to your membership and the general public. Promotions With Gift Cards Sell gift cards in your gymSell gift cards at the local sporting goods storeDistribute them through your trainers There is a reason that you see [...]
Read more...
So, Should You Pursue Alternate Income Streams or No? There comes a limit to the number of memberships you can sell, which is a good thing. You hit the ceiling for your single gym it means you've maxed out the potential for monthly subscriptions. To go further, you have to sell more to the same people with alternative fitness club revenue streams. There're some alternatives to this alternative, but they may not be the best choices. You can do the big-box corporate brand shuffle, which means over-selling memberships and hoping they don't all turn up. Instead, you have to connect [...]
Read more...
Structure Your Offerings with Client Programming for Fitness Client programming is your menu of good things that you offer your market. In the fitness business, it's one of the fundamental dimensions that define a successful training practice. The big-box fitness brands can afford to stand back and cover all of the programming bases. As a small gym business owner, you are probably better served if you focus on one or a few. The irony, of course, is that the corporate brands would do better if they could do the same. However, in my experience, excellence doesn't scale all that well. [...]
Read more...
Breaching the Barriers of the Fitness Business Gyms should always be about positivity and overcoming obstacles. So, it's worth taking a look at a few of the hurdles you're likely to encounter in fitness entrepreneurship. I'm not saying you should forge ahead recklessly. You need a plan and contingencies. However, don't let the inevitable difficulties and the nay-sayers turn you away from your dream of becoming a fitness club owner. Big Box Brands Take All the Business False! You don't have to invest a fortune in a primo location, lease one-hundred tons of the latest Internet-connected equipment, and then compete [...]
Read more...
Building Your Dream by Starting Your Own Business in Fitness If you are the kind of person, like me, who enjoy fitness and being at the gym, the dream of starting your own business in fitness is the logical next step. Fitness is so wide-open because it's a people business. If you can gain a following of one person, you have a fitness business. That sounds crazy but, if you're in the right place at the right time, celebrities and the super-wealthy do sometimes hire trainers full-time. That may be a bit extreme and takes a lot of luck. However, [...]
Read more...
Survey of What Is On The Horizon for Special Populations in Fitness Specialty Fitness Fills Niches and Gyms Humans come in a delightful diversity of shapes, sizes, and physical needs. I think it is super-rewarding to see people achieve spectacular levels of fitness achievement. It is even more rewarding when you can help special populations take small steps to better health and enhanced mobility. Special Population Niche Opportunities The fitness profession offers opportunities to assist people at all stages of their fitness journeys, as well as their extended sojourns through life. Special populations present you with many unique niche opportunities [...]
Read more...
Promote Your Fitness Club with Private Label Branding Nothing brings credibility to a small fitness club like a unique fitness concept built around a strong brand. As long as you have a robust gym management software system as a foundation, you start to develop streams of income that complement your client programming. It also helps to have your brand on merchandise and products for sale in your gym's store or front desk. You don't need much floor space for these high-margin sales. Now, you can even add custom merchandise and e-commerce pages to your club website with ease. This is [...]
Read more...
The Sound of Fitness Club Amplification Feedback loops are weird. Put the front desk mic up a little too close to the speaker just one time, and everybody loses their minds (I swear it was an accident). That characteristic squeal is a feedback loop of amplification that builds on itself quickly to an unbearable screaming limit. In fitness training for clients, you see something similar, but in a good way. It's a much more gradual loop of growing fitness and confidence that translates into confidence and enthusiasm that produces a stronger workout ethic in your clients and better physical results. [...]
Read more...
Glittering Membership Management Performance Indicators If you can do things that keep and reduce change to the minimum your club might just be on the path to finding diamonds. Retention is the key concept of club management. It brings your small gym business dreams to life. That is a constant, but, unless your retention rate is one-hundred percent, it means change is the only constant. Setting Retention to Maximum If you have a limit to your membership management capacity, the longer members stick around, the less you have to invest in recruiting new ones. The difference is like that of [...]
Read more...
Personal Branding Revisited This is a follow-up piece to my recent post about Personal Branding for Fitness Entrepreneurs. There's a lot to cover in the topic, as well as about branding in general. Also, once you have it as part of your entrepreneurial mindset, branding is as powerful as a clean and tidy gym in drawing new members through your front door. As a fitness professional and business founder, you should consider that your personal name is an asset worth building, as well as the brand of your gym business company. If some big box fitness brand offers you many [...]
Read more...
