Beat the Summer Revenue Dip: The Gym Owner's Action Plan

Summer is coming, and for many gym owners, that means holds, cancellations and a painful dip in revenue—but it doesn’t have to.

The summer slump is natural if you don't take action: Clients go on vacation, they trade your programmed workouts for outdoor activities in the sunshine, and kids who are home from school force routine changes.

But when clients stop coming to the gym consistently, they lose the momentum they’ve built, making it harder to get them to restart in the fall.

Today on “Run a Profitable Gym,” Two-Brain founder Chris Cooper gives you a tactical action plan for getting ahead of the summer slump in 2025.

He breaks down practical strategies for improving summer retention and boosting revenue with seasonal programs, such as offseason athlete camps.

You’ll also learn how to offer remote coaching and travel prescriptions so you can keep clients engaged even when they’re outside the gym.

Tune in to hear a complete plan you can apply to your gym today and use every year to make summer a strong season.

Links

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3:25 - Pre-sell fall engagement

5:00 - Seasonal programs and events

7:37 - Camps and programs for offseason athletes

9:06 - Remote training programs

12:29 - Vacation training plans

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

Hey, can I put my membership on hold with the kids being done school for the summer? Now my schedule changes and I can't make it to any of the group class times anymore. I'm Chris Cooper. This is Run a Profitable Gym and the summer slump is coming. That was an email that I actually got at my gym last Thursday, and I'm gonna tell you what we did about it today and how we plan to overcome and beat the summer slump so that it doesn't hurt us first. The summer slump is natural, especially in the northern part of the world. There's a seasonal drop off for gym memberships. As people embrace the sunlight, they want to go outside, their schedule is changing, they go on vacation, the kids are outta school, their routines are all interrupted. The problem is that your gym still has to go on. And more than that, these clients will go backward for three or four months if they just step away from their fitness. The mistake that most gym owners make is to just brace for impact instead of planning for opportunity. And so today I'm gonna give you tactical ways to keep your revenue steady or even grow it and keep your clients engaged through the summer. I'm gonna share my own experience with some summer slowdowns from Catalyst and from the thousand other gyms that we currently work with in the two Brain model. And I'm gonna tell you why this matters. The problem is that retention is the big issue here, and if people drop off, it's hard to get them to restart. So this is more than just revenue, it's more than just number of people in classes. It's more than just needing more lead gen. It's keeping people engaged long enough to maintain their habits, to get them good results and maintain your revenue so that when the fall comes and there's another surge of clients, you're already going into it strong. Before we start, I want you to think about how you present your class times and your schedule. Your clients needs change over the course of the year. So do yours, so do your coaches. And so you should be releasing your gym's schedule on a quarterly basis anyway. What that means is that going forward, starting from now, you should be announcing your schedule once every three months. So for example, you would say, here's our summer 2025 schedule at Catalyst. Get your clients used to seeing slight variations in the schedule. Position it as we want to accommodate your changing needs over the wintertime. You know, maybe the in you start half an hour later in the wintertime if, if you're up north like I am because people just can't get outta bed quite as earlier , their car might not start. Maybe you start a little bit later in the summertime or you have fewer classes in the summer, or you do more on the weekends or less on the weekends. For me, for example, we do fewer classes on the weekends in the summertime because everybody where I live goes to their cottage or goes to camp in the summertime, and that means there's nobody in the city on the weekends. And so we do more classes in the week, they start a little bit earlier and we do less on the weekends. And this is all fine. And you avoid this stress of like, oh, I gotta take away this class time, or I gotta change this class, because you get people used to it in advance. And so later down the track, if you have a class time that's really serving only one or two people, it's pretty easy to remove that from the schedule if your schedule changes every quarter and your clients are used to that. So this is the best opportunity to start that practice. Now, if it's too late and we wanna beat the summer slump, let's get through the tips on how to do that right now. The first trick is to get people ready for the fall. And so you're selling engagement. So what you wanna do here is plan a September event like an in-house competition. This should happen the weekend after Labor Day and start selling