What Lies Ahead in 2021

There is little doubt that 2020 has been an incredibly challenging year for all of us, but the good news is that with each other’s help we made it out the other side and are starting to see glimpses of light at the end of the tunnel.

From an operations perspective, this has been one of the most challenging years for small business in modern human history. Yelp estimates that over 2,600 gyms have gone out of business since the Summer and trusted industry data finds that another THIRTY PERCENT of micro gyms are trying to sell before they inevitably close.

30%.

Rather than lay out the challenges that were faced this year I am instead going to focus on what they mean for your experience as a member in 2021, and how we plan to thrive in all things member and training experience. Off the bat, there are a few questions that I want to answer with absolute certainty:

1. P360 will come out of this a better gym.
2. Some things will look a little different. 

If you don’t want to read everything, here are the highlights:

1. Zone format is here to stay in some capacity.
2. We will be adding online membership options so you can be a member anywhere in the world, with a Coach. 
3. Nutrition coaching service coming 2021.
4. There may or may not be a rate increase in 2021.
5. One unified social media account and flow of communication.

Here are some of the major areas I’d like to discuss with you today.

Zones

The structured zone model is here to stay in some form, whether it’s what we have now or a more relaxed yet still highly organized version once social distancing is not quite as important (aka after the vaccine). We will not ever be returning to the loose class model we used to run where it was essentially organized chaos, and I can say with decent certainty we won’t be confined to 100 square feet forever, either. So a hybrid of what you used to know (for those of you here prior to the March pandemic) + what you are experiencing now.

Less people than pre-March, but less rigid than it is now.

The zones allow us to coach you more effectively, better ensure your safety in not just COVID but your movement, and run a less stressful and more productive class for all who are involved. No to mention, it’s pretty damn awesome to have your own everything right now, we must say so ourselves.

Service Options

Right now, we are hard at work on the following:

1. Continuing to enhance your current experience.
2. Expand your future options.

Our top priority will continue to strive towards being the best brick and mortar strength and conditioning experience on Earth, and doubling down on our investments to make things better for you when needed, but we are also building out services to compliment the class experience in this modern area in the following ways:

Remote Memberships
For those at higher risk or more apprehensive in nature, we do not want alienate you. We want to serve you. We are working on memberships where you train with us remotely using our tools and remote training platform, and you do so with an assigned Coach who checks in with you regularly and helps customize your goals. Whether it’s following our Grassroots program, 8wk goal specific programs, or one that is written and custom for you.

There will be options for those who want to be P360 members without being in P360 gyms.

Nutrition Coaching
2020 was primed to be the year we finally rolled out consistent coaching, as we kicked it off with an incredibly successful Arrival of the Fittest. So those models have been refined the past few months and pushed to 2021 where we will be excited to offer private and group coaching models year round.

Private Coaching
We are working to provide in-person training options during off class hours for those of you who prefer to work one-on-one with a coach in a more spacious setting.

Our Model

For the first nine years of our gym, our model was set up to operate with 25 people in a class and LOTS of sharing. Now, we are allowed to operate with just 40% of that capacity and zero sharing. This means that we are only able to generate 40% of the operating revenue per class that we were once able to generate, and, all of our expenses have not just stayed the same, they have increased. Significantly. We’ve had to add more classes to accommodate the class size reduction, which means more overhead across the board including payroll, electricity, water, cleaning supplies, etc.

This is the same scenario as a restaurant who has to remove 4 out of every 10 tables from the floor and also see the cost of their food go up 20%, rent increase, and overhead expand.

That’s not all.

Because peak class times are in such demand right now, we’ve also restricted the ability for new members to join the past few months because we have not wanted to take away from your experience by taking up valuable class roster spots with trials and prospects.

This all paints a picture of less operating revenue, higher costs, and less opportunity to replace lost revenue that the virus has brought onto small business. It’s quite a trio and in a nutshell, that is our challenge. It leaves us with two options: Accept our new existence that all we will ever do is tread water, or, swim forward against a very strong current. If we want to continue to be the gym that we all know and many love, a place that invests heavily in the member experience, then something in the model will need to give in 2021.

We have been taking as delayed of an approach as we can when it comes to addressing the “new COVID-19 era”, and I want to be as honest as possible. At some point in 2021, you may see a potential 5-7% modest increase in your monthly fees. This is not a practice we have ever done. In fact, we’ve been vehemently against it as many of you know, but the unfortunate reality is that virus forever changed a few things about our ability to fundamentally operate.

If it is determined that we must take this route, we’ll communicate very proactively in advance of any rate changes and give you plenty of notice to make a decision for yourself if that occurs. There will be no action at all until we are back fully indoors and see what the total picture looks like after the dust settles. Even then, we’re going to look for every scenario we can where that doesn’t happen. If it does, the very rough expectation would be that someone paying $119 per month would then pay $124 – $129 (5-7%).

Sharing this news without any firm direction was a very tough decision for me because I personally despise ambiguous, passive communication. I have elected to share this with you because if we are forced into that route, I do not want to catch anyone by surprise, and I want everyone to know exactly why it would be happening: staff jobs + operating costs. Transparency has always been how I’ve chosen to communicate and to abandon that now because it’s tough would be a betrayal to the only way I know how to run this place.

We will be passing the bulk of this cost on to future new members who will join at a higher rate than current members.

If you have any questions or concerns, you’re encouraged to reach out. We welcome the opportunity to discuss it with you.