Author: ezfacility

What Mothers Really Want

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Mother’s Day is a holiday that always makes me cringe a little bit (and not just because I’ve usually forgotten to send a card to my mom). What I don’t like about it is that it encourages showering mothers with gifts we really, truth be told, don’t need. Flowers, chocolates, breakfast in bed? No. What every mother I know truly needs, more than anything else, is time — and, in particular, time to work out.

There are a lot of activities a mother can, and does, learn to do with her children: cleaning the house, cooking, getting groceries, going to the doctor, even completing part-time work. But working out is a different matter. You can run around with your kids, sure, or jog alongside as they ride their bikes, but the focus necessarily is the kids and their needs. In order to get a true, satisfying, fully beneficial workout, a mother needs to go it alone, but daily demands on the schedule often make carving out time impossible.

What can your gym do to help? The best thing would be providing childcare for the length of a class or workout session. If this is an option for your facility, consider giving your clients who are mothers a voucher for a free or discounted babysitting session this Mother’s Day. If you don’t have the capacity to provide childcare, how about making available class packages that never expire (allowing mothers, for example, to purchase ten classes but not specifying that those classes must be used in a month or six months or some other period of time). You might also consider offering more classes during school hours. I love my gym, but it offers most classes in the morning, when I need to work, and in the evenings, when I’m home with my son. What I long for is yoga or Pilates or cycling at 2 p.m. — but between the hours of 1 p.m. and 6 p.m. there are generally very few choices.

One of the reasons I feel strongly about the need to make it easy for mothers to get to the gym is that mothers are particularly susceptible to unhealthy habits. We gulp down a few quick bites on the run, or we grab pizza because it’s what our kids our eating (but our bodies sure don’t process the pizza like our kids’ bodies do). We take care of everyone else and forget to take care of ourselves. We prioritize household chores over working out.

Caitlin Moran, a comedian, writer, and feminist thinker, points out another, more serious problem that many women who are caretakers face: “Overeating is the addiction of choice among carers,” she writes in her excellent book How to Be a Woman. “… It’s a way of [messing] yourself up while still remaining fully functional, because you have to…, [of] slowly self-destructing in a way that doesn’t inconvenience anyone.” It’s true: a lot of women who overeat do it because the stress of being a “carer” drives them to seek some kind of outlet, but a kind that won’t cause dramatic trauma, as a drug or alcohol addiction might. For such mothers, the ability to work out would make a world of difference. Your facility can help by helping them find the time to focus on fitness.

Workers Need You

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Yesterday was International Workers’ Day, a holiday created to commemorate Chicago’s Haymarket Affair of 1886 and the events leading up to it. The long and short of it is this: in 1867, the federal government passed a law guaranteeing federal employees an eight-hour work day; all Illinois workers were covered by a similar law. But the government failed to enforce its own law, and workers in Illinois were forced to sign waivers of the law as a condition of employment. So, on May 1, 1886, labor leaders organized a protest to demand adherence to the eight-hour rule. It ended badly, a few days later, with riots, police killing protestors, and someone throwing a bomb into the crowd.

What does all this have to do with anything? Well, it seemed like a good day to talk about a recent study that found out what today’s employees desire most: onsite fitness facilities. In a way, this could speak to the failure of the demand for eight-hour days so long ago; although eight hours is still the law, millions of salaried workers work ten- or twelve-hour days, or even longer, and just a few months ago Eric Cantor, the Majority Leader of the House of Representatives, called for ending overtime pay for hourly workers. Clearly, employees need a way to shake off the stress of their long days.

But more than that, it speaks to our present-day understanding of how crucial fitness is to health, and the link between fitness and productivity. According to the results of a survey, titled Principal Financial Well-Being Index: American Workers, twenty-five percent of workers who did not have an onsite fitness facility in 2012 wanted one, up from 19 percent in 2011. (The second most desired benefit was fitness center discounts; twenty-three percent of workers who did not have an onsite fitness facility in 2012 wanted those).

Now, only 12 percent of workers who participated in the survey said their company offers an onsite fitness center. What does this mean? There’s a demand for your services, and so far the demand is going unmet. Have you visited local companies to talk to Human Resources folk about how you might be able to help keep their employees happy, either by bringing your business into their building or offering discounts and opportunities in your facility? If not, it’s time to think about doing so. And then go ahead and knock off of work early today—you’ve probably been there for too long already anyway.

Outdoor Fitness Classes

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One thing I love about summer in New York City is the outdoor yoga classes everywhere. When the weather gets warm, in every small patch of green you can find, there’s a yoga studio or fitness facility or health advocacy group that has set up shop in the great outdoors, and you can breathe deeply (though maybe you don’t want to breathe too deeply) while the everyday noise and pollution and excitement and chaos swirl all around you. And it’s not just yoga, and not just in New York: Outdoor fitness classes are a trend all around the country.

In some places, this is becoming a problem. Cities with large numbers of organized outdoor exercise classes have found that ordinary citizens who use city parks for strolling around or relaxing in some other way often dislike these classes. City council and staff members hear complaints about noise, about private instructors profiting from public land, about damage to turf and amenities — the list goes on and on.

As a result, some cities are putting in place policies to regulate commercial use of park space by fitness groups. Last year in Austin, Texas, for example, the Parks and Recreation Department instituted regulations that require fitness groups to purchase six-month permits for $50 if they want to convene a class in the park. Instructors who serve more than four clients per month in the park are required to pay 45 cents per day, per client. The permits limit classes to 34 of the city’s 250 parks. They prohibit participants from attaching exercise equipment to trees, handrails, and other park fixtures, and also from bringing heavy-duty exercise equipment, like tractor tires, ropes, or cables into the park.

As permits go, there’s no norm. What costs $50 in Austin costs $500 in Henderson, Nevada. In Los Angeles, the fee is $60 per hour. Santa Monica’s city council has been considering instituting a permit system as well, after receiving many complaints from non-exercisers wanting to keep the park class-free. Right now, the city is considering an annual fee of about $100, plus a 10 to 15 percent cut of gross receipts (which is similar to what private surf or tennis instructors pay when they use city-owned beaches or courts).

Some fitness instructors feel the fees are unfair—that all taxpayers, including small-business owners, should have a right to use the park space as they like, as long as they’re doing it respectfully. City councils argue that, no matter how respectful an exercise class is, its wear and tear on a park exceeds that of a dog-walker or strolling couple. Others in the fitness industry feel the permits are beneficial—they give classes held in regular places at regular times priority over other activities and protect them from interruption.

So are permits for outdoor fitness classes in public spaces a good idea or a bad idea? I know I want to keep doing my yoga under the sky either way—and I might even pay a little extra for the class if I knew the instructor had a permit fee to cover.

