https://blog.makesweat.com Thu, 28 Oct 2021 14:39:09 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.8.24 Mailerlite & Activecampaign integrations now live! https://blog.makesweat.com/mailerlite-activecampaign-integrations-now-live/ Sun, 09 May 2021 15:04:46 +0000 http://blog.makesweat.com/?p=2149 Mailchimp is becoming expensive and our fitness providers asked for an alternative. We’re pleased to announce that we now support integration with Mailerlite and Activecampaign.

Simply head to Admin -> Setup on Makesweat, and enter the authentication details required. When a customer agrees to be added to your mailing list via Makesweat, we’ll automatically add their address to Mailchimp, Mailerlite & Activecampaign. You can have all three connected if you wish!

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I’m consider moving from a spreadsheet… https://blog.makesweat.com/im-consider-moving-from-a-spreadsheet/ Sun, 02 May 2021 14:41:26 +0000 http://blog.makesweat.com/?p=2143 So you’ve got a few clients, and you’re operating with a Facebook or Whatsapp group, and taking payments via BACS or Paypal. Why bother with a booking system?

We get this question a lot, so here are our thoughts!

The first immediate benefit you’d likely notice is a reduction in last-minute cancellations; teachers tend to set up a 12 hour cancellation, and then ‘blame the system’ (!) when clients aren’t able to cancel last minute – saving you from lost income. This usually more than pays for the booking system. You can of course override the system when there’s a good reason.

The less immediate yet significant benefits can be summarised as

  • Perception of professionalism for new and existing clients; as well as helping with a more structured teacher/client relationship, this may make it possible to align your fees with local providers who do have the website & online booking.
  • No loss of control; you can still run friendly Facebook groups and offer the same level of personal service; but all money discussions can go through the website. Almost like having an agent or a personal assistant.
  • Less time on admin; more time to teach or find new clients.
  • Access to service such as Google My Business, which will find you local clients – but you really do need a website to get any benefits from these.
  • Cost neutral – Our Pay As You Go tier is (deliberately) similar to the cost of transferring money via Paypal, and the website design & hosting is free.

 

We’d love to have a chat about your needs! Drop us your email below and we’ll get back to you shortly, or you can book a free chat via our Contact Us page.

[collect-email]

 

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Choosing the right booking system https://blog.makesweat.com/choosing-the-right-booking-system/ Wed, 07 Apr 2021 16:46:59 +0000 http://blog.makesweat.com/?p=2115 Whether you’re starting out or feel your existing booking system isn’t working for you, this guide picks out the key criteria and helps you choose the right one!

There’s no one system that is best for everyone – it’s a bit like choosing a car. While a cheap small car might be great if you just want to pop to the shops, it will struggle with long journeys. But if you spend your time driving in muddy fields, the long distance car might not be the best choice for you!

There are three main types of things that you might like to offer to your customers; classes, appointments and events.

  • Classes – Groups of customers, usually with repeated classes, with a leader or teacher, at a fixed time. Also small classes (e.g. 1-1 classes) at fixed time with a teacher.
  • Appointments – Think hairdressing, beauty or financial advice. An open calendar and a customer can choose when they want to turn up.
  • Events – Maybe a fun run. Generally one-off events.

Like the car example, you could use an appointment system to manage classes, but it will not be as comfortable managing multiple people and passes. Event systems will likely be expensive when used for class bookings as they need to earn their income from a small number of bookings.

 

Class vs appointments tools

When choosing a platform, it’s best to go with the type that is most suited to your style of business.

Mature class booking platforms are Mindbody, Glofox, Teamup and Makesweat. These are designed for group sessions and can also handle 1-1. They have all been around several years; this is important as booking is complicated and new platforms can be somewhat naive about the complexity involved.

Class tools typically feature…

  • Proper visibility of enrollments to a class plus their PARQ answers,
  • Multi-passes managed by the system (with expiry rules),
  • Proper waitlisting (where waitlisted clients are automatically booked into a class in order of queue rather than simply being alerted that space has become available.),
  • A ‘CRM’ capability to manage the lifecycle of clients,
  • automatic reminders and prompts,
  • and automatic pass renewals to support memberships.

Appointment (hair, beauty, financial advice, etc.) booking tools are Acuity, Bookwhen, with niche tools such as the Wix booking system. Because appointment booking is easier (and appointment booking is a bigger market segment than class booking) these platforms are all optimised for solo booking.

Appointment tools attempt to add class booking but as it’s not their core purposes they aren’t as suitable for running a full class-based business. They typically involve a secondary spreadsheet that you have to maintain to keep track of class credits; this is something we’ve seen several times with Acuity customers. Bookwhen has never implemented automatic renewals, for example, because it’s not so relevant for appointment booking.

