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Sports Facility Programming

Manage Your Courts Using Court Rental Software

Transforming Court Management: An In-Depth Case Study on Court Rental Software

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Technology can completely transform the way someone can manage courts – from basketball to volleyball to tennis. In this case study, we’ll explore how one of our current clients made their court management so much easier with the help of court rental software.  

User Experience Spotlight: Court Rental Software

Our client, Jack, built a six-court basketball and volleyball facility. He also set up a contract with AAU teams to use his facility. Also, Jack wanted to take advantage of leagues, basketball and volleyball camps, and court rentals. With the number of courts available, he didn’t want to spend all his time scheduling these courts himself. Jack wanted court rental software that could do it all for him. 

Jack’s biggest concerns were finding a system that prioritized no double bookings, sends out automated notifications, and manages all of his services as well as a concession stand. While searching, he found eSoft Planner’s scheduling software. We can do all of what he wanted and more. Our software is a centralized scheduling calendar, which prevents double bookings during scheduling. Automated notifications are sent by the system for order confirmations and reminders. It’s proven that appointment reminders can reduce no-shows by 38%. These reminders are sent to decrease no-shows. Also, eSoft Planner can manage many services with ease. 

With the help of our scheduling software, Jack manages all of his different services with ease. He added both competitive and recreational leagues, with individual or team signups for his practices. After his leagues, he offers open play for anyone to come in for a drop-in fee. Not only is Jack successfully managing multiple services without issue, but he also doesn’t need to spend a lot of time behind the scenes keeping everything organized. He also no longer needs to worry about issues with double bookings or a high number of no-shows. eSoft Planner’s software has worked wonders for his facility. 

Conclusion: How to Empower Your Court Management for Success

Are you spending a lot of time and money trying to manage your courts? With eSoft Planner’s software, you don’t have to worry. Manage all your services and rent out your courts quickly and easily. Request a custom demo of our software to find out how we can increase your cash flow and decrease the time and money spent. 

PreSelling Memberships Online Are a Good Promotion for New Business

Promotion for New Business – Start Preselling Your Memberships

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Introduction

Are you an existing facility looking to add new products or services? Are you a new facility wanting to add memberships? Do you need to add a promotion for new business? eSoft Planner’s new feature for preselling memberships is perfect for both types of facilities. 

A facility’s membership will have the option to be sold before the start date. The fees will be paid approximately a month before the membership’s start date. It provides opportunities for supportive customers to get it first, and at a discount. 

Promotion For New Business: The Features

A new feature in preselling memberships is that you can set a specific date for the membership to start. That way, you get to choose which day (usually the 1st or the 15th) works best for your facility. Also, staff will be able to buy these memberships for any customers, in case they run into any issues with purchasing the membership themselves. 

Promotion For New Business: The Benefits

One of the main benefits of memberships is that it brings in consistent revenue. With preselling memberships, we can improve cash flow before offering products or services. This extra cash flow allows you to potentially save or invest in expanding the product or service. It is also a good tool for improving customer awareness, especially for newer facilities. 

One of the powers of preselling memberships is the ability to offer special promotions. Oftentimes, facilities will discount a standard membership in order to create the fear of missing out in their new possible customers. This allows them to sell more memberships in advance, which, in return, increases cash flow and improves confidence in your business model. 

Conclusion

eSoft Planner’s new feature for preselling memberships is a great promotion for new businesses. Not only will it increase revenue, but it will also be easy and accessible for your staff and customers to utilize.  

Want to learn more about how preselling memberships can work as a good promotion for your business? Talk to eSoft experts today. If you’re looking for some other ideas on how to improve your business, learn more about our new access control features here or our event tickets options here. Finally, if you want to consult with experts on how to improve your sports facility, visit here. 

Spring Break Camps

Spring Break Camps

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Benefits of Spring Break Camps

Sports facility owners, did you know hosting spring break camps can make you a hero?  With spring break right around the corner, hundreds of kids will be home from school for a week and looking to have some fun!  Many parents, though, still have to work and are in need of a solution. 

This is where your sports facility can save the day!  Spring break camps are extremely popular for families with school-aged children.  Your facility provides kid-friendly entertainment during the day and you an opportunity to generate additional revenue. 

To maximize revenue potential, keep your camps generic and centered around fun rather than limiting yourself to a specific type of athlete.   Offering a generic “multi-sport” camp for younger ages allows you to appeal to a broader audience. 

Start here, then expand your camp options to target more specific audiences if you’d like.  For example, some facilities create a sports-specific camp, but limit this to an older, more mature age group.  These are great for athletes preparing for tryouts, wanting to stay sharp in the off-season, or getting some extra practice during the break.

Consider Your Space and Instructor Availability  

As a general rule, 15 campers to every 1 instructor is the maximum ratio, but this can vary depending on the type of camp.  For “generic” camps, a higher kid-to-instructor ratio may work better to allow games and activities to be more engaging.   

For “sport-specific” camps, both clients and instructors may prefer smaller ratios so attention to form and skills can be a top priority.  The amount of student-to-instructor training in these camps can have a significant impact on its appeal. 

