Fitness Club concept is a set of activities and outcomes that contains all elements such are: size of the club, facilities and amenities, list of services and products, a way services will be delivered, target market description and definition, pricing structure, member induction flow, organization structure with short job descriptions and few more.
For that matter, once decided to invest and open a Fitness club (Gym), one would wan to have perfectly synced concept and business model. It is crucial for the business that all elements fall in place and cross correlates between each other.
Fitness club model refers to an operating model of the business which will in addition cover the way the revenue is collected and the way the club pay its employees and contractors. That is right! Clubs may hire professionals who have contractual obligations and are not full-time employees.
The size of the club is usually your starting point from which you will create your concept, but at the same time, you would need to decide in what 3 types of concepts your club will be competing in.
The three groups will differ in: size, type of services that are offered, way the services are delivered and amenities that the club has.
Traditional Fitness Club or, as often called, Gym, is a facility that will have basic facilities and amenities. The size of the club can be anything from 400m2 to 4000, or even 5000m2. In terms of services, gym will offer membership options that will entitle members to use cardio area, strength, and free weights. Some of the clubs will also have group exercise studios. Changing rooms with basic amenities such are showers and toilets are also part of this group. Gyms in the Middle East might have a prayer room also, but it is not always a common practice.
Luxury Fitness or Health clubs will have additional facilities and amenities in comparison to traditional gyms. They may have sauna and/or steam room in the changing room. They may have swimming pool, outdoor or indoor sports courts, juice bar, caffe or restaurants. Some of them may have facilities for children, therefore they cater for families.
Boutique Fitness Studios are typically small in comparison to other two models. They offer specialized services; anything from one to few. In terms of these services, studios can be Yoga, Circuit training or HIIT concepts, Indoor cycling or other group type of studios. Lately, there is a recorded rise in Personal Training studios arena, as well as in specialized concepts for recovery, such are stretch studios. Studios do not offer many additional facilities as they typically operate on “in-out” philosophy where they expect the customer to spend small amount of time in premises, aside from the time spent in taking part in the training activities. Therefore, these might or might not have small changing rooms with maybe just couple of showers, reception with a juice bar and retail space, but are not always necessary amenities. Studios might be with one, two or more rooms in which specialized training programs are delivered.
Once decided on the group and size, one will list down the areas, facilities, and amenities. In line with that list of services must be listed down. As a quick note, one would want to plan for a space and services that are different than what the market has to offer at that point in time. Deciding on the USP (unique sales proposition) is crucial at that stage. Standing out is a position where one would want to be.
In line with the services, the quality of service or the way the services are going to be delivered, options in choosing services that members will have, the other operations elements should be developed as well. Setting up a known benchmark could be a good idea especially if one does not wish to enter the market by creating a new concept but like to make changes to some currently existing concepts.
Now, one will need to create a list of tools the services will be delivered (in fitness business this is the list of your equipment).
The basic elements of your concepts are completed, and you can start working on the details.
Check our YouTube channel, subscribe for all the cool tips in Fitness Business segment: