How can you sell more personal training without losing money or increasing staff? Kage Gym in Mundelein, Illinois, has figured out the secret sauce resulting in an insane closing rate of nearly 70%. They’ve been so successful with personal training that, after two years in business, they’ve just begun promoting memberships to the general public. What's Kage Gym owners story? Owners Omar Sanchez and Gonz Sanchez (no relation) opened Kage Gym in September 2022, taking on and renovating an existing gym. The two young entrepreneurs dipped into their enthusiasm and love of bodybuilding to create a gym that has become a magnet [...]
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My family recently stayed in a hotel where we were greeted by an employee vaping behind the counter. Later, I found the hotel’s gym equipment broken and worn out. On my next visit to the city, I stayed at another hotel, in a different part of town. This excursion made me think about the similarity between gyms and hotels and what the fitness industry can discover from the leaders in leisure. And, how devastating bad first impressions are on customer retention. How the best hotels create brand love. Hilton understands good customer experiences — coupled with excellent customer service — [...]
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It’s been a great year for our company and we pray the same for you. Since gym owners such as yourselves are such a huge part of our success — well, you’re almost like family — we’d thought you’d enjoy an end-of-year wrap up. Looking forward to an amazing 2024 and the privilege of watching your gyms grow exponentially! Gym Insight 2023 Social Media Winners: Top Podcast: "Insider Tips for Owning a Thriving Gym with Justin Green." Top Instagram: “Always Remember This Verse…” Top Facebook: “Don’t Let Life Knock You Down…” Top YouTube Short: “Zero to Hero….” Top Blog: “Best Types of Music to Play…” Fav [...]
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Dear Gym Owners and Gym Dreamers, Your business means everything to us. You are the independent fitness club owner with the courage and conviction to work relentlessly for your own success. It’s a great story, one we cherish hearing every day. At Gym Insight, we sincerely value these long-term relationships with our customers. You feed our most innovative design ideas and keep us excited to create — and re-create — the best gym management software on the planet. This may be because we’re a lot like you — a privately held company growing with a single purpose — to bring profitability, [...]
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When we started this blog in 2011, Gym Insight was a young company — barely three years old, and still beta testing much of its software. Today, we’ve installed our health club software in countless gyms while cultivating the passion for ingenuity and improvement that brought us here today. Here, we shamelessly pitch why we (still) believe we offer the best gym management software on the market. 1) FREE United States-Based Customer Service This seems like an unusual boast but, truthfully, local customer service is not so common. Our highly praised customer service team is located in the Continental United States [...]
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In this week’s Gym Owner’s blog by Gym Insight, we interview seven-location Club Pilates owner Justin Kirkland for tips and secrets on growing into a multi-location fitness business. His experience with the successful franchise blends on-the-street advice with a marketing major’s savvy. Read on for details on what it takes to grow exponentially in the competitive field of boutique studios. Kirkland's early lessons changed everything The Kirkland family purchased three Las Vegas Club Pilates in September 2019. One of their first ventures into private business ownership, they immediately began experimenting with management and marketing styles. The results would shape future [...]
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Welcome to our Gym Owner’s Blog. We’re trying something different this issue. Our Gym Insight customers requested more coverage on our software itself – new features, compelling changes — tweaks that make your job easier. Glad to help! We are always excited to talk about new exciting updates or even the crazy common stuff that needs a refresh. So let’s get started on our “Hidden Features” post. Today, we’re covering Bulk Actions. What is a bulk action? Just as its name suggests, this function permits you to modify something en masse. For example, a bulk action could remove digital keytag [...]
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Is it possible to prosper as a gym owner in a small town? After speaking with several gym owners in cities of fewer than 5,000 residents we discovered it’s a definite “heck, yes!” With the right dedication and planning, you can succeed and grow in any sized hamlet. Advice from our Gym Insight customers on how to flourish as a small-town gym. 1. Adapt to your community’s needs. As Justin Green, owner of the Source Fitness Center in St. Clairsville, Ohio, explained in our Gym Owner's Podcast, the household income for his small town gym are not high. As a result, [...]
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Interview with Dr. JoAnn Eickoff-Shemek, “Dr. JES,” professor emerita, University of South Florida, expert fitness and law witness, and national spokesperson. Podcast: “The Power of Control: Dr. JES Returns” We’ve dedicated the last two blogs to avoiding gym negligence lawsuits. How to steer clear of legal landmines, and training staff to properly guide members on their fitness journey. Now we are at the final leg – scope of practice. Here, we discuss that wafer-thin line between offering good nutritional advice and stepping outside one's field of expertise. When too much good advice lands you in hot water. In one case Dr. JES recalled, a personal trainer [...]
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October 2023 Gym Owner’s Podcast, “The Power of Control: Dr. JES Returns” Welcome back to How to Avoid Negligence Lawsuits! As we discussed in Part I, negligence settlements are in the millions of dollars now and can take years to weave through the courts. Additionally, most negligence lawsuits occur due to employee error in instruction or programming. With this in mind, one of the best ways for your gym to avoid a negligence lawsuit is to properly train and prepare your staff. Put your new trainer through a hand's on test - before assigning clients! Don’t rely on certificates – [...]
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Ready to own a gym but need to keep your day job? It can be done! Read on to learn how one of our clients runs a gym while working full-time. Fit Factory, Idaho – How greatness began In January 2023, Tanner Boudrero fulfilled a lifelong dream - to own a small business. A sales analysts with iFit, an international equipment and sports technology manufacturer, he loved the idea of being his own boss. That vision came true when he acquired Fit Factory in Preston, Idaho. Modestly, despite his lack of experience, he believed his background prepared him to operate a gym [...]
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Firehall Fitness, Livingston, Montana Gyms in premier destination locations often struggle to keep and retain staff. Frequently located in the world's most beautiful — and expensive towns — it can be a challenge to staff a fitness center from early morning until evening. Now, Gym Insight's digital keytags provide a simpler, more secure way to run a 24/7-access gym with fewer employees. Since their introduction in 2022, gym owners have used digital key tags to successfully cut members’ unauthorized entries while increasing gym owners’ control over their time and businesses. Now it’s nearly impossible for members to “share” a key [...]
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David Flench, president Medical Fitness Association. Recently our Gym Owner’s Podcast welcomed David Flench, president of the Medical Fitness Association, for a conversation on how gyms benefit from offering medically integrated healthcare services. Here's the lowdown on what we learned. To listen to our podcast, click on the embedded YouTube link. What is the Medical Fitness Association? It is a nonprofit professional membership organization providing industry standards, certification opportunities, educational programs, benchmark data, professional development and networking to improve the operational success of medically integrated health and well-being centers. It strives to be the resource for new and established gyms [...]
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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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It can be scary converting your fitness center’s database over to a new gym management software program. Every client phone number, account, and credit card is listed in that database and now you’re handing it to another firm for import into a new software application. What if something, maybe everything, gets lost? Tangled in a web of encrypted material, like an exploding black hole… Ok, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but converting data from one software program to another is the number-one reason gym owners put off switching gym management software companies. Owners hang on to their old software because they [...]
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