On Track Wellness, located in San Diego, California, is a thriving martial arts and Jiu Jitsu academy led by Nate Church and Eric Romo. Dedicated to providing high-quality instruction for adults, teens, and children, they combine traditional martial arts with Brazilian Jiu Jitsu to cultivate discipline, fitness, and growth for their students.
The Problem: Why Mindbody was inadequate for their software needs
When On Track Wellness first opened its doors in 2019, it relied on Mindbody as its software to manage its martial arts academy. While functional, the software started posing significant challenges for the academy’s growth and day-to-day efficiency.
The budgeting strain became a regular concern for Church and Romo as Mindbody’s rates kept increasing with little improvement in features or service quality. Additionally, managing communications, payment systems, and membership structures was complicated and disjointed. Tools like SurveyMonkey and MailChimp were required to fill functionality gaps, but this only created more inefficiencies.
Being a martial arts and Jiu Jitsu academy, On Track Wellness required features like belt and class tracking, accurate family membership structures, and client tagging. These were either inadequate or entirely absent in their former software.
The inefficiencies of their old software slowed growth, created frustrations, and drained time — precious resources for the two-man team managing a growing academy.
The Solution: Why On Track Wellness chose PushPress
Driven to find a solution that worked for both their unique needs and tight budget, Church and Romo investigated alternatives. The duo first heard of PushPress from a friend who operates a CrossFit gym, and they became intrigued by two key aspects.
They were first attracted by the pricing structure of PushPress, noting it was more reasonable than what they had been paying, saving valuable resources. It was also essential to the On Track Wellness team to see PushPress’s immediate willingness to develop martial arts-specific features — such as a belt tracking system, essential for martial arts gyms. This cemented their decision, proving the platform was both flexible and forward-thinking while hinting at the customer support they’d begun to experience on day one.
“Spark is the big software in the Jiu Jitsu space and people just default to it because that’s what the school down the street is using. But I think gym owners need to do their own investigation, and be open to consider what the customer service is like, what are the fees like, and what is it doing to make your life easier. And I think a lot of time people are using archaic systems, and don’t realize they can upgrade,” Church said.
When Church and Romo did that, they realized PushPress was the better answer, and they haven’t looked back.
How the martial arts and Jiu Jitsu academy thrives on PushPress
Since adopting PushPress, On Track Wellness estimates it saves at least 5-6 hours weekly by leveraging Core and Grow to simplify operations, improve communication, and enhance the overall gym experience. Here’s how they’re using the platform to its full potential:
- Unmatched customer support
The same-day responsiveness PushPress offered was a refreshing change to the hours-long support delays they’d grown used to. During one critical moment — a Saturday afternoon when On Track Wellness faced an issue while hosting a tournament — CEO Dan Uyemura personally stepped in to solve the problem.
“When a CEO jumps into a chat on a Saturday afternoon, I think that says a lot about the company and culture,” Nate Church explained.
While Dan isn’t always available to step in, this reflects PushPress’s emphasis on prioritizing gym owners’ happiness. Not only is the robust, knowledgable customer support team available for when gym owners need to speak with a real human, but customers can also self-serve with an AI agent. - Streamlining client engagement with PushPress Grow
By integrating Grow into its tech stack, On Track Wellness has doubled its weekly leads. However, the team finds the biggest benefit is that they consolidated multiple tools into PushPress’s CRM and simplified processes.
Instead of juggling MailChimp and SurveyMonkey, they have centralized client communications, lead management, and workflow automation. For example, lead status updates are accessible at a glance in Grow, reducing back-and-forth communication between Church and Romo — and allowing the leads to get immediate responses. Plus, surveys are seamlessly integrated, helping them collect feedback and maintain client relationships. - Building relationships through personalized communication
Like many martial arts studios, On Track Wellness has programs for teens and even children as young as 5 years old. Before PushPress, many parents of youth participants were “drive-by” clients, dropping the kids off outside and going months without interacting with the staff.
This, of course, wasn’t ideal, as the parents are the ones who are often making the decisions and paying the memberships for their children.
Now, through Grow’s communication features make it easy to reach out to parents one-on-one or as a class to check in, build rapport, and ask for feedback about how their children are doing.
“It’s important for us to build that rapport and to ask them about the values they’re seeing that we’re instilling in their kids,” Romo said. - Simplifying online rankings with GymHappy
For a two-person team managing everything from coaching to paying the bills, talking to leads, cleaning the gym, and running social media, it’s easy to forget to do things like ask clients to leave Google reviews.
PushPress’ GymHappy feature has been a simple and smooth way to send messages to members with a link to leave a Google review. In the first six months since adopting GymHappy, On Track Wellness has experienced a 20% increase in 5-star reviews. In addition to helping the gym stand-out from its competitors, the reviews have contributed to a 25% boost in SEO, increasing online presence. - Easily monitor business performance with Core reports
Finally, Church mentioned PushPress Core’s Reports feature makes it easy for him to keep his finger on the pulse and monitor his business’ health, something his former software just didn’t provide.
“You have to deep-dive your numbers as a business owner,” Church said. “It’s about more than just knowing your membership count.”
The easy-to-read, comprehensive reports give both gym owners a clear snapshot of On Track Wellness’s revenue trends, membership stats, and growth patterns.
A lasting partnership
For Nate Church and Eric Romo, switching to PushPress wasn’t just a business decision — it was a lifeline for their martial arts academy. From stellar customer support to tailored features and a streamlined user experience, PushPress has empowered On Track Wellness to focus on what they do best — teaching and inspiring their students.
Romo summed it up best, saying, “A lot of software is written by software people…(but with PushPress) they understand where we’re coming from, because they’re gym owners themselves, and I think that’s everything.”
