interview
OPERATOR INDEPENDENT
The CEO of independent club The Third Space talks to
Kate Cracknell about achieving success by ignoring industry norms
ERIC DUNMORE
“I
left university with a history degree,” says Eric Dunmore, CEO of The Third Space. “What was I going to do with that?
I decided to train in something more vocational and qualifi ed as an accountant. It sounded desperately dull, but my careers advisor suggested it would at least open doors, not close them.” Having worked his way up to
managing partner in an accountancy fi rm by his early 30s, Dunmore then left to pursue other interests, joining leisure business Longshot. The owner of a number of restaurants, Longshot also acquired the famous Groucho Club in June 2001 and, at the same time, opened The Third Space, a 3,716sq m (40,000sq ft) independent health club in Piccadilly Circus, central London. “Longshot carried on trading
successfully until 2006 when, in order to provide a return to our shareholders, we embarked on a series of disposals, selling the Groucho Club and the restaurants. But we held on to The Third Space and I woke up one day in December 2006 thinking: ‘It’s simply the best business I’ve ever been involved in. It’s fun, it’s exciting, it’s energetic.’ So I put together a plan for a management buyout, backed by the private equity company Graphite Capital, and on 1 August 2007 we completed the deal.”
a niche offering Dunmore readily admits to having “no fitness expertise at all, only business
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expertise”, but he surrounded himself with experts from the fitness and medical sectors to develop a strong concept for The Third Space. “We saw the fi tness industry as being
quite like the pub sector in the ‘80s, with big chains operating what we felt were tired concepts. They weren’t focusing on being fun, interesting or value for money. There were a lot of facilities, but not many clubs. Many were chains with what I would call
‘names’ rather than real brands. “We felt there was a real opening for
a niche player and decided to introduce a high quality product, with high quality employees, pricing it to achieve a return but also offering value for money. “We wanted to make it full of fun,
energy, enthusiasm, excitement, colour, vibrancy, variety. To have different things going on, different classes at different times every single day and in every single space throughout the club. To constantly push the boundaries and build a club atmosphere rather than just being a facility. “The concept of The Third Space is
fi rst space home, second space work, third space ‘your space’ – doing what you want to do, how you want to do it, when you want to do it, with whom you want to do it. Everyone’s an individual and the key is to treat them as such.” He continues: “We charge £1,240 a
year and don’t discount, and roughly 60 per cent of our customers choose to pay annually in advance. That means we
Read Health Club Management online at
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have a very solid business, allowing us to invest in our product and our employees.”
investing in people People are clearly a key focus for Dunmore. “We work as hard as possible to get and retain the best employees. People want to work for us because we pay well and we look after them. We have training programmes for everybody – if the fi tness team hits its targets, everyone gets £150 a month to do whatever training they want – and we do what we say we’re going to do. It’s as simple as that. If you behave like that with people, you get more out of them. They look upwards rather than downwards and go the extra mile for the members. “And the reason we’re successful is
because we have great employees who are proud of working for The Third Space. Libardo, for example, has been with us since we opened. He lives in the
november/december 2010 © cybertrek 2010
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