Quick Tips: What Makes Accounting Software So Important for a Cutting-Edge Independent Gym?

13th February 202516th September 2024 by Jasmin

Quick Tips: What Makes Accounting Software So Important for a Cutting-Edge Independent Gym?

Accounting software is essential for gyms because it helps owners manage their finances effectively. Here are some reasons why accounting software is crucial for gyms:

1. Accurate financial reporting: Accounting software can help gym owners generate accurate financial reports, including profit and loss statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements.

2. Streamlined invoicing and billing: With accounting software, gym owners can automate invoicing and billing, which can save time and reduce errors.

3. Payroll management: Accounting software can help gym owners manage payroll more effectively, including calculating taxes and deductions and generating pay stubs.

4. Compliance with tax laws and regulations: Accounting software can help gym owners stay compliant with tax laws and regulations, including filing taxes and generating tax forms.

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Simply select your preferred timeslot and we’ll be in touch to have a chat about your health club,
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Get your club in shape.

Want to discover how? Let us show you.

Simply select your preferred timeslot and we’ll be in touch to have a chat about your health club, the goals you want to achieve, and how our system can help you.

Get your club in shape.

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Simply select your preferred timeslot and we’ll be in touch to have a chat about your health club, the goals you want to achieve, and how our system can help you.

Quick Tips: How Much Support Should Gym Owners Expect From Their Gym Accounting Software?

13th February 202516th September 2024 by Jasmin

Quick Tips: How Much Support Should Gym Owners Expect From Their Gym Accounting Software?

This is another question we receive a lot. And the answer is a significant amount.

Any of the best gym accounting software providers should treat their software as a partnership between the gym and the software company.

And to that end, gym and fitness business owners should expect a significant amount of support, whether that is tutorials and guides, or a fully manned customer support team across phone, e-mail and web chat.

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Quick Tips: Is Cloud-Based Accounting Software a Must Have Feature for Independent Gyms?

13th February 202516th September 2024 by Jasmin

Quick Tips: Is Cloud-Based Accounting Software a Must Have Feature for Independent Gyms?

While Cloud-based gym accounting software can be very beneficial for gym and fitness business owners, it is absent from our accounting software must-have feature list.

That isn’t because it is without merit. It does enable effortless access to the financial operation of a gym or fitness business providing the person has the necessary access criteria.

Depending on the gym owner in question, this can be a significant asset, especially if managing multiple fitness sites. While there are plenty of independent gym owners that take the step to setting up a second site, we did not think this warranted a dedicated place on our feature list.

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Quick Tips: Is Gym Accounting Software Suitable for Small Gyms?

13th February 202516th September 2024 by Jasmin

Quick Tips: Is Gym Accounting Software Suitable for Small Gyms?

This is a question we often receive. Is ‘my’ gym too small to utilise gym accounting software?

Often the number of members is cited, the fact that they are able to ‘get by’ with the procedures they have in place.

In our experience, the answer is nearly always a resounding no. The gym is not too small.

In the past this may have been the case, when gym accounting software was more prohibitively expensive and less versatile. But in the last decade, gym software of all shapes and sizes can be adapted to a small gym or fitness club environment at very little cost.

Not only that, but it can also assist with growth, improvement and expansion. We think it is important to reiterate to independent gym and fitness club owners that apathy or a lack of self-confidence is not a valid reason to implement the changes that could take a gym to the next level!

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A Guide To Choosing Insurance for Your Gym

13th February 20253rd September 2024 by Jasmin

A Guide To Choosing Insurance for Your Gym

Here at Ashbourne we have covered a lot of the fundamentals of running an independent gym or fitness club in these blogs, leveraging our 25 years of experience to ensure that gym owners, management and staff have easy access to high quality resources on a variety of topics.

But for the most part, they have been focused on what happens inside the gym, whether it is to do with infrastructure, software, access controls, membership retention, social media engagement or a host of other topics.

Today we are looking at something that trends towards being a little more abstract.

Insurance

Perhaps if Benjamin Franklin (or the person he was most likely quoting, Daniel Defoe) was alive today and had to set-up a business, he would update that transcendent quote on inevitabilities from ‘Death and Taxes’ to ‘Death, Insurance and Taxes’.

Because while Franklin was an advocate of insurance and even started his own insurance company, it was not the all-consuming industry it is today. His particular company was a city-wide fire insurance scheme for Philadelphia. A far cry from the government mandated multi-billion pound industries of the 20th and 21st century.

But now, as then, sensible people like Franklin advocated for insurance because it made good and responsible sense. It may seem like an abstraction at the time of purchase but when something goes wrong (as things sometimes inevitably do in a gym or fitness club) and the protection and reassurance suddenly doesn’t seem quite so abstract.

Running a gym or fitness club is a fantastic venture, but it is not free of risk. Some of those risks are unavoidable, the sort of risk that comes with any suitably complex business venture.
But others are not, and with the right insurance for the right fitness facility, independent gym and fitness club owners can enjoy a much greater peace of mind knowing that everyone involved, whether it is the staff, the membership or even the building itself, are all firmly protected.

So how does a new gym owner go about selecting which insurance will be the best suited for their gym or fitness club? Which types of insurance are required? And how many?

Well thankfully we don’t intend to pose these hard questions and then disappear, so today we will be continuing our look into the fundamentals of setting up and running an independent gym or fitness club.

Which Types of Insurances To Consider:

(you can also click to skip ahead!)

Contents Insurance

Contents insurance covers the cost of replacing or repairing your possessions if they are damaged, destroyed or stolen.

Public Liability Insurance

Public liability insurance can help your business cover the cost of claims from third parties for injury or loss.

Asset/Equipment Insurance

Asset/Equipment insurance covers the cost of replacing or repairing lost, stolen or accidentally damaged equipment.

Buildings & Commercial Property Insurance

Commercial property insurance covers the cost of repairing or rebuilding your business premises, or replacing your stock or equipment.

Professional Indemnity Insurance

Professional indemnity insurance protects you against claims for loss or damage made by clients or third parties as a result of the impact of negligent services you provided or negligent advice you offered.

Employers' Liability Insurance

Employers’ Liability Insurance covers the costs of employee claims for illness or injury caused by their work due to employers’ negligence.

Fidelity Bonds/Fidelity Guarantee Insurance

Fidelity Guarantee insurance (also known as Theft by Employee insurance) provides cover for loss of money and other property resulting from fraudulent or dishonest acts committed by an employee or volunteer.

Management Liability Insurance

Management Liability Insurance protects company directors, senior managers and officers of charities, boards and committees if a negligence claim is brought against them in court or at an employment tribunal.

Business Interruption Insurance

Business interruption insurance covers you for loss of income during periods when you cannot carry out business as usual due to an unexpected event.

How Necessary is Insurance for an Independent Gym or Fitness Club in the UK?

While we may have tipped our hand a little early in the introduction regarding our stance on this question, the necessity of insurance is still a question worth asking.

Of course some insurance products are a legal necessity to operate a business and as such are excluded from this. But others are still optional. And when something is optional, it can be a temptation for business owners to skip over or ‘do without’.

This is not to imply that gyms and fitness clubs are particularly unsafe. As we said above, these insurances aren’t just to protect members (though that is of vital importance). The insurances that we will be looking into today are as necessary to protect equipment, staff and the facility itself. Top of the line Gym equipment is a prime example of a significant expense should it become damaged. Equally, the presence of weights and water from pools and saunas is more likely to cause injury to both members and the facility than other purposes.

With everything going on in the average gym or fitness club, the peace of mind that protection can allow a gym owner is worth a significant amount.

There are a hundred things that could go wrong, opening the gym up to expensive repair bills, complex investigations or even legal action. These are the incidents that insurance is designed to protect a gym owner against and as such we would recommend erring on the side of caution.

Starting on the right foot is important, members and staff alike want to be assured that their interests are being looked after and that the gym environment they are signing up to will look after them. While an independent gym or fitness club owner can attempt to shoulder these responsibilities themselves, we would earnestly recommend that each of the insurances that we will cover today be considered carefully.

So, What Insurance is Necessary for an Independent Gym or Fitness Club?

As we said above, the right insurance is vital in order for an independent gym or fitness club owner to have well-founded peace of mind. But it is also important to consider what coverage is actually required, the budget that can be set aside to pay for the insurance and the offers available to the gym or fitness club at the time.

Our guide is here to ensure that any plan has the maximum chance of surviving contact with reality. The fitness industry, the insurance industry and the economy as a whole is in a tumultuous period at the moment and events (as we saw with the Covid-19 pandemic and the energy crisis prompted by the Russian invasion of Ukraine) can escalate quickly.

As such, while it is important for a gym or fitness club owner to understand what types of insurance they would like and the prices they would like to obtain it for, it is also key to keep in mind that the market, and therefore insurance will fluctuate. Insurance underwriting is a complex process, deduced (or perhaps that should be divined) by a series of risk assessment calculations.

In addition, the purchasing of insurance policies can also be a highly specialised and specific process. This topic could be an article in and of itself but to keep things brief we will just say that many policies, especially for larger amounts and depending on the insurance and underwriter may be subjected to significant change prior to the final agreement.

