Never open up another location without knowing this…
Cale here.
I want to talk about a topic that comes up 90% of the time when I chat with gym owners.
Opening multiple locations.
For a fleeting second, it was my goal when I owned my gym and for the vast majority of gym owners it seems to be theirs as well…
The dream of dominating your city with multiple locations filled with clients and your bank account stacking with cash…it’s exciting to think about.
But is it the right move? And when should you open up a second location?
For most gym owners, it’s not the right move and they should never open up another location.
But for a very small % of business owners, it’s not a terrible idea.
So today, I want to walk you through the benchmarks we have used to help gym owners know if they’re ready and when they should open up another location.
And it’s really quite simple.
That’s it.
If you reach that, you have a business that’s fully operationalized and you can now entertain the idea of opening up another location.
But if you’re not there yet, let me tell you what’s going to happen (and maybe for some of you reading this, it’s happening now).
You start seeing success in one location. Your revenue is increasing, your member count is growing, and maybe you’re seeing a decent profit.
But the profit isn’t really where you want it to be so you think to yourself, if I open another location then I’ll have two locations making the same amount and I’ll double my take home.
Common fallacy by the way.
So you go all in on opening up the other location.
Find a location – this one is even nicer than the one you had before because, well…why not?
You start hiring all the people for it.
Maybe you do a grand opening campaign and start to see some sign ups.
All the while, you’re taking money and attention from your current location to feed the new one.
You’re 6 months into your 2nd location and it’s doing ok.
But wait a second…
You do a review of your finances and you notice something strange…
You’re not making anymore money…in fact you’re making less money.
The first location isn’t making as much money because you’ve been busy and focused on the 2nd one and since you had to hire someone to help replace you, your expenses have gone up.
Couple that with taking the profit from one to fund the second one and all of sudden you have less money.
So you start working even harder to bring them all up.
6 months go by and you’re still grinding. Numbers look a little better but nowhere near where they should be.
You put your head down again and keep grinding.
6 months later you review and realize that you’re making the same amount of money from two locations as you were from one but you’re working 2x as hard.
This is the reality for most multi location owners…and it’s completely avoidable.
Just get one gym to the point where it’s making you $20k/mo in take home with minimal work and a full staff, then you can start to think about opening another one.
Doesn’t mean you should…but at least by this point you have the opportunity to think about it.
Otherwise, save your time, attention, hairline, heart health, sanity, bank account, and your marriage by focusing on your one location.
Until next time…
