BETTER SOFTWARE FOR YOUR FITNESS PASSION KEY LESSONS LEARNED. From Martial Arts & MMA Business Owners

Transcription

1 BETTER SOFTWARE FOR YOUR FITNESS PASSION KEY LESSONS LEARNED From Martial Arts & MMA Business Owners

2 Our team has had the honor of getting to know thousands of fitness business owners during our eight years serving this community. Throughout countless conversations, we ve picked up some recurring takeaways that can help you steer your business to success. Told with stories of our wonderful customers, here are eight key lessons we ve heard from Martial Arts and MMA business owners. A smart man makes a mistake, learns from it, and never makes that mistake again. But a wise man finds a smart man and learns from him how to avoid the mistake altogether. ROY H. WILLIAMS Key Lessons Learned From Martial Arts & MMA Business Owners 1

3 LESSON 1 AUTOMATE PAYMENT PROCESSING Don t let administrative work stand in the way of you fulfilling your mission. Automating payments saves you time and keeps you on the path toward your goals. When Tracie and Michael Ide started Idaho Krav Maga, their mission was extremely modest. They simply wanted to share their love of Krav Maga and make their community a safer place. Tracie and Michael taught classes in a garage and used spreadsheets to track their students. Their payment processing solution was SQUARE and it was installed on their mobile phones. This process worked for a while but as they grew their business, they outgrew the ad-hoc system they were using. Since they needed to ask for each student s credit card each month, the process of collecting member payments was pretty stressful. Tracie and Michael researched solutions and started using member management software. Now that students are on automated payments Tracie and Michael don t have to spend time tracking down students and their credit cards. Automating this process has freed countless hours a week for them and they have noticed that automated payment processing has even helped improve member retention. Now the Ides modest mission has turned into a successful business that has nearly 100 active members. We think that s a definite success. Key Lessons Learned From Martial Arts & MMA Business Owners 2

4 LESSON 2 PICK YOUR IDEAL STUDENT AND GROW YOUR BUSINESS ACCORDINGLY By knowing exactly who your target student is, you ll do a better job of reaching them with your marketing. You ll also be able to more effectively devote your efforts toward that student demographic It is always important to know who you are targeting with your fitness business. This is a lesson learned from the Texas Fighting Syndicate. Located just south of Fort Worth Texas, the founding partners of this elite fighting gym made the decision early on to serve only serious fighters. They state this mission clearly on their website: Texas Fighting Syndicate isn t everything to everyone and that is how we like it. We hold ourselves and our fighters to very high standards. If you want to fight then we are the gym for you. Along the way that s meant they ve turned away prospects, but it also means they are better at serving the clients they work with. In fact, they are now one of the most respected MMA gyms in the country. They focused on the target market (elite MMA fighters) and as a result, they have seen their gym flourish. Key Lessons Learned From Martial Arts & MMA Business Owners 3

5 LESSON 3 MAKE SURE YOUR MEMBERS CAN SERVE THEMSELVES You know the adage- work smarter not harder. As a business owner, this is an adage you can t afford to overlook. By giving your members access to self service features, you re not tied up at the front desk when you could be teaching classes. Leo Dokutoshi Pimentel, owner of SKH Quest Center NYC, has a deep love of Martial Arts that began when he was five years old. Throughout his life he invested in this love, frequently traveling across the country to train in a dojo. Because of the time and financial investment needed to take such long trips, Leo vowed he would one day open a dojo and make teaching accessible for many. When he opened SKH Quest Center NYC, part of his dream was realized. But in order to make his teaching accessible for the many, he needed to be as efficient as possible with his time and resources. Otherwise he would be overrun with administrative work and unable to spend time with his students. Leo adopted software early on to help him run his dojo and manage scheduling, billing and reporting. Although this functionality is important, Leo says the one feature he couldn t live without is the ability to let his students access everything they need online. By enabling students to schedule classes, pay for their membership and check in on their own, he saves countless hours each week and doesn t need administrative help for these tasks. All of this helps Leo share his love of Martial Arts with many. Key Lessons Learned From Martial Arts & MMA Business Owners 4

6 LESSON 4 PICK A SOFTWARE SOLUTION THAT IS CLOUD-BASED With a world that is highly mobile, there s no reason you should be tied to your computer in the studio. Cloud-based software enables you to have access to have access to your fitness software from almost any device a laptop, ipad, tablet or mobile phone. You work long hours each day as a business owner. Being able to take it all with you when you head home or out of town is critical for your health and happiness. Otherwise you ll be tied to a computer at your studio and potentially work longer days than necessary. Steve Milles, Muy Tai instructor and owner of Five Points Academy, says that businesses need a cloud- based member management system. Since he trains champions at both the national and international level, he often travels to support these competitors on the road. With a cloud- based system, he s able to log on and access his system when issues come up, wherever he is. Steve says he s taken care of things on his computer at home, on an ipad, and even on his phone. FIVE POINTS ACADEMY Key Lessons Learned From Martial Arts & MMA Business Owners 5

