Female-only gym Envie Fitness and 24/7 gym models Snap Fitness and Stepz Fitness each offer unique packages for franchisees. 

ENVIE FITNESS

Developed by Dave Hundt, the man responsible for bringing Contours women’s gyms to Australia a decade ago, Envie Fitness is similarly a female only gym franchise. 

“He has been in the industry for quite some time and has an understanding of what the gap is in today’s market when it comes to female fitness,” explains business development manager Manal Haydar.

The model was created around feedback from surveys that asked women questions including ‘what is it that you want from a female fitness centre?’

“We found they wanted one-one-one coaching and nurturing, a timetable with a variety of indoor and outdoor classes and a childminding facility, and this is all included as part of the membership,” she says.

While it seems the trend is towards 24/7 gyms, Haydar explains Enive’s surveys found these operating hours are not a priority for women.

“Our research found that even women who are quite confident with themselves find it rather intimidating to walk into a 24/7 studio because it’s pretty much do your own thing – you walk in, do what you want and walk out – there’s not much contact.

“It comes back to our vision of the brand – we are all about supporting women and providing them with a one-stop facility where they feel comfortable and get what they want – I don’t think women will be getting up and putting on their sports gear at 10pm to go and train,” she adds.

Envie’s royalties are determined by the number of members a franchisee’s gym has, a move Haydar says reflects the company’s vested interest in the business.

“We don’t take a royalty as such, we have a debit per week per member of $2.50 – that’s the only fee we take and we’ve got no marketing levies or anything like that.

“For every member that you sign up we make money, if no one walks into your doors we don’t make anything – it is a true partnership model.”

Relationship managers are on hand to support franchisees with their ongoing development, national marketing support is the norm and Envie offers a cost effective equipment set-up solution.

“While there are obviously set-up costs, we provide our franchisees with the opportunity to finance their fitness equipment.

“We have negotiated lease terms on their behalf – they allow our franchise owners monthly payment options on security and fitness equipment, which reduces those bigger costs of setting up.”

SNAP FITNESS

Established in the US in 2003, Snap Fitness has almost 2000 clubs in operation across countries including Australia, New Zealand, Egypt, Russia, Canada, Mexico and India.

General manager Andy Peat says Snap has taken a different approach to its key competitors, Jetts and Anytime.

“They have got more numbers than we do but we just sort of worry about doing our own thing, we’ve gone for a quality over quantity based strategy in terms of our expansion.”

Snap franchisees enjoy greater flexibility in that they can choose between three different equipment suppliers for their gyms.

“All Snap clubs look and feel the same and have the same features, yet they might have different equipment in there – it is still of the same standard, we just try provide the local community what they want and offer a bit of variety.

“We’ve got a really affordable range which is still high quality, and our other two suppliers are considered the cream of the crop when it comes to gym equipment,” Peat explains.

Snap takes the process of site selection very seriously, and it would never allocate one of its franchise partners a site it would not operate as a company-owned club.

“We stick to our values when it comes to the properties that we go into. It is about providing a convenient location for people to work out in that suits their lifestyle, rather than imposing too much of a dramatic change,” he says.

As the market becomes more and more competitive, Peat is well aware of the need to differentiate Snap from its competitors.

“We definitely think that next year will be a changing year for us in the sense that we are adapting to what we believe people want, and that’s a bigger space.

“We have started introducing group fitness into a lot of our clubs and many of them have child care facilities now – we are not just your 300 square metre, 24 hour gym anymore,” he says.

STEPZ FITNESS

While Queensland based Stepz Fitness may be one of the smaller players in terms of franchise numbers, it is looking to expand its reach with more clubs in New South Wales at the end of 2013 and in early 2014.

“We have a few more to open around Queensland so we are happy with our growth,” says director Quang Tran.

Stepz gyms are stocked with TechnoGym equipment, which Tran says is of a high quality. “We’ve seen some gym models that have really poor quality equipment, and yes that franchise might be cheaper to set-up, but it’s going to cause a lot of headache.

“This is not just from a maintenance point of view but from the members’ perspective of not being able to use the equipment. Eventually it will affect the business and people will go elsewhere – and with more gyms opening people have more choice,” he explains.

Quang says Stepz provides franchisees with ongoing support and marketing, and franchisees are encouraged to communicate with one another.

“We are in touch with our franchisees constantly; we offer them all of the support they need.

“We have a franchise coach that visits franchisees on a regular basis and they are pretty much in touch with them every week. We are like one big family so they can talk to any other franchisee as well.”

Stepz plans to open another 15 clubs next year, and Tran sees this as an opportunity for both existing and potential franchisees to grow their business.

“One of the advantages of Stepz is that we have more territories available – all of our competitors have granted most of theirs,” he explains. 

Stepz is set to introduce a number of changes to its offering in early 2014; however Tran is tight lipped as to what exactly they are.

“We plan to launch all our points of difference and the new member offerings between the end of February and early March next year. We’ve been working on it for a while,” he says.