3 Simple Tips on How to Better Manage Your Affiliate Gym

I recently attended a marketing conference, and one of the taglines they were performing was “Wicked Smaht.” When I left, I did feel pretty darn intelligent about all things marketing, but the conference also made me pretty attuned to noticing when a business is doing all the right things.

When I visited our customer CrossFit South Denver, I spoke to the owner, looked around, and talked to some of their athletes. During my visit, I realized they are doing a heck of a lot of things right, and maybe by sharing these tips, you can also get “wicked smaht” about how you manage, run, and grow your box.

Affiliate Signage

This is pretty basic, but I’ve now visited about 35 affiliate gyms, and some are really hard to find. Good signage can make it much easier to actually get found (and keep potential members from driving around hopelessly looking for some sign of a gym). CrossFit South Denver not only has a big sign right off of Santa Fe in Denver (that folks who are stuck in traffic have to stare at for quite a long time), but they also have it illuminated so no one can miss it.

Tip: Make your signage as large as your property management will allow. If you’re an affiliate gym that is sort of hidden behind a storage facility, in a storage facility, or in another place that might be hard to find, then make sure to also add directional signs so no one is left driving in circles.

Download our free Affiliate Gym Benchmark Report to discover what the top affiliate gyms around the world are doing right.

Entrance and Front Desk

As soon as I walked into CrossFit South Denver, I saw a couple of things:

• A neat and tidy front desk with a few postcards listing out complimentary offers and deals, such as Rock Tape, FitAid, and fitness clothing coupons.
• An easy check-in process with gym membership software.
• CrossFit South Denver postcards with information on free beginner sessions and basic contact information, such as email and phone number.
• A list of upcoming activities that gym members are involved in, special classes, and competitions.

Tip: Make sure you have contact information easily findable (and this doesn’t mean keep a pad of paper and a pen in the front). If someone does come in during an off time, you want to know they would at least know who to get in touch with to get more information about the gym. Also, if there are obvious complimentary offers that you can provide to members, make sure to make these prominent.

• To the right, there was a list of upcoming activities that gym members are involved in, special classes and competitions.

Tip: Prominently display upcoming activities to give new gym members a sense of the types of activities other members are involved in and to demonstrate all the goodness that results from being part of your community.

Announcements & Places for Feedback Throughout the Gym

Once I was in the gym itself, I immediately noticed announcements throughout, including ones on the monitors placed in 3 different areas. The first was a question, “Tell us what you think about the music.” I love that someone very specifically did not want to hear any Kanye West.

My favorite announcement was the reminder for athletes to use Zen Planner for workout tracking.

Tip: Make sure your athletes are informed about anything and everything you want them to know. Don’t rely on your coaches to get information out. In addition to having announcements throughout the gym, CrossFit South Denver also sends out automated emails to their members to let them know about their payment status or to announce new happenings. In addition, by leveraging workout tracking from Zen Planner, you can increase athlete engagement (who doesn’t want to see their name near the top of the leaderboard?)

These are just a few ideas on how you can grow your affiliate gym. A final important note – CrossFit South Denver doesn’t do any advertising. They continue their growth through leveraging “wicked smaht” day-to-day best practices.

Interested in finding additional ways to set your box up for success? Get your copy of our Affiliate Gym Benchmark Report.