Owning a fitness club comes with major responsibilities. Most revolve around making decisions for the future of the club.

Club owners have to decide who to hire, which hours to open, which personal training plans to offer, what equipment to purchase—and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Each of these decisions comes with a certain amount of risk, some big and some small.

Closing earlier may cause a few member cancellations. However, that loss could be offset by a larger savings in operating and staff cost. While experimenting with closing times is a relatively small risk, other decisions entail much larger implications. For example, investing in a second location could be make or break for business, and the decision to do so requires much more than careful thought or contemplation.

The best chance of producing a positive outcome is to use quantitative data and research to make decisions.

Without data to guide the way, making growth decisions can be a bit like taking a stab in the dark. Club staff may have a hunch that a certain group training time is more popular than others, but without registration numbers, there’s no way to be certain.

Being able to quickly access data around program registrations over a period of time can provide the insight needed to make the best decision for member satisfaction and overall success. If we use the example of a fitness club owner that’s contemplating opening a second location, having the data to pinpoint where members and prospects live could help determine which areas of town would be best for the new facility.

There are an infinite number of data points associated with fitness clubs. From daily check-ins and monthly new joins to weekly revenue and yearly operating costs, it can be overwhelming to try to sift through everything that’s available and even harder to determine what’s useful when making decisions for growth. Rather than digging through mountains of data to uncover meaning, a data tool can help fitness clubs make decisions with crystal-clear insights that alleviate the stress of decision-making.

An interactive reporting software is a good way to break into the world of data analytics. Club Automation’s reporting tool provides 75 report types that give insight into all aspects of a fitness club, from operations and utilization to member dynamics and finances.

Fitness club staff can customize reports with filters for age, membership type, registration history, etc. and then set commonly used reports to run on a regular schedule. With an interactive reporting software, fitness clubs can get the numbers they need faster with browser-based access and easy exporting.

Take insights one step further with Performance Analytics, a sophisticated software that takes reporting far beyond the spreadsheet. Instead of seeing rows and columns of meaningless numbers, data is distilled into easy-to-read charts and visual representations that clearly tell the story of a fitness club’s growth over time.

In addition to taking a fine-tooth comb to an individual fitness club’s data, Performance Analytics shows clubs the big picture by comparing their data points to others in the industry using benchmarks created by a machine learning algorithm and collected industry data.

Even when a fitness club isn’t looking to make an immediate decision, data can be extremely useful in getting a birds-eye-view and staying ahead of the curve. With year-over-year or month-over-month reporting on key performance indictors like active membership and total revenue, fitness club owners can use predictive trends to prepare for the seasons ahead.

Ready to harness the power of data to grow your fitness club? Schedule a consultation with Club Automation or check out our Questions to Ask Your Software Provider guide below.