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Why Cheer Gym Owners Don’t Know Their Numbers (and How to Fix It)
If you ever feel like you’re living on a prayer when it comes to your numbers, this episode is for you. Welcome to the Fullout Cheer Podcast. I’m Danielle, and today we’re talking about why so many cheer gym owners feel lost when it comes to numbers and budgeting.
We’ve been hosting the Tearbiz Accelerator for over a year now, and I’ve been at most of these events. Before each one, we ask gym owners for their numbers in advance because we do a deep dive into your business. One thing I’ve learned is that about half the gym owners in the room struggle to find the numbers we’re asking for.
The Numbers Gym Owners Struggle to Find
The Tearbiz Accelerator has requirements. Attendees aren’t typically brand-new gym owners, and they have a solid number of athletes and a minimum annual revenue. Occasionally we make an exception for someone with unique business experience, but it’s rare to find anyone at these events who hasn’t been in the industry for a couple of years. Even so, it astounds me every time that gym owners walk in and admit they had to estimate.
We’ll ask for average monthly revenue and get an even $30,000. I understand we’re asking for an average, but it’s not really an average if you didn’t divide the last three months by three. We’ll ask for operational expenses over the last three months and someone will say exactly $40,000, and there’s no way it was exactly $40,000 to a T. Most of the time, owners are simply struggling to pull the information. Today I’m sharing three reasons I believe we’re making things harder on ourselves.
Reason #1: Your Class Management Software Isn’t Giving You Answers
Once upon a time, somebody probably sold you on some really rough class management software. I’ve asked gym owners in that room, “How many active athletes do you have right now?” and heard, “I don’t know.” One owner opened their app and said, “It says 390 out of 407.” I asked what that meant, and the owner didn’t understand it either.
Some software makes it hard to break down revenue by category. How much did you bring in from events last month? All-star cheer? Recreational tumbling? Private lessons? I know of software where you have to email the company to get those numbers. I’m not a hater of these systems. We have to have them, and they’re a necessary evil. But I don’t think there’s a perfect option out there. They’re built for a wide variety of industries, and the ones built just for all-star cheer are about 10 years behind in the reporting tools we need.
So don’t feel bad if your software feels rough. But at the end of the day, you should be able to log in and pull how much revenue you made last month in each category. You should be able to see how much was deposited, which will match your revenue or match the net amount after credit card fees depending on the software. You should easily be able to tell how many active athletes you have and how many active enrollments. Those aren’t the same thing, because one athlete might take two classes.
If you struggle with your numbers, you might not have the right software. Or you may have one of the better options but haven’t set it up correctly, or haven’t set up the widgets on your dashboard so everything is clear and obvious. Figure out whether this is the right tool for you. Group communication, texting, and automations are great, as long as you have the thing that matters most: the ability to see your numbers.
Reason #2: You’re Taking Payments 18 Different Ways
Taking payments only through your class management software bites you, too. From what I’ve seen, it’s often the worst way to sign up a new member. Before last week’s Tearbiz Accelerator, I went through one gym’s process as a brand-new parent with no enrolled athlete. Twelve clicks later, I had entered my athlete’s name, date of birth, and address, and that didn’t even include choosing a class or putting a card on file. Twelve clicks, you guys.
Then I tried booking a birthday party through the same gym’s website, and it took six clicks. It’s actually easier and faster to book a one-time birthday party than to enroll, yet enrollment is monthly recurring revenue that grows your business exponentially.
On the flip side, I hear owners say, “We take Venmo, PayPal, checks, credit cards, payments through our Wix site, a Square reader at the front, checks from fundraising companies, and tuition through our software.” Can you get down to just one? Probably not, because one won’t make enrollment smooth. But can you narrow it to two? Absolutely.
How We Simplify Payments at My Gym
At my gym, we use iClass for class management and Square for everything else. Square works through our website, our CRM forms, Tap to Pay, and the front desk, and we’re able to use the same categories for events, pro shop, and concessions that we use in iClass. In iClass, I handle all the monthly recurring billing. I choose not to have people register through iClass because I want it smooth, without lots of clicks. The harder you make it to purchase, the less likely people are to purchase.
Whether you use Square, Stripe, or something else, pick a platform that lets people use Venmo, Cash App, Apple Wallet, or tap to pay for a t-shirt in the pro shop or open gym. If someone comes in once a month to play for two hours for $10, I don’t want them creating a profile and remembering a password in my software. There’s a balance between streamlining operations and building a system people will actually use. I prefer Square and I think Dan prefers Stripe, but you have options.
And y’all, it is 2026, almost 2027. Quit taking checks. We take them one time per year, if you’re paying for the entire season in full by June 1st, and the check has to arrive 10 days in advance so we know it cleared. You don’t need them anymore. It’s like 2013. Just don’t go to the other extreme, either: you might know your numbers perfectly with one option, but they’ll be pretty low if you’ve made it too hard for people to buy from you.
Reason #3: Your Numbers Aren’t Being Reported to You
The third reason is that owners have to log in to various platforms and pull reports themselves. As much as I love knowing what’s happening in my business, if I had to pull my iClass revenue summary from the day before every single day, I wouldn’t know my numbers as well as I do when something reports them to me.
Most payment platforms will email you a reconciliation: how much was charged yesterday, what you may have paid in credit card fees, and the net deposit you can expect. But that’s two more emails in my inbox every day, so I don’t even look at them. Instead, I have Grok pull it for me.
Let AI Do the Reporting for You
If you listened to last week’s episode, I talked about using AI to make your life simpler. I’m not an AI expert by any means, and if you’re thinking AI is too overwhelming, some gym owners felt the same way until they heard that episode. I want to give a quick shout-out to Savannah from Pyro Tier, who was in our school group for Cheer Gym Lab AI, where Dan and I teach people to automate things in their gyms. Her comment warmed my heart: she said her Grok bot has truly changed her life in the week since the podcast, and that it’s 100% worth it.
Here’s the thing: if I have to ask AI to pull the information, I won’t do it, especially on a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, or a day when I’m putting out fires or my kid is sick. But if the numbers arrive every morning because AI pulled them from my iClass and Square summaries, categorized them, and compared them to the same dates last year, I can see where I’m doing well and where I have room to grow. All I have to do is open my bot, and the numbers are compiled and reported to me by 7 a.m.
If your only way to find your numbers is logging into your software, pulling out a calculator, and hoping all the cash made it into the cash box, that’s how I operated in 2013. By 2014 we had a POS at the front desk because I wanted to know exactly what was selling and wanted accountability for staff. Don’t operate like it’s 2013, because parents will treat you like it’s 2013. Operate like it’s almost 2027, and instead of pulling numbers, take the time once to automate a process that sends them to you.
Ready to Make Decisions With Your Numbers?
If you listened and thought, “I don’t know my numbers,” or maybe you feel good about them but wonder how to make decisions from them, the Tearbiz Accelerator is probably the perfect option for you. You do have to qualify. But if you’d like to walk into my gym or Dan’s gym, a gym doing well in a community like yours, and figure out how to get there, this is for you. I’ve even had gyms attend that are doing more in revenue than mine, because at every stage of business you still have to keep learning and growing.
Head to TearbizAccelerator.com, check out the dates for our 2027 events, and register. We have one at Dan’s gym in January and one at my gym in February. Those who attended in 2026 are already asking when is too soon to come back. We have people scheduled for their second Tearbiz Accelerator because they want it to be an annual deep dive that keeps them constantly growing and learning.
Thank you so much for joining me on this episode of the Fullout Cheer Podcast. I’ll catch you on the next one.
