Ben Ludwig, the COO of Traction Group LLC, an F45 Training company, shares how you can give back to community while still growing your business.
“It’s so hard to choose whether we look inward and find ways to focus on our growth or take a break and focus outward because I know our community will appreciate us giving back.”
This quote from a fitness business owner I know is on many of our minds, especially going into the holiday season, and for many, the slowest time of the year. Loyal members pause due to travel, not so loyal members cancel and say they will come back in the new year. Leads slow down, and sales can seem few and far between.
So, if you are in a similar position every fourth quarter of the year, there’s good news for you. You don’t have to choose whether you give back to community or grow your business. It’s absolutely possible to do both. The best part about it is there are plenty of ways to make these programs sustainable as well.
Let’s look at three ways to grow your business while simultaneously giving back to your community:
1. Be generous with passes.
This point has two different meanings, and both will win you favor with your community. The first way to use this is to be generous with your member base internally. Yes, many members travel out of your area, but likely the same amount has family travel into your area. When you’re stingy with passes, you’re making it harder for members to come to class. Don’t make them choose to spend less time with family for the gym. Also, proactive communication about holiday guest policies can help members plan workouts for when family is in town and allow them to showcase the awesome gym community they’re a part of.
The second way to be generous with passes is to get out in your community more. Less leads flowing in, means more time for you to go out. Your monthly lead target doesn’t change because of the holidays, so be proactive. The holidays are ripe with events happening in your community where your city or town is getting people to gather. Find out what’s happening close by and be a part of it. The best part is most of these events have low cost to be a vendor if any cost at all.
2. Ask your member base.
The funniest thing about most business owners and managers is we have a captive audience that pays us monthly for us to have relationship with them, and often times, we think the work of creating community partnerships falls all on us. The best business people will tell you that relationships take you way further than knowledge ever will. That same truth applies to your community impact. Connecting to what your member base is already passionate about gives you many levers to pull:
- Your members have relationships with people that they can give you a warm introduction to making the likelihood of a partnership so much more possible.
- Since your members are already passionate about the cause you’re connecting to they will be your No. 1 marketers and will want to see the partnership flourish.
- By getting involved in what your members love, you’re creating an additional thread of retention activity without having to spend another dollar on internal programs, equipment or tools.
Every time I talk to a business owner who’s never really created great partnerships before, they typically don’t know where to start. We’ll instead of following executives on LinkedIn or cold calling businesses off Google, try starting with the relationships you have inside your four walls.
3. Connect to the cause.
Now that you know where to look for partnerships, it’s simply figuring out how to find a winning scenario for your studio growth and the cause you connect to by creating a program that allows your member base to work for you. Connect to a food bank, toy drive or shelter for the underprivileged, and then devise a referral program that gives back to the cause. An easy example would be for every friend your member base brings in the month of November, your fitness center will give a plate of food to the food drive you have connected with. All you need to do is figure out the cost of what a plate of food cost for the program by connecting with them beforehand and laying out your plan. Then the cumulation of the event can be a bootcamp that you hold at the end of November as a “last chance to help us feed our county” where you announce the total plates of food you’ll be providing and thank everyone for being a part of the program.
You don’t have to barely pay your bills in the winter months because that’s seemingly normal, and you also don’t have to work crazy hours to get ahead. Winning in the fourth quarter is simply about planning for success, and these points will help you do exactly that.