registrations today. It works because you create a reason for clients to stay active and train hard through the summer. So for example, you would say, sign up now you're gonna train hard through the summer and compete in September. A couple of tips that I've learned over the last decade of doing this that really help , number one, make it a partners or a team competition so that people don't wanna let down the others on their team. And number two, charge enough that they can't just slough off. You know, if you charge 20 bucks for to register for this competition, they're gonna be like, Matt , it's 20 bucks. If you charge a hundred bucks, that creates a little bit more incentive for them to train. So charge a hundred bucks, make it worth a hundred bucks. Go offsite, rent a facility, get them nice t-shirts, charge 200 or even $300 and you'll get people to train hard all summer for that event. If you don't wanna run a competition or an event, what you can do is have pre-sales. So you can set up challenges starting the first week of September for which people can register in June. You can set up a specialty program in September that's gonna sell out, and people can pre-register for that in June. You can have a nutrition challenge starting in September, et cetera . But the question you wanna ask yourself right now is, what's the one thing that you could put on the calendar for September that would get your clients excited today, excited enough to either pre-register for it or to train all summer to be ready for it? Next option is seasonal offers for new and current clients. So for example, you could run a specialty program for people that will work, you know, especially right now. So an extra little revenue boost might be a couch to 5K program. So you market to people in your gym who wanna get better at their 5K run, their first 5K, and also to people outside your gym who are thinking about doing their first 5K. It's called couch to 5K. So it's great for beginners and it can actually be a funnel to bring people into your gym. For example, when this was working best for us, we would get about 34, 35 people registering for these couch to 5K programs. They would meet one a week, it was 99 bucks, and the coach would meet with them, run with them as a group, and give them some homework to do on their own. That way it didn't interfere with our clients coming to their group classes and beginners could slowly ramp up to it to really promote it. What we would do is we would partner with some of the local five Ks and say, Hey, we can get more people to register for your race if you promote our couch to 5K program. And then they'll show up and they're ready and they're enthusiastic, et cetera. And we had a great partnership with this for a decade. Um, what this also means is that at the end of the couch to 5K, you've got a bunch of people who are new to fitness, they're excited for the next step, and you can talk to 'em about your on-ramp program. You could even do this remotely if you want to, and you can build relationships with run clubs or , uh, local race organizers too. Another idea that a lot of gyms and two brain do is called summer bingo. It's a really fun retention play. So you give people a bingo card at the start of the summer and you tell people complete these tasks over the summer and you win win a prize. So a tile on that bingo card might be a class, attend class three times a week for a month, or bring a friend on a certain date or try a new skill or post a sweaty selfie on Instagram. Sometimes it could even be leave a five star review for the gym. You just wanna make sure that most of the bingo card is about them. A similar idea that some gyms and two brain use is called Summer League. And what you do is a lot like the intramural open. You draft people into four teams and you create fitness games through July and August. You wanna keep this light in social, but with a small competitive twist. And you definitely want to have , uh, points for showing up. You can charge a small fee, which is great , uh, it means they've got some skin in the game, give them t-shirts or prizes. But what you wanna do here at this point is say like, what is one extra thing that we could offer people who are already in our gym that would create value for them that they'd wanna pay for and would boost our revenues over the next month or two? The third option is to run summer camps and programs for off season athletes. These are usually best for kids. And I just wanna remind you that if you're listening to this podcast, you probably train athletes, but maybe not. And some of the most successful micro gym models out there cater only to kids. I'm talking about Parisi speed school. I'm talking about cheer camps, gymnastics camps, swim programs, summer camps for kids. I mean, people will pay to put their kids in something before they'll pay to put themselves in something. So the people who are canceling their gym memberships, because their schedule is all wonky, are probably putting their kids into summer camps and they have to deliver their kids to summer camps, and that's why their schedule is wonky. So think about that opportunity for your gym. Now you have to have the right pro coach doing this program, but here's