How Mac-Town Fitness Company Grew Up Alongside Its Gym Software

Mac-Town Fitness Company in McPherson, Kansas began as a traditional CrossFit gym. It now runs semi-private training, a free nonprofit youth club, and a program built for members over sixty. Sarah Muehler co-owns it with her husband Chad, and she has been on PushPress since the days when she only wanted it to process payments.

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Introduction

One Gym That Became Three Programs

“We were a very traditional group, CrossFit, to start and then always kind of had some type of youth programming, whether that was a camp or we did like a homeschool PE class,” Sarah says.

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Then they kept meeting people the gym did not yet serve. Two programs grew out of that: a free youth club, and one built for members over sixty.

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“It's been an evolution,” Sarah says. “I feel like we've grown up with PushPress in a lot of ways.”

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The Problem

The Software Needs Keep Changing as the Gym Changes

Sarah did not arrive with a long list of requirements. She arrived with one.

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“I was really initially looking for something to just do our payment processing at that stage,” she says.

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A gym that adds a nonprofit kids club and a 60-plus program does not need the same software it needed when it was one CrossFit class. Each new program brings new scheduling, new communication and new numbers to watch.

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Nine Coaches, Nine Separate Pictures of Each Member

Growth also fragments what the staff knows. A coach has a hard conversation with a member on Tuesday; whoever coaches that member on Thursday has no idea it happened.

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Reporting Was the Job She Avoided

Sarah is blunt about it.

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“Digging around for reports is my least favorite thing,” she says. “Having to be consistent about pulling that kind of stuff was genuinely frustrating for me.”

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The Solution

A Platform That Added What They Needed, Roughly When They Needed It

Mac-Town joined early enough to be part of a beta.

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“We were kind of part of their beta phase for some different things at that stage,” Sarah says. “Really, I feel like as we've kind of evolved, they have too.”

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Grow arrived at the point they needed CRM. “We needed some like CRM stuff and Grow kind of came on in those later years a little bit and that's been super helpful for communication and our organization of calendars and schedules and stuff,” she says.

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Her description of the timing is the heart of this story: “That's been a really cool piece to me to be with a company for that long and kind of feel like we're growing alongside them, almost like when we needed it they were presenting it as far as like where we were at, what stage we were at in our business.”

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Knowing What's Coming Lets Her Plan

“They communicate really well which makes them a great fit for us is like you kind of always know what's coming down or what's going on and I appreciate that,” Sarah says. “As we've grown and stuff like that we could always kind of see the next stage and the next evolution of theirs and that's helped us inform kind of where we feel like okay we can kind of push into this or we can push into that a little bit better.”

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Member Intel, So Nine Coaches Share One Memory

Her favourite recent addition is Member Intel, which surfaces member context to coaches in the Staff App.

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“I think recently my favorite addition has been the member intel. We have a staff of nine coaches and so that's been really helpful from a communication standpoint,” Sarah says.

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The mechanic is simple and the effect is not. “If you know we have a conversation with a client that has an issue we can put that in their notes and then all the other coaches can see that at any time,” she says. “That's been really helpful from a staff perspective and being able to provide for the clients better.”

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Reports by Asking Instead of Digging

The reporting she dreaded is now a question she types. She calls it the AI chat for reports; the feature is the AI Assistant in PushPress Core.

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“I'm a big fan of the AI chat for reports right now,” Sarah says. “And this has just made it so much easier.”

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Result

Three Programs Serving Three Demographics

The evolution worked. The FYR club runs free kids programming through the week, and Legends found an audience that most gyms never reach.

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“We had a demographic that were hitting that 60 plus and so we started a specialized program, Legends, that's done really well for that 60 plus demographic,” Sarah says.

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Coaches Who Are Never the Last to Know

With notes shared across all nine coaches, a member's context travels with them between sessions rather than staying with whoever happened to be on the floor.

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The Owner Spends Her Time on People

Sarah's measure of the whole thing is where her hours go.

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“Processes and systems I've learned over the years to just make for a smoother running gym that allows me to do the things that I love, which is all the people stuff,” she says.

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And why that matters: “If you can spend the majority of your time doing the things that you love, that keeps the burnout manageable.”

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Conclusion

Surround Yourself With People Who Understand the Business

Sarah's advice to other owners is about who you build around, software included.

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“When you care about something as much as I think gym owners care about their gyms, I think having good people around you, whether that's staff, whether that's a mentor, whether that's companies that kind of understand what you're doing, I think that's a big deal is to surround yourself with people that are supportive of your dreams,” she says.

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Her own version of that: “Trying to put most of my energy and most of my time to the things that really I'm passionate about and pass off all the other stuff to people that do it better than me.”

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Ready to grow without outgrowing your software? See what PushPress can do for your gym. Book a Demo Today.