Building a Crossfit business is no easy task, and yes, it might require a little sweat. When coming up with different ideas for your Crossfit box, think of the different factors that can increase membership and galvanize your business. The community, atmosphere, and loyalty perks you provide can turn things from good to great.
Community Building
There isn’t much to a box without a sense of community. It’s a particularly important piece in the world of Crossfit. More than in your traditional gym, the different approaches that you take to foster a supportive community is what makes you special. Introduce new programs and events that are motivating and inspiring. For example, a community board with your box members’ names that tracks their stats and rep records as goals for them to equal or exceed will provide the incentive to push each other into reaching goals. Healthy, supportive competition breeds a closer, tighter community. The individual and interpersonal competition this fosters can be built into a gym-wide competition, such as a member of the month. The member who posts the greatest improvement on aggregate for all exercises wins the coveted award. What’s the award? Perhaps a $100 credit toward in-box drinks and snacks, new gym wear, or even a free month.
Sporting with Sport Teams
Organizing intramural sports teams is another great idea. Nothing builds chemistry and community like working together and competing against other teams to bring home a championship. The name on the front is more important than the name on the back sporting maxim is the ultimate example of affiliation and devotion to a larger entity. The relationships that are built as your sponsored teams compete can become a major selling point and a mainstay in community leagues.
March to the Merch
What you wear says a lot about you. So offer complimentary merch to everyone who joins. Take it up a notch and add in special bonus merch: the longer they stay, the more elaborate the merchandise becomes. At first, it could be a t-shirt with your box logo on it. As members continue to work out and achieve goals, they could score more unique merchandise such as a personalized hoodie, the back printed with how many goals they’ve crushed.
Boot Up Camps & Retreats
Bootcamps are day camp intensives and a great way to reach new members as well as offer your existing membership a different workout atmosphere. They provide face-to-face interaction with the community and informational takeaways and business cards as well as encouraging and even necessitating interaction between non-members and members. This provides a great word-of-mouth promotion while exposing fitness enthusiasts to the supportive and competitive spirit around your gym. Host your Bootcamp in a public park. It will create a stir that attracts onlookers who want to see what you’re about. Posters and signs can inform them of who you are and how you can be reached.
Corporate retreats are another, a more specific approach to the Bootcamp. Making yourself known as a resource to hotels, conference centers, and other locations used for corporate retreats can reap significant benefits. Offering to bring the Bootcamp to them takes one aspect of event planning off their plates and is a great way to build new memberships. Companies want to make sure their employees are mentally refreshed for their intensive strategy sessions while also building camaraderie and a teamwork-oriented environment. Providing that much-needed team-oriented physical portion of the retreat as a break from the mental gymnastics gets your box out of its brick and mortar location and into the community at large.
Big Business is Big Business
Whether you book a corporate retreat or not, approach your corporate neighbors by offering special pricing for its employees. These discounts can be for either the entire corporation as a way to offer employees a benefit of working for the company or in the form of discounts on individual memberships the employees purchase on their own. One or two stellar corporate clients can transform your box from struggling to thriving. Promoting group classes with your corporate partners, special classes, exclusive workouts, and anything else you can think of only serves to deepen the bond you share with your corporate clients as well as their extended employee communities.
Perks
Putting a juice or health bar into the gym that can be paid for by using their monthly auto-pay membership satisfies customers and makes living a healthy lifestyle that much easier. That, in turn, makes them more likely to come into the box more than once a week. You can also stock up on fitness & protein drinks, protein bars, healthy hydrating drinks, and similar products that clients can also grab and have billed directly to their card on file. It’s quick, easy, and convenient. You can also establish partnerships with local health grocery stores, juice bars, yoga studios, Jiu-Jitsu, Kickboxing, and MMA gyms just to name a few. You’re all in the same business of health so why not offer reciprocal discounts. You might even consider group packages with other gyms designed around workouts incorporating varying styles and focuses.
Health is Wealth
Many college students would love to go to the gym more if it weren’t so expensive. That’s where your edge comes in. You can offer special discounts for college students to come to work out in the box. Three free passes (this works well for the community at large as well) to check it out and the special college student pricing works like a charm. Do one better and offer bigger discounts if they make the dean’s list each semester. It shows that if they dedicate themselves to self-improvement in all aspects of their lives, you will support them every step of the way.
To gain even more recognition in the college crowd, tailor college workout times at the gym. Coordinate popular workouts around their morning or afternoon classes. Make the effort to show them you’re doing a lot for them by helping them get their workout in around their hectic schedules.