Bounce Back Series: How one F45 gym owner continues to innovate through lockdown
In the latest in our Bounce Back series, Jane Roche owner of the Brighton franchise of fast-growing gym workout chain F45 shares how she's kept customers loyal and raring to return post-Covid-19.
Jane Roche, the gym owner of F45 Brighton, bought into the F45 gym franchise back in 2016 as one of the early adopters in the UK. The concept focuses on functional fitness delivered in 45-minute blocks (hence the F45 name) allowing people with a full schedule to still see a trainer.
The franchise started in Australia in 2012 and now has spread out of that region and across the globe with 1,745 F45 gym centers, making it the fastest-growing franchise in the fitness industry. Things were looking good for the franchise and F45 Brighton at the start of 2020.
"We still have the opportunity to increase the number of members," says Jane. "We're not like a huge gym that has 3000 to 4000 members. We're still a boutique fitness concept and, so for us, we comfortably could push to have an extra 50 to 100 members."
And it was heading in the right direction. Before lockdown, F45 Brighton was running 46 to 49 classes per week, but when it closed its doors on 20th March, everything came to a standstill.
"In our first half of the second year we've grown revenue 43% and then, overnight, went to zero income whatsoever," says Jane. "Emotionally, I felt absolutely devastated not from having no money coming in but from what it meant, riding this lovely crest of a wave with everyone connected to be like, 'what's going to happen?'" This is a horrible position that 100's of gym owners found themselves in during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Despite the emotional impact, Jane took a decisive and unprecedented step of communicating with all her members and automatically suspending memberships, rather than try to keep everyone on-board through discounting, completely shaking up her business model, her profits, and her gym owner salary.
"For me, it felt like the right thing to do," Jane says. "We had quite a few people come to us and say 'look, I'm happy for you to keep my monthly membership rolling', which was amazing."
"The night we suspended everyone's membership, we also set them up for free with an F45 online live membership. We wanted there to be a sense of continuity, so no matter what happens, you can still train with us."
Before the F45 live platform kicked in, Jane and her team didn't hang about and right away kicked off training sessions on Instagram Live. When the F45 live sessions started, it ticked a box, but Jane felt there was a need to recapture that sense of community that made F45 Brighton so special.
"It just it feels like you're watching a little bit of a CGI computer screen, which is fine, but that isn't what the members get from us when they come to F45," Jane says. "We want an engaged community experience that's all-encompassing, nurturing, a bit of a laugh but they're still getting the same workout."
The gym started to run live workouts each day exactly as they would in the studio, using two personal trainers and encouraging the community to use alternative items as gym equipment, with most members not having access to equipment at home.
"We put together a nice little document for all the members and said, look, you might be thinking, 'Oh my gosh, I can't do this, I can't do that. We want to show you that you can. This is what we're doing, and this is why we're doing it," says Jane.
"We've got people with petrol canisters using them for deadlifts and people using their sofas instead of steps! It's not perfect, but the workouts are just insane. The feedback we're getting from everyone is so lovely. It has encouraged them to use Zoom and keep connected with the community."
Looking to when gyms get the go-ahead to open again, Jane explains there are two areas of focus: what numbers are needed to make opening commercially viable and how to open safely.
"What are the numbers we need?" Jane asks. "At the minute, we've just built momentum, grown, and thrive. But we need to get down to real specifics. Okay, this is where we need to be. "
"And then a lot around the confidence and comfortability of the members when the studio reopens - what can we do to make sure that the studio is the safest, cleanest space for people to come back to? We've done everything within our power to make the space a safer place to be. That is one of the biggest concerns going forward because, for lots of people, they will have raised anxiety levels."
According to Jane, one of the positives of lockdown has been expanding the reach of the gym to potential new members and far beyond its geographical location.
"We've had lots of people train with us who've never trained with F45 before and, for whatever reason, they don't live locally," she says. "We've got members in New York and New Zealand!"
"In one way, it's given me this lovely connected structure, and it's really held the business together. Now, you feel every single day we've still got goals we want to achieve, and we've still got the members to look after, and that is continuing to grow."
Jane Roche spoke to Futrli CEO Hannah Dawson and COO Helen Cockle as part of the Futrli Bounce Back series. Watch the full interview below.
Watch the full webinar to discover:
- How Jane is looking to re-engineer F45's existing workout schedule to take into account government guidelines while still maintaining the F45 experience
- The exact measures Jane took as soon as the gym went into lockdown with respect to bank loans, franchise fees, and leases
- The reason why F45 Brighton decided to suspend all memberships rather than discount memberships
- How F45 is dealing with the issue of keeping its self-employed trainers on-board