by: Shannon Cook, Fitness Marketing Consltant and expert in How to open a 24 Hour Gym

Yes the power company will come to your business and help you find ways to lower your power bill for your gym business like they did for me.

The summer’s in Alabama are as hot as a blistered butt rash and my power bill almost doubled. I did everythign Icould think of to lower it like insulating the ceilings and making sure the air conditioner was maintained, but the air conditioner runs non stop when its 110 degrees outside.

The power company sent out an employee to do a power audit for me. He told me I could combine the 6 power meters into 2 and save $50 per meter because they charge $50 per meter plus power usage, which i did not know. I saved $200 per month just by doing that one thing.

Then he went through my gym. He told me to turn the water heaters down to 115 to 125 degrees to keep them  from working so hard to heat water to a high temp.

Then we looked at my lighting. He recommended i take the old strip lighting out that required T-12 bulbs and install the new energy efficient T-8 lights. Actually I had 28 lights to begin with, but with the light output of the new T-8 bulbs, I only have 13 now, and it puts out way more light and the ballast that run the bulbs are about 1/4 the size of the old ballast and don’t even get hot like the old ballast. If you have an acoustical ceiling with lay in lights, then you can get the new lay in lights with the T-8 small bulbs, or you can get a T-8 conversion kit for the old lights if you want to but it’s about as difficult as being married to my ex-wife to install. I also recommend getting the daylight type of bulbs because they are brighter and put off a better quality of light.

Then the guy suggested I install motion switches for all lighting. Here is where I went through hell backwards with gasoline underwear on. I wanted good switches that were easy to set and worked even if members were 50′ across the gym. I ordered the best motion activated light switches amazon offered, which was about $60 apiece.

Well, needless to say, I spent hours upon hours trying to set them to work right. I turned the setting a tiny bit to make it stay on for a few more minutes extra, but they wouldn’t come on at all then. I have about 6 switches all together so you can see how frustrating this was. I finally went to Lowe’s and got a $20 motion switch and put one in. It worked perfect and was easy to set for the correct 15 minute time limit I needed in the main gym area. The bathrooms and child play room have 5 minute time limits. Time limits meaning if their is no motion detected for the set time, then it goes off, but when motion is detected it automatically comes on.

Just note that if your going to buy a switch make sure it isn’t ”auto off, manual on”, because it will not come on automatically, you have to press it on which defeats the purpose.

All these power saving changes made a tremendous difference in my overall power bill.

Make sure your ceiling is insulated with the correct amount of insulation also. if you have a drop ceiling or acoustical ceiling, then make sure the insulation is laying correctly and not scattered like a wasp nest in a tornado.

To buy the guide on How to Open a 24 Hour Fitness Center from scratch or convert your Gym into a 24 Hour Gym, go to www.how2ownagym.com

To contact Shannon Cook about Fitness Center Marketing Consulting or writing ads for your gym, email: fitnessmarketing@comcast.net

First, I don’t believe in corporate looking websites that only try to make a brand look good, but doesn’t give the gym prospect any actual info about your gym like prices, equipment, contact info, childcare, programs, actual video tour ( My biggest pet peeve is a gym website having a so called “virtual tour”, but is actually nothing but someone with a digital camera set to video while their turning in a circle making you sick to even watch and makes a treadmill look like a boxing bag). If your doing this, STOP IT!!! your killing your website business.

Next, If you have Flash buttons, a shoddy virtual tour, no email sign up form, content that doesn’t tell the prospect what they want to know, diet info, no pictures of the actual equipment, and one of the most important things is if you don’t have specific keywords on your website pages and web post for SEO keyword optimization, STOP IT TOO!!

Below is a snapshot of my Fitness Center Website, Some people act like my fitness center website is as ugly as a butt rash, but it works and I’ll compare the stats of visits, calls, and email sign ups just from my website to their very corporate looking website.

Notice how simple the gym website is to navigate. I have tweaked it for over 4 years now with all the marketing knowledge and website simplification things I’ve learned from thousands of hours of studying marketing and website design and SEO 

Now look at this snap fitness website. It has no email sign up form for them to keep prospects thinking about them, no video, no compelling content except one offer for a week free. I’m sure since they have a big brand name it does ok, but my gym is in a town where snap fitness is also, but i have double the membership they have, they also don’t do any marketing to speak of.

