Technology has made our lives so much easier. There are hundreds of apps and online tools available that will help you run a more efficient fitness business, most of which you probably didn’t know even existed.
Here are a few of my favorite online resources I feel will benefit your fitness business:
Dropbox (www.dropbox.com)
Dropbox is a free service that allows you to share files with as many people as you want. Instead of emailing a document back and forth, just save it to a special folder that both of you can view. When a change is made to a document, it synchronizes it and changes it for all users you are sharing with. Sometimes sending a huge file of pictures or videos bogs down your e-mail. Just upload the files to your dropbox folder and the person you share the folder with has immediate access to all of the files you upload. You can have multiple folders, and can share each with different people.
Roboform (www.roboform.com)
I literally have hundreds of passwords to various websites. Instead of trying to remember all of them or unsafely write them down somewhere, you can use roboform to encrypt and remember all of your passwords. It stores your log-in information, and all you do is type in one master password and roboform automatically logs you into the site. This one service saves me many hours of wasted time per year.
Jing (www.jingproject.com)
This is a program I use every day. It is a screen capture software that allows you to capture an image on your screen, or a video of your screen. For example, if I want to tell my webmaster to adjust my website, I can take a screenshot of the website and use the markup tools in Jing to point and describe everything I want changed. Also, you could record a video screenshot tutorial to show your staff how to use your club management system, how to fix your Facebook page, or any other computer tasks you give them. You could literally create your own library of computer tutorials showing your staff how to do the things you expect of them.
Google Analytics (www.googleanalytics.com)
If you haven’t incorporated this into your website, you are missing out on a whole lot of valuable information. Google Analytics provides you with a string of code to put on your website, giving you the ability to view everything about your website visitors. Things like: where your visitor came from, what pages they visited on your website, what page they exited your site, how many visits you have per day/week/month, and a lot of other very useful information. This free service will allow you to understand everything about the visitors to your website and will help you come up with new strategies to drive new visitors to your site, how to get them to stay on your site longer, and hopefully convert them into visitors at your facility.
There are many other resources that can help your fitness business, but these four should keep you plenty busy. Enjoy!
Curtis Mock is the host of www.FitnessBusinessTelevision.com the TV show for fitness entrepreneurs. He is also the executive director of gymsuccess.com. Curtis can be reached at curtis@clubsolutionsmagazine.com.