Of course this process will vary depending on the different types of insurance, and independent gym and fitness club owners may need coverage across a variety of sectors. Liability insurance, Indemnity insurance, Insurance as an employer, Asset Insurance. Some insurers and underwriters can provide more than one of these, and even two insurance policies with the same title by two different insurers/underwriters will cover different things.

As such it is important to keep in mind that the answer to ‘What Insurance is necessary’ doesn’t have a straight-forward answer.

For example, we will recommend, both here and later, that public liability insurance is very necessary. However different public liability insurance policies will vary, some may contain coverage that is not necessary to an one independent gym or fitness club, but is very pertinent to another

As is often the case, the correct answer isn’t always satisfactory or brief. Which is why we will be delving into the different types of insurance and what coverage to prioritise within those insurance policies.

Which Types of Insurance Should Interest an Independent Gym or Fitness Club Owner?

Now we're on to the part you've been waiting for!

Whether a gym hasn’t opened its doors for the first time or it has been running for a decade, we hope that this list, breaking down the various types of insurance that may be financially interesting to an independent gym or fitness club will be of some use.

In this list we will try to give a brief summary as well as any potential benefits or pitfalls commonly associated with the insurance in question from our lengthy experience in the fitness industry.

First we will start with the insurance we have talked joint-most about during this blog so far, Contents Insurance, followed by Public Liability Insurance.

Contents Insurance

Different sectors will always prioritise different types of insurance. As we said above, even different gyms will prioritise different insurances depending on a variety of factors, ranging from location to the services provided and the number of personnel.

However, one type of insurance with near universal application and appeal is Contents Insurance. Unless the fitness facility in question happens to consist of just an empty studio room, the contents of an independent gym or fitness club will be some of the most prized possessions.,

Whether it is the equipment itself, the electronics and computers or even the access controls (something we know all about), there is a plethora of expensive and hard to replace equipment that makes up a good portion of the initial investment into a gym.

While the initial setup phase is a time where no gym owner wishes to spend more than necessary, the potential of having expensive equipment damaged long before it has been able to help pay itself off is a catastrophic situation to be in for any new independent gym or fitness club owner.

The maths here becomes very simple. If an event that caused a significant amount of damage, say half or even a third of the equipment and/or assets within the gym are taken out of commission due to say a fire or flooding. Could the gym comfortably afford to replace them?

Even if the answer is yes, that is a significant amount of money to burn. As such, we would nearly always recommend Contents insurance for all but the most spartan of fitness club setups!

Public Liability Insurance

While there is a massive and compelling case to be made for public liability insurance, we will not be making it quite as emphatically as the others?

Is it due to fatigue? No, we could talk about insurance for gyms and fitness clubs all day. Public liability cost is a legal requirement for nearly any business substantially dealing with the public, which, of course, a gym or fitness club falls under.

But while being a necessity, does not mean that it should be begrudged. Public liability insurance is one of the most effective insurances available on the market. It can cover (again, factoring in things like excesses) legal costs that occur due to allegations and instances of injury and property damage.

With things like weights, water and movement commonplace in a gym or fitness club, public liability insurance is a very smart purchase. As we don’t need to recommend a gym or fitness club owner get it (as it is mandatory), we would recommend that they do not ‘cheap-out’ on it.

As per our example above, large excesses on public liability insurance will significantly diminish the returns from multiple smaller public liability claims. This will, in turn, result in much higher payouts for the gym or fitness club in question.

Often public liability claims are either for a very small or significant amount. As such, it is best to go for a policy that has a high overall coverage with a low excess, to cover off both of these angles.

Assets/Equipment Insurance

This insurance is, for many underwriters and insurers, a variant of contents insurance. Though some offer their often specialised ‘Equipment insurance’ to facilities within the fitness industry.

As per the rationale we went through in Contents insurance, gym equipment represents a significant investment to any gym, let alone an independent gym or fitness club.

As such, it is pertinent, especially close to opening, that equipment be suitably protected.

The reason that equipment insurance may be preferable to generic contents insurance is as follows.

Within the insurance industry, there are several governing principles. To reduce one of them to a core and usable sentence. Specificity reduces costs.

The reason may be apparent. The most specific a policy, the less risk it presents. As such, these policies can often represent the greatest value.

Contents insurance is a good example. Contents covers a broad range of items, especially within a gym or fitness clubs. This means that the underwriters will determine that the risk on this policy is high relative to say, a policy that only specifically covers equipment.

Even under normal circumstances, equipment will slowly degrade. Such is the nature of the repetitive motions and high-weight loads. As such, the desire to specifically protect equipment for a gym or fitness club owner should be strong. Either because they want to ensure it lasts until the point where it has ‘paid itself off’ or alternatively because some money may be put towards its replacement.

It is worth saying that many insurers will deduct money from the payment amount based on the age of the equipment, so it may not always be possible that insurance will provide a like for like replacement.

Like many of the pieces of insurance advice within this blog however, this will vary from insurance to insurance. It is always important to read the policy. Even after purchasing the policy, insurers must legally give you a period of time to read it and ensure you are satisfied with the coverage.

Buildings & Commercial Property Insurance

Perhaps one of the most self-explanatory and well-known insurances, due to its appearance in nearly every sector of the economy.

Unsurprisingly, it covers the building itself.

If the building is owned in some capacity by the gym owner, usually the type of insurance required is called something akin to ‘Building Insurance’ or ‘Commercial Property Insurance’.

Conversely, if it is a rented commercial building or area, this is usually not necessary as the landlord or company responsible for the property will be the ones who are required to have it insured.

It may be prudent for new independent gym or fitness club owners to liaise with their landlord/letting company to understand the nature of this arrangement, lest any significant damage occurs to the building during their occupation.

Professional Indemnity Insurance

In some ways the other side of the coin of Public Liability Insurance, Professional Indemnity cover, sometimes known as PI Cover or PI Insurance.

This is insurance to cover something key that public liability insurance does not. The professional obligation that an independent gym or fitness club has to their members.

This can cover a wide range of responsibilities that otherwise fall to a gym owner.

Again, policies will vary depending on the quality and price of the insurance. It usually covers errors by staff and personal trainers, personal injury sustained while under their guidance, negligence claims instigated against the gym and the staff and much more.

Some policies even offer protection against broader issues, such as how a certain service or piece of advice was delivered and the outcome, or even broader legal issues not involving injury.

Given the broad protection and peace of mind that this insurance gives, we believe it to be a very important consideration for independent gym and fitness club owners.

This sort of legal expenditure can become expensive and it can be stressful for staff to know that they have either caused significant hardship or that they are not suitably protected within the environment. As such, we believe that Professional Indemnity Insurance/cover is the best way for a gym owner to protect their staff, allowing them to deliver the best service possible.

Employers' Liability Insurance

In a similar vein to the PI and Public Liability Insurance, Employers liability insurance is just as it sounds. What if a staff member experiences an injury they sustain at work?

And like Public liability, we won’t do much convincing here because Employers Liability insurance is another legal requirement.

This is very prudent, and much like our section on public liability insurance all we will say here is that we heavily recommend that independent gym and fitness club owners purchase a quality, high-coverage policy.

These policies are heavily regulated and for good reason. The right type of policy with the right coverage will protect not only the business but also the staff from a significant amount of financial hardship.

We can only reinforce our endorsement that significant attention and focus should go into the purchase of employers liability insurance.

Fidelity Bonds/Fidelity Guarantee Insurance

While all insurance inherently leaves a bit of a bad taste to talk about, as it pertains to things going either wrong or drastically wrong. Fidelity Bonds or Fidelity Insurance is perhaps one of the most unpalatable to consider warding against.

It is an insurance designed to protect a business, in our case an independent gym or fitness club, against theft or loss caused by dishonesty behaviour by either staff, partners in the business or management.

As we said, it is not something that people like to consider. But the nature of all insurance is to protect us all against the unpleasant and the unthinkable. As such, it is hard not to recommend it as a prudent insurance for independent gym and fitness club owners, we earnestly hope it is one that goes unclaimed on.

Management Liability Insurance

The necessity of this insurance will heavily depend on the structure and size of the gym or fitness club in question.

However, in the right organisation this could be vital. Being part of the management of a business carries with it legal and fiscal implications.

These implications are broad and we will not explore them exhaustively here, perhaps in another blog on gym and fitness club insurance. Irrespective, for a suitably developed independent gym or fitness club, this type of insurance could very well offer significant protection for the highest level of staff and management.

Business Interruption Insurance

And finally we end our list on a unique type of cover.

We say that because BI cover, often called Business Interruption insurance, is something that usually only activates during another insurance claim.

Over the course of this article we have covered what will happen from an insurance perspective while a series of costly disasters unfold, but what happens if this causes the fitness facility to close? In another term, what happens if business is interrupted?

