By Sam Monempour, NAI Capital Commercial Real Estate Services, Worldwide Opening a gym/fitness center is a challenging and complex venture with many moving parts. Before diving in, it is essential to carefully plan and prepare for the ever-changing aspects of the fitness industry. Over the years, gyms have gone from standard places of exercise and bodybuilding to a social environment with integrated social media influences, new technologies, new formats of exercise, and many various forms of build-out. 1. Decide gym style and market before signing a lease. The first step in signing a well-designed lease is to determine the type of [...]
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December 2022 Profile. Superior Fitness of Granbury LLC., Granbury, Texas It takes courage to follow your ethics. Samuel Frederick, owner of Superior Fitness of Granbury, Texas, framed his life around that very concept: Right is right. Wrong is wrong. In July 2021, he accepted the challenge of taking over a 2,600 square-foot personal training studio and gym courting a small, but dedicated customer base. Together with Donald Mathis, a long-time friend, they set out to create a fitness center reflecting their values: exercise as a gateway for progress, movement and long-term change. “I want(ed) people to learn to work out effectively,” by [...]
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Read on for six simple and easy promos. 1. Spin & Win These table top spinners turn an everyday contest into a Wow! adventure. Pair it with video and the spinning wheel pulls in viewers on social media. In fact, the spinner can become a promotion all on its’ own. Consider inviting members to spin the wheel and win a free month, a club tee shirt, a family membership, or a gallon of gas. Then, post their happy responses with a call out for guest to come in and try their luck. With a little creativity, this promotional prop can [...]
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As a gym owner, you’re a natural entrepreneur. Capable of weighing risks and making decisions. Yet, diversifying companies or running multiple gyms is a difficult leap — powering through even one gym can seem insurmountable. How can you run multiple gyms successfully? To answer this question, we turned to Troy Barnum, who owns two Total Fitness gyms and a successful ATV ecommerce store. He bought his first gym in 2011 after running other ventures. Here’s his key advice. For a full recount of our conversation, go to our “Gym Owners Podcast” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxZ2Q5ExbQ0 10 Tips for Running Multiple Gyms 1) Expect to work hard. Barnum puts [...]
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Summer is the time when people start finding time to relax and have some fun. As people are becoming more and more health conscious by the day, health clubs are becoming a popular hangout for people of all age groups. Health clubs can leverage this demand to their advantage, and come up with events or promotions that people enjoy. This will also increase the popularity of the health club significantly. Here are a few simple ideas for cool summertime events and promotions in your health club. Discounts or Free Trials One of the best promotions you can offer in your [...]
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If you have opened a new gym, you must know that it is, after all, a new business. So you should be prepared to run and develop that business as a business. To do so, you must acquire knowledge about the fitness business industry, and also be aware of the pitfalls of why new gyms fail so you can be sure to avoid them. In my opinion, here are the top 10 reasons why new gyms fail... #1 - No proper business plan No business plan can be fatal to your new gym. Before starting a gym know: Successful gyms watch finances, [...]
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10 Cost-Effective Ways to Promote Your Fitness Business 10 Cost-Effective Ways to Promote Your Fitness Business Marketing your gym is an ongoing process. Placing an advertisement periodically here and there will not be enough for your business to survive. You always have to be proactively thinking about the next promotional idea, slogan, or campaign. There are a handful of ways that are cost efficient and will effectively promote your gym business your within your immediate target area. Here 10 ways to help get you started. 1. Sponsor charities Simply choose a charitable event or charity organization and do short term and [...]
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Online fitness is an interesting concept for a gym. It takes a locally utilized product and turns it into a nationwide or, possibly, a worldwide consumable. It can, ideally, expand your audience well beyond a single zip code. In a sense, it’s as if you’re franchising your own brand. A daunting idea, no doubt. If you’ve risen to the challenge and now offer live streaming, or on-demand through your health club, what steps are needed to grow this business investment? Figure out how customers find you. Intelivideo, a technology company specializing in enabling subscription video businesses, collected data in the [...]
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As the owner of a gym, drawing in new members is a topic that will always be near the front of your mind. Successful business owners never truly stop marketing. Over the years, you have probably run your fair share of gym promotions, membership discounts, and group signup events. Marketing strategies like these often - for good reason - make up the backbone of gym advertisement campaigns. However, sticking to these tried and true methods can feel a little stale after a while. Not to mention, if you neglect the technical and online sides of your marketing campaign, you are [...]
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As an enthusiastic new gym owner, you've probably already found a place in the market with enough potential customers to build a business. Once you commit to your particular niche in the fitness business, there's one thing you'll need. It's the information about customers and sales that will take you from the initial idea to a sustainable and profitable asset. More precisely, it is the ability to gather, organize, and exploit information about any prospective customer that comes into contact with your business. If you want to find the insights within the fine-grained details of the piles of data that [...]
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Continuing Trends in 2018 One thing is sure about the summer of 2018; fitness businesses aren't going to disappear anytime soon. While it's technically possible to do all of your workouts from home, that is not the choice that people are making this year. What's hot in mid-2018 is the human connection. The word of the season appears to be "continuation" as wearables continue to lurk in the background, HIIT continues to grow in popularity, and group classes continue to fill the need for social engagement in the lives of many. Meanwhile, the spread of IoT connected equipment may influence [...]
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I have spent a lot of time talking about marketing on the Gym Insight Blog. As part of that effort, I'd like to mention a metric that can give you the big picture. It can be a real insight into the potential scope for expanding your gym or small fitness studio. The metric in question is the Total Addressable Market (TAM), which is the number of people who qualify as customers within reach of your business. This number indicates how much your fitness enterprise could earn if it did earn everything there is to earn, as it were. Finding Your [...]
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As you know, fitness is more than just providing a place to work out; it's about community and building a network of like-minded, healthy, and happy people. Whether you're networking for gym business owners or your membership, it's the connections you make that root your fitness enterprise in your local community. Success comes from connecting in this business because it's about people and building your membership one person at a time. There is one extra essential ingredient that goes into making your community, and that's passion. If you have the love and motivation that emanates from the energy of passion [...]
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The Digital Natives Expect You To Bring Your A-Game There is a simple logic that justifies marketing to Millennials; it is the fact that, being young people, they will be around for years and years to come. So if you can capture the mood and attitude that appeals to them, you have a shot at building relationships with a valuable demographic. Millennials are the offspring of past generations that were subject to sophisticated marketing, even if the media was less advanced. This recent generation has grown up within that context, and they are the first generation that is truly native [...]
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It's Not What You Think So, what does a small fitness business or startup look like? From the outside, it might resemble any one of a variety of business models that have nothing in common. Inside it's likely to be a different story. Your business probably has an architecture that fits into a format that any gym manager will recognize, a club with a subscription membership. It's a service business that has consumers for members. You have to deal with a competitive market, fight against lots of similar companies, and also contend with the giants that have unlimited resources. These [...]
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