Keeping Your Gym Doors Open

You’ve undoubtedly heard the expression cash is king, and you’ll probably agree without much hesitation that revenue is the vital resource for your company. Even if you never deal with cash per se, revenue is the cash that drives your business forward; it’s the very breath of your organization.

Your membership structure is most likely your primary income source and all your members contribute a share to your success. However, there are always opportunities to give better service or provide products that will make your members’ experience better and which will boost your revenue in return.

Help Your Members By Improving Your Revenue Performance

When you improve the performance of your revenue, you can help your customers at the same time. Members who make the effort to turn up even half way regularly are expressing a commitment that’s exceptional and worthy of respect. They’re receptive to add-on services that help them get further in their quest for fitness. So, if you don’t make the effort to support them with add-ons you are doing them a disservice.

Looking At Profit And Loss

To get an idea of the pressure points where you can apply some finesse and improve your revenue, let’s look at it in accounting terms of your profit and loss statement.

Increase your top line revenue – This is the cash that comes in and from which you pay every expense. Find ways to increase the amount of money coming. You can get more customers but what if you are already at your maximum capacity? The other alternative is raising the average revenue per customer, the whole point of this article.

Keep a higher percentage of your adjusted gross sales – Each sale has a cost, reduce the cost of each to improve your marginal income, expressed as a percentage of revenue. This margin tells you how much you earn above the cost of winning the sale. In all cases, when you add income, it should increase the margin you earn.

Reduce overhead cost and add it directly to your bottom line – This is the final result so you can think of it as a negative space of income; it is everything that you can’t attribute directly to the cost of goods and services. Reducing your overheads puts the money that you save directly into your pocket.

Applying Leverage

Add-on sales, fitness training and other premium services – Every interaction with members are chances to sell additional services such as fitness training, classes and membership upgrades. Try to be proactive, add more offerings, and do whatever it takes to improve your customers’ workout experiences.

Convenience purchases – Have you thought about having a store or merchandise at the front desk? Stock up with a supply of the items that make the experience of working out more enjoyable. Towels, combination locks for lockers, batteries and lifting gloves are but a few. These small purchases can be a win-win; the members get the things they need on the spot, and you can price at a high margin to improve your cash flow.

Vending Machines – If you have a small staff or a remote-operated gym with 24/7 access, why not automate your merchandise and convenience sales as well? You can put just about anything you can imagine into a vending machine. Low price items such as bottled water, sports drinks or protein bars are obvious choices, along with all of the tempting treats and trinkets that sell well on impulse.

A Revenue Expanding Win For All

Upselling your customers must be done in the spirit of service. People have heard every fancy sales pitch and trick. Pushing too hard or too far in a clumsy effort to up-sell a twenty-dollar add-on product could cost you a member. Having stated that, you should value your the goods and services that you offer and price them accordingly. Your monthly membership should cover your basic costs and overheads, every additional item and service should increase your profit margin and give you an increased bottom line.

Bibliography

Fagan, Lawrence. Is Your Gym Offering 24-hour Access Yet? October 17, 2013. https://blog.gyminsight.com/2012-is-your-gym-offering-24-hour-access-yet/ (accessed March 29, 2016).

Loth, Richard. Understanding The Income Statement. February 16, 2016. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/04/022504.asp (accessed March 29, 2016).