Well, if a gym or fitness club owner has been prudent, that is where their business interruption cover would kick in. Depending on the quality and coverage of the policy, this will cover expenses such as wages and fees that will persist despite the fact the business is closed. As with some of the insurance types we have covered today, it can seem like a niche and irrelevant insurance until it very much makes the difference in a crisis.

What Should an Independent Gym or Fitness Club Expect to Pay for their Insurance?

And is it worth it?

In the same vein as our answer to what insurance is necessary. The correct answer to this question is as unsatisfying as it is nuanced. But the outcome, peace of mind and an important investment in the financial security of a gym or fitness club, is entirely satisfactory, we promise!

Ultimately, as we covered when going into different insurance types, the amount of money an insurer/underwriter decides to charge a gym or fitness club will be entirely dependent on factors such as the size of the facility, the size of the membership, the number of staff, the location, the equipment, the services offered and the broader market.

To take an example, insurance for employers’ liability is usually calculated either based on the exact number of employees or within a bracketing system. Other insurances, such as contents can either take into account the assets within the gym or fitness club or set a premium and resultant liability cover for a set amount.

While we won’t go into the specifics here (there are other articles from insurers that cover this), we will reiterate that many of the types of insurance we covered above represent a significant investment in the financial security of a gym or fitness club. They come at a price, but we assure you that some will be prices worth paying.

And paying a little more upfront can save a significant amount later on down the line. For example, many policies, irrespective of what they cover, come with an excess. This is a sum of money that needs to be paid to the insurance company in order to process the claim.

A trap that many fall into across various different insurances is to pick a lower price insurance with a high excess. This seems (correctly though deceptively) to represent a saving. A precious amount of money saved from a necessary expense. That must be a win, correct?

Yes, perhaps. Until you need to claim that is. In our twenty five years of experience in the fitness industry, we have heard many tales of high excess insurance policies resulting in either an inability to use the policy effectively for the claims that the gym wanted to make or a significantly diminished payout.

An easy way to conceptualise this is by taking the excess as an implied minimum limit on the minimum an independent gym or fitness club can claim. If our theoretical fitness club has two claims they need to submit on their contents insurance, one for £4000 and another for £2500. But they agreed to an insurance policy with an excess of £3000.

Well that means if they are allowed to file collectively they are only receiving £3500. If they have to file separately, that could mean as little as £1000 on a collective £6500 claim!

So while it might be tempting for independent gym and fitness club owners to save £50 on their premium, it is vital to keep in mind that this could result in a substantial deduction on the total payout from the policy later on.

How To Understand if an Insurance is Correct for an Independent Gym or Fitness Club

Much like researching and purchasing insurance in a domestic setting, purchasing insurance for a business can take time and effort. But we here at Ashbourne are convinced it is a case of ‘if something is worth doing, it is worth doing correctly’.

Because of the nature of insurance, there is a temptation to gamble. Pay less now in the hopes that nothing needs to be paid later.

As we mentioned earlier, there is a temptation to pay the lowest premium, take the highest excess, opt out of certain areas of cover? Anything to make that payment number go down and down and down.

It is, we hate to say, a false economy in many cases. Over our twenty five years experience in the fitness industry we have seen many independent gym and fitness club owners fall foul of ‘thinking’ they were appropriately covered.

Each insurance policy has to be basically as good as the next right? Unfortunately not. And the fitness industry is a place where that sad fact gets proven regularly.

So we will start to close off this article with a quick guide on how to understand whether the insurance a gym owner is looking at, irrespective of the type of coverage, is the right one.

What Does the Gym Need Covered?

Something we always recommend doing for each category is understanding what coverage is desired.

We recommend independent gym and fitness club owners undertake an informal (or perhaps formal) risk assessment.

Certain things will be necessary as we covered above, public liability insurance, employers liability insurance etc.

But even within those remits, a gym owner should think about what they would be comfortable paying as an excess.

Remember, taking our excess mantra from above, an excess essentially represents ‘what is the minimal amount you are comfortable paying’.

It is an uncomfortable question, but that is good. When buying insurance we often feel too comfortable. I mean the things we are trying to insure against haven’t happened yet, they might never happen. It is an important mindset to shift.

For example, the next priority after public liability and employers liability insurance would most likely be equipment. High excesses on equipment might be tempting. After all, equipment is expensive anyway and so a gym owner is likely to always get some payout.

But that logic feels slightly less sound when the calculations show that the gym owner ends up paying over half of the cost himself each time.

With that being said, we don’t recommend that independent gym or fitness club owners go policy mad, buying every type of policy and always going for the most expensive policy. Down that road lies madness and not an insignificant amount of immediate fiscal discomfort.

There are insurances that it may be easier for a gym owner to identify as not necessary, especially if they are a new gym or fitness club owner just setting up shop.

For example, directors and officers insurance or fidelity insurance may not be necessary initially given the presumably low number of management.

Insurance is a balancing act between what is prudent and necessary, and what is an acceptable risk. It is a perennial question and one that we will never truly know the answer to. But that should never stop us from attempting to make the best estimation with the resources and knowledge available to us

Finding the Right Insurer for the Right Insurance

Whether it is a generic insurer on a search engine or a specialised insurance broker that requires calling up, finding the right insurer can feel like a bit of a maze, especially at first.

But like all things that feel insurmountable initially, exposure and understanding will gradually bring confidence and assurance.

Understanding what each insurer offers, does well and their respective price points are a good start. Despite their reputations, brokers can be good allies in finding the best deals. With that being said, we would also recommend gym owners do their own research.

There are several specialist insurers and brokers that work and specialise around the fitness industry and those who operate in the sector. These are a good port of call, and as we said above, one of our mantras is that specificity often brings good value.

But again, a caveat is that this does not mean a specialist will always give the best deal for an independent gym or fitness club owner.

Finding the Right Policy

Finding the right insurer is, however, only half the battle.

After that there is also the policy itself. These can vary dramatically, even within the same brokerage or insurer.

If step one was followed, independent gym and fitness club owners will have a list of risks and scenarios that they wish to be covered. Equally, it is important to keep in mind that if something is covered, it still matters to what extent it is covered. Both in terms of claim limits and excess.

Ultimately pressing the button or saying yes over the phone and finalising the purchase of insurance is a process where many moving parts come together. We hope that with our guide, any independent gym or fitness club owner will have made significant headway in understanding what is necessary, prudent and unwise.

Our Final Thoughts

And so concludes our guide for independent gyms and fitness clubs on what to prioritise and what is required in the world of insurance.

It is a complex and interesting topic, one where a lot of money can be saved or lost for an independent gym or fitness club, depending on how it is handled. And despite the significant amount of text above, we have only just started to scratch the surface.

Like many aspects within the fitness industry, it ultimately comes down to expertise and experience. And luckily that is something that Ashbourne has to spare.

Get your club in shape.

Want to discover how? Let us show you.

Simply select your preferred timeslot and we’ll be in touch to have a chat about your health club,
the goals you want to achieve, and how our system can help you.

Get your club in shape.

Want to discover how? Let us show you.

Simply select your preferred timeslot and we’ll be in touch to have a chat about your health club, the goals you want to achieve, and how our system can help you.

Get your club in shape.

Want to discover how? Let us show you.

Simply select your preferred timeslot and we’ll be in touch to have a chat about your health club, the goals you want to achieve, and how our system can help you.

How Independent Gyms Can Significantly Reduce Pass Sharing

13th February 202529th August 2024 by Jasmin

How Independent Gyms Can Significantly Reduce Pass Sharing

It is a problem that has plagued new gyms and old gyms, largely clubs, multinational chains and small independent gyms alike. It is a term many in the fitness industry are all too familiar with.

That’s right, today we are going to be talking about Pass-Sharing, sometimes otherwise known as ‘Pin-Sharing’ depending on the system of verification used by the fitness facility.

Here at Ashbourne Membership Management, we have over twenty five years of experience helping independent gyms and fitness clubs crackdown on these behaviours. We know that our duty to our partner gyms and clubs doesn’t end with their collecting direct debits and generating BI reports.

As a business very well versed in both sides of access control, we thought we would compile our insights into how Pass-Sharing/Pin-Sharing can become a problem for new gyms and old gyms alike, how to identify it as a problem and most importantly, what the solutions are.

What will we cover in this article?

(you can also click to skip ahead!)

Why Is Pass Sharing A Problem?

Pass Sharing In New Gyms

Pass Sharing in Unmanned Facilities

How Systems Effect Pass Sharing

Solution #1: Data Tracking

Solution #2: Access Control

Solution #3: Responsive Membership Management Software

Why is Pass Sharing A Problem?

How does pass-sharing/pin-sharing occur?

While Pass-Sharing/Pin-Sharing is a well-known problem within the fitness industry, it is useful to introduce the subject both to make this accessible for those who require clarification and so that we can refer back to our definition as we go through this article.

Pass-Sharing and Pin-Sharing is when the members that attend a given gym or fitness club share their personalised ‘pin’ or ‘pass in order to give other non-members the ability to access the facility.

A common example of this is our theoretical members giving their access pin/pass such as a membership card, key fob or QR code for example to a friend or colleague.

This allows the friend or colleague to access the gym or fitness club without being a paying member.