Camp Duration

Keep in mind the duration of each camp when choosing your enrollment numbers.  Depending on your space and instructor availability, you may choose to offer camps for a full week, every other day, or offer morning and afternoon sessions.  Some eSoft Planner clients even allow campers to decide how many days to attend during the week.  

Price

All of these variables — limiting enrollment, space and instructor availability, duration — impact pricing for your camp.  In addition to the cost of space, instructor pay, etc., consider any “behind the scenes” costs.  Items like t-shirts, water bottles, and bags are great for marketing, but also add to your cost. 

And because you’re planning in advance, you can offer an “early-bird” discount to draw attention and increase appeal.  Also, don’t forget to create a sense of urgency — “early bird pricing ends soon!”.  Planning in advance makes scheduling easier and gives you much-needed flexibility.

Now is the time to reach parents; so build a plan and promote, promote, promote!

Learn More About eSOFT PLANNER
eSOFT PLANNER is flexible, affordable, simple, and perfect for small business owners.  Request your free demo today to see how we can help you consolidate effort, save time, increase revenue, and grow your business.
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Training Program for Sports Facilities

Benefits of a Sports Performance Training Program

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Benefits of a Sports Performance Training Program

If your sports facility hosts its own teams, consider developing a training program designed for those teams and their sports.  Too often, practice only focuses on team strategy, preparation for the upcoming game, or other specific drills. Generally, pure physical conditioning is not stressed enough.  Instead, it is treated as a checkmark on the “to-do” list and only briefly addressed at the beginning or end of practice.

Your team should focus on both specific training and game-like drills.  Below are key benefits to creating a specific sports performance training program.

  • Improved athletic performance. Specific skills such as throwing, passing or shooting improve as players become stronger and more agile.
  • Injury prevention. Repetitive movements can cause strain and lead to injury. Increasing general strength and learning proper technique helps prevent burnout and poor mechanics, which helps avoid injury.
  • Improved mental performance. Players struggling with certain skills may excel in your performance training program.  You can track improvements over time, which builds confidence and improves gameplay.

Your players are at greater risk for injury and burnout as competitive seasons become longer and longer.  To combat this risk, your training should focus on improved strength, speed, agility, and confidence.  These fundamental fitness techniques help keep players healthy.

In addition to helping improve performance, sports training programs are a great marketing tool for your business.  Offering specific programs helps you bring in revenue throughout the year and cross-promote other offers. Also, these can be offered to the players on your teams as well as the general public.  To incentivize more teams to train at your facility, provide them special access and discounted rates.

Learn More About eSOFT PLANNER

eSOFT PLANNER is flexible, affordable, simple, and perfect for small business owners.  Request your free demo today to see how we can help you consolidate effort, save time, increase revenue, and grow your business.

Soccer Memberships Generate Revenue

Generating Revenue Through Soccer Memberships and Programming

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Soccer Memberships: The Number One Revenue Generator and Programming Idea for Sports Facilities

Your facility probably already sells custom sports training packages for your clients’ specific goals. But in order to keep a regular cash-flow, you need to be promoting sports-specific monthly memberships.

Ongoing memberships provide a dependable source of revenue for your sports facility and provide your clients with a convenient, consistent training option. Many of our clients are quick to adopt the ideal model for batting cage facilities. This promotes their long-term hitting memberships with reduced prices. By promoting their six-month memberships, the facility maintains a consistent revenue even throughout their slow season.

Any facility with open space can multi-purpose to include soccer training as well – you don’t have to have a full-sized soccer field.

Using memberships for soccer players can enhance the experience. You can adopt a series of benefits for members. Offer semi-private classes (six players max) led by experienced trainers. Drills and games regularly employed by college-level players to train and improve the technique and skill of their athletes. At the higher level, you can offer a premium Elite Soccer Training Membership that includes access to sports performance classes in addition to access to the sports-specific soccer classes.

To give you an idea of the variety of classes that your facility might offer to make your memberships more attractive to clients. Here are some class structures we developed with a client to enhance a soccer membership package.

Passing and Receiving/Turning Class

This class teaches the fundamental techniques of passing, turning, and receiving the ball with all surfaces of the foot. Passing and receiving is one of the most important skills in the game of soccer. In this class, athletes work on their first touch with the ball on the ground and in the air, different ways to turn with the ball, and the correct passing technique. Athletes will also learn the reasoning behind using different surfaces for passing and receiving.

Dribbling and Shielding Class (Moves in 1 v 1 & 2 v 2 Situations)

In this class, players learn the proper mechanics of dribbling using the inside, outside, instep, and sole of the foot. Players will also learn how to run top speed with the ball and change direction, while keeping the ball under control. They will also learn shielding, an important skill needed to retain the ball under high pressure.

Juggling and Heading Class

This class teaches the proper techniques associated with the different methods of heading the ball. Players learn to keep their eyes on the ball and head it in various scenarios. Such as for clearing, scoring, defending, and possession.

