LITTLE ROCK, AR., (December 17, 2014) – ABC Financial (ABC), the leading software and payment processing provider to the health and fitness industry, participated in Hour of Code last week in Central Arkansas.  ABC employees spoke to students about the availability of software careers in Central Arkansas, as well as, donated a Samsung Galaxy Tablet 4 for a grand prize drawing.

Over one hundred students at Bryant High School participated in Hour of Code; double the number of participants from last year.  They practiced sequencing, looping, and branching, solving simple geometry problems in a Frozen-themed environment hosted by code.org.

“The ability to interact with students and see them get excited about learning and what the future can hold for them is beneficial to both the children and the field of technology,” stated Steve Ayers, Chief Revenue Officer at ABC Financial.  “To think some of these students can be future employees of ABC is really exciting.”

“This learning opportunity would not have been a success without companies like ABC Financial,” stated Daniel Moix, Business Teacher at Bryant High School.  “Thank you for sending the message to the students of Central Arkansas that Computer Science education is valuable, that there are careers waiting for them in this area, and that you support them.”

About Code.org

Code.org is a public 501c3 non-profit. Founded by twins Ali and Hadi Partovi, Code.org’s vision is that every student in every school should have the opportunity to learn to code. http://code.org

About ABC Financial

Launched in 1981, ABC Financial has revolutionized software and payment processing for the health and fitness industry.   Headquartered in the Little Rock, Ark. area, ABC Financial serves approximately 5,200 clubs with approximately 4.5 million members throughout the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico. The company’s innovative club management software, DataTrak, is the most complete web-based software in the health and fitness industry. www.abcfinancial.com

The post ABC Financial Participates in Hour of Code appeared first on .

According to the annual Worldwide Survey of Fitness Trends for 2015, there are 20 fitness trends predicted to drive the market next year; this list includes the Top 5. The results of this annual survey help experts in the health and fitness industry to make informative investment decisions when utilizing gym software.

Results also help club owners to possibly incorporate and establish new trends into their clubs that may potentially increase club revenues. Remember, tracking new club trends incorporated into your health club is easy with gym software. When considering the results of this survey, it’s important to distinguish the difference between a trend and a fad. A trend is based on present behavior whereas a fad is an interest in something new for a very brief period of time.

Top 5 Predicted Fitness Trends for 2015

1. Body Weight Training: This trend made its first appearance in 2013 and is taking the lead as the top predicted trend for next year. Body weight training is a worldwide growing trend offering gym enthusiasts the option of working out using minimal gym equipment combined with exercises such as pull-ups, push-ups, and more.

2. High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT): HIIT training was in the top spot last year and has fallen to the number two spot this year. This type of training involves high-intensity workouts combined with brief periods of recovery and rest. The high-intensity portion of this type of workout is generally short and the entire routine takes about 30 minutes or less.

3. Increased Interest in Certification: With an increase in accreditation offers, this is a trend that continues to grow. Due to the increase in industry growth and an overcrowded fitness professional market, more-and-more fitness professionals are seeking accreditation from third-party accrediting agencies.

4. Strength Training: This type of training dropped to the top four spot last year and remains there this year. Strength Training is a workout that exclusively utilizes weight throughout the entire workout. It continues to be a strong trend and favorite amongst gym enthusiasts with many new younger clients.

5. Personal Training: With an increased interest in fitness professionals becoming certified, there continues to be an increased interest in personal training as well. Personal training has made the top 10 list of trends for nine consecutive years. Personal trainers are available through many fitness organizations and in many different settings with many being self-employed.

As fitness trends continue to come and go, ABC Financial gym software is here to stay and will continue to help your business grow and thrive year-after-year!

The post Top Fitness Trends for 2015 appeared first on .

If your answer to the above is: 1) the one that sells the most memberships; 2) the one that retains the most memberships; or 3) the one that sells and retains the most memberships…in all three cases – SORRY CHARLIE!!!!

