Welcome to Sports Facility Expert – your one-stop shop for building, running and growing your sports facility
How to Move Your Clients from “Should” to “Will” for Their Fitness Goals
It’s really difficult to change eating habits and fitness habits. Getting our clients to make lasting change is key to our own business success.
The fact is that many of our clients can’t or won’t take the steps required to make healthy changes without someone encouraging them and holding them accountable.
An Unconventional Cure for Empty Daytime Hours: Preschool Programming
It’s not especially tough to fill our sports academies when kids are out of school. But during school hours, most of our facilities are sitting practically empty.
There’s one type of revenue source that we haven’t discussed yet. It may be a great strategy to fill many of your slow daytime hours: Hosting sports themed preschool activities.
Top Posts of 2017
As the year comes to a close, I always like to look back and reflect on the things we covered throughout the year on the blog. I look in Google Analytics to see which posts got the most visits, then list them again for anyone who may not have had a chance to read them […]
A New Real Estate Option for Your Sports Facility
Finding and paying for the right space can be difficult. Big, open indoor spaces tend to cost a lot of money. Sports facility owners also face big energy bills and the costs of maintenance.
So, I was interested to read some trend pieces that explain how it may actually be getting easier for fitness businesses to score prime real estate.
Your Sports Facility’s Plan for Inclement Winter Weather
Have you ever driven through the snow for an appointment, only to realize that the appointment had been cancelled? Miscommunication costs much more than fees from cancelled lessons or classes. Customers experiencing this are less likely to return.
Incidents like this are almost always due to a need for better systems and processes. Review how you handle those communications now, before inclement winter weather arrives.
Understanding Your Sports Facility’s Sales Funnel
The most valuable services at your sports facility usually require a big investment from your clients. And big investments aren’t made on a whim. People might sign up for a one-off camp or even a birthday party without much deliberation, but that’s not the case for long-term memberships and training packages. These bigger products are […]
Tips for Photography at Your Sports Facility
Images are a huge part of your sports facility’s marketing. Unfortunately, I see SO many bad photos in sports facility marketing.
Lack of natural light and always-moving athletes make it pretty tricky to get a clear shot without some serious equipment and expertise.
However, there are ways to get great photos. Here are some ways that have worked for me and other facilities.
Seasonal Sports Marketing: Three Points for Your Facility
As your sports academy transitions from busy season to slow season and back again, creating seasonal sports marketing and staying ahead of it will be a necessity.
If you’re struggling to plan your marketing more than a few weeks or months ahead of time, it’s time to try a simpler method.
Even a marketing plan that only covers the basics can make a huge difference in your bottom line.
Do You Need One-On-One Help with Your Sports Business?
For a while now, I’ve avoided offering consulting services. I’ve wanted to focus my time and mental energy on my sports facility scheduling software instead. When owners have come to me for advice on sports facility management, I typically direct them to this blog, where I’ve already covered most of the topics they ask about. […]
Planning a Parents’ Night Out at Your Sports Facility
You need to keep your space full for as many hours of the week as possible. That’s one of the pillars of running a profitable sports facility. And for many boutique-type sports academies, it’s easy enough to do during after-school hours and weekend days. What’s left is to fill in the gaps — such as […]
Before You Invest Money in a Sports Facility, Read This
Lots of aspiring sports facility owners lack the cash to get started. If they want their own space, they start out small, or seek funding from banks or partners. A second group of aspiring owners, however, already has the cash. These owners often don’t have experience training athletes. They’re just looking for a good financial […]
How to Create Sports Facility Sponsorship Packages
We sports facility owners are always looking for ways to boost our profits. So if local businesses partner with us by sponsoring our teams, players or programs, it can be a big win. There many ways to structure sponsorship packages successfully. However, there are also lots of ways to let sponsorships distract from your mission […]
Marketing Research Basics for Sports Facilities
Every potential business starts with a great idea — or at least what seems like one. Getting market data for your sports academy is one way to test whether your idea will hold up. Detailed market research is essential if you’re seeking investors or plan to purchase a big piece of physical property. However, it’s […]
To Fix Your Programming, Focus on Your Ideal Customer
Introduction When it comes to creating sports academy programming, we often get it backwards. First, we get excited about a new technique or idea to help our athletes. Then, we try to convince our customers how cool it is. We should start by focusing on our customers’ problems instead. When we package programs as tailored […]
Managing a Sports Facility: Cash Flow Can Kill
There are lots of factors that go into opening and managing a sports facility. But just one truly determines your business fate. That factor is cash. If you have enough on any given day to cover your expenses, you can stay open. If not, you’ll shut down. Keeping enough cash on hand trips up a […]
The Top 3 Energy Killers at Sports Facilities
You can feel a sports facility’s energy as soon as you walk inside.
Over years of working with sports facilities, I’ve noticed that certain factors tend to creep up and drain our sports facilities’ energy. These energy killers can be tough for most owners. Do any apply to your facility?
Unreasonable Team Parents? These Baseball Teams Don’t Have Any
One of the biggest headaches involved with running a sports academy that hosts teams? Unreasonable team parents. Confrontations with these parents are draining, persistent, and distract from important coaching work. That’s why I was so impressed when one of my eSoft Planner clients mentioned he doesn’t have these types of problems in his organization. Anthony […]
Your Sports Academy’s Approach to Preventing Overuse Injuries
We all know that families have been taking youth sports more and more seriously in recent years. This trend toward competitiveness tends to help our businesses. The most dedicated athletes are usually our best clients — they’re happy to spend on quality training for elite skills. But the pressure to perform younger and more frequently can […]
Get More Clients with Better Marketing Messages
Many sports facilities stick to the basics when it comes to marketing. However, even an extra 20 minutes improving your description of a camp, membership, or new instructor can result in another enrollment — and hundreds more dollars in revenue.
Try spending 20 minutes on one of these five simple and free marketing tactics.
Top Posts of 2016
In our day-to-day lives, we tend to put off long-term, big-picture planning in favor of urgent tasks. We also tend to hope for big goals without breaking them down into the smaller tasks that make them possible to reach. This week may be the perfect time to work on both of those things. That’s because […]
Not Letting Clients Schedule Themselves? Here are the Top 3 Excuses I Hear
Letting clients log in to schedule for themselves is a huge benefit for your sports facility. When customers can buy online, it eliminates confusion, cuts admin costs, improves customer service, and can even improve sales. These days, most sports facility owners have already invested in a web-based system that can enable client scheduling. However, too […]