Regarding the current situation at Custody Fitness, Pei Qian had only four words.
Completely unacceptable!
He had already posted all the regulations at the entrance, explicitly forbidden these fitness coaches from soliciting customers, setting unreasonable prices, and bundling sales with Slackin’ Takeout…
Even the original gym customers had transferred to other gyms.
Why were there still so many customers? Why!
Pei Qian was very unsatisfied. He needed to find Guo Licheng and get to the bottom of this.
Guo Licheng had just finished teaching a student. Seeing Mr. Pei enter, he hurriedly came over.
“Mr. Pei!” Guo Licheng’s face was beaming with smiles.
Of course, he was smiling. Previously, the gym had been empty with no customers. Besides working out himself, Guo Licheng could only sit idly in the rest area, extremely bored.
But now? He had work to do!
Guo Licheng realized for the first time that having work to do could actually be something to be happy about.
When working at other gyms, his courses were almost fully booked every day, but this didn’t give him a sense of fulfillment, only exhaustion.
This exhaustion mainly came from three aspects:
First, during training, personal trainers primarily served as supervisors and companions. After customizing training plans for students, they ensured the students completed a certain number of bench presses or fixed exercise sets. Once students became familiar with the routines, trainers just stood by watching—it was purely physical labor rather than technical work, with little sense of achievement.
Second, personal trainers constantly faced the mental pressure of selling courses.
Finally, because their schedules were so packed, coaches had no time to work out themselves, only managing to exercise for about an hour when the gym was closing. Their diets couldn’t always be well-maintained either, leading to fatigue over time.
But now, Guo Licheng’s previous sense of fatigue had completely disappeared!
Custody Fitness’s model wasn’t about completely ignoring customers, but about flexible teaching—helping beginners correct their form, and once beginners were completely adapted, coaches didn’t need to stand around.
This way, coaches saved time to guide others or take a brief workout, or rest.
At the same time, without having to worry about selling courses or having too many financial interests involved with students, coaches could guide customers without a psychological burden. Customers didn’t have to be wary of coaches trying to promote sales, making the relationship much more harmonious.
Additionally, with Slackin’ Takeout providing fitness meals and Custody Fitness not allowing overtime, these coaches all got adequate rest. Work was no longer just about shared suffering; they could better enjoy the happiness that fitness brought them during work.
So, Guo Licheng and the coaches were all energetic and motivated.
After finishing their own workouts with nothing else to do, they naturally thought about how to provide better service for customers, enthusiastically guiding newcomers.
Of course, Pei Qian couldn’t see all this information for now.
He could only vaguely sense that Guo Licheng’s complexion seemed better, and his mental state had improved.
Pei Qian was more concerned about the gym’s profitability.
“Why are there so many people in the gym? Didn’t I say not to do marketing to attract people? Where did these customers come from? They couldn’t have just found their way here on their own, could they?” Pei Qian’s expression was full of vigilance.
Guo Licheng looked somewhat confused: “Mr. Pei, we didn’t do anything. They truly came on their own.”
“Isn’t this what you expected?”
Pei Qian looked bewildered: “?”
Guo Licheng explained: “It’s mainly because of that notice board you put up!”
“What about the notice board?” Pei Qian instantly sensed something wasn’t right.
Guo Licheng excitedly explained: “Your notice board was set up so meticulously!”
“We previously thought this notice board would discourage customers, but unexpectedly, it had the opposite effect. Not only did it not discourage them, but it attracted a group of people!”
“Some students from Handong University passed by our store. Although they were deterred by the price, they found the content on the notice board very interesting, so they took photos and shared them with classmates.”
“Our gym’s rules caught these people’s attention, quickly attracting a batch of young people!”
“Of course, the vast majority came with a mindset of spectating and didn’t plan to spend money, but there’s always a portion of price-insensitive customers who would come to experience it—these are our current customers!”
Pei Qian froze.
He suddenly realized he had committed an error of empiricism!
Previously, when Slackin’ Internet Café put up a notice board at the entrance, it had an immediate effect. For a long time, people saw the prices and left, leaving the café deserted.
Later, when Slackin’ Internet Café became popular, it was mainly because of Chen Lei, and Chen Lei was attracted to be a resident singer mainly because of Zhang Yuan—it had nothing to do with the notice board.
So, Pei Qian always thought that putting a notice board at the entrance was a good way to discourage customers.
But now he suddenly realized that the content on Slackin’ Internet Café’s notice board was different from the gym’s!
Slackin’ Internet Café’s board listed prices, including internet usage and beverage prices. When customers saw it, they only had one feeling—expensive—and didn’t find it novel or have any desire to share or spread the information.
But Custody Fitness’s notice board described the charging model, which wasn’t just expensive but also included bundled sales of fitness meals and mandatory fitness plans.
When customers saw this, their first reaction wasn’t that the price was high, but that the model was interesting!
Because other gyms didn’t operate this way.
Such a unique rule would naturally spark discussion, and curious people would come to see.
In other words, the notice board at Slackin’ Internet Café’s entrance was fine, but the one at Custody Fitness had issues—big issues!
Realizing his mistake, Pei Qian’s face turned somewhat pale. After a moment of silence, he said: “Let’s take down the notice board.”
Guo Licheng thought for a moment: “Mr. Pei, are you saying that now that the news has initially spread and we’ve attracted nearby customers, we should remove the advertisement board to attract even more people?”
