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7 Tips for Managing Your Fitness Business

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“Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.”

For fitness, health and wellbeing enthusiasts, starting and running a fitness business is a dream come true – but it’s certainly no walk in the park. Running any type of business requires passion, dedication, commitment and hard work.

Getting your fitness business off the ground is one thing. Once you’re open for business you need to make sure you have a strong marketing strategy that helps you attract and retain clients. You also need to have good financial management skills and systems in place to keep on top of payments and maintain a healthy cash flow. There’s also the important job of hiring staff and building a team culture that supports the vision you are working towards. Phew!

In this blog, we’ll walk you through seven tips to help you manage and grow your fitness business.

7 Tips to Manage and Grow Your Fitness Business

Below are seven tips to manage and grow your fitness business:

Define your brand and mission statement
Develop a robust marketing strategy
Use a gym management software
Recruit the right people
Don’t be afraid of change
Go above and beyond for clients
Protect your business with insurance

1. Define Your Brand and Mission Statement

Your brand and mission statement are the supporting pillars of all marketing initiatives and activities. You need to get really clear on your brand purpose and what it represents by answering the following questions:

What is your brand’s purpose and objectives?
Who are your target customers?
What type of image do you want to convey?
What makes your brand unique to your competitors?

Summarise your answers into a short statement of one of two sentences and let this be the driving force behind everything else you do. Revert back to this statement when embarking on a new marketing strategy or campaign to ensure it aligns.

2. Develop a Robust Marketing Strategy

In order to attract new clients, you need to develop a solid marketing strategy and be consistent with it. Do some research into where your target audience is spending the most time (most of the time it’s social media but this could be different for your particular business model). Invest in a good website and build a strong social media presence by sharing informative, educational, inspirational and entertaining content. Social media is also a great way to keep customers updated on things like last-minute class cancellations.

Management Liability Insurance

Management Liability insurance is designed to provide protection to both the business and its directors or officers for claims of wrongful acts in the management of the business.

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Business Insurance

A business insurance pack can provide cover for your business premises and contents, against loss, damage, theft or financial loss from an insured interruption to the business.

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Business Package

Purchase up to six products under one Business Insurance Package.

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You can also consider paid advertising techniques such as pay-per-click ads to target people who are searching for specific keywords on Google, e.g. “boxing gym in Ormeau”.

3. Use a Gym Management System

Gym management software, also known as club management software, is a must for any fitness business that wants to operate more efficiently. Most software can centralise your core business operations and integrate different systems such as memberships, record management, bookings, payment processing and marketing/promotions. Operating from an Excel or Google Drive spreadsheet has limited functions and reporting options. It’s also much easier to make errors or delete important information that could mess up class scheduling and attendance records.

The benefits of gym management software include:

Less time spent on admin: Gym management software reduces the amount of data entry and admin tasks and frees up your time to focus on more important tasks.
Data security: Cloud-based gym management software are often encrypted to ensure that your members’ personal information and bank details are safe and secure.
Business insights and reporting: Having one centralised data hub means you can run reports and gain insights into sales patterns, business trends, member acquisition, and retention and more.

Below are some of the most popular gym management software:

Zen Planner
PerfectMind
Gym Master
Vagaro
Gym Assistant

4. Recruit the Right People

As you scale you may need to hire new staff and start building a team. Hiring the right people is essential as they will represent your brand and business. As well as hard skills required for the job at hand, it’s equally important to consider the cultural fit. What type of attitude do they have? Do their values align with yours? How is their work ethic? These are some of the important questions to ask when hiring.

It’s your responsibility as an employer to provide a positive work environment that your staff enjoys being a part of.

5. Don’t Be Afraid of Change

Running a business comes with its fair share of ups and downs. It’s important to ride the wave, see the bigger picture and be willing and open to change. What works well now might not work so well next year, so be ready to adapt and shake things up if necessary. Try to adopt a growth mindset and continually strive to find ways to improve.

6. Go Above and Beyond for Your Clients

Providing excellent customer service is the bread and butter of your business – clients that are happy and satisfied with your services and facilities will tell their friends, come back (hopefully with said friends!) and you’ll start to build a great reputation. Aim to find new ways of adding value to the services you provide (remember your market positioning) and don’t be shy to ask your members about what they love about your business and what you could improve further.

7. Protect Your Business with Insurance

Could you withstand a liability claim and payout thousands in legal fees and compensation? Many fitness professionals overlook insurance as another business expense that they could do without. The truth is, public liability and professional indemnity insurance can protect your business and assets in the event of a claim being made against you. It can cover litigation costs and assist with compensation payments.

Gym Insurance HQ specialises in helping fitness businesses protect their business and assets with tailored insurance solutions. Every business is different and has unique needs and risk exposures. Contact Adam Pile to discuss your options.

General Advice Warning: This advice is general and does not take into account your objectives, financial situation or needs. You should consider whether the advice is appropriate for you and your personal circumstances. Before you make any decision about whether to acquire a certain product, you should obtain and read the relevant product disclosure statement.

All information above has been provided by the author.

Adam Pile, Insurance HQ Pty Ltd, ABN 33606759228, AFSL 363610

This article originally appeared on Gym Insurance HQ Blog and has been published here with permission.