If you’re going to join in and buy a fitness franchise, one of your primary goals is to make money. Sure, you love working out, and the idea of building a business around your greatest passion excites you to no end. Still, though, you’ve got bills to pay and a family to support. You need to know this venture is going to be profitable.
The truth about franchises is this: generally, you get out as much as you put it in. While some franchise models are built better than others from the ground up, there’s no substitute for hard work and good training. In this post, we’ll talk about how to ensure your fitness franchise business is successful, and which ingredients go into long-term profitability.
The Foundational Franchise Structure
The great thing about a franchise is that it is essentially a ready-made business. Take Alloy, for example, Alloy initially started as a training program and built a franchise model from there. Personal training is the bread and butter of most gym franchises, and all Alloy is IS personal training program format. When you sign on to become an Alloy franchisee, you get help with everything involved in building the business, from training to onboarding, to course creation and development.
One of the biggest mistakes people make with franchises, though, is that they think starting one is easy. After all, with all that support, shouldn’t you be able to launch and go? The answer is not always that simple. Even with a model like Alloy, which is widely considered to be one of the better-structured franchises in the industry, you need to put in the work. Yes, we are here to support you every step of the way, but your business won’t launch unless you make it happen.
Running your own business shouldn’t be something you do off the cuff. For the best results, you need to approach it intentionally if you want to make it work. The worst thing you can do is treat your franchise as a hobby. If you do, your company will never grow, and you’ll find yourself struggling with a stagnating company. If you want to be successful, you’ve got to view your company as a profit-driving machine.
We don’t say this to scare you. We say this to light a fire under you, motivate you, and point you toward the successful company you’ve always dreamed of running. And, finally, to help you understand how Alloy can help you get there.
The Current State of The Fitness Industry, by the Numbers
According to The Association of Fitness Studios, or AFS, there are over 100,000 fitness businesses in the U.S. today. Of these 100,000 studios…
- 59% are personal training studios
- 31% are yoga or Pilates studios
- 8.5% are martial arts studios
- 8.5% are dance studios
Even as the fitness industry continues to experience massive growth, personal training stands out as the most profitable and fastest-growing arm of the fitness industry. In a previous post, I mentioned that personal training is a more significant industry than all the country’s fastest-growing segment of the fitness industry health clubs, YMCAs, JCCs, corporate, college and university, hospital-based, military, parks and rec., senior living, and physical therapy locations combined.
According to AFS:
“As of 2015, personal training and private training session studios made up 33% of all programs offered by fitness studios. They are followed by functional cross-training (19%), and HIIT (19%). Yoga was the most popular form of group exercise activity offered by studios with 17%. A relatively small percentage of respondents indicated they incorporate alternative health services into their studio’s offerings – services such as massage, physical therapy, and acupuncture. These are all services that are associated with enhancing personal well-being and present an opportunity for fitness studios to enrich their value proposition and generate additional client spend.”
But wait – it gets even better. Today, experts predict about 6.5 million Americans are already using personal training services, and that annual growth of personal training facilities will be about 2.8% through the end of 2020. Recent IHRSA data backs these findings up, and provides additional insight into the growth of the industry:
More than 71.5 million consumers utilized U.S. health clubs in 2018, a record high since IHRSA began tracking health club utilization in 1987. The number of individual members totaled 62.5 million, up 2.6% from 60.9 million in 2017. In all, consumers frequented their health clubs for more than 6 billion visits in 2018.
As you can see, working in the personal training industry is a great place to be right now. Fitness franchises are widely profitable, and there are many different niches and which to make your living.
3 Mistakes to Avoid if You Want Your Franchise to be Profitable
Many of the mistakes that people make when they just start a fitness franchise are avoidable. They come from a lack of knowledge, or from founders who just don’t understand what they’re doing. If you want your franchise to be profitable from the get-go, avoid these three common mistakes:
1. Not Having Enough Funding
Good funding is the Holy Grail of a successful fitness franchise. Without it, you can’t get off the ground, and you won’t have the resources you need to stay profitable.
With this in mind, it’s critical to work out your funding before you start your fitness franchise. Although Alloy does not offer franchise funding, we can help you find a source that provides the financing you need to be successful.
2. Having Unrealistic Expectations
If you want to start a company, opting to be a franchise owner is a great way to do it. Again, there’s ample support, teamwork, guidance, and market research to get you started on a great foot. At the same time, though, you’ve got to work hard.
One of the biggest things that throw founders off, in the beginning, is that they have unrealistic expectations about what owning a fitness franchise will be like.
They expect it to be easy, for somebody else to do most of the work for them, and for the entire thing to be structured in a way that means that they do not have to work hard or put in much effort. Not only is this wrong, but it’s a hazardous style of thinking. Owning a franchise is just like owning any other business: you have to show up. The amount you get out of your business will directly reflect the amount that you put into it.
Another thing franchise owners tend to “under-expect” on is price. They view the world through the lens of their wallets. As such, they under-value themselves. To be successful, you have to know your worth. A good, profitable franchise owner has no problem fetching high fees because they understand the value of their project. Just because you haven’t accumulated enough wealth to pay high fees doesn’t mean the person sitting across from you is in the same boat. Self-limiting beliefs will keep you poor, and keep your system from thriving.
3. Low-Quality Systems
A great system will help combat many of the difficulties associated with launching a new business. After all, business success relies in large part on consistency. The more consistent you are with your approaches, your policies, your marketing, and your effort, the more payoff you’ll see from your business.
While some companies (like Alloy) provide proof and systems to each franchise owner that enters the company, many franchises do not. This can leave a new franchise owner high and dry, and unsure of where to turn.
Why Choose Alloy?
The fitness and personal training industry is booming, and it’s time to get onboard. Today…
- Companies are finding they can save on employee health care costs by incentivizing their employees with gym memberships.
- Americans are embracing healthier eating trends. Eating better tends to make people think more about fitness. One idea leads to another!
If you’re considering starting a fitness franchise of your own, Alloy is the system you need to become profitable and build a successful company. Alloy is focusing intently on the lucrative “active aging” population, which is not a niche our competitors are filling. We offer the ideal personal training franchise formula for incredible results – for both members and fitness club franchise owners.
In short, the Alloy personal training franchise support program gives you the franchise management tools you need to make a real impact on your clients and your future.
Helping you Keep Your Franchise Profitable
Let’s face it: There are some big unknowns when it comes to starting a franchise. One of the biggest is how long it will take to become profitable and how you even get there in the first place. When you trust alloy to be your partner on your franchise journey, though, you can get rid of many of those unknowns right away.
Our proven system allows us to ensure profitability for our franchise owners. Although there’s no substitute for hard work, we pride ourselves on having created a model that works well for franchise owners across the country. Regardless of what your goals may be, Alloy will help you meet them.