If you’re a small business looking to remain small and really only do 1-1s, and are focused mainly on cost, appointment booking systems can seem a good low-cost option – just make sure you’re not going to get stuck in the future when your business grows.

 

Quality of integration

One of Makesweat’s key strength is the quality of the integration into existing sites. This is a recent Yoga teacher’s site that we think looks particularly good (https://www.cocoayoga.co.uk/book). Because of the way we’ve created the integration, it fills the whole page (rather than a box) and uses the host site font & colours.

Makesweat also has a separate ‘My Account’ widget to put on another page on your website, so clients can see their upcoming bookings and the history of their passes. It turns your website into a useful tool for a client.

Integrations using an iframe can cause a poor booking experience and suffer on mobile (where more than half bookings are made); it’s really only Makesweat’s widgets and Mindbody’s Healcode widget system that allow for a proper booking experience on desktop and mobile.

 

Fair price comparison

Platforms can be difficult to compare on price, as they’ll all have their own way of charging. Introductory discounts seem attractive but should not be the basis for making a decision; most platforms with give you a month or two to get going before they charge you.

  • Makesweat has a zero recurring fee model for teachers getting started, charging only 3% of payments. When you’re starting up or want to offer just a few classes a week, this is likely the lowest cost way to get started. Our free website offer alone is worth at least £15 compared to a Wix site. Makesweat’s maximum cost is £49 per month and is a good choice once your business has reached a good scale (as it’s cheaper than paying 3%).
  • Teamup is a similar price at £49 per month, but you have to pay this every month even if you’re not teaching. Teamup goes up to £69 per month once you have over 51 active clients – which most teachers will hit almost immediately as an active client is any within your client list on the system.
  • Glofox aren’t very forthcoming about pricing but are known to be a minimum of $100 per month. Mindbody starts at £109 per month but once you get going you’ll end up having to pay more.
  • Acuity is a basic appointment tool so can’t really be compared with the feature available in a class system; it costs £23 for the features you’d actually need for minimum class management.
  • Bookwhen is also an appointment tool and goes up in pricing once you start scaling; if you’re a mid-sized business running classes you’ll likely have more than 800 enrollments per month and maybe more than 5 teachers – so will be onto the £39 + VAT (£47) pricing level.

 

We’d love to have a chat about your needs! Drop us your email below and we’ll get back to you shortly, or you can book a free chat via our Contact Us page.

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Zoom tips – make it work best for you! https://blog.makesweat.com/zoom-tips-make-it-work-best-for-you/ Mon, 01 Mar 2021 14:48:15 +0000 http://blog.makesweat.com/?p=2041 At Makesweat, we make it easy for your customers to book into your classes; we send your Zoom link when they enroll, and an hour before the class.

But how do you get the most out of Zoom?

We love Zoom because it is the most used video meeting platform. The huge number of users means that it’s been thoroughly used in many challenging situations and incrementally improved. If you have problems with Zoom, the first place to look is your internet connection and your laptop or tablet.

There are four places that affect your Zoom quality

  • Your camera
  • Your laptop
  • Other people in your house or on your network
  • Your connection to your router
  • Your internet connection

Your camera

A camera is only as good as what it sees; make sure you’re well lit with lighting behind or to the side of the camera. If you have a bright light behind you, you’ll likely appear dark. Aim for a white or light coloured background.

Some web cams do just look dreadful, due to terrible colour accuracy or odd lighting response. It’s worth borrowing and trying other web cams and experimenting. Aim for a reasonable quality HD 1080 web cam.

If you’re using the camera in your laptop or tablet and the quality isn’t great, take the above tip and see if you can find one that looks better.

More expensive cameras, such as SLRs,  can have issues with deciding to focus on something other than you. For this reason you may be better with a webcam.

Your laptop

Compressing video does require a certain amount of ooomph from your computer. If it’s several years old and is already struggling, Zoom will make things worse. Laptops, unless originally high spec, usually need to be replaced when older than about three years and very likely when older than five.

Signs of severe laptop trauma are taking more than thirty seconds to open Zoom, or freezing after you’ve pressed a button.

Other people in your house or on your network

Home wifi isn’t that great at multiple people using it for demanding purposes – a bit like trying to have a conversation with someone, with other people trying to have a conversation across you.

If you have other people in your home watching videos on Youtube or Netflix, downloading files or Windows updates, or also using Zoom, this will almost certainly cause your Zoom session to glitch or get delayed. Online gaming is generally less bandwidth intensive but could be a problem.

