Budget Plan – Cost, Pricing Awareness
In an industry full of successful and talented personal trainers, it’s no surprise that many have a dream of operating and maintaining a successful thriving gym facility of their own. However, opening a gym cost and running a business is typically an area of knowledge that they lack, yet many personal trainers jump the gun by opening their own facility without doing their due diligence.
Creating a basic budget including current income sources, expenditures, operating costs, projected opening and forecasts of potential business aka revenue, are a few initial steps anyone considering opening a yoga studio cost or gym needs to consider prior to opening their doors. This budget will assist in helping you determine if any and all decisions you are considering are financially sound ones. The following opening up a gym financial advice is a roadmap for you.
Current Revenue Streams
If you are a seasoned and successful trainer you probably have solid revenue and a fairly comfortable annual income. Whether you are renting space from a local gym or employed at a gym, consider how many hours you work and how many loyal clients you have who will absolutely follow you, as in, break their contract at the gym and join you at your new facility. Take in to account all of your revenue streams – income from private personal training sessions, semi-private group training sessions, and any income that comes from coaching boot camps or classes. All of these will help with your understanding of owning a gym finances.
Current Expenses
Prior to opening your own gym, you may have very few expenses. Working at a gym or renting space, means almost all the essentials like equipment, restrooms, changing rooms or locker rooms, and even heating and cooling, are already there and very often included in the rent or with your employment. As a personal trainer you may have nominal expenses like office supplies, clip boards, computer software or subscriptions to fitness sites, liability insurance and expenses involved in continuing your education. When opening and operating your own facility, it should go without saying that your expenses will certainly increase. Opening a gym cost is very expensive. Day to day operating costs will add up quickly and many creep up as they are often out of sight, out of mind type expenses. Things like soap dispensers, cleansers, toilet paper, water bottles, cups, towels, flooring, and even things like electric and water bills quickly add up on a monthly basis and should be considered and added to the projected expenses.
Creating the Budget
Before a trainer can open their gym, they need to consider their revenue streams including the opening of a yoga studio cost (or other gym) and operating costs, which are typically: the current income, expenditures, and opening and operating costs to get the business going. The next step is to see ‘if” the current expenditures and opening costs can be covered by the current income. If they are, and the financials are all in line, then opening a facility is a positive next step. If the financials are lacking then the trainer will need to go back and look at potential additional revenue streams to boost overall income and make opening a business a reality.
Final review
Once the final review of your budget is complete – everything from total gross revenue – then the data will show if opening a facility is a financially responsible move for you. Although your net income will stay the same, the opportunities as a facility owner will provide you with multiple new revenue streams, all of which will help you grow and run your business.
The following are a few ways for you to expand your business:
1 - Offer Membership
Offering membership and having an automatic membership renewal system each month is a great way to maintain a monthly client base. For example, as a personal trainer you may have 35 current clients that only pay for personal training services, but when you own a facility of your own you can offer additional values that warrant a membership such as weekend yoga classes, open gym hours, or even a coffee station for members to meet and socialize.
2 - Generate New Clients & New Membership
Unless you decide to partner with someone and open a gym facility together, chances are you will still be doing all the work yourself for a while. This means you’ll probably only be training at certain hours of the day and your gym may not be open all day long. After all, are you really going to be there from 6am to 11pm at night? Hopefully not! Adding an additional trainer or two is a great way to open up the gym for longer hours while bringing in more clients and increasing memberships. Even the addition of 10 new memberships a month can increase revenue by over $2,000 a month!
3 - The Shift from Trainer to Owner
Getting into this mindset can be tough at first. While training and getting people healthy may be your passion, opening a gym comes with running daily operations of the business as well. Because of the extra time commitment involved, you may need to step back from training as you spend more time growing the business and managing the facility. At first, this can be a very tough realization for trainers to come to terms with, but the benefits of making that shift are great. After all, growing your business is why you decided to become an entrepreneur in the first place! Yes, running a successful business is time consuming and at times, extremely exhausting and overwhelming for even the most experienced fitness professionals, but the rewards that come with it can be great.
Pulling back from working with your clients provides an opportunity for, not only your new trainers and team members you hire to gain experience, but will also give you the time you need to address the daily business demands as well as pursue future business endeavors while maintaining and/or possibly growing revenue at the same time.
Taking the information from this budget plan and using it to gain a better understanding of what you need as you take steps to grow your business and open a facility of your own, will help with your success in the industry. With your educated mindset, our solid business plan (LINK TO BUSINESS PLAN) and a detailed budget, you can be well on your way to being a successful gym owner. Stay confident in your decisions, do your research and trust your budget! The numbers never lie.