Advice on opening a studio
One of the most important lessons I learned: If you leasing space in a building, make sure the building is in good standing with L&I. After only 15 days in business at my location, L&I came in and shut the entire building down because the building owners didn’t have all of the necessary paperwork filed/approved. I just moved into another space, not too far away, but the hassle of being setup then moving wasn’t fun.
Good luck!
Michelle
www.HookedOnFitness.net
Gretechen,
1. Business Plan
2. Execute the plan
3. Marketing
4. Hire sales people
5. Make sure you have some type of business software or metric of record keeping so you can keep track of your member information. That way you can use that knowledge to improve retention, acquisition and decrease attrition. If you have any specific questions, feel free to email me. Ill be happy to answer any of your questions.
Regards,
Ron Benamor
www.motionsoft.net
I recently opened a boutique gym. Goal was for the atmosphere to be welcoming, personal and capable of helping meet clientele’s fitness needs.
So far so good! We offer PT and group ex and formats are SPINNING, TRX, Kettlebell as well as other functional fitness tools. It’s only one large room so scheduling was key- so far so good!
The lease was only 2 years and if all goes well we will need to expand at the end of it.
Dreams do come true. 🙂
I agree with Heike that the needs of the 3 activities you mention are somewhat different. That does not mean that they cannot coexist, just that you will need a really clear plan vis a vis schedule, as well as set up to make it work smoothly.
One example is temperature. My preferred temperature for yoga is 74 degrees. If you plan to offer any form of ‘hot’ yoga it will need to be higher. If your room is colder some yoga enthusiasts will be turned off. If you are sharing the room with group ex and the classes are back to back the yoga temp. will be way too hot for the cardio classes.
There was a question a while back as to what you would have in your studio assuming you could have whatever you wanted. (https://www.ideafit.com/answers/what-would-the-ultimate-fitness-facility-… ) I did not reread my answer, but I do remember spending some time on it, so it might be helpful to you.
Good luck
Gretchen, my studios thrives due to it’s personal attention to my clients. Equipment depends largely on how much money and space you have. Same goes for flooring.
I recommend, that you have a clear idea of it should look like and how the cycle people co-exist with the Yoga (noise etc.)
Good luck,
Heike Yates
www.heylifetraining.com