Run a Profitable Gym
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Run a Profitable Gym
No More Summer Slumps! How to Fill the Gap With a Kids Program
What if your gym was fully booked and highly profitable all summer long?
While many gym owners brace for a summer slump, Debbie Rosslan ramps up with youth programs such as jump training, volleyball development, and speed and agility, which keep her gym full and profitable.
In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” host Mike Warkentin talks with Debbie about how she uses kids camps to generate consistent revenue during the months of the year when many gym owners struggle.
Debbie breaks down how she structures her camps, prices them for profitability and keeps kids coming back year after year.
She also shares tips on low-cost marketing and explains why parents happily pay premium rates for her kids programs.
Skip the summer slump this year. Instead, listen in as Debbie shares her playbook for a packed and profitable gym. Then take action today.
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0:35 - Summer opportunities for gym owners
3:52 - Revenue from a kids program
5:27 - Setting up a kids program
10:20 - Filling and marketing a kids program
15:18 - How to get started now
Gym revenue often drops in summer and we all know it. If you don't do something about it right now, you are going to be the victim of a summer slump in 2025. The good News, we are gonna lay out a plan to help you avoid that with summer camps for Kids. This is Runner Profitable Gym . I'm your host, Mike Warkin , and please hit subscribe wherever you're watching or listening. With my thanks with me today, Debbie Rolin of CrossFit Unstoppable in Missouri. She's a gym owner , gym owner who's had great success with summer camps for kids. Deb, do you think we can help people avoid a summer slump today?
Speaker 2:Sure thing.
Speaker 1:Aha . I'm excited about it. So I'm gonna jump right into it. So I'm gonna ask you, I always looked at summer as a period that I had to survive and I wasn't thriving. Is it actually an opportunity as a gym owner?
Speaker 2:Of course, yeah. In the past , um, I was kind of like in the same boat and I utilized my PE background to try to do some different things for the kids in the summer.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Did you ever have really bad summers? 'cause I sure did. <laugh>
Speaker 2:Uh, yeah. Back in I think 2014, I was trying to find something that would , um, help boost the re revenue. So I came up with a , I think we went for eight weeks. We did a eight week camp, and I, we did uh , like field trips, different things like that, went to the pool, you know, we had people who could drive us and it turned out to be a good success. But looking back now, I don't know how I survived that <laugh> .
Speaker 1:Yeah, I had some dark, dark times and year after year I'd look at it and I'd say, why is my summer revenue so bad? And I'd figure out, oh, I hadn't done anything to drive it up. And then I had summer cancellations, vacation holds and all the stuff that everyone else gets, but then I wouldn't do anything about it. And it happened year after year after year. And it wasn't until we actually started planning about now for summer that we actually had some success and things turned around. So if you're listening out there, the time to do it is right now because summer kids and parents, everyone's making plans right now. If you do nothing today, you are going to have a tough June, July, August, and we're gonna try and prevent that. So you said that you had some summer slumps in the past or some things that you didn't really like. What does summer look like now at your gym?
Speaker 2:We're pretty busy, you know, between the , I do a one or two week camp for just, you know, the kids, that kind of thing. But then we also do speed and agility camps. We do some , uh, volleyball programs, strength and conditioning programs. And we do it in the morning, which isn't ideal for some parents, but it's just what works for us and it keeps the kids busy throughout the summer. So , uh, we stay pretty busy.
Speaker 1:Okay. So you said speed and agility. What were the other ones that you had on your list?
Speaker 2:Um, strength and conditioning. I do some jump training for volleyball athletes and when , then we do , um, one-on-one personal or training for the kids in volleyball. 'cause we have two volleyball courts in our gym. Okay. So that's , uh, utilized a lot <laugh> throughout the year.
Speaker 1:Do you get a lot of repeat business? Like, is it the same kids coming back every year as they age up or is it a new crew every year? Or how do you acquire these people?
Speaker 2:Um, usually it's a new crew and I've got , um, I've got like four different Facebook pages. I try to do some affinity marketing, bringing the , uh, parents, you know, sharing with my members. Hey, we're doing a CrossFit kids camp, you know, I already got parents asking me if I'm doing a , a week after the school gets out, you know, doing my one week camp because it was such a success. And then I'll just send out emails to my past participants to come in and try it out again. It's middle school kids, grades six to eight. So , um, but then the younger ones, it's usually grades two to six. So I have a different age group for each thing.
Speaker 1:So how much revenue can a kids program generate? Gimme an idea of what's possible.
