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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What your fitness business should do in 2022. At first glance you might think that I've already covered this topic for the year. But this is a little different; it's intended to be a straightforward list of resolutions for the New Year. I want to make this a post about looking forward and in the last post on making plans there was a lot of content that I left out simply because there was too much good stuff for one post to cover. So, this is a list of what a fitness business should resolve to do in the New [...]
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The Great Marketing Concepts Are Eternal Channels are big in marketing these days. Not that the concept is particularly new or changed recently, but there are more ways to connect to your customers than ever before. I have already written about strategy and marketing, but I want to discuss marketing channels here. Your communication channels for marketing can be digital such as email, social media such as Facebook and Twitter, text messaging and IM platforms, Slack, et cetera. They are also your telephone lines, your front desk, and the script that you have your staff use to close sales. The [...]
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The New Age Of Getting Hacked Security is taking on a whole new meaning now. There are still all of the general concerns about physical security risks and the need to secure credit card transactions with the new chip card systems. Now, everything's connected digitally too, it's not just a new-age-y saying, it's true that even the smallest businesses depend on either a computer or a tablet to handle business transactions. Arguably, that makes your digital devices and connection the weak points that bring digital security risks into your business. You have to protect customer information and credit card numbers; [...]
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Parallels In Gym Ownership And Software Services Companies I am fortunate to have had the privilege to see the inner workings of two different industries. My background and education is in computer science but my passions and enterprises have always been in fitness. That led me to having both a career in computer sciences through gyminsight.com and in gym management by owning a small but successful local gym business. Since the readers of the Gym Insight Blog tend to be fitness professionals I thought it would be useful, as a contrast, to talk about the computer industry and the differences [...]
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Leadership has an element of theater and what are we as gym and fitness center owners if not leaders? Personally, I got into the gym ownership business out of an urge to follow my passion. I had a burning desire to make a positive impact and make a living doing something that shares that passion with other people. All of the trainers that I've worked with over the years also appear to have been just as determined, as far as I can tell. I think that you really only get into a career in fitness to make a positive statement [...]
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Ever notice that gyms all seem to cluster together in one corner of the neighborhood? It's like where all four corners of an intersection each have a gas station on them. How does that work? And what does that mean for the small business owner? It works because everyone gets to maximize their presence in the market and the cluster makes everyone more visible than they would be alone. The sum of the businesses is greater than the parts. If you have no other choice but to open a gym in a fitness saturated area, here are some positive economic [...]
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Less than 9 months after releasing Gym Insight's V2, we were extremely honored to welcome our 1,000 th active user on Christmas Eve. Gym Insight has grown faster than ever anticipated. We want to thank you all for giving a small, organic software company an opportunity to help benefit your fitness business. The New Year is rapidly approaching and we can hardly contain our excitement to see what is to come. We have a lot planned for you! As we diligently work to make Gym Insight Management Software the most cost effective and easiest program on the market, we continue [...]
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I founded Gym Insight because I wanted software that catered directly to how I manage my fitness center, and I just couldn't find that on the market. At least, not up to the standards that I expect from a dedicated business application. Insight has been so successful because other owners of small fitness center and their managers face the same demands every day. One of the most important things that the best gym management software must do is integrate with the customer experience. It has to help the curious browser or window shopper to pull the trigger and commit to [...]
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The age old adage "what gets measured gets improved" holds a lot of value for businesses. This phrase is often tossed around when you are being convinced to add a metric to your scorecard or in today's world of technology, the dashboard. The basic theory underlying this phrase is that if you can measure "x", then you will improve the performance of your business. But the implementation of this phrase isn't an easy task. Merely measuring a quantity doesn't ensure that if actions are taken the performance will improve. For instance, consider how a rain gauge works. The gauge shows [...]
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Picture swans sitting on a river, big and elegant white birds that glide across the water, seemingly without effort. They make it look so easy, don't they? They just seem to glide along, with hardly any visible exertion above the waterline. But here's the secret: If you could see them from the underwater perspective, it would be a totally different story. You'd see their little legs paddling away furiously against the river current, (kind of like that super competitive guy who's always trying to "win" in the spinning class). That's why a big white waterfowl, the swan, is a great [...]
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