4,427 check-ins in a month: how 2020FIT keeps a small gym feel at 550 members

Jon Rowley opened 2020FIT in Prairie Village, KS in 2012, well before gym CRMs and check-in tracking were things an owner could just go and buy.

‍

The gym has since grown past 550 members, plus kids, with four full-time and nine part-time coaches and class sizes of 12 to 15. In April 2023 it logged 4,427 gym member check-ins in a single month and won the PushPress Check-In Challenge on volume.

‍

Rowley is clear that he did nothing special to win it. Business as usual, on a system that counts.

‍

The Problem

‍

Growth costs you the thing that made the gym work

‍

The reason people stayed at 2020FIT in the early years was that Rowley knew every one of them personally. That does not scale.

‍

"Ten years ago, I knew everyones' name, their dog's name, their kid's name. I knew everything about every person that was at our gym. As we have grown, we have had to use systems to keep that small feel intact."

‍

At 550 members, tracking who is drifting by memory is not an option.

‍

Check-in hardware that got in the way

‍

Checking members in used to mean a computer at every station, which meant it often did not happen.

‍

"Before PushPress, it was sloppy and you needed a computer at every kiosk."

‍

No outside read on whether the numbers were good

‍

Rowley signed up for the Check-In Challenge partly because it was free and partly because a month of clean attendance data seemed worth having. He had no benchmark for what good looked like.

‍

The Solution

‍

Core running billing, scheduling and check-ins

‍

Rowley became a PushPress client in the fall of 2021. PushPress Core handles billing, scheduling and gym member check-ins, and it syncs with Grow.

‍

Grow as the CRM and the safety net

‍

Rowley uses Grow for everything from lead generation to member experience. The piece that matters most at his size is the at-risk report: a regular attender who misses more than a week surfaces on it, and a coach reaches out to check they are alright. At 550 members, doing that by hand would be next to impossible.

‍

An iPad in every corner of the gym

‍

The Staff App replaced the computer-per-kiosk arrangement with four iPads, one in each area of the gym. If the front desk misses somebody, a coach checks them in from the floor. Members can use their phones, though Rowley would rather they did not carry them onto the gym floor at all.

‍

Support that actually answers

‍

Rowley believes PushPress is the best gym management software he has used, but that is not what he brings up first.

‍

"When you utilize a CRM, you expect it to do its job. That's what you're paying for. But what PushPress has done so well is the support side. It has been very, very good any time we have had a problem."

‍

Asked why that matters more to him than the feature list, he put it simply.

‍

"That to me, is the mark of a good company. Someone who will go out and solve the problem for you, and not leave you hung out to dry."

‍

Result

‍

4,427 check-ins in one month

‍

Enough to win the 2023 PushPress Check-In Challenge on total volume. Fixed on Fitness in Milton, FL took the other prize, for the highest average check-ins per member.

‍

Two percent client churn

‍

Rowley describes his retention as remarkably consistent despite the gym's growth, holding a two percent client churn rate at a size where most gyms start to leak members.

‍

A morale win for 13 coaches

‍

"It's really good validation for our team. We think that we have so much to improve on and we do. But it's nice validation to our team to know that we're kind of kicking ass."

‍

Conclusion

‍

What Rowley is protecting is not the check-in count. It is what the count lets him keep hold of.

‍

"Even though we are a decently big gym, we don't want to lose the small gym feel. And knowing where everyone is, who everyone is, is really important."

‍

On the win itself, he is happy to have something other than his own opinion to point at.

‍

"Basically it's a pat on the back to everyone who is making it happen. It has been something to celebrate. It's one thing when I brag about us, but it's nice to have some objective bragging."

‍

Ready to keep the small gym feel past 500 members? Book a demo and see what PushPress Core and Grow can do for your gym.