TEXAS FIGHTING SYNDICATE CASE STUDY
BUSINESS PROFILE
Texas Fighting Syndicate (TFS) is an MMA gym located just south of Fort Worth, in Burleson, Texas. There are three partners who own TFS: Burt McDonald, Skyler Cawdrey and James Wallace.
It is important to note that this gym serves serious fighters. It states clearly on their website, “TFS isn’t everything to everyone and that is how we like it. We hold ourselves and our fighters to very high standards. If you want to fight then we are the gym for you.”
Two years ago TFS decided to accept members who are serious about MMA and want to be part of an environment that caters only to serious fighters. Now TFS is one of the most respected MMA gyms in the country with a wait list of serious fighters wanting to train there.
CHALLENGES
In the spring of 2012, TFS owners Burt McDonald and Skyler Cawdrey offered James Wallace part ownership of the business. Once he accepted, his job was to make TFS a more profitable business and position the gym with improved credibility in the MMA world.
When he started, he immediately noticed the gym had little to no information on the billing history of their members. With a lack of a billing system, the owners had difficulty knowing who owed what or how often they had paid the gym for their services.
“There was no billing system in place,” said James. “We couldn’t tell who was a paying member and who wasn’t. It was a mess.”
To clear it up, James had to speak with each member about his or her payment history and current membership status. As a result, James had to address billing concerns on half of their members.
“Billing would take me two or three days a month to figure out who owed the gym and how much they owed,” James added. “Then I spent the next two weeks following up with those members for payment. This is time I should be spending on other areas of our business.”
James and his partners decided this was the time to change the culture of the gym. They created a firm payment schedule and accepted only those members who wanted to train seriously in MMA. While this decision positioned the gym to focus heavily on MMA fighters, they still needed a long-term solution for their billing process. They tried PayPal™, spreadsheets and other systems, but none of them provided all of the solutions and features that the gym needed.
SOLUTION
James spoke with other MMA gym owners about what they use for their billing process and found Zen Planner to be the all-in-one MMA gym software solution that he needed. James gathered the necessary billing information from his members and began the transition to the Zen Planner software.
“The Zen Planner staff was great to work with,” said James. “They were helpful and knowledgeable which made the transition to their platform easy.”
Once Zen Planner was in place, James was able to track member billing and set the reoccurring billing feature. This freed James from the time-consuming manual process of tracking members down to speak with them about their payments and created a better experience for the members as well. With the help of Zen Planner, James was able to turn TFS into a more profitable business and improve member experience at the same time.
“What I love most about Zen Planner is that I don’t have to think about Zen Planner,” added James. “I know Zen Planner works well for my business and I don’t have to worry about it.”
