5 Tips to Choosing the Right Fitness Business Management Software
Most fitness studio owners open facilities because of their genuine love for their discipline and ability to coach others effectively. They don’t always consider how challenging it can be to organize the business side of operations. There are a lot of responsibilities involved like scheduling staff and classes, managing invoices, memberships, and more that can be a huge time-suck.
The good news is that many of these tasks can be automated and member data consolidated in order to allow your business to run as a highly functioning machine without crippling your schedule as a business owner or taking up too much of your staff’s time. However, the solutions available have so many features it can be difficult to choose which ones to make a priority. Below are a few ways you can be using Gym management software to streamline your operations and declutter your mind – along with tips to choose the features that will work the best for your studio!
What Features Mean the Most to Your Business?
- Scheduling
If your studio is offering multiple types of classes, appointments, and instructors, scheduling software will be a must for you in order to keep your head on straight. Not only will you need to keep a handle on these factors but also manage attendees and capacity. Your studio can’t thrive if you are not optimizing your space and availability to its true potential.
Scheduling software will allow you to book classes, keep track of your trainers and keep your whole team in the loop about conflicts or changes. Not only that but the best software, like WellnessLiving, will also let you communicate with your clients online and via smartphone applications in order to allow them to book their own classes – and even get participation rewards! That sure beats a pen and paper attendance log.
- Membership Management and Messaging
As your client base grows it becomes more important to be able to keep track of them efficiently and effectively. The right software will allow you to manage new sign ups, renewals, cancellations, and more all in one place. Being able to manage your members from a single dashboard can not only help you to better understand the details of their membership but will also allow you to market to them in a way that will resonate.
With all of your customer data accessible from one screen, you will be able to build marketing segments out of the user data you are already collecting in order to follow up with them and keep in touch with targeted messaging. (ProTip: If you do a lot of emailing, make sure that you can send messages directly through your business software – otherwise you’ll be stuck with the time-consuming process of exporting and integrating all of your lists with a third party application!)
- Credit Card Processing & Invoicing
Are you still collecting personal check and cash payments for your fitness center? If so, now is the time to look for a more cost-effective and automated way to collect membership dues. Fitness studio management software can be used for automating and tracking payments, so you can get rid of the monthly stress of manually reviewing accounts. With the right software you can even set up automatic emails for your members when it’s time for them to renew or their credit card is about to expire.
- Reporting
As your business grows, you do not have time to fill out multiple Excel spreadsheets or calculate your attendance levels, most profitable classes, and monthly membership revenues. Having access to quick metrics, such as earnings for the past 30 days, or attendance numbers for the last quarter, are critical for your business planning and projections.
Also, what happens if you need to see certain information on the regular (like class bookings) but it’s not in one of the default reports? It would be a hassle to recreate the same queries month after month. This is why a comprehensive, customizable dashboard is key to your studio’s success. You should be able to create reports custom to your personal business activities, bring up the information you need when you need it, and have it displayed in an easy to read, understandable format.
But Wait… I Need ALL of Those Features!
If your business has grown fast enough to need all of these features, or if you just like the sound of saving your time and money by making use of them all, you have some careful planning to do. Most fitness business solutions offer the basics, but charge money for integrations or add-ons like automated emails, reward programs, embedding widgets, or payment processing. You’ll have to take a careful look at not only the subscription price of the software, but the additional monthly fees you will incur by unlocking all the optional features.
Luckily, there’s a better answer. Which brings us to our fifth and final tip:
- Choose an All-In-One Solution
Why pay more for patchwork platforms that don’t deliver everything you need? A true all-in-one solution understands all aspects of your fitness business and works to make them more manageable for you, the business owner. This way you can avoid worrying over your monthly software budget and put your time where it matters most – back into building your business.
WellnessLiving is that solution. From online booking to marketing solutions, rewards programs to staff management, reporting, automated membership payments, and more, this is a software designed for the fitness studio owner ready to simplify all aspects of their business – and succeed.
If you’re interested in finding more about how WellnessLiving can help streamline your business operations while saving you money every month in unnecessary software and credit card fees, click here to get your free demo or call us at 1-888-668-7728 today.
