To be successful in the fitness and personal training business you must have sound fitness business systems in place. I like well thought out processes and systems because, among many other things, they help you focus more on what is important in your personal training business; your customers. The famous management expert Edward Deming shared this quote about business and the processes around it “If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you’re doing”. He was right.
When I started my first personal training gym in the late 1990’s I didn’t quite understand how important systems were to running a successful fitness or personal training business. Sure I knew a lot about workouts and clients, but systematizing my business was something I did not really grasp the significance of at first.
In 2012 I met Rick Mayo and was able to learn a lot about what my personal training business was missing. Rick’s Alloy Personal Training Systems represented the most successful personal training fitness model per square foot in the world. Their fitness business systems were proven and comprehensive. After meeting Rick and learning about his systems I changed my personal training business model and soon became one of the first Alloy licensees. Now I am going to have the chance to sell Alloy personal training business franchises and help a lot of other people embrace the importance of proven business systems in the fitness industry.
What Are Fitness Business Systems Exactly?
Fitness business systems are documented procedures and protocols reflecting how your organization operates. They are processes, with associated actions taken by people and some form of automated application, organized to meet a given set of business objectives. Systems can generally take place without the business owner’s direct action repeatedly and as efficiently as possible. Having systems enables business owners to scale their operations and deliver consistent customer experiences. Great fitness franchise concepts have proven business systems.
Examples of fitness business systems and processes span a wide range of tasks and may include how your staff should answer the telephone; the procedure for hiring people; the process for marketing your business, as well as receiving payments and following up on outstanding bills. In the personal training arena, they include things like keeping track of clients information and workouts.
Regardless of the size or type of personal training business, most should have set procedures in place covering many functions, which employees follow out of habit or as directed by their supervisor or manager. These fitness business systems are the manual for your business; the “know-how” of any business that many business owners usually hold in their head, and have not got round to putting onto paper.
5 Reasons Why Every Personal Training Business Should Have Fitness Business Systems?
There are many reasons and just as many benefits for having established and documented systems in your fitness or personal training business, some of which include the following:
1. They provide a framework for your operations and an effective structure to support your business;
2. They improve consistency: production, delivery, customer service, and support;
3. They improve results because your employees don’t have to recreate the wheel every time;
4. They provide a better work environment for your employees by clarifying roles and responsibilities as well as providing staff with guidelines; and
5. They enable your business to expand and facilitate business growth.
What Fitness Business Systems Work Best?
Although there are similarities across functions, such as accounting, sales, and operations, there is no one size fits all system that works for all companies. Any system needs to integrate the company’s business objectives, its people, and the way it provides its products or services.
It is important to have a well-designed system, customized to your type of fitness business operation, and thought out by people at all levels in the company. At Alloy Personal Training all of our systems are designed to support the success of a very clear business model with defined business objectives that cover the gamut of things required to do so.
The Alloy Personal Training Franchise System
Until now gym operators picked and chose the parts of the Alloy systems they needed to fill in gaps of their personal training programs and our fitness business systems often required customization. Because of that, they did not exactly match the systems of the “Mothership” Alloy facility in Roswell GA. Now we will be starting from scratch with the franchise locations to be designed to exactly match the proven fitness business systems we use in the mothership every day. We will be able to provide assistance and support at a level unattainable with the licensing model.
Our team has had the benefit of working with major health clubs and fitness brands along with independent gym owners and operators around the globe for a decade. We have even helped several leading and successful fitness and gym franchise brands. Our team has traveled around the world listening and learning about what is working and why in the health club and gym industry. Our experience in our original location in Alpharetta, Georgia, combined with working with so many fitness professionals in concert with changes we are seeing in the marketplace has led us to define very specific business systems we have been building on for a long time. We’d like to think we have a formula that works which is a key ingredient to a successful personal training studio and it all starts with our systems.
Alloy Fitness Franchise Launched On September 1, 2019
When you launch a personal trianing business franchise there are a lot of things you have to do. There is the FDD document you must prepare to sell the franchises. This entails putting together a lot of information to disclose to prospects about the business. There are a lot of laws and regulations to consider and we have brought in experts in a number of areas to assist us and our franchisees in growing our franchise brand. We want to do everything we can to make certain that Alloy Personal Training Centers are a great success.
We went to market with our franchise recruitment and sales process on September 1, 2019, and the initial focus is in the southeastern United States for the first year of our franchise recruitment efforts. We are identifying prospects and are prepared to have discovery days and sign on franchise candidates in less than 90 days. Many thanks go out to all of you for all of your support over the years and our team will keep you updated on what lies ahead in this new chapter of the Alloy Personal Training Center Franchise brand story.
About Tony Chemer
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Tony Chemer serves as Vice President of Franchise Development at Alloy Personal Training. He has been involved in athletics his entire life and has been an avid exerciser and weightlifter since the 7th grade.
After developing a business plan in 1997 Tony jumped into the fitness industry and purchased his own gym. He was a writer and Co-host for the ESPN Fitness show “Gotta Sweat” and developed workouts for 6-Time Ms. Olympia winner Cory Everson. Through his experience, he learned that knowing how to write safe effective workouts meant nothing if he didn’t continually improve the business systems of my gym.
In 2012 Tony met Rick Mayo and was introduced to Alloy’s systems, which represented the most successful fitness model per square foot in the world. After meeting Rick and seeing his systems Tony changed his business model and soon became one of the first Alloy licensees.
As Alloy grew so did his role in helping to train new facilities. Tony learned and followed the Alloy Personal Training System to the smallest detail enjoyed teaching other business owners how to implement the Alloy systems in their facilities. Tony supported Alloy’s licensees from onsite training and Alloy installations to consulting, coaching and supporting existing Alloy partners, as well as all sales for new Alloy licensees. With over 21 years of experience running his own fitness facility and over 7 years working with Alloy, Tony has a firm grasp on the fitness industry. To learn more about the Alloy Personal Training Center Franchise sign up for our mailing list here.