If you are a yoga company that offers outdoor yoga classes, make sure to check out our yoga studio software to schedule instructor times and membership check-in.

When the Boss Does the Dirty Work

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Did you hear about Eric Casaburi? He’s the CEO and founder of New Jersey-based Retro Fitness, and on Friday night he appeared on CBS’s Emmy award-winning reality TV show, Undercover Boss. The show features senior executives working undercover in their own companies to investigate on-the-ground operations in their firms.
In the episode, Casaburi poses as Barry Goshe, an employee being trailed by a film crew because he’s trying to land a spot on a game show. Casaburi grew a beard, dyed it for the role, and donned a wig. He also wore padding under his shirt so he wouldn’t look suspiciously in shape.

Disguised as an employee, Casaburi did everything, including hanging heavy bags, cleaning dumbbell racks, leading sales tours, and making prospecting phone calls. He faced a few challenging situations: a failed sales attempt, a disaster at the juice bar, the need to keep his mouth shut when a fellow employee told him that sometimes she wants to punch customers in the face. (Happily, to make up for that, he also met an employee who credits Retro Fitness with having changed his life.)

Casaburi told the online fitness industry news outlet Club Industry that appearing on the show was his own life-changing experience. “No one is going to try to let the ball drop when they’re juggling when you’re there. But when you go in as an undercover guy…everybody is themselves, and you learn more,” he said.

Those are the words that caught my attention. Obviously, not every health club CEO can go undercover in his or her own facility, but thinking about Casaburi’s experience made me wonder what would happen if every boss took more time out to be on the ground. It’s true, you might see everybody on their best behavior, without getting to witness who they are when you’re not around, but you’d probably still garner a sense of how things work day-to-day, what needs improving, which employees need some encouragement, and which ones deserve recognition for hard work.

What if you put on an apron and got behind your own juice bar? What if you took over front-desk duties for a day? Maybe you’d set an example for your employees; seeing you getting your hands dirty with the nitty-gritty work might inspire them to work harder. Or what if you gave tours to prospective clients for a day? How impressed might they be, knowing that you care enough about what you do to meet with them face-to-face? Or, what if you actually could go undercover in your facility for a day? What kind of knowledge might you gain to help you improve your business?

Casaburi’s experience was something of a spectacle (and fun to watch). Yours might be quieter, less sensational, more like reality than reality TV — but it could still be extremely effective. Give it a try. Let us know how it goes.

Finding Inspiration to Achieve Your Goals

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I recently set a goal for myself: an hour of yoga everyday. It sounds achievable enough, but with work, child-rearing, and millions of other demands on my time (okay, maybe only thousands. Hundreds? Dozens? I don’t know, but it all seems like too much), I’ve failed miserably. I always seem to find some convincing excuse not to do it.

Then I heard about Augie Nieto. Of course, Nieto is a big name in this industry, well known as the chairman of the board of Octane Fitness and the founder of the fitness equipment company Life Fitness — and as a man who, eight years ago, at the age of 47, was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Lou Gehrig’s is a devastating illness. Causing damage to motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord, it shrinks muscles and renders them weak, gradually leading to total, or near total, paralysis. About half of people with the illness die within three years of being diagnosed; 20 percent die within five years. It’s worth noting, though, that Stephen Hawking, the most prominent sufferer of the disease, has lived with it for fifty years.

It looks like Nieto is following in Hawking’s footsteps. He set a goal to last for a long time. And not only to last, but also to help find a cure for Lou Gehrig’s disease — and to keep himself as fit as possible. Thus, even though he uses a wheelchair, relies on a breathing machine, and is unable to speak, Nieto regularly works out. (This in addition to making appearances at events like the IHRSA International Convention and Trade Show, where a benefit event drew 700 people and raised money for Augie’s Quest, the nonprofit research foundation Nieto founded with the Muscular Dystrophy Association.)

How does he work out? Last year, he began training on a custom-made Life Fitness leg press machine. Now, every other day, he performs three sets of 20 reps at 120 pounds on the machine. He also uses a custom xRide bike from Octane Fitness. With it, a motor moves leg and arm pedals to get him started, but he eventually overpowers the motor and pushes the pedals himself. (At the IHRSA convention, he did so in front of a large crowd at Octane’s exhibit booth — for twenty minutes!)

Did I mention that Nieto’s foundation has raised $37 million dollars for research into cures for Lou Gehrig’s disease? And that, since his diagnosis, he’s written two books? Suffice it to say that Nieto is an inspiration, and not only for those of us who are lucky enough to have relatively good health and yet still find excuses not to do yoga everyday, or not to meet other goals we might set for ourselves. He is a man whose determination to achieve his goals never ceases, and who therefore, simply put, achieves them.

So what are your goals, personally or for your gym or fitness facility? What are your excuses for not achieving them? I’ll leave you ponder the answers to those questions while I go unroll my yoga mat….

Helping Others Heal

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For years now, studies have reported that exercise eases the effects of trauma. Though it’s not always easy to predict how trauma will affect an individual, it’s a nearly universal law that regular exercise will help individuals manage their reactions to trauma. Doctors recommend workout routines for veterans returning from war and others who might suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, and coaches know that the best morale-booster for athletes who have recovered from an injury is to get back into the game.

Chances are, therefore, that if you own or manage a fitness center, at least some of your clients are there because they’re struggling to overcome some experience of trauma, whether physical or emotional, small-scale or large-scale.

You’ve probably guessed by now what I’m working up to here. A few days ago, in Boston, thousands of people experienced a large-scale trauma. Thousands of others around the country, and around the world, watched with horror and anxiety as events unfolded.

In this instance, many of the people involved already know the benefits of exercise. They were, of course, runners. They were personal trainers. They were tennis pros and fitness directors and health club maintenance workers. They were also just people who appreciate the discipline, hard work, and determination that go into marathon running, the beautiful, triumphant spectacle of the whole thing.

How are all of these people going to heal? Exercise helps, we know — but what if exercise is the thing associated with the trauma? Will runners want to continue running? Will people training for future marathons be too scared to continue? Can exercise still heal when it was exercise that gave a platform to the trauma in the first place?
Given the results of most studies on exercise and trauma, the answer is probably yes. But what can you do to help?

The bombings at the Boston Marathon directly affect the fitness industry; it only makes sense that the fitness industry should respond. Were any of your members running in the marathon? If so, give them a hero’s welcome home, or maybe just have your membership services staff reach out to them personally. Whether you had clients involved or not, can you offer a discount for the month in honor of the people who were killed or injured? Do you have the resources to bring in a social worker or trauma expert to give a talk to the community about the bombings?

Whatever you do, your efforts will be felt by your community — merely seeing your facility respond in some way can help initiate healing for those who need it. And you might find some of them realizing that exercise could help further their healing, and signing up for a class or two — or a run around the track.

