Steps To Own An Alloy Personal Training Franchise

In this episode, Matt and Rick discuss the steps to own an Alloy Franchise and the journey. This topic has 2 podcasts. Part 1 covers the first contact through to signing the franchise agreement. In part 2 of this two-part podcast series below, we discuss the franchisee’s journey from purchase through after the grand opening. This is a must-listen for any alloy franchise candidate! The franchise journey has many peaks and valleys. We cover right from when a potential franchisee shows an interest, all the way to signing the franchise agreement, build out, presales, and grand opening and even several years operating it.

The Alloy Franchise Journey

Acquiring a franchise is an intense process with many peaks and valleys, pains and joys, ups and downs. It is important that you, as a potential franchisee, understand this process and what to expect at every stage.

The journey starts in a variety of ways, whether you had a specific interest in a particular franchise, or you are presented a relevant opportunity by a franchise broker based on the lifestyle and the income that you want to make. You could have found the franchise through organic website searches, or have a friend of a friend who’s in the fitness industry, or you are working in the fitness industry. You learn the Alloy Franchise is a subscription income month-over-month and the business model that makes sense and has proven results.

A lot goes on throughout the process, but ultimately, it is in the best interests of you, the franchisee, and the franchisor.

Steps To Own An Alloy Franchise Steps

1. Introductory Call

The first step is an introductory call, probably around 15 minutes. From the franchisors standpoint, during the call we are trying to gauge the potential franchisee’s interest. It a high level conversation to get to know who you are and set some expectations. What’s your business background? Are you an entrepreneur? Have you been working in the fitness industry? Why are you interested in fitness? Ultimately, why are you interested in Alloy?

From the franchisee standpoint, this is your chance to get to know the person on the introductory call and ask questions. What is the franchise all about? What’s the opportunity about? Why is this fitness concept or brand different than others? Generally, what is the investment opportunity.

2. Official Brand Overview

The Brand Overview is really to demonstrate who the brand is in detail. We’ve learned about the candidate in the introductory call to a certain degree, and we have taken note of their concerns and questions. We explain our history and what makes us unique. We talk about the target market opportunity and the gap in the fitness and personal one-on-one training market, which has allowed Alloy to offer the right service at a better value. It’s a scalable business model. We show the Alloy technology that provides adequate structure to our business model to assist the franchisee with successful operations and services. Then we talk about the brand awareness and brand alignment to really show what our culture and core values are because in the end we creating a a partnership between franchisee and franchisor. The franchisee will be an extension of the Alloy .We’re trusting them to take our brand to market and do it justice, while making money and helping the customers have a better life.

3. Verification of Financials and Background Check (10:46)

This is the step to get down to more serious business. We will verify financials, perform a background check, and verify how you will be funding your franchise. We do have vendors in the finance space that can help if you’re looking at a 401k rollover, or SBA loan or other financing alternatives, so we can help with suggestions. For example, if you’re going to have a partner, and they’re more than a 20% partner, they will have to be included on the franchise document.

4. Signing the Franchise Agreement (16:28)

After all the due diligence on both sides, you sign the franchise agreement and provide the investment. then the excitement and action starts. We begin waking through all the next steps,

5. Selecting the Perfect Location for an Alloy Gym

You get introduced to the real estate/building team. They’re very organized, they lay out the trajectory and how this whole thing is going to happen. The team looks at your selected territory identified in the earlier parts of the sales process. They identify some properties that work for you. They take into account the rent factor and layout thresholds for build out expense. They factor in demolition and anything else that needs to be considered. Also, looking at entire location, they check out if the shopping center is nice enough, does it have the right tenancy terms, as well as consider all property property restrictions and allowances.

6. Executing the Letter of Intent and Lease Agreements

Once we find the space, then our team is going to do the heavy lifting for you to execute the Letter Of Intent. You make an offer on the space, and many times there is a lot of back and forth negotiation. Then you finalize the lease agreement. It can get tedious executing LOI’s as a lot of it depends on the landlord. Some lease agreements terms have been finalized as quick as two weeks, while others might take months

7. Build Out the Facility & Setting Realistic Timeframes for Opening

Now the lease is signed and you take possession of the space to begin construction. Permitting starts, architectural drawings, ordering materials, and more. The build out can take anywhere from 6 month to 9 months with all the right pieces falling into place. The process depends on many things, including permitting and other things that might come into play to adjust the building timeline.. For example, one county in Charlotte only takes permitting requests one time per month, but many have regular permitting timelines.

8. Live Training for the Owner/Operator

The training is five days at Alloy’s corporate headquarters. You had homework before the live training so you are ready to learn the important things to open and operate the business. Whether you are the owner operating the day to day business or you hire a person that will be operating it for you. If you’re going to be an absentee owner, you’re going to need to hire the right operator. We have a vendor to help you with that process. We have the ad written already and the job description written. They post the job availability. The vendor is going to sort and cut some that are non-qualified and put some good candidates in front of you. Then the person you select as an operator will need to come to training with you, Check out Training Week details here.

9. Presales

After training, you start your presale. A successful presale process is important to introduce any brand and new business. During this time, you start early marketing and sales to prospects, while creating brand awareness and business relationships in the community.

At Alloy, presale is the two-month period that begins during construction and continues through the studio’s grand opening. This is the time to pre-sell memberships to ensure you open with a head start. While members can sign up for memberships during the pre-sale period, we do not charge them until grand opening.

10. Grand Opening Party

After presales, it is time for the grand opening. Typically you have a big event or a party with your members you signed up during presales. Also, in early marketing and pre-sales, you established local businesses in your market that you can invite out to be vendors and they can invite their customer base to make it a big party. You can do a ribbon cutting with the Chamber of Commerce and send out press release to local news outlets. After you hold the grand opening party, the next week you open! You are off and running, booking sessions and servicing clients.

Part 1 reviews the time between the introductory call and the franchise agreement signing. Then Part 2 discusses the rest of the journey to find the perfect location, negotiate and sign lease agreements, build and equip the gym, conduct franchise training, presale, and finally, the grand opening before opening the doors to members.

As you can tell by now, there’s so much going on, and that’s where the benefit of going the franchise route becomes apparent. We have the process, steps, and trusted vendors we work with to ensure this process goes seamlessly.

Listen in to both Part 1 and Part 2 of this educational series to understand what the Alloy Personal Training franchise buyer journey looks like, and what you should expect at every stage.