How to Create a Fitness Studio Business Plan
February 8, 2023
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Run Your Fitness Business
If you're a MindBody customer who's looking for a change, you're in the right place!
We've met many fitness, dance, and yoga studio owners like you who have found their way to Punchpass during the COVID-19 crisis. Maybe you're looking for a simpler way to offer your classes online or perhaps you've closed your doors temporarily.
Regardless of why you're here, we'd like to take this opportunity to introduce ourselves and answer some questions we're frequently asked by folks in your shoes.
We'd love to welcome you to Punchpass.
Punchpass helps you sell passes and manage attendance, but it's much easier for you and your customers to use. We give you what you need without confusing you with things you don't need.
We have a write-up highlighting the differences between Punchpass and MindBody -- you can check that out here.
Our system is so much easier to use than Mindbody, and your students are going to love it -- whether you're offering classes online or in-person. We're here to help too 😊
In a nutshell -- Punchpass is much simpler for you and your clients to use, and our team is very responsive to your needs.
This recent story encapsulates the spirit of Punchpass: When the Coronavirus still seemed like a distant threat, our founder and CEO, Chris Patton, proposed the idea of a quick pivot so that we could support our clients who might want to offer classes online while continuing to use Punchpass. Our tech team sprinted into action, and our support and communications crew worked in lock step to keep our clients informed and optimistic as we were forced down this uncharted path together.
The online classes feature we've introduced has provided empowerment to fitness studio owners who would otherwise have had no choice but to stop providing their service to the communities that depend on them. The response we've received from the Punchpass community has been overwhelmingly positive and inspiring. The stories of Bill, Emily, and Dana are good examples of Punchpass clients who've thrived in the face of adversity. A local CBS news station even ran story about us.
Our small and mighty Punchpass team is so proud to play a role in the survival of these fitness studios and their communities. We are completely dedicated to being a central driver of success for the businesses we work with.
You should take a look at our plans and pricing & you'll notice a major difference between our systems.
Yep -- month to month. And you can move among the plans if you need to.
It's super simple to offer classes online with the Punchpass-Zoom integration.
First you have to log into Punchpass & integrate your account with Zoom.
Once you're integrated with Zoom, Punchpass can help you turn any class online in a single click. Punchpass automatically sets up the meeting in Zoom. Your clients register for class through Punchpass, and we manage your customer communications, payment, and attendance.
More about the process is here.
We hear that it's a LOT easier to set up and run your online classes with Punchpass than it is with MindBody.
We offer a content library so you can keep your recordings protected within Punchpass.
The easiest way to get started is to begin a free trial. The trial lets you use Punchpass free for 2 weeks.
Yes -- that's exactly what the trial is for! It's good to get a feel for things so you can see for yourself what it's like before you start paying for the service.
You can add a class to your schedule, add a test customer & see how it all works. if you like it, we can get your data over & you'll be ready to go!
We don't take your credit card, and there's absolutely no obligation.
You can check out a customer-facing demo page here.
However, the trial covers all the admin-side features. So to see how things work from the your perspective, you should sign up for the trial here.
We have helped a lot of businesses migrate from MindBody, and we often hear how much easier setup is within our system. We've seen many clients launch while they are still in the trial!
This video demo will show you how quick and easy it is to get up and running with Punchpass.
Right. No training needed with Punchpass -- it's simple to use.
If you download reports from MindBody, we can upload them for you. We'll help you migrate your customer data and transfer any partially used passes still active on your MindBody account.
There are two reports to consider.
You can pull the Email list from MindBody's "Mailing List" if you want to migrate EVERYONE from your MindBody account.
You can pull the "Visits Remaining Report" if you just want current customers and their remaining passes converted to Punchpass.
We can upload either or both for you!
Here are more details about converting your data from MindBody.
No problem. MindBody has a report called the "Visits Remaining Report." Just download that from your account & we can upload it to convert all your customers who have in-progress passes.
You can attach the spreadsheets to the Punchpass chat using the paperclip icon. We'll take a look to confirm it with you and then let you know when they are uploaded.
You just need to send us the reports and we generally have them uploaded in your Punchpass account within 24 hours.
We don't charge to import your data.
If you have recurring memberships, you will need to have your members re-enter their credit card information if you want to integrate with our payment partner, Stripe.
Yes, you will have your own schedule that you can embed on your website. Your schedule will look something like this sample one.
We support both options at no extra charge.
We provide embedding codes if you want to keep the clients on your site, and we provide a link if you want to keep it simple and send your clients to your Punchpass-hosted pages.
More details about adding your Punchpass schedule to your website are here.
Yes! You can brand your public URL with your company name.
Absolutely. Your Punchpass account can support multiple locations. Clients and passes are shared across the locations.
Our Private Sessions feature lets you quickly create a new class in Punchpass, and a reservation (or attendance) for a customer at the same time. The class is marked as ‘private’ so it won’t show up on your public schedule. You can create one easily from the customer's account.
Absolutely! To do this, you want to create an unlimited pass with a 3 month expiration period.
There are lots of ways to set up your passes... unlimited, with a limited number of visits, and over whatever time period you like.
Yes, you can absolutely set up recurring memberships in Punchpass. If you're integrated with Stripe, Punchpass will manage the charges each month & keep client memberships up to date.
Yes. You can give your staff and instructors the right level of access by giving them a certain user level in Punchpass.
Stripe is the only online payment system that we are fully integrated with. They are great! You'll set up an account with Stripe (which is free) so that Stripe can serve as the credit card processor. They do charge standard fees.
Keep in mind that Stripe has NO monthly fees or minimums. So you only pay a fee when you get paid.
Punchpass doesn't charge anything for those transactions, and we don't get any kickback from Stripe. We work with them because they provide a beautiful integration with our program.
Here's more about selling your passes and memberships online with Stripe.
Yes. If you want clients to pay and immediately be assigned their pass, you'll want to use Stripe.
When you integrate with Stripe, Punchpass gives you an online payments page.
And, like your online schedule, you can also embed your online payments page on your website.
Stripe can support your in-person sales with no external hardware.
We also provide an integration with Square that lets you keep track of sales from Square POS readers, Square weblinks, and the Square web store really easily.
But if you choose to use a different payment provider you can easily just assign passes in Punchpass once they pay.
That's correct! It's really simple -- MANY of our customers take payment in a different system, and then just assign the pass to the customer within Punchpass. We've made it quick and easy to do for that very reason. Here's an example with a Paypal payment:
You can find details about Stripe's fees here.
Sure - you can pass the fees onto your customers by including them in your pricing.
"Punchpass has a fresh look and a friendly approach which we relate to. Ease and simplicity is what we are looking for."
"This is so much easier than MindBody.
"Wish us luck....we are just about to stop MindBody. It's been costing us $6000 a year. We are closed right now, of course. But when we reopen our studio, we'll go live with Punchpass."
If Punchpass feels like it could be a fit for your business, definitely give it a shot!
We're here to answer your questions during your trial too. We know that it's a big move, and we're here to help each step of the way.
We'd love to help you out.
