Opening My Own Gym

[glennds]

pps. most gyms don't make any money and close down---well in Toronto Canada anyway. (population 6 million)

i been going to the same gym for ten years now. was originally gold's and owner changed franchises to worlds.

in all this time he has never raised his rates. been paying $300/yr for ten years. wonder how he does it. someone told me owner makes most money from day passes.

 

[FalconDE97]

Interesting Glennds.....the gym I go to now is a small one and only has about 130 members...most of whom pay $40 per month. Then you have about 30% of those 130 members also paying an extra $35 a month for tanning and such.

But I forgot about the "day passes." They usually charge $7 per day for a one day workout. I've really been praying about doing this. Its something I may indeed be ignorant about as of now, but Im learning. Im not going to do it until I have developed the smarts to do it. And when I say "Gold's Gym size building for $160,000", Im talking about one of those steel buildings. A local Golds here in GA moved from a large expensive brick building to a typical large church size steel building. Much cheeper and accomplishes the same goal.

But, if $10,000 per month income isnt enough, what would be?

Nick

 

[chazk]

160,000$ with a 30 year fixed 8% is around 1600$

1600$ mortgage
250$ electric
100$ phone lines
150$ water
200$ a month in insurance for liabilty
1500$ a month for the 75,000$ loan for equipment
1500$ a month to pay one person 8$ a hour 8 hours a day 6 days a week.

thats 6 k alone not to mention .permits and licenses to run your bussiness,bathroom supplies,cards and keys,all the shit people steal .

I think at 10k a month youll make like 2000$ a month if your lucky to make anything at all .So your gonna invest your life into making a lousey 500$ a week .You need to shoot for 30k a month min.This means more equipment more employees more toliet paper all kinda ashit.
when the gym is headed down the tubes you'll prob end keeping juice in the back room and selling it to the local rats to make a few bucks.

 

[glennds]

Interesting Glennds.....the gym I go to now is a small one and only has about 130 members...most of whom pay $40 per month. Then you have about 30% of those 130 members also paying an extra $35 a month for tanning and such.

But I forgot about the "day passes." They usually charge $7 per day for a one day workout. I've really been praying about doing this. Its something I may indeed be ignorant about as of now, but Im learning. Im not going to do it until I have developed the smarts to do it. And when I say "Gold's Gym size building for $160,000", Im talking about one of those steel buildings. A local Golds here in GA moved from a large expensive brick building to a typical large church size steel building. Much cheeper and accomplishes the same goal.

But, if $10,000 per month income isnt enough, what would be?

Nick

good luck nick. sounds like big old investment. i own a business i started from scratch, an insurance office. took about 8 years before i started making a good living. now i am making an excellent income so was worth the hardship. of course we dont have the huge initial investment a gym owner would have.

nick to make a business a success means a lot of trial and error, learning as you go along. it is great you are doing research but you will inevitably be hit with unexpected obstacles: increases in utilities, insurance, cost of equipment, major repairs, turnover in employees, changes in customer tastes, competition, etc. (staffing can be the WORST part of the business, employees can be a fuckin' pain in the ass).

i think you should make the leap and be willing to work hard and accept you may not become rich right away. be patient...stick it out. if your gym is good, people will find it.

i agree with whoever posted about not trying to be all things to all people. my gym is kinda hardcore and that is why i chose it. dont want a gym that is all jazzercise and cardio and nautilus machines.

word of caution: once you become successful you gotta learn how not to be trapped by your business. having a life outside of your work will become important to you.

 

[FalconDE97]

160,000$ with a 30 year fixed 8% is around 1600$

1600$ mortgage
250$ electric
100$ phone lines
150$ water
200$ a month in insurance for liabilty
1500$ a month for the 75,000$ loan for equipment
1500$ a month to pay one person 8$ a hour 8 hours a day 6 days a week.

thats 6 k alone not to mention .permits and licenses to run your bussiness,bathroom supplies,cards and keys,all the shit people steal .

I think at 10k a month youll make like 2000$ a month if your lucky to make anything at all .So your gonna invest your life into making a lousey 500$ a week .You need to shoot for 30k a month min.This means more equipment more employees more toliet paper all kinda ashit.
when the gym is headed down the tubes you'll prob end keeping juice in the back room and selling it to the local rats to make a few bucks.

