Choose a Fitness Franchise
Fitness franchises are among the most popular type of franchise businesses. When you own your own fitness franchise, you’ll be tapping into a major need for the vast majority of the population. Each year more and more people want to lose weight and get in shape. As the nation looks at rising obesity rates, especially in children, fitness is going to become a bigger concern.
If your background is in the fitness industry, or you’ve been a lifelong athlete, owning a fitness business could be the opportunity you’ve been looking for. Consider the following fitness industry statistics:
* There are over 30,000 health clubs across the United States
* Over 42 million Americans belong to a type the fitness club
* Adults 55 years of age and older make up about a quarter of fitness club memberships Read more
Gym Fitness Franchise Opportunities
Once you’ve done the research and decided that buying a franchise is the right business opportunity for you, the next step is choosing a franchise. But with so many franchises available in so many different industries, how do you narrow down the selection? First, think about your personal interests. No one wants to run a business he finds uninteresting. For example, if you hate math and crunching numbers, an accounting franchise probably isn’t your best bet. Instead search for businesses that you think would be fun to manage.
One such type of business is a gym. The American fitness craze is definitely here to stay. With $14.8 billion in revenue reported in 2004 and 41.3 million registered health club members as of January 2005, this industry offers franchisees the opportunity to get a slice of a very big pie. If you, like so many other Americans, are a happy passenger on the fitness bandwagon, a gym franchise might be the ideal business venture for you.
Gyms in the Franchise 500®
If you do decide on a gym franchise, of course you’ll want to choose one that has a good reputation for financial performance and franchisee satisfaction. A great tool to help you identify these franchises is Entrepreneur’s Franchise 500®.
Entrepreneur uses the same objective and quantifiable criteria to judge all companies-regardless of size-and formulate a ranked list of the best franchise opportunities Some of the factors considered include: financial performance, growth rate and the size of the company, the number of years a company has been in business and the number of years it has been franchising, start-up costs, litigation, percentage of terminations and whether or not a franchisor provides in-house financing. Read more