Health Clubs and Property Taxes

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There’s been a lot of talk recently about Rodney Steven II, owner of Genesis Health Clubs in Wichita, Kansas. Steven has been fighting local YMCAs that receive tax-exempt status, arguing that the Ys have an unfair advantage over for-profit health clubs that pay property taxes.

Last month, by a 25-14 vote, a bill passed in the Kansas Senate that would exempt for-profit health clubs from paying property taxes. The exemption reportedly applies to health clubs that focus on cardio and strength equipment but not specialty clubs, such as golf courses, spas, and tennis facilities. The bill is now in a House-Senate conference committee, and will presumably be taken up again when the Kansas Legislature resumes its current session on May 8th, after a break.

What people have been debating is, first of all, whether the votes in favor are legit. Some critics have accused Steven of having bought the vote, as his company donated at least $45,000 to Kansas Senate Republicans during their campaigns over the past two years. Twenty of the 24 senators who received contributions from his company voted for the bill, according to reports. (Steven, refuting any connection between his donations and the votes, has pointed out that he’s been politically active for years, that no bill had been written when the donations were made, and that some senators who voted for the bill did not receive any contributions.)

Critics also have argued that the bill would have an impact on local school and municipal budgets that collect property tax money, and that private golf clubs, child-care centers, waste collection companies, and generally any private entity that competes with municipal services might find themselves freed of the obligation to pay property taxes if the bill passes.

But, as Steven told the online fitness business news source Club Industry, “Even municipal golf courses in Kansas are required to collect and pay some taxes. Not every non-profit in Kansas is tax-exempt. Only non-profit and municipal health clubs are 100 percent exempt from collecting and/or paying any taxes. This unique exemption was granted to non-profit health clubs in 1998 by the Kansas Legislature.” And, Steven says, “The Legislature needs to fix their creation of this inequity.”

What do you think? Is the 1998 law unfair? Should for-profit health clubs be required to pay property taxes if nonprofit and municipal clubs are not? Instead, should YMCAs, as one senator suggested, be required to pay property taxes? If the bill passes, will the door be opened for other organizations that compete with municipal services to claim exemption? And might schools and other municipal services be negatively impacted if they are?

What are your own experiences with property taxes?

Targeting the Golden Ager

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My son recently learned how to ride a bicycle, and the last time I took him to visit my parents, he insisted on bringing his new, bright green set of wheels along. My nearly seventy-year-old father, mostly sedentary and not in the best of health, surprised me by pulling his old bike out of the shed, dusting it off, and declaring that he was going to join in on a ride. He was slow and creaky at first, and he fell off once — with nothing more than hurt pride, thankfully — but he went a full four miles with my son (who streaked along with abandon, delighting in his ability to outpace Grandpa).

We don’t see my parents as often as I’d like, and I don’t want my father waiting around for our quarterly visits to get his exercise. When I told him he should join a gym, he laughed, saying he’d be embarrassed to show his old self among all those young, fit bodies. When I told him there are gyms especially for the elderly, and ones with programs geared just toward that group, he was surprised. He’d had no idea.

What can such gyms do to be sure they’re reaching golden agers like my dad? While advertising in obvious places — AARP magazine, for example — is probably a good idea if you’re a national establishment with branches around the country, many older folks, my dad included, have a more local focus. They want to go someplace right in town, and they like venues that seek their business in personal ways. One effective move might be to visit a senior center near your gym or health club and put up simple flyers — or, better yet, send one of your trainers who is knowledgeable about the older demographic. Have him or her give a presentation, demonstrate easy exercises for seniors, and maybe do one-on-one consultations. And make sure business cards get handed out, perhaps along with membership or class coupons.

Another option might be to sponsor a Walk for Senior Health in your area, something a local paper might write about. You’d not only drum up some business, you’d also raise awareness about the need for seniors to pay attention to their health. I know my dad could use all the reminders he can get.

In general, keep in mind the kinds of places people more advanced in years might go: in addition to senior centers, libraries, clubs like the Elks or Rotary, town halls, and doctors’ offices are all good options. Then head to those places and start talking about your programs that might interest them. If you remind them that working out regularly will help them keep up with their grandchildren, they’re likely to sign on with gusto.

A Fitness Concierge Makes a Difference

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I have a friend in lower Manhattan who joined a gym in August. For a couple of months, she went regularly, and she found herself getting into a routine she liked. And then Hurricane Sandy struck. Her kids were suddenly out of school, and for a couple of weeks life was upended: no electricity, no running water, no public transportation. When things finally returned to normal, she was ready to resume her routine — but somehow she just couldn’t. Having been thrown off course, she found it impossible to pick up where she’d left off, no matter how much she wanted to.
Then, a couple of weeks ago, she received an email from her gym’s fitness concierge. “I didn’t know they had a fitness concierge,” she told me, “or even know what a fitness concierge is.”

The email was short and simple: “It looks like you have not checked into the facility for a little while, so I wanted to touch base and see how everything is going. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or concerns regarding your membership.”

The fitness concierge, it turned out, was there to help her establish and stick to a workout routine. She listened as my friend told her she felt blocked about returning to the gym. She strategized with her about how to fit a workout into her complicated routine, around child care duties, school schedules, part-time work, and a volunteer commitment. She picked out classes for my friend to try and even went with her to a spin class, giving her pointers and encouragement as she tried to find her feet again.

This changed everything for my friend. Even the email alone had a big effect. “Just feeling like someone there cared, like they were keeping an eye out for me and they wanted to help me, made a huge difference,” she said. “It’s a giant gym. Hundreds of people belong to it. But the concierge turned her attention to me. She listened to me. That somehow made it possible for me to make the decision to start again.”

It can be easy to forget, when fitness is your bread and butter, that going to the gym is hard for some people. All kinds of psychological, logistical, and emotional factors come in to play. Helping people who are having trouble getting there is sound business practice — those people will come back again and again, and they’ll tell their friends how great your facility is. But it’s also much more than just sound business practice. It’s bringing to the forefront the humanity behind the business. It’s the real reason for getting into this line of work in the first place. Does your facility have a fitness concierge? Is it time to think about hiring one?

Facebook Might Not Get You Members, But It’s Still a Great Tool

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There’s been a lot of talk recently about the fitness industry and social media. At last month’s International Health, Racquet, and Sportsclub Association (IHRSA), for example, Nicholas Cristakas, the keynote speaker, discussed the potential impact of social networks on the industry. Six separate sessions at the conference were devoted to one aspect of social media or another. A Club Industry conference this fall will feature a session entitled “Social Media and the Fitness Industry.” And if you Google those two phrases together —”fitness industry” plus “social media” — you get a quarter of a million pages spouting a whole range of opinions on the topic, everything from “Top Five Ways the Fitness Industry is Screwing Up Social Media” to “Social Media and Fitness Business — A Perfect Fit?”
So which is it? Are we screwing it up or is it a perfect fit? What exactly is the best way to use it?

