Here's a story that any small business operator can relate to. Nikki and I opened our personal training studio in 2000 but we didn't get a chance to take a vacation until 2004. This trip coincided with the installation of our new Volo studio management software. Without Volo this vacation – any vacation – would have been impossible.

Photo by adpowers

Like all entrepreneurs, Nikki and I are prepared to work long, hard hours to get the job done and we knew we needed studio management software that could do the same. In 2003 we made a wish list and started a search for a product that met our business needs. At the time there was no studio management software on the market. There were some products available that focused on gym or membership management but as a personal training studio our management needs are schedules, appointments and tracking of the packages that we sell.

What we were hunting for was studio management software that had these qualities as well as a powerful client management component. We also knew that our studio management software had to grow with us and that we wanted to be able to access our business anytime, and from anywhere. That meant web based software. At that time there just wasn't any online studio management software that came close to what we needed. Most of the companies we found had just converted their desk top software or access software to be web enabled.

This was huge because for the first time in the software world an actual fitness provider was building studio management software. Not an accountant or a computer programmer but people with real fitness business experience, a company that could take their systems and operations and funnel them into a powerful studio management software package that could be accessed online and then expanded as their company grew.

Now, this took ton of work and some very long days to do but once it was done and up and running the only thing we could think was, “We need a vacation!” So with the power of the internet and our new studio management software up and running we booked a trip to Isla Mujeres in Mexico.

The really scary thing was that we had a billing cycle scheduled right in the middle of the trip. In the old days, before we had studio management software in place, the stress would have ruined the vacation. Who wants to be sitting by the pool worrying about whether your invoices have gone out, what your trainers are doing and if you'll even have a business to go back to? Who are we kidding? Without studio management software we wouldn't have even gone.

With studio management software it's a different story entirely. Not only could we log on and see the schedules of all the trainers, but we could pull the reports and see who cancelled and who showed up. Most importantly, we could run all of our billing. It was the first time that I was paid $25,000 to be on vacation.

Learn how you can take your next vacation stress free.

Share your success story using studio management software. Did it save you time? Did it make life easier? How has studio management software organized your business? Whatever your story we would love to hear it.