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Pictures by Angus Thomas
are shift workers, that’s a result of the appeal of our 24/7 environment. It’s a concept that appeals to a complete cross-section of society. Health club membership has always tended to be a very middle-class aspiration – we’re taking it outside that. We attract traditional health club users but we also attract people who couldn’t usually afford it, or who found the opening hours unattractive. It’s like low-cost airlines – all social strata use low-cost airlines, because they’re all looking for the same thing: an economic flight from A to B at a time that suits them. There are a number of keys apart from the product. We have a great management team. We’re the only UK health club operator that has Investors in People accreditation, being especially commended for the high motivation and energy levels displayed by the staff. This is great testament to our strong belief in allowing our managers to manage, they very much see their gym as “their business”. Working together with a young, passionate team, which also includes those
in property and finance teams, is key to our success and is why we win unique awards in our sector.
Tell us more about your ambitious plans for expansion and continued innovation? You plan to double again in the next couple of years?
Yes, I’d like to achieve that very much. We’re not in a trolley dash but there are lots of opportunities in the market and the potential size of the market is significant. Our plan is to develop as McFit has in Germany, where we will have a multitude of sites predominantly in big cities. If I could put a gym on every tube stop in London, I would. I’m sure I’ll never achieve that. Nevertheless, big cities like Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Edinburgh, where we are already, we will be returning to a number of times. Our philosophy ultimately is to provide members with a gym near their home and a gym near where they work, and we’re already beginning to develop that. All the time from a property perspective we are looking for synergies with other types of operators where there are natural links. For instance, we’re developing a number of sites with Travelodge. And we are constantly looking at new products. We’ve just created an arrangement with Aviva whereby they offer our members, based on their gym usage patterns, discounts on private healthcare. As we expand, we’re bound to do more of that. We introduced a product called Myride in our gyms, which is a 24-hour virtual spinning concept, and we’re currently trialling 24-hour virtual pilates and yoga classes.
Is that the next big trend in fitness?
I think virtual exercise will increasingly feature in the gym. Myride has been incredibly successful, you can make it totally bespoke for you, you don’t have to book it, and if you happen to have been caught in traffic, you don’t miss the class. And, because it’s virtual, it opens you to an international market of quality teachers. People have been
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – APRIL 2013
watching exercise DVDs since Jane Fonda’s days, so clearly there’s a market for virtual classes, and it fits our 24/7 environment: if you really want to do a class at 3 in the morning, you can.
What would you consider your greatest achievement?
Opening the first gym. The first one is always the most difficult, there’s so much pressure on it to be a success, because if it’s not a success, the concept never goes any further. But it was great fun. We were selling in a portakabin outside the 24-hour Asda in Hounslow and we opened it with 6000 members, so it’s been a great success, and of course it was the cornerstone that then built the confidence to roll out the chain.
Do you have any unfulfilled ambitions, either in business or personally?
I’m still as motivated as ever. I’m keen to continue to develop our concept. And possibly look at expansion abroad, ultimately. There’s plenty of scope to develop in the UK market and that will always be our major focus, but at the same time it’s the same opportunity to develop what we’ve developed elsewhere – Europe is one area, but there are other markets as well. To some degree, it sits behind our logo: to use one of our members’ phrases, “it does what it says on the tin”, and gym is a generic word throughout the world, so certainly at some point we will be looking at overseas. So it all keeps me pretty busy. But I still love to play a bit of racquetball, and squash and tennis. I’ve combined my passion for sport and fitness with my passion for our business and it means that I enjoy every day because I’m doing something I love doing, which is very important, and it’s great working with a very vibrant young team who have the same passion as I do – I get a great buzz from it, it reminds me of when I was young!
Details:
www.thegymgroup.com www.businessmag.co.uk
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