How-to Open a Standalone With Minimal Risk

Recently I was in Miami attending Bedros Keulian’s and Craig Balantyne’s 100k Info Mastermind. During one of the breaks I was speaking to one of the members of the group who was facing an interesting situation with his training studio.

Health Club or PT Studio use this simple science of Personal Trainer Marketing and dominate!

When we spoke at the last meeting he was discussing the possibility of moving his studio, he was having some issues with the landlord for the space he was leasing. I learned in Miami that this had escalated to where the lease was actually terminated in the first week of January with only 10 days notice, obviously this left him in quite a bind. Peak season and totally stuck to promote and grow his business.

He was telling me about the alternate locations he had scouted, one in particular that sounded very appealing. Good location, good cost structure, didn’t require too much build out, one major problem the distance from his present location might cost him the majority of his business and he was a little fearful about committing to the lease without having a major prospect list in the new area.

My response to him was why not negotiate a 60-day trial with the landlord, setup a preview type centre and run a 6 week challenge bootcamp? Yes there’s still risk in that without a list there’s likely to be some investment using marketing mediums such as direct mail, facebook and online classifieds but at least the risk is mitigated because the whole thing can be wrapped up with little to no penalty in 60 days.

The real value is that the right offer can easily bring in 20-100 people for a 6 week bootcamp which you can then pitch your conversion offer that logically makes sense. We’re testing this location and the program, if you love the program here’s the stay on board offer if we achieve (breakeven minimum) we’ll stay and here’s the plan for the facility.

Naturally don’t bill people for continuation until it’s confirmed you’re going to stay but the point is here is the exact plan as to how you could test market any brick and mortar spot with minimal risk. Any place that’s been empty for any length of time will likely have a landlord willing to negotiate. Use banners and your web presence to provide the credibility to your participants to see the vision of what you’re creating and at the same time use the short-term program to reassure them that they’re not being scammed.

Sure it’s not without further obstacles but the point is if you’re thinking of a brick and mortar location or moving a present location it doesn’t have to be a scary “all-in” investment like many believe, I hope in a few weeks to give you an update on what exactly happened in this situation.