How to Build a Strong Online Fitness Community
4 Suggestions for Making the Most of Quarantine
By Courtney Kelly
Overview
Total Read Time: 8 - 12 minutes
Introduction (2.5 - 3 minute read)
Suggestion 1 - Don't aim to make your online operations a virtual facsimile of what you've been doing onsite (2 - 2.5 minute read)
Suggestion 2 - Empower your clients to be self-reliant at the same time that you offer them high quality support (1 - 2 minute read)
Suggestion 3 - Create the time and space for client connection (1 minute read)
Suggestion 4 - Sweeten the deal with resources that provide real value ( 1 - 1.5 minute read)
Key Takeaways (1 - 1.5 minute read)
I. Introduction
Boutique fitness studios have exploded in popularity in the U.S over the past decade. Consider the stats:
According to a CNBC news article published August 2019, "In 2017, boutique brands made up 40% of the fitness market, up 121% in four years, compared with 18% growth for big gyms." LifeFitness reports the following in a blog article entitled, "Boutique Gyms Part I: What They Are and Why They Are Gaining Steam,” "Participation in boutiques doubled in one year from 21% in 2013 to 42% in 2014 according to research from IHRSA. And boutique chains have been adding new studios at a rate of 450% per year since 2010."
This is impressive in any industry, but especially in the fiercely competitive health world. Boutique fitness studios are defined by their comparatively compact size: They are typically outfitted to offer one type of training, their facilities are usually between 800 and 3,500 square feet, and their membership base ranges from scores to hundreds of clients, not thousands. So how is it that these smaller operations (ours among them) are holding their own against goliath enterprises like Gold's Gym or Sport and Health?
Of course, the story looks different for haute couture spin studios and desert oasis yoga studios and underground dance halls and chalky, gritty CrossFit boxes and nose-to-the-grindstone strength sport gyms. Each facility offers unique value to a specific audience, and so each has a one-of-a-kind edge on their multi-amenity, multi-city, commercial big brothers. If you look closely, though, you'll find that all of these one-of-a-kind edges share a common element-- an element that may be the most critical ingredient to any boutique fitness operation’s survival (and success):
Community.
Just take a moment to scroll through any one of these facilities' social media pages. Talk to their members. You're bound to read or hear things like, "family," "fam," "community," "friends," "team," and "support system." What keeps people coming back to their chosen fitness studio/ gym is a sense of belonging, of accountability, of connection, and, I'll say it again: community.
So, if community is the lifeblood of boutique fitness operations, what the heck are they supposed to do now? Having closed their doors for who knows how long, spin studios and yoga studios and dance halls and CrossFit boxes and strength sport facilities are all facing the same behemoth challenge: Keeping their communities strong in a world where people can't leave their homes.
And as if that weren't daunting enough, facility owners have to address this challenge on-the-double. Viruses don't go around knocking on doors, politely inquiring as to whether residents have had time to get their affairs in order to prepare for a pandemic. Nope. Viruses go on ahead-- permission be damned-- and catalyze worldwide facility shutdowns just. Like. That.
This is a scary, keep-you-up-all-night time for any fitness business owner. We're feeling for everyone in this industry, and we want to do our part to help our fellows. So! Given that we've been in the online coaching and programming game for more than 6 years now, and given that those 6 years have taught us a lot about what works and what doesn't in terms of building a remote community, we're going to share what we've learned. Our hope is that you or someone you know finds this information useful.
For what it's worth, if you're a boutique facility owner, we want you to know that we feel you. We're here with you. These are disheartening and terrifying times, and! We know if we band together, we'll have a fighting chance of getting through them. So, we want you to know: We're here for you, too.
II: Suggestion 1 - Don't aim to make your online operations a virtual facsimile of what you've been doing onsite.
One of the most important things we've learned throughout our years of operating both online and onsite branches of our business is this: Remote fitness and in-person fitness are two different beasts. Sure, they share a lot, they have a lot in common, and they certainly do play well together, but! They are NOT exactly the same, and it can be dangerous to treat them as such. So, when you're building your online strategy, you can't just take what worked with your onsite community and digitize it.
Instead, start by enumerating the unique strengths-- the pros-- that online fitness offerings have over onsite offerings, then create a strategy that plays to those advantages. Here are some to consider:
Online clients can do their workouts any time of day or night. (It's like a 24-hour gym, but without the astronomical insurance costs!)
Online clients can create training environments that are ideal for them. This means they get to choose their music, whether they're outside or inside, whether they have their dogs around, what the temperature is, etc.
Online clients can take as much time as they want during a workout to learn about the movements they're doing. There's no impending "next class starts in an hour" time crunch, so online clients have a little more leeway and flexibility to dive down the technical rabbit hole.
During workouts, online clients have fewer distractions than onsite clients. (Assuming, of course, they can get away from their kids or roommates or pets for a little while.)
Given all of these pros, you've actually got a lot to work with when it comes to your online coaching and programming strategy. You can play to the first strength by providing clients with resources that help them create a routine that works for them. You can play to the second strength by talking your clients through setting up a concerted workout area. To support the third advantage, provide your clients with learning materials-- videos, articles, links-- that they can use to study up on different elements of your program.
