With 2024 coming to a close, it’s important for business owners to take time to reflect on success and challenges over the past year. Even though this time of the year is busy and most are already focusing on the new year, this reflection can make planning for 2025 much easier.
If you’re a basketball training facility owner looking to take advantage of this unique time and get ahead, here are a few things you should be prioritizing to help effectively close out 2024 and go into the New Year ready for more.
Priority #1: Finances
Before anything else, it’s crucial to review your training facility’s finances from the past year. See if there are any trends in revenue or expenses, if there are any missed goals, as well as if there are any opportunities where you can save and improve. Reviewing your yearly finances will help you understand what worked, and didn’t, and help you create a foundation for 2025 budgets.
Not sure where to start? There are resources available to assist you in doing a financial review. Intuit Quickbooks is just one example where you can access printable, step-by-step templates to help you along the way. LinkedIn also has a variety of articles to help small business owners go through the process on their own.
Priority #2: Your Members
Whether you have multiple training facility locations or a smaller number of players you work with, hearing what your members have to say about their experiences can go a long way. Running an end-of-year survey can help you know how satisfied your players, and their parents, are with the training services you provide. It can also be a good way to uncover areas you should explore in 2025 like more competitive playing opportunities, diving into certain skills, or hosting community events.
Plus, asking your members about how they feel will show them that they matter to you and create a stronger feeling of connection and community. This can help with retention and positive word-of-mouth for your training facility.
Priority #3: Your Success
The end of the year can bring a lot of extra work. But no matter how busy you are, don’t forget to celebrate your accomplishments from the past year! You can do your own take of the “2024 Wrapped” and share out stats from the players who are training with you, most popular drills during sessions, days where the most shots were taken, and so much more.
You could even send out a “Thank You” message or email out to the parents who support their players’ skill development journey. But, don’t forget about the volunteers or employees who have been there with you along the way!
If you really want to go out with a bang, throw a New Years celebration! Invite players, and their parents, your employees/volunteers for an afternoon or evening of basketball fun. Have different challenges that get everyone involved, coordinate a potluck, and simply celebrate the basketball community you created. You could even use this event to tease anything new that’s coming in 2025.
Priority #4: Leveraging the Holiday Season
If you think that your December is going to be slow or not as busy as the rest of the year, you could be missing out on increased traffic and revenue to your training facility. The Holiday Season is a great time to introduce incentives to your members whether it’s certain skills challenges, free guest passes, or offering extra training sessions outside of the normal schedule.
Higher level players will have more days off around this time of year meaning there’s time to get into the gym. If you know that your families are busy but want to give them the opportunities to come in and train, offer custom “Holiday Training Sessions” that are flexible to their schedules.
Priority #5: Efficiency
One last thing that you should be prioritizing at the end of 2024 is efficiency. If you decide to offer special training schedules, adjust your operation hours to reflect when you’ll be in the gym. This can help you save money with staffing, facility costs (heating, cooling, electricity, etc.), and even travel.
If you notice that option is popular with your families, implement that more in 2025! You could have a special membership package for a more customized training schedule or simply have it built into your calendar the time periods you’ll offer this more. Planning for these money saving opportunities will also help you get a better idea of how realistic larger financial expenses are for you next year. Which then means you can get a jump start of renovations, fresh paint, new equipment purchases, and more.
Efficiency could also mean how you’re running your business in general. Are your players getting the most out of their sessions? Are you able to get in enough training sessions in a day? Could you be getting more? Answering these questions could help you find gaps and look to address them in 2025.
If you are wishing to maximize the time your players spend in their training sessions, consider a Dr. Dish FCLTY shooting machine. The Dr. Dish FCLTY will bring the ultimate training experience into your gym. Your players will be able to get up more high quality reps while staying more motivated with goal setting and other competitive features. Plus, they’ll have more fun!
If you’re interested in taking your training sessions to the next level, get in touch with one of our basketball business experts now.
We hope that this end-of-year basketball business checklist is helpful and makes you feel more confident than ever going into 2025! For even more tips, tricks, and training facility stories click here.