Speaker 2:So it depends on, you know, how many kids you want to accept. Usually for my, my jump programs, I wanna limit it to, you know, six to eight kids and I can make anywhere from, you know, 70 to a hundred dollars an hour for that. For my kids' camps, I usually charge, you know, $30 a day and that's just for three hours. So I can, you know, within the camp that I'm, I'm planning on, I think I'm gonna be making $85 an hour. So it, it just depends on how much you're charging and how many kids you're willing to accept.
Speaker 1:How many kids are you willing to accept? What's a , what's a good number?
Speaker 2:It depends. Usually for the kids camps I'll take up to 12 just so we can make like an even number , uh, for games, events, things like that. I've had pe classes that have 40 people in a class so I can, I can handle big groups, but I don't want 40 , um, little kids. <laugh>.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And that , that's wise. I think there's a limit with , uh, with kids where you, you know, 1, 1 2, you know , 10, 12 if you're very skilled is good. We get one to 20. That's where you start to get in trouble in a PE setting. Like you're skilled in a classroom, you might be able to handle it , uh, as a fitness coach, often a second, a second trainer comes into those situations and you can do your pricing model to kind of figure that out and decide if you wanna manage more people, you might change your prices a little bit. So let's talk about the essential elements of a kids program. Like what should gym owners put into these things? 'cause a lot of people right now, if they're sitting there and they have nothing planned, they're gonna say, okay, I don't know how to set this up. I don't know what to do. I don't know , like how many sessions would a good kids program offer? How many weeks would it go? What kind of stuff would you offer listeners for that?
Speaker 2:The first of all, you , I think you want to make it like a four to six week program. Right now my volleyball programs are just based on like month to month with eight sessions in a month, which is a good place to start, you know, to see what their, their progress is showing that for kids programs, you know, two times a week. But the big thing is to make it fun to where they want to come back. Because if you make it to where you know they're dragging and they don't wanna be there, then you're not gonna get that recurring revenue anywhere from, you know, two to three week times a week. Um, four to six weeks long. I think that's a , a good starting point.
Speaker 1:Is fun different for different age groups? Like are kids when you have like young, like say six to nine kind of age group versus like 12 to 15 is a definition of fun different for those children? Yeah,
Speaker 2:I think , um, you know, all kids want, they wanna be competitive, but they want to play games and you know, being the PE teacher I am, I always try to gamify things and you can even ask my members in , in the gym. We will play games here and there, you know, just to make people laugh and, you know, be silly sometimes. But I think the, you know, fun for the little ones is, you know, playing the games that they, they like to play and, you know, make fitness fun to where they wanna come back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I, I think that too, and it's, Chris Cooper's written about this where sometimes with like the really young ones in that four to six to eight range, it's like games and fun and silliness and you might limit those sessions to like half an hour. 'cause the attention span there is like not not great at times and you wanna keep it fun and keep them coming back. One of the CrossFit kids , uh, Jeff and Mickey Martin said this end the game before it stops being fun. That's a great one to remember. If you're out there. Then Chris has talked about when, yeah, he called it a , a varsity program and things like that where they have older groups . For those kids, fun is different. They might wanna do sports testing or performance testing or some competitive stuff and they might have performance goals where like winning and competing is fun for them. Whereas for kids, you know, flapping the parachute around might be fun. So he recommended three age group splits and it was in the range of like six to nine, like 10 to 12 and 12 to 16 or something like that. But you could figure out something that works for you . Piece of advice that I'll give give you of is if you have nothing on the table right now, look at your membership, figure out where the majority of members' kids fall and just hit that one age group hard and then you can look at expanding if, but it'd be better to have one big program than say three sparse ones. Uh , Deb , have you ever been challenged to like set your prices too low? Like, that was a mistake that I made. So I looked at my membership and I said , okay, I'm charging 1 57 for a kids' program. I'm gonna , or sorry for an adult program, I'm gonna charge a hundred bucks or 90 bucks for a kids program. That was a big mistake. Have you done that?
