Grand re-opening checklist-Part One
Week 7 of quarantining and some states are in the beginning stages of re-opening! If you're in a state that is getting ready to re-open make sure you are ready before you open your doors! All of this hard work to maintain your business and keep everything going is only going to matter if you have a re-open strategy that sets you up to hit the ground running making your clients feel super safe. This is your opportunity to stand out as the obvious choice if you want to go to an in-person gym.
Part One(below) - Cleaning, social distancing and safety parameters.
Part Two - Communication to your members(tomorrow)
Part Three - Programming - We'll share our ideas on some programming shifts you need to make to keep everyone safe.(Friday)
Part Four - Marketing - As you re-open you want to have your marketing funnels in place to continue to attract new members. (Saturday)
Initially re-open discreetly to start getting your current raving fan clients in first who you have mutual trust with so you can get your systems down with the flow, cleaning and making sure you have a game plan that works. In the states re-open about 50% of the active members are coming back in right away. Address clients concerns in person and make sure they know they can stay online as long as they like. Continue to make your remote coaching options the best they can possibly be as this will not be going away. This is now part of your business.
Also before re-opening do a thorough clean out of equipment and clutter in your gym. Make it look as pristine clean as possible. Put a new coat of fresh paint up even.
Here's a quick checklist as IHRSA laid out these 4 parameters that they have communicated to the Governor's of each state regarding opening gyms and we have detailed further explanation of each from our understanding and plan within our own gym:
1. Keeping COVID-19 out of the club by implementing appropriate visitor and staff screenings.
- Consider getting a forehead thermometer to do temperature checkson everyone in phase 1 before entering.
- Have everyone wash their hands or use hand sanitizer upon entering.
- Ask each person before working out - Do they have any fever, sore throat, cough or shortness of breathe? Have they been in close contact with anyone who has been diagnosed with Covid-19? If yes to either question they cannot workout.
- Be sure to add to your waiver of liability a release including not being liable for transmission of viruses and have everyone sign a new release.
2. Minimizing the risk of spread through containment and social-distancing measures.
- Each state may be different but initially it looks like 10 people in the gym is going to be where to start including your staff and depending on the size of your gym.
- Set up pods of equipment to initially keep everyone from sharing any equipment in phase one.
- Consider any bottleneck areas where people enter and exit and figure out a flow where people won't be coming and going at the same time.
- Eliminate any places where clients previously would congregate such as in the lobby or the lockers.
3. Recognizing everyone’s role in minimizing risk through education and encouraging all members and staff to take all the actions possible to avoid spreading the virus.
- Personal responsibility will be huge. Everyone washing their hands and wiping down equipment before using and after using. In addition, have hard starts and stops to the workouts to clear everyone out before the next group starts to give 5-10 minutes to wipe everything down again and eliminate people coming and going at the same time.
4. Minimizing exposure risk by implementing enhanced, evidence-based cleaning, and sanitation practices.
- Be sure you are stocked up on wipes, disinfectant, hand sanitizer and soap! Purchase these today as many places are out of stock.
- Between every session wipe everything down. In addition, have a big cleaning mid day and at the end of each day.
Initially this will all seem very cumbersome but as we get our new routine down it will be easy to keep up. Being a coaching centric gym we will be able to stand out as the number one choice if you want to go to an in-person gym as we have control over our environments.
