All business owners have a unique set of challenges, and gym owners are no exception. As with any business, you struggle to maximize your efforts and to get the biggest return from your time. The best way to maximize that return is to be systematic about improving workflows.
Let’s start by identifying your “core competencies.” This is the term we’ll use to describe those business tasks that led you to go into business in the first place. As a fitness professional, your core competencies might look like this:
- Helping people achieve their fitness goals
- Leading clients to have that ‘aha’ moment with their health
- Guiding others to break through their fitness plateaus
In a perfect world, these are the things you’d spend the majority of your time doing – and with good reason. This is what makes you a successful business owner. This is what keeps members using your services.
This is what you brings you passion and reignites your energy!
So, why is it then that this is such a small part of your daily work, while you’re investing countless hours handling other parts of your business?
The reality is that business owners will always need to invest a certain amount of time handling the administrative elements of their business. A good friend once said to me that a CEO has three responsibilities:
- Define the culture of the company
- Hire the right people
- Keep from running out of money
As a small business owner, it’s likely that you feel as if you’re hardly able to keep your lips and nose above the water line. So, for the next step, make a list of those things that you feel you are spending the majority of your time doing. Many fitness business owners have a list that looks like this:
- Chasing down payments
- Signing up new members
- Processing payments for concessions/smoothies/equipment/gear
- Planning and collecting payments for special events
If these items are making your list as well, a proper payment processing system would save you considerable time – and most importantly – allow you to reinvest that time in the parts of your business where you can drive a real difference.
Benefits of Accepting Payments With PaySimple:
1. Recurring billing
The future is now – and if your business is doing upwards of 95% of its revenue in recurring memberships, you can hardly afford not to take advantage of an automated, recurring billing system. A payment processing system can transform the manual, tedious task of billing your customers on a consistent schedule and transform it into a ‘set-it-and-forget-it’ automation.
With PaySimple, you can choose to assign a member to this automated recurring billing schedule – you’ll receive notifications if their card fails to process, or if their card is nearing expiration, but otherwise you will have a hands-off system that allows you to spend less time chasing down payments and more time building your business.
2. Accepting payments online
If you spend countless hours each week helping clients sign up for your classes and accepting payments from them, it’s time for an upgrade. With an online store, you can schedule classes and make them available to view online. Imagine starting your next yoga or cycling class knowing that every one of your students signed up online and paid ahead of time!
If you’re looking for a payment solution that is just as streamlined but a little bit simpler, a buy now button might be the answer.
3. Processing cards on the fly
The internet is great for a lot of things, but sometimes you need to process a credit card at the point of sale. With a payment processing software, this too is possible. PaySimple offers ‘swipers’ to allow you to plug into a tablet or smartphone in order to process any major credit card on the spot. Yes, this saves you a ton of time when completing the transaction, but more importantly, it allows you to integrate all of your payments into one software since it’s still connected to the PaySimple brand.
Stop trying to juggle three different ways to process payments – if you’re using multiple payment solutions (one for concession sales, another for memberships, etc.) the result is just more work for your accountant (and dollars from your bottom line).
In short, a payment processing solution will save countless hours for you and your employees. In the world of small business ownership, this translates to lower labor costs and the ability for you to jump deeper into your core competencies. I’ve worked with countless businesses and focusing on those core competencies are the one element that make the biggest difference. Is it time for you to make the switch?
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