Christakis, a social scientist and physician who conducts research on social factors that affect health, health care, and longevity, has studied the effectiveness of both real life and online social networks. He found that almost everything seems to be contagious among friends, including, among other things, obesity, emotions, and drinking habits — but that the same is not true of online friends.

During his speech at IHRSA, Christakis said that Facebook friends have a nearly nonexistent effect on one another — their habits and choices do not seem to affect the habits and choices of the friends in their Facebook network. Nevertheless, he said, Facebook (and presumably other, similar media) is still an effective way to share information. So, even if you probably won’t get a person to join your gym because her Facebook friend announced in a status update that he joined your gym, you’ll still be able to share information that in a pre-social media world would have taken more resources to disseminate. Social media makes it easier than it ever has been to inform members and other interested parties about new promotions, classes, or developments.

Moreover, Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms allow you to share information with personality. Gone is the formality of an earlier era. These days, your voice can be as personal as you want it to be — and often the more personal, the better. It all comes down to branding, and though the dream of referral campaigns through social media might never be realized, the impact of solid branding now might be felt for years to come.

So how should you be using social media? Go ahead and post those photos of your family working out on the beach during your last vacation. As long as you can relate them to useful information about your facility, you’re probably doing the right thing. Your clients want to know that there’s a real person behind the business, and social media offers you a chance to prove that there is.

Giving Gives Back

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Last week, the New York Times Magazine ran an article about giving. “Is giving the secret to getting ahead?” the article asked, profiling organizational psychology professor Adam Grant. Grant, 31, not only studies the role of giving in motivating workplace productivity, he also serves as his own best example of how selflessness increases efficiency. As the youngest-tenured and highest-rated professor at the Wharton School, Grant has, the article reports, “published more papers in his field’s top-tier journals than colleagues who have won lifetime-achievement awards.” He regularly advises companies on getting the most out of their employees and helping their employees get the most out of their jobs. He sets aside a four-and-a-half-hour chunk of time each week to meet with students, and he writes approximately 100 lengthy letters of recommendation for students each year.

That’s for starters. Grant often finds an inbox of 200 emails waiting for him when he gets home in the evenings. He is dedicated to replying, even to the ones coming from people he’s never met who seek his help. When a student at Warwick Business School in England wrote to ask him how he manages to publish so often, Grant took the time to write back to him and even added, “I’m happy to set up a phone call if you want to discuss!” That’s par for the course for him. You get the idea. As the article puts it, “For Grant, helping is not the enemy of productivity, a time-sapping diversion from the actual work at hand; it is the mother lode, the motivator that spurs increased productivity and creativity.” Did I mention that he’s the guy Google calls when they have “big problems” to solve in the people analytics department?

Grant’s studies about the effectiveness of giving are astonishing. At one university fundraiser call center, bringing in a scholarship recipient for a ten-minute talk about how the scholarship changed his life resulted in workers spending 142 percent more time soliciting donations on the phone and reaping 171 percent more revenue. A follow-up study showed that revenues continued to increase over time, to more than 400 percent. Simply knowing their work was having a profound effect on the lives of others made the callers work harder, Grant concluded.

In another study, Grant put up two different signs at hand-washing stations in a hospital. One read, “Hand hygiene prevents you from catching diseases”; the other read, “Hand hygiene prevents patients from catching diseases.” When he subsequently measured the amount of soap used at each station, he found that doctors and nurses washing their hands at the station with the sign about patients used 45 percent more soap or hand sanitizer. Again, when other people stood to benefit, more effort was made.

So what’s the lesson here for owners and managers of gyms, health clubs, and other sports facilities? In a word: Give. How the principle of giving best applies in your context is up to you, but the numbers prove that, in general, giving gives back. Maybe it’s a matter of opening your door to your employees and providing them with whatever kind of help they need. Maybe it’s about giving more to your clients. Maybe, for you, it means adopting a philosophy like Grant’s: “He virtually never says no to the five-minute favor,” the article says, “something that will help someone out — an introduction, a quick suggestion — but cost him very little, relative to impact.” Whatever it is, you’re likely to see the results — and to gain the benefit of feeling good about what you do.

Kid and Me Classes

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My son’s in first grade, and it’s his spring break. I don’t love traveling during spring break, given how crowded attractions can get and how miserable airports can be. I prefer to save the travel for off months and arrange fun things for us to do near home instead. Because it’s just him and me, and because I want to take advantage of the fact that he’s not yet embarrassed to be seen with me in public (I have another four or five years, right?), we’re pretty much attached at the hip during times like these. It’s all well and good, but what happens when I need a workout? He knows how to run me around in the park, that’s for sure, but sometimes it’s just not enough.

I wish my gym offered a class we could take together—something in between the Mommy and Me classes we used to go to when he was a toddler and the grown-up ones I attend on my own. I know there are creative instructors out there who have the know-how (and the energy) to provide both him and me with the structured exercise we each need, while also making it engaging for both of us. Anything involving a ball would probably work.

Equally appealing would be classes for him that coincides with the ones I want to take. Right now, the gym offers drop-off babysitting, but, as he often reminds me, he’s not a baby. Again, I need something to fill in the space after the toddler years and before he’s old enough to spend a couple hours on his own. A class that drills him in soccer or baseball techniques, teaches healthy habits, or just offers a chance to play a rousing game of dodge ball, gaga, or something he’s never heard of before would be perfect.

On the practical end, arranging just a week-and-a-half’s worth of such classes might not be so easy, but it can be done. Your facility management software program can help you slot the classes in and figure out who would be the best instructors; it could also make targeted marketing to the right demographic a breeze. With three or four long school vacations each year, plus shorter ones and all of summer break, there are a lot of parents out there who would instantly sign up for Kid and Me classes or well-timed kids’ classes. The chance to get in a good work-out while still being on-duty would be irresistible.

fitness incentives

Home Sweet Gym

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I have a confession to make. Sometimes, when I’m too lazy to head to the gym but I know I need to exercise, I pull out my mat, look online for a good workout podcast or video, and start trying to get my heart rate up in my living room. I know that, without proper equipment (all right, without any equipment), without an instructor or personal trainer, and without fellow sweaty bodies, I’m not getting quite the level of exercise I need. But often convenience trumps quality.I’m not alone in this. A friend of mine keeps a stationary bike in her office; another one has an entire weight room in his basement. The fact is that sometimes fitness centers are competing for customers not only with other fitness centers, but also with those customers’ personal spaces. What can be done to pull people — yes, people like me — away from the yoga blocks in their closet or the medicine balls in their bedroom and into the gym

Of course, a health club will never be able to offer the convenience of a living room. But the benefits any exercise facility can offer far outweigh what can be found in the average living room. The key, then, is to focus on those benefits — in business-speak, the core competencies. What can a gym do better than a lone exerciser in her office?