And finally, in order to play to the fourth advantage listed, you can encourage your clients to treat their workouts a bit like meditation: You can support them in approaching workouts as breaks from everything they've got to worry about. You can help them lean into the challenge and difficulty of their programmed movements—allow themselves to feel the burn or strain or whatever it is they're feeling— because that will leave them more centered, more grounded, more in touch with themselves than they were before.
III. Suggestion 2 - Empower your clients to be self-reliant at the same time that you offer them high quality support.
This one's critically important at the same time that it's devilishly tricky to accomplish. The goal is this: You want to position your clients so that they don't need you in order to do the actual work of working out. You want to help them find motivation that's outside of their instructors and inside themselves. At the same time, you want to encourage your clients to reach out to you freely with questions, honest feedback, analyses of how they're feeling, and requests for help when they need it.
In other words, online clients need coaches that are mentors, not cheerleaders, and definitely not drill sergeants. Shouts of encouragement and hollers of imperatives don't hold up particularly well over any sort of distance. We're not saying don't cheer your clients on, but we are saying that cheering alone isn’t enough.
Help your clients believe that they are capable of completing workouts with or without a coach. Help them realize that they have all the tools they need to make it through any sweaty endeavor on their own. At the same time, be there for them! Reach out to see how they're holding up, mentally and physically. Provide structured and dedicated time for them to ask questions, and create a space where they feel safe to share what they're really feeling-- the good, the hard, the fleeting, and the difficult-to-describe.
Knowing what drives people to train and how you can leverage those motivations to best serve your clients is critical to creating productive online relationships with athletes. Conveniently, we've just recorded a podcast with an expert on motivation and behavior change, Dr. Lisa Lewis, Ph.D., clinical psychologist and consultant that's about this very matter! Click below to check it out:
https://www.strengthratiohq.com/podcasts/episode-57-the-mechanics-of-motivation
IV: Suggestion 3 - Create the time and space for client connection.
"I already have!" you might be rightfully saying, "But COVID-19 forced me to close it down." We hear ya. Group fitness classes create the PERFECT time for clients to connect with one another, and studios or gyms provide the PERFECT space in which that connection can occur. We value real-life, interpersonal interactions as much as the next guy, but since that option's out the window, we've all got to get creative and make the most out of second best.
And second best looks pretty good these days, all things considered. With social media platforms and Zoom video communications and texting and calling and video editing software easier to use than ever, it's safe to say that things could be worse. Much worse (cue "O Fortuna" and a montage depicting life during the black plague without the internet).
So! Use the tools at your disposal, and create some structured, virtual venues for clients to celebrate one another's milestones, vent about their fears, worries, and anxieties, and, of course, shoot the shit. The key, we'd say, is consistency. In a world where routines have been blown to smithereens, offering social experiences that demarcate the passing of time in an enjoyable, uplifting way is huge. It's a service the value of we cannot overstate.
V: Suggestion 4 - Sweeten the deal with resources that provide real value.
You are already offering some incredibly valuable things to your clients: Health for one, wellness for another. In order to accomplish pretty much anything in life, people need a certain amount of well-being, so you are, in effect, helping your clients achieve the prerequisite for all other fulfilling ventures. And that's pretty fricken awesome. However! We suggest not stopping there. We suggest sweetening the deal with even more value: education.
The thing is: There's no shortage of health-related information floating around. And while that's ostensibly good, it's also pragmatically bad. Why? Well. A lot of that information falls under one or more of the following categories: Conflicting, doctrinized, sensational, disconnected, poorly executed, or wrong. As a leader that your clients already trust for fitness advice, you're in a unique position to help them wade through this seething mass of stuff to find the truth they're looking for. Not only do you know your clients better than any social media guru, you also have a background in health/ wellness/ fitness. If anyone can translate valuable, research-based information in terms your clients can understand and apply, it's you!
Which means our suggestion is this: Create indexes of trusted resources for your clients. Write articles, create videos, consult with experts, be the conduit of knowledge your clients need right now.
VI: Key Takeaways
Our years of running a fitness business evenly split between online and onsite offerings have provided us some practical know-how regarding what it takes to make remote coaching and programming work. Based on this know-how, we would like to offer four suggestions to you, boutique fitness facility owners and managers:
Don't make your online operations a virtual facsimile of your onsite operations. Play to the unique strengths of virtual fitness.
Empower your clients to be self-reliant at the same time that you offer them high quality support. Be a mentor, not a cheerleader (and definitely not a drill sergeant).
Create structured and consistent virtual platforms for client connection.
Create resources for your clients that provide helpful health and fitness guidance.
Listen. Have we perfected the art of online coaching and programming? Heck no! And if we ever say we have, we've gone off the deep end. There's no perfect, only a constant process of perfecting. And when you love what you do, you thrive off of that process.
We love what we do. Which means we're forever trying to get better at it. We know that all of our systems and procedures and offerings will always have room to grow, and that's a good thing. It catalyzes our growth, not just as business owners, but as human beings. We'll bet our bottom dollar that you feel exactly the same way, and we'll wager everything we own that you want to make it through this pandemic as bad as we do. Hopefully, this article provides a small morsel of help, a tiny grain of hope. You got this; we believe in you!