Customer Spotlight: CrossFit Palm Beach

 Meet Andrew Frezza of CrossFit Palm Beach! Andrew and his family are longtime Zen Planner customers who run a hugely successful affiliate in sunny Jupiter, Florida. Read on to find out more about the box and Andrew’s background.

How did you get started? When did you open your business?

Andrew and his brother Tony

My brother and I opened CrossFit Palm Beach in December of 2012. Prior to opening the gym, I owned a basketball/tennis court construction company with a friend of mine down in the Ft. Lauderdale area. While we were starting to have a good amount of success with that business, I quickly realized that I was not super passionate about construction. I had been doing CrossFit® for about a year up until that point, and decided I would give coaching a try with the hopes of potentially opening up my own box one day.

After only a few months of coaching, I knew that owning and running a CrossFit® gym was exactly what I wanted to be doing with my life. Around that time, I convinced my brother and my dad to get into CrossFit® as well. They wanted me to move back home to Jupiter, and we agreed to open up the gym together, if they could help me find a space. Luckily, my dad has a real estate background and was able to find two beautiful furniture showrooms for sale on US1 in Jupiter. A few months later, CrossFit Palm Beach was born.

What was your biggest pain point before Zen Planner?

We were lucky enough to start with Zen Planner from the day we opened, so thankfully we didn’t have to experience running a gym without them. With that said, we have had several obstacles arise throughout our four-plus years of business that Zen Planner has been critical in helping us solve. Some of the big ones include things like helping us track and manage attendance, helping us automate membership payments and holds, providing our members with digital workout tracking, allowing us to process retail payments and providing digital waivers and contracts to reduce waste and keep us more organized.

What made you decide to go with Zen Planner?

Zen Planner was recommended to us by several CrossFit® box owners that we trusted. The big selling point was that Zen Planner was just as powerful as any other software out there, but was simple enough that it felt like it was designed specifically for CrossFit® box owners. Also, their customer service has always come highly recommended, and we have always been impressed with how quickly they respond to and help solve our issues.

How has Zen Planner changed the way you run your business?

Zen Planner has honestly evolved to feel like a consultant to our business, not just a software company. I have regularly used them to bounce ideas off of or to proofread emails or policy changes. They have allowed us to track key metrics that we can use to make long term business decisions, and they have helped us to stay organized through digital waivers, contracts, payments, attendance and workout tracking.

What’s your favorite Zen Planner feature?

My favorite Zen Planner feature is their customer service. While issues are rare, I always feel like I get more than I ask for whenever I work with their customer service team. Kelsey has been our direct point of contact with Zen Planner for over a year now and she and the rest of the team have been quick to implement our feedback directly into the software.

In what ways has Zen Planner helped you grow your business?

We just recently had our best month ever and surpassed $50,000 in monthly revenue for the first time. I just don’t see how this would be possible without them. The software is easy enough to use where I can have my team take over most of the administrative side so I am freed up to spend more time developing our coaches and shaping our culture and community.

What do you wish you knew when you started the business?

I wish I knew how powerful Zen Planner was in the months before we opened so I could have automated many of the things that we do now. We started out with paper waivers and contracts and we were very disorganized at first. Now everything is digitally stored in Zen Planner and easily searchable.

They also have a ton of great email automations to welcome new members or remind people of upcoming or past due payments that we only started using the last couple years. If I knew about these before starting the business, I would have spent a lot more time creating the systems and automations that would have saved us hundreds of hours along the way.

What’s your favorite CrossFit® workout?

Grace or DT. I love cleans and tend to do well in shorter, heavier workouts so both of these are a lot of fun for me.

What do you do outside of CFPB?

My wife and I recently had our first baby in January of this year, so most of my time outside the gym is spent with them. It’s been so incredible to be a dad and many of things I have learned while running the gym, has helped me to become a better parent. Between being a box owner and a dad, I have the two best jobs in the world.

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