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, I look back when I first started and , um, <laugh> , I mean just, yeah, I was like, why did I do that? So, yeah, and I mean it takes a , I think a lot more energy as a , a coach for kids just because I mean, you are taking care of the discipline and you know, keeping them on track and you know, they're not as mature as our adults in the class, so they should be priced just as much as, I mean I've, I've priced some of my kids' stuff higher than my adult memberships and the parents are willing to pay, pay that because they see the value in helping out their kids.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a specialty program and if it's special, that means it probably should cost a little bit more, right? And that's a mistake that I didn't make. I thought that it was a kids program, it's not a, I should underprice it, but it's really not true. And if you look at the programs for organized sports in your city and town listeners, you will see some crazy prices and we're not hung up talking about gouging your, you know, your clients, your kids' clients. What we're talking about is like the perception of value and what's really out there. So like I talked to a guy yesterday, his kid did, does swimming and I was like, oh , at least you don't have to buy like a lot of equipment. He said the swimsuit is $700 and I couldn't believe it. So that's kind of give you a little bit of pers perspective. So a a four to six week kids program with two sessions a week with an expert coach that's designed to make them have fun and have a great time and make them love fitness and all that other stuff. That's a premium service that is not worth less than an adult membership. It's not worth less than the martial arts school down the road. It's not worth less than the gymnastics program. So look at what's priced the price , some of the pricing around you, and it should be priced at least equal to your adult programs, if not more. And then look at some of the pricing around your listeners so that you do that. Now Deb, talk to me about, you mentioned a little bit of this filling and marketing kids program. If you have nobody right now, how would you start this? If I said to you, Deb, you have four weeks to get a kids program going, how would you fill it?
Speaker 2:First I would look at my member member list and just see who had the, like you mentioned before , uh, target who has the kids in one , uh, range of age or whatever. And then just start it from there. So for instance, I've got a open house for a new kids program beginning of May, and we've been marketing that for like the last couple weeks. I put it on my members page. I tagged all the members who have kids in those age ranges because we're doing like two separate groups. So start off with your member base and then I'm going to just, you know, blast Facebook, you know, that kind of thing. Share kids' pictures and just target that group out there. Target teachers. I've got a lot of teacher friends who, you know, in different in elementary school . So I will get with them and they share my posts. Those, those kinds of things.
Speaker 1:Have you found it when you've talked to your members and you've said, okay, I have this program coming up, let's say speed, agility, or whatever it is that you've got going on. Are they immediately interested when they have kids?
Speaker 2:Um, it depends on how busy they are because their kids are in so many other different things. But if I can make it to where they know it's gonna be benefiting them, then usually they'll, they'll sign on. But a lot of my, my programs, I've got a big list of volleyball kids who, you know , come, come back around anytime I have something going on.
Speaker 1:So then it's gonna be key for you to keep a mailing list and to say, okay, these people were in my program next year, I'm gonna email 'em all again and say, this is coming back. Are you still interested? Do you do stuff like that?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Um, so I've got a, a spreadsheet that has everything listed, you know, third grade. 'cause I start my volleyball program at third grade and then I just kind of, I put 'em to the next, next level. So I've got from third to ninth grade of the kids who've been involved.
Speaker 1:Okay. Talk to me about the PAC mentality of parents. Like when you find one parent who's interested, is it very easy to then say, Hey, I wanna surround your kids with the very best other kids. Can you gimme some names of some people who might be interested? Has that ever worked for you?
Speaker 2:A few times. Like , uh, this open house that we're having, I message the people who are interested because they've done my programs in the past. I was like, okay, bring a friend with you. And that has helped. It's also helped with my, my jump program, my volleyball, you know, bring a friend with you and then they end up signing up. So it's, it's good stuff.
Speaker 1:Local Facebook groups, has that worked well for you?
Speaker 2:I tend to stay off of those. I I, I don't really, I've never gone onto that. I know people have tagged me in some things on that, but there's really I think one , uh, Jefferson City site that , uh, I could go on, but I, I stay off of that 'cause it's a lot of negative things too.
Speaker 1:<laugh>. Yeah. Yeah. It sure can be, especially right now. But if you're listening and, you know, Deb's got a whole network outside of that, but if you're not, you could start looking into like local groups for parents or local groups for community clubs or kids activities, any kind of stuff like that. You could even start talking like hockey groups. Hey , hey hockey parents. I have got an upcoming program to get your kid ready for next season. This is dry line training, four to six weeks, two times a week. These two age groups message me for details. That's kinda the help. First Chris Cooper philosophy, I've got , uh, always have his book within within distance here. That's the idea, is offering some help in those local groups. You could absolutely do that and it works wonders if you don't have to do that, you could definitely do this. Deb mentioned affinity marketing earlier. That's where you're talking to people that you're , are close to you and that's where saying, Hey Tim, your son, he loves hockey. I wanna get him in this program. Do you know of anybody else who might be a perfect fit for that program? And you can kind of use this six degrees of separation thing to get an entire program filled without spending a dollar on ads. Like that works really well. Deb, do you spend any money on ads?
