How Two Brothers Built an Online Fitness and Nutrition Business After Shelter in Place Closed Their Gym
How Two Brothers Built an Online Fitness and Nutrition Business During Shelter in Place
Facebook BusinessBilly and Nick Palladino-King, brothers and co-owners of San Francisco, CA-based gym Tribe SF, had just expanded to a second location when the coronavirus pandemic began. “Class attendance started to decrease a few weeks before the shelter in place order, forcing us to hit the drawing board and pivot quickly,” says Billy.
The brothers brainstormed how to keep their members active and staff employed, even if people couldn’t come into the studio, and made moves to build up their online presence and programming. They offered virtual training sessions, hosted classes on live channels and created a private Facebook Group where members could engage with their Tribe SF instructors and community.
Their early efforts contributed to an increase in Tribe SF’s paying members, including new remote clients in Singapore, London, Tokyo and more. We know other fitness centers have had to make similar moves, so we caught up with Billy to hear about how his team used online tools to strengthen and build community through shelter in place and how he’s planning to carry this into the future, even after Tribe SF reopens in August.
What helped you decide to focus on your community through this challenging time?
Our name is “Tribe” for a reason. We created this company with community in mind, and when times get tough, it's even more important for us to realize our "why." Instead of closing our doors and not paying our employees or instructors, we needed to create a sense of community. We knew how disruptive shelter in place would be to the workout routines of our members, not to mention how much harder it would be for them to connect with the friends they made in class, so we came up with fun solutions that could help everyone.
We know you’ve had a lot of success with your new Facebook Group. Can you tell us more about what you’ve done there?
We created a group for everyone taking our virtual classes, which gave members a chance to stay connected with each other. Everyone is tagging their workout buddies, taking classes together, interacting and working out in the process. Within the Facebook Group itself, we've categorized all of our classes, which helped us build a library of on-demand workouts. If our members miss any live classes, they can still go to the group and easily find any class they'd like to take. It’s an amazing tool for our users.
Some fitness studios have used Instagram Live to stream full-length classes so people can participate remotely. What are you doing that’s different?
We use Instagram Live to give “sneak peeks” of what our classes look like. This gives people who aren't members a chance to see what classes are all about. Instead of using it to offer free classes and ask for donations like some trainers and studios have done, we use it as a marketing tool to promote our classes.
How else have you expanded your community and engaged new members?
We started posting live class times on Instagram and using Instagram Stories to promote challenges, like recording yourself doing pushups and tagging a few people to get others to complete the challenge. It’s helped us increase our exposure, and it's fun for us to watch it unfold. We also started to partner with corporate brands to offer classes and virtual hangouts as part of their employee wellness programs.
What insights could you share with other business owners about moving quickly and adapting to changing customer needs?
As businesses reopen, I recommend studying the competition to see what others are doing well or not. This can help give you a sense of whether your product is superior or inferior, which can also help you set your prices. Sometimes you'll be surprised at how superior your offerings are compared to mainstream products and services.
How will Tribe SF’s recent online efforts impact your business model in the future once the gym reopens?
Tribe will forever be a hybrid company moving forward, operating in person and virtually. We have expanded to virtual nutrition, business and mindfulness coaching, and virtual personal training and fitness classes. We now have members and clients all over the world, which is something we could not have accomplished in the past without actually having a physical location in those areas. Once gyms are allowed to reopen in August, we’ll have to adhere to social distancing rules, which will have a major impact on the number of people studios can have in a class. To make up for the reduction, recording live classes will continue to help drive business.
We’re continuing to explore how we can help support businesses through this challenging time, and have created resources for how fitness and recreation centers can adapt and respond. You can also visit our Business Resource Hub to see additional opportunities and resources.
Has your business adapted during the COVID-19 pandemic? We’d like to hear from you.
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Interviews
July 02, 2020
How Two Brothers Built an Online Fitness and Nutrition Business After Shelter in Place Closed Their Gym
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The brothers brainstormed how to keep their members active and staff employed, even if people couldn’t come into the studio, and made moves to build up their online presence and programming. They offered virtual training sessions, hosted classes on live channels and created a private Facebook Group where members could engage with their Tribe SF instructors and community.
Their early efforts contributed to an increase in Tribe SF’s paying members, including new remote clients in Singapore, London, Tokyo and more. We know other fitness centers have had to make similar moves, so we caught up with Billy to hear about how his team used online tools to strengthen and build community through shelter in place and how he’s planning to carry this into the future, even after Tribe SF reopens in August.
What helped you decide to focus on your community through this challenging time?
Our name is “Tribe” for a reason. We created this company with community in mind, and when times get tough, it's even more important for us to realize our "why." Instead of closing our doors and not paying our employees or instructors, we needed to create a sense of community. We knew how disruptive shelter in place would be to the workout routines of our members, not to mention how much harder it would be for them to connect with the friends they made in class, so we came up with fun solutions that could help everyone.
We know you’ve had a lot of success with your new Facebook Group. Can you tell us more about what you’ve done there?
We created a group for everyone taking our virtual classes, which gave members a chance to stay connected with each other. Everyone is tagging their workout buddies, taking classes together, interacting and working out in the process. Within the Facebook Group itself, we've categorized all of our classes, which helped us build a library of on-demand workouts. If our members miss any live classes, they can still go to the group and easily find any class they'd like to take. It’s an amazing tool for our users.
Some fitness studios have used Instagram Live to stream full-length classes so people can participate remotely. What are you doing that’s different?
We use Instagram Live to give “sneak peeks” of what our classes look like. This gives people who aren't members a chance to see what classes are all about. Instead of using it to offer free classes and ask for donations like some trainers and studios have done, we use it as a marketing tool to promote our classes.
How else have you expanded your community and engaged new members?
We started posting live class times on Instagram and using Instagram Stories to promote challenges, like recording yourself doing pushups and tagging a few people to get others to complete the challenge. It’s helped us increase our exposure, and it's fun for us to watch it unfold. We also started to partner with corporate brands to offer classes and virtual hangouts as part of their employee wellness programs.
What insights could you share with other business owners about moving quickly and adapting to changing customer needs?
As businesses reopen, I recommend studying the competition to see what others are doing well or not. This can help give you a sense of whether your product is superior or inferior, which can also help you set your prices. Sometimes you'll be surprised at how superior your offerings are compared to mainstream products and services.
How will Tribe SF’s recent online efforts impact your business model in the future once the gym reopens?
Tribe will forever be a hybrid company moving forward, operating in person and virtually. We have expanded to virtual nutrition, business and mindfulness coaching, and virtual personal training and fitness classes. We now have members and clients all over the world, which is something we could not have accomplished in the past without actually having a physical location in those areas. Once gyms are allowed to reopen in August, we’ll have to adhere to social distancing rules, which will have a major impact on the number of people studios can have in a class. To make up for the reduction, recording live classes will continue to help drive business.
We’re continuing to explore how we can help support businesses through this challenging time, and have created resources for how fitness and recreation centers can adapt and respond. You can also visit our Business Resource Hub to see additional opportunities and resources.
Has your business adapted during the COVID-19 pandemic? We’d like to hear from you.
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