<span style="font-size: 25px;">🕒</span> Estimated reading time: 3 min.
HITZone Global is a breakthrough health and fitness studio business with franchises opening across the UK, Canada and the USA.
The franchise is committed to making a difference and believes people are better equipped to succeed in life if they have access to increased aliveness, vitality and wellbeing. HITZone's passion and vision is to make this available and accessible to all people through its global network of HITZone studios.
Learn more about HITZone's franchise opportunities here>>>
In the latest edition of our Franchisor Q&A, we learn why HITZone's unique training systems and community-based approach makes the franchise standout from other fitness businesses.
Q1. What makes your franchise standout?
Our research showed us that a huge number of people had been let down or not served in the first place by the existing fitness industry. In fact, across the world only 25% of people who should workout do so, resulting in a massive increase in life-style related health issues.
We discovered why this was and set-out to create a solution that would overcome the obstacles people face and that would work for everyone. We created our own unique training system using a breakthrough and now patented machine called the HITZone HIT Machine, which is exclusive to HITZone Global. These machines make available super high intensity training with low to no impact. Our intuitive hydraulic resistance technology and coach supportive approach means anyone of any age and at any fitness level can have a truly effective work out.
We believe we have the best work to result ratio of any exercise approach available today, all backed up by independent scientific data. We have significantly brought down the investment needed to open a fitness franchise and have also reduced the size and space needed for a studio, so finding a suitable business location is no longer an issue. This makes starting a business as a franchisee a real opportunity for many more people, and we are dedicated to continually making this process easier and more accessible.
What makes us stand out the most however, is the people involved with HITZone, both in terms of our franchisee family and our wider member community. We have been immensely proud in the past year to see how supportive, kind and caring everyone involved with HITZone has been.
We have a dedicated community of owners committed to making a real and tangible difference to our members. One of our core beliefs is that people are better able to deal with the challenges of life if they have an abundance of aliveness, vitality and wellbeing.
Q2. Why is it worth investing in your brand?
We have made a profound difference to the lives of regular people by helping them increase their aliveness, vitality and wellbeing. We have a mountain of social proof that details how ordinary people have created extraordinary results for themselves by being members of HITZone.
Sedentary lifestyles increase all causes of mortality, double the risk of cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and obesity, and increase the risks of colon cancer, high blood pressure, osteoporosis, lipid disorders, depression and anxiety. According to WHO, 60 to 85% of people in the world—from both developed and developing countries — lead an increasing sedentary lifestyle, making it one of the more serious yet insufficiently addressed public health problems of our time.
With the COVID 19 pandemic this issue has continued to be a challenge as enforced interventions, such as lockdowns, can exacerbate rates of obesity due to less physical movement and also emotional eating which is often used to relieve negative feelings. The rates of obesity continue to grow in adults and children, and it seems to be a problem which is unfortunately not going away.
This massive problem can however be positively impacted by effective and consistent exercise
The goal of HITZone is to make effective physical activity accessible to those people who are not experienced in exercise, who have possibly never exercised and who are intimidated and/or feel uncomfortable by the thought of going to a regular gym, or those that suffer from a lack of time and/or motivation.
By investing in HITZone, franchisees get to make a real, tangible and positive difference to individual’s lives and to their local community, while also enjoying the freedom and profitability of running their own successful business.
Q3. How is your franchise adapting to the current COVID-19 crisis?
We are one of a small number of fitness businesses that can offer a genuinely Covid-safe environment. Our unique HIT machines allow our members to do a full-body workout on a single machine and we have implemented a ‘one member to one machine’ policy meaning there is no cross contamination during sessions.
Hygiene levels have been increased in-line with and beyond government guidelines with a full clean of the studio between sessions and masks worn by all staff and coaches during sessions.
Sessions are also currently limited to a maximum of 6 members per session and our studios have had their layouts changed to ensure machines are all at least 2m apart to ensure social distancing.
We have had members say that with the measures we have in place they feel safer at HITZone than they do in their own home!
When studios are forced to close due to local lockdown restrictions, we have developed a ‘HITZone at Home’ live video streaming service for our members which they enjoy, both in terms of the fitness session and also from a social point of view as we have a fantastic community at HITZone. We have step counting competitions with our members to motivate outdoor activity, and organised walks where we all go out at the same time wearing headphones and log into the same conferencing app on our phone. This means members can have a group chat while out for a walk, even though we are all out on our own, in our own areas and staying Covid-safe.
All in all, we have been encouraged by our progress as franchise during Covid, with a 70% increase in sales during 2020, our first studio opening in Canada, our first studio about to open in the USA and over 90% of our studios experiencing their largest growth in terms of new member sign ups after the first lockdown at the end of Summer 2020. This tells us that many people have decided to make their health more of a priority as a result of Covid, and at HITZone we will do everything we can to help them on their new health and fitness journey. Our focus is and has always been, to ensure our members and their wellness goals comes first.
Q4. What extra support and assistance are you offering your franchisees during this time?
As mentioned, we have adapted our business model to a ‘one member to one machine’ approach for hygiene purposes in relation to Covid. This has resulted in our session sizes dropping from an average of 10 members per session down to between 3 and 6 members per session depending on the size of the studio. In order to make this as easy a transition as possible for our franchises we have moved from selling HIT Machines to renting them. This has allowed studios to increase their number of machines and therefore increase their number members per session with minimum investment.
We have also developed in-studio screen-based virtual exercise coaching for members in order to comply with restrictions in certain areas. For example, at our Edmonton studio in Canada, members were allowed to come in and exercise themselves, but not with a physical coach present due to local restrictions. Since HITZone provides coach-led, small group training, this in-studio virtual solution enabled the studio to stay open and add value for members with a regular HITZone session while also remaining within government guidelines.
Q5. What plans do you have for the franchise over the next few years?
Our initial goal is to support 1 million people to increase their aliveness, vitality and wellbeing through our global network of studios. We estimate that we will need 6,000 studios in order to achieve this goal.
In the short term, we aim to expand in territories where we are already established, so in the UK, USA, Ireland and Canada. There is more than enough space within these territories for us to meet our initial goal and this will be our focus, however we are open to moving into different territories should the opportunity present itself.
We are also investing in a range of new systems to aid studio managers and also add value to our members.
Q6. What skills are important for your franchisees to have?
HITZone is a socially active community so all our franchisees must love people and be prepared to go the extra mile to help and support their members. Having a truly authentic commitment to making a difference is our main requirement for any franchisee, from there we will work with you in any way we can to support you in fulfilling that commitment.
Franchisees must also be teachable. It sounds simple, but not everyone is willing to take advice and guidance. We have already worked out how to make a studio business successful – that is the beauty of franchising, you just need to be able to follow the recipe. If you want to open your own business and you are teachable, then we would love to teach you!