Friends, these are exciting times.
There has never been an era in recorded history that a global marketplace has been so ripe for innovation and advancement. Here’s why I believe that this is the case: the widely available technology of our time has ushered these capabilities into the easy grasps of we, the average-Jane and Joe entrepreneurs. As Mirriam-Webster would define the term, technology is…
“…the use of science in industry, engineering, etc., to invent useful things or to solve problems”.
Thus, we might as well take advantage of those ‘useful things’ to the practical maximum. Especially when it comes to running a small fitness business, you simply stand to gain in productivity for doing so.
A Case for Ditching Your Paper Planner
With that being said, here’s a quick question for you: do you use a smartphone, laptop, or iPad to run your personal training company?
If you answered ‘yes’, then I’m going to make the case that the time has come for you to ditch your paper planner, lists, ye olde Excel, and ledgers for that of their web-based counterparts. My reason for this is not necessarily because there’s something horribly wrong with using desktop programs, pens, and sticky notes. The issue is that you’re likely missing out on some major productivity and convenience advantages. To give you an example, here’s a small list of the kinds of apps that I’m talking about:
- Evernote
- Freshbooks
- Trello
- Basecamp
- Slack
- Google Apps for Business
These web apps can provide powerful, user friendly alternatives that will not only keep you on task and organized -but you’ll also likely feel a bit more at ease if you’ve endured the ‘blue screen of death’ in the recent past …and here are 4 reasons why…
#4 – Web-Based Apps Are (Almost) Bulletproof for Business
When you’re using web-based apps to run your fitness business, you’re actually protecting your company from the possibility of a tech infrastructure disaster. Of course, I’m not saying that there won’t ever be situations where your laptop gets stolen or your phone takes a dive off of the morning ferry into the bay. I am saying, however, that when Dr. Murphy strikes…
Your fitness business’s data, your schedules, your clients’ information, your address book, and even your mental notes -they’ll all be safe and sound. The advantage to having everything running from the cloud is that you’ve effectively separated your dependency on your devices from your company’s precious data.
If one fails, it won’t have an adverse effect on the other, and this should give you peace of mind that an insurance policy couldn’t even buy.
#3 – They Cost Less In the Long Run
The last reason I just mentioned is one that coincides beautifully with this one in particular, simply because your costs will naturally be reduced with risk. Essentially, in a recent article from TechRadar.com, Jason Peck gives two hard-hitting stats on why you’ll dole out far less cash by running your company from a web-based app (and not on paper):
“The sheer volume of paper not only costs your business money, but it also grinds productivity to a halt. It takes 18 minutes on average to find a paper document, and a whopping 70% of businesses would fail in three weeks if they had a catastrophic loss of paper due to a fire or flood.”
In fact, with the level of functionality that you’d experience -in addition to how you’d be able to take advantage of the consumer tech that your clients/employees already probably have- you’ll most likely be paying an obscenely smaller bill this way. It’s just going to give you more bang for your buck over the long haul.
#2 – You’re Not Tied to Certain Devices
In the same way that you won’t have to worry about losing all your data if your laptop gets run over by a city transit bus, you’re also not going to have to stress about purchasing particularly expensive devices (depending on what you need them for). It is true that I’d certainly prefer a new Macbook Pro for video editing tasks, but beyond that, I’d rather just get a Chromebook. Especially since I won’t need the hard drive space for storage or high-performance capabilities to update my Trello boards, I’d rather spend less to get what I need. Take a look at the price difference…
- For an 11-inch Macbook Air, you’ll be shelling out $899.
- For the cheapest possible Chromebook, you’ll pay $149.
If you’re just going to perform the same tasks with a Chromebook as you would a Macbook, then you might as well go with the MUCH cheaper version of the two (or purchase 6 units at the price of 1 Mac). Also, using web-based apps will allow you to work from your local library desktop computers, mother-in-law’s iPad, or son’s LG G3. As long as its got internet access, and your app is supported on both iOS and Android, then any device will do the job in a pinch.
This is yet another reason why an obliterated laptop won’t ruin your weekend -because it would only set you back by $149.
#1 – We’re All Cloud-Bound Anyway
It seems as though we’re all going to be using web-capable devices and apps here soon, either way. While most experts are fairly certain that the ‘open-web’ is going to make up most internet traffic in the long run, I do believe that apps are going to become more function-oriented.
Whereas people will be doing their online shopping and Buzzfeed browsing via their device’s web browser (and not through an app). Where there is exploration, that will be a job for the open-Web. Where there is a need for convenience and functionality, such as in running a business, you’re going to get the proliferation of more apps and more cloud-based connectivity:
“A number of respondents said that humans today have adopted a consumer-culture approach to negotiating their lives, and the convenience of using apps as a gateway to getting what you want fits in that paradigm. “Ease of use always wins,” wrote technology author and consultant -Fred Hapgood.” [PewInternet.org]
With that said, it’s just better to be on the edge of a new trend, than the down-slope of an old one. Web-based apps for business aren’t exactly new, which means that it’s time to hop aboard this train as soon as you possibly can. What is for certain is that branding tends to suffer when a company appears to be unwillingly stuck in its own antiquated systems.
Any Drawbacks?
If anything, I would say that there might be two drawbacks to adopting a total web-app system for running your fitness business. For one, you’ll have to become more security-conscious, given that most of these apps only need a username and password in order to gain access to an account. The other drawback is that most of these apps will be adequate for administrative tasks -but if you’re going to need specific functions that require a hefty measure of computing power, then you’ll probably want to stick with piece of software on that one.
However, those are really the only two drawbacks that come to mind in this case. For everything else, believe me when I say …there’s an app for that.
