Vision
"What's it like running a gym?"
"What's your vision?"
These two questions go hand-in-hand and I thought I would address them, as well as another related third issue--competition.
At a basic level I don't think running a gym is hard, in the sense that operational excellence is straightforward and can be achieved with hard work alone. What does that look like?
Member sign-ups, billing, cancellations, and related customer service issues need to be handled correctly according to our contracts and policies and with minimal hurdles. As detailed in previous posts we work closely with ABC Fitness and will continue to do so to ensure that we are leading edge on this front. For example, Jennifer (my wife) handles these issues directly, so we know about every customer service issue.
Cleanliness--we are working hard with our employees to ensure we have a very clean gym. Previous owners have tried different solutions, but our goal is to put our employees on the "front line" so to speak when it comes to keeping the gym clean. The gym is staffed during all open hours and one of their primary responsibilities is to keep the gym clean. If there is ever a cleanliness issue, bring it up with the front desk or email [email protected].
Functionality--the equipment should work. The AC should work. The sauna should work. Everything should work. Not a lot more to say here. Things break, let us know and we will get them fixed. This takes time, since going forward we are only using commercial contractors with a license if needed to do most work.
Really if we achieve the above three things the gym will be fine. There is enough growth in Forney and enough people already living here that we will have enough members to do fine. But what if we want to be great? Here is where the topics of vision and competition come in.
Planet Fitness is here, Crunch is coming, Amped Fitness in Mesquite, and maybe Absolute Recomp!
Yes, but who is our competition? It's actually having a beer right after dinner and calling it a night, sleeping in in the morning or just going straight to work. It's watching Netflix on the couch or browsing Instagram in bed. Going for a run around the neighborhood or doing some pushups and other body weight exercises in your living room. Rest assured if everyone in Forney and surrounding community decided to prioritize their fitness, you'd need to convert the Costco, Wal-Mart, and Lowe's to gyms to accommodate. Even if everyone decided to go for a run every few days, the sidewalks would need to be widened. And all this at the expense of our pharmaceutical industry, but I digress.
In a way other gyms are not the competition. The Absolute Recomp customer is going to go to Absolute Recomp, and the Planet Fitness customer is going to Planet Fitness. And the TX Fitness customer is coming to TX Fitness. We are all competing against both the desire to take it easy and stay home or just save money and go for a run and do body weight exercises, but honestly mostly the former. We aren't competing with other gyms. Now with this setup, let me talk about vision.
Simply put, TX Fitness is an expression of me. Beyond operational excellence is creativity--all the fun choices that I get to make as owner of TX Fitness, and how I would describe it is me trying to make TX Fitness my dream gym. I'm not going to try and copy any other gym. This doesn't mean I'm not going to carefully study what they are doing to learn (I've been to Lifetime, have an Equinox membership, visited Planet Fitness, Absolute Recomp, and will definitely be stopping by Amped and Crunch), but TX Fitness is going to be what I like. I say this with humility, but confidence. I strongly believe that while catering to "what customers want" is a decent business strategy, the one's that really take it all have a singular vision of an ideal. TX Fitness is my moonshot. And I'll keep everyone updated via this blog (or you can chat with me if you see me or Jennifer) about what's next. I hope y'all like it!
