Why Inside the Affiliate Author and Owner of CrossFit South Brooklyn Recommends Zen Planner

By the time David Osorio, the owner of CrossFit South Brooklyn (CFSBK), was ready for member management software that could handle hundreds of members, he knew what he wanted: a system that was flexible, easy to use and well supported from a company that understands what it takes to grow a successful affiliate gym.

David, who runs the popular blog Inside the Affiliate, recently wrote about his process for researching member management software and why he recommends Zen Planner in his post, “Choosing Membership Management Software for Your Gym.”

Beyond finding software that functioned how he needed it to, David was impressed by our long-time commitment to the affiliate gym community and ongoing software innovation and development. Unlike newer software options, we’ve been around long enough to work out the kinks, and he appreciates that the people here are are easy to get ahold of with questions.

“Zen Planner’s software is extremely well-rounded in terms of flexibility and ease-of-use. And perhaps most importantly, it was obvious that the company was made up of good people. They were easy to get on the phone, extremely responsive to our questions, and open to feedback.”

In the years since CFSBK has been a Zen Planner customer, the gym’s member base has increased by the hundreds. David also gives us credit for working hard to figure out what affiliate gyms can do to succeed.

In 2016, we gathered data from 400+ affiliate gyms to find out what they can do to be truly successful, and summarized our findings in the 2016 Affiliate Gym Benchmark Report, which you can download for free. “This is exactly the kind of open-source insight and information that [gym owners] love,” David wrote.

In our interview, David asked us a few key questions, like what we found most surprising when we analyzed our affiliate gym survey results, and what financially thriving gyms have in common.

Believe it or not, bigger gyms (square-footage wise) and gyms with lower prices aren’t necessarily more successful. Of the gyms we surveyed, we consistently saw that using fewer resources wisely – including smaller spaces, expert staff and equipment – is key to success. Gyms that offer a superior experience using fewer resources can confidently charge more and discount less.

The full report is detailed, with data on the financial and operational performance of affiliate gyms large and small, urban and rural, domestic and abroad. But we really wanted to distill the results down into useful info and actionable steps gyms can take to analyze their own performance and make improvements. We break it down into the following five key areas:

• Financials
• Facility size
• Memberships
• Classes
• Staff

Want to see the key differences between successful and struggling affiliate gyms for yourself? Get your copy of the 2016 Affiliate Gym Benchmark Report today.