I don’t have a company monitor mine, I basically monitor it myself. If i have a problem and need to go back and look at something, i simply go back on my digital recorder and look at it. i can even check it from a mobile location from my laptop.

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

The next question i get asked is “what about safety for people coming in late at night or when no ones in the gym to help if they get hurt”.

I use a device called the GUARDIAN ALERT 911 SYSTEM that has a big button on it, and when pressed it dials 911 automatically. The best part about it is its not monitored for a monthly fee. It cost around $150 and that’s it, no fee’s

I have a sign up telling how to use it and also show new members how to use it. it gets used all the time, but no one has had to call on it yet.

It can be found at this link   www.AnActiveLife.com 

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

Thanks for reading , and please post any questions or comments you may have or contact shannon at fitnessmarketing@comcast.net   shannon cook

Automate a proshop in a gym to make money while you sleep.

When i chose to turn my gym into a 24 hour fully automated facility, I knew I hadto automate everything i possibly could to futurize the gym industry.

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

One problem i had was being able to sell all my energy, protein, and NO2 drinks without being there or having to worry about someone taking drinks out of the old glass front freezer because no one was at the counter at the time, or they said they forgot to pay us when they seen us. This was costing us a minimum of $100 a month in drinks.

I researched glass front drink machines that accept up to $5 bills and found a company in Atlanta, Georgia that offered a guarantee and it was only 3 hours from my house. So i went to there warehouse and they were an excellent family owned company that totally redid every part of the machines they got in.

I bought refurbished because they are like new and are about a 1/4 of the cost.

Anyway, i took a can and bottle of each drink i was gonna sell, and made sure they would work.A word of warning, Red Bull small cans wont work in these machines and you can’t buy shims either, coke is the only one that has special machines and makes shims but wont sell them.

I found the right machine at a cost of $1,800 and it was the best investment i could have made.

The company’s name is A & M equipment in Atlanta, GA. I found them on ebay, i believe they ship for a fee.

I highly recommend them for all your vending machine needs because i saw them redoing the machines with my own eyes and they are good.

I also checked into automated machines they carry for snacks and protein bars, and even tanning lotion paks.

My gym isn’t that big so i decided not to carry all that right now.

I have had my machine for over a year without problems yet. 

My revenue went up by $600 per month just in drink sales alone. You can see my drink machine at you tube or my website at www.templegym.tv

Look for ways to automate everything you can, if your like me and want freedom and less headaches.

Attention: here’s a product that specifically helps you how to market fitness centers, gyms, and health clubs cheaply

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

Shannon Cook can be reached by either leaving a comment on this blog or by e-mailing  fitnessmarketing@comcast.net. Shannon specializes in marketing fitness centers and turning your fitness center into a 24 hour gym.

OFFER A 30 DAY MONEY BACK GUARANTEE!!!

Besides me turning my gym into a 24 hour fully automated facility, this one thing has gotten me more members than anything else i can do.

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

I discussed this with other people and they thought just like everyone else, that people would take advantage of my offer. I have signed up over 200 people in the last 8 months and have had only one person get their money back, and that lady didn’t even want her money back, she just wanted to cancel before her contract took effect. However i did give her the money back because i said i would and i also asked her to write a short testimonial for the gym saying how easy it was to get her money back and I use it in my advertising to show people that we really do have a guarantee.

Most gyms are so afraid to lose a member that they make alot of them mad because they hold them to their contracts like concrete and even though they have the right to, they get talked about badly to everyone that person knows and lose alot of potential members in the process.

I took a survey from my members on my website and asked them several questions, but one was “did the 30 day guarantee have anything to do with you signing up”, to my surprise, 85% said yes. 

For some reason no gym in town has tried to copy me on this. To their loss.

I do hold people to their contracts, but if i can tell that person is gonna do harm by talking bad about me and my gym, then i gladly let them out of their contract.

