Extra ways your fitness centre can make money

 

If you’re in the fitness industry, you’re familiar with the peaks and troughs of revenue throughout the year. You bring in the New Year with a spike from the good intentions of resolutions, but come winter you’ve probably noticed a slump. With a little creative thinking, you can add additional revenue streams to keep the money coming in all year round.

 

Products and merchandise

Retail products are an easy way to increase revenue. Bottles of water and protein bars may seem obvious, but there are plenty of other products that fitness goers often need (and forget). Socks, deodorant, towels, yoga mats, supplements and even ready-made meals for breakfast and dinner can all provide profitable returns from sale.

 

‘Holiday plans’ instead of ‘holiday pauses’

Clients going on holidays can hit fitness businesses in two ways. One, they put their payments on pause and two, they often lose motivation to return once back from their trip. Offering a personalised holiday fitness plan for a small fee both offsets the pause of their membership and keeps your client motivated to return to training. 

 

Fun training days

Keep things fresh by offering your clients unique fitness workouts once a month. Organise a group to go stand-up paddle boarding, kayaking, rock climbing or trampolining. Bundle it with lunch, transport and a few extras and you’ll have a great day. And importantly, make a nice profit on the top!

 

Corporate offerings

Employers who truly care about the health and wellbeing of their employees often benefit through fewer sick days and higher job satisfaction (and therefore lower staff turnover rates). As a fitness professional, you could offer:

 

Corporate training

Whether it’s a boot camp in the local park or company-subsidised memberships, many organisations are happy to contribute financially to the fitness of their employees.

Newsletter contributions

Medium to large organisations often send internal newsletters to staff and those responsible for writing them are always looking for content to go in them. Offering to write a small article or provide weekly or monthly fitness tips could not only earn you payment for each addition, it’s great marketing for your business.

Workshops and conferences

Similarly, big organisations regularly have ‘team days’ where they discuss new strategies and fill employees in on changes within the business. The after-lunch session is often filled with low-energy people and a guest speaker to break things up is well received.

 

Renting space after hours

If you own a premises with open studio space for group fitness, it may be viable to rent the space to third parties during times when your business is closed. Dancers, choreographers and martial arts instructors may be happy to use the space late at night or on weekend evenings.

 

Go digital

Fitness blogs and YouTube channels can offer a handsome return in advertising revenue as well as serve as a promotion for your business. Also consider whether you can offer online fitness plans or offer to consult with bloggers, magazines and app developers.

 

Offer a holistic approach to health

Talk to professionals in different fields of the health industry about working with your client database. Dieticians, life coaches, physios, nutritionists, naturopaths and even beauty salons all have a similar target market to fitness businesses. Talk to them about referral incentives or arranging a package deal to sell to clients. Day clinics or workshops in your fitness centre (if you have the space) is a value-add for clients and can be monetised.

So don’t despair if sales have hit a slump or your cash flow is getting too unpredictable, there are always simple and effective ways to add more revenue to your fitness business.