how to do it. So first, if you're already running a kid's program, this is just such a layup. But if even if you're not, what you do is you talk to the parents of kids in your gym about the sports that their kids play, then you market strength and conditioning to those youth teams or to athletes who season just ended. So for example, this is great for baseball. It hasn't really started yet. Soccer, hockey, amazing speed skating, volleyball teams looking to keep athletes moving. And the bonus is that this builds long-term relationships with the parents and local sports clubs. On the next podcast, we're gonna have Debbie Roslyn talking about how she does summertime volleyball camps, and that just blows up her business. A fourth option is to offer a remote program that's an upgrade. Now what this does is it gives your clients a remote training upgrade to so that they can take vacation and still get coached, or they can take time at the cottage and still get coached. And the package would probably include workouts, accountability check-ins, maybe some nutrition tips. Maybe it's like I'm available through text , 18 hours a day or whatever. This keeps your clients engaged and paying while they're away, while they're outside of the gym. I , I'll be honest with you, I think like in the summertime, especially where I live, it's so fleeting that people should be getting outside of the gym more. That doesn't mean they should be coached less. So if they're going to be on their bike, if they're gonna be jogging, if they're gonna be swimming at camp, if they're gonna be, you know, playing pickleball or whatever, they should still be coached. But their program should shift to coaching them to do well at those sports. They should be in the gym less, but coach the same amount. And if you get ahead of this by creating this package right now and offering it to people who you think might fall off, you'll probably retain a lot of them. So earlier I shared an email that I got from a client last Thursday at my gym and the response of the manager, of course was like, okay, let's put them on, let's cancel them 'cause we don't do holds. And instead I said, no, no, we have to go up market with these people. What they're asking for is not, I wanna lose my fitness, cancel my membership. What they're asking for is more flexibility. More flexibility is available in one-on-one training than in our group program. Our group program is lower tier because it, you know, it works for everybody and it's scheduled and you have to make decisions about your timing. But one-on-one works for other people because the timing is flexible and the accountability is, you know , uh, liquid, like it's plastic. I can keep up to you whenever I want to. Um, you know, I can change what I'm doing. And if your gym is running a prescriptive model, this is a very easy change to make. Hey, it's May, let's bring everybody in for a goal review one at a time, especially the group training clients. What are you gonna be doing this summer? Here's the plan. You know, there's no need for them to cancel their membership. You just pivot your coaching service to them a little bit. So you could also offer this for non-clients, and you could just ask yourself right now, who in your local community could use your help staying strong through the summer? And how can you reach them right now this month? Well, if you create a package today, the next step is marketing that package. So think about what the perfect package would be for people who are gonna be kind of outside the gym in the summer. Do you want to take them through your on ramp ? Now's the time. Okay ? The next option is to give people a summer prescription. So don't just hope that they stay engaged. Don't wait for them to say, I want to cancel 'em and present them with an alternative. Give them a plan. So ask them in a goal review, are you gonna be staying home? Well, then let's focus on attendance at the gym and a progress p plan and maintaining your habits. If they're going away, shift to a remote option or a vacation workout plan. Use your goal reviews, you know, heavy right now to keep them focused. Frame this as helping them stay consistent, not trying to sell them more stuff. The key here is that you have to ask yourself, like, are you asking your clients what their plans are this summer? Or are you just waiting for them to see who disappears and crossing your fingers and covering your head and cowering, right? The next option is to create a vacation plan for people who are actually traveling. So for me, a vacation plan usually means they're staying local, but they're going away from the city, they're going away from the gym. If your clients are actually traveling, going on vacation, you can have a different plan. So here's what the , the different plan is. First you ask them where they're going. I'm going to Greece, I'm going to Australia. I've never been there before. That's fantastic. I think it's really important for you to keep up your fitness while you're there. Do you agree? Great. Here are some options for you. Number one, I can give you body weight workouts so that you're doing stretches while you're in the airport. You're not doing, you know, wind sprints while you're in the