We call them ‘growing pains’ for a reason and today we will be looking at one ‘pain’ we have seen a lot of independent gym and fitness clubs struggle with over the years and we will be focusing on three independent gyms in the UK that were able to deal with the issue.
Like many intangible aspects of business, a fitness facility’s ‘culture’ can be hard to define and as that business starts to scale up, even harder to keep. When the regulars start to get lost in the crowd and you can no longer reasonably expect your staff to remember all those names, there is a risk of losing that special sense of belonging that many of us love and value in local businesses.
And it is a reasonable thing to be concerned about, even while celebrating that it comes from an increase in members.
To begin with, a genuine culture can start to form almost due to a charming absence of process and procedure. In an increasingly bureaucratic world it can feel fresh and simple. But after a certain point that hands off approach won’t cut it anymore. Ironically it is structure and procedure that can help an independent gym or fitness club keep that feeling even as it scales up and expands.
And it doesn’t make it less genuine. The desire to maintain that feeling and that ‘culture’ isn’t cynical. It is just a simple fact that at a smaller scale it forms naturally and at a larger scale it has to be maintained. So let’s take a look at how.
What Structure Means For A Scaling Independent Gym
When people hear ‘structure’ alongside ‘culture’ they often picture corporate procedure manuals but that isn’t what we are getting at here.
For an independent gym, structure is simply the decision, made in advance, about how things will be done consistently, how a new member is welcomed, how a class is communicated, how a billing problem gets resolved.
It is the difference between a gym that relies on whoever happens to be on shift having a good day versus one that wants to deliver a great experience every time.
What this ‘structure’ is trying to maintain are the special things an independent gym should treasure. The sense of the community and the small personal touches. People like to get a personal and genuine service from their local businesses, it is why many people in the UK go out of their way to choose them over the corporate chains.
Keeping It Under One Roof: CrossFit Tyneside
CrossFit Tyneside had built a strong community around a training culture, but the operational side of the business was split. Membership management, class bookings, access control and Direct Debit collection were handled by different providers and not talking to each other coherently and manual processes were taking up ever-increasing amounts of staff time.
Andrew at CrossFit Tyneside describes it plainly: “By moving across to Ashbourne we’ve got the Direct Debit collection process and the management software that we run for our members for booking, all under one roof. That helped to take out any miscommunication or complications between two parties, which is the biggest benefit we had moving across.”
It is a familiar problem for independent gyms and fitness clubs across the UK. They want to help their customers directly but they are reliant on external providers who don’t talk to one another. Suddenly not everything can be sorted out with a single phone call and the culture suffers for it. Suddenly staff are advising a 48 hour response window rather than just being able to sort out a problem.
Consolidating those processes meant CrossFit Tyneside’s team could address problems quickly, and just as importantly, personally. Meanwhile, Ashbourne’s mobile app and class booking function gave members more autonomy and transparency over their own schedules where previously it had been supported by manual procedure.
All of this allowed CrossFit Tyneside to focus on what really matters, helping their members rather than being stuck in a phone queue or buried in a spreadsheet.
Growing Without Losing the Point: Sarah Jayne Fitness
Sarah Jayne Fitness began with a clear identity, a small facility aimed at women who wanted a more personal approach to fitness than a large commercial gym could offer. The community that formed around it was tight-knit and, by most metrics, exactly what the founders had hoped to build.
The challenge with that kind of success is that it is a high standard to keep at scale. The more personal the experience, the harder it becomes to grow without the whole thing unravelling. More members means more admin, more scheduling, more to keep track of, and at some point, the hours spent managing that workload start to come out of the time that made the place feel like itself in the first place.
Sarah Jayne Fitness put it this way: “Being more than a gym is really important to us. We empower women to workout, keep strong and have a safe space to do that comfortably.”
One big challenge for both member and staff satisfaction was bringing together all the services and platforms that Sarah Jayne Fitness had been using up until Ashbourne’s. Sarah Jayne, an open and self-declared technophobe, had used different external consultants and suppliers to handle membership management, the website and the online store.
While the inefficiencies and discrepancies between these services could be overlooked as Sarah Jayne Fitness was growing, it was starting to have a significant effect on Business-As-Usual operations and their ability to do what mattered most to them, focus on their membership.
Once Ashbourne had unified all of these different arcane systems into a single club management solution, the difference was notable and immediate.
Life was suddenly much easier for staff, who no longer have to juggle half a dozen suppliers, and for members, who no longer have to wait for them to do so. To quote Sarah Jayne on the whole process
‘Running the whole gym is a smooth process. It was an easy transition and set up’
The Mental Load Question: Quest Fitness
Ryan at Quest Fitness got to a point that tends to be underplayed in conversations about scaling, it isn’t just about hours. It is about the mental load that inefficient manual systems bring.
Running a gym on manual systems doesn’t just take time, it constantly occupies a certain kind of mental space for you and your staff. Your brain can’t rest because everything takes a specific set of actions. Two clicks here, then open this programme, then back to the first for three more clicks. If every member on-boarding or class booking takes a different small ritual, nothing flows.
Quest Fitness is direct about the difference: ‘It has saved so much time helping us run the business and developing it, Ashbourne has made our business much more cost effective and seamless. The old manual system was ineffective and cost us money. This system helps us grow and develop our business.’
What he is describing is a change not just in operational efficiency but in how he can show up for his gym. With the administrative infrastructure handled, the primary focus, developing an excellent, community-focused club, can become his guilt-free, full-time goal once again.
“Our main aim is that we continue to develop the club, and with the help of Ashbourne to do that.”
And more simply: “Ashbourne just makes it a lot simpler for me to run it.”
Consistency and Reliability
Across our three example independent gyms and fitness clubs, each one has benefited from their systems becoming unified, consistent, and reliable. Whereas before they were using providers, Ashbourne Membership Management has been a partner they can work with to take their businesses to the next level.
Whereas before they were battling wait times and cross-platform communication, now each of their facilities have just one provider for the majority of their club’s functions.
Now they can run their businesses with that personal touch that makes the independent gyms and fitness clubs across the UK really stand out. With the scaling handled by Ashbourne, the culture can be allowed to not only survive, but thrive once more.
If the problems of CrossFit Tyneside, Sarah Jayne Fitness and Quest Fitness sounded familiar to you, perhaps your independent gym or fitness club can be our next success story. If you want to find out how Ashbourne Membership Management can help preserve that personal touch, contact our in-house, UK based demonstration team today here for more info.
