fitness centers, gyms

How to Manage a Gym: 6 Tips to Successfully Manage your Gym Business

A woman working out at a gym

In an environment as competitive as the gym industry, if you don’t know how to manage your gym, clients and team, your business will come to a halt. In fact, being a full-time trainer and gym owner is enough to make someone break a sweat (and not in a good way!).

But worry not! We have a consolidated list that will help with managing a gym that will help you take your gym to the next level, and make sure your clients are well taken care of.


6 ways to manage your gym efficiently

From recruiting fresh talent and supervising your team, to scheduling sessions and managing your appointments, you have a lot of duties to perform. Here’s a list of things that you need to know how to manage a fitness gym, take care of it!

  1. Streamline pricing
  2. Respect and monitor competitors
  3. Manage finances
  4. Take care of your team members
  5. Pay attention to marketing
  6. Use a scheduling software
  7. Bonus: Gym management mistakes you should avoid

1. Streamline pricing

plant and coins in a jar

i. Make your pricing clear

Let clients have access to information about pricing and showcase it clearly. Making your prices unnecessarily complicated will only deter your customers from wanting your services.

Quite frequently, gym owners decide to go public with their prices. Anyone who sees those prices and thinks they are unsuitable was not the right customer for the gym anyway.

Tip: Instead of tiered pricing, you can decide on a single fee that you think your training is worth and should charge a flat fee.


ii. Maintain price integrity

Having price integrity is imperative. As a gym owner and a professional, having integrity and not undercutting prices should be a priority to manage a gym successfully. You should be fair, consistent, and transparent with pricing.

Having a good ethical compass would solve most of your issues with this one. But, as a general rule, pricing your services outrageously will never help you with clients. In fact, most of your prospects will turn to your competitors with lesser prices.

Tip: Prices for all customers for the same services should be the same. While it might seem like an obvious thing, many businesses support the practice of charging someone the full price and discounting others.


2. Respect and monitor competitors

It might be incredibly tempting to put down competitors and inflate the benefits of your gym. In fact, sometimes, it might even work with the prospect you are talking to. But more often than not, it will hurt the reputation of your gym. 

No matter how true your statements are, potential customers will remember you as the owner who put their competitors down. Often, the same prospects might even view it as insecurity and not being sure of your own gym offerings.

It is always a good idea to treat your competitors with respect and of course, monitor their strategies to pull and retain clients. 

Tip: Instead of putting down your competitors, focus on showcasing your gym’s good qualities, and why this particular prospect should join it. Ask them their pain points, and adapt your answer to suit their needs. Monitor your competitors and see what they’re doing well.


3. Manage finances

Even though the primary priority of your gym is to support your employees and clients, you need to make sure your gym generates adequate revenue. In fact, both these things go hand-in-hand.

You need a decent cash flow to provide a level of service that your members expect with the price they pay. Additionally, to properly manage gym memberships, you need to ask your members to pay a certain amount to acquire the resources needed to provide that service. 

One of the biggest mistakes a gym owner can make is not investing in gym insurance. In some places, not having gym insurance is illegal. And even if it’s not, lack of it is a sure-shot way to financial ruin. 

Tip: The best way to stay fully-covered is to have two types of insurance: business insurance – to cover your equipment, building, and other material assets – and public liability – to cover team, gym members, and any onsite injury.


4. Pay attention to marketing your gym

You understand that a growing industry means high competition. Even with excellent upkeep and fantastic offerings, it can still be difficult to compete with other gyms in the same area. 

Having a marketing strategy that works is important. A fully laid out plan, for both online and offline marketing, is needed to get your gym the outreach it deserves. We understand that running a gym takes up a lot of time, and leaves none to create an effective marketing strategy.

Action item

The gym industry is predicted to rebound to its pre-pandemic levels, to an approximate revenue of 216.21 billion USD in 2023!

If you’re wondering how you can be a big part of this statistic, here’s what you need!

Here are 7 effective marketing ideas that you need to leverage to attract customers and pump up your business!


5. Take care of your team members

This does not need saying, but effective team management and taking care of them is important, especially in the gym business. Your team is the core of your business, and knowing how to manage gym staff is an extremely important step in managing a gym business. 