If possible, tell everyone else to stop using the router during your class! Alternatively, consider a separate internet connection for your classes.

People in nearby houses can be a problem too, if they use the same exchange (where your house connection wire/fibre meets the edge of the internet). This is actually less of a problem – the internet provider likely has more bandwidth than required and would generally limit each house connection to stop it taking over the whole area’s bandwidth.

We have heard of householders asking to their internet service provider to put them on a different ‘circuit’. Difficult to know if this is a real effect or a setting change with the ISP.

The above picture is from Speedtest . I have a wired network connection to my router. PING should be less than 30ms and both DOWNLOAD and UPLOAD more than 1Mbps.

Your connection to your router

Home wifi has its limits. Wifi struggles with brick and stone walls and degrades over distance. It won’t just suddenly disconnect; as the signal gets weaker, the video signal picks up more errors as it’s sent from your laptop to the router – like trying to talk to someone across a room and not being able to hear them clearly. These errors then need correction – “I didn’t get that properly, please send again”, which can delay and ultimately cause the video to fail.

If you have any connection issues, get an ethernet cable to plug from your router to your laptop, or move the router and laptop closer together, to rule this out as an issue. Here’s a link on Amazon for a cable. You can get really long cables!

Your router and internet connection

The router itself can lock up and have problems, or the connection from the router to the internet can be patchy. It’s difficult to tell the two apart.

If you’re a long way from the exchange, where your phone connection gets connected the internet, this also causes both low bandwidth and connection errors, which cause the retry errors as above.

For example, my parents’ telephone and internet connection is a wire from their roof to a pole several metres away, and goes through the branches and leaves on an oak tree. When the wind blows the wire is knocked and this degrades their internet connection.

There’s not necessarily a sure fire way to correct router and internet issues. You could change providers but if the signal goes over the same wires it won’t necessarily get any better.

Troubleshooting

It’s important to work out what’s going wrong. Try these steps
  1. Rather than using Wifi, put a network cable between your PC and router. Does that help? Here’s a link on Amazon for a cable.
  2. Ask everyone in the house to turn off their laptops & phones. Does that help?
  3. Try on a different, newer laptop.

 

Did you find this article useful? We’d love to hear from you.

 

[collect-email]

 

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Three things you must do before lockdown ends! https://blog.makesweat.com/three-things-you-must-do-before-lockdown-ends/ Tue, 23 Feb 2021 21:54:33 +0000 http://blog.makesweat.com/?p=2001 After a year in and out of lockdown, normality is finally on the horizon. Your customers are going to be desperate to get back into classes so get ready to help them!

To reinvigorate your current customers and get new ones primed, here are three things you must do in the next few weeks.

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1. Show you’re serious with a website

A website is a statement to the world that you’re ready to offer  a high quality, enduring service to your customers.

You may have heard of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation); a few years ago, this meant optimising your website with layers of text and links to trick the search engines to putting you ahead of others. This is now out of date!

For location based businesses, such as in-person fitness providers, only one thing that (really!) matters.

Location, location, location!

When customers search for ‘yoga’, ‘pilates’ or ‘get fit’, their top matches won’t be for the best yoga websites in the world. Google and other search engines know where the customer lives and know where your business is; so the nearest businesses show up first.

If you want your business to show up on the world’s biggest search engine, Google, you need to register a full postcode, business name and website with their service called ‘Google My Business’. Just search for it and sign up.

If you’ve already got a website, but are still taking bookings by phone or email, skip ahead to the ‘Booking system’ section below.

 

Getting a new website address

These days, getting a web domain is easy. Just go to somewhere like namecheap.com (GoDaddy, 123, etc. all offer similar services) and find your perfect domain. ‘fitnesswithnick.co.uk’, if available, will cost you about £7 a year.

Makesweat used to be just a booking system like Mindbody; in 2020, we added an exciting new service – hosting websites for our customers, with our established and proven booking system already built in.

 

We will build a website for you, FOR FREE, using modern best practice and a clean, attractive interface, using your content, in just a few days.

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As long as you’ve got active future classes and customers, we’ll host your website completely for free! *

 

2. Get in control with a booking system

The days of customers booking by phone, email or whatsapp are over; if you rely on these you’ll already be losing out.

Customers expect to be able to browse classes, book, pay and cancel directly from their phones, whenever they want.

Booking systems used to be complicated and expensive. Since 2015, we’ve has focused on providing an easy to administer, easy to book system with tens of thousands of satisfied customers.

We’ve even had customers leave Mindbody and move to us because we can offer similar functionality for a fraction of the price.

We do everything you’d expect from a premium booking system.

