- Start Up Cost:
- Franchise Type:
- Sector Type:
- Investment Type:
- Market:
- £300,000
- Premises Based
- Health & Fitness
- Start-up
- B2C
Anytime Fitness is the UK’s largest fitness franchise and has more than 180 health clubs across the UK and Ireland, providing its members with convenient club locations and opening hours to suit all lifestyles.
The business prides itself on supporting and coaching its members. Benefits of membership include group exercise classes, face-to-face and smartphone-based personal training, a dedicated online member platform and a supporting and welcoming training environment. All franchised clubs are independently owned and include state-of-the-art equipment and private bathrooms, offering a health club feel at an affordable price.
Anytime Fitness has recently unveiled a new interior design for its clubs, providing stunning open plan layouts split into various training areas, creating an environment suitable for all ages and fitness levels. Not only does this provide to today’s fitness consumers, it helps drive down fit-out costs and contributes to a more profitable business.
The fitness industry has proven to be robust throughout the pandemic, with pent-up demand for memberships ensuring continued business success. As of July 2021, Anytime Fitness has opened eight new clubs in the calendar year of 2021 as it further grows its presence in the UK and moves towards the 200-club milestone.
Owning an Anytime Fitness health club provides an outstanding business model for our franchisees, allowing them to prosper and thrive. The model allows both single and multiple ownership and offers significant earning potential, with over 60% of franchisees going on to own multiple clubs.
The minimum investment of £170,000 covers the franchisee fee, fit out and essential costs, giving franchisees the chance to be their own boss, manage a health club and become an integral part of their local community.
Franchising with Anytime Fitness provides a range of benefits, including:
With Anytime Fitness, the training never stops with courses running weekly, monthly and yearly both on-site, remotely and via roadshows for our franchisees which covers every aspect of running their club including sales processes, payment systems, customer database management, security, customer retention and customer service.
Franchisees are consistently given the opportunity to refresh their knowledge and alongside their staff, have access to a free training portal. The portal contains hundreds of training courses and webinars to support their ongoing learning and development at their convenience.
We encourage owners to have a regular physical presence in their clubs, engaging with members and overseeing a small team of specialised staff.
Fitness experience isn’t compulsory and many of our franchisees employ an experienced club manager to run their club. The Club Manager oversees the day-to-day operation of the clubs and the role involves sales, managing staff, ensuring the club is safe, clean and equipment is working, maintaining high standards of customer service, greeting new potential members and keeping all members happy.
Connor (centre) and father Steve (second from left) during the construction of Anytime Fitness Ringwood
Connor Thorne is the perfect example of the opportunities available to young and ambitious graduates in franchising and has recently opened his third Anytime Fitness club in under three years.
Entering into business with his father Steve, the pair had previously discussed the possibility of running a gym but were hesitant to go down the independent route. With Connor completing his degree in Business Management at the University of West England and Steve coming across an advert for Anytime Fitness on a flight home from the Netherlands, the timing was perfect.
“We both have a shared passion for fitness and had been talking for a long-time about running and owning a gym business together. I decided to go down the route of ensuring I was university qualified and getting into it as soon as I graduated.
“Anytime Fitness was the standout choice for us. The way it operates in the industry means it’s not pinned to one type of demographic and you can attract a broad range of members. Most significantly, we knew there’d be scalability if we got it right.”
After finalising their franchise agreement in Spring 2018, the pair opened their first club in Ringwood, Hampshire in December 2018. This was swiftly followed by club two in Ferndown, Dorset, in November 2019 before breaking new ground for the brand in March 2021 by opening the first-ever 24 health club in St Helier, Jersey.
Establishing a successful blueprint for success, Connor made the important decision of putting customer service at the centre of their business model.
“Some gyms focus far too much on leisure and I wanted to do something different and put more of an emphasis on quality service. We went a bit off the beaten path and employed staff that used to work in bookshops and cafes rather than the fitness sector. I think people appreciated that more as there are people that are a little more hesitant to go to the gym and they prefer speaking to someone who isn’t necessarily an avid gym go-er themselves.”
Now on the trajectory of opening five clubs in five years, Connor is full of praise for the comprehensive support provided by Anytime Fitness.
“I honestly don’t think we could have done it not in a franchised way with the pace that we’ve worked at. The connections that we’ve had through Anytime Fitness, the models we used at the beginning, the designing, the recommendations of kit and the professional marketing are all priceless. If you understand business and you understand quality, you can run a really successful club. Like in any business, you can find professionals that love the sector that they’re in; you don’t have to be a personal trainer or massively interested in fitness to make it a success.”
Raj (third from left) at the grand opening of Anytime Fitness Headington
Raj Hasib opened his first Anytime Fitness club in Headington, Oxfordshire, in September 2019. After becoming disillusioned with hospitality franchising, he’s found his perfect fit with Anytime Fitness and opened his second club in Daventry, Northamptonshire in April 2021.
Growing up in a business environment, Raj always wanted to be his own boss. After starting a high street hospitality franchise and enjoying initial success, spiralling staff and stock costs meant ever-decreasing profit margins and a need for a change. After coming across Anytime Fitness at a franchise exhibition, he set his sights on the future.
“To be honest, I’d never thought of owning a fitness business, but it ticked all the boxes for me. Owning a fitness business is so rewarding on a personal level. It’s nice to see members developing from when they first set foot in the gym and achieving their goals, knowing that you’ve played a small part in that.”
Raj’s first club; Anytime Fitness Headington, enjoyed a flying start and quickly grew a four-figure membership base and began providing Raj with a significant return on investment. With members being attracted by Anytime Fitness’ new state-of-the-art Generation Two internal club design, he began the process of opening an additional club within weeks.
“Once the first site opened and I saw how well it was going, it gave me the confidence to want to do it again. Having already gone through and followed the process, you naturally feel really positive.”
After navigating the various challenges of the pandemic, Anytime Fitness Daventry opened in April 2021. Raj and his team were kept motivated throughout their presale stage by the Anytime Fitness Support Office experts as well as regular, weekly calls with other franchisees in the same position.
“The support has been fantastic and the Anytime Fitness team does a great job of keeping you motivated. Seeing people that care and want the best for you helps keep you going and there’s no way that I would have been able to do it by myself.
“Those calls (with other franchisees) gave us significant support and it was good to speak to people in the same position as you. It’s really useful to hear what other clubs are doing and helps open your eyes to opportunities that you may not have thought of. Importantly, it brings out a healthy competitive streak in all of you and if another club is doing exceptionally well, you have a target to work towards as you know it can be done.”
After the success of his first two clubs, Raj has his sights set on further growing his club portfolio with Anytime Fitness and is a perfect example of a growing number of its franchisees with no fitness industry experience.
“As long as you understand business and are willing to be dedicated to everything that you do, you can run a hugely successful club. Anytime Fitness are the fitness experts and it’s a two-way partnership ultimately between you and them as a franchisor; the brand is there and they give you this great blueprint for success but you’ve got to work hard to take advantage of what’s available to you and make your business successful.”
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