Personal training is rapidly becoming a high-margin, profitable revenue stream for health clubs and gyms. Most clubs provide new members with at least one complimentary trial to give them a taste of this type of hands-on, guided workout. Almost every club owner or general manager I speak with indicates that personal training is now a crucial part of their business, and a powerful tool to increase member retention.
However, with the popularity of personal training steadily increasing, most clubs have yet to centralize the scheduling and management of this service into one software system. In fact, a majority of clubs are still utilizing a hand-written scheduling book to track their trainers’ daily sessions with clients. This winds up causing a significant number of logistical headaches (such as always searching for the scheduling book, double-booking of trainers, miscalculating remaining client sessions, or spending countless hours calculating trainer payroll), especially as their number of clients and on-staff trainers continues to increase.
A critical factor in developing a successful personal training business is to ensure you begin with the right scheduling and management software package. By doing so, these aforementioned problems can be avoided, and your facility will be able to streamline its business right from the start.
Some of the key factors to consider when researching a personal trainer scheduling and management software package include:
1. Go with something Web-based: Web-based software is delivered over the Internet to any computer with a Web browser. This type of software “service” avoids the installation of a dedicated server in your club(s), which significantly reduces the cost of implementing and supporting a new system. It also allows you to access your training schedules and client information from inside the club, while you are traveling on business, or from the comfort of your own home.
2. Look for scheduling flexibility: Make sure the system provides flexibility in terms of the types of resources you want to schedule, manage and monetize. In addition to personal trainers, this package should schedule nutritionists, massage therapists and class instructors (spinning, aerobics, etc.). The package should be configurable in 15, 30 or 60 minute increments, to support a variety of session lengths and start times. Also, a good package should be able to support the scheduling and rental of other resources in your club (multi-purpose rooms, party rooms, courts, fields, etc.).
3. Ensure numerous options for creating and selling client packages: A scheduling and management system should offer the ability to create a variety of client packages. Individual packages need to support per-session rates based upon a varying range of sessions purchased, as well as flat-rate packages for a fixed number of sessions. The system should also support monthly recurring packages, for those “regular” clients who pay a flat-fee to workout with a trainer two or three times per week, every month.
4. Self-Administration: With all of the changes that occur in your clubs on a regular basis (new programs, training sessions, classes, etc.), a good scheduling and management product should allow you to self-administer every aspect of the system. Key areas such as: hours of operation, adding and removing classes and training session types, updating package rates, adding and removing users, categorizing clients, adding and removing trainers, creating and sending client email blasts, and other aspects of daily administration. Important note: systems that require you to call the company’s support line to affect one of these changes will not have the flexibility to support the long-term growth of personal training within your club.
5. Reports: A good system will include an in-depth reporting section that enables you to gain a perspective on any aspect of your personal training business. Daily, weekly or monthly performance reports (for the entire club or on a per-trainer basis), trainer and sales rep payroll and commission reports, daily trainer schedule reports, upcoming renewal candidate reports, and trial conversion reports – are just a few of the reports that are a basic requirement for any club.
6. A company that will grow with you: No one likes to be told “it is what it is – take it or leave it.” We all want some level of flexibility and cooperation with anything we do in our business. When interviewing candidate companies, feel them out for their level of flexibility in terms of feature and functionality enhancements and their willingness to implement customer requirements. Who dictates their product development roadmap? Will they commit in writing to the addition of a critical feature for you within a certain period of time? If their answer is anything other than “their customers” and “yes,” you may want to seriously consider whether they will be a good long-term partner for your club.
By taking these guidelines into consideration as you begin your selection process, you will put yourself well down the road towards creating an efficient, streamlined and highly profitable personal training business at your club.
For a free evaluation of your existing personal trainer scheduling and management process, please contact me directly at anytime.
Adam Zeitsiff is the President of EZFacility.com, Inc. He can be contacted at 866.498.EASY (3279) ext. 16, or by email atadamz@ezfacility.com, or visit www.ezfacility.com.
