A micro gym can be a low-cost, low-risk way to start your in-person fitness business. But consider a few of the pros and cons before making a final choice.

For this to happen, the client needs a solution to his/her problem—to get and stay fit and healthy. The coach needs job fulfillment and an opportunity to make a professional wage so he can have a long-term career in fitness. And the business needs clients and coaches to stick around in order to be profitable.

But the truth is that walking 10,000 steps each day gives you so much more than just a number on your pedometer. The real value of 10,000 steps comes down to creating the habit of regular daily movement, ideally outdoors.

I can speak for individual design confidently that it produces autonomous clients, connected and aligned clients, results the individual is looking for, a coach/client relationship, and a program that prioritizes the biggest priorities with prescriptions that the individual is capable of.

It’s something that most coaches can get on board with from an ideological standpoint, but is undeniably a scary concept when speaking to coaches that have been told “retain retain retain” their entire professional coaching careers.

Opening a gym is exciting. The thought of working in an environment you love and being your own boss is motivation enough to sign whatever documents you need to get that loan and open up your own gym. 

For example, large gyms like 24 Hour Fitness and L.A. Fitness require almost 30,000 square feet of space. Though the costs of leasing such a facility size are astronomical, they are able to maintain profit by offering cheap gym services and coaching while operating a very large client base. The same analysis can even be applied to most CrossFit or group fitness gyms, because the overlap in when clients train necessitates larger facilities and more equipment.

That’s the number one tip OPEX CCP Coach Sam Smith has for the thousands of coaches who are suddenly transforming themselves into remote coaches since their gyms closed because of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

When he opened his doors, he had 28 clients. In the last 12 months, this number has increased to 55. Each of them pays somewhere between CA$299 to $379 per month.

Volke, a life-long athlete, competed in both rugby and track and field at a university level. However, his introduction to training others was not through sports performance, it was out of a need for rehabilitation. Volke’s wife had suffered an injury during a rugby match and was not seeing the results they wanted from physiotherapy. Looking for a more practical approach and taking matters into his own hands, Volke started to study coaching and uncovered his passion for helping others live a healthier life.

It’s organic in the sense that who you are and the actions you take create it. This implies that if you wish to change your gyms culture, you must first start with your personal behavior. Changing or aligning your actions to reflect your ambitions and aspirations in fitness will create your gyms culture. This has a trickle down effect on everything, even your business’ operation and culture.

It seems straight forward enough. Besides, we know what the word brand means, right? But year after year coaches still come to us for help. Help to build their gym’s brand into the shiny business they have been picturing for so long. So after more than 20 years of teaching coaches how to do just that through the OPEX Coaching Certificate Program (CCP), here are the three most important pillars to building your gym’s brand.

The biggest obstacle any gym owner faces is economic longevity. Without a plan for continued income growth and scalability, your business will inevitably fail.

Not only is the fitness industry incredibly competitive, it’s also very filled with hundreds of different competitors. The only way to combat this and rise to the top is to develop a unique service. But to sell a unique service you need to determine what makes you unique you first need to understand that you are competing with hundreds of other gyms!  Funny how that works.

He also has three on-floor coaches he’s currently developing to become OPEX Coach Certificate Program (CCP) coaches. One of them is currently going through the CCP and will soon be starting to build his own book of clients, El Fateh explained.

But time and time again, the story goes like this: Five years into the gym game, the gym owner is overworked and burnt out and is barely able to make a profit. Not only that, he can’t seem to retain his clients or his coaches because neither party is getting what they need: The client needs a professional coach and an individualized fitness program and the coach needs job fulfillment and a professional wage.