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Leadership & Management
What Do Instructors Want in a Group Fitness Manager?
Eight veteran group exercise instructors share their insight on the attributes needed to successfully take on the role of fitness manager.
Hiring Checklist: Find the Best Talent
There’s a checklist for every task, it seems, even if it’s purely mental. However, when it comes to hiring the best group fitness talent, it’s important to formalize a checklist so that you cover all…
Fitness Business Collaboration Beyond Brand
Could we all learn to embrace fitness business collaboration to improve the quality of knowledge and programming for everyone?
With Gyms Open, Are Clients Ready?
With many gyms open again—some after long closures—IDEA put three questions to five fitness pros from around the country: Are you now operating at full capacity? How are clients adapting as they return to the gym?…
How To Create a Workout Community
As we return to the group exercise studio, it’s good to remember how a workout community not only brings us together, but helps us thrive.
Return to Work: Prepare Your Staff
Are you ready to return to work? Don’t reopen without carefully considering the needs of your staff. They are your customers too!
How to Name Your Group Fitness Class
A group fitness class title is a calling card; it attracts participants by previewing or hinting at the class experience.
Group Exercise Instructors Make an Impact
Group exercise instructors, take heart: Your leadership skills significantly influence participants’ attendance and effort. Australian researchers conducted a study to examine how an instructor’s ability to create a sense of community and group identity among class members affected both effort and attendance. The study examined 249 participants and instructors across a variety of group formats.
What’s Your 2020 Vision?
Do you have a 2020 vision?
Do you have a clear view of what you’re going to do in the new year to grow your business even more?
As 2019 closes, it’s important to take stock. What can you improve to ensure a higher-quality customer experience and more revenue in 2020?
Let’s take a look at four areas that impact your business going ahead so you set yourself up to succeed.
Increasing Employee Diversity and Inclusion
As the health and fitness industry continues to evolve and grow, staff diversity and inclusion efforts are becoming increasingly important. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission mandates that job applicants and employees cannot be discriminated against “because of their race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, gender identity and sexual orientation), national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic information” (EEOC n.d.). However, making a conscious effort to diversify goes above and beyond following the law.
Discover what diversity means and what you should consider as you put together a diverse staff.
Three Ways to Keep Your Clients
You know the work it takes to get a new customer in the door. You’re spending money on marketing, time making sure your website listings are right, and energy on promotions and intro offers to get the word out. It’s not easy. But remember—it costs less to keep an existing client than it does to acquire a new one. Getting them to return again and again will help you keep your lights on and your business bustling! With that in mind, let’s look at three actions you can take to retain your clients.
Virtual Group Fitness Classes
Exercising in front of a television, computer screen or mobile device is nothing new. Since the advent of VHS tapes, fitness programs have offered users an opportunity to get their sweat on whenever they choose in the comfort of their home. Over the past several years, however, fitness facilities have leveraged new technology to offer virtual classes on-site in hopes of luring exercisers out of their living rooms and into the group exercise room.
Is a Franchise the Right Fit for You?
A number of tried-and-proven options to attract new members and clients can help you grow your business without reinventing the wheel. You can join a franchise system, license the rights to an established brand or invest in instructor training to build a specialty business. Each option has an opportunity cost (what you might lose if you don’t choose the particular option), as well as benefits that you might gain. Among these choices, franchise systems offer many advantages.
Small Town Group Fitness
An experience: That’s what exercisers want in order to feel inspired and motivated. In the fitness industry, one of the key places where this experience occurs is within a group fitness community. It doesn’t take a big-box gym or a trendy fitness boutique to give participants an amazing experience. With some creativity, flexibility and determination, even the smallest fitness facility or studio can offer a dynamic group fitness program that will give members the experience they crave.
Sexual Harassment and the Fitness Industry
One day, while stretching my client Jim, I was taken aback when I realized he wasn’t wearing underwear. His shorts were swim trunks with interior netting. I quickly looked away and continued to stretch him. This happened with Jim on several other occasions, but I never mentioned it because I wasn’t sure how to broach the matter. I also didn’t feel as if he was doing this intentionally, nor did I believe he meant harm.
Are You Ready to Sell Your Fitness Business?
Are you thinking about selling your personal training studio or fitness business? Your business is probably your primary source of income, and selling it will mean you’ll lose that annual income but achieve a one-time capital gain. Are you prepared for that? IDEA member Toby Davis, senior adviser at Sun Acquisitions, Chicago, shares the following tips for anyone preparing to turn over the keys:
9 Simple Ways to Keep Your Clients
The success of your business relies solely on your ability to attract and keep clients. Use these tips to enhance the client-trainer relationship so that you can focus more on providing quality service to your current clients and less on finding new ones.
Artificial Intelligence and the Fitness Industry: A Primer
Artificial Intelligence (AI) isn’t just a subplot in your favorite science fiction show! For years, AI has been hyped as a movement that would change the world, but the past 5 years have ushered in a revolution. In short, AI is the creation of “intelligent machines” that mimic humans (think speech recognition, learning, problem solving, etc.). Computers can see, hear and speak to us in a very human way. Products like Siri, Amazon Alexa and Google Home have almost seamlessly entered our lives and homes.
How to Compete Against Discount Clubs
You’ve worked long and hard to get your fitness facility off the ground, and while you’re doing okay in your community, you’ve noticed some of your membership base trickling away. Upon further investigation, you realize that while you’ve had your nose to the grindstone, managing your facility and planning for growth, a discount club has opened up not far from you. Not only that, but a handful of specialty boutique studios have carved out some market share. Where do you fit in, and what can you do to keep your place?
Learn, Connect and Thrive at the IDEA® World Convention
Education is the foundation of the IDEA World Convention, but this fitness event offers plenty more than stellar instruction. For Jonathan Bernath, publicist-turned-personal-trainer, it’s where he discovered the “fitness family” that would guide him in his new career.
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