Increasing statistical evidence from Fitness Business Council independent-club quarterly and annual surveys points to the fact that the most profitable health clubs are consistently:

• THOSE THAT PRODUCE THE HIGHEST PERCENTAGE OF ANCILLARY REVENUES TO TOTAL REVENUES (otherwise known as AR2TR).

A glance at FBC’s last six (6) quarterly reports and the 2013 end-of-year report shows that clubs which regularly produce more than 24% ancillary revenues also regularly produce double-digit net profit margins (total revenues-total expenses/total revenues).

While there remains one exception to the above rule…that being the low-price “fitness-only” clubs like Planet Fitness TM or clones…which generally offer no services other than a workout in a well-equipped but minimally-staffed facility – even those facilities are beginning to see gradual diminishing of profit margins, often due to the fact that they produce extremely low annual ancillary income.

The converse is also statistically true (as any 20-year-plus industry veteran can tell you): those clubs which predictably produce lower-than-20% AR2TR are the most likely to fail.  At the end of our country’s last severe economic pullback (the recession of 1991-1994), 9% of existing health clubs had closed their doors.  Of that number, greater than ¾ of the clubs that closed produced less than 18% ancillary revenues (inflation-adjusted for 2014: 22%).

Why is ancillary revenue so important to a club’s success?  The answer here is rather simple: with the exception of the afore-mentioned low-price, relatively-low-payroll operators, the vast majority of clubs make absolutely no profit in the first year on membership sales!  Add to that fact the alarming news that annualized Member Retention is once again trending downwards (at last look, only 62% versus a less-than-2-years-ago-high of 68%)…and even a casual observer recognizes the need for what has been aptly named “the monetization of members.”

Recent polls support the premise that the higher-the-price club, the greater the percentage of ancillary revenues produced by that club.  Interestingly, third-quarter 2014 data shows that clubs priced under $50 monthly (for single membership) not only have the highest annual member attrition (well over 40%) but also produce less AR2TR in direct relationship to lower prices!  (The weakest ancillary revenue percentage – 15% – is reported by the $20-$29 membership price range.)

Time to re-think your business’ long-term strategy?  Should you concentrate not solely on membership sales…but also on selling those members additional services once they’re inside your doors?

(Michael Scott Scudder is Founder/CEO of Fitness Business Council, the independent club business network.  Michael can be contacted at 575-751-1212 or mss@fitnessbusinesscouncil.com.  For your PDF copy of the 3^rd Quarter FBC Business Results Report, click Michael’s secure Dropbox link.

The post And the Winner of the Most Profitable Gym is…. appeared first on .

MasterCard – Change to Declined Authorization Rules

Effective October 17, 2014 if a US merchant initiates an authorization request for a CNP transaction and receives any one of the following decline codes in the authorization response, the merchant must not initiate any additional authorization requests for the same transaction at any time.  Continued attempts can result in a $1,000 fine per violation.

Decline Codes and Descriptions

• 303 – Pickup Card
• 301 – Invalid Account Number
• 323 – No Such Issuer
• 304 – Pickup Card – Lost Card
• 304 – Pickup Card – Stolen Card
• 305 – Expired Card

If you obtain an updated expiration date or account number from your customer, you may resubmit the transaction for authorization using the updated account information.

The post MasterCard Regulation Update appeared first on .

For gym managers, seasons such as summer create the problems of loss of member involvement. Members vacation, weaken in New Year resolve, spending time with kids, favor outdoor athletics, and enjoy increased events. Seasonal diversions also disrupt healthy habits best maintained by continual practice. Good reasons for missing workouts easily lapse into weak excuses for skipping workouts.

If you understand members’ reasons for seasonal absenteeism, you can develop a plan for strength-training your club in preparation for it. The 4 P’s of Marketing has weathered many variables in time, economy, and product. It is a worthy outline for strategizing strengthening your club against unhealthy seasons.

Price

How can I maintain stability in cost, member attendance, and, therefore, profit, despite the instability of season?

Even if actual purchasing and maintenance cost, from fitness drink to fitness trainer, are stable, slow season costs aren’t. If it isn’t moving, you are losing.

