If you are a fitness fanatic who happens to be an entrepreneur, starting your own gym would be a great idea, especially with the current fitness trend sweeping across the world. If you have crunched the numbers and things are looking good, here are a few common entrepreneur errors to avoid when setting up a gym.
Overlooking Digital Marketing :
Ignore social media at your peril; SEO services are a must if you want to drive organic traffic to your web portal. Talk to a local digital marketing company and let them put together an aggressive online marketing plan, which gives your marketing some focus and direction.
Failing To Follow Government Requirements :
As with any business where customers use the premises, you need a gym health and safety risk assessment consultant. Your venue needs to pass several health and safety inspections and you will need some public liability insurance. Your local authority wouldn’t hesitate to shut your gym down if you failed to comply in any way. Hire a consultant to ensure compliance.
Lack Of Financial Support :
You may have been overly optimistic that your gym will be full within a few months of the launch, but in reality, it is still not busy after 1 year has passed. If you don’t have the funds behind you, running at a loss isn’t something you can handle. If you have equity in your home, this can quickly be liquidated, should you need an injection of capital, plus there are online business start-up loans that can be found with a Google search.
Failing To Create The Right Ambience :
Much like a restaurant, a gym needs to have a character of its own and there are many factors to influence the ambience – colour, equipment, background music, furnishing and lighting, to name but a few. If you are targeting MMA students, you will need a cage and all the training equipment and this would be a significant investment. Also, the staff you hire should have vibrant energy about them and be people-oriented.
Poor Choice Of Gym Location :
This would be a very costly mistake to make. It might be a lack of parking space, or simply the distance from built-up areas. The greatest of care should take when looking at leasing commercial space. Hire a business lawyer to scan the lease, as failing to do this could lead to a loss. So, look for a better site and if you can’t find one, ask a commercial estate agent to source the ideal venue.
Conclusion
If you have a name in the fitness sector, so much the better, but if you don’t, you can hire a well-known figure to manage your gym, while also making good use of the best freelance instructors and coaches. If people achieve their fitness goals and enjoy the experience. So, there’s every reason to think they will renew their membership and your business will grow from strength to strength.
