Thanks again Roy, you have become a great source of information for this potential venture of mine!
Hey Zeb, was wondering how this has been going. Also would like this thread to continue with any add on replies from others.
I have an opportunity to partner up with someone to start a gym in a community of about 4,000. The only other competion is “Curves” and that is in town, and the closest gym is the YMCA and that is 20 minutes away and we know how expensive the memberships are becoming there.
Here’s the scoop, the owner of the building is willing to rennovate the upstairs (80x40) to become our towns first “real gym.” He is willing to fork over all the costs (right now its old office space that hasn’t been occupied for over 20 years) to rennovate it, ofcourse I pay him the rent which will be around $1300 (not including utilities). For him to do that he wants me to sign a 4 yr. lease so he can make sure he can recoup the cost as well make put a little in his pocket. My other cost obviously is the equipment and the running costs of the gym.
So what do you guys think? The gym WON’T be geared towards families obviously. This isn’t big enough to be a YMCA, so no pool, no hot tub, probably no sauna, etc. We are looking at putting in a weight room, a cardio room, and then a room for classes such as Pilates, Yoga, etc (if there is enough room) The target market we will be shooting for is 18-40 yr. olds.
I also am in talks with a couple people that are certified personal trainers that live in the same town that work at a big name gym in the cities. These trainers want to get out of the corporate politics as well as be closer to home. I am not sure the best route to put them in but perhaps having pay me so much/month to personal train people as well as they would be the ones teaching the Yoga, Pilate classes, etc, in the separate fitness room. I don’t know?
Please share any comments or suggestions. Thanks
[quote]ZEB wrote:
If a person buys a one year membership and pays for example, $300.00 up front why should I compensate the owner for that particular contract? The money is gone!
Am I not looking at this appropriately?[/quote]
Zeb, you should not compensate him, he should compensate you. The $300 up front membership is on the books as unearned revenue. This is a liability, the $300 has been paid, now you owe $300 worth of services over the life of his membership. In other words, if for example this is a one year contract, you can recognize $25 of revenue each month as it is earned. There would be no way to avoid this liability in the event of an asset sale.
EDIT: I just noticed that this post is over a year old. Oops. Hope everything worked out.
About day care: The day care in my gym is located in the basement right next to the locker rooms.
The daycare is set up with mats on the floor, as well as big pads and stuff set up like small monkey bars and the like. Almost like a “gym” set up for little kids, except they think its fun.
I guess you could do this and do your small part in making Americas kids less fat being that I see more and more of them everyday.
You also might want to set up a “get-to-know the gym” month or something. For whoever wants, give them a first months worth of personal training, learning to lift, educate them on the bodyparts their working, as well as giving them a nutrition plan.
Sorry if any of this has been suggested, I only skimmed some of the responses.