Volo Innovations

It's 10pm on Sunday night and your cell phone is still ringing, it's another client asking about your bootcamp fitness schedule or wanting to schedule their first personal training appointment. To those just starting in the fitness industry this sounds fantastic; people want to schedule appointments with you.

Those of us that have been in the business of fitness know this problem soon gets old and becomes an issue of private time versus business time.

Schedules by their very nature are dynamic and as such they often change and require some supervision. The sooner you can get on top of this the better your business will run and your customer satisfaction will excel.

If the above scenario is annoying/frustrating to you I can guarantee that when your client trying to schedule their training and fitness it is 10x more annoying/frustrating to get a answering machine or worse to just not get a response.

Your customers want access to your services, they want to know when these services are available and they want to schedule them when it is convenient for them. It is easy to skip working out and we all know that our clients don't need any excuse to not make it in so the more accessible you can make it for them to book their appointment and check their fitness schedules the better of their experience and satisfaction will be.

So how do you give your clients 24 hour access to your schedules yet still have some private time? The answer is simple use Volo!!

 

 

This is exactly what Volo was designed for to streamline your business and improve customer service. Volo handles all of your scheduling needs and makes you more money. How do we make you more money? Easy, by providing an easy to use scheduling software that your clients, customers and campers can all access 24hrs a day 7 days a week. Add all of the payment options and automated billing features and Volo will free up hours of your time each week that you can spend teaching, writing that fitness book or training for your next Ironman race. No more 10pm phone calls on Sunday night, no need to be on email during your movie date.

Schedules run our lives in the fitness industry whether it is private training, bootcamps, nutritional counselling or even massage, everything in our business life involves a schedule. Even the membership gyms need to know when members are coming, why, to know the best time to schedule services and classes.

If you can relate to this situation and you want to have a solution then check out all Volo can do for your business. From all your scheduling needs to managing you billing, invoicing and operations we have a solution for you. All you need to do is decide if you are ready to be a personal trainer or a fitness professional.

Check out our pre-recorded webinar now:

What is the difference between Check in and Closing the day?

A common question we get from the fitness professionals who use Volo is the difference between checking a member in and closing the day. Essentially, both have the same outcome. Let's take a look at what both features involve:

1. The Check in: There are two main areas to check in a member.

• Firstly, you can click on the scheduled appointment, and hit ‘Check in'. This then sends this appointment type to the member's account to either be invoiced or if they have pre-paid Volo will take it out of their remaining sessions.

 

 

• Secondly, there is the Check in feature. This area is for when you want to scan in your members as they are coming into your facility. Volo will show you who has just arrived and if they are booked for any personal training sessions, fitness classes, etc. If there are classes starting within the hour it will ask if you want to check them into this class. Just like the manual check in, this feature takes the appointment off their remaining sessions or puts it on their account.

2. Closing the day: When you have closed the day Volo automatically takes all of the appointments from the schedule and either takes the appropriate item off of the member's remaining tab or adds it to their on account tab. It is like doing a mass check in. Once the day is closed you cannot make any changes to that day's schedule (don't worry, we all make mistakes, the day can be opened again if you need to make any changes).

Both methods streamline your online scheduling and member management. We recommend to always close your days and preferablly to do it that night or the next day. This way if your members have sessions that are expiring they will use them up before they expire. Another great way that Volo helps you automate your fitness business.

To get a merchant account or not to get a merchant account - that is the question.

Fitness businesses need to make money in order for you as the fitness professional that owns the business to continue to pay your rent/ mortgage, power bills and all the other things that have to be paid on a monthly basis to make sure that you don't have to sleep in the street.

That is why more and more fitness professionals are moving to a recurring revenue model. This way, like your monthly bills, you will have monthly income! There are complexities with moving from a package type business to a monthly membership type business -if you want to learn more about how to look at your pricing and transition your clients to this type of package let us know in the comment area what your top questions are and we will make sure to address them in our next blog posting.

We come across many fitness professionals who question the idea of getting a merchant account, especially if their business is just starting. If you don't know what a merchant account is and how it works please read this blog posting on "What is a Merchant Account" first.

Here are a few main reasons for this skepticism:
1. Money - don't have much
2. Privacy issues - internet can be a scary place for credit cards
3. Banks - they can be a pain in the...

Undoubtedly, there is work to be done with getting a merchant account. There's an application process, credit checks, faxes, etc. But with everything that requires a bit of work, there are benefits to be had.

 

 

Because of the psychology of the human brain people tend to spend more when they use a credit card. An increase in revenue is then to be expected. Also when you have a merchant account you can set up automated billing. This means you don't have to track down your members and ask them for payment on a monthly / weekly / daily basis. No one likes to be a debt collector, so why not let the bank do what they do best?

This is where a decision needs to be made. Will the revenue made from accepting credit card payments overcome the financial cost of the merchant fees? The answer will differ for different businesses, and no, it can't be found on Wikipedia or Google. You need to look at how big your business currently is, how much time you spend creating invoices, tracking sessions, following up with clients to get your money and then getting to the bank and depositing it. Now multiple that by how much you make when you are training your clients. I bet you are looking at $100's of dollars every month. Use this number to do your comparison against what you will pay for your merchant account and then factor in where you want to grow your business to. How many more hours per month will it take to keep track of all your clients and there invoices? Would you rather use that time to grow new business rather than manage your existing business?

