
Did you know that about 50% of the American population is trying to lose weight at any given moment? As a result, health and fitness are always at the front of a lot of people’s minds.
You should take full advantage of this if you’re thinking about starting a small business sometime soon. Opening a gym in your city could turn you into a successful small business owner in no time at all.
But before you fully embrace business ownership, you should make sure that you take the right steps while opening a gym. Otherwise, you might turn what is supposed to be a cash cow into a money pit.
Here is a complete guide to opening a gym that should put you on the right path as you set out to turn your new gym into a complete success.
Start by Scouting Out the Gyms That Already Exist in Your Area
Before you even think about opening a gym, you should take a look at all the other gyms that have already set up shop in your area. This should give you some sense of what you’ll be up against when getting a new gym off the ground.
If it’s pretty obvious that there are already way too many gyms in your area, you might want to hold off on pursuing your idea to start a new gym. Or at the very least, you might want to think long and hard about what’s going to separate your gym from all the rest.
Decide What Kind of Gym That You’re Going to Open Up
If you do your homework on the other gyms in your area and discover that there is room for one more, you should then set your sights on deciding what kind of gym you’re going to try to open. You should think about what the target audience for your gym will be and go from there.
If you’re going to try to entice bodybuilders to sign up for a membership at your gym, you’ll want to start a gym that is outfitted with plenty of weightlifting equipment. If you’re going to try to ensure that your gym appeals to the CrossFit crowd, you’ll need to bring in lots of CrossFit equipment for them.
You’re free to go through the process of opening a gym that is built for whoever you want to use it. But it’ll be important for you to decide what kind of gym you’re going to open early on.
Look for the Best Possible Location to Put Your Gym
Prior to opening up any kind of new business, you should always look high and low for the best possible location for it. It doesn’t matter if you’re planning to open a restaurant, a clothing boutique, or a jewelry store. You need it to be in the right location!
A gym is no different. The location that you choose for it could make or break it.
You should look around in your area to see what the best place for a gym might be. You should ideally try to move into a space that will give your members plenty of space to stretch out.
Invest in the Right Types of Workout Equipment for Your Gym
Regardless of which type of gym that you’re going to open, you’ll obviously need to fill it with all the right types of workout equipment. This is going to be one of the biggest expenses that you’ll face when opening a gym.
You don’t want to take any shortcuts when purchasing workout equipment for your gym. You should buy the best gym equipment made by reputable brands and put it in the right places so that your gym’s members can move through their workouts seamlessly.
You might also want to kick around the idea of signing up for a fitness equipment preventative maintenance program. A program like this will provide your equipment with the protection that it needs so that it always works. It’ll also make it last a whole lot longer than it would otherwise.
Hire the Right People to Work at Your Gym
If you’re a fitness fanatic, you might be under the impression that you’ll be able to run the show at your gym. But you’re going to need to bring in at least a few other people to assist you each day.
You should search for people who are every bit as passionate about fitness as you are. From the people who work at your front desk to your personal trainers, everyone who works for your gym should love fitness and everything that goes along with it.
Come Up With the Most Affordable Pricing Model for Your Gym
One of your top goals when opening a gym is going to be to help others to achieve optimal health. But you’re also going to want to make a push to make as much money as you can at the same time.
To do this, you’ll need to come up with a pricing model that is both affordable for your clients and profitable for you. You should crunch the numbers to see what makes the most sense for your gym.
Search for the Best Ways to Market Your Gym
You can open up the best gym on the planet. But if no one knows about it, you’re going to go out of business before long.
To prevent this from happening, you’ll need to search for good ways to market your business. From running ads on local TV and radio stations to hitting the local parks and passing out flyers, you should be able to muster up plenty of ideas on how to market your gym to those in your community.
Marketing your gym will help to put it on the map. You’ll have new members signing up for your gym from the moment that you start your first big marketing push.
Opening a Gym Should Be Easy When You Put This Guide to Good Use
If you start trying to open a gym without taking any of the steps that we’ve talked about here, you’ll be setting yourself up to fail from the beginning. Rather than taking this approach, you should utilize our guide to opening a gym and make the process easy on yourself.
Follow each of the steps that we’ve listed and you’ll have a successful gym on your hands in a hurry. They’ll give you every opportunity to succeed.
Find more tips on starting a successful business from scratch by reading our other blog articles.