airport. You're doing some stretches when you get there. You're gonna need to do a short body weight workout in the hotel so that you're not, you know, losing your whole first day of jet lag. Then , um, I'm gonna give you like a good eating plan that will help you and give you some workouts that will maintain your level of fitness. You can do them early before the family gets up and it won't disrupt your plans on the way home. I'm gonna give you some stretches to do in the airport. Again, I'm gonna give you a body weight workout to do the morning. You arrive home and then we're gonna get you back into the gym from there. How does that sound? Great. And add on to this option could be that, hey, I want you to look at the location where you are going to be. So you're going to Canada this summer. Wonderful. What's the name of the Cedar City? Peterborough, Ontario. Great. Let me find a gym in Peterborough, Ontario. Okay , CrossFit Peterborough. And let me contact the owner of that gym . Tell 'em you're gonna be coming. Do you think that you can come twice or three times? Okay , I will pay for it because they're paying you a membership. You can pay that other gym's drop in fees or whatever, but I want you to be there. Can you commit to doing that? Okay. And if they're like, well, I might commit to doing it once or twice, then great, you know, you contact the owner of that gym, I've got a client coming into town, can you accommodate them? I will cover the drop in fee. They can do your program, they can do my program, whatever. You can work that out. We do this quite often with semi-private clients. They're coming north for the summertime. They train with us. The gym follows their program. Uh , we do this in the wintertime for clients who are going to Florida Sweat. Factory CrossFit is a great example. If somebody's taking a cruise, they're probably embarking close to Sweat Factory CrossFit. And so our clients go there and we just pay them a membership. You don't have to have a formal agreement with these gyms. You just have to be a caring coach and call ahead and say, can this person drop in and can I pay their drop in fee? Okay, look, the summer slump is coming, but it's optional if you plan for it. You can't avoid the summer, but you can avoid the revenue slump. I can remember on my worst period of gym ownership, this would've been August, 2008. I was right at the end of the summer slump, which means I had had a membership slowdown for the two months before that. Uh, I had no money left in the bank. I had , uh, a tax payment for my property coming up like in September. I had to pay the rent. I hadn't paid myself in two weeks. This was like my lowest point. And I said, no matter what happens, I am not going through August like this again. And right there in August, 2008, I wrote the plan for the next summer because I was desperate. I was starving, I was hungry. And frankly, I just couldn't go through that again. I was at my lowest point. And so the next summer we already had a plan. We knew that we were gonna be offering kids camps, et cetera . Now, if you're working with Two Brain, you've already got a plan for the summer. And so the stuff that I'm telling you might be a different idea than what you're currently doing, but you're probably not freaking out because you've already got a plan to get through the summer slump. If you're not working with a two brain mentor, look, it's pretty close to being too late. You need to take action on this stuff right now. You , you also need to have a plan. Like you can't be going through these roller coasters up and down every summer and expect to stay in business too long. You'll just burn out. You deserve to be financially stable and secure. Okay, so to sum up, the first thing that you want to do is start announcing your calendar in quarters. Even if it never really changes, it gets people used to that cadence of the calendar might change. Second, you wanna offer seasonal programs like a coach to 5K or a Summer League. Third, you can engage off season athletes, especially kids who wanna come in and train and get better for their sport. Fourth, there are some retention tools that you can use like Summer Bingo and prescriptions for summertime travel. The key though, is that you pick one or two of these strategies and put it into action this week. Instead of just taking notes and writing down all five or six, I need to do those. Let's put them in the binder somewhere and then moving on to the next podcast and getting the next information, whatever. Pick one or two of the things that I've just said and act on it right now. Block yourself off another 30 minutes and you can get any one of these done. Look, what I'd invite you to do if you have questions is just go to gym owners united.com, ask your questions there. We've got free resources all the time, like how to start a Kid's summer program. You can just search the group for those resources and you can have this stuff already by tomorrow. You don't have to lose sleep for another night. You don't have to be living in this constant state of panic all the time. You can fix your business, you can plan in advance, and you can avoid the summer slop . I'm Chris Cooper. This is Run a Profitable Gym and I hope you are.