Exciting Times!

My mind is blown away with how crazy busy work has gotten! Saturday will be our "16 month anniversary" of owning My Gym Arvada. Our first employee, Chelsea, joined our team mid-January and I actually have to watch how much I schedule her to make sure she stays under 40 hours a week. Bringing her on isn't giving us much of a break, but it's growing the gym! We have added more classes (some where all 3 of us have to teach it), and we have also stepped up our marketing game!

Juli & Chelsea

January 23-24, we had a booth (picture below) at the Colorado Baby & Kidz Expo. January 30-31, we had a "Registration Extragavanza" at the gym. These events along with January's "pay your child's age membership" special REALLY boosted our enrollment numbers!

Last time I posted around the Holidays, we were so excited to have 137 kids enrolled! It was the highest enrollment the gym had ever had... so far. Before I announce our current enrollment standings, I want to back up to November 2008 when corporate came to do a support visit. We had 131 kids enrolled and 5 birthdays booked for that month. Here is a quote from what Chris King wrote on our on-site report: "Overall, I would like to say that I think you have done a wonderful job in your first year of growing and maintaining a successful enrollment with the Arvada gym. The facility looks wonderful internally, and all enrollment is steady and consistent. The fact that you have done everything by yourselves this first year has both helped you and hurt you. By having no other staff, you have kept payroll to nothing. Also, by having no other staff, you have made it next to impossible to proactively help your gym grow. As you now realize, the Arvada gym needs more than great class programs and internal marketing to grow to where you want it. The gym needs someone, or a team of people, with some time to get out and market."

Now that there are three of us (Thomas, Juli, and Chelsea), we have taken this advice, set-up a marketing plan, and rolled out a bonus structure. We went from 137 kids the end of December to 188 kids the end of January. We also have 10 birthday parties booked for the month of February (the highest we have ever booked in a month). We are shocked and excited to have these enrollment numbers! However, the stress is still on because we are trying to reach 200 kids before 2/15/10. Cory, the CEO of My Gym, has offered a free month of royalties if we reach this goal. With almost one more week left of this "bet", we are pushing hard, getting on the phones, and offering a special to all our members who canceled in 2009 if they re-join before Valentine's Day. This is a fun challenge, but stressful. In the end, though, we will be on top either way!

Our break-even number with Chelsea now hired is 186. We are pleased that it only took 15 months to break-even, but with the small "cancellation margin", we want to stay above 200 to be safe each month. Please pray for us this week to be able to reach the enrollment number of 200 before the 15th (NEXT Monday)! Thank you, as always, for your love and support through our hard work and busy times. We are smiling! :-)