Discover Fit Jeff, your new fitness franchise in South Africa

The fitness market is growing worldwide and continues to do so. Memberships to fitness centres exceeded 182 million in 2018, representing a growth of 31% since 2013.

Within this sector, boutique fitness centres also offer differential value. They are more sociable and friendly than gyms, which is a key factor in user retention. Did you know that the dropout rate at these centres is 2% compared to the 5% registered in conventional gyms?

When opening your own boutique gym, doing so with a franchise —such as Fit Jeff— has a lot of advantages. Here are the main ones!

Reduction in business risk

Starting a business always involves a certain level of risk, regardless of how it’s carried out. However, there are some options where the risk can be minimised to avoid losing money and the desired break even point can be reached as soon as possible. If you open your gym with a franchise you will get the business know-how from the beginning, which is based on experience that you may not have if you’ve never worked in the sector.

Reduction in costs and opening times

Franchises offer a defined and proven business model. This means you can open your business more quickly without having to create a business plan, do market research, prepare a feasibility plan or devise a marketing strategy, etc. This means that you can start operating sooner and start generating income faster.

Continuous advice and training

With a franchise, you’ll have constant support from high-level agents who can advise you on managing the gym franchise. At Fit Jeff, this advice is given even before the opening. For example, choosing the right premises in an ideal location, which will help the business get more customers. All this support will be complemented by training programs.

With Fit Jeff, you will have access to our Jeff Academy platform where you will find business management and operational training material. We have identified the most demanded classes at the local level and will train you so that they can be taught at your centre following our methodology and providing your customers with an excellent experience.

If you want more details about what it takes to open your gym franchise in South Africa with Fit Jeff, get in contact with us.

Fit Jeff is a fitness franchise where customer experience is the priority. We focus on the user and take what motivates them into account when it comes to practicing sports and how we can make their experience in our centres much better than what they would have in a conventional gym. 

What advantages does this have for our entrepreneurs? In addition to offering a differentiated experience within the sector, this positively impacts a key metric: recurrence. If the customer has a good time during training, they are much more likely to repeat and feel motivated. That’s why Fit Jeff has a 78% recurrence rate —ahead of the 50% rate seen in traditional gyms—.

In addition, our centres are flexible and low-cost, which means a high capacity for customer retention.

• Personalised. Fit Jeff classes are done in small groups. This allows instructors to give users personalised attention based on their level which helps them to improve and meet their fitness-related goals. This is far from the crowded atmosphere of traditional gyms.
• Social. En nuestros centros creamos dinámicas sociales en las clases que faciliten que los asistentes creen vínculos entre ellos. Al tratarse de grupos pequeños, es más fácil que los clientes coincidan al asistir. ¡Sabemos que es más fácil ir al gimnasio si coincides con amigos!
• Fun. We offer the most demanded classes with fun dynamics and incredible instructors. Having a good time is essential for the users to feel motivated and want to come back. 
• Oasis environment. Traditional gyms are gray and smelly. Our centres take care of the decoration to create a pleasant environment that allows users to associate going to the gym with their well-being. We are an oasis away from the noise and gray of the city.
• Online classes. All Fit Jeff classes are streamed. This gives users the opportunity to attend classes from anywhere. They can see the option of online classes on the app and make the reservation as usual. Without complications and without supposing an extra effort for our entrepreneurs.

Do you have any questions about how the Fit Jeff fitness franchise works? Contact us through this form. We will send you our dossier with more information about our business model and you can speak with an advisor to have any questions you may have answered.

Our classes are fully standardised, although the instructor has flexibility to adapt the exercises to the level of each person. The class schedule (including music) is changed periodically and designed by our fitness expert to ensure an incredible experience for our users. The classes at our centres have been selected as they are the most demanded worldwide and the most efficient in terms of investment, profitability and the availability of instructors.

In addition, we at Fit Jeff have developed a unique value proposition where technology connects the online and offline worlds. We provide our partners with a series of tools to make their fitness centre profitable through our Business in a Box, a system of solutions where you can find everything you need to run your business and achieve your goals. This is what it includes!

Technology

Our product team is constantly working to improve our technology. In it you will find tools to make life easier for your customers (such as the Jeff App or the Jeff Tablet); or custom software to manage your gym and make the best decisions (Jeff Suite). We will talk about all these tools in the next point.

Ecosystem

By joining Fit Jeff you become part of something bigger. You become part of our ecosystem of day-to-day services designed for our customers so that they can live The Good Good Life. This ecosystem is made up of our four business models: Mr Jeff's home delivered laundry services; Beauty Jeff salons; and the Relax Jeff massage centres. All these services share the same target audience so it’s easier to get customers through cross-selling.

