Franchise in the spotlight: Anytime Fitness

Many American brands have penetrated the United Kingdom over the course of the last thirty years. The obvious candidates here are the household names of McDonald’s, Subway, KFC and Burger King. With regards to the former two of these fast-food behemoths, they have enjoyed considerable growth on these shores, and worldwide, with the aid of franchising.”

Yet, there is one global franchise that has eclipsed them both in terms of its rate of expansion. Founded in 2002, 24-hour gym chain Anytime Fitness opened its 2,000th club on December 3 2012, a feat which it took McDonalds 32 years to achieve. Subway, on other hand, had to wait 23 years to reach that particular milestone.”

What makes the growth of Anytime Fitness so compelling is the fact that it operates in a sector that can be regarded as both the polar opposite and best friend of the food service sector. As much as treating oneself to a meal out is a popular pastime for large swathes of the global population, keeping oneself fit and healthy has similarly universal appeal. Likewise, neither industry will ever come under any real threat from the internet and the inroads it is making into everyone’s daily lives.

Nevertheless, it would be naïve to suggest that Anytime Fitness’s growth is purely a result of people’s constant need to keep in shape. There has to be something to set one gym concept apart from another and thus make it worthy of the everyday fitness freak’s attention. In the case of Anytime, the very notion of a local 24/7 gym that is open 365 days a year stands it in decent stead. Yet, it was only after taking on board the views of customers that the company’s co-founders – Jeff Klinger, Chuck Runyon, and Dave Mortensen – realised that there was demand for such a service.

“They were listening to their members, listening to the stories, and listening to what they needed to do to try and adapt a business to support modern-day living,” explains Karl Dietrich, sales and marketing manager for Anytime Fitness UK. “They fell upon the 24-hour concept and asked themselves ‘how do we simplify the whole process of a 24-hour gym concept?'”

The answer, it transpired, was franchising. “Within that first year, they had three clubs open and they very quickly realised that suddenly they had a product that they could franchise,” Dietrich continues. “And by franchising, they could maintain the model standard and maintain the brand standard for bringing very emotive, very motivated people on board who could make a real impact.”