Third Party Confirmations I was just reading the results of a really interesting small business survey, and the discussion about it, on the Club Solutions Website. The point was that community and reviews lead as the driving forces for growth across the spectrum of small businesses. Of 6,000 survey respondents, eleven percent were gym members. The survey showed that there is growth in the economy, small businesses get the most return by providing community, and that small businesses, including gyms, get a lot of mileage from reviews posted by members. The article went on to say that these reviews provide [...]
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Give Great Customer Service To Secure Your Business Future I've come to the conclusion that there's one simple key to effective customer service. It's a principle that's so obvious that it is quite simply missed most of the time. Sometimes genius lies in the simple, the unsophisticated and the literal. The key that I'm talking about here is the practice of hiring only people for customer service roles who are naturally inclined to help others. One of the best business practitioners of this sort of policy is Southwest Airlines, which has long known the importance of finding the right person [...]
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When The Unboxing Experience Feels Like Your Birthday I recently set up a local service with a card reader. The company that sent the reader seems to have a real insight into the concept of experience, particularly the unboxing experience. The reader is well designed but so was the box that it came in. It contained three cleverly designed and satisfying layers of wrapping that had to be peeled away or opened and then a final layer of protective plastic that was strangely the best part to remove. These days, it's no surprise that people unbox their tech-toys and upload [...]
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Doing Well By Doing Good Membership retention is the one weightiest factor in running your business, after winning initial sign-ups. I've been reminded of this because, according to the author of the book Blue Zones, Dan Buettner, almost all of your members will drop out within three years of first signing up. This is your recidivism rate. Improving and extending these numbers will reduce the turnover rate at your gym. The Importance Of Membership Retention Your revenue is going to benefit from marginally extending the averages on your memberships. Revenue comes from your subscriptions and if you are doing the [...]
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A while back I wrote an article about the ten reasons new gyms fail. It was well received by the readers of Gym Insight and the discussion was very gratifying for me. But as a believer in fitness and getting results in a positive way I feel compelled to balance it out with an article about the positive side of gym startups and success. I admit that there is likely plenty of overlap between this and the previous article. These things are worth saying over and over again and doing more reps never hurt anybody. Arm Yourself With The Most [...]
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The fitness trainers that I've worked with over the years have been a very diverse range of people. They share a love of fitness and the drive to help others achieve it. Of course, I'm speaking in very broad generalizations here, but there is another thing that all too many certified fitness professionals have. I'm talking about student loans. It could sometimes be that they followed their dreams and went all out on a bachelors degree relating to fitness, followed by fitness certification. Alternatively, perhaps they majored in something like real estate management, only to find out that they didn't [...]
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Social Networks are the fabric of community. I'm writing here about the social media networks that have emerged with the invention of the Internet and which connects people in a way that hasn't been possible for past generations. Like This Article on Facebook! The arrival of facebook, Twitter and other social networks like Google Plus have put social connection onto a different level. The spread of these networks into every aspect of daily life have made it possible to create targeted networks that are focused on particular interests, like fitness. There are now some great tools to make your small [...]
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The seasonal fluctuations of the gym business are familiar to anyone who's been a member of a gym for more than a year. Gym owners and managers are even more acutely aware of the seasonal changes in the business because of the changing stress levels that go with the seasons. Gyms have an annual ebb and flow, with a peak of activity with the New Year. It's the most hectic time with all of the hustle and bustle of resolutions being fulfilled in the form of good intentions and new memberships. Issues of The Resolution Cycle There are a couple [...]
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Keeping your gym clean is a topic that I like to return to occasionally. I do so because it's one of the keys to success in gym management. It's vitally important to your business success. This is a review and a reminder about this topic and I'm sure that I'll come back to it again in the future. This time I'm going to relate cleaning to the core values of your team. "Values" is one of those topics that sound like business school buzzwords (because it is). But it's a buzzword because there's a lot of truth to it and [...]
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Your gym may be well known for coming up with creative promotion ideas, but that doesn't guarantee your members will want to stay for a long time. The key is to provide excellent service, so that they fall in love with the experience of working out at YOUR gym. You can do this by offering and focusing on three important services that will improve their first impression and leave a lasting effect. Let's find out how health assessments, orientations, and free personal training sessions can help in retaining the newest members of your gym... 1) Health Assessments Every person who [...]
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A lot of jargon is thrown around in the world of fitness. Walk into any gym at any given moment in any part of the world and you will hear a conversation about too much muscle one day going through some magical, Narnia-like metamorphic journey to fat. Well, if muscle cells can somehow break the laws of everything humankind has discovered about biology, then be careful because your fingers could just as likely turn into a pack of hungry wolverines at some point. Many popular fitness terms are riddled in conversations like the one mentioned above. Probably the most popular [...]
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Most people have some sort of mobile device connected to an SMS text-messaging network these days. That creates an opportunity for the enterprising fitness center owner to use text messages as another medium in their marketing strategy, with which to engage with gym members. The question is how does that fit into your marketing and how do you get the most out of it? Is Texting The New Email Marketing? As I've stated before, email marketing is a really powerful tool to increase your fitness center's profitability. Health and fitness are such an important marketing demographic that, as an owner, [...]
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Unusual fitness equipment has its advantages in both attracting new customers to your fitness business and retaining current members. Encouraging New Gym Goers Join Your Gym When new customer walks through your door that has never had a gym membership, emphasize why the variety of your gym equipment is important to their overall fitness regimen. Inform them that gym equipment is scientifically designed to ensure that when you use it, you are actually burning more calories as well as increasing the strength in your muscles. The reason why personal trainers and fitness instructors emphasize the use of the equipment is [...]
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We all know that fitness plays a very important role in our daily lives. It helps to maintain our health and keeps our bodies immune to fight off diseases and illness. Physical fitness is important for those who are suffering from obesity and other weight related problems. Joining a health club is great way of losing weight and improving your health because health clubs specialize in providing the necessary training and weight reduction activities that will help you stay healthy and fit. One recent trend that has started to build up a lot of buzz within the health club industry [...]
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It is no secret that without motivation, it is hard for any exercise program to survive. Although there are many factors that go into the longevity and success of your personal-training business, one of the main factors that this post will focus on is your ability to motivate your clients. As you are probably familiar with yourself, motivation is not a simple task and requires a great deal of commitment, time, energy, and thought. When you are responsible for motivating another person, you have to still bear in mind yourself. As a personal trainer, there are two people that have [...]
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