Why Owning a Fitness Franchise is a No-Brainer for Personal Trainers

I’ve been a personal trainer my whole life. I love coaching people not only towards their fitness goals, but also towards their mindset goals, their money goals, their relationship goals.

I’m just a coach at heart, and so I wanted to create a fitness business where I could reach more people and help more people in the fitness industry and the end user, the client.

Well, I figured the fastest way to do that is to create a franchise, because the personal training business model was broken.

Why The Personal Training Business Model Was Broken

It was just a broken model, and by that I mean we did one-on-one 60-minute workout sessions, which means as a trainer you can have maybe 10 or 15, 20 clients.

Now you’re making good money from your personal training sales, but you’ve got no time. You’re now held hostage by your own business. Or you’re running a fitness boot camp outdoors, so you’re training, one trainer many clients, but you’re dependent upon the weather.

If you are living in, say, Boston where it snows in the winter, you’re out of business until Spring.

If you’re living somewhere like California or Florida, you may not have to worry as much about rain or snow, but there’s still other problems you have to deal with.  

You’re hoping the city doesn’t kick you out of the park.

fitness boot camp sign

You’re hoping that Mrs. Jones doesn’t trip over a sprinkler system or a tree root.

All these things happen in our industry, so I knew our industry was broken. And in the best-case scenario, if you start making a lot of money, you start losing all your time and freedom.

Maybe you’ve been killing it in your fitness marketing strategies and have been bringing on more clients, which certainly isn’t a bad thing.

Except, now you’re on everyone’s schedule. You’re up at all hours of the day to meet your clients’ needs.

There had been times where I didn’t get home from my side jobs until 1 a.m, and then I’d have to go train a client at 4 a.m because that’s when they were available.

And so I said, “What if I can create a group training program?”

How Fit Body Boot Camp Created a More Effective Personal Training Franchise Model

This program is personal training done in a group, not outdoors but indoors, so all trainers can do it anywhere worldwide.

And what if I made it into a fitness franchise where it’s got repeatable, duplicatable systems for operations, marketing, sales, support, staffing?

Like a Fit Body Boot Camp owner who comes on board as a franchisee, we take their trainers and turn them into awesome coaches for them.

We provide University training at our HQ to teach our owners how to follow our systems so that their FBBC can become profitable right off the bat.

We train our owners on how to convert leads and get more personal training clients through their doors.

Fit Body Boot Camp's fitness franchise logo

We teach them how to market. We do the marketing for them. We drive the leads for them, so it’s a done-for-you business model that really allows anyone who’s in the fitness industry or wants to open up a fitness business to make it turnkey and profitable.

That’s my vision for FBBC.

I wanted to create a business model that was so done-for-you that all my owners have to worry about is positioning themselves in the community as the go-to fitness expert.

I wanted to create an easy to follow system that could be carried across thousands of Fit Body Boot Camps, and each one would deliver the same experience.

For example, when you walk through every one of our locations, you’ll see our famous blue floors and red, white, and blue walls. You’ll see the standard required equipment we use like the battle ropes and TRX suspensions.

Why You Should Own a Fitness Franchise

If you’re a personal trainer who wants to impact more lives, getting behind a successful name that people respect is going to get you more clients and make you more money.

Plus, most franchises already did the dirty work for you. That is, coming up with the systems and manuals. So all you have to do is follow them, rather than trying to come up with your own which could eat away more of your time and money.

fitness franchise members working out in class

Clients are more willing to put their health in the hands of a business they already know, so here are some reasons why clients would rather workout with a franchise than a no name fitness center:

    1. Consistency. Most people joining a fitness center want to know what to expect when they walk through the doors. A branded franchise allows them some kind of consistency and predictability. Gyms and personal training studios are very vulnerable places for people who are unhappy with their bodies and want to make a change. If they know what kind of environment they’re putting themselves into, they’ll feel more comfortable signing up.
    2. Popularity. A big reason people sign up with a fitness franchise is through popularity in the community. They most likely heard about it from friends, family, and coworkers, so they decided to give it a try. When you just have one fitness studio, it’s hard to reach people outside of your area. But with a franchise, there’s multiple locations, which means there’s more people talking about it and building up its credibility.
    3. Cost. Independent gyms typically cost way more than franchised gyms, which is a big selling point for your prospect clients. If they can get the same (if not better) results from a well known franchised gym at a lower cost than an independent gym at a higher cost, they’re gonna go for the franchise.  

That’s why we’ve been growing so quickly. I have people ask me, “What’s the secret sauce?” The secret sauce is, find something that’s broken and fix it, and people will get on board with it.

Committed to your success,

Bedros