Check out one of the latest editions of Fitness Pro magazine which features a double page spread on Fitness Enhancement and it’s CEO Scott Hunt. From humble beginnings to now franchising all around Australia, it’s certainly worth a read.
Scott Hunt is the CEO of Fitness Enhancement Personal Training which he founded in 1999 as a 19 year old. Fitness Enhancement is now the third largest Personal Training company in Australia and is across Gold Coast, Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney and actively seeking more Studio and Mobile franchisees in all cities. Scott has a Cert III and IV in Fitness, a Bachelor of Business with a Major in Sports Management and has twice been a Young Entrepreneur of the Year finalist and been awarded the Fitness Australia Gold Award for quality twice.
The Beginning
I began Fitness Enhancement Personal Training back in 1999 as a 19 year old with my life savings of $400 and dreams of being Australia-wide someday. I also completed a Bachelor of Business with a Major in Sports Management in addition to my Personal Training qualifications. I knew from day one that I had to be great at business and marketing, not just Personal Training to be successful.
I spent a lot of years refining our business model and we grew to become the largest Personal Training company on the Gold Coast with a Studio in Nerang and Mobile Personal Trainers Gold Coast-wide. Our niche of 100% private Personal Training and our marketing of this, backed up with amazing sessions has been a key to our success. A big part of this is getting clients that “hate the Gym scene”. No matter how many Gyms open up near our Studio (8 within 3km of us over years to be exact) and no matter how many cheap Trainers are across the Gold Coast (about triple the competition of any other city), our clear and heavily promoted niche of 100% private Personal Training, and all the qualities this embodies, has ensured business has been booming the whole time. We never give away free sessions, we have over 80% of clients we meet with join and our average client spends $5,000 with us with many having spent over $30,000. Add to that the fact that we tend to get a lot of older, larger or under confident clients who have failed at a Gym yet gone on to succeed with us and the business is personally rewarding, not just financially rewarding.
Despite being pretty happy with our Gold Coast success, it wasn’t enough. I’d been juggling training clients, managing staff, marketing and all the other hats of a business owner for a decade. I needed to invest more time in the long term goals of being Australia-wide. As a cautious person who also still loved training clients it was a tough decision, but the right one to achieve my own goals. So four years ago I put my clients, many of which I’d seen weekly for 10 years plus, on to our many other excellent Trainers and focussed on building the business with a view to franchising. We expanded Brisbane wide with Mobile Personal Trainers to test the water in another city prior franchising. It was a roaring success so we began the costly and time consuming process of franchising and becoming Franchise Council Australia accredited and following the extremely strict ACCC Franchise Code.
Expanding into Franchising
Franchising was a natural progression for us as we were already half way there. We had a business that had been tried and proven over a decade and had already successfully expanded to another city. The biggest limitation to our growth wasn’t getting clients; it was getting Personal Trainers with a business owner mentality that wanted a long term career. Franchising meant we could easily attract more people with this mentality and they could also have an unlimited earning potential as a real business owner. Thankfully for us, there’s minimal competition in this area, the most prominent being Gym rent which is really “renting a job” as opposed to “buying a business”. Or starting your own one man show business and try to figure out business and marketing in a marketplace crowded with countless other Trainers doing the same. With a long term price that’s comparable to Gym rent for a Mobile franchise, and Studio franchises at about a quarter of the price of a 24/7 Gym, our franchises provide a great opportunity for many Trainers.
Being a Fitness Enhancement Franchisee
Our franchisees also get many benefits that no other Personal Training opportunity offers them. As a franchisee they obviously get an exclusive territory and all the staffing and growth opportunities they desire and all the business support to back them up. They also get big budget marketing 100% targeted to people that want an expensive Trainer, not a cheap Gym. Through our 1800 PT for U number they also practically have their own marketing and secretarial service to take new enquiries and book them in to our custom made booking system. Compared to most Trainers missing the bulk of new enquiries (and often having the enquiry then book in with a competitor who answers their phone) due to being with clients or simply away from their phone, this is a priceless system.
We now have franchisees on the Gold Coast, Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney all running successfully and rapidly growing. Most have been Trainers who on their own (Gym rent or own business) had struggled and are now having amazing success as a Fitness Enhancement franchisee. We’re looking forward to continuing to expand in these cities and new cities with many more franchisees as dedicated as we are.
