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Post by TiredFranchisee on Jan 21, 2017 2:04:28 GMT
Entrepreneur.com Rankings are interesting.. Check them out.
- Snap US location #s can not be accurate- Im sure they are worse. Although still indicate LOSSES over all in US; Anytime has more than DOUBLED Snap's # of Clubs
- We have lossed 77% of the clubs in our area in the last 3 years. How about all of you?
-Could not find Steele Fitness..?? Isnt this the Brand Snap wanted the Original Business Modeled Clubs to transition into; attempting to stay alive near a Planet Fitness?
-9Round is #124.
-Snap is #125 with dwindling club locations.
-Anytime is #14; 2200 US Franchised Locations and have grown EVERY yr by 100-200 in US and NOT Corporate.
-Anytime's Start up / Royalty and Ongoing Royalty Fee's are about THE SAME as Snap's. Anytime provides WAY more support and Tools that WORK as well as better training and better VETTING of Owners.
Snap has made a lot of dumba** mistakes...
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Post by determined1 on Jan 21, 2017 14:31:35 GMT
Q: What happened to Steele?
A: Lift brands
Unfortunately, Snap's corporate hq doesn't understand much of anything. They don't understand fitness in general and how to create a better experience for members which elevate them over other clubs. They focus primarily on how hq can make money immediately. They leave improving member experience up to the individual owners. However, if those owners speak up then corporate swoops down and tries to stop everything that club is doing which elevates them above the standard snap club. This is one reason why some clubs do well and others fail.
Secondly, snap has no idea about technology. They try to do things themselves, rather than having experts in that area manage it. The service they provide is substandard and the customer support is lacking in almost all areas. They cut their costs by doing this and then charge a premium to their franchisees and try to convince them it's better or at least on par with the experts. Those with experience know just how bad it is.
What I believe they need to do to improve the member experience and the model are:
1. Transition to a better billing and member management system (CRM) and chareg a fair price
2. Eliminate the national marketing fee. (This obviously doesn't go toward any sort of marketing.
2b. Actually use the national marketing fee for marketing (This doesn't include them putting franchising and freeloader programs ads on those)
3. Eliminate the $8.95 freeloader program
4. Implement the credit card auto updater program. (This should have been done long ago. NOTE: This would be part of #1)
I'm sure there are others, but these are my top 4.
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Post by cheryl on Jan 21, 2017 16:03:50 GMT
Here's one difference I found. This is from an article about Retro Fitness:
The CEO said he looks for people to add value from all different walks of life. “You have people who are former company executives, people who are former police officers, we’ve got stockbrokers and contractors,” he said. “The benefit is we gain information and insights from our owners from their previous careers and it’s very helpful for someone to bring something to the table besides a check. I can find people with checkbooks all day long.”
In contrast, snap tells these people all we're interested in is your checkbook. We know better than you about EVERYTHING, so sit down, shut up and just write us an f'ing check.
There's one reason why Snap's corporation is flailing and failing.
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Post by snaplongtimer on Jan 21, 2017 17:22:04 GMT
A good leader surrounds himself with great people and listens to them and their ideas before taking action. Same applies here. As far as the decision making with snap corp, I always wondered who sat in their meetings when they had design reviews... for example their proprietary software. We have seen the bugs which should have never made it past phase 1 in reviews. I know the corp office had a panel of people (years ago) they organized for discussing whatever issues, but I never thought I had a voice for any great ideas I may have submitted. Certainly, never heard a reply on whether they were good ideas or not or did they go straight to the waste basket? I have worked a professional corp job for over 20 years before stepping in this bucket of mud and all I get is "Ok thanks, I'll pass the idea on". I know from personal experience with Pete he can be a difficult person to work with. This coming from his own employees at times. Maybe that has something to do with it.
I look at Anytime's growth chart from that website and see nice growth over the years with very little corp ownership (opposite direction of Snap's chart). To me, growing corp club ownership is a sign of greed. Corp should be buying clubs for experimentation to show how to compete with neighboring competitors and how to succeed in that environment. Instead they buy top performing clubs, milk them for high returns and dump it later when the competition moves in. Then talk tough when WE are experiencing the same and want to exit out of our contract early.
Traditionally, I know Anytime gyms are a bit larger than snap gyms. So I have always wondered, what an ideal sized gym would be perceived by a prospect walking in the door. I have had people think I was too small although I am mid 3k's in sqft. I always thought an Anytime sized footprint is probably better than the smaller footprint snap no frills gym. No larger than that. Ever wonder about that?
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Post by TiredFranchisee on Jan 21, 2017 18:38:57 GMT
Determined: AGREE WHOLE HEARTEDLY; #1 for OUR books is the CC Updater; and an INDUSTRY STANDARD BILLING/OPERATING System. My fee's have tripled.
