This hasn’t been an easy year for anyone, but for those of you who own fitness businesses, we know that it’s been especially tough. With lockdowns, member loss, added health restrictions and more, many fitness business owners are struggling to stay afloat heading into the new year.
Despite how bleak all that sounds, we’ve actually seen many fitness businesses not only survive 2020 but thrive in the wake of COVID-19. After spending nearly an entire year working with these owners and monitoring their progress in recent months, we’ve discovered some key points that can be implemented into any fitness business facing hardships. Let’s find out what it takes to turn the COVID-19 pandemic into success for your fitness business.
Understanding How You Need to Pivot
The pandemic affected every business differently, so it’s only natural that you need to take stock of what’s going on with your specific business and your fitness discipline in general. You don’t want to try and learn from a yoga studio owner if you run a rugged CrossFit gym.
What have you seen your competitors do as a result of the pandemic? What about other businesses within your space that aren’t direct competitors? While it may have been almost a year since the pandemic hit, there’s still time to learn. You have to constantly be willing to change, adapt and pivot to the circumstances of the latest regulations, lockdowns, etc.
Make the Right Moves
It’s been a long year, there’s no doubt. We also have no doubt that you’re sitting there thinking that you’ve tried everything and wondering what we could possibly suggest that you haven’t thought of. Well, there’s a difference between trying to affect change actually putting success factors into practice.
We recently wrote an article on specific features that we’ve added to the Arbox fitness management platform to help during COVID-19. These can help you with the business side of things, but true success in this regard comes down to how you actually implement these features and tools.
Encourage your staff and members to participate in online classes. Freeze multiple memberships during a lockdown and avoid cancellations wherever possible. Adjust your schedule of classes to have a maximum number of participants and invite members to register before each class fills up. If you want your business to really succeed you need to make the push to take these features and use them to help your gym or studio every day.
Focus on Your Members
While changes to your business and operations are important, the key to whether your business will live to see the new year rests solely on the shoulders of your members. Listen to what they want. More online classes? Keeping classes in person but having them take place in doors? Are they comfortable with 20 people per class or would they like to keep it at a maximum of 10?
Without your members your business wouldn’t exist so your biggest job right now is to make them feel safe and comfortable as well as enthusiastic about maintaining their memberships.
Stay Ahead of the Competition
You might have already implemented many of these ideas into your business during 2020, but there’s one more thing that can help you stay ahead of your competitors: a fitness management platform. Get started today with Arbox and head into 2021 ready for anything that the world will throw at you. Click here to learn more.
