For nearly three decades, Ashbourne has been working with independent gyms across the UK and Ireland, helping independent gym owners get a proper handle on their membership data, their access controls, and countless other functions that allow them to focus on what matters to them. Last year took us to Norway for the first time and now we are happy to announce we have crossed the Atlantic.
So we are happy to introduce our first American multi-site partner, with two facilities in Northwest Arkansas, J Street Gym and Iron Street Gym.
How J Street and Iron Street Came To Be
The story of J Street technically begins in 2015 with the closure of a beloved facility run by the chain World’s Gym, it was a loss that the lifting community in the area would feel the loss of for the next three years.
Cut to 2018 when a gym in nearby Siloam Springs decided to shift its focus toward MMA and put its weightlifting equipment up for sale. That kit was purchased, brought to Bentonville, and foundations of J Street started to fall into place.
The name is an inheritance from the initial facility World’s Gym ran with each gym in an area where they had multiple being known locally by its address: J Street, Highway 12, Lowell. Members had already been calling the Bentonville spot “the J Street Gym” for years. The name carried a certain level of recognition and affection, so it had to stay.
That kind of organic, community-rooted identity is exactly what sets independent gyms apart. J Street wasn’t built around a franchise model or part of a marketing strategy. It was built because a chain gym failed, the community still wanted that service, and an independent stepped in to fill the void.
Once their first site was up and running, it didn’t take long for a second opportunity to present itself. Another facility became available in the area and J Street’s sister gym, Iron Street Gym, was forged.
What the Gym Looked Like Before
When we first spoke with the team at J Street, their situation was a story we have dealt with many times before.
During unstaffed hours, the doors were effectively open to anyone. Members and non-members alike could walk in and train for free, with no way to track who was actually in the building. Even during staffed hours, members would often simply walk past reception without scanning in. As such, there was no reliable usage data, no way to see who was turning up or how often.
Day passes were sold for $10 dollars cash exchange with no follow-up, no conversion process, no way to turn a casual visitor into a paying member.
This isn’t unusual. A lot of independent gym owners build something brilliant on the gym floor while underdeveloping other aspects of the business. When you are trying to get an independent gym up and running, certain systems develop naturally (and often inefficiently as a result) and they can be hard to change once they are up and running. The tools to fix it have traditionally either been too expensive, too specialised, or designed with large chains in mind.
What Ashbourne Changed
We are happy to report that J Street and Iron Street now run a fully integrated access control and membership management setup.
Entry is controlled by a combination of waist-height turnstiles (with an automatic gate for disabled access) and a full-height turnstile for unmanned hours, specifically designed to prevent tailgating and unauthorised access to the gym. Mag locks on a separate full-height door allow disabled access out of hours without compromising security. Members access the facility via digital wallet passes, working seamlessly whether the club is staffed or not.
Day passes are no longer a cash-in-hand affair. Now they are purchased online through the gym’s website, one of two brand-new sites built as part of the project, and a digital pass is issued automatically, valid for both manned and unmanned hours. Every day-pass holder then enters an automated follow-up sequence: branded emails, discount codes and a path towards full membership should they choose to take it.
The result is that visitors who might previously have paid once and been forgotten about have now been integrated into a proper Customer Relationship Management and Prospects system.
Don’t take it just from us, as J Street’s Manager put it:
“This system is going to revolutionise the way we offer our services to our members…All leads will be followed up, members can join online, freeing up my time. We are so pleased to partner with Ashbourne.”
And we are happy to report that the members of both gyms have noticed the difference too, a more reliable out-of-hours experience, a gym app with more functionality than they had before, and a system that simply works. It would be hard not to notice!
While our installation work is finished, the partnership is just beginning. The J Street Gym and Iron Street team continues to receive free training and ongoing support, assistance keeping their websites up to date, and working with our team back in the UK to get the most out of everything our systems can do.
