The big day

It’s finally on the horizon!! You have put in tons of time, money, sweat and maybe even some tears to get to this point. Don’t let your opening happen without some sort of awesome celebration.

Let your local papers and media outlets know that you are opening a new location in the hopes of generating some great publicity. You can even invite them to cover the opening day events – which means you would need to plan some opening day events.

The most obvious thing to plan would be a mini competition. Getting enough athletes for this should be easy if you are opening a second location, but if this is your first location you can always have a “Newfitter throwdown” for the general public. Make sure to plan WODs at a variety of scales. While it is great to have some serious firebreathers at your box, the ones who will really pay the rent are the average joes who are looking to get fitter. Have scaled versions easily available to show how accessible CrossFit is for everyone.

You can also throw a BBQ (or hire someone to throw a BBQ) to get even more foot traffic (everyone loves free food) and bring up the discussion of nutrition and how your new affiliate takes on health as a whole. If you plan on being a kid friendly facility, plan some kid friendly events too!

Make sure you have plenty of fliers, cards and contracts on hand. Having merchandise for sale is a bonus, keep our journals in mind as a great item to help members track their entire journey. The last thing you want is to have interested people that can’t either get signed up right away or can’t take your info with them.