Over the past decade, WORKOUT ANYTIME has become a fast-growing company in the fitness industry. In fact, the franchise is celebrating a milestone, opening its 100th location in Bardstown, Kentucky. “Once you reach 100 of anything, it really starts to catapult the business into a different sphere,” said Mark de Gorter, COO of WORKOUT ANYTIME. “We certainly have seen that with the recent growth that we have gone through.”
The company has grown 40 percent year after year in terms of the number of clubs opened. “That is creating a lot of great internal and external momentum for the company,” said de Gorter. “Internal in the sense that our franchise partners are opening more facilities. Sixty percent of our franchise partners now own more than one club. And it is generating a lot of great external momentum as well, because the brand is now getting recognized and we are moving into more of an established concept located in a really fast-growing segment.”
According to de Gorter, the rapid growth of the franchise can be attributed to the strength of the high-value, low-price segment, as well as the WORKOUT ANYTIME model. “The fact that we offer very affordable membership programs with no long-term commitments is really right for the market and really right for the consumer,” he added. “We offer what we consider the best pound-for-pound workout in the industry.”
A typical WORKOUT ANYTIME club ranges from 6,000 to 8,000 square feet. Randy Trotter, the vice president of development, explained real estate is a crucial component to a club’s success. “What makes us unique in the way we do our franchising is that we are very picky when it comes to real estate,” said Trotter. “We absolutely help the franchise owner find and negotiate the location. The number one reason people look for a fitness center is convenience. We also always get free rent packages with nine months of free rent — three months to build it and then six months after you are open to build the membership. The concept and the model is dead on, but you also have to marry that with the right real estate.”
An added benefit of this extensive growth has been an increased maturity of franchisees. “It has allowed us to begin to attract a different type of franchise partner than maybe we did in the early days,” said de Gorter. “We are getting more of these multi-unit operators, people with franchising experience and they really know how this business operates. They are comfortable making the investments in marketing, infrastructure and staff that really helps generate momentum for their business. It is a typical shift you see with franchise businesses as they move out of the early stages and into the more mature stage, where we have evolved systems, procedures and best practices that help to fuel the growth of the brand.”
And according to Trotter, the brand will only continue to grow in the future. “We are on track to open 50 locations this year,” said Trotter. “We would like to try to double that in 2017, so we would like to open 100 locations in 2017 and 2018 will probably be around 150.”