This obviously represents a violation of the membership terms of nearly every gym or fitness club we are aware of. It represents not only a loss of revenue for the gym in question but also a loss of security.

It represents a loss of control over the ability for a gym or fitness club to determine who it allows to enter and who it does not.

So why does Pass-Sharing and Pin-Sharing occur?

As with any suitably prevalent problem within an industry, the answer is multi-faceted. It can occur within two different gyms for two essentially different reasons. In our experience, it is a problem we have assisted with across countless gyms and the answer is always slightly different.

With that being said, we have broken it down into a few categories to cover the ‘main’ reasons.

Pass Sharing In A New Gym or Fitness Club

We aren’t a membership management company that just helps other gyms and fitness clubs from afar, our dedication to the fitness industry means we have also got hands on over the years.

This means we know what we are talking about when we say that starting up a new gym can be a full-on endeavour. There are hundreds of moving parts that need to be accounted for and sometimes access controls and membership access tools are neglected in this process.

It is understandable, management and staff of a new independent gym have a lot to think about. From brand identity and marketing through to equipment, staff and training. As such, we have noticed that there will sometimes be a moment when a relatively new gym or fitness club starts to realise that despite the success they have enjoyed, there might be a Pass-Sharing or Pin-Sharing problem to address.

It isn’t always easy to identify (we will get to that later) but one of the vital time periods where a culture/problem of Pass-Sharing might develop is during the initial setup stage.

Pass Sharing In Unmanned & 24 Hour Facilities

A very common environment within an independent gym or fitness club that allows for Pass-Sharing/Pin-Sharing to occur is when a facility attempts to go either unmanned, 24 hours or both without the necessary infrastructure in place.

With the rise of the corporate mega-chain budget gyms, the temptation to go to either an unmanned and/or 24/7 system has been very strong for a lot of independent gyms and fitness clubs.

We have written several articles, especially in the wake of the 2022 energy crisis regarding the wisdom of this move but it is undeniable that for some independent gyms in the correct area and with the right clients that it can be a very prudent and profitable move.

However, even the best business decision can be disastrous for a gym if it is taken at the wrong time or without the correct infrastructure.

To borrow an old adage, you shouldn’t run before you can walk.

And this can be the danger for any independent gym that tries to make the jump to unmanned and/or 24/7s without the right system.

With one of the aforementioned membership access devices such as a key fob or membership card, adopting an unmanned system can be a leap of faith that might not be rewarded. Members will quickly notice if the gym or fitness club that they are going to has no discernable way to track who is using the card or fob to access the gym.

Unmanned does not always necessarily mean unmonitored of course, but the monitoring of an unmanned system can also be time intensive, to say nothing of the follow-up procedures once it has been discovered that a member is pass-sharing/pin-sharing.

How Lacking or Neglected Systems Effect Pass Sharing

While it is luckily not a prevalent cause when it comes to pass-sharing, one of the most noticeable signs of an independent gym suffering from decline or neglect is a rise of Pass-Sharing/Pin-Sharing.

Members are often able to tell when morale is low and standards are slipping at an independent gym or fitness club.

And when this occurs, their desire to respect the rules and regulations of the club may well drop.

While it can be hard to reverse this negative momentum, we have seen many independent gyms and fitness clubs turn it around with the right attitude and the right help.

Identification & Solutions To Implement

So now that we’ve addressed the nature of our problem, as well as a few of the main causes, we will now look at both identification and solution.

The two are intertwined and in our experience one of the largest barriers that independent gyms and fitness clubs have to overcome is identifying that they have the problem at all. Many, especially when starting out and not supported by a membership management service, don’t have the right data, tools or software to address the issue.

For the purpose of this article we will not be covering staff identification/discovery of pass-sharing and pin-sharing. While this is a very effective way to identify it, we are focusing on how to identify this process for an unmanned access control system and on a more systemic level.

So this section will focus on how independent gyms can identify Pass-Sharing and how the right tools can help gyms and fitness clubs gain eyes in areas where they previously had none, intermixed with the solutions that can be deployed against this common issue.

Solution #1: Data Tracking: Software, BI Reports and Data Driven Insight

Perhaps the most important tools that an independent gym or fitness club has when it comes to identifying Pass-Sharing and Pin-Sharing is data. How an independent gym is able to utilise their data can be a deciding factor for success in many different areas and this aspect of membership security is no exception.

So often we have found that independent gyms are leaving a significant amount of potential income on the table purely due to poor analytical and insight capabilities.

It is understandable. Setting up a gym can be a challenging venture, and every problem needs to be dealt with when it arises.

So when an independent gym believes they might have a Pass-Sharing or Pin-Sharing problem. Their first port of call should be to review the data side of their operation. At Ashbourne, we have helped countless independent gym’s identify potential harmful trends to their business through the proper application of membership management software.

It isn’t enough to have a piece of software that can process memberships, the software must also be able to identify positive and negative trends within the data it is collecting and processing.

Without the ability to capture this data, independent gym’s risk being left in the dark when it comes to identifying positive and negative trends.

Pass-Sharing is an impactful example of how the correct suite of data tools and software can identify a problem. By understanding which individual members are using the facility the most, it is possible to track irregularities in member behaviour. This could include more time using the facility than one person could reasonably accomplish, or multiple consecutive entries to the facility close together.

When combined with monitoring tools such as CCTV, it can become very easy for even a relatively low-tech gym to track and then deter Pass-Sharing by their members.

Solution #2: Implement Alternate Access Control

Data and business insight isn’t the only area where an independent gym can upgrade their systems in order to prevent Pass-Sharing.

While it requires some investment, a solution that we have often viewed as a ‘silver bullet solution’ is Fingerprint Scanners.

Unlike the various forms of access control, Fingerprint Scanners being introduced into an unmanned independent gym or fitness club have routinely seen a massive drop in Pass-Sharing and Pin-Sharing.

The reason behind this is fairly apparent. It is much more difficult for two or more people to ‘share’ a fingerprint than it is a pincode or an access pass. Unless they are willing to engage in some truly extraordinary lengths, it is an incredibly effective deterrent.

A lot of low-level corruption (such as Pass-Sharing) is usually only done because it is deemed to be easy and harmless. By putting a significant barrier in the way (such as two people, the member and the person they are trying to get in) to be present, you are creating an uncomfortable situation many members will not want to engage with.

Solution #3: Responsive Membership Management Software

As we said above, two of the main reasons Pass-Sharing occurs are if it is perceived as ‘easy’ and if it is perceived as ‘harmless’. In the latter case, we mean whether or not the member believes they will get away with the breach of contract and trust that Pass-Sharing represents.

This atmosphere can be cultivated in an independent gym or fitness club for a variety of reasons. A sense of neglect or decline, as we talked about previously, can be a big one. As can a general sense of being unobserved.

But in our experience, when a gym’s management goes from reactive to proactive, the shift in culture is very apparent. Whether it is chasing debtors, clamping down on Pass-Sharers or addressing anti-social and contract-breaking behaviour. It doesn’t take much for members to realise that the gym is looking out for their members best interests and trying to weed out those members (and non-members) and the effect on gym morale and profits this can have is potentially huge.

Our Key Takeaways On Pass-Sharing

While Pass-Sharing and Pin-Sharing might be a fairly common problem, that means the solution is well known.

As you might be able to tell from our article, we have helped independent gym’s address these problems many times over our twenty five years in the fitness industry.

By providing advanced versions of the software and BI tools we talked about above, as well as state-of-the-art access control systems, we have helped countless gyms put an end to Pass-Sharing and other revenue-impacting behaviours. All while improving security for the facility, management and membership.

If you are here because the gym you own or help manage is having similar problems, or if you are just interested in taking your fitness club’s operation to the next level, please do not hesitate to reach out to our demonstration team today. Simply click here and click ‘request a demo’ and within days you can be talking to our trained and professional team.

We have navigated countless independent gym’s through the process, whether you need to switch providers, or are engaging the services of a membership management company for the first time.

Get your club in shape.

Want to discover how? Let us show you.

Simply select your preferred timeslot and we’ll be in touch to have a chat about your health club,
the goals you want to achieve, and how our system can help you.

Get your club in shape.

Want to discover how? Let us show you.

Simply select your preferred timeslot and we’ll be in touch to have a chat about your health club, the goals you want to achieve, and how our system can help you.

Get your club in shape.

Want to discover how? Let us show you.

Simply select your preferred timeslot and we’ll be in touch to have a chat about your health club, the goals you want to achieve, and how our system can help you.

Four ‘New’ Marketing Methods That Gyms Can Utilise To Enhance Their Digital Marketing Presence!

13th February 20258th March 2024 by Jasmin

Four ‘New’ Marketing Methods That Gyms Can Utilise To Enhance Their Digital Marketing Presence!

Here on the Ashbourne Membership Management blog, we are always trying to leverage our twenty-five years of experience in the fitness industry to help independent gym and fitness club owners and management get the most out of their fitness businesses.