Shooting Class

In this class, players learn the fundamental technique to a power shot and a finesse shot through a variety of drills and games for all skill levels.

eSoft Planner can enable you to build the memberships, schedule classes and automate your additional member benefits. If you have any questions about how you can make scheduling at your facility more efficient, we would be happy to set up a consultation session with you. Click here and fill out the form to request a free demo.

How to gauge customer interest

Gauge Customer Interest by Using Client Management Software

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How to Use Client Management Software to Gauge Customer Interest

As a sports facility owner or manager, you should be tracking your clients’ interests. Your customers are more likely to engage with you if your marketing efforts are highly targeted and have a direct appeal to them. An analysis of their interests also provides extremely valuable information to you as a business owner when you consider new products and services.

Here are four simple steps to boost your bottom line by keeping tabs on what your customers want:

1. Choose the Format

To effectively analyze your clients’ interests, your data should be collected electronically and automatically. Sports facility management software like eSoft Planner makes this easy. But if you don’t have software that allows you to keep track of client information and interests. You need to manually add the information to whatever files or spreadsheets you’re using to track clients’ information.

To collect the information, a simple list of checkboxes for them to identify what topics they want more information about is sufficient. Clients can quickly tick the boxes when they sign up.

2. Decide Which Interests to List

Take some time to think strategically about which interests to include in your list before you publish your form.

You should have between 6 to 10 interest options that will offer a good selection, without overwhelming the client. If the interest checklist is part of an electronic form, consider making the question a required field and add a “none of these” checkbox option at the bottom. (If the field is too easy to skip, clients will skip it. Especially if it’s part of a form that is already relatively complicated.)

Some points to remember when developing your list of interests:

  • The field is part of a paper form, encourage your staff to remind new clients to fill it out.
  • If your sports facility offers a wide variety of services, you may need to keep the interests broadly categorized (for example: adult fitness programs, kid programs, mom and baby programs, sports leagues, etc.).
  • If you run a small, interest-specific facility, you can make the list more specific. For example, if you own a batting cage facility, you can gauge your customers’ interests in the available pitching machines or measurement technologies.

3. Choose Both Current Services and Future Services

Client interests are a great way to test the potential viability of a new product or service. For example, you might survey your clients about is their interest in purchasing baseball and softball apparel and equipment. If more than 60% of your clients indicated that they are interested, it is safe to consider it as a serious option.

4. Require Clients to Frequently Update Their Interests

Make sure that your clients frequently update their interests. Especially when you add new interests to your list. eSoft Planner allows you to customize how often your clients are prompted to update their profiles. You can also export the interest lists easily for e-mail marketing purposes.

Gauging customer interest is a vital part of growing your sports facility business and increasing client engagement. Making sure you’re collecting this information easily and in a format that you can analyze and market against is important. It can help your business be more efficient. Contact us for a demo to see how eSoft Planner simplifies the process of creating customer interest surveys and integrating them into your other processes.

Blog on sports programming

Sports Programming Increases Client Engagement

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It’s All in the Sports Programming

We’ve seen it time and time again. Sports facilities relying strictly on their rentals for income instead of maximizing what their space can do for them. This is a critical mistake that cuts deeply into a business’ profitability, making it nearly impossible for them to survive. When sports facilities focus only on selling space for a flat fee, they miss out the revenue generated from offering value-packed programming.

Sports Programming is Lucrative for Facilities

Programming can include camps, clinics, group lessons, leagues, or even tournaments. No matter what the program, you will have multiple customers paying to use the same space.

For example, you have a field that rents for $100 per hour. You could rent that field for two hours and make $200, or you could run a two-hour camp on that field with 25 to 50 kids at $30 each and make $750-$1,500. It’s easy to see which option will maximize your profitability!

One of our favorite programs hosted by our facility was a children’s soccer clinic. Players learned how to take a shot on goal no matter where the ball approached their bodies. The kids loved it, the facility maximized its earning potential for the allotted space, and we were able to grow our business through cross-selling opportunities.

Spark Interest in Your Sports Programming for New Clientele

Another perk to programming is that it introduces more potential clients to your facility. Athletes participating in a clinic may decide that they really like the clinic instructor. Then sign up for private lessons with him or her. They might even be so impressed by the facility that they will purchase a membership.

Sports Clinics and Leagues

Programming becomes a powerful marketing tool to showcase what your facility has to offer. This comes from our experience of managing our own sports facility and working with customers at hundreds of facilities across the country. Facilities with programming are able to maximize profitability and draw in new clients.

Another great programming option is to offer instructional sports leagues. No matter the sport, a league ensures more paying registrants as well as increased visibility for your facility. Use your spaces for weekly games, head-to-head matchups, and other competitions. For example, in a baseball facility with virtual technologies, such as HitTrax, Rapsodo, ProBatter, or ALLSTAR machines, you can sign up players to hit and record their statistics and build competitive leaderboards.

If you are not making use of programming in your sports facility operations, eSoft Planner can help you manage these programs. Our team of experts has the experience to guide you in developing programming for your facility.

Contact us for a demo of eSoft Planner today to see how you can spend less time and hassle on administration and more time supporting your club and your members.