  • easy administration & booking on desktop or mobile
  • integrated zoom links
  • class size limits
  • proper waitlists
  • email notifications and pre-class reminders
  • Zoom integration
  • Mailchimp integration
  • Classpass integration
  • operational dashboards and reports
  • class packs & auto-renewing memberships
  • extensive rules for customisation

We have two levels of pricing; either 3% of every customer payment through your website, or once you’re earning over £1,700, it’s cheaper to move to our scale-up rate and pay a maximum of £49 ( $59 ) per month.

We helped teachers & instructors with booking systems since 2015, and we have teachers that have moved moved their studios from Mindbody and Zingfit. For the smallest to the largest teacher, we’re here for you! Let’s chat.

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* Fees for website hosting may be required if you do not maintain future classes and have customer payments through our site.

 

3. Engage your customers

Tell all your existing friends and family networks that your classes are starting again – and tell them about your new exciting website! Ask them to tell their friends or share on Facebook or Instagram.

If you’re an adult teacher, it can be a really good idea to offer fun and free classes for children – think your own local take on Joe Wicks! This is a great way to raise your visibility around families and it’s likely that you’ll get paying customers from it.

Local leaflets remain a cost effective and high impact way to let people know that your studio or classes are starting again. Printing and distribution is very low cost.

Remember, the job of your website it to convert visitors into paying customers. We’re the experts at creating fitness websites with integrated booking, so come and talk to us!

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Setting up six person club rides on Makesweat https://blog.makesweat.com/setting-up-six-person-club-rides-on-makesweat/ Sun, 21 Jun 2020 07:32:20 +0000 http://blog.makesweat.com/?p=1475 Following British Cycling’s release of their latest guidance (The Way Forward), UK cycling clubs have asked us for the best practice for setting up Makesweat to operate six-person group rides. As the UK carefully finds its way out of lockdown, it’s essential that clubs have a consistent process to demonstrate compliance with British Cycling guidance.

 

Setting up your six person rides on Makesweat

Based on the guidance, we propose the following;

  • Set up two or more venues (starting points) near to eachother, but not so near that they would naturally merge into one larger group. For example, one starting point could be outside a station, the other in the station car park, the other outside a shop near the station.
  • Create a events on Makesweat and spread them between the venues; if you have three venues, set up three events that start at 9am, and then the next set of 3 would start at 9.20am.
  • Make sure that your event are set to 6 places – this means Makesweat will allow up to six people to book into a ride.
  • We recommend start times spaced by 15 minutes or more, as from experience riders do not turn up exactly on time and the goal is to clear the current group before the next set off.
  • Make sure your riders know that they must book into rides; there should be a designated ride leader for each event. It is up to the ride leader to check who has signed up to each ride and that riders who have not signed up should be turned away.

 

If your club isn’t already set up on Makesweat.com, contact nick@makesweat.com for help. (Using Makesweat.com for free events is entirely free.)

 

Background

  • Makesweat.com is a community focused booking system (similar to Mindbodyonline, Eventbrite, etc.) used by a number of UK cycling, triathlon & fitness clubs & organisations.
  • Makesweat allows customers & members to sign up to events – indoor training sessions, pilates group sessions, outdoor cycle rides, etc.
  • British Cycling mandates a maximum of six person group rides; many clubs tend to congregate prior to rides, and clubs came to us to find a way to avoid a breakdown of social distancing prior to rides.
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Your website on Makesweat! https://blog.makesweat.com/your-website-on-makesweat/ Fri, 29 May 2020 18:26:24 +0000 http://blog.makesweat.com/?p=1470 Exciting times for Makesweat! As well as a great booking platform, Makesweat can now give you a beautiful website with our booking engine built in! No additional hosting fees, and fully customisable text.

If you’re using WordPress, Wix, Squarespace or similar, you can move all your content onto Makesweat. We’ll even help you to design a fantastic site with your own photos and brand.

As part of this transition, when you go to a club or event on Makesweat, you’ll get the club’s microsite (rather than just a club page on Makesweat). You can still return to Makesweat by clicking on the Makesweat symbol on the top right of the page, and ‘My Diary’ still shows all your events across all the clubs you follow.

To get help, click on the ‘Get Help’ button and send us a message!

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FREE Membership cards https://blog.makesweat.com/membership-cards/ Sun, 08 Oct 2017 18:53:45 +0000 http://blog.makesweat.com/?p=795 Now Makesweat makes it even easier to run your club – we’ll make AND send your members their membership cards! Using cutting edge technology, the cards even feature mobile phone readable 2D QR barcodes, which can be used to check your members straight into classes!

