Let’s talk Memorial Day gym promotions. The national holiday is only five weeks away — what about using it to increase your membership numbers while expressing gratitude for those who’ve given their lives in service to our country? What is Memorial Day? Memorial Day is a federal holiday established in 1868 to honor and remember United States personnel who died while in service in the U.S. armed forces during both wartime and peacetime. A commemoration organized in 1865 by formerly enslaved people in Charleston, South Carolina, is the first known recognition of the day, which was frequently called Memorial Day within the [...]
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Gage Bowra opened 24/7 Fitness in Coolidge, Arizona, after running a steady pre-sale campaign that resulted in signing up hundreds of early members. Yet, the cash he pulled in just barely covered new paint and carpets. So why did he bother with it? Because there’s no price on hope. And Bowra needed a lot of it. When he closed on the 5,500-square-foot gym in the tiny town of barely 20,000, he had one choice: success. Failure ... was not an option. Why gym pre-sales were the only answer Bowra is a construction guy and a father. More than five years ago, he [...]
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Easter just ended and it feels as if summer is nearly here. The weather is warming and your gym members are planning vacations. Take advantage of this bright season to try something new and build a strong base of loyal clients. Here are three membership-building strategies you can start now. 1. Market to college students It's a no-brainer gym growth strategy — Every year students return from college to hometowns searching for jobs and things to do. Don’t lose this lucrative market to big box competitors. Build promotions targeted at college students through social media, word-of-mouth, email, and local mailers. Geo-target [...]
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Employee Profile – Alison Lynch Gym Insight employee Alison Lynch's one-year anniversary with our gym management software firm has nearly arrived and we are so thrilled to have her on board. When we asked Alison to join our customer service team last May, we were excited by her career experience, which included nearly 25 years of customer service and benefits administration with her family-owned insurance company. We know the best customer service representatives are a hardy bunch and Alison has not disappointed. She comes equipped with nerves of steel, a sense of humor, and the intuitiveness to handle diverse personalities – [...]
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Crossing The Streams For Fun And Learning I'd like to think that there's some extra value hidden within the Gym Insight Blog: This is a company that crosses the two industries of software and gym management to help gym owners be competitive and offer better service levels for their customers. The software industry has some great lessons for all business owners. When you need to come up with results such as opening a new gym or creating a franchise, taking the actions that get results is the difference between success and failure. The software development industry is very competitive and [...]
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My family recently stayed in a hotel where we were greeted by an employee vaping behind the counter. Later, I found the hotel’s gym equipment broken and worn out. On my next visit to the city, I stayed at another hotel, in a different part of town. This excursion made me think about the similarity between gyms and hotels and what the fitness industry can discover from the leaders in leisure. And, how devastating bad first impressions are on customer retention. How the best hotels create brand love. Hilton understands good customer experiences — coupled with excellent customer service — [...]
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Dear Gym Owners and Gym Dreamers, Your business means everything to us. You are the independent fitness club owner with the courage and conviction to work relentlessly for your own success. It’s a great story, one we cherish hearing every day. At Gym Insight, we sincerely value these long-term relationships with our customers. You feed our most innovative design ideas and keep us excited to create — and re-create — the best gym management software on the planet. This may be because we’re a lot like you — a privately held company growing with a single purpose — to bring profitability, [...]
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In this week’s Gym Owner’s blog by Gym Insight, we interview seven-location Club Pilates owner Justin Kirkland for tips and secrets on growing into a multi-location fitness business. His experience with the successful franchise blends on-the-street advice with a marketing major’s savvy. Read on for details on what it takes to grow exponentially in the competitive field of boutique studios. Kirkland's early lessons changed everything The Kirkland family purchased three Las Vegas Club Pilates in September 2019. One of their first ventures into private business ownership, they immediately began experimenting with management and marketing styles. The results would shape future [...]
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David Flench, president Medical Fitness Association. Recently our Gym Owner’s Podcast welcomed David Flench, president of the Medical Fitness Association, for a conversation on how gyms benefit from offering medically integrated healthcare services. Here's the lowdown on what we learned. To listen to our podcast, click on the embedded YouTube link. What is the Medical Fitness Association? It is a nonprofit professional membership organization providing industry standards, certification opportunities, educational programs, benchmark data, professional development and networking to improve the operational success of medically integrated health and well-being centers. It strives to be the resource for new and established gyms [...]
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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 [...]
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Gym owners, wake up! You're all fighting for a piece of the same market — slim, fit people. It’s time to embrace the nearly 70 percent of people in the United States who are overweight or obese. They want to exercise, too — just not for the reasons you may think. For this article, we spoke with Louise Green, founder of the Big Fit Girl campaign. Green is a personal trainer, spokesperson, and author who has created an online community supporting, encouraging, and training individuals in larger bodies.From a founding bootcamp for plus-sized women to creating a weight-neutral fitness movement that includes [...]
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How can you find good employees for your gym? Individuals who express your values and create an environment in which members will thrive? It’s never an easy task, but we’ve brainstormed multiple ways you can scout and hire good people. These ideas are culled from our discussions with other gym owners, as well our own experiences in the job market. Four tips to finding good gym employees 1. Recruit from your membership The people who visit your gym already love it. Why not bring them in on the action? We’ve spoken with more than one gym owner who found particular members [...]
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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 [...]
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Looking to increase your gym’s revenue quickly without bumping up marketing costs? Anthony Pasquale, Gym Insight Sales Manager, recorded this excellent video to help gym owners discover new ways to expand and increase your club’s earnings through soliciting corporate accounts. We thought there might be even more to learn about this subject, though, so we decided to look a little closer at his suggestions. Strategy #1 — Explore corporate accounts and gym reimbursements. As Anthony states, corporate accounts are an awesome way to lower a member's out-of-pocket gym costs without reducing your monthly fees. In these cases, a company — usually the [...]
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Every gym owner knows summertime is one of the slowest times of the year. Gyms historically see a jump in membership at New Years’ and in the spring. Unfortunately, by late May this universal urge to slim down fades as summer arrives. Sadly, many of these newcomers are ready to cancel their memberships as well. Many gym owners are tempted to just ride out the summer months As a fitness club owner, summer is a great time to refresh equipment, renovate interior or exterior gym areas or go on vaca. After all, burnout is real in this business. However, it is [...]
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