"Before NG, 25% (10 of the 40 hours a week) of each GXMs time was spent doing subbing. We now spend 1 hour and 30 to 2 hours a week total and anything related to emergencies and subbing. We can’t even think about what it would be like to not have NetGym!”
"As a regional director, it's really cut down on people's workload and saved many hours a week not having to worry about finding coverage. Now I am able to focus on what's important as a manager which is developing talent, putting the right people into slots, and teaching classes. Super grateful for NetGym and the platform that has been created.”
"I have been working for many different fitness centers for many years. The netgym app is the best there is for subbing classes. Never a discussion never conflicts, just the best. As I said before, the best app for this function and I design computer software"
"Thank you so much for your sweet note! I love working with you guys and appreciate all your hard work. NetGym makes our jobs so much better and the bonus is working with wonderful people like you!"
"By the way – you guys rock! Everyone just raves about you all the time."
"SUPER - I am sure it will help!! Thanks for hearing us!"
My name is Danny Orlick, and 5 years ago I was a top cycling instructor in San Francisco at EQX, Crunch, and BodyROK while crushing software sales as the #1 rep at New Relic and WalkMe.
While I was teaching classes, I saw many gyms and studios struggling with their sub request process. I witnessed the chaotic mess which was hundreds of emails with reply-alls, mass texts, FB groups, and google spreadsheets all to get classes covered by a sub. In addition, each business had their own sub policy and approval process that we’d have to follow. I received emails and texts to sub classes I couldn’t even teach. I was shocked to hear from management how often “no-shows” occur because instructors forgot they confirmed to sub a class. Never happened to me. However, a few weeks into my research this did happen to me! I replied to an email on a Thursday saying I can sub the following 6AM Monday class. That weekend I went to my best friend's wedding and had an amazing time with my wife, Danielle, to say the least. Booze was flowing. To no surprise, I totally forgot I committed to sub and didn’t show up. The studio management was scrambling, calling me 20 times at 5:45AM, and ultimately somebody else had to teach the class due to my mistake.
I realized how much money these gyms and studios could be losing due to a teacher not showing up to the class or even just being a sub the member wasn’t familiar with in the first place. Afterall, people take precious time out of their day to workout and want their favorite instructor. If they didn’t get that or were surprised, members could cancel or have poor experiences, influencing their decisions to stick around.
Fitness is built on relationships and being a sales guy, that’s one of the strengths that I honed in on when starting NetGym. I established connections early on with leaders at Crunch, Equinox, JCC, and Barry’s. Everyone had this problem AND were willing to pay for the solution I proposed. So we built a tool that would unify sub activity for managers, filter requests based on skill set and location, incorporate the sub policy of that studio, streamline all sub communication, and automatically update the live schedule with the name of the sub.
My strategy worked so well, that in 2016, we were able to grow organically with no sales and marketing, outside investment, or without hiring a team. Many instructors who use NetGym also teach at other businesses where they continue to recommend us.
Every customer or prospect we speak with recognizes we’ve covered all aspects of subbing for any type of fitness studio or gym and that we truly built the product for them.
We now service over 65 customers spanning 675 fitness locations. We partner with various scheduling vendors such as Mindbody, Mariana Tek, and ABC Financial to automate sub scheduling and are the only ones that have this agility today. We have worked with various different boutique fitness studios and big box gym chains from EOS, Chuze, YMCA and Crunch Fitness to Y7, Grit Cycle, Core40, Barry’s, SLT, Rumble, and Flywheel. We have received over 100 testimonials because we truly put the customer first and continue to listen to what they need.
“Before, so many people reached out to managers asking for phone and email. So much time wasted and now can tell them to locate their information on NG. I anticipate it being so widely used"
"The sub board is so visually appealing and organized for the instructors. The reminders feature is awesome too. Keeps everyone in check."
"Just wanted to share another rad company with you in case other MT customers are looking for something similar. We just started using NetGym for sub-requests! It plugs right into the MT schedule, so when instructors take over sub-requests, it automatically ipdates the schedule in MT!"
"By the way, I LOVE NetGym! I teach at several other gyms who have other programs (Group X Pro and 24HR Swapboard) for finding subs and NetGym is far superior! I like how it is connected with my phone and I receive text reminders about classes I am subbing. I wish more gyms were using this program :)"
"We now have more time for problem solving, looking at low performing classes, providing additional support to instructors, support operations more regularly, and do evaluations consistently and not delaying. Twice a year where they do full evaluations. Get a 90 day eval and get a new GXI shirt. Freed us up to do parties and events, les mills training, main goal is to be in the gym and support the members."