Whatever it is, focus on doing it absolutely as best as you can. Trust that just being better at those things will draw at least some people who might otherwise never get out the door.That said, maybe there is a way for a gym to compete with the convenience of home: offer discounts to people who live locally — within a few blocks or a mile or two of the facility, say. Whatever your location, you’re convenient for at least some people. Make it your business to make sure those people know it.In addition, as with most things, incentives help. My gym offers a good one: Work out 180 days between one birthday and the next, and you get a month’s free membership. The thought of that sometimes entices me from my living room. There are hundreds of possible variations on this: come in a certain number of times and we’ll send ten dollars to your favorite charity, give you a free drink from the cafe, invite you to bring a friend for a free workout, put your name up on a poster announcing the current month’s most dedicated gym-goers, etc.

It’s hard to get us homebodies out of our personal spaces, it’s true, but it’s not impossible. Make it worth our while.

Time to Visit the Doctor

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I sat in a doctor’s waiting room for a long time today. I had accidentally left my book at home, and none of the magazines lying around appealed to me. As I’m currently attempting to renegotiate my relationship with my smartphone (I feel like I need some space but it’s having trouble letting go), I kept the thing tucked firmly in my jacket pocket, and there was nothing to occupy my attention except for a large monitor in the corner that kept cycling through a handful of health-related messages: avoid stress, substitute walnuts for croutons, exercise regularly.

“Ha,” thought the crankier part of me. “How am I supposed to find time to exercise regularly when I’m stuck here in the doctor’s office for three hundred hours?” (Well, it felt like three hundred hours.) But that got the less cranky part of me thinking. What if my doctor’s office helped me exercise regularly — not just by reminding me to do so, but by providing me with concrete incentives for doing so? What if they gave me five dollars off my co-pay if I brought in a form from my personal trainer, or yoga instructor, or gym manager that showed I’d worked out three times a week for the past month? What if, along with my prescription, the doctor’s assistant also handed me a certificate good for one free class at a local Zumba studio or a free session at the gym? What if I was offered a discount on a gym membership if I lower my cholesterol between this visit to the doctor and the next?

In short, I realized, health providers are natural partners for fitness centers and health clubs. They have the authority to convince people to get to the gym, combined with the opportunity to pass along incentives for doing so. Maybe it’s time to start cultivating relationships with doctors’ offices, to approach local ones with an offer they can’t refuse: a way to really encourage their patients to improve their health (because, to be honest, that monitor wasn’t very effective. I tuned out its messages well before my wait was over. Good thing I had my smartphone with me).

BFF: Benefit From Friendships

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I’m reading a great book right now: Friendfluence, by journalist Carlin Flora. As the title suggests, the book examines the ways in which our friends influence us. From our personalities to our choices to our emotions, habits, and self-perceptions, friendship, argues Flora, strongly helps determine who we are.


Unsurprisingly, this holds true for physical fitness too. As Flora puts it, “We seek out health and weight-loss advice, but the most effective plan might be to hang out with fit friends. Not only do they make it easier for us to eat better and work out by setting an example and dragging us along on active outings, but they also provide the human connection that fosters robust physiological characteristics, such as lower blood pressure and increased immunity.”
Pick up almost any women’s magazine and you’ll find an article that offers you advice along those same lines: Want to lose weight? Find a friend! That’s because studies and surveys have shown that people are more likely to achieve their weight-loss goals, or at least to lose more weight, when they work out with others.


Even more significant, perhaps, is how similar to you your workout comrades are. Flora cites an experiment conducted by MIT, which found that people were more likely to start using a diet diary if others using the diary in their online network were similar to them. “That,” she argues, “indicates that having a workout or weight-loss buddy ‘just like you’ will motivate you to adopt better strategies.”


What do these facts mean for health clubs and fitness centers? Start thinking about how you can capitalize on friendship. Can you offer special “friendship deals”: classes half off for members and their friends, if they bring them? Or membership drives in which anyone who becomes a member by a certain date wins a month’s free membership for a friend? Or maybe a “Friday is Friend Day” initiative: bring a friend to the gym for free on Fridays. The possibilities are limited only by your imagination. And the potential results? Members or clients who lose the weight they want to lose, or who meet other fitness goals, are likely to be happy, long-term members or clients. Plus, you might find yourself on the receiving end of a two-for-one deal: Your member’s friend might well decide to join herself. This, as Flora explains, is the power of friendfluence. It’s a power you can tap into.

Continue reading “BFF: Benefit From Friendships” →

Fitness for a Cause

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Gyms, fitness centers, health clubs, and other similar facilities do a lot for their members and clients. They help transform bodies into leaner, healthier shapes. They push individuals to meet personal goals and overcome limitations (the self-imposed sort and other kinds). They boost confidence, provide fun social settings, and introduce new modes of movement. But one of the best things about such organizations, to my mind, is that they can produce large-scale change that benefits whole groups of people.


Take, for example, the recent Cycle for Survival initiative at Equinox. Designed to raise money for cancer research, Cycle for Survival events in February and early March at Equinox clubs in 10 cities around the country drew 13,000 people who raised $13.8 million. That money will fund clinical trials and research studies led by the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. Since Cycle for Survival started in 2006, the event has raised more than $31 million. There’s no counting how many people have been helped, and how many will continue to benefit as findings emerge from the funded trials and studies


But you don’t have to be a mammoth operation like Equinox to make a difference. Last fall, Pearl’s Fitness Studio in North Bergen, New Jersey, held a Zumba party to raise money for a local shelter that serves victims of domestic violence. In January, Carozza Fitness in Stamford, Connecticut, raised funds to benefit the families of Newtown who suffered from the horrific killings at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Last month, the Student Fitness Center at Illinois State University hosted a volleyball tournament to support the American Heart Association. Whatever a health club’s size and scale, there’s a way to serve local or larger communities.


As for the participants who work up a sweat to raise the money, they benefit too. First, of course, they reap physical perks. Also, they gain from the emotional and mental rewards that come with working hard on behalf of others.

Reward Your Clients to Reward Yourself

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A recent Mayo Clinic study found that, probably unsurprisingly, giving people financial incentives to work out helps them lose more weight. Researchers paid some study participants $20 every time they hit a monthly weight-loss goal and charged them the same amount if they failed to hit the goal. The result? Participants receiving the financial incentive — or trying to avoid having to pay — lost 6.74 more pounds than participants receiving no financial incentive.

