One of the many great things about CrossFit is that it’s for anyone and everyone. You can walk into a class filled with people of different genders, ages and fitness levels all doing the same workout. It’s a large community where every athlete feels welcome. At the same time, this can present a challenge for any gym owner: how do you find what you’re best at when the sport is about being generally good at everything?

You, as a box owner and businessperson, may find the idea of being diverse and open attractive. It means more members. It means reaching out to more people who can benefit from what you can share with them. Then you hear about all these trends and niches. You want to open a class for this and a class for that, eventually realizing that you’re no longer keeping up with anything.

Soon enough, you’re not sure about your box’s identity or where your money went. It’s easy to be reactive to all these trends and get lost in it. Remember that what you need as a business owner is a strategy to sustain your business and its future growth.

What You Do Best

CrossFit’s main principle is not to be great at anything but be good at everything. Trying to find your niche might sound counterintuitive but it’s something that would benefit your business. It’s easy to go out and say that you’re passionate about CrossFit, so change the question: who are you passionate about? Who do you want to help?

Do you want to focus on powerlifting? Are you interested in building a fitness habit early on through Crossfit Kids? Maybe you’re interested in helping middle-aged or older athletes achieve their best health and best life.

Everyone has an audience that they are close to. Once you identify that, it’ll be far easier to identify your niche. This will help you narrow down your choices. Choose one for now and grow from there.

How it Helps

Having a niche makes it easy for you to identify the types of classes and programs to have. You can easily decide on what kind of activities would cater to your target market and from there, decide on the equipment you need. Instead of opting for lower quality equipment so you can get more, you can focus on buying high-quality pieces suited for your niche.

This also goes as far as your gym decor decisions, the type of merchandise you put out and even the staff that you hire. It’ll be easier to tend to even the smallest details — things that are forgotten when your focus is too broad. Keeping a laser focus on your target market improves the overall quality of your gym.

Consistency is Key

Keeping the quality of your work consistent is important when you want to establish yourself as the top fitness facility on your block. Paying attention to the details is important to keep your activities top quality. Having a niche makes it less of a job to polish your activities to perfection because there aren’t so many of them.

From a business perspective, it’s about customer retention. You might feel like you would have fewer customers because your target market has been narrowed down. However, making sure that clients have a reason to stay will sustain your business better than having many clients walk in and have many walk out.

We all have our own passions. Our hearts are softer toward certain groups more than others. Find yours. This will help you maintain the quality of your business’s services, guide you in your business decisions and truly help the people you are passionate about.

Main image: MaxEffort Fitness