Originally published October 2013. Updated July 2026.
When WNiF first profiled Andrew Simmons back in 2013, our writer Analee Matthews described a lecturer she’d known for years at Australian Fitness Network: a bright-eyed enthusiast teaching people how to turn a love of fitness into an actual career, back when “personal trainer” wasn’t yet a recognised job title. By her account, his aerobics gear was still very much part of the regular wardrobe rotation. That was well over a decade ago.
Fast forward to today, and the same energetic, mission-driven presenter Analee described has built something considerably bigger. Vision Personal Training (the studio-based PT franchise Andrew founded in 1999 out of a single site in Caringbah) is now the largest personal training network in the country, with more than 55 studios across Australia and New Zealand, and a stated goal of pushing toward 80 as the network expands further into Victoria, Western Australia and Queensland.
How Andrew Simmons Built Vision Personal Training's Franchise Systems
In that original 2013 interview, Andrew told WNiF the shift from “sole trader PT” to “franchise founder” started with a hard conversation. A mentor pointed out that he didn’t actually have a business… he had a job that happened to pay well, one that couldn’t run without him physically standing in the room. That, plus lessons he picked up presenting for Les Mills and reading Michael Gerber’s The E-Myth, pushed him to build systems robust enough that other people could deliver the results, not just him.
It’s a theme Andrew keeps returning to more than two decades later. In a recent conversation on the Profit Made Simple podcast with fitness business coach Dan Henderson, Andrew reflected that Vision was never built with scale as the goal. The priority from day one was client results, with systemisation coming later as a way of protecting and replicating that standard of care as the business grew.
There’s a great anecdote from a separate interview with Franchise Executives that captures how the franchise model actually came about: Andrew has said the idea clicked after noticing career-path signage on the tray tables at McDonald’s, and thinking a similar visible ladder (PT to studio owner), could solve the industry’s biggest retention problem, trainers building a client base and then leaving to go it alone.
Image Source: Facebook
After COVID: Adapting to a Changing Fitness Industry
One chapter that didn’t exist in the original 2013 story: the pandemic hit Vision hard. By Andrew’s own account, roughly 70% of franchisees traded through COVID lockdowns, but “COVID fatigue” among clients saw the network go backwards for a period before it found its footing again. The response was a shift toward more flexible, digitally-supported delivery. It’s a change Andrew has credited as ultimately strengthening the business rather than diluting it.
That digital-first mindset has carried into how Vision is positioning itself for the next phase of growth, including responding to a very 2020s industry conversation: GLP-1 weight-loss medications like Ozempic and Wegovy. Rather than treating them as a threat, Vision’s leadership (including CEO Ken Griffin, who addressed the topic on Channel 7 News), has framed the drugs as reinforcing, not replacing, the need for strength training and movement coaching, arguing that muscle preservation is the piece of the conversation still missing from the GLP-1 narrative.
Andrew Simmons' Leadership Lessons for Fitness Business Owners
Some of Andrew’s philosophy hasn’t shifted at all since that first WNiF interview. He’s long maintained that the fastest way to grow a business is to become a better leader yourself. “A business will never outpace its leader,” as he put it back in 2013, and that people, not marketing or systems alone, are the actual foundation: get the right people, train them properly, and client results follow.
He’s also been consistent, across interviews a decade apart, in pushing back on the idea of “balance.” Andrew has never claimed to have it, and doesn’t think most genuinely successful operators do either. His view is that meaningful success in one area of life usually means trade-offs elsewhere, and pretending otherwise does fitness business owners a disservice.
Vision Personal Training's Growth Plans for 2026 and Beyond
Thirteen years after Analee first told this story for WNiF, and roughly 27 years into Vision’s existence, Andrew Simmons is still framing the business in terms of the same original ambition: helping people build careers they love, and helping clients change their lives in the process. The studio count has moved from 47 to well past 55, the target has moved to 80, and the industry around him has changed. GLP-1 drugs, post-COVID consumer habits, a far more digitally-savvy client base… but the underlying formula he described to WNiF in 2013 (systems, leadership, people) is, by his own account, still exactly what he’s leaning on.
Find out more about Vision Personal Training at www.visionpersonaltraining.com.
Sources: original 2013 WNIF interview with Andrew Simmons by Analee Matthews; Dan Henderson, “Andrew Simmons on Building a Scalable Personal Training Business,” Profit Made Simple (Fitness Profit, March 2026); “How Vision Personal Training grew to 50 studios – and what’s next,” Franchise Executives (March 2025); Vision Personal Training company sources and LinkedIn.
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