5 mistakes in gym management and how to avoid them

What are the benefits of good gym management?

The loss of subscribers, market share or even the closure of gyms are not only the result of a crisis or the emergence of competition, but are often the result of poor management of the centre.

Leading a team, drawing up a recruitment plan, looking for new formulas to get the commitment of users are, among others, some of the tasks of good gym management.

For this, it is necessary to be well prepared and have knowledge in different areas such as marketing, communication and the field of training and directed activities. A mix of both worlds is what will avoid falling into common mistakes in the management of a gym.

But how to manage a gym effectively? Watch out because here are the five most common gym management mistakes to help you understand what to avoid in order to succeed.

5 common mistakes in gym management and how to avoid them

1. Lack of strategy and planning

How to run a gym? Every business, regardless of the sector, needs planning. To plan is to establish a series of objectives to be reached within a certain period of time.

As we have already mentioned, in the case of gyms, a strategy must be created to attract new clients, as well as to convince those who are undecided or to win back those who have dropped out.

However, the absence of strategy and planning is one of the gym management mistakes that many centres have made during the years of crisis and some are still falling into. This is what Chano Jiménez, a consultant specialising in sales in the fitness market, says about this: “with the desire to survive and save cash flow, many gyms have opted for cost reductions, which has affected people’s perception of the centres”.

*Here is a post talking about the challenges you have to overcome and what aspects are important: How to make a box successful?

The gym model most affected by this mistake are the premium gyms, although there are also medium gyms that have wanted to assimilate themselves to the low cost ones in order to increase sales and have not taken into account that they were not conceived for it, neither in design, nor in strategy, nor in the distribution of the spaces, nor was there any planning behind to support this change with steps to follow.

At Resawod, we deal with many managers of gyms and boxes of all kinds, and although we don’t know everything, one thing is clear to us:

2. Poor customer acquisition process

The most basic and crucial objective in any gym is the acquisition of new customers. And yet, this is a mistake that many gyms make. A well-managed gym should be constantly reinventing itself and looking for ways to improve its customer acquisition process.

Nowadays, gyms cannot buy the attention of customers. There are thousands of options, models or types of training. So you have to win them over.

*Managing customers is not easy, that’s why this article will interest you: 9 essential steps for customer management in a gym.

A plan to attract new customers is an essential component of your gym’s marketing strategy. As we discussed in the previous point, a common gym management mistake is to try to achieve these goals without a strategy behind them.

In order to develop an effective plan to attract new customers, it is necessary to analyse and define very well each of the steps along the way, what marketing strategies are going to be followed, how we are going to try to attract these new users. And, above all, how we are going to continue to nurture these users once they have arrived at our gym.

That’s the key to it all, your recruitment plan loses all its value if once you get a member you neglect them. Every part of the process is important.

3. Results are not measured

This, although it may seem obvious, is one of the most common gym management mistakes that exists. If you do not take into account the results and how the business is doing, you will not be able to correct what is going wrong or implement new strategies.

Therefore, you will repeat each of the mistakes you have made in a loop and not only will you fail to attract new clients, but you will probably end up losing the clients you already have.

Data can be overwhelming. There are thousands of metrics with which to measure a gym and it is very common to get lost among so many figures and forget what is really basic and essential to measure. Some examples of data that you should analyse are:

• • How many members have you gained in the last month?
  • How many times a week do they come?
  • How many have left the gym?
  • What is the peak time at the gym?

Answering these and other questions related to the number of members, their frequency at the gym and the peak hours at your facility are key to determining what actions to take and why. Opening hours, events, promotions and offers are marked by these kinds of numbers that make the difference between good management and survival management.

Not paying attention to the number of registrations, cancellations or the sales margin of the different months and years can cause you to put the focus where it is not and create a totally erroneous action plan that, instead of benefiting you, does the opposite.

*Analysing data correctly is the key to success. Take a look at this article: 5 benefits of analysing the KPIs of your box or gym..

4. Lack of automation of processes in the gym 

This is the most basic mistake in the management of a gym because although there are usually defined objectives and training is done, the final implementation fails.

How to improve the service in a gym? In order to efficiently carry out the previous point, to have an updated database of members and to control access to the centre, it is necessary to use a management system that automates these processes and simplifies daily management tasks.

A management software such as Resawod allows you to have all the issues related to collections, payments, fees, forms and statistics in a single place.

How else would you be able to cross-reference data every week, understand where your gym is at and also think about what can be improved in your gym and design recruitment, marketing and loyalty strategies? It is impossible.

Good management is based on prioritising and automating tasks. Focusing on what is really important and what will make your gym grow, without neglecting the routine day-to-day tasks with users. And that is precisely what is achieved by automating processes when using a management software.

5. Simply being “the gym next door”, without differentiating yourself from others

For users, seen from the outside, all gyms are the same. Knowing this, you must ask yourself and be able to answer questions such as:

• • What makes you different from the competition?
  • Why is your gym worth going to?
  • Are you offering added value to your users?
  • Do members feel valued and cared for?
  • Do you know what they value and what they expect from your gym?

Being a very vocational sector and with so much demand, there are managers who forget that at the end of the day, in order to get new clients, the gym must be “sold” and that, even if it is the best gym in the world, if it is not perceived as such by the public, it is not worth anything.

Therefore, it is very important that you are constantly looking for new ways to improve your gym, as well as making an effort to communicate with your users and get to know them like the back of your hand.

Undoubtedly, by avoiding these most common gym management mistakes, you will be moving your gym towards automated and efficient management, which will allow you to bring out its full potential. But what other mistakes are made when managing a gym using gym management software? We’ll tell you all about it, without traps, book a demo and ask us all your questions.