One other thing I reccomend is getting the Book by Dale Carnegie “how to win friends and influence people”. in it he said something that i think has also helped me retain members that really don’t use the gym, they just keep their membership because i get to know them while signing them up. He said, Tell the person your dealing with that you can tell by looking at them and the way they act that they will follow through with their contract because they look and act honorable. You might think that’s flatery, but i mean it when i say it and they can tell i mean it, and it makes them feel honorable. Everyone wants to feel important.

I’m in the process right now of offering a 30 day double your money back guarantee to see how it works. My wife doesn’t like it, but she didn’t think the 30 day regular guarantee was a good idea either, until she saw and heard it in action.

Attention: here’s a product that specifically helps you how to market fitness centers, gyms, and health clubs cheaply

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

Feel free to post comments. thanks, shannon

Shannon Cook can be contacted at  fitnessmarketing@comcast.net for questions about hiring for marketing or turning your gym into a 24 hour gym.

I got down to 60 members at temple gym in Northport, Alabama and knew in order to stay in business i would have to do something besides what all the other gyms did.

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

I got the phone book out and looked at all the other gyms in my town to see what they offered and compared everything they had that i didn’t.

I could see they offered:

• Classes
• kids workout equipment and sitters
• smoothie bars
• pro shops
• boxing
• and the latest in equipment that i knew i couldn’t afford

From this i knew i couldn’t offer anything they had and compete at all. So i decided to offer something i knew they couldn’t offer even if they wanted to.

A 24 hour fully automated gym.

I did research for 6 months and got everything together that i knew we would need:

• door access system
• security cameras
• security pendant

Then i ran the idea across my wife and some wise business men i respected.

Well they all really didn’t like the idea because they couldn’t see the need for a 24 hour gym and thougt no one would use it.

After getting the cost together my wife said i could do it if i could pay for it without it costing us anything from our regular pay because bills were tight. So i sat out and got started getting the money up. In the mean time, i got ADT to give me an estimate. More on ADT later!

Anyway, i told ADT to get the stuff in stock and i would have their money in a month, which was really hard to do, but i made it.

they installed the system on august  12th of 2007. However they didn’t get it running right until October 15th. Anyway, i was catching alot of flack from my wife over the whole thing taking too much time and money. Somehow no one could see my vision.

It took me a few months to get the whole 24 hour system started because of the lack of knowledge of putting all this together and making it work together. Believe me when i say ADTdidn’t have a clue on how to install the door system, and told me the access system didn’t come with any software. I told them that the salesman told me it did and asked them how i was going to monitor who came and went in the gym, and they said they didn’t know.

So i had to figure everything out myself, which was rough, to say the least.

That’s why i now consult gyms on turning gyms into 24 hour fitness facilitys, after going through the fire myself.

I was able to get rid of 2 employees in the gym and cut the hours down on the one remaining employee to only 6 hours per day Monday thru Friday so all she does is cleaning and office work and sign members up.

The next post i will talk about automating my proshop and drinks so you make money while your not there, and all you have to do is go in and collect the money.

I’ll also talk about the ADT nightmare!!!

Attention: here’s a product that specifically helps you how to market fitness centers, gyms, and health clubs cheaply

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

For consulatation on marketing or turning your gym into a 24 hour automated club: contact Shannon Cook at fitnessmarketing@comcast.net

This story is nothing to do with fitness center, gym, or health club marketing, except to tell my mistakes for all to learn from.

**Warning** before you buy an existing club, hear my story.

I was approached about purchasing the equipment from a gym that i was a member of in 2003. i was told they had 400 members and were bringing in $12,000 per month.

I took a witness to one of the owners house to discuss the deal with one owner, I didn’t know the other owner wasn’t going to be there because he was in drug rehab at the time. That was the first lie of many.

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

Here’s the rest of a terrible 5 years of court dates and harassment.

