How does your gym sell personal training packages? Does your fitness staff avoid bringing the idea up with prospects, afraid they’ll walk right out the door? They shouldn’t. In fact, personal training services should be sold at the point of sale – when new health club members first tour your gym. We all know personal training is good for a fitness center’s bottom line. A client who hires a trainer stays on at your health club three times as long as a regular member. It’s a win-win. Selling personal training To sell personal training effectively, your gym needs a standardized [...]
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Let’s deep dive into digital fitness’s world of one-on-one coaching software products for gyms, health clubs, and boutique centers. The streaming market is broad and rich with choices. However for this blog, we explored three well-known companies. Let's look at Trainerize Trainerize is designed specifically for the fitness industry. Its software offers an integrated platform for owners to manage their fitness training from a single spot and offers a new service – online personal training. Owners can choose from a custom-branded fitness app or white-label their own to build brand awareness. Content capabilities include lifestyle, nutrition, and general wellness coaching, [...]
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Every health club owner knows they need to market their business. Advertising, seasonal promotions, social media postings, local signage, and more, all contribute to the intricate balance of maintaining your customer base. Many business owners, though, fail to plan long-term, allowing opportunities to slip as they run their day-to-day operations. These missed revenue generators are needlessly frustrating.Here’s why an annual marketing plan is so important. 1. Long-Term Marketing Strategies Prepare You for the Unexpected Vow this year to plan ahead. Building your marketing plan based on a full year’s calendar assures you are more likely to arrive prepared for a [...]
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Contacting gym members through text messaging is a great idea. Your health club is a vital part of their lives, and by keeping in touch with them, you express interest in their fitness and health while staying mindful of communication trends. So what could go wrong? Well, let’s talk about that. Text Messaging Is Communication; Every Word Represents Your Brand Studies suggest most people open their text messages. Estimates are as high as 98 percent. We love the ease and simplicity, and, in large part, prefer texting to receiving a phone call. Yet, the act itself is infused with a [...]
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Online fitness is an interesting concept for a gym. It takes a locally utilized product and turns it into a nationwide or, possibly, a worldwide consumable. It can, ideally, expand your audience well beyond a single zip code. In a sense, it’s as if you’re franchising your own brand. A daunting idea, no doubt. If you’ve risen to the challenge and now offer live streaming, or on-demand through your health club, what steps are needed to grow this business investment? Figure out how customers find you. Intelivideo, a technology company specializing in enabling subscription video businesses, collected data in the [...]
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Don’t lose out on selling a new customer! When a prospect first walks into your health club, they’ve thought about joining for six months. They’re scared and skittish, ready to leap at any chance to say “let me sleep on it,” or even just turn around and leave, while congratulating themselves on their bravery and effort. Don’t let that happen. Here are five secrets to a great gym tour that are sure to increase sales and create clients excited to join your club. 1. Introduce yourself and ask their name. Use it throughout the tour. Memorize it. 2. Slow down. [...]
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We’ve all bought something we’ve not used. The question is why didn’t we use it? Maybe it was aspirational – something designed to change us or make us a better person, but actually using it becomes the challenge in itself. Gym memberships are a lot like that – our clients sign up because they have goals and ambitions for their health and physiques. Showing up, however, means facing their own insecurities and lack of knowledge. So they don’t go — ever. Targeting Low-Usage New Members The best time to curtail this sad outcome is right within the first 30 days [...]
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This fall, Planet Fitness made news when four locations in California owned by the same franchisee reopened under the designation of an “essential” business. Their tactic? Pay for a membership in the Medical Fitness Association and follow its phased reopening guidelines, while directly contacting local health officials for permission to open. The gyms petitioned their Public Health Services department citing adherence to reopening guidelines published by MFA and vetted through the CDC. The MFA guidelines, in some cases,are stricter than the CDC’s published work: expanding social distancing recommendations based on a population’s health risk and the type of exercise. The effort worked for Planet Fitness and, since then, more than 500 gyms have sought membership [...]
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What if I told you there was $500 in monthly gym memberships sitting in your computer? As an owner of a studio, would you search for it? Well, it’s right there — in the cancelled customer column. Let’s look at how we can bring these old friends back into the fold. Make a Plan to Contact Everyone knows turnover is high in the gym business, and lately that number’s crawled upwards. However cancelled and frozen accounts are a golden opportunity. These customers signed up once. They know your club. Now it’s up to you and your sales team to rekindle [...]
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Within a year, online fitness has become an industry staple for nearly every gym, boutique, or trainer. The question, of course, is can you make money at virtual fitness and, if so, how do you recoup the investment? Online classes are, by their nature, a volume business. You’re going to have to sell more classes or train more people to make the same money as you would with an in-person experience. Why? Because you’re now promoting a lower-cost service while investing in new tools and novel marketing techniques. And, unlike selling a physical product, your concept is vulnerable to market [...]
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Choosing the right club management software is one of the most important decisions you’ll make as an owner. Whether you run a single-location Muay Thai studio or a multi-site full-service gym, controlling costs, managing employees, and tracking clients are the cornerstones to your success. If you don’t know how much money you’re spending – or making – then your very job is at risk. Ironically, many fitness companies who sign-up with well-known, heavily-advertised gym software products are forced into that very position. Like a wrestler flat on the mat, they concede control of their business to a third party by [...]
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There are plenty of good reasons to coax your health club members outside - autumn weather is perfect, they can benefit from the shot of vitamin D, and their participation supports their favorite gym as it regains footing after the COVID-19 shutdown. Regardless of the motivations, creating this "gym without a roof" concept is an excellent option for every club at this time. These impulsive opportunities to pack in 10 pushups or swing across extra-wide monkey bars build stamina, muscle endurance, strength, and agility - all in a few moments' time. In many ways it's because exercising in the fresh [...]
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There are two types of clubs growing in our economy: boutique centers, and low-cost, bare bones gyms. Many of those in the middle - think Gold's Gym, 24-Hour Fitness, New York Sports Club, and Town Sports - found refuge in the bankruptcy courts as COVID-19's shutdown ravaged their business models. So what can you do to ensure your gym's future in this difficult market? One method is to create a vertical within your facility by hiring personal trainers with nationally-recognized, specialized certifications. Expanding this way boils down to two questions: Who do you want to attract as a customer and [...]
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Recovery fitness is the phrase of the day for health clubs, boutique gyms, and personal trainers. The equipment used by athletes today ranges from foam rollers to cryotherapy tanks and every idea in between. The rage reminds me of a former health club catering to professional and elite level athletes. There, next to the pull-up bars and heavy ropes, was an automated massage table. Each time I considered it, the sheer idea of lying in full view and receiving an electronic massage in the center of a busy gym just shamed me into paralysis. During my eight years attending that [...]
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By this time, most everyone knows the basics of keeping their gyms and health clubs COVID-19 clean. Since we've figured out the basics, now is good time to consider the chemicals, techniques and emerging technologies that may make the difference in keeping your gym healthy and safe. Disinfectants When choosing cleaning products for your gym, consider that every product approved against SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) includes an EPA registration number on its label. Although the CDC tracks coronavirus cases, it is the EPA which regulates chemicals and is the go-to source for correct cleaning information. Does that chemical work? To determine if [...]
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