Not only do we live in a fast-paced and rapidly changing world, we also operate in a dynamic and innovative sector. This means that things rarely stay the same. It feels like a frequent topic in these blogs of a revolution or evolution that has occurred within the fitness industry within the last ten or even five years.

The innovations that prompted today’s topic are very similar, though it is something that rose to prominence only within the last year or two. The technology has existed for a while in one form or another, but the pace of progress has been so rapid that it has left many gym owners asking us, what happens now?

That topic is, of course, AI. And while it is not the only topic we will be covering today in our look at marketing and specifically digital marketing in 2024, it will make up the lion’s share.

The recent leaps forward in AI present a challenge, a complication and potentially an opportunity for digital marketing across all sectors, including the fitness industry. It also represents a significant risk.

Today we will be looking at if that risk is worth taking and how independent gym and fitness club owners can use it effectively without compromising their digital marketing efforts.

If the rapid progress of AI text generation and language learning models in the last two years is anything to go by, this won’t be the last article we write on AI and its role in digital marketing for independent gyms and fitness clubs. If you are reading this article a significant period of time after the publication date, we would suggest you check to see if anything else has been written. We don’t normally include this sort of disclaimer, but given the ever-shifting AI landscape, we want to make sure that gym owners are getting the latest information about AI in the fitness industry.

What will we cover in this article?

(you can also click to skip ahead!)

AI and Marketing

Should independent gyms and fitness clubs use AI and AI-powered language learning models to assist with their digital marketing?

Seamless Engagement

How can hiring or incentivising influencers to endorse a fitness business boost their digital marketing campaigns?

Mixed Media Approach

Why should gyms utilise mixed media and marketing via a variety of digital platforms to increase their demographic reach?

Bespoke Quality Content

How can AI be unsuitable for producing high-quality content, despite its ability to produce content in vast quantities?

AI and Marketing

Should independent gyms and fitness clubs use AI and AI-powered language learning models to assist with their digital marketing?

2023 will be remembered as the year where AI hit the mainstream.

As with many aspects of ‘public memory’ that might not necessarily be correct, but it is what will be remembered nonetheless. AI existed prior to 2023 in many forms, including image and text generation.

But 2023 represented a seismic leap, not only in terms of sophistication but accessibility.

So as we move into 2024, we find questions being asked by independent gym and fitness club owners about whether they should incorporate AI into not only their digital marketing efforts, but also potentially other areas of their gyms and fitness businesses.

The answer is, unfortunately, not as short as a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no.

Some people will quite recklessly tell you that their gym should be using a language learning model such as ChatGPT, Bing AI, LaMDA or Google Gemini to do everything from writing your blogs and emails to generating your social media posts and composing your e-mails.

And indeed, there is nothing to stop an independent gym or fitness club owner from using language learning models and AI to do just that.

It is a powerful tool. But as any tradesman knows, a powerful tool needs to be used properly, otherwise you end up with a big hole in your door. (We aren’t talking from experience, promise).

AI tools can generate a large amount of text quickly. But quantity over quality is not always a winning formula. We exist in a digital landscape that is about to be overrun with AI generated text content.

As such, our initial warning is for any independent gym or fitness club owner interested in using AI to use it sparingly and only after a great deal of research. Don’t type in a prompt and immediately copy and paste the first thing it generates into an e-mail or a social media post.

It is a recipe for disaster.

People, especially younger people who make up the majority of gym members and attendees, are smart and attentive people. They are the people who have been using AI the longest and they are very good at detecting when something has been written by an AI or language learning model. If a gym or fitness club’s social media starts sounding robotic, they will notice and it will not have the desired effect on their perception of that gym or fitness club.

Seamless Engagement

How can hiring or incentivising influencers to endorse a fitness business boost their digital marketing campaigns?

We are going to take a break from AI at this point. Switching up from something very inorganic to something designed to be as organic as possible.

The strategy of hiring or incentivising influencers to endorse a business goes by many names and has been adopted by many companies. Perhaps most worryingly it has recently been sounded out by the UK government, who will be attempting to pay influencers in order to make certain things seem more or less attractive.

On a less sinister note however, this strategy of hiring influencers can also be used by independent gym and fitness club owners. Perhaps more so than many other sectors and businesses.

Because the fitness industry does not lack influencers, from small channels and profiles across YouTube and Tiktok to behemoths with millions of subscribers. Independent gym and fitness club owners should have no issue finding fitness fanatics in their area with a sizable following.

Tiktok especially feels like a platform just built for the promotion of independent gyms and fitness clubs, whether it is with a quick tour set to catchy music or a demonstration of the facility and equipment.

Authenticity and effortlessness are what these influencers are trading on and it is a powerful tool, proven to be very effective with millennials and Gen Z. It is a great way to make the marketing of an independent gym or fitness club more personal. The recommendation of a trusted influencer feels remarkably different to a cold and calculated advert. (Especially if it was made using AI!)

Equally, unlike some influencer advertising that we see on Tiktok or Youtube, independent gyms and fitness clubs have very real incentives to offer to fitness influencers! Namely the facility and their considerable resources. Conversely, it should not take the influencer much to get excited about a genuinely good independent gym or fitness club.

It is worth independent gyms and fitness clubs spending the time to find interesting and motivated fitness influencers in the area, even if their follower count is relatively small, the potential for a low-cost, high-yield partnership cannot be overlooked!

These arrangements need not end after a single video, but with the right influencer an independent gym or fitness club can weave an entire campaign’s worth of videos promoting the positive aspects of their fitness facility on a very low budget to the right audience.

It is a lesson in the face of AI marketing that creating the right content can be more important than creating huge volumes of content.

By utilising real influencers and incorporating them into a responsible, honest and ethical digital marketing campaign on platforms like Tiktok and Instagram, an independent gym or fitness club can access whole new demographics with ease while engaging with a new community.

A Mixed Media Approch

Why should gyms utilise mixed media and marketing via a variety of digital platforms to increase their demographic reach?

Continuing on from the subject of influencers, this next part has us taking a look at the benefit of a mixed approach to media when it comes to the digital marketing strategies of independent gyms and fitness clubs.

This point is as much about intention as it is variety. We aren’t recommending a mixed media strategy approach to independent gym and fitness club owners because it just looks pleasing when put all together, it is to influence and direct the flow of the conversation surrounding a facility across all platforms.

As with many things in life, when it comes to digital marketing via social media for independent gyms, it is about knowing the audience.

But it isn’t just one audience we are preaching too. That is the wrong way to conceptualise it. The people that an independent gym is trying to reach on Twitter is very different from the people that they are trying to reach on Tiktok, and very different again to the average audience member they are trying to reach on Facebook.

A long list might go down great on Facebook or Twitter, where the average ages tend to be slightly older and the app/website is formatted in such a way. But it will go down like a lead balloon on Tiktok. (Those who are young enough that they might not even know the phrase ‘go down like a lead balloon!)

It isn’t just about the format though, it is about what each audience is expecting to see. Put simply, Tiktok users don’t go on Tiktok to read think pieces. Most people on Twitter don’t go on there to see 5-second videos (though some do!)

There are myriad different audiences out there. Some will respond better to video, some will respond better to text. Many will enjoy both. By focusing purely on one or the other, an independent gym is denying their digital marketing campaign the depth and complexity it needs to be truly impactful.

Bespoke Content, Quality Not Quantity

How can AI be unsuitable for producing high-quality content, despite its ability to produce content in vast quantities?

For our final point, we will head back to AI and a sentiment that was espoused in the first section of this blog. For those paying attention, it has been the throughline of the entire article.

We believe AI has a place. It seems that AI may even have a place in video with the recent announcement of Sora. An OpenAI product that seems to be able to produce uncannily realistic videos with only a few lines of text, in the style that we have come to expect from ChatGPT (also an OpenAI product) for text or Midjourney for pictures.

But the ‘place’ that AI has is not only a very tentative one, but one that must be subject to constant review.

So we believe that AI and language-learning models, as they currently stand, are effective for spell-checking and the like. Menial tasks. We do not believe they are any substitute for actual people behind a digital marketing strategy.

Take our example earlier of the local influencer working with the gym. Is it better to have one actual person preaching to their fans about the virtues of their partnership with an independent gym or fitness club. Or five ‘AI’ fitness influencers, were that possible, to espouse the same.

One is full of real passion and an actual relationship being forged. Between independent gym and influencer. Influencer and audience. Human and unreplicatable. The other is eerie and soulless, even if it can be produced in vast quantities.

So while we always advocate for adopting the latest technologies, up to and including AI, we also preach caution. Use AI responsibly. Use it as the powerful tool it is, to save tedium when checking actual work. But as the centrepiece of a digital marketing strategy for independent gyms and fitness clubs? No, we don’t think so. Not yet, and possibly not ever. But as the last five years have taught us. Never say never.

Our Final Thoughts

And so ends our little thinkpiece on marketing and digital marketing for independent gyms and fitness clubs in 2024. It is an exciting time for marketing in the fitness industry, with more ways than ever for even small independents to promote themselves in new and interesting ways.