Instead of waiting for products and services to expire, retire, or stale, adapt them to the season. Offer discounts on or samples of unused products and services, or, better yet, create from them something intriguingly new. One, your members will appreciate added value in overall gym experience. Two, you will bolster profit with product movement and attendance increase.

Product

How can I package my services so gym members continue to see their benefit during this season?

Members of even the most innovative and diverse clubs grow weary of diet and exercise routine. Captivating beach-side vacations, lawn concerts, and backyard grilling relieve members craving excuse. Passage of time and struggle with obstacle wear down member resolve.

Renew and repackage your services to captivate attention and encourage persistence of members in a seasonal slide. Mix up members’ personal training with new, creative ways that accomplish the same fitness goals and result in trainer and member laughing together. If you have space, use club management software to help you organize classes for members’ kids so parents can have both a break and time for the gym.

Promotion

How can I turn to my gym’s advantages to capture member attention?

Lots of summer activity means lots of word-of-mouth in person and through social media. Apps on ever-present mobile devices also alert members to happenings about town.

Use your club management software and app to alert members to the intriguing new happenings at their very own gym. Manage a rewards program alongside your club management software. A gym-branded app and rewards program alerts motivate member frequency. Also focus social media posts on fun fitness tips and summer interest know-how.

Place

How can I place my product so it goes with instead of against the flow of season?

The gym is one location with unchanging equipment and a routine schedule. Your members are sunning on the beach, grilling in their backyard, jamming to a concert by the river, and visiting friends.

Take your services to your members. Organize a hike or classes under park trees or rink disco-lighting. Have a few classes members can invite the friends they are usually with elsewhere. Use club management software to track guests to remind them of their fun experience…

And to strengthen gym membership!

The post Strength-train Your Gym for Slow Seasons appeared first on .

200,000 or 1 in 10 deaths in the U.S. every year are the result of physical inactivity or a sedentary lifestyle, according to the United Health Foundation (Physical Inactivity.)

“Only 5% of Americans perform vigorous activities on any given day. But sedentary activities … were carried out daily by 80% of Americans,” wrote Katrina Woznicki in WebMd.

Technology has made leisure more enjoyable and attainable, and work lighter and simpler with television options, computer program advances and applications, and availability of handheld computer devices. Technology has also resulted in a more sedentary lifestyle that is a risk to your health.

But you can transform your smartphone, iPad, or laptop from a risk to a benefit to good health. Use your electronic devices for social networking, fitness club management software member portals, and fitness apps that support a physically active lifestyle.

Social Networking

Workout buddies motivate gym time by setting dates with you, keeping you company on the treadmill, and sharing and working through workout obstacles. What about when you aren’t at the gym or your friend isn’t available? Online support in the form of fitness forums and communities bridge the gap. Sharing tips for better workouts and regular interactions with a larger community of the fellow fitness-minded regularly encourage you to keep at healthy activities.

Gym Portals

Health clubs know you have a busy life and rely on technology. Take advantage of their fitness club management software member portal. Check out and sign-up for classes, update and view your personal and financial account, or book a session with a personal trainer. Remembering to call the gym when it is open or when you find the time is a sure way to put it off. Use the fitness club’s management software application to schedule on your time and the electronic reminders to keep you active.

Fitness Apps

Technology is not only now within the reach of most people, but most people spend a great deal of time taking advantage of it. We call, text, tweet, post, game, surf, and on and on with the touch of a few buttons on our smartphones—time spent contributing to physical inactivity. Include in your downloads a couple of the countless apps that record your calories or servings or that report the latest health news or that keep track of your exercise goals. Reminders and tips and direction from fitness apps that are a constant part of your screen time will keep you on track for a healthy body.

Be smart about where you get your information.  Use sites that cite research or that are respected in scientific communities. Test app features and counts against credible information.

Technology applications such as social networking, fitness club management software member portals, and fitness apps are as convenient as the reach of your fingertips and as broadly informative as the Wide World Web. Use your smartphone, iPad, and laptop as valuable tools keeping you healthy and active and beating sedentary statistics.

