From the start, PushPress has always had a simple goal: Make your life easier as a gym owner. This means we’re constantly evolving and innovating. As a team of gym owners ourselves, we understand the highs and lows of running a fitness business. And we aim to create products that help you consistently level up your gym.
Listening to gym owners like you has always been part of our strategy, and 2023 was no exception. We like to keep one ear open to advances in technology and the other open to ideas and feedback from gym owners. That allows us to deliver new tools and product upgrades aimed at saving you time, increasing revenue and retention, and more.
Ultimately, the tools should free up your time to focus on what’s really important: Building relationships with your members and growing your business. This year in particular was about getting back to the basics, explained Chris St. Jacques, Head of Product at PushPress.
“It’s not about reinventing the wheel,” he said. “It’s about simplifying the experience and doing the basics better.”
Five Major PushPress Updates From 2023:
1. Merged Members App.
While registering for classes and logging workouts are two important parts of gym membership, having an app for each was not ideal. In the past, the PushPress Members App is where clients would reserve a spot in class, and then check in. And the PushPress Train App is where they would log workout scores and track progress.
Getting clients to download two apps was cumbersome, and as a result, some gyms chose to use just one of the apps. So in 2023, we merged the two apps to create an all-in-one platform for your members. Now they can check in, track scores, manage their membership, purchase merchandise and more. This creates a more seamless experience and helps them get the most from their membership.
2. Appointments Upgrade.
With a goal of making it easier for coaches and clients to work together on scheduling, we completely overhauled the PushPress Appointments feature in 2023.
The upgrade means clients can now book their appointments based on the availability their coach provides. Further, they can pay for their appointments right in the app.
This are several benefits to the Appointments upgrade. And now it’s easier than ever for you to sell high-ticket gym services like personal training and nutrition coaching.
Rudy Trevino, owner of The Fit Stop in San Antonio, TX says the upgrade removes barriers for both the coach and the client. Personal training and appointments-based services are a large source of revenue for Trevino, who says these services are best for optimizing client compliance.
The new appointments feature saves everyone time in going back and forth to figure out which day and time works for both parties. Trevino recalls that it was cumbersome in the past, and that now, the ease of use is a big win, especially for the coach.
3. New Tools in PushPress Train.
When the PushPress Train app was merged with the Members App, it also got some powerful new features. First, the new Habit Tracking tool is aimed at increasing member retention for your gym. And second, a brand-new Challenges feature will be launching in January 2024.
The Habit Tracking feature is yet another tool you can use to help clients build sustainable, healthy habits. It allows your coaches to create and assign habits to clients. These can be simple and applicable to a large group, like tracking water consumption. Or they can be specific to personal training clients, like eating 150 grams of protein daily.
The Challenges feature will allow you to launch unique challenges to your community. For instance, the PushPress team did a 3,000 push-up challenge in November. Employees logged push-up reps in the Train app and tracked their spot on the custom leaderboard.
4. New Workflows in PushPress Grow.
The PushPress Grow Content Library received an abundance of new workflows in 2023. The goal was to give you all the resources you could possibly need for lead nurture and creating the ultimate gym member experience.
The new workflows in Grow was a game-changer in 2023 for Paul Austad, owner of Nela Athletics in Los Angeles, CA.
“Before, it was all the phone calls,” said Austad. “And we tried to call them the next day, but they would get lost.”
Now, all of his leads get nurtured properly through the power of automation in the Grow workflows. And more importantly, Austad gets notified every step of the way. That way he can step in at any time and communicate manually.
“It’s so much more organized, clear and concise,” he said. “We are much more productive with our time.”
5. The Launch of PushStart.
The fitness industry is often an anomaly when it comes to gym ownership. Most gym owners have a fitness background, rather than a business one. So when it comes to direction and strategy, successful gym owners are constantly seeking to learn.
That’s exactly why we created PushStart by PushPress, a collection of resources and education for every stage of running a successful gym. Put simply, PushStart helps you take your small business to the next level.
In November, we launched a five-part series, highlighting the various stages of gym ownership that PushStart can help with. In case you missed it, check them out here:
- ATTRACT New Gym Members
- MONETIZE Your Fitness Business
- PLUG-IN Your Fitness Business
- EXPAND Your Fitness Business
- DELIGHT Your Customers
The PushStart by PushPress courses were a game-changer for Jocelyn Solomona, owner of Aiga Performance in Newport News, VA. Not only did they help her become more proficient at Grow, she learned about useful features that she didn’t know existed. In addition, the courses have been great training tools when she hires a new coach or summer intern.
“We have received a lot of positive feedback from the employees,” Solomona said. She added that having coaches take the courses gives her trust that they understand the software. Which makes it easy for her to “put them in the driver’s seat.”
Focused Forward: The Future Looks Bright.
As an innovator in the world of gym management software, PushPress spent 2023 laying the foundation for an even brighter future.
The Members App was merged with the Train App, and the Appointments feature was upgraded. New tools were added to PushPress Train, and new workflows to PushPress Grow. And finally, we launched PushStart.
St. Jacques says the 2024 focus will be on “setting the industry standard for what we consider are the fundamentals of running a gym.”
He added, “We do not want to chase the market. We want to lead it. That comes with establishing real connections with our users to better understand their evolving needs. PushPress is uniquely positioned to serve the fitness community because we are directly connected to it. We are a collection of gym owners, fitness enthusiasts and - simply put - people who care about making a difference. There’s a lot more to come.”