SnapLongtimer: The Model they Sold everyone was not a tested model and in my opinion; the 3,000 sq ft club was not big enough to offer STANDARD things that you needed to ADD to remain competitive with Anytime Fitness or ANY OTHER gym moving in. Like genius things such as a : SHOWER, DRINKING FOUNTAIN, PRIVATE area for PERS TRAINING or CLASSES. THAT brand was the product of their CoLLective Professional Knowledge?? So if you havent expanded or found a way to add some of those things and negotiated something to keep your costs down and LOWERED your standard Membership and for god sakes STOPPED promoting NO CONTRACTS and added 12 and 18mo options; You are a Franchisee that DIED.
Looking at the facts of the state of their Snap 24 Hr Club Brand; Speaks for itself. Their model was NOT tested or Proven to work before they SOLD 3 packs to a SINGLE OWNER with their main premise you could be ABSENTEE. What does somoeone who bought 3 do when years into it YOU realize you cant spread yourself THIN enough in 3 locations to make enough money to survive; AS the brand is taking a DIVE because Snaps all around you are Closing down ; seemingly OVERnight??
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Post by supercool on Jan 23, 2017 14:32:34 GMT
re: Steele, that isn't the only brand they've dropped. A few years ago, they bought a chain called Kosama (a group fitness model that was sort of like a toned down version of Crossfit). I think a year later they sold it back to the original owners.
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Post by greenergrass on Jan 23, 2017 21:02:22 GMT
I wish they would sell Snap Fitness to someone who would actually care about the brand and be more supportive to the franchisees.
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Post by greenergrass on Jan 23, 2017 21:50:41 GMT
I really think that the only way to be heard is to work in groups. We are several voices here on a forum that corporate may not even pay attention to. And maybe we are scattered individuals representing a minority because it's the same few franchisees that I see who are posting. You have to find others in your area who are as frustrated and become a voice together. All the significant issues have been mentioned. Bring it up again to corporate in emails. Tell them what the risk is to them when they don't listen. It's already happening around us with club closures. Maybe lack of resolution to our issues means YOU may not sign another term with this franchise. Corporate needs to know this. They need to know the threat of failure is real if they don't make some changes that are positive in the eyes of ALL of us not just the clubs who have the luck of being in a decent market.
We have fewer leads. $8.95 is not helping; Country music star - what kind of impact did he really have? Nascar - really? I think it's a waste of money and maybe just Peter's ego having Nascar. We have no credit card updater - it's killing us financially. Our fees continue to rise while the number of leads have tumbled. Zs who have bought into Myzone are not benefiting; FOD - loads of complaints with this....It just doesn't seem like we are winning. I wanted to win. And I wanted to beat Anytime Fitness. But they are beating us.
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Post by Dale on Jan 23, 2017 22:20:20 GMT
Any time fitness is not beating us. They are crushing us!
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Post by greenergrass on Jan 23, 2017 22:59:16 GMT
Sad but TRUE. Lead generation is pathetic, even with 30 day trials. Number of new members joining this time of year is 1/4 what it was four years ago even with all the metro area marketing groups.
Of course, corporate Snap Fitness believes they are doing everything right and it is the franchisees who are not doing enough. And this brings us back to the point of being encouraged to buy more than one and now having to staff these 30-40 hours per week.
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Post by youkiddingme on Jan 30, 2017 18:27:44 GMT
Peter, years ago sold apprx 40% of Snap (to get his payday) to venture capitalists, the original group he sold to sold their portion to another VC group a while back. Now my experience with VC's is they only care about 1 thing and that is putting cash in their pockets. As long as VC's hold a large share of Snap nothing will change except we will pay more for less as their revenues decrease.
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Post by TiredFranchisee on Mar 5, 2017 7:47:30 GMT
Youkiddinme: interested in hearing more info on the Names and Year of VCG's transactions... what else do you know ? Are you talking about 2013 / TZP?
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Post by greenergrass on Mar 5, 2017 17:22:13 GMT
tcbmag.com/News/Recent-News/2014/January/Investor-Buys-$200M-Stake-In-Snap-FitnessFrom this article posted January 2014: "Snap Fitness saw $20 million in earnings and $65 million in revenue for its most recent fiscal year, up from $5 million in earnings and $18 million in revenue in 2008. Taunton said he expects to double the company’s profits and revenue over the next five years." Someone is making money off of OUR investments! And they still charge us more for crap service. It's called GREED. When they are making this much money, it's not really necessary to take advantage of us with the $8.95 trials, as an example. But they do it anyway. And it is one of the reasons I will eventually close and take a huge loss on one location. 2016 Entrepreneur.com indicates 930 US locations. Up from 922 in 2015. I heard someone say (I suppose it may be no more than a rumor) that there are ~700 now in the US. If there will be this big of a reduction from 2016 numbers (not sure when in 2016 this is reported) vs 2017, you would think it would be a huge red flag. I wonder what the new VCG is thinking about the loss in the number of locations.
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