You think being a big name like snap fitness they would have a staff of Internet marketers, NOT JUST WEBSITE DESIGNERS, because most designers are just that, not marketers, I am a fitness marketer first, then web designer. Snap fitness is a great gym and the owners have done a great job, but it cost them about 1 to 1.5 million to open a snap fitness. I have less than $100,000 in mine from start to finish. Which would you rather do, own your own, or a franchise that tells you where to pee and how to do it. I’ve got an ex wife, it’s not for me but may be for you. HIRE SOMEONE TO WRITE YOUR FITNESS MARKETING MATERIALS, don’t follow what all the other gyms are doing.

Now, I haven’t wanted to learn how to build websites from scratch though, I have learned to read web code, but not enough to build a site from scratch because you don’t need to these days for most businesses. I use templates now to build my customers websites, that way i can concentrate on the content that gets customers to even find the website to start with. You do however need to know some coding to install stuff like email forms and install videos and put headline tags in the right places for SEO optimization.

Below is an example of some website statistics from a website I built to replace a website that got from 0 to 3 hits a day before i built this one with specific content. notice the increase from 1 the first few days to over 150 hits a day within a month after i got the content added in several post and pages and optimized for search engines

I build website just like mine for many industries and people. want to see some more websites like mine? here are a few. www.thebamabelle.com and www.herringfitness.com and www.templegym.tv 

Notice how Herring Fitness website is identical to mine at Temple Gym except colors. The owner of herring fitness is NFL New Orleans Saints Player Will Herring #54 from Auburn Alabama and formerly played for the Seattle Sea hawks for 4 years. Will hired me to be a consultant to open his gym and set it up as a 24 hour fitness center since he is away most of the year in New Orleans. I built his website and he gets between 40 and 120 hits a day on an average week, which is about what i get at my gym.

Other gyms may get a lot of visits but they probably only get a phone # or address without getting convincing evidence that sells them on that gym

If you try to get a website built from scratch you’ll spend from $2,500 to $5,000. But I can build a website like mine for under $1000 including editing a video tour that you shoot and send me, also all the specific copy writing SEO which is most important to drive prospects to your website when they search for a gym in your town. You’ll also get a video of me showing you how to go to your admin control panel and change or add stuff so you can do it yourself from then on.

By the way, my gym website video tour pre sells my gym memberships to roughly 90% of my new gym members. They come in to sign up instead of just look around now. I start to show everyone around and they say “I already know how everything works, i watched your video tour”. I basically took the idea of showing one person around and made that a video. so its like they are the camera following me around just like their there in person. except now, i don’t have to take 10 to 15 min showing them around the gym.

Need a website for your gym or fitness center? email Shannon Cook at fitnessmarketing@comcast.net  

www.fitnessmarketing.tv

In this video Will talks about his experience’s with the system and opening a gym form scratch.

Want to know what kind of door access and software systems Fitness Centers like Snap Fitness, Anytime Fitness, and 24 hour Fitness use to automate their gyms? Here’s a complete system I use at my gym, Temple Gym, and I recommend my clients use to automate their gyms. It’s a complete system that comes with door access, gym software, and security system.
Shannon Cook of www.fitnessmarketing.tvinterviews Will Herring, New Orleans Saints Player #54, about the 24 hour gym access system (firebug software system) and how he used the book, “HOW TO OPEN A GYM OR CONVERT A GYM INTO A 24 HOUR GYM”, available at www.how2ownagym.com to open his gym, Herring Fitness 24 hour gym in Auburn Alabama. Shannon owns Temple Gym in Tuscaloosa Alabama www.templegym.tv

Curtis was right, and I like to give credit where credit is due, that’s what I do here at this website, I don’t act like I came up with everything Ido that works for marketing my fitness center and others I do consulting for.

Curtis Mock also has a great web show called Fitness Business Television. I highly recommend you check it out at www.fitbiz.tv

So after I got my Fitness Gift Cards I started offering them at a discount like 1/2 off for special occasions but mostly selling them at face value of $165 which is good for a 3 month single membership or 2 months family membership to my 24 hour gym and tanning salon. You can do the face value of the cards in many ways but I like to use them at an exact price of 3 months membership because its easier for me to keep up with them in my Gym Software System by Firebug Software.

I am a consuatant to and Helped Will Herring #54 line backer for the New Orleans Saints NFL team , open his Gym in Auburn Alabama called Herring Fitness 24 hour Fully Automated Gym.

