Tips for Rebuilding Your Fitness Business after the Covid-19 Pandemic

When the Covid-19 pandemic started spreading across the globe in 2020, most governments decided to close the majority of non-essential service providers. And fitness businesses like gyms, boutique studios, and fitness clubs were not spared.

Now, most of the Covid-19 restrictions implemented in 2020 have started easing. As a result, most areas are now allowing fitness centers to reopen and resume operations.

But, with your fitness business being shut for so many months, you may be probably wondering where to start or how to pick up the pieces. If you are in such a situation, this guide has the answers. In this article, we share seven actionable tips to help you get your fitness business back on track. With that said, let’s get down to business.

1. Review the Financial Damage

When it comes to rebuilding a business after a pandemic, the first thing that you need to do is to review your financial damage. Reviewing your financial damage will help to give you an idea of how much your fitness business has been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

And when reviewing the financial damage, you will need to evaluate two key areas. First, you should check the hard numbers. And this means evaluating your sales, cash flow and profits.

You will then compare these numbers to a similar time when your business was last in operation. For example, assuming that you closed your fitness center at the beginning of March 2020 and you resumed operations in March 2022, you will compare figures for these two different months and see how much business you’ve lost.

Besides the hard numbers, you will also need to assess other ways through which your fitness business may have been financially affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. For example, you may have reduced your advertising budget or you may have lost some of your clientele to your competitors.

So, when you are doing the financial review, you will need to consider all these aspects. Doing so will help you to determine how much money you will need to rebuild your fitness business and move it forward.

2. Re-examine Your Business Plan

While your business model may have delivered great results before the Covid-19 pandemic came around, you may need to re-examine as you move towards resuming operations.

And as you re-examine it, you need to consider how you can modify it to align with the new way of doing things. For instance, before Covid-19, you may have been solely relying on in-person training only.

But after you reopen, some of your clients may still prefer working out at home, as they may be feeling unsafe coming for physical training sessions. As a result, you may consider expanding to online or virtual personal training.

By expanding into virtual fitness training, you will be in a better position to accommodate people who now prefer working out at home. Also, expanding into virtual training can help to future-proof your fitness business, in case you are forced to close again.

As you re-examine your business plan, you should also pay attention to some of the post-pandemic fitness trends or gaps that may have come up and see how you can exploit them. And by exploiting these opportunities, you will be expanding your customer base, which will, in turn, generate the much-needed revenue for rebuilding your business.

It will also be a good idea to revisit your fitness business goals to see whether they are still attainable or realistic, given the current situation. In case they are not realistic, you can then modify them in line with the current circumstances.

3. Explore Funding Options

At this point, you’ve already assessed your financial damage and determined how much you’ve been affected. And if you are like most fitness businesses, then the financial impact may have been severe. You’ve also re-examined your business plan and determined how you will adjust your business model, as you move forward.

To this end, you will need money to accomplish two main things. First, you will need it to get things back on track. For example, if you had laid off some staff, you will need to re-hire them. You may also require funds to replace or repair some of your gym equipment.

Also, if you had reduced your marketing budget, you will need money to get it back to where it was. Furthermore, you may need funds to purchase new gym inventory like cleaning detergents, cartridges, sanitizers, towels, and wipes, just to name a few.

Second, you will need money to adjust your business model and align it with the current situation and circumstances. For instance, you may be planning to add virtual training to your business model, to take care of your clientele who won’t come back to the gym.

Simply put, you will need money to rebuild your fitness business. And unless you had saved a considerable amount of money before Covid-19, it’s highly likely you will need to secure some funding for rebuilding.

So, where can you get funding to rebuild your fitness business? Well, there are several options to explore.

3.1 Government Support

Various governments around the world have launched financial support programs for businesses affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. So, make sure you get in touch with your local government and enquire whether there’s such an arrangement.

3.2 Local Chamber of Commerce

You should also check in with your local chamber of commerce to see whether they are offering any financial support. Some have been offering financial support to both individuals and local businesses affected by the pandemic. So, contact them and ask whether such support is available.

3.3 Bank Loan

You should also talk with your bank and ask whether they can offer you a loan to rebuild your fitness business. If your credit score is decent, your business financials were in good shape before the Covid-19 pandemic, you stand a chance of qualifying for a loan.

4. Resume Operations Gradually

Once you’ve managed to secure the funding that you need for rebuilding your fitness business, you can now resume operations. But as you resume operations, it will advisable to take things slowly.

Rebuilding your business will take time, so don’t try to rush to the position you were in before the pandemic. If possible, you should only buy what you need to keep the fitness studio running during this phase.

If you are to hire some staff, you should start with a few individuals, competent enough to attend to several tasks. For example, a personal trainer can be doubling up as a customer service agent. You can then hire more staff once your business picks up again.

Keeping your operating costs as low as possible during this phase is extremely important. As you may probably know, business is slow and your revenues will be low during this phase. Any cost-cutting measure at this point is vital to your rebuilding process.

Minimizing unnecessary expenses will help you to take care of core business expenses that cannot wait like rent, staff salaries, and utilities. Also, keeping your overheads low after you reopen will allow you to invest the funding you’ve secured into other areas of your fitness business like online training.

In addition to managing your reopening costs, ensuring the gym floor and equipment are in top condition is essential. You may be wondering… can you use a floor scrubber on a gym floor? It turns out that it's actually an effective way to maintain cleanliness and safety standards.

5. Find Ways of Attracting More Clients

After you resume operations, there’s a high chance that some of your clients will not renew their membership. Hence, relying on your existing client base won’t be sufficient to keep you afloat.

Therefore, you will need to immediately start looking for new clients, to fill the void of those who have opted against renewing their memberships. To acquire new clients, you can experiment with different strategies.

First, you can launch an incentive-based referral program for your current members. With this program, you will offer your existing clients an incentive or reward, for every new client that they help your fitness business to sign up. If the incentive that you offer is compelling enough, it will motivate your current clients to refer their close associates like friends and family.

Second, you should consider introducing free trial sessions or other similar offers. Your offer should be better than what your competitors are offering. For example, if they are offering a one-day free personal training session, you can offer a one-week free session.

These offers will help to motivate some fitness centers to get back to the gym, after being away for such a long time. And some will eventually become paying members if your services are satisfactory.

Third, you should also consider running an outdoor workout session. As mentioned earlier, some fitness enthusiasts are still hesitant to go back to the gym. Hosting a free outdoor workout session can help to ease some of that anxiety and convince them to come back to the gym.

6. Create a Future Contingency Plan

At this point, it may feel like the Covid-19 pandemic is behind us and it may never disrupt businesses again. But the reality is, Covid-19 may not be the only pandemic that may disrupt your business.

Any serious emergency or crisis can force you to close your business in the future. It can be an economic crisis, flooding or other serious weather conditions. To this end, you will need to come up with a contingency plan or strategies, which will help cushion your business from serious future shocks. Some of the strategies that you can implement to insulate your fitness business against future shocks include:

• Setting up an emergency fund
• Diversifying your income streams
• Reducing non-essential spending

7. Wrapping It Up

The first few months after reopening your fitness business will not be easy. However, with careful planning and patience, you will gradually rebuild your fitness business and start thriving once again.