There’s not much that a little creative ingenuity can’t overcome. The fitness industry is one where you can get a start with or without vast sums of capital to invest. While it might seem easier to do with truckloads of financial backing, there are plenty of things you can do to get started or at least boost your business to the next level.
1. Be The Expert
Focus on what you do best. That thing that you’re most confident about and for which you have the most experience, this is what management gurus call your core competence. The knowledge that you can share which has the most value will draw in customers, and they’ll help grow your business for you.
Ensure that your team members are sharp. Train your team for success in sales and actively participate in their career development. Most of all, you should be confident that you are expert in your opinions and advice, and that nothing will come back and haunt you.
2. YouTube Your Information and Tips
Make videos about using your gym, but also leverage your expertise and explain popular exercises point-by-point, diet, and nutrition tips, or get the natural hams on your team to make every day a reality TV show that features your gym. These days, you can do it with a smartphone and a video editing application on your notebook computer.
In the end, your goal is always to bring prospects back to your sales funnel and close them on memberships. You probably already have a list of things to work through with new members. One of those might be a familiarization tour of your facility, why not put it in a video?
3. Get Social with Instagram
These days, it seems like the one way to reach the broadest range of people is Instagram. If you don’t yet have a presence on this platform, it might be time to jump in.
Coordinate with your trainers and employees to cross-post and get the conversation going online. The objective is again to generate content that gets people interested in what you do. Let your passion shine through, and you will connect with people who share your enthusiasm.
4. Use Email To Communicate Your Message
You don’t have to wait for prospects to sign up to get them on a mailing list. In fact, it might be an easier sell to get them on the list and then use extra incentives to entice them to become full members.
5. Automate Your Systems
It’s never been easier to customize sequences of actions across online platforms. All you have to do is get people to take the first step. Many of the applications have integrations that transfer information from one app to another.
Services like Zapier.com or IFTTT.com extend these software capabilities even further. You can do things like add new gym signups to a spreadsheet list and trigger actions like adding the member or prospect as an email contact.
6. Host A Competition Or Event
If someone wants to use your studio or open floor space for a get-together or group activity, turn it to your advantage. It doesn’t even matter if they pay rent for the time. If you have people in your fitness center having fun and curious about what happens in the fitness space the rest of the time you can sell them something. You can gently prompt these inquisitive visitors to think about trying a membership. Of course, if you get a share of the fees, that’s a good thing too.
7. Close Like You Sell Puppies for A Living
If you give prospects something, they love they won’t want to give it back. That way they want to pay to stick around once they’re hooked. It’s the old "Puppy Dog Close," and it works as well as it ever did.
If you give someone a puppy and tell them, "Keep it for two weeks. If at the end of that time you don’t love it and want it as part of your life, give it back. No questions asked. Otherwise, pay me at that time."
Who doesn’t bond with a puppy in two weeks? Likewise, if your gym business model is something people love, they’ll want to pay the membership at the end of the trial period.
Use Gym Insight Dedicated Gym Management Software Tools
The whole point of hacking the fitness business is to bootstrap your way from startup to thriving gym business. However, even if you operate a well-funded and successful business, it never hurts to know where the shortcuts might be hiding. One hack that is crucial to success for any aspiring gym business is the right software suite to organize the information foundation of your gym.
Gym Insight is proven gym management software that makes it easy for you to manage your membership, payments, and business operations. Check out what we offer and think about how it can assist in your efforts to bootstrap your way to the next level of gym business success.
Bibliography
Fagan, Lawrence. Bootstrapping A Gym Business From Zero. September 19, 2016. https://blog.gyminsight.com/3967-bootstrapping-a-gym-business-from-zero/ (accessed July 24, 2018).
Grant, Steve. 5 Instagram Hacks For Your Fitness Studio. November 17, 2017. https://gymhub.com.au/5-instagram-hacks-for-your-fitness-studio/ (accessed July 24, 2018).