If you’re a fitness business owner, you need to be thinking about strategic business partnerships that would benefit your business. Strategic business partnerships are not to be confused with business partnerships (when you and a buddy open a gym together). If you want to read about those, check out Business Partnership Essentials on Amazon.

These benefits can include things such as increasing membership, getting discounts for your current members, or lowering your business costs. When most gyms think about creating partnerships, they get overwhelmed with the idea and then forget about it. It doesn’t need to be that confusing and/or intimidating though. Below you will find three simple business partnerships that any gym owner should be able to create. These business partnerships will take a little work to nurture and grow, but they will pay dividends when you’re increasing membership and enjoying the perks of the partnerships.

Set Up a Business Partnership Agreement with a Local Yoga Studio

If you’re a CrossFit box, kickboxing studio, strength and conditioning business, or just about any fitness business for that matter, we can be pretty certain that many of your members are waking up amazingly sore after their workouts. They probably have tight muscles and need a solid stretching sessions to recover before their next session. What better way to stretch those muscles out than with a nice hot yoga session. If your fitness business offers yoga, that’s great, but most don’t. For those business that don’t have a yoga studio, reach out to a local yoga studio owner in your city and try to set up a partnership. The yoga studio members will get discounted classes at your fitness business, and your fitness clients will get discounted memberships at your business. It’s a win-win situation for both business. Your fitness business will get some new members, the yoga studio will get some new members, and both businesses will have more happy members, since they’re getting a discount at another business, just for being part of your business.

Create Strategic Partnership with Local City Government

Most city governments have some type of financial fund used for the betterment of their city’s population. You’ll see this kind of investment in the arts normally, where the city pays for a weekly concert series in the park. Local bands will come and receive a small stipend to put on a show for the local community. Well, that same fund can be used for “Get Healthy Summer Fitness Program” type of investment. Sit down with your management team and write out a business proposal for the city. You’ll need to outline the benefits of a summer fitness program, the cost, the ROI (health benefits) and a proposed scheduled for the program.

If you charge around $250/week for your service, you’re going to to be earning an extra thousand dollars per month for holding 4-8 monthly classes. Not a bad boost for your bottom line (and it also helps spread the word about your gym). Both the city and yourself are going to be responsible for advertising the event. You’re going to want to make sure that you do a good job getting out the word, because if there isn’t a large turnout, you’re going to have a hard time convincing the city to keep your program funded the following year.

Create a Relationship with Local Supplement Store

Not every city has a supplement store, but if you have one in your city, you’re making a big mistake by not setting up a meeting with their manager to discuss a members discount for your members. You can ALWAYS negotiate a better price. Bring in some numbers so you can show the supplement manager the kind of business they can expect by offering a discount. Let’s say your current gym has 100 members. If each of those members makes just one monthly purchase because of the 15% discount they get, the supplement business could be seeing an extra $2000 per month in revenue, from a simple 15% discount. Once again, your members will be happy because they’re getting a sweet deal, and the supplement store will also be making a nice bit of extra profit.

Barter Free Fitness Sessions for Business Needs

Bartering is a beautiful thing. And barter isn’t dead! If you’re a fitness business owner, you mostly like have an attorney and an accountant that work for you (on a contract basis). Now, if you were to offer them free access to your fitness business, would they be willing to offer a discount? You never know until you ask.

Besides accountants and lawyers, you can also take the barter system even further. Do you need to get your interior painted? Why not offer the painter two free months of service. As you can see, there are hundreds of different possibilities when bartering. You have a service that people want, fitness and training, and they have a service you need.

I’m personally a huge fan of the barter market. As a website designer and SEO professional, I have some very valuable services that other businesses need. If I need to get some car repair work done, and the guy at Troy’s Auto has a horrible website, maybe we can work out a deal. Make it happen!