Using software like Volo allows you to bring all aspect of your fitness business together billing, scheduling and member management so that you can focus on making sure your clients reach their goals and tell all their friends about you!

Photo credit by Andres Reuda

I receive two or three emails a day from Fitness Professionals asking about these accounts ranging from what are they to how do I get one.

In simple terms a merchant account is needed for your fitness company to process credit cards of any type. EFT allows you to transfer money directly from people's bank accounts, some areas call this ACH.

There are different types of merchant accounts and they all charge different fees. This is where the confusion comes in. What type of account do you need? Where do you get one? How much will it cost? What about Pay Pal?

Applying for a merchant account is similar to applying for a loan, if your fitness business is new, has no credit history or is not incorporated you will need to provide a personal guarantee. Why is it a loan? Most merchant accounts will deposit the money into your bank account before they have received the money from your mutual client.

The type of account you need depends on your business and the management software you choose. With Volo being online software you would need an ecommerce account in order to have your merchant account integrated and your Volo store active. Your other option is a terminal based account this is where you would have a separate terminal to swipe your cards and then enter your sales into your management software.

 

 

Fees will vary based on the account and the credit card that your customer uses when they purchase; in the US there are 300 different transaction rates so it can get very complicated, some companies will give you a flat rate or 3 flat rates, qualified, mid qualified and non qualified, but these usually end up costing you more in the long run.There is also:

• a monthly fee
• a per transaction fee
• a % of each transaction
  
• terminal based accounts will also have a rental fee

EFT accounts usually have:

• a monthly fee
  
• a transaction fee
  
• rarely do they have a % fee

For an excel sheet that you can use to calculate what is best for you and a PDF of the aspects of a transaction enter your name and email here:

Since applying for merchant accounts is like applying for a loan the obvious place to go is your bank, however this should not prevent you from shopping around because rates will vary from bank to bank; also there are brokers that can look at multiple suppliers. If you are signing up for Volo we can help you with all your paperwork so please feel free to contact us first.

Online accounts require the use of a gateway, the gateway acts as a go between the online software and the merchant bank. These fees are sometimes rolled into the fees of the account but can be additional so be sure to read your contracts and make sure you ask questions.

Things to look for:

1. Set up fee
2. Annual fee
3. Monthly fee
4. Type of % fee flat or variable
5. % rate(s) this is called discount rate - get lowest, highest and average make sure this is for e-commerce
6. Number of days to deposit in your account from the transaction date
7. is the full amount deposited or a % of it, is there a hold back
8. Is the discount rate taken off of each transaction before it is deposited to your bank account or a total every month (Monthly is way better)
9. Per transaction rate
10. When is the per transaction fee taken off of each transaction before it is deposited to your bank account or a total every month (Monthly is way better)

You do not want hold backs at all and you should try to get an account that has your money deposited sooner.

Having them bill you monthly means that they add up all the fees and take them at one time this will save you hours of accounting or accountant fees, so if it is less than 1% point i personally would always choose the company that only bills me once per month. When they take their fee on each transaction you will need to log a journal entry daily in your accounting program versus monthly.

It is important to remember that a lot of Merchant and EFT suppliers require contracts that are around three years in length and have will have penalties' for canceling early, so be sure to read your contracts before you sign.

Don't forget to get your copy of the merchant rate comparison worksheet and the 10 steps to an EFT transaction. Fill in your name and we will get it emailed out to you right away:

I was asked the above question the other day and went into a standard answer of how you can save time and increase revenues plus a host of other benefits. Still my prospective client did not understand my message and he kept repeating but why should I. I quickly realized they did not want the why but the how does it increase revenue and save time.

This grammatical error leads to a lot of misinformation & miscommunication, especially in the fitness industry. We often tell people the why or benefit of exercise and rarely go into the how these benefits happen. Your billing and business growth is much the same as strength training you need to focus on the right things in order to achieve your desired result.

If you have a goal of big revenues and hundreds or even thousands of clients as well as staff and facility then you need to start on the right program for your business. Think of automated billing as the myosin and actin of your business, without it you could never flex your muscle or grow your business. How exactly does this work. It can be very hard for an individual or small business to see this just like a client does not see the actin and myosin doing their magic.

Automating your billing is designed to work behind the scenes even when you are at rest the automation is working allowing clients to make purchases online or processing accounts due with the click of a mouse. If you have one client it can be easy to manage but if this client had the freedom to choose additional programs and make purchases without having to see you then you have added revenue, by storing this same client's credit card and allowing your services to be either monthly reoccurring or automatically renewable you can now add recurring revenue all from a single transaction.

It would be like saying a single rep of bench press is going to give you the results of 10 reps so the amount of work you need to do is far less for equal results- saving you time and effort.

Now take the time saved from not having to chase down unpaid invoices or delinquent clients and use it to do extra reps of client building and the same principle applies for every one client building rep you can get a ten times return.

Now we have some business growth plus the added benefit of not being a bill collector instead you can focus on delivering superb service and not worry about who in the class or session has paid or not.
Flex your muscle and automate your billing today and start to get the growth you want. Want to learn more about how to do that? Watch our webinar