It is also a time of great change, and maybe not entirely for the better. We have already seen some businesses, inside and outside of the fitness industry, taking the ‘easy route’ and generating vast quantities of content with AI. Perhaps adhering to the old adage of throwing something at a wall and seeing what sticks.

As we said, we believe AI tools can be used by independent gyms and fitness clubs to a good end even in their current state in 2024, but it is no substitute for the talent, passion and expertise required to succeed in the industry.

And speaking of those three qualities, here at Ashbourne we know how to utilise talent, passion and expertise to help independent gym and fitness club owners take their operation to the next level!

Over the last twenty five years (back when the term ‘AI’ was mainly a concept in science fiction or chess computers), we have helped thousands of gyms and fitness clubs reach greater heights. Whether it is with our versatile and powerful membership management software or our website creation capabilities, we have the ability to help any gym reach a broader audience more effectively!

Get your club in shape.

Want to discover how? Let us show you.

Simply select your preferred timeslot and we’ll be in touch to have a chat about your health club,
the goals you want to achieve, and how our system can help you.

Get your club in shape.

Want to discover how? Let us show you.

Simply select your preferred timeslot and we’ll be in touch to have a chat about your health club, the goals you want to achieve, and how our system can help you.

Get your club in shape.

Want to discover how? Let us show you.

Simply select your preferred timeslot and we’ll be in touch to have a chat about your health club, the goals you want to achieve, and how our system can help you.

What Is Fitness Class Management Software?

13th February 202512th February 2024 by Jasmin

What Is Fitness Class Management Software?

In today’s blog we will be tackling one of the most important technical issues for an independent gym or fitness club to get right.

Class Management

Or more specifically, Class Management Software. The days of keeping track of classes on a blackboard have passed! (Though you can keep doing it for the retro-aesthetic if you want!) We are looking for a method of fitness class arrangement that can’t be completely disrupted by a board-eraser/rubber.

Much as with Gym membership management and access controls, the discipline of class management has been revolutionised in the last twenty years. Gone are the reams of paper and notice boards as the sole method of communication.

Now the market has expanded, there are multiple providers of powerful software that enable an independent gym to organise and maintain a complete class booking system on a significantly reduced budget.

This software empowers gym and fitness club management with fast, reactive, and efficient means to handle bookings, payment, scheduling, rescheduling, and customer service.

The centralisation of these tasks into a single piece of effortless and intuitive software can help revolutionise the amount of time and energy required to organise multiple classes in an active independent gym or fitness club environment.

The drain on staff hours that used to come with the endless organising, rescheduling and liaising between instructors and class attendees can now be diminished and made manageable.

With this in mind, we will be looking at the top features of fitness class management software and why it is a must-have for any independent gym or fitness club, whether they are looking to expand their class offering by freeing up capacity, or cope with their existing class structure that has become too unwieldy.

Desirable Features

A Unifying Force

Perhaps the most impactful selling point of fitness class management software is how it can act as a central hub. Class management can, with very little warning become a quagmire. It is not uncommon that we hear horror stories from independent gyms and fitness clubs, usually concerning how they needed to reduce the number of classes or the scale due to the flaws in their approach to organising and administering the classes.

Given that once a class schedule and scheduling system is introduced, it is meant to run constantly and consistently week after week, it is to be expected that even the slightest miscalculation in setup might result in significant inconvenience, either for the staff, the instructors, or the membership themselves.

This is where fitness class management software can set independent gyms and fitness clubs off on the right foot with their class scheduling endeavours.

By unifying every aspect of class management within a professional, tried and tested structure, the chances of these systems spiraling out of control is dramatically reduced.

With all the necessary information not only to hand but easily changed, updated, and amended, the process loses a lot of its inherent risk for spiralling out of control.

With fitness class management software that allows gym members and staff alike to be reactive and proactive, the pitfalls of class management for independent gyms start to fall away.

Class Booking Applications

Software To Suit Any Independent Gym Or Fitness Club

With our twenty-five years of experience in the fitness industry, we know better than most that every independent gym or fitness club is unique.

This is why we recommend only going for fitness class management software that can provide the necessary flexibility to accommodate a broad range of classes and facilities.

Luckily many pieces of fitness class management software, including our own, are versatile, allowing staff to balance class-subscriptions, packages and bundles, single class payments and recurring payments, as well as discount codes.

This is vital for ensuring that the payment infrastructure is connected to the fitness class management software and therefore has the flexibility to deal with the preferred method of payment for both the gym and the membership.

Payments

Contactless, Online, App-Based, Direct Debits

This brings us to our next interlinked feature which is a must-have for all fitness class management software.

As touched upon above, the ability to integrate a payment environment safely and securely is a must.

Ideally, this should go beyond just web-based online payment as well. Post-Covid it is expected that fitness class management software should be able to handle not only app-based payments but also contactless.

One of the main functions of fitness class management software is to make transactions as smooth and accessible as possible across the potential desires of an independent gym’s membership base! Different members will want to pay in different ways for their classes and the software and its supporting app must be able to facilitate as many as possible.

Software Designed To Suit And Assist Any Instructor

As with members and staff, there is no point in having fitness class management software if it does not exist to aid the instructors.

The most sophisticated piece of software in the world won’t be worth the price point if no one in a gym or fitness club can use it.

That is why fitness class management software must be usable by all parties, not just staff and the membership of the facility.

Without this, the risk of further complications and the unnecessary transfer of information between staff and instructors.

This is a factor that often leads to the disintegration or discontinuation of effective class management structure in our experience, so it is important to find an app that removes the incentive by empowering the instructors appropriately. This can be achieved by giving them limited but direct access to the class management software.

It is every bit as vital that they can manage their clients and class members in an independent but controlled virtual environment. By using fitness class management software that allows for payment, communication, alterations, and information requests, a significant amount of stress, hassle, and time commitment can be eliminated from the process.

With the right fitness class management software, an independent gym or fitness club management will be able to confidently oversee their class scheduling system while being assured it is still in the hands of their staff and instructors.

A Powerful Retention Tool

Engaging And Communicating With Members

Deeply connected to the previous feature, we also thought it was worth referencing that the features of a truly impact fitness class management software suite will help empower members and aid retention.

When looking for which fitness class management software to use, it is important to look for features that allow instructors and staff to communicate with the members regarding the classes they have signed up for.

In our experience, it has been proven time and time again that members who receive bespoke, pertinent communication (not just spam!) about the classes they have signed up to are more likely to attend.

Sometimes a bespoke message from an instructor or trainer can be all that it takes for an otherwise reluctant member to go to that Friday Barre class. And a member that goes to that class is that much more likely to keep their gym membership!

It is a simple example but a powerful indication of what we all know communication can do when it comes to that all-important mission of retaining membership numbers.

It is an easy, efficient, and effective way of fostering a sense of belonging and community outside of the four walls of a fitness facility. A class will normally only last 45 minutes to an hour but with the ability for instructors to communicate it is a way to make that class feel like a more tangible part of the members’ life between sessions.

Virtual Workouts And Fitness App Integration

The dual-rise of Virtual Workouts and Fitness Apps had begun before the Covid-19 pandemic, however, both skyrocketed in popularity as a result of the lockdowns.

While the popularity of virtual workouts has not maintained their lofty highs from the now surreal lockdown, they are still much more popular than before 2020.

This trend especially applies to millennials and Gen Z, who, as we have covered in other blogs recently, now make up the vast majority of gym and fitness club members.

With these two developments in mind, it is no wonder that the desirability of virtual workouts and recorded classes has increased significantly in the last half-decade.

Much like the communication feature we discussed earlier in this blog, virtual workouts allow for an independent gym or fitness club to project their influence and reach well beyond the four walls of the fitness facility itself.

Virtual engagement is now being seen as a powerful retention tool for the younger generations. They are tools that suit many of the values and capabilities they hold dear, whether it is working from home and then immediately partaking in a virtual workout or relying on their phone as the sole point of virtual interaction with their gym.

As larger chains start to adopt more and more virtual and fitness app services, independent gyms and fitness clubs mustn’t be left behind in their choice of fitness club management software.

Data Analytics, BI And Exporting Reports

And here at Ashbourne, we know the importance of software that doesn’t just deal with business-as-Usual but is capable of raising an independent gym or fitness club’s operations to the next level.

That is why one of the features we advocate for most keenly when it comes to fitness class management software is data.

While everything we have covered up until this point is necessary, desirable, and important for a modern gym or fitness club looking to get its fitness class scheduling system under control, we don’t believe it is enough.

As with every aspect of modern gym management software, whether it is membership management, access control, or fitness classes, we believe that that software should be giving the staff and management valuable feedback.

Whether it is monitoring the correlation between attendance and price-point, the popularity of a certain time slot or class, or simply understanding the total number of members engaging with the fitness class system, a truly powerful piece of fitness class management software should be constantly working for the gym or fitness club. Gathering information that can be easily exported and turned into meaningful, usable data.

Without this, valuable data such as the preference members have for certain classes, the waxing and waning popularity of classes across the weeks and seasons, and the impact of the peak hours on the class system, all of this gets left on the table, fated to disappear into the void.

