Here is what we have in our county in terms of exercise facilities:
New YMCA - expensive! Single membership = $50 sign-up fee, $30 per month or $354 per year.
locally owned fitness center - been in it's current location for about 10 years, not in a great neighborhood. Equipment is older. Single membership = $55 sign-up fee, $29 per month or $258 per year.
Locally owned 24 hour fitness center - small gym, bad neighborhood, not real accessible. Was really popular when it first opened about 5 years ago, but has not been well maintained and there is not any staff or personal training present. Single membership = $27.50
Curves
There is also a Sports Med facility that is offering a Sports Performance Program that focususes on plyos, stability exercises, etc, but doesn't do anything in terms of strength training.
We have 3 high schools in the county. One has about 900 students, the second has about 600, and the one I work at has about 350 students.
My plan is to open a 24 hour center that focuses on the beginner looking to get into shape, the serious advanced trainer, and the student looking to improve sports performance. I also plan to offer monthly and yearly membership discounts to high school and college students, military personnel, firefighters, law enforcement employees. The location I am looking at is also in an area next to some large industrial facilities which would allow 3rd shift workers to come in. Finally, there are about 12 hotels near this location, most of which don't have an exercise facility. So I thought I could set up some type of system in conjuction with the hotels to allow guests to work out.
I want to be more visible at my facility, unlike the other 24-hour center. I currently teach half the day and do athletic director duties the other half. So my plan is to give up athletic director and instead teach half the day, then go to the facility to do personal training with general clients and sports performance training with athletes.
My selling points will be affordable membership fees, discounts for above mentioned groups, on site personal training and sports performance, clean, modern, well-maintained, location, potential for expansion.
Just thinking about fees, I know this would have to be worked out into expense/profit sheet, but I was thinking:
No sign-up fee
Single membership = $25 per month, $240 per year, $20 for military/law enforcement, $15 for college students and high school students at least 16 with parental consent.
Also, our local radio station does a nice job with on-site remotes where they broadcast from your business for the day. I thought as a grand opening special, I would all ow anyone to work-out for free on the day of the broadcast, offer them $10 fee for the first month, and $200 for a year. Something to just try and get a lot of people to join early.
I know that all of this is the "easy" part, but it's also the fun part
