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Whether you’re looking to open a business that offers a full class schedule or add classes to your existing business schedule, there are a few things you should know.
It’s not as daunting as it seems!
Find Instructors
Your first step is to find instructors to lead your classes. If that’s you, amazing! If you need to find instructors there are a few ways to approach this. Here a couple, you can choose the best way that works for you.
- You can put out a job posting. This will be less work in the short term, but depending on how many applications you get, it might be more work in the long term, as you search through them
- Search social media like Instagram and Facebook for independent solo instructors who provide classes in your area. If you already have social media marketing, share your search for an instructor and let them find you. In this way you can search their social media and see if they might be a good fit for your business
Studio Space, Class Size & Schedule
Consider your space and align your schedule. Maybe you have an extra room that can be set up as a studio, or maybe you’re looking for a space to rent. It used to be difficult to rent space in high street locations for fitness businesses, but with recent changes, it has become a bit easier.
If you have a small space, you can offer 1:1 or 1:3 classes, more space and classes can have more attendees. Generally, a good class size is 10-20, anymore and it can get a bit crowded.
Another option is to look at public outdoor space. During warmer seasons, you could offer outdoor classes in a nearby park. As always, check with local rules before setting these up, but outdoor yoga and bootcamp sessions are likely to come back into popularity as we have our first summer with out COVID regulations.
Once you know space and size, you can start to build out a schedule. It’s probably obvious that the first classes on a schedule should be a popular times like lunch, early evening and weekends, but as you grow you might find that other times are popular. Recently we’ve seen a trend of classes offered in the mid afternoon becoming more popular.
Marketing
Build out a marketing strategy. If you are an existing business, you may already have social media and followers to can market to using free shares. Make sure you’re using the right hashtags to reach the right audience.
Marketing can be scary at first, but there are amazing informative online courses for relatively cheap to get you started. As you grow as a business, you can grow your marketing approach. Platforms like Udemy offer online courses that are only a few hours long but can be longer should you be interested in a more advance marketing strategy. Catch one of their regular sales and you can get courses for just a £10-15.
TM3 has integrations with marketing tools to help make this easier, you can have a look at our full integration offerings to see how we can simplify running your business.
Start Small, learn as you grow
This may all seem a bit daunting, and of course there is so much more you will learn as you go. The best advice is to start simple and learn as you go. Perfection is the enemy of good, and this applies in fitness business as well. Your ideal clients are looking for a business just like yours to offer the classes in their community they are interested in taking.
TM3 can help with the schedule for classes and appointments as well as payment collection and management. Reach out and we’ll help you get started.