Gym/health club operators who want to improve efficiencies and class experiences BUT are struggling with scaling resources and cutting costs
Cut the majority of overhead expenses related to sub support
Give time to get back into the gym with your members & staff
Rid the manual work and scattered communication
Always find the best instructor to take the class
Feel relieved and empowered because classes are covered in seconds and instructors can more easily and reliably find a sub
All plans include a 21 day free trial
We have seen a lot of policies with over 700 locations. If it makes sense for both of us, we are happy to incorporate custom work and connect you with customers who we have done this for.
Not today but that is because most instructors know their permanent classes already. It’s harder to keep track of what they are subbing since it’s one-off.
Reality is people thrive on structure and organization, especially when your staff are not full-time and have multiple employers. People also like one-stop-shops to find all information, especially as it relates to subbing. We know from experience!
Yes! The sub schedule is filtered by the locations the Group X manager overseas only
It’s very difficult to maintain an accurate distribution list over time, esp with high turnover and furloughs due to COVID. As I mentioned in my previous example, 2+ years after leaving that health club as an instructor, I was still receiving sub requests.
The reason it wouldn’t work is if there was an issue syncing the data. We have controls in place to let us know when there was an issue syncing and we resolve this right away. We are also developing webhooks so we automatically know when changes are made to mindbody. Changes made to mindbody after a sub request is sent is the most common reason why a syncing error would occur. With webhooks, we will be able to make changes automatically to sub requests when these changes occur.
Although these messaging apps provide a great way to communicate directly, it does not close the entire loop of the sub process.
First, they don’t tie into your live schedule. You still have to manually update who’s subbing requiring time from management or the administrative team to sift through and then have to make updates to the live schedule. This is time wasted and money lost.
Second, they don’t provide insights into sub behavior and trends so you can’t make decisions on who should be keeping their permanent classes
We have built a playbook to integrate into any scheduling software within 4-6 weeks. We can partner to make that happen or we also offer a basic version of the software where the integration is not necessary. This version requires manual information of the class information
This comes down to an issue with the instructors profile set up. Management is responsible for assigning Skills to instructors for classes they are eligible to teach. However, we have an awesome and super responsive support team and can quickly assist tp make sure all instructors are receiving what they should.
We have settings in place where not only the instructor can decide when and how often they receive the communication but we also have customized account settings to ensure instructors will not receive anything outside of their working hours. That’s the beauty of us incorporating your unique sub policy!
Sure, the slack channel allows for the communication to occur but it doesn’t provide the same visibility of what is available and coverage statuses as we do. We allow the instructor to receive sub requests in their channel of choice. This can be through email, text, or push notifications. Having this choice and wide coverage allows the instructor to easily see all the requests that are available and quickly accept ones they can teach. It then provides data behind who is subbing what classes and most often which can influence your payroll system directly. Reliable, effective and efficient collaboration could guarantee classes are covered with the best available teacher
Instructors can set up the frequency and the channel in which they want to receive notifications.
You probably don’t have all of the activity tied to subbing. That’s where we come in. We can also sync with mindbody to collate reporting and make it easier to make decisions about your classes and instructors
We have found that subbing is a problem no matter how many locations a gym has. The more gyms, the bigger the problem. If it’s a minor problem or a burden with 1 gym, it will only amplify as you grow.
Well, The ROI speaks for itself not only in dollars but in staff happiness. Filtering requests within one system cuts multiple hours per week off of group X management's schedule, allowing them to focus on quality time with instructors, members, and other operational functions, which is ultimately saving TONs of cash but also driving more revenue..
We can work out multi-year contracts at a discounted rate
We are a small family run business so we do annual contracts but can work with you on flexible payment terms. We support our customers and are happy to accommodate changes needing to payment plans as they endure restrictions and limitations during COVID. For example, we proactively paused all subscriptions to help our customers deal with COVID.
We offer a free 30 day trial so if the product is not a good fit for you during that time, there is no commitment and are free of any charges. Although, we have never had a customer not convert after a trial ;).
Will this work for me if I’m not in the USA?