  • Durable, high quality, full colour CR80 plastic laminated cards
  • Customised club header image
  • QR barcode link to full member details
  • Book members straight into sessions with the QR barcode
  • We’ll post them straight to each member upon renewal
FREE* introductory offer!
Contact us for details!

 

Using an online club membership platform puts you back in charge of your membership

  • Automatic reminders by email when membership expires
  • Members check and update their contact details every time they book into a session
  • Easy download of full club contact details into Excel

 

*Usual cost for card production and delivery 2.50GBP, UK only, deducted from membership fee. Available only for organisations that use Makesweat to book their regular training sessions or classes.

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Sport Tech Hub – We’ve been selected! https://blog.makesweat.com/sport-tech-hub/ Mon, 02 Oct 2017 20:17:46 +0000 http://blog.makesweat.com/?p=825 PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Makesweat announced as member of first ever Sport Tech Hub incubation programme

• Sport Tech Hub, the capital’s first incubator dedicated to SportTech innovation, opens for business today with Makesweat among first members

• Backed by London Sport, Sport Tech Hub’s tailored incubator programme will support innovation in physical and mental wellbeing through technology focused on physical activity and sport

• Sport Tech Hub aims to cement London’s role as the capital of global SportTech innovation

2 October 2017, LONDON

Makesweat has been named as part of the first wave of start-ups to be part of Sport Tech Hub, London’s first incubator programme dedicated wholly to innovation in SportTech, FitTech and HealthTech.

Focused on high tech booking & club management systems, Makesweat has been selected by Sport Tech Hub programme owners, London Sport, as one of the capital’s most innovative SportTech start-ups.

Aiming to supercharge developments in technology for physical activity and sport, Sport Tech Hub’s 24-week incubation programme is based at the brand-new House of Sport, and provides the capital’s most innovative SportTech start-ups access to mentoring, support and guidance from expert partners including London & Partners, FieldFisher, KPMG and Crowd Cube.

Alex Zurita, Specialist Advisor – Technology for Participation, London Sport said:
“Through Sport Tech Hub, we want to ensure that the capital’s most forward-thinking startups are given a real opportunity to contribute to the future success of sport – not just for London, but for the country and, indeed, around the world. The calibre and creativity of the startups that came forward during the application process was a testament to the wealth of innovation apparent in London’s tech sector.

“Within that process, Makesweat really stood out. We are delighted to welcome them to Sport Tech Hub, and look forward to supporting them in the next steps of their journey.”

 

The first wave of the Sport Tech Hub programme begins this month and will run until 31 March 2018. Sport Tech Hub is overseen and operated by London Sport, the organisation working to make London the most active city in the world, and is supported by a range of partners including Crowdcube, Sponge Marketing, Hubsport, Fieldfisher, RLC Ventures and London & Partners.

— ENDS –

Notes to Editors

About Sport Tech Hub
Sport Tech Hub is London’s first facility dedicated to startups driving innovation in physical activity and sport. Based at House of Sport, in the heart of the capital, Sport Tech Hub provides the brightest start-ups focused on raising levels of participation in physical activity and sport with a 24-week programme of support delivered by leading industry experts.

For more information on House of Sport, visit www.sporttechhub.co.uk

 

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Paris by Teatime https://blog.makesweat.com/paris-by-teatime/ Sun, 17 Sep 2017 19:12:49 +0000 http://blog.makesweat.com/?p=783

Are you ready for your next cycling challenge?

Makesweat is delighted to announce Paris by Teatime, an overnight 180 mile ride from central London to the Eiffel Tour, with only 24 hours on the clock.

After a quick cup of tea at 5pm on Friday you’ll set off from Big Ben in Westminster, headed for the south coast. You’ve got five hours and 70 miles to catch the Newhaven ferry.

Sleep if you can before arrival at Dieppe at 3am; then it’s back on the bike for 110 miles to Paris. Will you reach the Eiffel Tour in under 24 hours, and in time for tea? You won’t have too long to relax before putting on your finery and heading out to dinner to celebrate your achievements.

This adventure is suitable for enthusiastic riders for whom it may be a first experience of a long supported ride, and riding overnight. We will ride as mixed-gender groups and support eachother throughout, with drink and food stops provided every 1.5 – 3 hours.

While the pace will not be extreme, riding for long distances does take some experience in comfort on the bike and nutrition. We will arrange 120 mile rides in March and April 2018 to help you get ready. Attendance on one of these rides, or a similar Strava recorded ride, is required to start PbT. You will need a road bike.

The ride is non-profit and ideal for a charity challenge. Your entry fee (approx 100gbp) will cover.

  • Support vehicle per 10 riders
  • Newhaven-Dieppe ferry
  • PbT medal
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