Pei Qian: “…”
It’s not okay to keep it, and it’s not okay to remove it—what’s going on!
Pei Qian decided to stop dwelling on this issue and asked with a hint of melancholy: “So… you’re not going to tell me the gym is about to turn a profit, are you?”
Guo Licheng was stunned for a moment, then shook his head: “Turn a profit? Mr. Pei, that’s too optimistic. We’re nowhere near that.”
“What I mean is that Custody Fitness’s current situation is not bad, showing improvement from the beginning, but it’s still too early to talk about turning a profit.”
“You see quite a few people now, but don’t forget, today is Sunday.”
“Sunday is naturally the peak time for gym foot traffic. On weekdays during the day, the gym becomes very quiet.”
Hearing this, Pei Qian let out a long breath, feeling as if heaven hadn’t closed all doors.
That’s good, that’s good. You scared me!
I thought we were going to be profitable. It was a false alarm.
Pei Qian wanted to drink something, but the gym didn’t have tea or coffee, only purified water, so he had to get a cup of water to calm himself down.
Thinking carefully, if it was only crowded on Sundays and still quiet on weekdays, it seemed acceptable.
After all, this gym had complete equipment and responsible coaches. Even with unreasonable pricing, there would always be some price-insensitive customers willing to pay.
As long as these customers were relatively few and profits couldn’t cover expenses, that would be fine.
Pei Qian relaxed a bit.
But then he became vigilant again.
Although they were far from being profitable, having so many people in the gym on weekends wasn’t good either. It could easily create a false impression that “the gym is popular.”
This was unacceptable!
Pei Qian felt that the gym’s current customer deterrent model was still not perfect. He should make more effort and set up multiple safeguards to feel at ease.
But how exactly to do this… Pei Qian himself had no good ideas.
He decided to ask Guo Licheng.
“Is there any way to make fewer people come to the gym on weekends?”
Guo Licheng was stunned for a moment: “Mr. Pei, do you mean optimizing customer flow according to the gym’s capacity, allowing resources to be more fully utilized and providing a better experience for customers?”
Pei Qian was silent for two seconds: “…Something like that.”
Guo Licheng showed a surprised expression: “I was planning to report this matter to you earlier, but didn’t expect you to ask about it first.”
“It seems you also have a deep understanding of the gym’s operation model!”
“This problem is common in other gyms as well.”
Pei Qian asked curiously: “Oh? How do they solve it?”
Guo Licheng said, “They don’t solve it. That’s why I was hesitating whether to report this to you.”
“Other gyms just trick customers into buying memberships and then don’t care about them, completely disregarding the actual capacity of the gym. Sometimes during peak periods, like weekends, the entire gym is completely overcrowded. People have to queue for equipment, queue for treadmills, even queue for showers.”
“At this point, it completely relies on customers’ ‘self-regulation’—actively queuing and waiting, or choosing times when there are fewer people. But even so, most customers have no choice but to come on weekends.”
“Some customers don’t want to come to the gym because it’s crowded, which plays right into the gym’s hands. After all, the annual membership fee has already been paid, and the gym would rather you didn’t come.”
“So, this is a common problem.”
Pei Qian nodded: “Then what do you think is the solution?”
Guo Licheng hesitated for a moment, then said: “Honestly, I’ve thought of a method, but the cost is a bit high, and customers might not accept it…”
Pei Qian’s eyes lit up. You have such a good solution and didn’t mention it earlier?
“Tell me quickly!” Pei Qian tried to maintain a calm expression.
Guo Licheng paused, then said: “A gym’s capacity is limited; this can’t be changed. So, to ensure customers’ fitness experience, we can only restrict the number of people.”
“I think we could develop an app that allows customers to make reservations based on their schedule each day. When reservations for a time slot are full, we impose certain restrictions on the number of people.”
“This approach wouldn’t work for other gyms because everyone has annual memberships. If customers aren’t allowed to come, they’ll feel their interests are being harmed and definitely won’t agree.”
“But our gym charges by the day and provides detailed fitness plans for customers, so when creating fitness plans, we can roughly distribute them to different time slots based on customers’ free time.”
“If weekends are fully booked, we can only accept customers who come at other times.”
“However, developing an app would cost money, and outsourced apps might not be reliable. If the app has many bugs and is difficult to use, that would be troublesome. Plus, customers might not understand this policy and might even criticize us.”
“Furthermore, we would need dedicated personnel to coordinate and plan all students’ fitness times, arranging them reasonably; otherwise, it would cause customer dissatisfaction…”
Pei Qian raised his hand: “Alright, say no more.”
Guo Licheng thought Mr. Pei found the proposal unfeasible, so he quickly shut up.
However, there was a gleam in Mr. Pei’s eyes: “Do it, do it immediately!”
“Just developing an app? I’ll arrange it!”
Guo Licheng’s method made Pei Qian extremely satisfied.
Creating an app could cost more money, forcing consumers to use the app to book gym visits would discourage another batch of people, and having dedicated personnel to coordinate fitness times and arrange training plans would mean paying another salary.
And after all this work, the result would merely be slightly diverting peak-time crowds, saving peak-time customers a little time, and slightly improving their experience.
The cost-effectiveness ratio was absurdly low!
Pei Qian’s gaze toward Guo Licheng gained a hint of appreciation.
This was a promising talent!
I knew I didn’t choose the wrong person as the gym’s manager!