I hear ya. Amazingly enough, I havent even touched roids since mid 2003. But for some reason, Im even stronger now than I was at my strongest point while on steroids. I kinda made it a mental thing.....I just tried to rep 225 on bench press once per week, and tried to increase by 1 rep per week. When I first started I wasnt on steroids....I began by doing 225lbs 15 times, and Ive been going up ever since...now Im up to 28 reps on 225. I do plan on doing another cycle soon, but Im becoming a big believe that natural workouts can work also. But hey, if it werent for roids, my arms wouldnt be no where near the size they are.

Falcon

 

[heavy_duty]

Dont forget to "waive the initiaiton fee" and then be sure to throw in the free body fat composition and fitness test

 

[Sassy69]

Some thoughts - if your location is a small town w/ no current gym - are they clambering for it or are they doing just fine w/o it? Like they said above - KNOW YOUR MARKET! Find the need & fill it. A fantastic Gold's Gym opened up in my home town, Duluth, MN - a town of 80,000 about 5 yrs ago. It closed 3 yrs ago. There were a couple smaller gyms & a small 24-hr franchise (not 24 Fitness.. smaller ones) and that apparently put Gold's straight out of business.

My brother opened a branch of that same franchise (Anytime Fitness) in a burb of Minneapolis - its about 3K sq ft, very nice eqpt, 24 key access. The franchise helped him w/ his biz plan and all that - you can't guess your monthly income until you determine your fixed costs and then look at your income opportunity - which in this case is new members every month. One of the big wins my brother got was hiring the head trainer at the local "high end" gym - this guy is really enthusiastic and has a very productive training program.

Then assuming you get the whole place up & running -- you would need to continue tapping the mkt for new people. One of the things my brother is doing, since he's got a 24 hr gym, is hitting the local fire dept, health care / emergency worker companies to work out corporate deals w/ them to leverage his gym's 24 hr access as availability to their weird schedules. Right there he's got a niche market. Another one is the rehab people -- locate a chiropractor or two and work out a deal w/ them so they can have a trained rehab person or they themselves can set up programs and refer their clients to your facility for rehab training.

Another part of my brother's plan is to eventually open up more franchises. So he's not putting it all into this one gym -- its a money venture for him.

Oh yea, just remember - one of his biggest ongoing issues is the sales thing. You gotta have GOOD sales people. If you hire kids or "trainers in training" or something, they may not be real into the sales part of it -- and these are the people who are supposed to be helping you get the new memberships every month. If you don't get them, then you go under. And along w/ teh sales aspect, he also has to deal w/ the usual complaints that go w/ people & their memberships.

 

[glennds]

great post sassy.

 

[jacshelb]

I run a small retail business that I make my living on. The key things of importance to me are: Keep overhead as low as possible (in other words work smart with your money, make sure not to just throw money at problems- efficiency), find creative ways to bring in new customers- example: I was dirt poor and couldn't afford proper advertising for my shop. My business was located right on the local highway, but it takes a lot to get people to stop in the middle of a busy highway. So, I hand built a 13 foot tall fiberglass statue waving toward the road. The month after my statue was finished I had more than doubled my income and by continuing to adapt in other creative ways, I now finally earn a respectable income with my little store. Also, like others have said, find your niche and scratch it! In a lot of ways all businesses are selling ideas as much as service or product. For me it is about carrying products that spark people's imaginations and appeal to their sense of fantasy: i.e. they buy a sword at my shop because they want to feel like they are Conan- that's why a cheap sword can sell for the price of a great piece of quality kitchenware though it's "real" value isn't nearly as much. For a gym it can be more about "attitude", a cool overall look that makes people feel the same way they do when they go to a trendy night club- like going to your gym will make them cooler than they are.

I feel like I'm rambling a bit, but those are my ideas on it anyway. Best of luck!


Jacob

 

[mikefear]

Some people will just break even as a way of supplying a good gym.. not everyone is in it to make a billion dollars.. maybe falcon wants to help out some pl'ers and bb'ers