So, I've been training out of the same gym for 18 years now. Teaching for 15.
The gym has always been kind of chaotic and teetering on the edge of profitability. My coach is a good guy and a top-notch martial artist, but not really much of a manager or businessperson. In recent months the level of management had dropped even lower as various health issues prevented him from attending to business necessities.
Over the weekend, we found out that due to his health, my coach was going to be moving out of state to be close to the rest of his family and that the gym was going to be closed down. This caused much consternation among those who love the gym and its place in Kentucky martial arts history. I was also very concerned about our current students and making sure that they were taken care of fairly.
As of last night a small group of us signed papers to form an LLC to take over the gym and keep it running. I am now head instructor, co-manager, and part owner. My ownership share is based on sweat equity rather than financial investment. I'm going from being one of 8 instructors teaching 2 nights per week to being the head coach, teaching 4 nights per week as well as working to design a cohesive curriculum for all the teachers, helping to codify gym policies, and helping to figure out business and financial decisions.
Right now the other managers and I are scrambling to figure out everything from the best products for cleaning mats to whether we should switch membership payment solution companies. (We currently have ASF, which apparently is known to have some issues.)
Fortunately, none of us are in need of deriving an income from the gym. We all have good day jobs. We just need to get things stabilized so that the gym can consistently generate enough revenue to cover expenses, then hopefully profitable enough to invest back into improvements, then any eventual profit coming back to the owners will be just a nice bonus.
Any of you who have experience running a profitable gym, please share any and all advice. General or specific. Best cleaning products, membership payment solutions that you suggest we check out or avoid, student retention policies, marketing, alternate revenue streams, gym code of conduct, social media, things that you wish you had known in your first year of running a gym. Whatever.
We've already got a long list of steps that we know we need to take and changes that we want to make. But I figure the more input we get from experienced gym owners, the less likely we are to overlook some important detail because we were too busy attending to everything else that needed doing.
The gym has always been kind of chaotic and teetering on the edge of profitability. My coach is a good guy and a top-notch martial artist, but not really much of a manager or businessperson. In recent months the level of management had dropped even lower as various health issues prevented him from attending to business necessities.
Over the weekend, we found out that due to his health, my coach was going to be moving out of state to be close to the rest of his family and that the gym was going to be closed down. This caused much consternation among those who love the gym and its place in Kentucky martial arts history. I was also very concerned about our current students and making sure that they were taken care of fairly.
As of last night a small group of us signed papers to form an LLC to take over the gym and keep it running. I am now head instructor, co-manager, and part owner. My ownership share is based on sweat equity rather than financial investment. I'm going from being one of 8 instructors teaching 2 nights per week to being the head coach, teaching 4 nights per week as well as working to design a cohesive curriculum for all the teachers, helping to codify gym policies, and helping to figure out business and financial decisions.
Right now the other managers and I are scrambling to figure out everything from the best products for cleaning mats to whether we should switch membership payment solution companies. (We currently have ASF, which apparently is known to have some issues.)
Fortunately, none of us are in need of deriving an income from the gym. We all have good day jobs. We just need to get things stabilized so that the gym can consistently generate enough revenue to cover expenses, then hopefully profitable enough to invest back into improvements, then any eventual profit coming back to the owners will be just a nice bonus.
Any of you who have experience running a profitable gym, please share any and all advice. General or specific. Best cleaning products, membership payment solutions that you suggest we check out or avoid, student retention policies, marketing, alternate revenue streams, gym code of conduct, social media, things that you wish you had known in your first year of running a gym. Whatever.
We've already got a long list of steps that we know we need to take and changes that we want to make. But I figure the more input we get from experienced gym owners, the less likely we are to overlook some important detail because we were too busy attending to everything else that needed doing.
