How to Earn 7 Figures in the Fitness Industry

By Ben Lucas, Personal Trainer and Director of Flow Athletic 

The Australian fitness industry is expected to grow to $2.4 billion by 2022/23, moving at a pace that’s congruent with an increasing national awareness of health. With the rise of Instagram health and fitness influencers, the market has become saturated with the marketing of services, daily exercise posts, advice on fitness etc.

To survive in a growing market, businesses need to be lucrative, progressive and open to change to keep with the times and remain relevant. I started my career as a professional rugby league player and made extra money on the side as a personal trainer. In the end, the former was my true passion and I went on to open 3 successful gyms in the lower north shore. However, there was something missing. 

 My lightbulb moment came when I was training for marathons and ultra-endurance events and relied on yoga to counteract the strain and tightening of my muscles and to help improve my mental health. I found yoga and then I found Kate Kendall, one of Australia’s well-known yogis. The result of our partnering was Flow Athletic, a space where anaerobic and aerobic exercise could co-exist with yoga, spin and a gym space. This was in 2013 where this was quite a dynamic offering that hadn’t been done yet.

After 2 years of opening we won the Telstra Australian Small Business Award and are currently celebrating our 6th birthday this year and turning over $3.5 million annually. 

Flow Athletic has also expanded to include a personal training boutique and a recovery centre called Flow Revive, all the while keeping up with consumer demands. However, Flow isn’t just a physical space, we have since hosted events such as the silent yoga disco that is recognised nationally, run charity events as well train clients to run marathons overseas. 

We didn’t reach this kind of success overnight. 

These are the kind of questions and challenges to set yourself and keep asking throughout the journey:

1.    Decide on what market you want your fitness business to serve

·     Who is your clientele? Is it men, women or both? 

·     What age bracket are you targeting?

·     Is there a specific economic market of clients you are after? 

Ensuring you develop a business plan that answers these questions early will help tailor your service to suit the clientele you want to attract. If you try to meet every type of clientele, you may begin to dilute your offering and spend too much money on attracting a wide-net. 

2.    Create the model of your fitness business around the market that you wish to serve 

·     Is it 25-35 year old males of moderate income levels you want to serve and therefore, your model is a CrossFit box? 

·     Are you after women 30—45 of moderate to high income and so you build a spin or reformer Pilates business?

3.    Craft your marketing to reach a demographic that will frequent your model 

·     What is the best marketing for a 40 year old Mum? What does she read? Who does she follow on social media? What cafes is she going to? Go into detail about who this person is and what they do to get your message in front of them.

Ben will be hosting a half day workshop, ‘The Business of Fitness’on Friday 21 June from 11:30am- 5pm at the Park Hyatt in Sydney where he will share his learnings from  20+ years in the fitness industry plus the know-how from founding, growing and scaling his three businesses

The session will cover:

• Digital marketing and sales

• How to host world class events (like Flow After Dark which we had 900 people to a Yoga Class)

• How we took a team of over 50 to run the @nycmarathon and raised $150,000 for charity on the journey -How to evolve your business to stay ahead of the competition (we have had double digit growth every year since we started in 2013)