How Our Gym Franchisee Support Stacks Up: Interview
You Can Always Learn Something – Talking Snap Fitness Franchisee Support: Bret Spencer, Hayden Lake, ID
One of the greatest aspects of franchising is knowing that your franchisor always has your back. At Snap Fitness, we aim to provide exemplary gym franchisee support so our franchise owners have all the tools and resources they need to operate a successful gym business.
As a new business owner, you must be prepared to face some challenges along the way. Snap Fitness is invested in our franchisees and wants to see you succeed, so we’re ready to help you with support every step of the way so you can avoid many of the common pitfalls new business owners can face. From getting started to operating a thriving business and beyond, you’ll have all the gym franchisee training, tools, and resources required to deliver a great service to your members.
In this interview, we spoke with Bret Spencer, a Snap Fitness franchise owner based in Hayden, ID. Bret and his family are no strangers to Snap Fitness; they’ve been running gyms with us for over 13 years. Even though he’s taken over for his parents now, Bret’s learned a lot over the years, like no matter how successful or long you’ve been doing it, you can always learn something.
1. Can you tell us about your experience in the fitness industry and how it led you to become a gym franchise owner?
My background is in that athletic aspect – I played sports all my life – trained, played at a pretty decently high level, and just knew I wanted to get into that realm. When I stopped playing, I started working at one of the other big box gyms and worked my way into that. Working at the other big box, I learned quite a bit about injury corrective movements and injury prevention and found a lot more joy in that because athletics is a different niche.
From my perspective, I always wanted to focus on personal training and own a studio on my own. My family had started a lot of the Snap Fitness locations in this area. My thought was that when you open a studio, you also have to have monthly revenue to pay for it. So, as long as you're training, you're making money.
Knowing the history of Snap Fitness, one of the things that I wanted to bring to the table was more of a personal training emphasis. And so when we opened up this Hayden store, that was the concept. Our motto when we show people around or help people has always been training, focus, more results, emphasis, and assistance. We focus on what people are looking for versus just opening our doors and saying, have fun with our equipment.
2. What attracted you to the idea of franchising a gym rather than starting an independent fitness business?
t What attracted me more to the franchise opportunity is the support. When you're on your own, you have to search for it, which I've done. I've gone to other conventions and researched other businesses and everything. And you learn a lot doing that, too.
But it's nice – franchising is like that community where you definitely get more support than when you're on your own.
3. What motivated you to choose a Snap Fitness gym franchise over other options available in the market?
The brand recognition and brand awareness are big selling features we see across a lot of franchises. It's nice to have that as opposed to starting out as a no-name where nobody knows who you are.
4. What are the key advantages you see in being part of a franchise system, and how has it helped your gym's growth and success?
I think it's different for each person, but for us, we do a lot of research ourselves on what we need to do and what we believe is best.
It may cost you money to open a franchise, but it's an offset when you get the negotiated pricing for the mass amount of people. With marketing experts, advertising, a website, and all that kind of stuff – I've done it myself, and it can get expensive and time-consuming.
It’s nice in that aspect, too, that there's always a give and take. It's nice that they include all the different components and everything. Snap Fitness certainly seems to be one of the more comprehensive franchise systems where you get all the support in all the different areas of the business, all the different elements you need to be successful. And that's something we hear from franchisees all the time – they love that. They think the added benefits are the best feature of being in a franchise.
5. Have you faced any challenges related to operating within a franchise system, and how did you overcome them?
I think the biggest challenge is that there are certain criteria that you have to follow, like certain equipment and certain programs that you have to use. Sometimes, there are better options, but in a franchise, you need to be unified to get the support you need – you have to use their processing systems or their equipment companies.
Work with what you have. When you have lemons, you make lemonade. You don't complain about not having orange juice. I think I have a different perspective than a lot of other people when it comes to that. It's like, okay, here's the tool I'm given; I will use it to my best.
6. What should prospective franchise owners know about the opportunity?
From what I've seen in the past, you can't start a franchise thinking that it's going to run itself just because it's a known concept. Even if you open a McDonald's, you still have to do it the right way. There's a lot more of them, so there's a bigger name with McDonald's, but it won't operate itself. It will to a point, but to be successful, to enjoy it, and flourish from it, you really have to put the time in and research.
You can't buy a hammer and expect the house to get built; you have to learn how to use it. Put the work in yourself, research yourself, and see what your market needs. You have the Snap Fitness franchise as a tool, but it's not the one-all resource. It's a great opportunity because you can bounce ideas off people, but you still have to put the time in.
Snap Fitness is a good company to work with. There are a lot of other franchises out there, but I would say Snap definitely focuses on trying to help the franchisee.
7. What advice would you give prospective franchisee candidates?
Take time to research everything and look into all the different opportunities. Follow the system for a while until you find out your own flair and what your area needs.
Snap Fitness has what they call Snap University. They have a lot of training tools and franchise business coaches that you can rely on. Really use those resources; I used them quite a lot when I first started. I hear a lot of people who don't use them, and they're the ones who are constantly mad or upset because they don't even see an email being sent out. They complain about communication, but they don't dive into it.
My advice would be to dive in for at least the first couple of years and take the advice from Snap Fitness because they've done it for a while, and they'll show you what they’ve learned over the last 20 years of gym franchising.
No matter what you choose, you will get what you put into it. But if you do it, my advice is to follow the system. Snap Fitness will give you a plan to be successful, and if you veer off, that's fine, but just understand that the system is there and it does work.
Check out Bret’s Snap Fitness Location:
Contact us today to learn more about franchising with Snap Fitness and how our gym franchisee support and training sets us apart from other fitness franchise opportunities.