A recent article I read was discussing that fitness businesses often fail as a result of them being started by fitness enthusiasts or professionals like personal trainers. The theory is that personal trainers or other fitness professionals tend to build facilities that are geared to what they want as fitness professionals’ versus what the public wants or needs in a gym. Now the stats are not kind to fitness professionals when it comes right down to it, opening a fitness facility is a high risk venture and we as an industry have a proportionately high closure rate over other industries, however restaurants still top the list.

Over the last few years our industry has still seen ample growth and tremendous opportunities in niche and even mainstream markets. Some recent stats show that in the US, despite an obesity epidemic, actual fitness participation is up from 23 million in 1994 to 45 million today. So the question has to be why then do so many gyms and studios close down?

It is in our nature to want to help people that come to us with fitness issues:

If they are fat we want to help
If they are athletes we want to help
If they are injured we want to help

As a result of this need to help everyone we tend to market to everyone. We create offers for every person that walks through our doors.

When you open your personal training studio your marketing needs to be for the people that:

Want personal training
Can afford personal training
Highlight your training abilities

The other service and products that you offer should highlight and enhance your personal training offering versus providing services to a small number of potential members.

What does it all mean? Well if you are one of the personal trainers out there that is opening or already owns a training studio then do not try and market your studio as a gym and avoid services that are more traditionally done in fitness facilities.

Do not offer gym memberships, aerobics class, spinning, or yoga.
Offer nutrition, circuit training, 30min personal training and educational workshops.

Your marketing should not be about getting anyone in the door it should be about getting the right people in the door. These new clients will in turn be able to refer new clients that fit your demographic.

If you offer and market services like gym memberships you will get people wanting those services and your facility is just not going to be able to accommodate them nor will you be able to compete with the traditional membership driven fitness facilities.

One of the keys to successful fitness business ownership is to market the right services to the right members.