Yes, we have a number of happy customers in AU including Power Living, Fitness Playground, Sydney Pole, and Crunch.
There’s an initial investment, and that can seem daunting. But there are major long-term gains in terms of overhead expenses and the ability to scale your resources along with future locations. You’ll also remove negativity sentiments around subbing and support the managers in a better way, allowing them to do the work they love and that matters most to the gym. This will ensure they stick around and demonstrate your care for your staff. By using our product, you’ll cut hours off the managers time spent on these administrative tasks and also contribute to their mental state, ensuring they stick around and have low turnover.
There is a high ROI impact of our product and we are confident it will help you reach your goals to improve operational efficiencies, retain high quality instructors, and retain members. The product produces such good results that it will pay for itself.
Some of your competitors are cheaper...why the price point?
On the surface, it may seem that way, but there are reasons our product may seem like it has a higher price point. We offer several valuable features that our competitors don’t and will actually help you earn revenue. This includes integration to various scheduling vendors which allow for the automatic instructor swap on the live schedule and the messenger which offers a new way to conduct mass communication. We also customize the sub process to fit your unique sub policy needs. Lastly, we offer and consolidate real-time insights into all subbing behavior which most alternative communication systems (i.e. slack) do not.
We can share several case studies with you that show how a gym similar to yours was able to triple their ROI by switching from there old solution to ours.
We also have a one-sheet that highlights some of the specific benefits of our product for you to forward to your team. We’re also happy to arrange demos with anyone on the team that needs clarification.
Given you have a small team, how will we know you can support all of our locations?
We currently work with gyms who have 1 to 200 locations across the globe. We can share the many testimonials of their managers praising our outstanding, responsive support. Because of the product’s ease of use and intuitiveness leading to not needing a lot of training, we do not have any backlog of support inquiries.
We have an extensive library of articles on our help.netgym.com page and we also respond within 1-2 hours or less through our support channel. We also have found that the our 5 min training video onboards all instructors quickly and that's all they need. The tool is THAT intuitive ;)
What if I'm in a different time zone? How do I get support?
We offer 24/7 support and have many customers that will attest to our responsiveness.
Even if within a different timezone, we can assure you, you will get a response within 24 hours.
Totally understand where you are at from a cost perspective during this time. Depending on how you are running your sub supporting system, we could ultimately help cut those operational costs :). Our customer over in Australia, Sydney Pole, went from having 6 studio managers managing their sub process and each spending 1/3 of their day doing those tasks to now only needing to have 1/3 of 1 studio manager's time focused on this. Similarly, Grit Cycle used to have a full-time salaried employee solely to handle sub requests for their 6 studios and now no longer need this person at all so have saved ~$60,000 in overhead costs. Just a few examples of how we have helped ultimately cut costs, improve the efficiencies, and relieved some of the stress that goes into subbing. We are happy to provide more examples of the ROI as well.
We are giving the responsibility to the instructors, but will look into it again as we continue to grow.
We get where you’re coming from as that’s an easy thing to give to the teacher, but before you make that decision, let’s talk about exactly how much revenue your gym can lose over the next 6 months by considering that option. They will now have to find coverage on their own through disparate systems without any organization or automation around updating the live schedule. This could disrupt the member experience and also put an extra burden on the instructor which will directly impact your revenue. Also, the time in which you use on both the instructor and manager side will be lost. This is all money that could have been spent on NetGym while we are at the same time creating positive staff and member experiences. We all need that right now in the fitness industry!
You want to retain the best instructors and that being said, your gym needs to offer the best technology to support them. And this isn’t just equipment. It comes down to what your competitors are doing in the space which is digitizing and automating all processes and systems.
Totally understand where you are at from a cost perspective during this time. Depending on how you are running your sub supporting system, we could ultimately help cut those operational costs :). Our customer over in Australia, Sydney Pole, went from having 6 studio managers managing their sub process and each spending 1/3 of their day doing those tasks to now only needing to have 1/3 of 1 studio manager's time focused on this. Similarly, Grit Cycle used to have a full-time salaried employee solely to handle sub requests for their 6 studios and now no longer need this person at all so have saved ~$60,000 in overhead costs. Just a few examples of how we have helped ultimately cut costs, improve the efficiencies, and relieved some of the stress that goes into subbing. We are happy to provide more examples of the ROI as well.
