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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It’s been a great year for our company and we pray the same for you. Since gym owners such as yourselves are such a huge part of our success — well, you’re almost like family — we’d thought you’d enjoy an end-of-year wrap up. Looking forward to an amazing 2024 and the privilege of watching your gyms grow exponentially! Gym Insight 2023 Social Media Winners: Top Podcast: "Insider Tips for Owning a Thriving Gym with Justin Green." Top Instagram: “Always Remember This Verse…” Top Facebook: “Don’t Let Life Knock You Down…” Top YouTube Short: “Zero to Hero….” Top Blog: “Best Types of Music to Play…” Fav [...]
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October 2023 Gym Owner's Podcast, "The Power of Control: Dr. JES Returns." How can gym owners avoid becoming embroiled in a negligence lawsuit? Savvy business professionals recognize that all manner of legal claims have increased in frequency over the years. But how can a small business, like a fitness club, avoid becoming embroiled in a negligence lawsuit? Proactive gym owners can sidestep potential negligence lawsuits by rethinking their hiring and member management strategies. Attaining a waiver signature is not enough protection. As discussed in previous blogs and podcasts, the waiver law defense only comes into play after an injury has [...]
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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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Our Gym Insight Sales Guru© software is changing for the better this season as we unveil our newest version of Insight. Soon, users will have the choice to create a membership that will auto add a scheduled payment to the new account. This will eliminate common mistakes made from entering a yearly enhancement fee by hand after the sale is complete. Enhancement fees, sometimes also called maintenance fees, often act as a financial buffer for owners, providing that extra cushion needed between rock-bottom pricing and a well-managed gym. The money has to come from somewhere, right? But adding those annual [...]
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Health club owners still need — and want — employees. These friendly faces greet guests, handle minor emergencies, and keep the business running smoothly. It’s the human dimension that adds the zip to the brand. The tough part is keeping these employees busy and on track. Often, as we wrote in our "We Call It 'The Money Catcher'" blog, the only time an employee may start working is when you show up. How can you fix this problem and gain employee buy-in at the same time? As simple as it sounds, it may all come down to making a list. [...]
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It's not just about what you think the identity of your gym or fitness center should be. It's more than that. It matters what all of the other people think: the employees, contractors and other stakeholders. The way to guide their understanding is by having a clearly stated, present-focused, mission statement. This is another in the set of articles I've been writing about values, vision and your mission. The overarching theme here is getting your business to work as smoothly as possible and for this trifecta to become a shared idea. My exact point here, is to have a statement [...]
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Gym Management Netflix recently made headlines when it came clean on its subscription sharing problem. Too many users are slipping passwords to friends and family. To rectify this bottom-line problem, they are pivoting to new policies and trying to stem the leak. However, if sharing passwords can make a company the size of Netflix quake, imagine its impact on small, privately held gyms. For gym owners, the answer to account sharing lies in digital keytags, a QR-embedded phone app nimble enough to save money and build customer loyalty. Gym Insight’s digital keytags eliminate unauthorized users by providing a dynamic QR code [...]
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We invite you to test our newest product – digital keytags. If you've ever worried about customers sharing keys or have lost business because you can't get to the club in time, this key is for you. Gym Insight's newly released, app-based digital keytags are equipped with a QR code that can never be copied or shared. At the same time, members enjoy immediate, secure mobile access to your fitness center within minutes of sign-up. How does our digital keytag work? Customers download an app on their mobile phones. Embedded in the app is the digital keytag. Your member simply pulls [...]
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Many smaller fitness centers offer specialized services that justify a higher monthly rate. Yet, selling that price requires a more refined approach to customer managment than it would at a cut-rate gym. To figure out the details, we’ve interviewed a Muay Thai studio owner on what it takes to sell and manage high-dollar gym memberships. Read on to learn his four critical steps to managing high-dollar memberships. Step 1 — Sell value, not price Tampa Muay Thai membership is $145 per month. The 17-year-old fight gym sits in the heart of a growing medium-sized city and competes with other martial art studios. To [...]
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Closing the Sale Thus far in our five-part series “How to Sell Gym Memberships,” we’ve shown how refining and polishing your customer interaction can build value in your health club and steer clients away from focusing on price alone. In Part IV, we discuss the most critical step – closing the sale. This is where your newly gained client knowledge really pays off. Closing the sale By now in the sales process with Joe New Prospect, you’ve: Established a strong rapport by using his name frequentlyExhibited product knowledge that cements your authority as a fitness expertDetermined goals and how long he’s considered joining a [...]
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Every gym owner intends to run a profitable health club, but reaching that goal can feel impossible. There are, however, small effective steps you can take today to position your studio for a stronger, healthier future. These good habits start by conducting a line-by-line review of every expense and considering new ways to run an old business. Accountants and business analysts recommend printing out a 12-month profit-and-loss statement twice a year (or even quarterly) in order to accurately appraise every company expenditure. Although such effort sounds tedious, watching every penny is the only way to ensure you’re not wasting money. As [...]
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Don Roberts’ Fit 24/7 Gym keeps things simple. His gym does not boast a sauna, day care, or exercise classes. Customers know to follow the rules or get kicked out. And his club is open every day, 24 hours a day, frequently without a single employee on premise. Stripped bare of any extras and run entirely by himself, his 550-member facility in Durango, Colorado, has been profitable — very profitable, he insists — from day one. The key to making money is minimal expenses and 24 hour access. The advantage of 24-hour gyms In a time when nearly 20 percent of gyms closed permanently [...]
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Should your gym add an enhancement fee to offset the increased cost of cleaning materials and procedures? We asked two fitness center owners their opinions. Here’s what we learned. Photos courtesy of Fit247 Does not charge an annual maintenance fee: Don Roberts, owner of Fit247, Durango, Colorado Roberts has owned his gym for 20 years and decided against charging his customers a maintenance fee. The 7,000-square-foot, 24-hour facility is in a small city with a close-knit group of customers, and he prides himself on running a very clean, organized gym. Nearly 20% of his 600 members have been with him almost [...]
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Let’s be real. Many gym owners run their clubs via spreadsheets and direct deposit. We call that “pen-and-papering” a gym. How do we know? Because we owned fitness studios for decades. That’s why we started Gym Insight. We know the right gym management software can help owners grow their gyms without costing them a fortune. Profile of ProFitness of Greenville, South Carolina In 2014, Pete Marston bought a small, struggling 24-hour gym with a friendly crowd ready for a hands-on owner. The recently retired manufacturing executive ran the club without gym software, manually renewing clients. It was time-consuming, but he [...]
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