Works Cited

“Physical Inactivity.” American’s Health Rankings. United Health Foundation, 2013. Web. 15 May 2014.

Woznicki, Katrina. “Americans Get Vigorous Activity.” WebMD Health News. Web MD, n.d. Web. 15 May 2014.

The post Smart Health with Smartphones appeared first on .

As a club owner, of all your important assets of a sound management team, flourishing community relationship, buzzing online and off-line marketing strategy, effective equipment, and vital location, your trainers have the potential to be the most valuable and effective. They are the personal connection between you and the members and the personable touch for the members. Your trainers bring your mission to the gym floor.
Promoting a healthy environment for you, the trainers, and the members in the gym includes exercising your relationship with and strengthening up your trainers.  Jen Bacon, M.S. has 15 years of experience in the health and fitness industry in the commercial, corporate, and community settings, and in ACSM’s Health & Fitness Journal she shared a few tips about this aspect of fitness club health.

Training for the Trainer
It is important to hire trainers who are well-educated and experienced. It is also important that they continue to keep up in the continually evolving field of fitness. As a club owner, you can create opportunities for this with in-house training or seminars and availability of memberships to online resources and of an in-house library. Look for opportunities in the industry for them to interact with other professionals and to build their own experience.

A Social Workout
A nationally recognized key to business management is the importance of social interaction among coworkers. It is just as key in the business of your gym. Bacon reminds us that “trainers are highly sociable people.” Their job requires it. Looking for and encouraging opportunities for the trainers, and the rest of your staff for that matter, to engage one another will promote the health of your entire club. Friendly professional interactions make for friendly client interactions.

Join the Club
Your mission, values, and goals are important to you. Develop their importance for your trainers as well. Involve them in the promotion of these ideas by demonstrating them and showing them in fun and creative ways how they apply to them and their clients. Keep your mission, values, and goals at the forefront of their minds by including them in bite-size reminders in meetings and team-building events.

Coming Alongside
Your trainers are on the ground running. They have a wealth of day in and day out experience in your gym with your clients. Give them the opportunity to provide input and to have their questions as to “why” answered. It will help bridge the gap from a “them” to “us” attitude.

The Rewards
Recognize their professional achievements and what they accomplish for your club. Stimulating an encouraging environment produces happy trainers who, in turn, have happy members who are glad to workout in your gym.

Happy members are after all what you need to have a successful business. Follow these tips and create some more of your own to interact successfully with the trainers who will motivate your members to keep coming to your gym.

Works Cited
Bacon, Jen. “Building the Trainer-Club Connection to Boost Service.” ACSM’s Health & Fitness Journal 17.3 (2013):33-34. Web. 28 Mar. 2014.

The post Bridging the Gap between Fitness Club Owners and Trainers appeared first on .

Fitness management & Consulting

After having interviewed thousands of potential salespeople over the years on behalf of client clubs…and after having hired and helped to supervise many of them…and after having trained them and worked beside them, I have found there are certain qualities that every star health club salesperson possesses.

One of the secrets is don’t be tricked by what they know relative to fitness or the health club industry, and don’t be blinded by how they look. Instead, concentrate on who they are. Here you go:

1. Will they do the right thing when no one is watching? Do they have integrity?

Members and guests appreciate and want to deal with honest people. Fast talkers will come and go. Hard closers will get some sales, but will create some ill will… experts in fitness will help us understand, but the thing that draws us to do business with a person, more than anything else, is that person’s integrity. We know that we will be dealt with fairly and honestly.

2. Do they have a high energy level? Are they a self-starter? What kind of work ethic do they have?

Whether we like it or not, it is still true, to a large degree, sales in the health club business, is a numbers game. Every health club sales person must talk to a certain number of people in order to sell one.

So, the element of volume is very important to a successful health club sales person. Given two salespeople of equal skills, experience, intelligence, product knowledge, etc.; the one who works the hardest will be more successful.

There is no substitute for hard work. Sometimes, the difference between one sales person being successful and another being unsuccessful comes down to quantity of sales efforts.

