Brian Way, owner of Iron City Gym in Houston, TX, spoke with us this month on our Gym Owner’s Podcast. The enlightening conversation revealed just what it takes to turn a hardcore $10,000-a-month bodybuilders’ gym into a $130,000-a-month power center of fitness and energy. Persistence, Passion, Purpose: The Story of Iron City’s Success It takes a leap of faith to make change work. And the passion to believe in your decisions. When Brian Way purchased Iron City, he faced the takeover of a gym packed with bodies bigger than he’d ever been in his lifetime. Could he do it? Could he transform [...]
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Employee Profile: George Cox, Executive Assistant Former naval officer Lt. George Cox met Gym Insight’s owner after graduating from Liberty University with a Master of Divinity. Lean and ready to find a calling in the civilian world, his modesty almost got in the way of his becoming our Executive Assistant. Luckily, we can spot talent, even if it’s not looking for us. Once hired, we quickly discovered his military training equipped him with a skillset both technically adaptable and highly disciplined — an awesome combination for our fast-growing gym software company. Today, Cox is the rudder that ensures employees are [...]
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Gym owners, wake up! You're all fighting for a piece of the same market — slim, fit people. It’s time to embrace the nearly 70 percent of people in the United States who are overweight or obese. They want to exercise, too — just not for the reasons you may think. For this article, we spoke with Louise Green, founder of the Big Fit Girl campaign. Green is a personal trainer, spokesperson, and author who has created an online community supporting, encouraging, and training individuals in larger bodies.From a founding bootcamp for plus-sized women to creating a weight-neutral fitness movement that includes [...]
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How can you find good employees for your gym? Individuals who express your values and create an environment in which members will thrive? It’s never an easy task, but we’ve brainstormed multiple ways you can scout and hire good people. These ideas are culled from our discussions with other gym owners, as well our own experiences in the job market. Four tips to finding good gym employees 1. Recruit from your membership The people who visit your gym already love it. Why not bring them in on the action? We’ve spoken with more than one gym owner who found particular members [...]
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Company Profile: Whetstone Fitness, Donnie Whetstone, owner Sometimes it takes a rainy day to see the future. The gym IFBB Pro Donnie Whetstone co-owned was closed. The keys were in his hand. And the darkened building stood alone against a gray sky, waiting for his decision. Now, he thought, I have to breathe life back into it. It’s going to be hard. Eventually, it will be worth the effort. That’s the message this 63-year-old Master Pro Body Builder wishes to impart to our readers. That no matter how hard the struggle, if you have faith in your intuition and a [...]
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Determining how to increase your gym’s website rankings is probably one of the least understood parts of the digital realm we live in today – especially as it relates to social media campaigns. We all know search engines and social media are an important part of building a successful company. Yet, many small businesses, such as privately owned gyms, struggle to put the pieces in place. In this post, we'd like to cover website ranking basics and offer you a few good ideas. Here are some common terms and why they mean something to your business. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) — [...]
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#GymInsight: Flexing muscle in an industry growing as fast as the Internet. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube Why go social now? Over the past 13 years, our company has grown from two gym owners-turned-software-developers into a buzzing hive of professionals, each offering talents that enlarge and improve our software’s capabilities. At Gym Insight we created our gym management software to improve how fitness businesses were run. From converting “pen and paper” gyms, to competing against the world’s largest software management companies, Gym Insight has charged forward on a relentless path of improvement. Through reputation, word-of-mouth, advertising, and now social media, our [...]
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Ah, history … it repeats itself. If you’re old enough to remember Gold’s Gym before it turned into an aerobics studio, then you’ll appreciate the irony in the American College of Sports Medicine’s “Worldwide Survey of Fitness Trends for 2023” results. It originally published in the January/February 2023 edition of the ACSM’s Health & Fitness Journal. Now in its 17th year of publication, the Worldwide Survey identifies 42 top-rated trends gleaned from past World Survey lists and emerging trends. Selecting the trends are editors representing corporate, clinical, community, commercial and academia. The list is then sent by Survey Monkey to more than 125,000 individuals involved [...]
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Seeing your gym’s company name on a product being worn or used by a member is just a great feeling. That stamp is like a walking billboard. As well, branded gym apparel is an easy and simple marketing technique. So, what's the smartest way to take on branded products ? First, read our top tips for selling branded gym apparel: Make friends with an apparel company. Find a firm that will allow you to order on an as-needed basis. Let them hold onto stock. Keep your stock limited — often an over-abundance of shirts, joggers, hats, etc. will just sit in [...]
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Welcome to our gym owner business profile. These monthly profiles are created to build vision and share stories of what it takes to start, run, and own a gym. Each privately owned gym tells a new and interesting story. We hope you find their experiences as inspiring as we have! Gym profile: The Kage Gym, LLC — Mundelein, IL Don’t talk to The Kage Gym owners about luck. Although Gonzalo Sanchez and Omar Sanchez (no relation) may use the term to describe their jump into owning a gym at ages 25 and 20, it has nothing to do with what’s happening now. This [...]
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Read on for six simple and easy promos. 1. Spin & Win These table top spinners turn an everyday contest into a Wow! adventure. Pair it with video and the spinning wheel pulls in viewers on social media. In fact, the spinner can become a promotion all on its’ own. Consider inviting members to spin the wheel and win a free month, a club tee shirt, a family membership, or a gallon of gas. Then, post their happy responses with a call out for guest to come in and try their luck. With a little creativity, this promotional prop can [...]
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It’s on every gym owner’s mind – do I need to increase rates? With everything else going up, from paper towels to rubber gloves, it’s tough to say no. One gym owner decided to take the plunge. After six years in business, Chris Giumarra of Rosamond Health & Fitness in Rosamond, California, created a six-week, three-phase strategy for raising gym fees. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-va7RfCzBkU&t=1430s Phase One: Social media plan of attack for raising gym fees Giumarra chose to increase membership charges by $5 per month for both his “heroes” category and regular gym members. It would be his first rate hike since [...]
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Gym Insight's management team has always been laser-focused on the success of its gym owners. That's why we started The Gym Owner’s Podcast on YouTube five years ago. We created the original podcast to provide our customers with easy access to software training videos. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GHsKOL5wZk&t=27s Yet, at the start of the pandemic in 2020, we decided to ramp up our content. Turns out, our amazing sales guy Anthony Pasquale enjoys chatting with customers – he loves talking shop with you guys. What can one business owner teach another? As a former gym owner himself, Anthony wondered: What’s going on in the fitness world today? [...]
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Hashtags, those crazy little pound signs, are a big part of making social media work for your fitness studio. However, like every marketing tool, hashtags have their own list of do’s and don’ts. Read on to gain a better insight into the best practices of adding hashtags to your social media posts and how to make them work for your gym. What’s the purpose of hashtags? Hashtags direct your post to a community of like-minded people and magnifies your social voice. Additionally, they grow reach organically. That means individuals discover your posts without searching specifically for you or by clicking [...]
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Digital marketing is here to stay. Chances are you’ve already dipped into online advertising by promoting your fitness center on social media. However, when it comes to spending money on digital advertising, where should you start? To understand the fundamentals of digital marketing we turned to Get Amplified Marketing Group owner Nick Sakkis for some answers. First, what kind of budget do I need? There are two main players in the digital ad world: Facebook and Google. If your budget is $1,000 or less a month, Facebook (which also owns Instagram) is the most cost effective promotion. Facebook and Instagram attract different viewers, [...]
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