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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Gym Insight Member’s App Replaces Text Messaging If so, you might want to cut that out. The Campaign Registry (TCR), sanctioned through the federal government, has stepped in and created a labyrinth of new rules, procedures, fees, and fines for businesses who direct-message their customers, effective August 31, 2023. Yep, you missed the TCR deadline. Although the overall intent of TCR is to reduce spam messages sent to consumers, the end result for fitness clubs, and other small businesses, is to throttle text messaging. In effect, every phone number your company uses to text customers for marketing purposes must be registered per campaign. One-time fees, [...]
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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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By a quirk of standards adapted from the Federal government's SIC codes, you will find gyms for sale on business broker sites under recreation. Whether you're in the market for a gym empire or not it helps to know what's going on in your neighborhood, state and industry in the way of gym businesses for sale. Information Is The Ultimate Resource There may come a day when you wish to put your gym on the market. The more information you have, the better you know what to aim for when the time comes. Alternatively, you might decide to buy [...]
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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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The number of specialties within personal training certifications is exploding. From adaptive special needs to sleep recovery, the range of human conditions now addressed by the fitness industry is stunning. For ambitious gym owners this evolution in specialty training programs creates the perfect opportunity to build a very profitable niche business. By selectively choosing to encourage your trainers to continue their education within specific categories, gym owners can sculpt and introduce their gym to a completely new set of members. Whether you wish to pursue individuals recovering from health conditions or pivot to holistic remedies or youth athletics, the specialties are out [...]
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There are people in the world who are naturals at selling and performing in public situations. Personally, I am not one of them. It amazes me when someone seems to be naturally cool and confident when eyes are all on him or her. Also, those people tend not to be trainers or managers working in gyms. I suppose that figures, helping people motivates most of the trainers that I know but they tend to have a history in jobs that are not sales related. I love working out and hanging out in the gym So do most of the trainers [...]
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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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Part II: Creating a Culture of Safety If a member sues your health club for gym negligence, how can you fight the case? Can you create a solid defense that will help you successfully fend off, or at least survive, a lawsuit? To explore these questions, we interviewed an expert in risk management and fitness liability JoAnn Eickhoff-Shemek. Dr. JES, as she is known, spoke with us on our podcast recently, enlightening our team on the critical steps every gym owner can take to reduce their chances of a gym lawsuit. In Part I, we covered waivers, assumption-of-risk documentation and group training. In Part II, [...]
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Part 1: Waiver Law and Assumption of Risk We know protecting your gym and personal training business from lawsuits is a top concern. That’s why our podcast team recently interviewed Dr. JoAnn M. Eickhoff-Shemek, Founder and President of the Fitness Law Academy, LLC and Professor Emeritus, Exercise Science, at the University of South Florida. AKA "Dr. JES" is the author of “Law for Fitness Managers and Exercise Professionals,” and is internationally known in the areas of legal liability, risk management and fitness safety. This blog is the first in a series summarizing our incredibly interesting conversation. We hope our series enlightens you on what your fitness business [...]
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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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Customer Profile: The Play Clinic, Kids Gym & Therapy, Lutz, FL. Sirena Simon, owner Sirena Simon thinks differently. As with many of our Gym Insight customers, she founded her business out of a passion for her calling. A board-certified speech language pathologist, Simon MS, CCC-SLP, started The Play Clinic to solve a problem within the children’s therapy world: parents were not learning how to apply their kids’ newly discovered skills at home. For her, that single concept — translating learned behaviors into real-world actions that can strengthen and help families with challenged children — was a critical component of what she does. Simon [...]
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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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