Looking to increase your gym’s revenue quickly without bumping up marketing costs? Anthony Pasquale, Gym Insight Sales Manager, recorded this excellent video to help gym owners discover new ways to expand and increase your club’s earnings through soliciting corporate accounts.
We thought there might be even more to learn about this subject, though, so we decided to look a little closer at his suggestions.
Strategy #1 — Explore corporate accounts and gym reimbursements.
As Anthony states, corporate accounts are an awesome way to lower a member’s out-of-pocket gym costs without reducing your monthly fees. In these cases, a company — usually the member’s employer — pays part of a gym membership. The corporation usually pays an employees’ gym memberships through an ACH payment processing or a credit card account. Or, the company may require employees to keep track of their workouts and submit a statement for reimbursement.
But how do you, as a gym owner, know if your prospect has access to this benefit?
We say, ask them!
Excellent questions to ask a gym prospect:
- Are they covered by a group health insurance plan that may provide funds to use for a gym membership? Get gutsy and break out the mobile phone to take a look at their benefits page.
- Do they work for a large company? Frequently, public companies, multi-international businesses or sizable local employers provide a generous array of complementary benefits beyond health insurance.
- Do they carry a flex spending account? An FSA is a tax-free account established by an employee to pay for out-of-pocket health-related expenses. One caveat — they may need a letter of medical necessity signed by a physician to defend the use of funds, but this is a small hurdle on the road to a healthy life.
How corporate gym memberships work
Corporate gym memberships are generally issued through an insurance product or a supplemental policy that provides coverage under a plan. Depending on the style of plan, it may cover specific gyms, or work as a reimbursement plan, similar to what Pasquale describes. Companies are known as the “sponsoring organization.”
Usually, the policy will not cover the full cost of a monthly gym membership, but, for many people, any financial help is welcome.
Insurance Plans That Provide Gym Coverage
While insurance products differ from state to state, most major insurance companies offer a fitness incentive reimbursement of some sort. The companies I’ve found include divisions of Blue Cross Blue Shield, Aetna, Cigna, and AmeriHealth. It’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with which major firms offer these benefits in your area.
Strategy #2 — Enroll your gym in a network plan.
Another choice is to enroll your gym in programs that partner with corporations outside of a group health insurance plan.
Here are the ones we found:
- Tivity Health is a Tennessee-based company that offers members free, unlimited access to fitness locations across the United States. Tivity’s most recognizable brand is the well-known SilverSneakers program for seniors on Medicare. However, Tivity’s Prime® Fitness is an employer-based benefit that gives employees free access to 10,000+ locations. A simple search near my home showed multiple privately-owned and national gyms registered with Prime.
- Active & Fit Now is a product of American Specialty Health, and provides reduced-priced memberships to gym goers without the worry of long-term contracts. Their Active & Fit Direct program partners with employers and insurance companies to offer lower cost gym memberships directly to consumers through their organizations. By enrolling your gym with Active & Fit Direct, you’re taking advantage of an established relationship between a fitness network and employers to increase the possibility that a local will find your gym fast — and be able to afford to pay for it!
- ClassPass — This program allows people to use credits at different gyms. It’s one way to keep your studio on schedule of individuals who like to shake up their routine.
Strategy #3 — Reach out to local companies to encourage gym membership coverage.
This is a where a little salesmanship goes a long way. As Anthony suggests, contact local business owners or their human resource departments to discuss how your gym can help their employees live healthier lives. Provide the company with a free corporate account through your gym. This corporate account offers special membership rates for employees and discounts on complementary services such as personal training.
Participate in one of their health fair days or directly solicit the employees through an authorized visit to the company. Either way, you’re going straight into the heart of a company and drawing new members to your gym.
Strategy #4 — Bump up your sales techniques.
Turn one sale into four by creating a “VIP” guest list. When a new member signs up, ask them to put three people on an exclusive guest list. These three people receive a free trial membership and are able to work out immediately without paying a day fee. If that new member also buys additional services, such as personal training or tanning, they are invited to add additional members to the guest list.
The result? Your client has a friend to join them early on in their gym membership journey and you receive a solid lead.
Good luck growing your gym business!
Thank you very much for reading our Gym Insight Blog. We hope you’ve learned a little more about how corporate gym memberships work. We are a leader in gym management software, providing affordable, comprehensive fitness club solutions that are easy to use and simple to manage.
By the way, if you’ve discovered other amazing ways to jumpstart sales, please let us know. Contact us by phone at 877-FOR-GYMS, through social media, or just leave a comment below.