Given the cumulative effect that this can have, we believe that analytical reporting features are a must on any piece of fitness class management software.

As ever in business, it isn’t just what actions are taken, it is what actions are not. Without sophisticated reporting capabilities, data and feedback will be left on the table every week, every month, and every quarter.

It is these data-driven decisions that can make a profound impact on the course that an independent gym or fitness club’s class offering will take. Without the ability to collect anything other than anecdotal evidence, the inability to react to otherwise obvious patterns is vastly diminished.

Conclusion

We hope this blog has helped impress just how vital fitness class management software can be for an independent gym or fitness club, as well as reinforcing what features can truly make a difference.

It isn’t enough just to purchase any piece of fitness class management software, it is about picking the right one for the right club.

Here at Ashbourne Membership Management, we believe we have created a complete suite of software that can handle fitness class management as well as elevating a host of other areas vital to the business-as-usual running of a fitness facility.

Whether it is assisting with access controls, BI interfaces or membership and payment, Ashbourne’s software is capable of unifying the key (and often disparate) functions of a gym or fitness club into one environment.

So whether you are just interested in resolving some troublesome class scheduling issues or want a complete suite and a partnership that will help take your business to the next level, click here to arrange a demo today!

Get your club in shape.

Want to discover how? Let us show you.

Simply select your preferred timeslot and we’ll be in touch to have a chat about your health club,
the goals you want to achieve, and how our system can help you.

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Fitness Website Fundamentals: Engage, Equip, Empower

13th February 20255th February 2024 by Jasmin

Fitness Website Fundamentals: Engage, Equip, Empower

In the increasingly digital world of fitness, having a compelling online presence is essential for reaching and engaging with your audience. Whether you’re a personal trainer, gym owner, or fitness enthusiast looking to share your knowledge, creating a robust website is the first step towards success.

Building a fitness website that thrives requires more than just fancy graphics and trendy routines. To truly engage, equip, and empower your audience, you need a solid foundation. Here are the essential fundamentals to prioritise:

Clear Branding and Identity

– Define your brand identity, including your mission, values, and unique selling proposition (USP).

– Create a memorable logo and choose a cohesive color scheme and typography that reflect your brand’s personality.

– Consistently incorporate your branding across all elements of your website to build brand recognition and trust.

Define your Target Audience

Who are you trying to reach? Fitness enthusiasts, beginners, specific demographics (e.g., seniors, athletes)? Tailor your content and tone accordingly.

User-Friendly Design & Navigation

– Design a clean and visually appealing layout that is easy to navigate, with clear calls to action (CTAs) guiding visitors through your site.

– Prioritise mobile responsiveness to ensure a seamless experience across all devices, including smartphones and tablets.

– Optimise page loading speed to minimise bounce rates and improve user satisfaction.

Compelling Content Strategy

– Develop a content strategy that addresses the needs and interests of your target audience, such as workout routines, nutrition tips, and motivational articles.

– Incorporate a mix of formats, including written articles, videos, infographics, and podcasts, to cater to different learning preferences.

– Consistently publish high-quality, valuable content to establish authority in your niche and keep visitors coming back for more.

Interactive Features and Community Building

– Incorporate interactive features such as forums, comment sections, and social media integration to foster community engagement and encourage user interaction.

– Offer online challenges, fitness trackers, or progress logs to motivate visitors to set and achieve their fitness goals.

– Respond promptly to comments and messages to cultivate a sense of connection and belonging among your audience.

Credibility and Authority

– Expertise: Showcase your qualifications, certifications, and team’s experience.

– Partnerships: Collaborate with reputable brands, trainers, or health professionals.

– Testimonials: Share success stories and positive feedback from users.

Optimised SEO Strategy

– Conduct keyword research to identify relevant search terms and incorporate them strategically into your website content, including titles, headings, and meta descriptions.

– Optimise on-page elements such as image alt text, URL structure, and internal linking to improve search engine visibility and drive organic traffic.

– Regularly monitor and analyse your website’s performance using tools like Google Analytics to identify areas for improvement and refine your SEO strategy.

Secure and Reliable Hosting

– Choose a reputable web hosting provider that offers reliable uptime, fast servers, and robust security features to ensure the safety and accessibility of your website.

– Implement SSL encryption to protect user data and build trust with your audience, particularly if you offer online transactions or membership services.

– Regularly back up your website to prevent data loss in the event of server issues or security breaches.

Our Final Thoughts

By focusing on these fundamental elements, you can build a strong foundation for your fitness website that attracts visitors, converts leads, and fosters community engagement. Remember, your fitness website is a journey, not a destination. Continuously adapt, evolve, and respond to your audience’s needs to build a loyal community and achieve your goals.

Get your club in shape.

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Simply select your preferred timeslot and we’ll be in touch to have a chat about your health club,
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Simply select your preferred timeslot and we’ll be in touch to have a chat about your health club, the goals you want to achieve, and how our system can help you.

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Simply select your preferred timeslot and we’ll be in touch to have a chat about your health club, the goals you want to achieve, and how our system can help you.

How To Beat A Pure Gym: Case Study of an Independent Gym – The Fit Club: Redditch

13th February 202529th January 2024 by Jasmin

How To Beat A Pure Gym: Case Study of an Independent Gym – The Fit Club: Redditch

In every industry and sector, we have stories like this. The biggest fish is moving in. McDonalds to the fast food industry, supermarkets for convenience stores.

And often there are one of two reactions to this development. One, incorrectly, is to view it with an air of defeatism and inevitability. Some approach it with the steady resignation that impersonal and corporate brands will just roll across the country, setting up cookie-cutter businesses with the lowest overhead and the largest appeal.

While this is not unfounded, it is also not useful and ultimately, not true.

McDonalds has existed as a global force for over 50 years, the supermarket as we know it is (debatably) pushing a century. And yet neither has eradicated independent and local business.

PureGym, for those curious, is 15 years old this year and just like our previous examples, does not need to signal doom and despair to independent gyms and fitness clubs.

And as we like to show our workings, our blog today is about a real instance of an independent gym fending off and thriving when a PureGym moved to their large town.

So we will be looking at how Fit Club picked the second reaction to a PureGym moving, not despair and defeatism, but energy, dynamism and resourcefulness. We will look at how they were able to maximise their strengths and account for their weaknesses, all while taking into account what really mattered, their membership and the local area.

3 Things You Will learn...

01

How the Fit Club thrived

A look into the key factors that had to change for the Fit Club to hold their ground against Pure Gym.

02

Ashbourne's
Arrival

How Ashbourne’s membership management software and access control helped solve problems.

03

Community Building

How the focus changed to building a community within the club.

How The Fit Club Thrived When A Pure Gym Moved In Next Door

We will start by painting a picture of The Fit Club in Redditch as it was just before PureGym moved into the town…

It is a gym that attracts members from all walks of life and all levels of fitness. Seeking to put itself into the bracket of a ‘low-cost provider that delivers more’ with a large range of top quality equipment, free induction upon sign up, a sauna, and a raft of daily classes hosted across three separate studios.

The situation just before PureGym opened (and before their partnership with us here at Ashbourne), the club was not in a good place. Known as Prime Fitness Redditch at the time, the gym had several glaring problems, some were systemic, others just unexpected results of other, necessary decisions.

The first issue that was identified was that the club had adopted an unsustainable, costly, and unprofitable 24-hour model.

Further compounding this problem, members were able to share access codes without any recourse or mechanisms to check.

So the arrival of the PureGym represented something of a wake-up call. The inadequacies and profit leaks of the past would no longer be acceptable. With a competitive, more up-together and well-known brand moving into the area, many aspects of the fitness club would need to change.

So we are going to look at some of the key factors that had to change for The Fit Club to hold their ground against PureGym.

This will include the practical measures that Ashbourne helped introduce and enable through our membership management software, as well as structural initiatives and more social-based, community outreach that The Fit Club engaged in.

Key Factors

Value Proposition Increase For Members

Once the name was changed from Prime Fitness – Redditch to The Fit Club and the partnership with Ashbourne had been forged, it was time to get to work.

PureGym was already on the march so time was of the essence to make meaningful, tangible changes that would improve the experience for the existing membership while hopefully drawing in new members through positive word of mouth.

At Ashbourne, we know that one of the biggest obstacles to retention is the Value Proposition.

If members do not feel like they are getting value for money, the likelihood of them retaining the services of an independent gym or fitness club drops dramatically.

So we identified the first big win, one that was impacting the image of the Brand, the operational costs, and the perceived value generated from gym membership.

That unhelpful 24-hour opening time.

In and of itself, not an inherently bad concept of course, if it is managed correctly. But the complete lack of access controls, combined with the very low number of regular paying users made this the first area our Membership Management Software was able to ascertain.

While the physical infrastructure was in place in theory, a full-height turnstile was backed up by a keypad access system. It was not supported, either by personnel or software.

This was combined with the 24-hour nature of the pre-Fit Club and pre-Ashbourne facility. It meant that pin sharing was rampant and there was no effective recourse to stop it.