 I got him to get the gift cards also, and he just did the face value at $100 good towards a membership which is fine too, you can see some of the specials I have him run on his website at www.herringfitness.com . I also have Will do email subscribers only specials which I do also to my email list. You can see how I have my gift cards for sale on my website at www.templegym.tv , I have great success in getting subscribers with the email sign up form on my website that says in the form that if they subscribe they will get email only specials. 

The thing I found out about gift cards is the same thing most retailers know. That is there’s a lot of people that will buy but never cash the cards in, and you basically come out keeping the money for no service, which is good but I like to have them coming in so they will most likely continue using the gym and become regular members.

I also give a large amount of gift cards away to those Ican tell will actually use a membership and hopefully will bring in friends, which most will. I always keep them with me, I have a knack for reading people that will appreciate and use the gift cards, and will spread the word about my gym to all their friends and family.

Can you imagine someone giving you a $165 gift card for anything, and it being real and valuable. They cant believe it most of the time, I made sure to have my website address and info on the back of the gift card so they can go to my website and see for themselves.

Will Herring is experimenting now with giving away some cards, he is reluctant to begin with, but like the 30 day guarantee I got him to give at him gym, he will see it works just like the trust the 30 day guarantee builds by just offering it.

I also do one major thing that Will Herring is just starting to do now. When a new member signs up at my gym or his, I send out a thank you letter, along with how the gym operates in case there’s no one there when they come in, being that we are a 24 Hour Fully Automated Fitness Center. Along with that letter I send out a free gift card included in every envelope. But the catch is they cant use the cards for their current membership, they must give them away to anyone that isn’t a member.

I have more success with this one fitness marketing tactic, than almost any other I use.

The next tactic is to sell the gift cards at a great discount, say my $165 card for two for one or even three for one.

Believe me it they will pay for themselves and bring in more people than just about another way of using fitness gift cards to market with.

 I don’t make a dime from selling the gift cards, I like the cards because they work ,and Curtis is a stand up guy and great at what he does, so I recommend if you are in the market for fitness gift cards, visit his website at www.fitnessgiftcards.com and get your art work started today and pick your colors and raised letter option and the magnetic strip option on the back so they look authentic. they will ship them to you within about 2 weeks most of the time.

Look at mine on my website and copy some info if you wish, but the robot logo is mine and cant be copied without my consent, but I will license it out if your interested. the website to view my gift cards is www.templegym.tv. then search gift cards.

Also if you like the website I use Ican build you a fitness center website for your gym. A website for your gym that will in most cases will pull way more prospects than your competitors site.

Websites i like to use are a template videos, aweber email contact form,stats tracker,seo friendly, everything you need to crush your gym competition. Simply contact me with any questions and Ican get a estimate to you, i use a template for most of the gyms I open and they end up drawing more traffic than all the competition combined like I do and Will Herring does also in his town.

Don’t believe me? I have stats of exactly how many visitors come to all my gym websites including Will Herring’s

I charge a set rate , but add ons are extra like the video. If you shoot thevideo and post it to YouTube, I can simply install it into the site and maximize the keywords for that video so it will be found when searching for your gym because google loves videos now.

let me know if I can do anything for you, and god bless!  Shannon Cook  consultant to the fitness industry, email: fitnessmarketing@comcast.net

Learn from Shannon C. Cook, a current gym owner, general contractor, commercial building landlord, and Fitness Marketing Expert, how to go from your IDEA to the Grand Opening of your Fitness Center.

Also, how to convert an existing gym into a 24 hour fitness center by installing a 24 hour automated door access system, 911 system, and security cameras, and if that’s not enough, the gym door access system comes with a gym and fitness center management software system

 I’m so positive you will know everything about how to start a gym form scratch after reading this book, that i’m giving you 182.5 days, that’s 6 months to try it, and if you dont like it, return it for a full refund

Why listen to me?

Because I did everything wrong before I did anything right, but fortunately I stuck with it and found some very successful businessmen to guide me, and innovated by turning my gym into a 24 hour fully automated gym, then spent over $15,000 to learn marketing the old fashioned way.

