Since its inception, PushPress has been a visionary company with the mission to help make gym owners’ lives easier and more profitable, a company committed to keeping their customers and prospective customers in the know in terms of exactly where the company is and where they’re headed.
- “In general, (transparency like that) is lacking in a lot of companies, and you as a customer is just kind of along for the ride…but the visionary companies like Apple and Tesla, they let you know where they’re going and keeping you in touch with the progress toward those milestones,” said PushPress CEO Dan Uyemura.
This is why Uyemura started the PushPress bi-annual PowerUp event, an online event aimed to keep PushPress members and prospective members informed (The second PowerUp event went live on March 31 and painted a picture of the last six months, the upcoming six months, and the company’s bigger picture plans).
Isn’t Uyemura worried about giving away all their secrets?
Uyemura explained why he isn’t: “If our competitors can pick up on some of the stuff that we’re doing, then that helps the entire industry. If we do everything right, you’re going to put a lot of pressure on others to up their game, too.”
The Future for PushPress
PushPress has always been all about using technology, and specifically software, to democratize, and the future is taking this to a new level.
What do you mean using technology to democratize?
- One example Uyemura gave to illustrate the concept of technology’s ability to democratize are companies like AirBnB and Uber. In the past, only rich people could afford vacation homes or limo drivers, but today AirBnB and Uber are available to the average person, meaning they have essentially “democratized some very wealthy activities or lifestyle behaviors for everyone,” Uyemura said.
- He added: “In general, in the past the government and super big companies had access to high-tech solutions like data analysis and AI capabilities and data modeling and data scientists.” But today, companies like Amazon and Google have made it possible for even smaller companies to have access to all of the above in a cost-effective way.
- All of this has led to the concept of what Uyemura called “the self-driving gym”—a concept that has become the ultimate goal for PushPress.
Huh? A self-driving gym?
Currently, PushPress is working on an AI Assistance called Pressly™️ (Uyemura estimates Pressly™️ to be a three-year project) who will be able to handle a lot of the more robotic tasks that now fall on the gym owner, leaving the gym owner and coaches free to do what they’re good at: On-floor coaching, creative projects and emotional connection.
OK, so how will Pressly™️ work in practice?
Let’s consider client churn: Right now, a gym owner might recognize a client hasn’t been coming in to the gym as much as they normally do, and will likely then reach out to check in whether this person is OK, all the while instinctively knowing that a client who isn’t coming is a client who is more likely to quit soon.
- But there are way more signs and signals that a person might be on the brink of quitting, Uyemura explained, such as they have stopped engaging on social media, or they have stopped making retail purchases at the gym.
- Thus, Pressly’s™️ job then is to track client behavior and ultimately signal the gym owner if, for example, “Janice is 2.3 times more likely to quit in the next 30 days” than she was six months ago. At that point, Pressly™️ might be able to reach out to Janice, or perhaps she’ll pass the task onto the gym owner depending on the situation, Uyemura explained.
- If, for example, Janice’s dog just died, sending her an automated text message telling her to get back into the gym tomorrow, or giving her a free FIT AID, might not be that appropriate, but perhaps adding the human touch and sending her a personalized card is the better answer in this case.
- In this sense, Pressly™️ will do the robotic work behind the scenes, but she won’t stop cueing humans to do the human work, Uyemura explained.
Beyond Client Churn
A second way Pressly™️ will be able to help the gym business is through lead generation, Uyemura explained.
- If, for example, your gym normally gets eight leads per month and the lead flow drops to four suddenly, then Pressly™️ would be automatically triggered to create a Facebook ad or even a landing page to drive prospects into consultations. And then once the leads return to normal, she would automatically cancel the campaign.
The big picture: “Imagine a lot of things are just happening…Pressly™️ is finding you leads, qualifying you leads, signing them up for appointments keeping your members retained, she’s sparking conversions, she’s upselling personal training… All the little tiny burdens you have to deal with every day to make your business keep moving forward, it’s actually a lot, and if we can start slowly removing every single one of those things and just let you show up and coach your members, it’s going to be massively impactful,” Uyemura said.
“Pressly is going to go in directions that, honestly, I can’t imagine yet.”