For gyms, sports clubs, fitness centers, and the like, this is good news. Now, obviously, you can’t stand at the door handing out money to each member who meets his or her weight-loss goals each month, but maybe you can consider using other kinds of incentives. No doubt you already have some in place — have a friend sign up for a class and receive a free class yourself, or work out a certain number of times over the course of six months and receive one month’s membership free. Whatever you might be offering, great. In addition to that, can you offer something in exchange for members meeting stated weight-loss goals? A free class, a gift certificate for a health drink in the cafe, a free or reduced-cost session with a personal trainer?

Granted, the Mayo Clinic study looked only at cash incentives, so it’s not clear whether other types of incentives would have the same effect. But it’s worth a shot. If members meet their weight-loss goals because you helped them get there by providing small rewards, they’re probably more likely to stay members. They’re probably also more likely to get their friends and families to become members as well, or to sign up for classes, or whatever makes the most sense at your facility.

Your management software can help you keep track of who is taking part in an incentive program you offer, how close they are to meeting their goals, what incentives you’ve offered, and which ones you’ve paid out. As an organization devoted to your clients’ health, it makes sense to do what you can to help those clients get to where they need to be — while also solidifying a loyal customer base for yourself, not to mention a reputation for being a facility that really cares about its clients’ wellbeing.

FIRE DRILL! Get 100 NEW Clients FAST!

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The following guest post is by Sean Greeley, President of NPE, an organization dedicated to supporting coaches and fitness business owners in mastering the “business” of fitness. We are excited to have one of our most supportive partners share some amazing business tips and strategies.
Good questions lead to good thinking. One of my favorite quotes I share when teaching sales training is that “The income you make in your lifetime will be directly related to the quality and quantity of the questions you ask.” It’s from a book called […]
Continue reading “FIRE DRILL! Get 100 NEW Clients FAST!” →

Childhood Obesity Awareness Month

What Are We Doing to Our Kids?

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Recently, Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield awarded $125,000 to nine schools in Western Pennsylvania to help fight childhood obesity. This got me thinking. Childhood obesity, according to the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention, has more than doubled in children and tripled in adolescents in the past thirty years. The percentage of children aged 6 to 11 years in the United States who were obese increased from 7 percent in 1980 to nearly 18 percent in 2010. In 2010, more than one third of American children and adolescents were overweight or obese.

What are we doing to our kids? With the effects of childhood obesity ranging from, in the short-term, increased likelihood of suffering risk factors for cardiovascular disease, having prediabetes, and being at greater risk for bone and joint problems, sleep apnea, and poor self-esteem to, in the long-term, being at risk for adult-onset heart disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke, cancer, and osteoarthritis, we owe it to our youth to help turn things around.

Which is why Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield’s action is laudable. The executive director of the Highmark Caring Foundation, Charlie LaVallee, was quoted as saying, “Our goal with funding additional schools is to ensure that even more children will begin to learn early in life the benefits of being active and healthy.” We should all be working together to teach as many children as possible those lessons, in whatever way is available to us. It’s great to see a health insurance company step up to the plate. Of course, parents, schools, and medical professionals also need to play a role.And what can sports clubs, health facilities, fitness centers, and gyms do?

As organizations dedicated to helping individuals meet their physical potential, push themselves past preconceived boundaries, and achieve greater awareness of their own health and their ability to control it, sports facilities of all kinds might be uniquely positioned to fight childhood obesity.

Take a look at your scheduling software: Can you fit in an extra class or two that will get kids moving? Can you host healthy-eating information sessions for parents? Can you even send personal trainers or other staff out to schools, maybe in underprivileged areas, where their expertise (and enthusiasm!) could inspire whole classes full of kids?

It’s worth thinking about, anyway.

Safety Training First

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A few weeks ago, at a 24 Hour Fitness club in Costa Mesa, California, a 67-year-old man exercising on a stationary bike keeled over, apparently suffering a heart attack. What did the club staff do? They kicked into high gear. One employee called 911. The service manager alerted other staff members to the medical emergency. A team raced to the man’s side. While a personal trainer began to administer chest compressions, the fitness manager grabbed an automated external defibrillator (AED) and applied it one time. Then, the paramedics arrived. Under their guidance, the personal trainer continued with chest compressions and assisted with cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and the AED.

The man’s life was saved, and he is in stable condition. After delivering him safely to the hospital, the paramedics returned to the club and thanked the staff for its good work. If they hadn’t thought on their feet, acted quickly and selflessly, and worked as a team, the paramedics told them, the man would be dead.

How did the staff know what to do? Preparation and training. How can you ensure that your own fitness center employees will know what to do if a similar emergency arises under their watch? Preparation and training. Everyone on staff in your facility should be certified in CPR. If they’re not, arrange for a group training as soon as possible. Contact the American Heart Association, American Red Cross, American Safety and Health Institute, or your local Department of Health for information on how to arrange for proper instruction and certification of your employees.
Do you have an AED on hand, as 24 Hour Fitness does? And do you have enough people on staff who know how to use it? If not, time to get one, and time to train. Same goes for first aid practices. Your fitness managers, instructors, personal trainers, service managers, desk staff — pretty much everyone — should be schooled in the basics. All should know to pick up the phone and call 911 before doing anything else. These things might seem pretty elementary, but don’t take for granted that your employees know what to do. Make it your responsibility to train them.

It’s only through preparation during nonemergency times that emergencies can become averted crises. Then your staff, like the staff at 24 Hour Fitness, will be celebrated and hailed as heroes too.

Spring Break: Be There or Be Square

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This month, most colleges, universities, and schools around the country have at least a week off. Not everyone goes to Cancun, and parents of small children are likely tearing their hair out, trying to figure out how to keep their energetic young ones entertained. So now is the time for you to be asking yourself: What can my fitness facility or sports center do to help? If you don’t already think of spring break as an event that you should be planning for each year, it’s time to start. Here are a few ideas:

