Interview with Capital MMA & Elite Fitness

Meet Jeremy Lafreniere, owner of three Capital MMA & Elite Fitness locations surrounding the Washington D.C. area.

ZP: Joining us today is the owner of four MMA facilities in the Washington D.C. area. Jeremy Lafreniere owns Capital MMA & Elite Fitness. Jeremy, thanks for joining us.

Jeremy: Sure, no problem.

ZP: Just from looking at your website we can tell you guys are really busy at Capital MMA. Tell us about your business and all the success that you’ve been experiencing.

Jeremy: Sure. We provide a variety of fitness programs for our members. There’s something for everybody. We have three core programs available: CrossFit, Jujitsu and Muay Thai. We also have supplemental classes for takedowns, boxing and yoga.

ZP: You have four locations, right?

Jeremy: Yes, we have three in Virginia located in Alexandria, Fairfax City and Sterling and one in Takoma Park, Maryland. We also have our fifth location slated to open this summer.

ZP: Wow, that’s great. Seems like you have a good business formula. Has Zen Planner as your MMA software been a contributing factor to your business success?

Jeremy: Yes, once we switched to Zen Planner we were able to better organize everything and we could get more done for less than what we were spending before.

ZP: What did your facilities use for software before starting with Zen Planner?

Jeremy: We used ASF and Champions Way. ASF was too expensive and didn’t have all the capabilities that we needed. Champions Way was less expensive but I couldn’t manage all of my locations from one computer. Neither worked well for my business.

ZP: Why did you choose Zen Planner?

Jeremy: I chose Zen Planner for a few reasons. First, I could access the database from anywhere. This was important because I needed to be at multiple locations in a single day but wanted to keep tabs on all our locations. Second, I wanted automated billing and database features that were done well. And finally, affordable pricing which was really appealing.

ZP: Did you compare ZP to any other software providers?

Jeremy: We looked at MindBody, but we found that Zen Planner had better features and was so highly recommended by other MMA facilities that the decision was pretty easy.

ZP: How is Zen Planner helping your business?

Jeremy: Well for one, it runs my online store. That’s an added profit center that I don’t know how I would manage without Zen Planner. It’s also a huge time-saver which then allows me to run other important areas of the business like marketing and growing the business.

ZP: Sounds like you are definitely growing the business with adding your fifth location this summer.

Jeremy: Yes, it’s really fun to be a part of the MMA excitement. The sport is growing and our members are having fun while getting fit. Would love to have guys out here for the grand opening, if you can make it.

ZP: That sounds like fun. Maybe we can take a few classes while we’re out there. Thanks for taking the time today to talk with us. We really appreciate it.

Jeremy: No problem.

Check out our latest eBook, Fitness Business Management Time Traps to Avoid. This guide will help you identify which tasks are taking up too much of your time, how to avoid these traps in the future and, most importantly, how creating efficiencies can help you better build relationships with your members.