Are We Spoilt For Choice? Finding Your Fitness Tribe Amongst The Noise.
I spent some time chatting to the guys at F45 the other day, getting to know the people behind the business and its unique fitness proposition. This business is flying ahead at break-neck speed – already in 20 countries, it’s the fastest growing fitness franchise in the country (and the world) with over 600 franchises worldwide.
It begs the question – how did they find that niche, in what seems to be a crowded market and achieved such meteoric growth? On the face of it, our industry already seems to be bursting at the seams with more exercise options available at more locations than ever before.
And it’s not just facilities. More and more clubs are offering their own unique branded workout regimes, each with
its own point of difference, and each clamouring for its own special tribe of loyal followers.
From my conversations with these businesses I discovered a common theme to success – the instructors.
You can have the best workout regime in town but if the delivery is yawn-worthy your operational days will be numbered. Les Mills changed the face of group exercise in Australia because it focused on refining the ability of the instructor to deliver a memorable fitness experience, and in doing so they created a loyal tribe. There is a big lesson in this for all of us.
The new addition to the delivery experience is technology, and this gives some clues to F45’s success.
Their investment in technology underpins the delivery of constantly changing workouts, which incorporates exercises that are wildly popular, but aren’t particularly different to what we’ve all been doing for years. That’s smart, because like the pre-choreographed
classes of Les Mills, it makes them easily accessible to new and seasoned exercisers.
So the question that was playing on my mind when I walked out of their office was ‘are they growing the market or are they simply swaying members from other brands?’
To answer this, we have to understand that fitness has developed to a point where we have a cohort of gym savvy exercisers who now prefer to sample exercise regimes, rather than subscribe to them.
Twenty years ago a 24/7 unattended gym wasn’t possible. There simply weren’t enough gym-savvy exercisers who knew what to do with the equipment. Now they’re everywhere.
So are we spoilt for choice? You bet we are! But as F45 has shown, it shouldn’t hold us back from introducing to the market a customer focused, easily accessible product or service that exploits technology, and is driven by smart marketing and great delivery.
You can hear more from Bill Moore and Fitness Australia at fitness.org.au
Article written by Bill Moore for the What’s New in Fitness Magazine – Summer 2016 Edition.