to all gym owners

joshbarnett · Sep 6, 2007

i am opening a club dec.1 and will start presale in about 1 month. my problem is that i am not sure i have the time to dedicate for the pre sale. has anyone used a gym marketing company that was worthwhile? i thought it would be a good option for me to have a company come in and handle my presale and grand opening. is this a smart option?? please give me some feedback.

Sassy · Sep 6, 2007

You could look into hiring come college student majoring in marketing looking for Holiday jobs... or check in on doing like a telemarketing internship for them.

bigbadasian · Sep 6, 2007

reply

whats your market like? one thing that i realized real quick is capital expenses are a TON more than you expect. you dont want to go in under capitalzed and marketing and advertising takes a ton of money, especially if you have a company do it for you. my gym is right smack tab in the center of the university campus, so needless to say i market to the students. i got a sandwhich board with my logo and bullet points and it says "Free membership pass' as well and i set that outside the gym that brings in ppl. we also got a press release from the local newspaper about my gym...thats free advertising, and i also made up door hangers and i wake up every morning at 530am and i go to all the aprtment buildings and i put them on the doors myself, also a great idea we had was i went to wal mart and got btl water, tore off the labels and made up labels of my own and put them on the btls with phone and adress, then handed them out to students as they walked by. on a hot summer day, water tastes great and everyone takes one. those are some ideas for you. i say do it yourself.

oldfella · Sep 6, 2007

I'm with BBA here. I have never used an outside source to market MY GYM. It is your baby. Someone else will not have the same passion and fire to sell your product that you would. You are opening up your own new business and you say you do not have the time to market it???? I have alarm bells ringing in my head at this statement. This is your livelihood and future source of income you are talking about here. You are about to tie up a great deal of money also. You will want to devote your full attention to this, trust me! This is where you will make your impact on the market. You need memberships, you need the income from the numbers to sustain your overheads for the first six months. Get your name out there, come up with grand opening specials, give out flyers and cards, give out free one day passes. Invite local identities, sports people to the gym and let them do some of your word of mouth for you. This is crunch time. Give it the attention it deserves.

Uluwatu · Sep 7, 2007

Sales and marketing are the 2 most important things for a start-up business, or any business for that matter. Without them you have no business. If I were you, I would be putting most of my time into marketing. You need to come up with a pro-active marketing plan, and write it down on paper. Follow it, than make adjustments. I would also stay away from "marketing companys". You can come up with great marketing ideas on your own. Maybe a good place to start is to survey some people you know, 50 would be a good number, and find out what they look for in a gym membership. And base your marketing off their feedback. Good luck in your new business venture.

Amazon Doll · Sep 7, 2007

The biggest thing I have learned about any business over the last 25 years in business (gym owner, manufacturing & wholesale distribution) is that concentrating on the things that make money is where the owner of a business needs to focus on the most and less time on the stuff that costs money.

I agree with everyone else here and have also learned from the school of hard knocks, doing your own sales & marketing is very important, no one will do it as well as you and so much is riding on it!

LATS · Sep 7, 2007

most owners are dissappointed in the marketing companies.. get all the free press ya can.. go to the newspaper.. go to the tv news.. it is a story and they would love to cover it.. go on air.. the marketing companies take a huge % of money they take in and you will need that starting out.. word of mouth and canvassing is your best bet..

Sassy · Sep 7, 2007

Yes, there are some very good suggestion above.

There is a very good book for small business owners called Guerrilla Marketing by Jay Conrad Levinson. It will tell you the basics of marketing and advertising plus give you some excellent ways to maximize you budget with free or discounted ways to market.

Coopie · Sep 8, 2007

Joshbarnett -

In starting any business, let me stress ANY, the key factor that
determines a business's viability is STRATEGY. Everything else is
secondary. Location - secondary. Timing - secondary. Capital
investment - secondary. About 95 % of all start-up businesses fail
within 24 months of opening and the only element between a success story
and another sad statistic is STRATEGY.

It is therefore troubling that 4 short months before you open your doors
for business you have no "time" to market your new venture. Your
timeframe should have been worked out - to the day - months, even years
ago. But it's too late for that, let's look forward.

Here is my suggestion: let the experts do what they do best. In other
words, for you to state that you have no "time" to market your business
I understand that to mean that you don't understand what drives a
business. That's okay, it's not a reflection on you - we all have our
strengths and weaknesses. A business's lifeblood is sales. Sales are
typically achieved through a well-thought-out, systematic, strategic
marketing effort. You do not have this. Therefore you NEED to go to
the people who do. Is it expensive? Yes. It is, however, less
expensive than closing your doors a year from now due to lack of income.

Just some thoughts from someone with 12 years of marketing experience.
Hope this helps!

C

Kaiser · Sep 8, 2007

Coopie said:
Joshbarnett -

In starting any business, let me stress ANY, the key factor that
determines a business's viability is STRATEGY. Everything else is
secondary. Location - secondary. Timing - secondary. Capital
investment - secondary. About 95 % of all start-up businesses fail
within 24 months of opening and the only element between a success story
and another sad statistic is STRATEGY.

It is therefore troubling that 4 short months before you open your doors
for business you have no "time" to market your new venture. Your
timeframe should have been worked out - to the day - months, even years
ago. But it's too late for that, let's look forward.

Here is my suggestion: let the experts do what they do best. In other
words, for you to state that you have no "time" to market your business
I understand that to mean that you don't understand what drives a
business. That's okay, it's not a reflection on you - we all have our
strengths and weaknesses. A business's lifeblood is sales. Sales are
typically achieved through a well-thought-out, systematic, strategic
marketing effort. You do not have this. Therefore you NEED to go to
the people who do. Is it expensive? Yes. It is, however, less
expensive than closing your doors a year from now due to lack of income.

Just some thoughts from someone with 12 years of marketing experience.
Hope this helps!

C