All human beings need exercise, a relic from pre-historic times when human beings hunted wild game across the plains of Africa. Our lifestyle has long since changed, of course, but the human body “remembers” that active lifestyle and needs to meet its exercise needs. Today, many Americans visit fitness clubs and gyms to perform cardio, weight training, jogging on a track, taking spin classes, and even martial arts classes to meet this need. Gym membership and fitness club membership is often high, and these places prove popular among younger and older adults alike. This is a business like any other, and many prospective gym owners may coordinate a number of factors to get their own gym or fitness club up and running. This ranges from building or purchasing the building itself to advertising, hiring staff, buying equipment, and getting software to manage a gym in place. This software to manage a gym may range from billing systems for gyms to a means of tracking all registered gym members. A gym isn’t just the weights; the software to manage a gym keeps the business running smoothly.
Americans and the Gym
Modern gyms and fitness clubs prove plenty popular among young and older Americans alike, especially younger adults. In fact, according to a Nielsen Global Consumer Exercise Trends Survey, about 45% of Millennials exercise regularly, and they may often do this at their regular, local fitness club. After all, about 36% of all regular exercisers like to take part in fitness classes in their area. Meanwhile, this industry is seeing some growth, and many Americans will be employed by gyms and fitness centers in the coming years. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has predicted that the number of jobs in the fitness industry may grow more than 23% over the next 10 years or so. Today, some 30,500 gyms and health clubs can be found across the United States, and around 58 million Americans today go to gyms or fitness clubs. The single largest demographic of gym patrons is those aged 20-64 or so, and many of them have paid memberships at a local gym or club. This creates a lucrative field for an entrepreneur.
Starting a Gym or Fitness Club
Starting a new gym or fitness club will involve a number of steps, starting with either purchasing a building for use or having one constructed. Individuals with more limited capital may purchase a building rather than order one constructed, and they can refit the building as needed to convert it into a gym or fitness center. This is an entire topic on its own, but it can be said that once the building is set, paperwork and office work must be done. This includes software to manage a gym or health club management systems, such as check in software for gyms.
A gym is a business like any other, and the owner will have their own office for running software for finances, advertising, and more. For one thing, a gym gets its profits from paying members, and only such members are allowed to enter the premises and use them. To enforce this, the owner will use software to manage a gym for membership tracking. Any patron may visit and purchase a membership, then verify this membership every time that they visit. Not only will this only allow paying members to use the the gym, but this creates statistics that the gym owner can use. Card swipes of paying members allows the gym owner to track membership and how often these people visit, and they may determine that membership needs to be increased. Gym owners, when they see this data, may choose to launch another marketing campaign and offer special deals, and hire new personnel to offer more classes to appeal to more customers.
Software to manage a gym can also be used to track the names and salaries of staff members, from janitors to class instructors and teachers. A gym may hire specialists such as weight trainers and personal coaches to martial arts or cyclist instructors to add more appeal to a gym. Someone may join a gym if they find out that it now offers a spin class or karate classes.
