Interview with M.A.D.E. Fitness

ZP: Joining us today is Thea Smith, owner of one of the top boot camp gyms in Nashville, Tennessee, M.A.D.E. Fitness. Thanks for your time today Thea. Tell us about M.A.D.E. Fitness.

Thea: We are a fitness facility that aims to provide its members with life-changing results through innovative, creative and challenging workouts. We hire only experts in fitness to help our members reach their fitness goals. We opened for business in 2010 and have been growing every since.

ZP: What have been some of the biggest challenges over the years for the business?

Thea: Keeping up with the growth.

ZP: That’s a good challenge to have.

Thea: It is but it’s important to make the right decisions that benefit the company in the long run. For example, when we first started our business we were manually processing member data in spreadsheets. We spent way too much time on this as our membership grew. We would input billing information, payment status, member attendance, class schedules and a whole lot more.

ZP: How did that affect business?

Thea: I was falling behind on my other responsibilities. We needed to change the way we did things. We decided that we needed to either hire someone full-time to input this information or we could look into gym software.

ZP: How did you decide which way to go?

Thea: We thought if we got mobile card swipers that it would help with payments, so we tested it. But it turned out to be too expensive and still didn’t do the other administrative things we needed done. So we conducted a side-by-side review of Zen Planner and another software company to see which one would work best for our fitness facility.

ZP: What was the determining factor that made you go with Zen Planner?

Thea: The Zen Planner software seemed easier to use and it offered more services than the other software company. I also had fewer questions with Zen Planner when I compared the two companies.

ZP: How was the on-boarding experience?

Thea: It was such an easy process to train our staff that we didn’t need a second on-boarding session.

ZP: What do you like best about Zen Planner?

Thea: I love that Zen Planner has freed up so much of our time. It’s moved us away from time-consuming data entry to being able to focus on improving our members’ experience and results.

ZP: What has been the feedback from your members regarding the new software?

Thea: They really like the Member Connect feature. I’ve been told by many of our members that everything they need for their account membership and gym information is there and available any time.

ZP: Overall, how has Zen Planner affected your business?

Thea: Our staff is more productive. They spend time on the right things that grow our business like customer service, classes and member experience. The spreadsheet days are gone, and thanks to Zen Planner, we are a better business because of that.

ZP: Thanks Thea. We really appreciate the feedback you’ve given us today and for your time. Glad to hear your business is doing so well. As usual, we will continue to reach out to you to hear how we can improve and help you with continued business growth.

Thea: Sounds good, thanks.

Are you still manually tracking member data in Excel sheets? Looking for a new solution that will save time and help your fitness business grow?