6 Tips for Handling the Holiday Stress as a Fitness Business Owner

The holiday season is just around the corner, and it’s time to start preparing for instructors taking time off, creating any seasonal promotions, and putting together gifts for clients. As the celebration frenzy kicks into gear, it’s important to make sure you have all your ducks in a row to avoid the burnout we tend to feel this time of year. 

Is your fitness studio ready for the holiday hustle? Here are some of our favorite tips and tricks on how to successfully manage stress this season:

Finalize the staff schedule ahead of time

To maintain flawless organization during the holiday season, make sure your employee schedule is set through the end of the year – this includes updating your class schedule with any substitutes filling in for instructors taking time off to be with their loved ones for the holidays. Taking care of this task early in the season will ensure that your day-to-day operations will run as smoothly as possible and help avoid any last-minute class cancellations.

Prepare your staff for the rush

Whether you have an influx of clients taking classes or holiday shoppers lining up at your registers to purchase seasonal sale items or gift cards, it’s essential that your staff is prepared to handle the holiday rush. To accomplish this, have a team meeting at the beginning of each week to go over expectations for the busy week ahead. Take this small step and you’ll bring yourself, clients, team, and business more success and less stress. 

Looking for an easy way to make sure you're on track with holiday preparations? Download our 2022 Holiday Calendar for Fitness Businesses.

Consider hiring additional seasonal team members

When there are multiple tasks to be accomplished and not enough hands, the holidays can become stressful in no time. To help you and your staff stay cool, calm, and collected during this highly profitable season, think about hiring some temporary help.

Having an extra set of hands can be especially helpful if you have a large portion of staff taking time off for the holidays or feel like you could use some assistance in the retail/front desk section of your studio.

Take advantage of AI

Mindbody offers a 24/7 front desk assistant with Messenger[ai] which can handle bookings, receive phone calls, answer text messages, facilitate purchases, and help with frequently asked questions. Implementing this product feature can free up your staff to help the clients in front of them while making sure no phone calls or potential customers slip through the cracks. 

Make sure your holiday promotions are in order

Manually coming up with your holiday promotions can be stressful and very time-consuming. However, by equipping your fitness studio management software with automated marketing, you can create holiday-themed specials and last-minute promotions and send them out to your email lists in a snap. Don’t forget to send a “thank you” to your clients to show them how much you appreciate their business. 

Remember to take time to yourself and relax

Just because it’s a busy time of year, that doesn’t mean your self-care should take a back seat. Take time at the end of each business day to do something good for yourself to help relieve stress and anxiety. Maybe this means you sit in meditation for a few minutes at the end of each day, or you attend the last class of the day available at your studio. Do something to clear your headspace and prepare you to tackle the rest of the season. Remember to take care of YOU and encourage your staff to do the same.