One of my clients is in an 8,000-square-foot fitness center with 400 members. Out of those members, 345 work with a fitness coach. Some do one-on-one, and many work in groups. This facility takes in 1.5 million dollars per year in revenue, and 40 percent is net profit to the owners, who are a married couple.
Many of you who read that last paragraph understand how impressive those numbers are. Whenever I mention those statistics to a gym owner, he or she always asks, “How do they do it?”
My answer: “Through daily effort.”
Now, that is a very simple answer, but I admit to predicting that most gym owners want to hear something else as the reason for such great numbers in a small to medium-sized gym. They want to hear something like: “Well, they have been open for 15 years, are the only gym in a town with high household income, and the owner does 50 client hours per week at $90 per session.”
While none of that is true in the case of the gym I am referencing, it would make for a pretty good money-making fitness center. No, in the case of my client, here is how they make it happen:
- What they make important becomes important. Both owners are extremely fit and very passionate about living life healthily, happily and pain free. Their approach to fitness is to avoid renting treadmills and to take each member’s goals seriously. The first thing they do is discover what goals each person has, why those goals are important, and how each member plans to reach those goals. This attitude trickles down to every employee and every coach, of which there are 12.
- They focus on overall revenue and not memberships or training clients. Yes, they want to change as many lives as possible, but having a sales first, and therefore, overall revenue attitude, allows them to focus on ways to bring in more money. The more money they bring in, the more lives they get to change. Working backwards, they figure out how much revenue they want for the year, then break it down quarterly, monthly, weekly, daily and even hourly.
- They use a personality/communication tool to help with employee team building and to help members learn their strengths and weaknesses related to working toward their health and fitness goals. Email jason@jasonlinse.com with “communication” in the subject line and I will get you a promo code so you and your staff can use an awesome tool like my client uses.
- They have a business coach. Per square foot, they may be the most profitable gym in the country, and they don’t want to go backwards, but would prefer to go forward. They have an expansion planned, and are working on licensing their systems and processes. On a regular basis, they talk with a fitness business coach to make sure they are doing all they can to reach their goals.
Whether you are a 5,000-square-foot mainstream gym, a 1,500-square-foot training gym, or a 90,000-square-foot racquet club, you need to decide what is important, focus on daily effort, have a team that works together, and seek trusted advice on a regular basis.
Keep changing lives.
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Jason Linse is president and founder of The Business of Fitness, a consulting company. He also owns a personality assessment company called People Plus+ Fitness. Contact him at jason@jasonlinse.com or 612-310-1319 for resources on scheduling more tours and personality assessments, or visit www.jasonlinse.com.
