Top Five Considerations When Opening a Fitness Studio

Opening a fitness studio has a lot of appeal for personal trainers who want to create the ideal workout studio, grow their personal revenue, and practice what they love. Before you open your own private gym or fitness studio there are few things you need to consider. The good news is that you don’t have to wait for the economy to recover.  Fitness franchise financing, fitness equipment leasing, and fitness equipment financing is available today if you have decent credit.    Whether you are an experienced fitness professional working for a commercial gym and looking to grow your personal training business, or a newly minted Certified Personal Trainer (CPT) with an itch to work for yourself here are the top five things to think about before opening up your workout studio.

Personal Trainer

1. Fitness Studio Clientele

It is always a good idea to start with the customer in mind.  The type of client you plan to bring into your personal training studio dictates all of the other workings of your fitness studio. You may want to work with high school and collegiate athletes or perhaps you want to be the workout studio for soccer moms while their kids are in school. Having a specific customer base to appeal to is going to effect the type of fitness equipment you want to have in your fitness studio, location, fee structure, and hours of business. It is always a good idea to ask your target customers before hand what they “expect” and what they “want” before you get too far in the planning process for your fitness studio.  You’ll be surprised what you learn, even if you have a strong opinion regarding what your customers “need.”

2. Fitness Studio Location

No matter what type of personal training studio you’re opening up, the location of your fitness studio site is key to your success. Workout studios hidden behind a staircase are only successful in underdog-boxing movies. A good location should have plenty of foot traffic and proper signage to catch eye of prospective clients. If you are focused on stay at home moms or the elderly make sure you pick a visible location in the neighborhoods where your clients live.  The same logic runs true when targeting corporate professionals or student athletes for your personal training studio, you need to be in a location convenient to them. Also, don’t forget to plan for success, make sure your workout studio can handle the initial volume of business you want to generate and potentially expand.

 

3. Fitness Equipment

Having the correct fitness equipment is essential to a successful personal training studio . Fortunately, fitness equipment financing is readily available so there is no excuse not to have the cardio exercise equipment, strength exercise equipment, and fitness equipment accessories you need for your new workout studio. Your local commercial fitness equipment dealers are  a great source of information because they generally know what the top selling fitness equipment is in your area and also what exercise equipment will work best for the fitness studio you want to build. Also, your local fitness equipment dealer can often provide fitness equipment financing or fitness equipment leasing options.

4. Fitness Studio Financing

Fitness equipment financing is a great way to hold onto your cash.  Fitness equipment leasing will not only lower your monthly costs (ideally below 40% of expected monthly revenue) but might also help minimize taxes on your new personal training studio. To get instant quotes from leading fitness equipment lenders in sixty seconds go to LeaseQ.com.  In less than two minutes you get a quote,choose a plan that you like and apply for fitness equipment financing without the hassles of dealing with sales reps from multiple equipment finance companies. Even if your credit is damaged or you’re a new business LeaseQ can help. To be prudent prepare your business plan by doubling expenses and cutting projected revenue in half for the first six months.

5. Promoting Your Fitness Studio (Getting Memberships)

There is good news and bad news story here: building your personal training business always takes longer than your think but the good news is, the fastest way to build your business is also the cheapest. Building and leveraging your personal network is the best and cheapest way to promote your business.  If you are comfortable with social media like Facebook and Twitter it gets even easier. Tell EVERYONE that you are opening a fitness studio, get referrals, give potential clients a heavy discount or free “trial” workout and then go back and milk your expanding network again. You will still need to take care of some marketing basics: good signage, a website, Facebook site and business cards… and you can always consider traditional and online advertising…but no media will help build your fitness studio business better than your personal referral network.