Here are a few specific points that you, as the owner, should keep in mind:


i. Hire good staff

personal trainer helping gym member

More often than not, managers look for people that needed for immediate requirements and seldom think about the long-term effects of hiring someone needed short-term. It’s important to analyze the hiring strategy and make sure to give those people the chance that will enhance your gym’s offerings.

Each and every employee is a representative of your gym’s brand. Making sure they are the right fit for not just the business, but also your work culture is an absolute must. 

Tip: The work does not stop at hiring good people. It is your job as the business owner to adequately train and constantly nurture these people to be even better employees. Teaching qualities like accountability, following up, discipline, and responsibility is an essential part of good fitness center management.


ii. Keep a constant tab on them

Having performance-related check-ins is important to keep holding your staff accountable. Especially, if you are the kind of manager who likes to give their staff full control over their schedules. 

Appointy’s gym scheduling software has the functionality of separate staff logins, so they can manage their own bookings, leaves, and more. As the owner of the business, you would be able to keep an eye on their productivity, sales, and bookings to adequately judge their performance.

Tip: The best strategy to upgrade people and grow more is to see the potential and encourage it. Constantly calling out their mistakes will only make them nervous and reluctant to take initiative. Recognizing small strengths will encourage the instructor to invest time and effort in it, and make it better.


iii. Compensate well to retain them

Giving minimum wage is the bare minimum and will most often not be enough to retain quality talent. And in the process of giving only minimum wage, eventually, your gym will start attracting only minimum wage talent.

It is important to analyze the amount of work that each instructor will do. Offering higher salaries than your competitors, providing complimentary memberships and more will likely attract talent that will be of higher quality and willing to do more than just the general requirements.

Tip: Keep your salaries dynamic, rethink the structure and benefits every 6 months or so. This way you keep adapting to the newer pool of applicants and will be better equipped to offer salaries that fall under your budget and satisfy your newer employees.


6. Use a scheduling software

Sometimes, the question we asked ourselves is “How to manage the gym schedule”? Automation is all it takes to streamline business processes and give clients the experience they deserve. And you don’t need to spend any more time wondering how you can manage your clients, team, revenue, or reputation. The answer is simple, it’s scheduling software!

By automating the daily admin, you can focus on what matters the most to you while making every other task so much simpler.

Try it now!

Managing a gym was never easier!

Secure feedback, sell add-ons, market your business, manage your team and increase profits in leaps and bounds!

Use Appointy, an online fitness & gym classes booking system, to do all of this and more. Start with a 14-day free trial and decide for yourself!


Bonus: 3 mistakes to avoid when managing a gym


1. Not documenting what works

A lot about owning and managing a gym is to see what works and what sticks. This means, there is always some sort of experimentation going on. Quite often, this entire process – strategy and results – is not documented, resulting in inefficient management.

Any and every process, from digital marketing workflows to successful sales pitches, every step should be documented. This will not only help in making management easier but also provide a guide for future staff training.


2. Poor time management

smart watch with time

As a gym owner, knowing when to take on a task and when to delegate is paramount. Focus on what you do best and let the others handle the tasks that they do better. Effective time management, without being stuck ticking tasks off your long to-do list is imperative. 

In the age of technology, it is important to embrace it as part of your management strategy. This means, letting go of the pen and paper, and adopting digital solutions. Gym scheduling software will help you do just that. You can minimize the time taken to do mundane daily tasks and automate the process of not just scheduling, but also business management.


3. Not following up on leads

A common problem with lead follow-up is the fact that it is done very rarely. Make sure that once a client has put in any requests, a system should be in place for follow-up and nurturing. 

If you want to know how to properly manage a gym, it is your duty to recognize an interested prospect by their actions, and know how to segment, target, and manage them to make the right decision and action at the right time.


Parting thoughts

gym member lifting weights

Managing a fitness center is difficult, but can be made easier with only a few steps. It is important to streamline the process and adapt the business model to something that works for not just you but everyone involved in your business. Focus on delivering stellar experiences and use your resources and time wisely. 

We hope these tips help you know how to manage a gym and build a fitness community that adores you and your gym. Let us know what other things worked for you in the comment section below!


About Appointy

We at Appointy, help business owners grow and run their businesses with our online scheduling software. This blog was a part of our ‘Manage your Business’ category, where we provide expert tips, and resources, or simply talk about the challenges that small and medium businesses face every day. 

If you have any thoughts on this blog or would like to chat about your business struggles and achievements, let us know in the comments below. 

We love a good talk!