7 LESSON 5 AUTOMATIONS SAVE TIME AND HELP YOU RETAIN YOUR MEMBERS Automations allow you to get out from behind the desk and do the very thing you started your business to do. Oasis Martial Arts is an oasis in the middle of the desert. Opened with the single mission of giving back to those without hope, owner Tony Redmond shares the power of martial arts with low- income students in El Mirage, Arizona. From the beginning, Tony established the unwavering goal of not turning anyone away, regardless of their ability to pay. In order to offer this free training, Tony maintains his full-time job during the day and manages and teaches at Oasis during the evenings and weekends. As you can imagine, every minute in Tony s day is precious. The less time he spends on administrative tasks for his business, the more time he can spend changing lives. For that reason, Tony says he could not stay in business without the automations built into his business management software. These automations mean that Tony doesn t need to shuffle between spreadsheets, make individual calls or manually each and every student. Automations run his business behind the scenes so Tony can change lives, one child at a time. OASIS MARTIAL ARTS Key Lessons Learned From Martial Arts & MMA Business Owners 6

8 LESSON 6 YOU LL NEED TO INNOVATE TO STAY RELEVANT As a business owner, you need to scan the horizon for opportunities to stay relevant and meet your market s needs. Roger Pyle, owner of USA Seibukan Martial Arts Training Center, opened his dojo with a love of Martial Arts and a desire to share it. He built his program on the values of truth, honor, integrity and a deep respect for his students. Early on he found success teaching adult students. But soon he realized there were no programs in his community for younger children. Seeing this gap as an opportunity, he started offering karate classes for kids. Before long he says he was buried with small children. On Saturdays he would teach three classes in a row with about twenty children in each class. These new classes helped him build his children s program, which also ended up making USA Seibukan Martial Arts Training Center a place for the whole family to train. Even though Roger notes that some of his current adult students started with him twenty years ago, he sees a huge increase in program offerings for children now. He explains, Everyone has something for this age group. From soccer to basketball camps, the market for children s activities is pretty competitive. Now Roger finds himself innovating once again to stay relevant and attract clients. With thirty years experience teaching and an average of two hundred active students, USA Seibukan Martial Arts Training Center will always find ways to share the power of Martial Arts with their community. USA SEIBUKAN MARTIAL ARTS TRAINING CENTER Key Lessons Learned From Martial Arts & MMA Business Owners 7

9 LESSON 7 MEMBER MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE SAVES YOU MONEY Without software, it s highly likely a growing studio or gym will end up letting membership dues slip through the cracks. Ascension Martial Arts NY is a Brazilian Jui Jitsu and Muy Tai school in New York that is run by Chief Instructor and professional MMA fighter, Jason Trzewieczynski. This school started out like many do, using only spreadsheets to manage their business. As Ascension NY grew busier, Jason recognized they needed to find software to help them manage their business. He said, Flipping back and forth between QuickBooks and Excel was a nightmare. I knew we were probably missing key details because it was impossible to keep everything accurate and up-to-date. Jason was sure software would save Ascension NY time, but he also thought it would help them collect more of the membership dues owed to them. Once they implemented Zen Planner, he was shocked by how much money he discovered that they were not collecting. Within the first month, Ascension NY increased their revenue by 50% by collecting current student memberships and past membership dues. With the increase in revenue, Ascension NY was able to invest in more programs and positively impact more students. Key Lessons Learned From Martial Arts & MMA Business Owners 8

10 LESSON 8 DO BUSINESS WITH COMPANIES THAT SHARE YOUR VALUES Our final lesson comes from Relson Gracie Colorado, a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu school in the Denver area. This school is run by a team of highly skilled and experienced Jiu Jitsu practitioners who teach the values of honor and respect to each and every student. Especially known and admired for their anti-bullying stance, they teach their students that practicing Jiu Jitsu is an honor and an art to be used only as a defense. In their early days Gracie Colorado retained the services of an organization that didn t share their same values. This mismatch led to challenges and few misunderstandings. The Gracie Colorado team, led by Chief Operations Officer Dylan Miller, eventually decided to discontinue that relationship and find a provider that was better aligned with their values. Dylan explains that long- term relationships need to be built on more than just liking a company s product. He believes that to have a great relationship you need to work with organizations that have similar values and beliefs. You have to ask yourself as a business owner if you can work with both the staff and the product, Dylan said. He continues, That is the recipe for long-term happiness in a business relationship. RELSON GRACIE COLORADO Key Lessons Learned From Martial Arts & MMA Business Owners 9

11 ABOUT ZEN PLANNER Zen Planner s all in one software gives you everything you need to turn your passion into a successful business. With integrated payment processing, scheduling, membership management, workout tracking, and website templates, you have everything required to develop and grow the fitness community you worked so hard to create. Not only does Zen Planner provide you with tools that enable you to grow, nurture and retain your members, it is remarkably easy-to-use. While some software providers require paid training over weeks and months, Zen Planner makes it easy to get up and running. Every customer gets three free sessions with a personal coach, so you can take advantage of Zen Planner s rich features right from the start. Zen Planner is backed by a team of like minded fitness fanatics. Our team is made up of affiliate gym competitors, yoga instructors, black belts, dancers and gym owners. When you do need help, we combine our software know how with our expertise in your community to help you and your business thrive. Our passion for fitness and your success is apparent in our consistently high customer satisfaction score of 99%. And one out of every two customers refers another happy customer to us. For more information on how Zen Planner can help you better manager your business, visit us on the web at: or give us a call toll free at toll free at You can also sign up for a free trial at: try-now/ Key Lessons Learned From Martial Arts & MMA Business Owners 10