The guy told me he would get me a contract and papers such as, taxes for the last 3 years, membership contracts, and loan amounts for the equipment. But the problem was they had to be out of their building in 30 days, and my father had a new shopping center that he had just built and i could move in there.

So, i told the guy i would take over the payments when i got open in 30 days. so i sat out to do the build out and got it complete in time to open by November 2003. All the time he was putting me off about the paperwork he promised. I really wasn’t worried that much because i knew they couldn’t hold me to a verbal agreement when i had a witness and they were breaking the agreement first.

Well, after the gym was opened and we moved the equipment in, we finally got the contract. It said they owed over $170,000 on the equipment alone, and it was only worth about $20,000. They also came in and told me that i had to get another account started up because they were in trouble with the IRS, then they came in and did the draft while i was out one day and my secretary told me it was only $3,500 for a month instead of the $12,000 per month they said.

Then the IRS came by and said that they were coming to take the equipment because they hadn’t file in 5 years since they were opened.

So i called the owners, by this time both owners were there because the one had gotten out of rehab. they came to my office and i told them they lied about everything and that they could get all there equipment out by 15 days and i had already ordered my own stuff. needless to say, they were mad and threatened to sue me. I said go ahead because i didn’t sign anything and they broke the agreement first.

Then they said the one owners father was rich and he would be supplying the money to sue me.

Well, I sat their equipment out after 30 days because they wouldn’t come get it even after i sent them certified letters warning them it was outside in the elements.

They finally came and got it 2 months later.

Then the lawsuit finally came up a year later after i asked numerous times for the judge to order them to give me all the paper work such as taxes and contracts which they still didn’t have. So i didn’t worry about taking my attorney after the fourth time going to court because they hadn’t given me the paperwork yet and by law i wasn’t suppose to have to have court until they complied.

So they went and found a crooked judge to go around all that. He told me he was tired of waiting and told them to give me whatever they had, which was some madeup papers.

When court started, the judge wouldn’t allow any of my evidence at all because, and i quote, “it was irrerevant to the case”. But he allowed all their evidence that was actually nothing to do with the case. That’s when i knew he was paid off.

The same jusge is under investigation for other cases and the state is trying to force him to retire now.

So i appealed, but was told by my attorney, the court system was not wanting to open a can of worms because the judge had a really big case he was under investigaton for and the state couldn’t afford to have other cases come out about that judge.

He found in the other gyms favor for the sum of $190,000

All this to say, DON’T EVER MAKE A VERBAL AGREEMENT WITHOUT ATTORNEYS AND ALL IS LEGAL AND RECORDED!!!

Attention: here’s a product that specifically helps you how to market fitness centers, gyms, and health clubs cheaply

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

for questions please comment on post or contact shannon at fitnessmarketing@comcast.net

Kristi Cook at the automated Pin pad

 ”Turning a regular gym or fitness center or health club into a 24 hour fully automated gym”

My name is Shannon Cook in Tuscaloosa Alabama. We have tried the regular, open from 6am-9pm gym for 3 years. Being from  small gyms, I thought i had to run the same way. which was not very successful.

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

So i had an idea one day to turn the gym into a 24 hour member only access system. this will no doubt alleviate many cost & issues that having only certain hours causes.

We now have it up and going but until i started marketing i only signed up 3 people because of the 24 hour thing. The marketing turned my gym around from 60 members to over 200 in less than 3 months and still going strong signing people up, and i have retained over 95% of those members which i consider amazing consider the retention rate of most gyms. I did all this through a unique way of marketing that i am in the process of putting into a course and i am also consulting other gym in marketing. I have absolute 100% confidence i can market any gym with what they have and for less half of what most marketers want to spend.

Attention: here’s a product that specifically helps you how to market fitness centers, gyms, and health clubs cheaply

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

If you want to hire Shannon Cook for consulting on opening your gym or turning it into a 24 hour gym or marketing contact:   Shannon Cook at    fitnessmarketing@comcast.net