This collapse of access control and security represented our first massive impact on the value proposition, and this one problem reduced not only the perceived value but the actual value of Prime Fitness membership in several ways.

The first and most apparent, is, of course, a not-significant amount of unrealised income. Money is not spent by those using the facility who might otherwise have memberships.

And of course, news spread around Redditch that this was the case, not least among the members of the old gym.

This meant that the perceived value was reduced drastically. If others are getting away without paying and the gym is doing nothing to stop them. Why pay? Is it a club worth paying for? Suddenly the entry price could be zero if only you knew someone with a valid access code. It was a recipe for disaster and the reputation suffered, all from this one, unaddressed problem.

And finally, of course, there was the vandalism that can come with unchecked, 24-hour gyms and clubs.

All of this represented a significant drain on profit, morale, and value for the members. Something had to change if this club was going to survive the arrival of a PureGym.

Ashbourne Arrives...

Once the partnership with Ashbourne had been cemented, things quickly began to change.

Like many fledgling operations, the initial club was not collecting data about many key factors of their operations. The club was running on inertia. It generated money, but outside of an amount deposited, no one knew how much or why.

This is where the first major change came in.

With Ashbourne’s membership management software and access control, several problems that had previously seemed insurmountable were quickly solved.

First, our gym management software allowed the newly minted Fit Club to deny duplicate entries into the facility when they originated from the same gym membership. This was simple and incredibly effective, instantly ending access sharing.

To further eliminate this problem, a fingerprint entry system would also be added. Allowing not only the benefit to the membership of not having to remember an access code but also increasing security and with it, that all-important value proposition.

Just as importantly, the implementation of our membership management software across The Fit Club’s operation revealed that the cost of that 24-hour access may not have been worth the price.

As we alluded to earlier in the blog, the actual number of people that were revealed to be using the facility outside of ‘daylight hours’ was minimal, certainly not worth the physical and moral toll that has been inflicted upon the club.

Up until that moment and without our software, this had not been ascertained.

This is a frequent trap we see independent gyms and fitness clubs falling into. In the wake of the rise of PureGym and The Gym Group, the fallacy that 24-hour clubs represent one of the ultimate value propositions is often proven to be just that, a fallacy.

But with better data comes better decision-making, and in addition to the decrease in unauthorised membership, the 24-hour access system was abolished.

This gave The Fit Club a reorientation and a renewal of purpose, as well as defining it against the emerging PureGym.

Price Increases

With the perceived and actual value of The Fit Club on the increase, these actions transferred into that intangible yet all-important commodity, momentum.

With the gym staff and management no longer stretched across 24 hours, no longer battling with access control issues and not even fielding their membership enquiries now that the Ashbourne support line had taken over, this meant they were more able to focus on the membership in the facility.

Furthermore, they were able to work with us here at Ashbourne to set up their own app, using our existing app model, we have made it easy for independent gyms and fitness clubs to have their own professional and bespoke application up and running quickly.

With the club now being better maintained, the membership more attended to and the security and equipment in much better stead, the club felt confident increasing their prices, incorporating greater benefits such as regular weigh-ins to compensate for this measure.

The visible increase in service level with the above changes, combined with the record high morale meant that most members were more than willing to pay the small increase. Value had been created and as such, more could be asked of the members.

Focusing On Long Term Membership Health

The next stage became focusing on the long-term health of the members. The goal here was to deliver something that isn’t associated with a PureGym or other large chain while making use of the extra capacity and capability that came from Fit Club’s partnership with Ashbourne.

This represented a move away from simply putting equipment into a room and walking off.

Again, this change in direction became possible due to the systems that Ashbourne put in place.

In the old era, there had not been an app with which to project the benefits of membership beyond attending the facility, there hadn’t been a suitably advanced class-booking system, nor had there been the capacity for the staff to focus on member needs.

With spare capacity and capability came the chance to make a truly lasting impact on the membership. Between classes, equipment, and the regular weigh-ins, The Fit Club came to embody just that, the ethos of being ‘Fit’, not in a vainglorious sense, but in a practical sense.

Membership management software, access controls, and other technologies were able to give them the space to create something truly personal and affecting for their members.

A package that was meant to offer something, not just a soulless, automated facility with doors mindlessly opening and shutting to let people in and out.

It had started to become a club that had the time and ability to focus on the wants and needs of its members.

This brings us very neatly to our last point.

Community Building

So with everything else in place, we reach the last opening initiative that was undertaken by The Fit Club – Redditch during the initial pushback against PureGym.

And that was the focus on building a community within the club and engaging with the community outside of the community.

Much like focusing on long-term health, this would not have been possible without the capacity created by the Ashbourne partnership.

The focus then became about investing those new profits into forging something else that would not come easily to a PureGym. A fostered sense of community focused around a local fitness club.

This approach took several different forms, from hosting events for both members and non-members to approaching the local council to increasing the number of classes.

The addition of coffee facilities and a seating area only helped to enhance the idea that this wasn’t a place to simply come and work out.

In a few short months, the facility was able to turn from something running on autopilot to a vibrant, community-focused and driven fitness club on the ascent.

Conclusion

And what was the outcome of all of these changes?

Well, we are happy to say that The Fit Club’s membership numbers soared after the Ashbourne partnership to well over 2000 members. This cemented its place as one of the most popular fitness facilities in Redditch.

This is why we decided to make it the focus of our blog today, The Fit Club is a fantastic example of what can be accomplished when the right facility partners with the right talent.

And the right facility might not be the one you expect. Looking at The Fit Club when it was prime fitness, you would have to squint to see the true value and potential. Luckily, those in charge did, and they contacted us at Ashbourne, who shared their vision.

The management wasn’t content to try and outcompete PureGym in a 24-hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week race to the bottom in terms of prices and quality.

Instead, they got smart. Recruiting a partner with the experience and knowledge to transform their business by identifying what had gone wrong and what could go right moving forward.

The Fit Club was able to quickly carve out a niche in the market that PureGym couldn’t occupy, as well as patching the holes in their existing structure that had gone unidentified until the Ashbourne partnership.

And from there, it has been a case of positive momentum replacing stagnant inertia. The Fit Club has been able to invest back into its facility and equipment, with a host of renovations and upgrades across its sauna, reception desk, equipment, and class rooms.

The partnership and the rebrand has energised this facility and helped it define itself in a challenging market.

So whether you have a PureGym coming to town or not, perhaps you know a gym that can benefit from an Ashbourne partnership?

As we said, sometimes it is the gym or fitness club you least expect.

If you are a gym or fitness club owner or manager and interested in seeing if Ashbourne can help take your business to the next level, please do not hesitate to reach out here!

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Simply select your preferred timeslot and we’ll be in touch to have a chat about your health club,
the goals you want to achieve, and how our system can help you.

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Simply select your preferred timeslot and we’ll be in touch to have a chat about your health club, the goals you want to achieve, and how our system can help you.

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Quick Tips: What Makes Accounting Software So Important for a Cutting-Edge Independent Gym?

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Quick Tips: How Much Support Should Gym Owners Expect From Their Gym Accounting Software?

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Quick Tips: Is Cloud-Based Accounting Software a Must Have Feature for Independent Gyms?

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Quick Tips: Is Gym Accounting Software Suitable for Small Gyms?

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A Guide To Choosing Insurance for Your Gym

Which Types of Insurances To Consider:

How Necessary is Insurance for an Independent Gym or Fitness Club in the UK?

So, What Insurance is Necessary for an Independent Gym or Fitness Club?

Which Types of Insurance Should Interest an Independent Gym or Fitness Club Owner?

Now we're on to the part you've been waiting for!

Contents Insurance

Public Liability Insurance

Assets/Equipment Insurance

Buildings & Commercial Property Insurance

Professional Indemnity Insurance

Employers' Liability Insurance

Fidelity Bonds/Fidelity Guarantee Insurance

Management Liability Insurance

Business Interruption Insurance

What Should an Independent Gym or Fitness Club Expect to Pay for their Insurance?

And is it worth it?

How To Understand if an Insurance is Correct for an Independent Gym or Fitness Club

What Does the Gym Need Covered?

Finding the Right Insurer for the Right Insurance

Finding the Right Policy

Our Final Thoughts

More to Read...

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How Independent Gyms Can Significantly Reduce Pass Sharing

What will we cover in this article?

Why is Pass Sharing A Problem?

How does pass-sharing/pin-sharing occur?

Pass Sharing In A New Gym or Fitness Club

Pass Sharing In Unmanned & 24 Hour Facilities

How Lacking or Neglected Systems Effect Pass Sharing

Identification & Solutions To Implement

Solution #1: Data Tracking: Software, BI Reports and Data Driven Insight

Solution #2: Implement Alternate Access Control

Solution #3: Responsive Membership Management Software

Our Key Takeaways On Pass-Sharing

More to Read...

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Four ‘New’ Marketing Methods That Gyms Can Utilise To Enhance Their Digital Marketing Presence!

What will we cover in this article?

AI and Marketing

Should independent gyms and fitness clubs use AI and AI-powered language learning models to assist with their digital marketing?