 Here’s what you’ll learn:

HOW TO:

• Research and Decide what kind of gym you want to open, from a 24 hour automated fitness center like the very popular 24 hour fitness and snap fitness, to a womens only gym     
• Incorporating or LLC?
• Partnerships 
• Franchise
• Buy an Existing Club
• Business Plan and Executive Summary
•  Writing the Plan  
•  Funding your Start up                                            
•  Accounting for every dollar, for success             
•  Naming your Gym   
•  Becoming a Spy                                                     
•  Location, Location, Location   
•  Electrical
•  Lighting 
•  Air Conditioner and Heat Electrical needs           
• Cable or Satellite hook up                                     
• Phone service                                                         
• Negotiating the Lease                                             
• Choosing signage for Marketing your Gym          
• Painting the interior of your gym                           
• Insurance
• Plans Drawn up for the building                            
• The Build out                                                           
• Getting the Permit for the Build out                       
• Mirrors
• Gym Equipment                                                      
• Parts for gym equipment                                        
• Flooring
• Pro Shop Vendors                                                    
• Office Equipment                                                      
• Security System                                                        
• Automated Door Access System                            
• Gym Management Software                                      
• Energy Efficiency in your building                          
• Motion Switches for Lighting                                   
• Ceiling Fans                                                               
• Sound Systems and Cardio Theaters                     
• Electronic Funds Transfer, (EFT) Bank Draft           
• Accepting Credit Cards                                             
• Childcare   
• Waivers
• Hiring Employees                                                      
• Hiring Personal Trainers                                           
• WIFI for members to use                                          
• Lockers for your locker room                                  
• Press Release Writing                                               
• Marketing Checklist                                                  
• Email Marketing                                                          
• Website for your gym                                                
• Google Adwords                                                        
• The Grand Opening                                                   
• Mailing List Companies                                             
• Social Networking 

If you want to know all the wrong things I did, here they are some.

• When I opened I picked the wrong location
•  used the wrong subcontractors
•  bought exercise equipment from the wrong people and also bought the wrong equipment
•  finished my concrete floor with too little sealer
•  painted some rooms the wrong colors for the right psychological effect (which you’ll learn)    
• Made the tanning bed rooms too small
• Offered childcare when I wasn’t set up for it correctly
• Hired the wrong employees
• Hired the wrong personal trainers
• Installed the wrong size air conditioner
• Signed contracts for phone lines that I could have negotiated for a lot less
• Used the wrong lighting
• Got sued for $190,000 because of a contract that really didn’t exist (here’s where I made the biggest mistake in believing lady justice is blind, really justice has one eye open, and she’s looking for $$$ not justice), so learn what not to do.

I then turned my business around completely and figured out on my own what no one else would tell me, and I don’t blame them, after all, they learned the way I did.

 182.5 Day/6 month Unlimited Guarantee!!!

Anyone who has a dream of opening a business, and won’t invest in researching the in’s and out’s before going into it, doesn’t deserve to be in business, and probably won’t be for long anyway!!!

Over 175 pages, Instantly downloadable ebook now for only $39.99

 I made a very simple video tour of my gym TEMPLE GYM, because i kept getting calls and emails about how the 24 hour thing works, and rightly so, because that’s part of the sales persons job.

To learn every deatil of ”how to open a 24 hour gym from scratch”, click here www.how2ownagym.com

Watch my gym video tour, then read on to discover how i did it.

If you want to see my site its at www.templegym.tv

So, I will tell you what to do. First off, don’t try to go to school for video editing to learn how to make a great explosive video, your not going to the Film festival, are you? here’s what to do.

Please don’t ever get a digital camera and stand in one place and turn around in circles, when someone watches it online it will make you dizzy, not to mention that you cant even tell whats what because it looks like you were standing in front of a circus mirror.

Now here’s what to do:

• get a digital or video camera, or you could even use a good cell phone if the picture is good enough.
• have someone film you starting in the parking lot, just like you met them out there to greet them.
• DONT PAY ATTENTION TO THE CAMERA AT ALL, look at the person holding the camera and act just like you do when someone comes in to visit and see how your gym works.
• give that camera holder your undivided attention and smile and even laugh if your funny.
• just talk in simple terms that a 4th grader can understand, don’t get technical, you may have a few people wanting the technical answers, but not the average gym visitor.
• don’t have a model do the video, you want it to look very homemade, that’s why you tube is so popular.
• Get a You Tube Account
• upload the video to you tube, and now you tube actually has an editing feature built in. Cut out whatever you need to. I have a simple editing program called ULEAD VIDEO STUDIO, but you don’t need any of that.
• All i cut out of my gym video was the beginning where i messed up and the end where it took a minute to cut off the camera and some in between where i was opening the door and she almost dropped the camera. I even added text clouds to some of it.
• Upload the final edited video.
• wait for google to finish the uploading.
• They’ll give you an “embed” code that you can cut and paste into your site wherever you want.

 Good luck.

 To learn every deatil of ”how to open a 24 hour gym from scratch”, click here www.how2ownagym.com