As a gym owner, you work hard to devise engaging fitness programs, keep a qualified rotation of trainers on staff, and offer a variety of equipment for your customers to enjoy. But there is one often-overlooked aspect of maximizing your client retention and member satisfaction: optimizing the building itself. Your physical building space is the face of your business. Before your clients walk up to the front desk and greet the first employee they see, they will make a snap judgement about your gym based on what they see around them. Consider the environment and ambiance of your gym, and [...]
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Structure Your Offerings with Client Programming for Fitness Client programming is your menu of good things that you offer your market. In the fitness business, it's one of the fundamental dimensions that define a successful training practice. The big-box fitness brands can afford to stand back and cover all of the programming bases. As a small gym business owner, you are probably better served if you focus on one or a few. The irony, of course, is that the corporate brands would do better if they could do the same. However, in my experience, excellence doesn't scale all that well. [...]
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How Much Old School Is Too Much? There is a certain romance to the idea of a hardcore backstreet gym where you find the driven athletes and bodybuilders. One that's as run down on the inside as it is on the outside. You can imagine the grisly old owner-slash-coach taking payments in cash and keeping accounts in his head. Only Hollywood writers and Elmore Leonard could get away with this idea of a seedy and decrepit shed. The reality is that the club industry is hyper-competitive and if you want to attract the type of consumers who are committed to [...]
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Pulling Your Small Gym Business Back From The Brink A few years back, Grant Cardone, the business turnaround expert, responded to the cry for help from the owners of a Gold's Gym franchise, in Whippany New Jersey, saving them from a foreclosure that would have left the entire family penniless. The video is well worth a watch. You can apply the key points of what Cardone implemented to any struggling gym. In fact, the methods of organizing and structuring the sales process, the heart of the plan, go for any customer service-centered company. This post is not the first to [...]
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When television production companies catch onto a formula that's cheap to produce and popular with viewers, they really work it for all it's worth. Having an expert, who rescues failing small businesses, is a simple and compelling formula within the genre of reality TV. The premise is usually that a business, in some specific industry, gets help and a makeover just as it's about to go under. The super-expert, no-holds-barred host comes in with a camera crew and they proceed, in a period of about three days, to whamp the tar out of the downtrodden business owner. They clear out [...]
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New gym owners come to the business with many different levels of expectations. It depends on things like their previous experiences in management, small business ownership, gym operations and leadership, to name but a few. The one thing that consistently catches new owners off guard and causes much stress is how many routine, repetitive tasks need to be handled on a daily basis. In theory you just sign up new members and they give you a payment each month, so you build up a nice little stream of revenue to enjoy. Well, it sounds a little fanciful when I put [...]
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All Crunch and No Judgment Every once in a while I like to give a shout-out to a company that's doing their own thing in the fitness industry and being rewarded for it with success. Crunch Fitness and their franchisees are a great example of exactly that. They have a business model that is unique and creative. I'm not suggesting that you should run out and get a Crunch Fitness franchise; I'm writing this out of interest and passion for the industry. I have no affiliation with Crunch Fitness or their franchisees. The last review that I posted was for [...]
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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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What is the one thing that you need to keep in mind to keep people signing up for gym memberships? What is it about hanging out in a communal space to exercise? With reasonably priced modern fitness equipment, most people could train at home, so why take the time and expense of traveling to a gym? The answer, I believe is actually pretty simple. People could do a lot of training at home. But who really wants that? It's too easy to slack off and it can get a little lonely. It's the social component of being around other people [...]
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When you're aiming for success in the fitness industry, there are a number of factors to consider during the start-up period. That's why it's always a good idea to have a checklist in place for everything to ensure smooth business operations. A detailed checklist helps you keep the gym organized without unnecessary effort and also improves your chances of establishing a name in the industry. Let's find out why each of the following checklists play a role in the growth of your fitness business: Supplies By having a supplies checklist for your gym, you can see to it that every [...]
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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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So you are opening up your own fitness center. Congratulations! I am sure your head is spinning with how to implement your business plan and to start your build out. On top of everything else, you also start thinking about all the necessities that you believe your members will want and that will set your fitness business apart from the rest of the overwhelming competition out there. Finding your niche is the hard part, but that is not what this particular post is about. Sorry :( However, what I want to help with is the consideration of a disguised accessory [...]
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Having a good ventilation system is important for the health club experience and environment. Fact: Most gyms are indoors and many people are sweating and breathing in recycled air. Problem: Risk of infection is high in gyms with poor ventilation systems. Factors contributing to the problem: 1) Viruses, germs and bacteria thrive; 2) Humid areas compound the problem; Result: 1) Foul smell; 2) Shortness of breath; 3) Infections; 4) Your members will experience incomplete workout sets and poor performances; 5) Ultimately resulting in member avoidance, cancellation, and bad reviews; 6) Waste of money. Real World Experience: I know of a [...]
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Gyms and fitness clubs are areas that can get dirty pretty quick if not maintained properly. Since the main reason for many to hit the gym is to "sweat it out," they are bound to get dirty. Having said that, people prefer a clean area where they can workout. Keep in mind that the main reason for exercising is health and a dirty place defeats the purpose and will loose your clients quickly! Apart from cleaning, you also need to ensure that the gym is not smelly where people actually find it irritating to work out. Don't let uncleanliness be [...]
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