In this episode, we discuss the history of the Alloy brand and why we decided to move to a franchise model.
We share with you our journey from when we started this place, to kind of where we evolved and to where we're at today. It would be pretty impactful for people that are looking to speed up a business or start their own.
We turned 27 recently. Back when we started, I was sort of paying my way through school as a personal trainer and personal training was a very new industry. There wasn't a lot of validity around it. No one really knew what we did, but everyone needed a coach. That still holds true today.
What were we really doing? Showing people proper exercise, coaching, basic good nutrition and holding people accountable. That was it. And of course there's always a market for that.
That's something everyone's going to need. And everyone's had a sports coach since the beginning of time. So it made sense. It just wasn't really an industry. So I was bouncing around between different health clubs and going into people's homes.
And I thought it'd be neat to put all of these experiences of private coaching into four walls.
So to bring those in and try to control the customer experience around it, like have a place just dedicated to training. So I had a client that was willing to invest. It wasn't much, but we invested enough to open a 1,500 square foot training center. And I brought in some friends of mine that were in the industry to work with sort of their clients. And that was the birth of it.
Stay tuned as we go into further detail.
Key Points of Discussion:
- A client was willing to invest. We opened a 1,500 sq ft training center (2:17)
- In 1998, we did $1 million in training; we'd expanded to 3,000 sq ft (3:14)
- 1999: I was almost out of business as I had independently contracted staff (4:18)
- We systemized what many consider more of an art - personal training (5:29)
- Around 2000, we finally scratched our way back (6:02)
- We switched our one-on-one training over to “small group training” (6:05)
- Around 2003, we transitioned everyone over to this small group setting (9:37)
- We started to see there might be something for even a larger group (11:05)
- Larger groups: A lower price point drew younger clientele (11:36)
- We expanded eventually to around 8,000 sq ft (12:28)
- We started doing a lot of consulting for other trainers (12:54)
- Birth of licensing: A gym owner said, “Can you bring it into my facility?” (12:56)
- Fast forward to earlier this year: We had licensed 2,000 clubs worldwide (13:47)
- Alloy fitness franchise is a personal training franchise, but it's scalable (16:30)
- Two types of people that would be good for any fitness franchise (21:02)
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Alloy Personal Training Business