Speaker 2:Um, for, for my , um, my regular membership I do, but I've boosted some ads for like my kids' stuff and it's worked in the past, but I tend to stick to the affinity stuff and the groups that I have right now. So,
Speaker 1:And that's my recommendation listeners, is if you are getting something on the line, line on the rails right now, don't worry about figuring out a paid ad campaign. If you're not an expert at that, talk to your current members, talk to the local groups. Someone in your gym is a teacher, someone in your gym is a coach of some sort. Start talking to those people and figure out how can you help their clients, their athletes, their friends, their family, how can you help their little ones get fit and have fun in summer because parents are looking for activities right now. So start with that principle is affinity marketing, and you can find lots of info about that on the two brain blog. Deb, I'm gonna ask you this. So you're the expert. If you were a gym out there, you have nothing on the calendar right now for June, July, August. What would you do today? Like right now after this podcast and ends, what would you do to avoid a summer slump?
Speaker 2:I would probably come up with maybe , um, like a Saturday, a Saturday kids class to help out with that. And if you have air conditioning, then you'll find a , a trainer who is good with kids and maybe do an evening two times a week, kids class and just, you know, make it fun. And you know, there's so many things out there that you can do that you could get those kids signed up. And we're, we're planning on trying to do a, you know, two class a week during the summer in the evenings and then also maybe a Saturday Saturday or Sunday morning class.
Speaker 1:So if I threw this at you , so I'm gonna run this by you . This would be a plan you could do listeners, if you're out there, you could say, I'm gonna run a six week session starting from , uh, call it June to mid-July and you're gonna go, let's say Saturdays at 9:00 AM If that works for your spacing , your gym or something like that, and you're gonna do six sessions, call it that. Just a nice easy starting point. Deb, what would you price that at six sessions for a group of let's say 10 to 12 kids?
Speaker 2:I would probably, myself, I would probably do one 19. So about 20, $20 a session. I'd probably only do either 30 minutes or 45 minutes. So , and then that way you could get two groups in there.
Speaker 1:Yes, there it is. So already you're finding a way to make that hour valuable and then almost two exit by getting a second group in there. So let's say that group of kids is like, they're their seven to 10 year olds or something like that. They don't need an hour of stuff. They need 30 minutes of stuff and you're gonna move fast, get 'em in, get the next crew out. You could get 20 kids 10 and 10 in one hour, priced at one 19. That's Deb's recommendation for that one. 20 bucks a session essentially. And you're gonna run that for four to , I said six weeks. Pardon me. And you're gonna do Saturday mornings. Here's what I would do right now after the show ends. I would go and I would walk into your gym and I would find the first person with kids and ask them if they'd be interested in something like that. And then if they are, or if they aren't, ask them who else that they know might be interested in that. Repeat this throughout the day with the people that you see in your gym. I bet that you can fill that. Do you , Deb, do you think that plan would work marketing wise ?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I think so. Um, I plan on using that <laugh>
Speaker 1:<laugh> . I think it would work. And you know what? Here's the thing. I was really bad at paid marketing. I was bad at running specialty programs and things like that for children. Uh, I assigned this to , uh, a staff member at my gym, passionate about kids invest in the program. And all that person did was just start talking to our members and said, Hey, we have a kids program now, would you like to sign up? The thing was full right away mm-hmm <affirmative> . And then all of a sudden, a few other people heard about it because they told their friends and more people were there. And all of a sudden I had more kids than I could handle. We had little pink dumbbells running around and pool noodles and everyone was having a blast and the revenue went up and the summer slump didn't happen that year. So Deb, thanks so much for being here and sharing the secrets. I hope this is gonna help gym owners all over the world avoid the summer sums. Thank you so much, Deb.
Speaker 2:All right , thank you.
Speaker 1:That was Debbie Roslyn , this is Run a Profitable Gym. Thanks so much for watching and listening. Please subscribe for more shows just like this because we helped you fix your gym and build a better business right here every single week. And now here's to Brain founder Chris Cooper with a final message.
Speaker 3:Hey, it's true Brain founder Chris Cooper. With a quick note , we created the Gym Owners United Facebook group to help you run a profitable gym. Thousands of gym owners, just like you have already joined in the group. We share sound advice about the business of fitness every day I answer questions, I run free webinars and I give away all kinds of great resources to help you grow your gym. I'd love to have you in that group. It's Gym Owners United on Facebook, or go to gym owners united.com to join. Do it today.