Specialist support 

You have the specialised support of our agents. By joining Fit Jeff you will have a Partner Success Manager to analyse and improve the operation and management of your business; a Partner Support Agent who will give you immediate and daily support through chat, email or telephone; and our Operation Managers, who review and control the metrics on the operation, productivity and quality of your Fit Jeff centre.

Brand and promotion 

With Fit Jeff you open your gym with the help of a consolidated brand which has a presence in 40 countries and has sold over 2,400 stores. We provide tools to make the most of this advantage and create your hyperlocal marketing campaigns.

Smart investment

Our franchise model has proven know-how of proven success, an optimised value proposition with a clear identity and a differential offer.

At Jeff, we use technology to add differential value to conventional business models. We believe that technology can create a better user experience; and we also think that it’s a powerful tool to manage your business. For our Fit Jeff gym franchises, we have the following technological tools:

• Jeff App. This is the app that has all Jeff’s day-to-day services to live The Good Good Life. Through it, they can manage their Fit Jeff subscription and make reservations for their favourite classes. A convenient and accessible way to organise your training! As an entrepreneur, this reservation system also allows you to control your class capacity and respect any security measures that you need to comply with.
• Jeff Tablet. You will have a tablet in your centre which users can use to complete their subscription or reserve their class at the centre itself. For example, if someone comes to the centre to ask for information, they will find a practical and simple tool to subscribe to in case they are interested.
• Jeff Suite. We give you powerful management software to manage your centre. You can use it to control all processes, from billing to customer management. You will also find tools to manage the marketing for your centre. Jeff Suite is also a powerful tool when it comes to statistics. With it, you will be able to see the business and customer metrics to identify opportunities and make decisions that help you improve the profitability of your centre. Lastly, you can use the Jeff Suite to find opportunities to lower your operating costs and improve your efficiency.

By choosing to start with a company like Jeff, you benefit from their product team and their investment in development and innovation, which is a very difficult cost to assume when you open a business on your own. The proof is the valuable technological tools that you will use on a daily basis to manage your Fit Jeff centre.

Opening a fitness centre with a franchise normally costs less than if we were to start from zero on our own. With a franchise model, you must pay for adapting the centre and the franchise joining fee; but you reduce the time and effort needed to get it set up. The sooner you open your gym, the sooner you can start getting customers and income.

This saving of time and effort is due to the fact that you don’t need to do a market study or create a business plan as we provide it with Fit Jeff. We also give you instructions on what your premises needs to have ready to receive your customers. 

Finally, the boutique model of Fit Jeff centres is much cheaper than that of traditional centres, with an initial investment of around R 843,000 which is much lower than a traditional gym. This is because, among others, the classes offered at Fit Jeff (the most in demand worldwide) don’t require expensive machinery. Thanks to our personalised classes in small groups, you don’t need to have a large space. 75m2 will be enough to start your business.

You may have questions about what this initial investment includes or, for example, the monthly payment that you will have to pay later. We are at your disposal to answer all these questions! Fill in this form and one of our agents will be in contact with you.

Opening a gym from zero can seem overwhelming, so we are going to divide this process into seven steps.

• Fill in our form. We will ask you for some information that will be useful to get to know you a little better. One of our specialised agents will contact you for more details and to answer any questions you may have at this initial stage.

• Advice. If you’re still interested after having your questions answered, let's move on! You will receive personalised advice in a second meeting and we will explain in detail our gym boutique franchise model and the details of the specialty with which you want to franchise.

• Zone selection. We will show you the available areas and you can choose the one that best suits you. We make sure that the Fit Jeff centres are far enough apart from each other so that there’s no competition within the same region.

• Sign contract and check information. You’ve had your questions about the gym answered and have accredited the financial resources to face it. Let’s sign the contract! We also take care of checking all the data. 

• Training. Before taking charge of your own fitness centre, you’ll have to pass the training. This is the training process where you will acquire all the knowledge to teach the classes and manage the premises. A Jeff expert will guide you through this process and give you access to our online Jeff Academy platform, where you will have all the necessary knowledge to manage your gym franchise. 

• Adaptation. This step happens at the same time as the training. It starts with the execution of the works and the decoration of the centre. Our team will monitor the entire process. 
• Opening! When the work is finished and approved, your gym will be ready to open. With Fit Jeff, you’ll have the necessary tools to promote your new business and attract your first customers. 

We’re ready to accompany you in this process. Are you ready to take the first step? Fill in the form.