Exercise is a healthy and natural part of everyday life, and many Americans today get their exercise from playing sports, cardio activities, martial arts, or going to the local gym or fitness center. Many statistics about this are being kept and tracked to see just how much Americans are going out to exercise, and the numbers suggest a strong and solid industry for gyms and weight training. This can be highly rewarding for gym and fitness club members, but it’s also a business. This means that many aspects of running a business can be found here, such as startup money, buying or renting the premises, gym management system, health club software, and more. A billing system for gyms, meanwhile, is a fine way to gather income and revenue while running a fitness club. A gym management system may be installed when the gym’s owner hires IT professionals to get it all set up, and member accounts, staff salaries, equipment purchases, and more can be tracked with such a gym management system. A proper gym has an office and computers to run these gym management systems day and night. How might this work?
Americans and Exercise Today
Not every single adolescent or adult American lives an active lifestyle, but many do, and they are meeting the American Heart Association’s guidelines for aerobics and weight training. What do modern surveys and studies show? The single largest demographic for going to gyms and fitness centers is Americans aged 20 to 64, a fairly broad group of people. In particular, Millennials, those young adults born from 1982 to 1995, are a large sub-set of that exercising demographic. Nielsen Global Consumer Exercise Trends surveys show that around 45% of them, nearly half, are exercising regularly. This may involve a home workout, group aerobics at the park, and of course, going to their local gym. Overall, some 58 million Americans, Millennials or not, are going to gyms or health clubs every year, and that’s practically one in six Americans (counting even small children). On average, a gym member will go to their local gym twice per week, and there’s plenty to choose from. Nearly 30,500 such gums and health clubs can be found across the United States today.
Setting Up a Gym
It’s clear that Americans love going to the gym to get some exercise done, creating quite a large market for this. An entrepreneur who wants to open a gym may follow some general steps to set up a new gym or fitness center, or renovate a current one. Starting a business is a formidable undertaking, but there are some basic overall steps to follow. the gym owner may rent an existing property, or even have one built if they’re part of a larger company or corporation. Existing premises might be renovated somewhat to update their hardware and look more appealing.
The new owner will also purchase some equipment to put in the gym, since there’s more to a gym than running on an indoor track (though that’s important too). A great gym will have all sorts of machines and items for working out, and the gym owner may look for wholesale gym equipment such as barbell weights, exercise benches, larger workout machines, exercise and medicine balls, foam mats, stationary bikes, and more. In fact, some gyms are known to have an indoor pool as well.
Aside from equipment, the owner will hire staff ranging from the janitors and repair experts to exercise class coaches, who may teach gym members a spin class, martial arts, and more. Such professionals and their guidance may make a gym highly appealing.
All of this must be managed, and a management system for gyms is just the thing. The gym will include offices where the owners and other upper managers will work, and specialized software can help track everything from staff salaries to equipment purchases to rent payment to memberships. A gym gets its income from ordinary people buying and using their memberships, and swiping cards to prove their membership each time they arrive. Quality gym management systems will track income and expenses as well as maintain a list of all gym members. This may hep the owner determine if they should advertise to bring in more members.
