If you want to transform your gym into a profit powerhouse, upselling and cross-selling products and services should be the first place you look when trying to enhance retention and increase gym revenue.
Rule No. 1: There’s always less friction and fewer obstacles when trying to get your current clients to pay you more for their amazing results than there is when trying to start fresh with new clients. After all, your current clients already know, like and trust you. They’ve already gotten amazing results, and believe you are the key to getting even better results faster.
But when it comes to physical training and nutritional practices, there’s a point of diminishing returns. Sometimes, a client needs a little something extra to continue getting results … or, get better results in less time with minimal additional effort on their part.
These extras are built-in ways for you to help your clients do even better and increase gym revenue at the same time. They could include things like meal plans, nutrition coaching, supplements, travel workouts and even portable equipment that helps your client keep up with the workout routine while traveling or on the go.
As a gym owner, the concepts of upselling and cross-selling need to be ingrained in your vocabulary if you are looking to enhance retention and increase gym revenue.
First, let’s focus on upselling opportunities that you may be missing out on in your fitness business.
Upselling is a way to elevate a client to your next level of service. They’re already engaged with you, and upselling is a way to deepen their commitment and engagement and help them get even better results by taking advantage of upgraded services you offer.
Some examples of upselling opportunities are:
Membership Upgrades: Maybe your client is getting good results with a 2 times per week training plan, but would get better results by bumping up their training frequency to 3 or even 4 times a week. Everybody wins. The client gets better results, and you increase gym revenue at the same time.
Nutrition Coaching: One of the best upselling strategies is offering nutrition coaching as an add-on to training programs. This service goes beyond exercise routines, providing clients with personalized dietary guidance that complements their fitness goals. Certified nutrition coaches can assess individual needs, create tailored meal plans, monitor progress, and ensure clients achieve optimal results. By offering this valuable service, you can significantly increase gym revenue while promoting overall well-being and customer satisfaction (which in turn will increase retention rates).
Meal Plans: As a caring fitness pro, you probably preach the importance of a habit-based approach. And you’ve probably also encountered those clients who say, “Just tell me what to eat.” Meal plans are a great way to meet a client where they are and also increase gym revenue. Whether generated by you (if you’re certified to do so and it’s in your scope of practice) or by a software that taps into registered dietitian recommendations, meal plans remove all the guesswork from what a client is supposed to eat, and how much. Building meal plans into your pricing for training programs can enhance the perceived value of memberships, attract new clients, and increase gym revenue by catering to individuals seeking comprehensive fitness solutions (not just workouts).
Now let’s look at some cross-selling opportunities that may be flying under the radar in your fitness business … and causing you to leave hundreds or even thousands of dollars on the table.
Unlike membership upgrades, nutrition coaching and meal plans, cross-selling opportunities are offerings that are adjacent to your core product (such as personal training). Rather than elevating your client to a new level of service, you’re introducing a product or service that they can add “on the side” and improve the results they get from the core service.
Here are a few examples of cross-selling opportunities that could help you significantly increase gym revenue without having to acquire a single new client:
Supplements: Offering supplements is perhaps the simplest way to use cross-selling to increase gym revenue while helping your clients get better results faster … which will help them stay with you longer. Think about it: If the thing holding your client back from having the slender body she wants is insufficient protein intake, you can solve that problem by offering a high-quality whey protein isolate supplement. If the client struggles to incorporate enough fruits and vegetables throughout the day, a potent multivitamin can be their ticket to better health and results. By offering game-changing supplements as a cross-sell, you’re not asking your client to increase their training frequency or upgrade to a more expensive coaching program. You’re just asking them to do what supplements suggest … supplement their diet with game-changing nutrients that will enhance their results (and help you increase gym revenue).
Travel Workouts: For clients who travel a lot, offering travel workout programs can be a game-changer. These programs should be designed to accommodate limited space and equipment availability. By providing clients with customized workouts that they can perform on the road, gym owners demonstrate their commitment to clients’ fitness goals, even when they are away. This personal touch enhances clients’ perception of the value provided by the gym, which promotes loyalty, boosts retention and helps you increase gym revenue.
Home Stretching Programs: Stiffness, tightness and joint pain are among the biggest factors holding many of your clients back from achieving their dream-come-true result. To cater to clients’ needs beyond gym sessions, consider offering home stretching programs. Stretching plays a crucial role in flexibility, injury prevention and recovery. Providing written instructions or video tutorials for various stretching routines allows clients to incorporate a comprehensive fitness routine into their daily lives. This additional service not only enhances client satisfaction, but it also increases retention and revenue by becoming an indispensable part of their fitness journey.
It’s clear that offering additional services and complementary products can allow gym owners to increase gym revenue by providing enhanced value and faster results. But how can you maximize the effectiveness of these up-selling and cross-selling strategies?
As with most aspects of a fitness business, it’s all about tracking and communication. And that’s where Naamly can help.
Here are a few ways that Naamly can help you identify clients who are prime candidates to take advantage of your upselling and cross-selling products and services, so they get better results faster, stay longer and pay you more:
Results Tracking: Using the results tracking feature in Naamly, you can quickly identify when a client is falling off track or plateauing. You can assign a team member, or even yourself, to have a follow-up conversation. The status of communication with the client is updated in real time, so all your team members know where things stand. The result could be a cross-sell of supplements of travel workouts, or something more substantial, like a membership upgrade or 1×1 nutrition program. In any case, you’ll be able to help your client get back on track before they get discouraged and quit, and help them achieve a better result by paying you more for your services … both of which will increase gym revenue.
Education: People have a funny way of assigning little or no value to things they don’t understand. Inform prospects and clients that the add-ons you offer provide personalized guidance and targeted solutions. For instance, a nutrition coaching add-on can accelerate progress by tailoring dietary strategies to meet individual goals. Emphasize how the expertise and customized approach of a certified nutrition coach can lead to more efficient and effective outcomes. By using Naamly to identify clients who are stagnating or falling behind, you can customize your communication with them, optimize their engagement, maximize their results and increase gym revenue.
Improved Team Communication: Depending on the size and scale of your gym, you may be able to use Naamly to ensure that you and your team members are on the same page when it comes to client progress and needs. For example, a coach filling out her post-session notes in Naamly might say, “Suzie expressed that she’s been feeling really stiff and tight lately when she wakes up in the morning.” This is an invitation to you, the gym owner, to offer Suzie a home stretching program that solves her problem and allows you to increase gym revenue. As with all aspects of running an efficient and effective training gym, ensuring that all team members can easily access client notes and session notes is key to making sure that opportunities to increase gym revenue don’t fall through the cracks.
If you’re looking to increase gym revenue in 2024, upselling and cross-selling opportunities are going to be crucial to your success. It’s all about having your clients get better results faster by upgrading their relationship with you.
With the right system in place – including tracking and communication with Naamly – you can speed up and enhance your clients’ progress, make them happier, and leave them more satisfied and eager to continue paying you more and more for your expertise.
If you’d like a simple guide for how to turn your training gym intp a profit powerhouse … by attracting, engaging and monetizing like never before – you should check out our “Fitness Business Boost Bundle.”
The “Fitness Business Boost Bundle” has everything you need to increase retention, hire your next start trainer so you can grow and scale, and add new clients without spending a single dollar on Facebook ads.
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