  1. If you already offer programs for children, consider creating a special, week-long camp that follows school hours and gets kids moving. Soccer, basketball, baseball, hockey, dance, and swimming camps are popular options; if your facility allows for any these, working parents are bound to be grateful and kids will join in with gusto. Plan time for snack and lunch, and alternate activity and rest in hour-and-a-half-long chunks: for example, for a basketball camp: an hour and a half of drills followed by snack, followed by an hour and a half of games, followed by a viewing of a documentary about basketball stars. Also, mix it up: an intense study of basketball in the morning goes well with a relaxed game of dodgeball in the afternoon.
  2. If your facility isn’t set up for camp, consider offering new classes that kids (and their parents, who might be taking the week off) and college students are not likely to have tried before. The sheer novelty might draw them to you — and once there, who knows? Maybe they’ll stay. Also, you can think of the classes you offer as trial runs. If they’re popular, you might have discovered a new niche for yourself. Options include Kangoo, surfing workouts, barre classes, rockwall climbing— even quidditch!
  3. Bring Cancun to them. Maybe you have a pool. Sure, it runs on a tight schedule, but can you carve out a few hours one day to turn it into a beach? Let people use their imaginations to fill in the sand. You supply umbrellas, lounge chairs, cabana music, and health drinks. Maybe you can get a beach volleyball game going in one area of the club (again, no sand required — just have players wear bathing suits). It’ll be a party — and it’ll draw prospective clients to you.
  4. Offer a special membership deal for the week. Existing members can bring a friend to a few classes for free; new members who sign up during spring break get two free weeks tacked on to their membership. Other ideas include offering a free session with a personal trainer or a discount at a local sporting goods store or on the gear you might sell at your own facility. Be imaginative here — there are endless incentives you can offer, with spring break as your excuse.
  5. Get your gym management software or fitness center software involved. Be sure to enter the names of clients who have never been to you before; so that you can fine-tune these offerings in the future, you want to keep a record of who your audience is. For existing clients who participate in your spring break offerings, make a note of their participation in their profiles — most health club software allows for this. That way, you’ll keep tabs on their interests and be able to target the right crowd for future events.

It’s never too late to start planning for Spring Break 2013, and it’s never too early to think about next year. Make it an annual offering. As a fitness center, health club, or sports facility, you’re in a unique position to keep people active and entertained when regular routines are on hold. Take advantage of it — and have fun!

ez leagues

Sports Team Communication Challenges

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The following guest blog post is by Jim Woodman, President of PlayerGrid. PlayerGrid is a powerful new team communication and sharing service that we’ve fully integrated with EZLeagues. We are very excited to have another partner offer our clients some great insights on how to help streamline operations!

Mobile Apps are Delivering Smart Solutions

Getting timely messages to all members of a sports team becomes very important when games are canceled, practice is rained out or tournament information is updated at the last minute. In the old days – and we’re only talking about 15-20 years ago – telephoning everybody on a team with schedule updates was common practice.

But the telephone call – especially before cell-phones – was extremely inefficient and time-consuming for coaches and team managers.  Along came the Internet and by the late ‘90s, as more people starting getting e-mail accounts, team managers soon adopted e-mail as the preferred method of updating a group.

E-mail has Limitations

While e-mail and team websites represented a significant advance over telephone dialing everybody on a team and hoping to get an answer, e-mail has its problems and limitations. For starters, not everybody has a smartphone and, for those that do, they’re not constantly checking their e-mail accounts. Even worse, there are many coaches and managers not familiar with how to create email groups or send group text messages. What ends up happening is an important update – such as where and when a game is to be played – ends up in a reply to all message that has nothing to with the subject of that e-mail.

On weekend mornings, parents find themselves scouring their inbox for that one reply to all message that has the important “where and when” details at the top of the message. And depending on the content and origin of an e-mail, some spam filters may have dropped that all-important update into a junk folder. This is obviously very frustrating for coaches who assume their emails are being delivered.

And for those teams with websites, nobody is ever sure the website has been updated with a last minute schedule change. In many cases, those team websites stay stagnant for weeks, even months and can be unreliable.

Smart Phone Proliferation, Few Apps

Today, with the proliferation of smartphones and apps for just about everything one can conceive, it’s been surprising that very few apps have tackled the sports team communication issues and, for those that tried, the implementation has been poor at best.

To address this problem, EZFacility has teamed with Iconic Sports Technology to introduce PlayerGrid to facilities that have installed EZLeagues. PlayerGrid’s interactive iPhone and Android applications let parents keep track of multiple sports team schedules and events. Simply stated, with one PlayerGrid account, parents and athletes are notified instantly, in the manner they choose (text, email or push notification), the moment a coach or manager adds, updates or cancels any event.  The days of dialing people via telephone and sorting through your inbox for the right message are quickly giving way to these new, sophisticated applications that deliver data in whatever method the recipient chooses.

Besides its interactive calendar, PlayerGrid features a team specific message center, photo gallery, roster, custom team merchandise, and latest notifications panel. And everything in PlayerGrid’s iPhone and Android apps syncs seamlessly with its popular web application available at www.playergrid.com [website no longer in service – 3/30/2020].

Check out the previous blog post for more information on how EZFacility and PlayerGrid have come together. For more information on how to get your facility up and running with EZLeagues and PlayerGrid, give us EZFacility a call at 866-498-3279.

How To Make 2013 Your BEST YEAR EVER and Build a Business That Supports Your Dreams

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As we begin 2013 we’re pleased to announce exciting NEW content and guest blog posts we’re adding to better support all our customers in growing their businesses this year.

The following guest post is by Sean Greeley, President of NPE, an organization dedicated to supporting coaches and fitness business owners in mastering the “business” of fitness. We are excited to have one of our most supportive partners share some amazing business tips and strategies.

I LOVE the New Year.

It’s the best time to review and assess the previous year while planning for the year ahead. You get the opportunity to list out and remember all the things you did that worked out well. And take another look back at the things that didn’t work out so you can learn from your experiences and get better for challenges you’ll face again in the future.
One of the MOST important things I recommend to all our clients is to take some time to reconnect with the reason why you started your business in the first place.

When you’re caught up in all the “hustle” of day-to-day operations that go on in every company, it’s easy to get bogged down and forget why you went into business.

Why Did You Start Your Business?

At some point in time you got the crazy idea to begin working for yourself and thought it was a good idea to start your own business. You thought you could do what you do better than others in the marketplace. And you were passionate about making a difference, having fun, and enjoying the freedom and the success that come from being your own boss. Well…sometimes come from being your own boss.
In the early days, or when you’re in a fast growth mode, or when staff leaves, it sure doesn’t feel like freedom; when you’re running around wearing multiple hats in your company! It can sometimes feel more like you’re in prison!

Remember Your Dream

That’s why it’s so important to reconnect with your dream. Running a business is hard. And you need a LOT of fuel to persevere, overcome, and grow bigger than the obstacles and challenges in front of you. Because without that fuel… it’s easy to become overwhelmed, tired and fatigued, and want to give up on things when the going gets tough! THAT’S WHEN YOUR DREAM MATTERS MOST! Your DREAM holds the power to catapult you through anything that stands in your way. It must be STRONG and you must hold on tight in order to steer your company through the storms that everyone faces on their entrepreneurial journey.

