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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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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On fitness forums, I have seen this question posted quite frequently: Which is better, to hire a personal trainer as an employee or as an independent contractor? In Part I of this series we looked at the very basic options that both gym owners and personal trainers have when hiring and being hired. I received a great response with an overwhelming majority of personal trainers who work as independent contractors. I have yet to receive feedback from gym operators. Regardless, some of the personal trainer responses described their independent contracting experiences as "win-win" both for them and the gyms that [...]
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Fitness Trainer Staff & Sales Training If I had wanted to be in sales . . . Yes, it’s true, if we wanted to be in sales, we probably wouldn’t be working in the physical fitness business, would we? I know that it’s a common sentiment in this business. People become fitness trainers for lots of reasons. However, I’ve yet to hear anyone convincingly state that they did it because they wanted to consistently up sell to the "platinum package deal" or make sure clients walk out with sacks full of merchandise. I get that. But this is a business and [...]
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Checklist for Hiring Personal Trainers Do you use a checklist when you are hiring staff at your gym? What follows here is the checklist for hiring personal trainers that I use as a structure for the interview and hiring process. As a small business owner and fitness center owner and manager you have to be organized to the point of being obsessive compulsive. In the corporate world of big gyms and worldwide fitness franchises you get all kinds of support that’s not available to the independent owner. Being an independent business owner also has its virtues but as an entrepreneur you need to be [...]
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You’ve probably thought about opening your gym to youth athletes. After all, it’s big business in the United States. About 60 million children play in organized sports every year. And, for better or worse, many parents see their kids' talent as a ticket to college scholarships. With that in mind, creating a program targeted at tween and teen athletes may be a great way to build a base of new customers and make up for billing lost to the pandemic. Selling sports specific training to parents First, make sure new members know about your services. When going through a price presentation, [...]
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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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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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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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If you have just opened a brand new gym, you are probably in the process of making some crucial hiring decisions. As a business owner, you know how your staffing choices affect your day to day work life, your responsibilities, and your bottom line. If you find yourself confronting the dilemma of hiring in-house personal trainers versus allowing freelancers to work out of your gym space, keep the following factors in mind. Benefits of keeping trainers on staff and paying a salary or hourly rate Often means more consistency and reliability When you hire your trainers as regular staff, you [...]
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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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Trainers Adopting Tech Could Create New Potential A recent American Council On Exercise (ACE) Survey, quoted by Club Industry Magazine turned up the conclusion that trainers need to be more aware of the potential offered by wearable technology. This refers to the wristband devices such as FitBit that record all your activity throughout the day, from your sleep patterns, to heart rate and calorie expenditure. Well, my natural reaction to that was "don't we all?" However, the point here was that the spread of wearables is making consumers curious about the potential in the data. According to the survey, they [...]
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The fitness trainers that I've worked with over the years have been a very diverse range of people. They share a love of fitness and the drive to help others achieve it. Of course, I'm speaking in very broad generalizations here, but there is another thing that all too many certified fitness professionals have. I'm talking about student loans. It could sometimes be that they followed their dreams and went all out on a bachelors degree relating to fitness, followed by fitness certification. Alternatively, perhaps they majored in something like real estate management, only to find out that they didn't [...]
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Getting your fitness trainers and gym staff to promote products and services requires some work from you as the business owner first. This means that you're going to have to do a little selling in the form of leadership. It is up to you to motivate your team to generate sales result from the members of your gym or fitness center. Individual selling skills are very important and they will help trainers build a career in the long term. However, there needs to be a common frame of understanding within your organization. It all hinges on providing the skills and [...]
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