Why Franchise Training Week Is So Important

In this episode, Rick and Matt discuss franchise training week and why it’s so important for franchisees. We recently held a franchise training week in the Alloy corporate offices, where we trained a fantastic group of new franchisees.

This group of trainees included:

Nozi Hamadi – 3 Franchise Locations In Atlanta
Casey Kelly – Billings, MT Franchise
Angela Sudberry – Salt Lake City Franchise
David Harris – 3 Franchise Locations In Salt Lake City
Operating Partner – Isaiah

Essentially, Alloy’s franchise training is a full five days of training, and takes place three months before the grand opening. This leaves room for two months of pre-sales to ensure the franchisee opens with close to capacity membership.The new franchisees and their operators come to our corporate offices for a very intense, hands-on preparation of their new roles.

Even if the franchisee doesn’t have a fitness background, like some of our franchisees, the training prepares them in the best possible way to hit the ground running. Matt said, “It was a great group of people and good to see how well they all did with all the different backgrounds. Everybody did great, and they caught on quickly.”

Some franchise owners brought people they had hired as their operator to help run the business. The operators were impressive and the owners have identified very talented people.

The training is part of the Alloy process that starts with an orientation call, then a handoff to a real estate and construction team. At the same time, they are getting familiar with the Alloy software like the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and the Alloy App. We have software vendors who are also working with the new franchises to get them up to speed. When they come to corporate for training week, they have some basic understanding of the software and the things they’re going to be using. This way, during training week, we can just teach the most important functions of the business.

Ideally, training occurs three months before opening, because we have a two-month presale to open with 130 members to be healthy.

What do we want to accomplish in training week is to teach franchisees the day-to-day operations for their gym, including pre-launch marketing, pre-sales strategies, how to find new members, and the sales process for training new members and retaining them. The training process is mirrors the customer journey a potential member would go through. We rehearse with the franchisees the sales process from getting a lead for a potential member, booking an appointment. Getting them to show up, and once they show up, we discuss how to convince them Alloy is the right place for them. After that, we discuss how to keep members engaged, set meaningful goals, track the client goals, and how to communicate with the clients.

The Alloy business and brand is a culture. In training week, we provide the opportunity to set expectations on what you have to do to be successful. The Alloy playbook comes from 30 years in the trenches and working with thousands of gym owners worldwide to constantly improve the processes and make it better. The role playing in training is really important and valuable for practicing different scenarios, especially if you have no experience in the fitness industry.

Tune in to this to learn more about the franchise training week, how we set it up, and why we do it.