Know Why You’re Here and What’s Important

Have you defined your core values? Core values are the guiding principles that define what you stand for. I like to refer to them as your “stars in the sky.” When the great explorers sailed out across the ocean in search of new lands, they had no idea where they were going. There weren’t any maps. And they certainly didn’t have any GPS systems! All they had to navigate their journey was a compass and the stars. By looking up at their position in relation to the stars, they could adjust course, plot their way, and eventually return home. Being an entrepreneur or business owner is very similar to being a great explorer. When you decided to start your own business you embarked on a big journey, full of risk. And if you’re like most folks, you didn’t leave with a clear map of where you were going! That’s why you have to have something to look up to when you’re feeling lost.

Core values serve that purpose in your company. They also become the guiding principles by which you can evaluate who is a good fit for your organization and who isn’t. Core values are first and foremost in creating alignment with yourself and your team. In addition to core values, you must also know your purpose. Why do you do what you do? What gets you out of bed in the morning to go to work? Why do you love your customers?
And I hope you love your customers, because if you don’t then you’re going to continuously struggle. Sure you can make money, but building a great company that lasts for generations and transcends YOU only comes out of a real love, passion, and guiding principles that become larger than life.

Get Clear On Your Vision and Targets

Once you’ve reconnected with your dream (your fuel), you’ve defined what’s important and why you’re here (core values and purpose) it’s time to get clear on your mission, vision, and targets. Without a destination, you’ve just got a ship drifting at sea. In working with the clients we coach and mentor, we help business owners get clear on a vision for the next 1, 3, 5 years. Once that’s accomplished, we can effectively develop a strategic plan that gets you where you want to go. The big problem here is most business owners have no plan and have no vision at all! They’ve simply worked themselves into a job. They don’t have an exit strategy. They have no plans to hit a target or a certain capacity in their business. They are only looking out a few months at a time.

As the leader in your company, it’s your responsibility to look out farther down the road. You must continuously work on and develop the vision for your company and team. Only YOU can do this work. No one else can do it for you.

Define Your Priorities and Get After It!

When you’ve completed all the groundwork to this point, you can now clearly define priorities for your work. Most business owners spend their days and weeks in what I call, “random acts of business development.” Doing a little bit of this one day, a little bit of that the next, then running to put out another fire next week. This is not only unproductive… it’s exhausting! For 2013, make a pledge to do things differently. Define 3 priorities for the next 90 days in context of your core values, purpose, mission, and vision… and then ONLY focus on those priorities. First things first… second things never.

Summary

As we begin the New Year, find some quiet time to review and assess 2012. Then engage in strategic planning to make 2013 your BEST year EVER in business. As a good friend of mine often says, “The strategist always wins!”
 
Sean Greeley is President of NPE, an organization dedicated to supporting coaches and fitness business owners in mastering the “business” of fitness. Check out NPE’s new 3x Telly award-winning documentary The American Dream: Freedom, Prosperity, and Success in the Fitness Industry, featuring 17 industry leaders who share their STEP-BY-STEP strategies, systems, and secrets for building highly profitable fitness businesses and show you how you can do the same at: www.AmericanDreamMovie.com

Perkville

Activate Perkville on EZFacility and Gamify Exercise this Year

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For this blog post we’ve asked Sophia Wong, Marketing Manager for Perkville, to share some insights on how to best use Perkville for your business!

To survive in the competitive health and fitness industry, club operators must focus on what differentiates their club from their peers.  Did you know that an EZFacility user can customize a rewards program by activating Perkville?

Perkville provides health and fitness businesses with a competitive advantage — giving businesses a platform to drive lifestyle changes by providing gamification tools to boost retention, referrals, and social media.
Gyms and studios have the ability to log into Perkville and customize their reward program to reward class attendance, personal training sessions, and more.  The reward program can be updated at any time to accommodate new behaviors, classes or services that the staff determine they would like to incentivize.  Staff can easily modify the list of point-generating activities in just a few clicks.

Redeemable rewards are viewed as tangible tokens of achievement in the fitness game.  While nothing can substitute for a great workout, redeemable rewards are motivational factors and help retain clients.  For many clients, rewards provide a goal they can strive to achieve.   Based on our discussions with gyms using Perkville, we recommend a 40 to 1 ratio where 40 works outs or activities equate to a retail, service, or discount reward.
“Perkville has created a buzz in our gym as well as on social media and has helped us perform better in comparison to last year.  Our annual memberships grew by 6.6% this past September (2012) compared to 3.0% in September 2011.  We saw an improved trend in October as well, and November is looking good too.  I get really excited by annual membership growth,” said Anne Co-Owner of Royal Fitness Gym.

For more details here is the link to Perkville’s Gamification White Paper.

EZFacility Partners With Playergrid to Enhance League Management Features!

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Dear EZFacility Customers,

We’re thrilled to introduce PlayerGrid, a powerful new team communication and sharing service that we’ve fully integrated with EZLeagues.

PlayerGrid enhances communication and photo sharing between all sports team members through its web and mobile apps. If a practice or game is postponed or canceled, team members are automatically notified in the manner they choose: e-mail, text or push notifications.

What makes this even more exciting for EZLeagues customers is that all your scheduling data and roster information is automatically synchronized with each PlayerGrid team account. If your facility makes a schedule change, it’s automatically updated in each relevant team’s mobile app. So coaches, parents and athletes will always have the most updated schedules in their mobile devices or web accounts. And coaches will be pleased to find all their roster information from EZLeagues already populated into PlayerGrid.

Coaches also have the option to add recurring practices, or team meetings, in just minutes and invite parents to their private PlayerGrid team accounts with a few mouse clicks on the web or finger taps on their smart phones.
PlayerGrid’s mobile app delivers powerful functions to iPhone and Android devices: activity calendar, group messaging, photo sharing and schedule updates are all free. If team members don’t have a smart phone, text-messaging and e-mail notifications will keep them informed.

Certified by TrustE, PlayerGrid ensures team information and schedules are only accessible to invited team members.  PlayerGrid also works with any existing team or league website, whether it uses EZLeagues or not, and can be used to manage multiple teams simultaneously. This makes it ideal for parents of children with multiple activities or multiple children with numerous activities.

As an introductory offer, PlayerGrid will produce professional digital photo books, absolutely free, for any team that uploads at least 100 photos. These photo books are also available as soft or hard-cover printed commemorative keepsakes. And PlayerGrid will also produce a free hard cover promotional photo book for any facility that signs up by December 31, 2012.

With PlayerGrid’s web and mobile apps you can:

  • Manage multiple teams
  • Update multiple calendars
  • Message entire team
  • Share photos & videos
  • Invite other team members
  • Create custom merchandise
  • Purchase prints and photo books
  • Fundraise for any team
  • Manage notification settings
  • Designate team admins

We hope you enjoy PlayerGrid, our latest feature enhancement to ensure you continue getting the most from your EZLeagues software. Please contact your account representative for more details on how to get PlayerGrid activated on your team registration pages.

Sincerely,
The EZFacility Team