If you’re tired of what your regular gym has on offer or simply see a gap in the market in your local area, setting up a gym of your own can be a very profitable business. However, as with any business start up you need to get it right or you risk encountering major problems or worse, your business fails and you lose a lot of money.
We’ve put together some simple but vital steps to follow if you decide to set up your own gym that will ensure that you’ve got most of the important details covered. After all, you can’t set up a business on a whim – you need to know exactly how you’re going to do it.
Location
If you’re setting up a gym, you should first pick a location that has little or no competition – and if there is, ensure you have a unique selling point to attract people to your venue as an alternative. This could be low prices or because you have different equipment, for example.
Once you’ve identified where you want to set up your business, you can start looking for suitable premises. You need somewhere with a large enough space to hold all your equipment, and enough room for people to exercise safely. You may choose to purchase some land, instead of an existing location, and set up a semi-permanent building and kit out the inside. This gives you the chance to build up some revenue and will save a lot of initial building costs if you literally want to start from the ground up.
Equipment
After all, what would a gym be with no equipment? Once you’ve decided where your business will be based you can start planning out how many different pieces of machinery you will need that can comfortably fill the space. Remember, too much equipment can put people off as they don’t want to work out in a tightly squeezed environment, but too little equipment can drop your maximum capacity and lose you money.
Work out how many people you would like to be able to have in your gym at full capacity, and take it from there. Many people find equipment is cheaper when sourced from abroad via the Internet. If you choose to purchase this way, make sure you check out the company as well as look for reviews. Safety is always first, especially in somewhere as accident prone as a gym – so you don’t want to invest in equipment which could compromise safety.
Employees
So, you’ve got a location, a premises and equipment. You’re pretty much set to get going, but you can’t run your gym alone. You now have the task of finding the right people to work in your gym. You want to find people who have a real passion for exercise and who already have experience using a gym, so keep in mind what qualities you want in a staff member, and don’t take on the first people you see just because you need people in quickly. Your staff will ensure that people enjoy coming to your gym so they need to be cut out for the job and have the right personalities.
Pricing
Set out your prices clearly so that you can begin to send out advertisements and information and be able to give potential customers the right information, consistently. Once you’ve got this sorted, and you’ve taken into account how your budgeting will work and affect membership fees you can move onto getting your gym going.
Advertising & Online
When you’re all ready to go you should try and build up interest in your gym through advertising as well as the Internet. A well put together website should be set up, so that people who aren’t sure who you are and need encouragement can be given it. After all, you need to earn trust as a new gym, especially if you have local competition.
Advertising in local magazines and newspapers can be great, but be careful where and how you place them. They can be very pricy and not always reach people you specifically want to see. Search out local groups and niche publications that will be interested in your gym. You can even offer a discount. By putting on an event on your opening day and using Social Media to promote it, you’ll find you can connect quickly and easily with people who already like exercising in your area.
By keeping all this in mind you can be sure that you’ll have a successful gym in no time!
About the Author:
Katie Belliveau is a blogger and loves helping people set up and maintain new businesses as well as teaching business owners how to stimulate growth.
