Welcome to the Flex Beta
You know how important community is to your business, and so do we. That's why these next several weeks will focus on how Flex can help you mobilize your members, increase exposure, and automate referrals to strengthen your community and grow your business.
It can be difficult to sift through all the email communication from various third parties. To make things easier, we have included all the resources needed to get the most out of Flex right here on this page.
Partner Resources
Simple Login and Check In Instructions
The tools you use for your business should make things easier and less complicated, leaving you to focus on what matters most, your customers.
As a result, we have worked to make using Flex a painless process. Everything you need to access your admin page, make changes, and manage users is included in a single page.
Instructions Here
Email Templates to Mobilize, Retain, and Reactivate Your Members
You know how important communication with your members is, but it can be time consuming when deciding exactly what to say. We have put together a few email templates you can use to introduce Flex to your membership base whether they are a current, past, or potential member. We have created these templates to not only introduce Flex, but also to be strategically valuable in retention and conversion as well.
There are four emails to address current, at-risk, past, and potential members. Each email template has three subject lines. It is up to you which subject line to use. You know your members best!
Email Templates Here
The Timeline
Weeks 1-2
As we launch the beta program we'd like to spend the first two weeks onsite on-boarding facilities, finalizing Flex profiles, integrating schedules, training staff on how to use Flex, and introducing how to talk about the Membership Sharing concept.
Weeks 3-4
The next two weeks will focus on how you can mobilize your current, past, and prospective members. We will send out email templates, work with partners to maximize the value of Flex, and ensure that members are able to fill out profiles and list days.
Weeks 5-8
The last four weeks will be centered around learning from transactions. We will work with members and partners to answer questions and address issues that may arise from the sign up and transaction processes. During this time we will be collecting data, continuing to help mobilize members, and gathering early feedback from all parties participating in the beta program.
Contact Us
Should you have any questions, concerns, or immediate feedback to share please feel free to contact Evan Lonergan. Evan is a partnerships manager with Flex, and will be happy to assist you in any way or answer any questions you may have. Evan's contact info is below.
[email protected]
616.796.4786
FAQs
Q: What is Flex?
Flex is a marketplace that converts underused gym and studio memberships into more value for operators and their members. Flex users can search, discover, and buy individual days at gyms and fitness studios from members who aren’t using them. Members earn a portion of each sale, subsidizing their costs and making them less likely to cancel or pause memberships during periods of low use.
Gyms and studios earn the biggest share of their members' sales on Flex, earning free revenue on excess capacity, surfacing new high quality leads, and incentivizing greater member retention.
Q: How does Flex help gyms and fitness studios ATTRACT new business?
BE SEEN
Your Flex gym profile is the perfect marketing tool to bring more people through your doors. Upload high quality images; add business info like location, hours, amenities, plus links to your class schedules, website, and social media. You'll show up on the map and in search results for anyone seeking a workout like yours in the area.
FILL SPACE
With dynamic pricing, you can set Anytime and Off-Peak prices to smooth demand over the course of the day, keeping your gym full at all times and generating more revenue off excess capacity. Black out times of day to avoid over-capacity, if desired.
GROW REVENUE
Flex users buy daily passes to your facility directly in the app. Passes can be purchased off your existing members, who have listed dates they don’t intend to work out. If no dates are listed by members you can still sell passes directly to Flex users, so there’s always supply.
Gyms earn 60% of the price of day passes sold by a gym member.
Gyms earn 70% of the price of day passes sold themselves.
Q: Why should I let my members share their memberships by selling days?
Your members become your marketers.
By allowing your members to take part in selling day passes, you let them acquire new business for you while making it more affordable for them to stay loyal longer. Members who list days for sale are incentivized to promote your gym on social media to sell them faster, becoming your most avid, credible, and free marketing sources.
Q: I already use ClassPass, Groupon, etc. How is Flex different?
You value memberships for the predictable, recurring cash flow they generate for your business. Flex drives new customers through your doors and helps you convert them into full-time members. We then make it easier for them to STAY members longer by helping them save money on days off, while still paying you full membership fees.
Your brand is treated right.
From amenities to atmosphere to staff, there’s so much more that makes your business special than just your classes. Fitness class aggregators like ClassPass weaken your brand by stripping your classes from the rest of what makes your gym special, and lumping them together with countless others. Flex celebrates your brand by keeping it intact and showcased in the greatest light. Plus, you maintain total control over your class management; it's never picked apart by a third party.
Q: How does Flex help gyms and fitness studios RETAIN more gym members?
Gym memberships are unused 85% of the time, wasting members’ money and causing millions to quite every year. In fact, the average fitness facility loses 45% of its members every year.
The #1 reason for this drop-off? According to surveys of former members, “I didn’t use my membership enough to justify the cost.”
REWARD LOYALTY
With Flex, choosing to remain a member of your gym is always worth the cost. Members go to the gym when they want, and make money off their membership when they don’t. Like yours, our goal is to help people get to the gym as much as possible, but when they can’t members enjoy financial rewards for their loyalty instead of suffering guilt.
ENGAGE COMMUNITY
The core idea behind Flex is to offer the next generation of referral programs by automating the incentives members need to promote your business. When members choose to sell days they aren’t using, they’re prompted to share those listings with their own networks, effectively becoming your best marketers. Your business gets exponentially more exposure while your members are rewarded through a lower cost of membership.
Q: My business doesn’t have a retention problem, so how is Flex valuable to my already loyal customers?
With Flex, you're able to offer an unprecedentedly valuable perk for remaining loyal customers: cash. Listing days they don’t intend to work out subsidizes the cost of membership and eases financial burden. Instead of cancelling or pausing their memberships during seasonal times of year, gym members instead can simply list more days to recoup more money. No one will ever feel guilty about skipping a day again.
Q: Why should I use Flex when I can already sell day passes and punch cards on my own?
Your relationships pay off longer.
For buyers, punch cards and class packages carry no expectation of or commitment to a sustained relationship with your gym. When punch cards are exhausted there’s often a delay between buying a new one, or the buyer simply walks away. You want to foster a sense of belonging and encourage longevity, not just utility of your facility. Recurring monthly and annual memberships are the way to do this, and are made more appealing when members are able to sell days they aren’t using.
Q: Sounds great, but our gym management software and legal agreements don't allow for temporary membership transfers - How will this work?
Not to worry! Flex doesn't require you to transfer memberships back and forth between existing member accounts and new visitors. Your records are unaffected. Instead, Flex records all transactions and continuously reconciles who should and should not be allowed at the facility that day. Repeat attempts by members to use facilities on days sold may result in being banned from using Flex (you may establish your own penalties).
Memberships are never formally transferred from one party to another. Rather, your existing members remain full-paying customers who bring in new business for you, on top of their ongoing contracts. Your legal terms and conditions aren't violated.