3. Are they coachable? Do they have the ability to learn?

I’m not talking about the kind of knowledge that you get in school. For the successful health club salesperson, the ability to learn means the ability to evaluate a situation, and then to modify or make adjustments in the way they do things as a result. Can they think quickly on their feet?

In today’s health club environment, there are a number of areas in which a good salesperson must continually be inquiring, learning, and changing their behavior.

The first of these are their personal sales skills. Health Club sales is an area of endeavor where a person is never as good as they could be. There is always some skill that can be learned or improved upon. The successful health club salesperson never considers themselves to have arrived, but is constantly looking for ways to refine and improve their sales skills. It’s a continuous learning process.

The health club salesperson must learn how to change their behavior to meet the needs, drives, and personalities of the club guests and members. The successful health club salesperson is a chameleon. They change their behavior, and to some extent, their personality to meet the ways in which different guests and members need for them to behave.

4. Do they have the ability to build positive relationships? Do they have a winning attitude?

The successful health club salesperson is the individual who can quickly build trusting relationships with all sorts of people in the community and inside the club. That requires empathy, the ability to listen, perceptiveness, and the ability to mold themselves into the kind of person the prospect and club member needs.

Those are relationship-building skills. And the most successful health club salespeople are relationship builders.

5. Do they have a self-image of success? Do they see themselves capturing every sale?

People tend to live up to their image of themselves. We all understand that.

Every one of us can think of people in our own lives who have lots of ability and potential, but who never live up to that potential because of their poor self-image.

Somewhere, they developed a poor self-image, and began to think of themselves as incompetent, unable, or unworthy.

6. Do they really want to be in sales? What is their personal motivation?

The best health club salespeople all have within them a drive to excel, to be the best. They have a desire to persuade others. They have a desire… to get you to see their way of thinking.

It’s that internal motivation that drives all the other qualities of the superstar salesperson. And that drive to succeed is far more powerful than any of the other qualities. Given a strong internal motivation, sooner or later the health club salesperson that is driven to success will succeed. It’s only a matter of time.

Now, add that internal drive, with an ability to learn, an image of success and achievement, a high energy level, personal integrity, and add the ability to create strong business relationships, and you have the ingredients of a superstar health club salesperson.

And should you find a salesperson like this, get ready, because they will make your health club the most interesting it has been in a long time…and, oh by the way, profitable.

Now, go find that health club superstar.

The post How to Spot a Potential Star Health Club Salesperson appeared first on .

If you’re ready to take your health club management to the next level, we’ve helped to remove your guesswork below.

When considering new health club software, be sure to ask any vendor (yes, even ABC Financial) these five critical questions:

1. How will my data be converted?Data conversion is essential when switching to new health club software. By conducting an audit of your current data files, new software can be converted for easy adaptation.

   This is where industry experience comes into play. A team of veterans can make the conversion process smooth and seamless.

2. Will dashboard reporting be included?Dashboard reporting is a business monitoring tool that can be customized to fit your unique health club needs. In one easily accessible location you can track such elements as:
   • Missing employees
   • Missing locations
   • Time clock check-ins
   • Lack of funding

   Dashboard reporting keeps you updated in real time and helps you measure how well you achieve your goals.

3. How will the software help me meet my member recruitment and management objectives?One of the biggest benefits the right software can provide is the online member sign up feature. Busy prospects will appreciate the convenience of an easy enrollment process.

   The right health club software can even help maintain that positive member connection through electronic check-in, online class sign-ups and even automated billing.

4. How secure will my data be?With the sensitive nature of personal data, security is key for club management success. Health club software with cloud technology stores your data in a secure and centralized database, helping to ensure that your club and member data is safe.
5. How quickly will my staff be trained?Health club software proves its worth when your staff can use it effectively and easily.

   The hallmark of the most sophisticated software is that employees can be trained quickly and can operate it throughout all areas of the club, from the pro shop to the Kid’s Club.

Having the automated processes and data at your fingertips will bring your club management up-to-speed and give you more time to invest in customer service and other activities that keep new members coming through your door.

The post 5 Critical Questions To Ask When Selecting Health Club Software appeared first on .