At Abb's Muscle & Fitness everyone is younger than the owner. Many of the staff members are Gen Z, individuals born between 1997 and 2012. To manage this young team, owner Abbe Hockaday set aside society's prevailing views and approached them with her own brand of intergenerational acceptance and love. They are the seeds she sows to create an environment that is more ministry than gym. Simply said, this puzzling generation challenges her to think and act at her best. Here are some tips she's discovered to glean the most out of her Gen Z employees. Six simple tools to [...]
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Don’t let your gym’s size get in the way of negotiating a great gym lease — you’ve got more power than you think. Gyms are the darling of commercial real estate these days and here are four reasons why Four reasons landlords prefer gym leases 1. Gym clients stick around. Gym goers are known for something in the industry called “stickiness.” This odd word is the amount of time a person stays in the retail plaza after visiting (in this case) the gym. While in the plaza, gym goers frequently stop for a refreshment, socialize with friends or finish errands. According to Creditntell, [...]
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As a gym owner, you would already know that the music you play at your gym defines the ambiance and affects the level of motivation for your members. With different personalities coming to your gym, you are probably having a hard time trying to keep everyone happy with the type of music you play. While hardcore bodybuilders are likely to prefer rock and heavy metal, others might be more comfortable listening to pop and blues. The choice of workout music can also differ a lot according to each type of exercise. When deciding which music or radio station you should [...]
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Employee Profile: George Cox, Executive Assistant Former naval officer Lt. George Cox met Gym Insight’s owner after graduating from Liberty University with a Master of Divinity. Lean and ready to find a calling in the civilian world, his modesty almost got in the way of his becoming our Executive Assistant. Luckily, we can spot talent, even if it’s not looking for us. Once hired, we quickly discovered his military training equipped him with a skillset both technically adaptable and highly disciplined — an awesome combination for our fast-growing gym software company. Today, Cox is the rudder that ensures employees are [...]
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20 Things Successful Gym Owners Do Everyday Part 1 I was recently reading a post entitled: "20 Things The Rich Do Everyday" on Dave Ramsey's Website. If you're not familiar with Ramsey and his teachings his website is truly worth giving a close inspection if you're a small business owner or gym owner. He writes about finance and emphasizes getting out of debt and building wealth. When this first came out, it seemed to spark controversy because of the direct percentage comparison with the poor. Regardless, these are great healthy habits to incorporate not only into your own personal life but also carry [...]
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GHsKOL5wZk Reduce paperwork this New Year by implementing a gym management software system. How Does It Look? What Does It Mean? What Needs To Be Done? It's a great time to draw a line under the past year by looking at what was good, what was bad and what looks to be changing. I'm not talking about Taylor Swift or politics here, but specifically in the marketplace that you serve as a small gym owner. I've been writing about a lot of different topics this year and it's worth a review to remind readers of what's been covered and some [...]
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Remember when fitness was an exploding rocket, taking off like a firebrand in everyone's consciousness? The future seemed endless with new innovations blending technology and health, fun and funky athletic trends, and a swath of boutique and health club options catering to every age, income, and preference. The future will be "virtual, gamified, and totally immersive," claimed a January 2020 Fast Company article. Then came the COVID-19 shutdown and gym attendance petered out, to the point where an estimated 70% of health club members have not returned to their local gyms. Many turned to exercise at their home - a [...]
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If you are new to the fitness industry, you probably have some amount of trepidation toward the time of year known as the "slow season" for gyms. Typically, when people talk about the slow season, they are referring to the summer months where most gyms struggle through a dip of low memberships and class participation. Assuming you have just opened your gym, or you are still preparing for a grand opening, you have not yet been through a slow summer in order to judge how it will affect your business personally. However, in this post we'll run through the basics [...]
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Insight was my solution for my own gym management headaches. As a computer science graduate and fitness club owner, I had some options. I didn't hesitate to dive in and write my own code when the business started to get complicated. Great idea, right? Well, it turned into a bigger project than I had expected, which is an understatement! Each solution seemed to reveal new problems, at least in the first version. I'm not going into too much detail because I've covered much of this over the years on the Gym Insight Blog. Multiple Gym Management Tool Sets There's a [...]
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Fitness is one of the more efficient industries, in the economic sense. The same is true about gym management software. It's a good thing in that competition leads to better products and services. On the other hand, it goes in the opposite direction as well. Economics drives free markets toward commoditization, which means cheap, bland products. Here at Insight, we recognize that, and we work to deliver a stand-out club management platform that defies the odds. As a gym business owner, so should you. The best strategy for small gym business success is unique offerings that command premium fitness club [...]
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Make Your Name in The Business As an independent gym or fitness club owner, have you considered your personal brand? I'm not talking about the fitness club brand of the gym that you founded (or plan to start). What I mean is your public name and reputation as an entrepreneur. If you have worked with an executive coach, you may have heard of personal branding. Chief-level executives, ambitious corporate VPs, and high-tech start-up founders often work with a coach. The goal is to enhance your credentials and be more valuable as a leader and public figure. Personal branding opens doors. [...]
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Four Organizational Culture Types Did you know that there are four different categories of organizational culture? I didn't. Some researchers at the University of Michigan figured it out, and I'm glad they did. So, let's take a look at these four cultures and see how they show up in with the fitness business. Business schools that develop management theories have been covering the structures of companies for decades. Formal structures have the backing of authority; they are the written tables of organization, policies, and procedures. The formal structure of your company goes all the way up to the corporate documents [...]
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So, what's the point of implementing a corporate wellness program? Is it about building company culture and togetherness? No, at the highest level, corporate wellness is about having healthier, more productive employees. On the most practical level, it's more about minimizing costs and workers who get more done with less friction. Savings is a worthy goal, so is productivity, but creating a program that matches long-term benefits against short-term costs is a difficult thing to achieve. In theory, fitter workers should yield higher levels of productivity. While healthcare costs generally bill you in yearly chunks, quantifiable wellness improvements might take [...]
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Getting Beyond The Gym Business Basics Developing alternate revenue streams for your new fitness club is the next stage for any ambitious gym business venture. If you hope to grow your business beyond the basics of club memberships, it is vital to have additional sources of income to achieve long-term success. Once you have a steady stream of income from membership subscriptions to your club, you have a solid start to gym ownership success. That doesn't mean you can sit back and relax though. It is time to expand all of the additional channels of income that compliment and enhance [...]
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CES 2018 Shows The Future Of Technology for Fitness The Consumer Electronics Show has come and gone for the year once again. With it, we have seen the latest round of technology that is either directly related to fitness, or which you could apply to the gym business with a little imagination. Wearables and Trackers The health and fitness exhibitors at CES for 2018 were more full of enthusiasm for technology than ever before and with good reason. There were more wearable devices on display than ever before, and it looks to me like the functionality factor is rising. Wearables [...]
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