If you've been following me you know that I've drawn a line in the sand. A lot of people don't like what I've been saying, and frankly, I'm not moved. I've had disingenuous "Friending" invitations,  calls to my cell, pseudo "Likes" and phantom LinkedIn profile views, from whom? I'll tell you. Principals, corporate entities, and franchisees of at least seven different gym brands, the same models I'm challenging in this post that are constantly promoted and celebrated in the media courtesy of their 5th Avenue PR talking heads.   

In contrast I've received random and unsolicited calls from the other camp. DM's, emails and IM's from a growing tribe of fitness players applauding my message. They run the gambit from NEW independent developers, previous franchise owners (YES), gym consultants, and fitness industry spokespeople.

That Message: The big-box gyms, the chains, the boutique studios, all of them, can be usurped, out positioned and reduced to secondary-gym-non-events if you deliver a superior model to your marketplace.     

"The big-box gyms, the chains, the boutique studios, all of them, can be usurped, out positioned and reduced to secondary-gym-non-events if you deliver a superior model to your marketplace"   Cuoco Black 

Why would I jeopardize my reputation and argue counter to mainstream rhetoric the idyllic propaganda of rainbows and unicorns relentlessly fed to us by these players? Perhaps, just perhaps, my platform has been tested.

So, in my opinion, here below, the 10 fitness fails one might encounter if they've bought into the fitness pyramid scheme.

1. ENCROACHMENT: This is a gnarly and seditious marketing disadvantage. When "like" gym models enter into the same demographic competing for the same consumer, hello, as if this isn't happening. Encroachment validates my premise that this industry is flailing in a "death spiral of better sameness".

2. ROYALTY FEES: My goodness, why you would turn over what? 5% of your monthly revenue to the "Franchisor Wizard of Oz" so he can buy his wife that new Tesla or put his kid in Harvard defies logic. Wake up developers! Reinvest that royalty revenue in a dazzling facility of your own or on an advertising campaign that renders your competitions marketing laughable. 

3. A TRUSTED BRAND: I love this one. There is NO consumer gym brand loyalty. If you think a brand name will carry your gym model in this era of consumer consciousness "courtesy of the Internet and social media" you haven't gone to the gym auction web sites replete with numerous brand names on the "fitness chopping block" .

4. INFLATED PRICES ON SUPPLIES AND EQUIPMENT: Bruce Axler of Spruce Point Capital recently reduced Planet Fitness's pedigree from that of an IPO fitness superstar to (in his words) " a glorified equipment reseller". If you think that your franchisor isn't getting "kick-backs" across goods and services that you are contractually obligated to purchase you aren't entrepreneurial-centric, you're a sheep being led to slaughter. Remember that thing called the Internet? I'm suspect that there's goods and services, offered by a galaxy of vendors, that would result in savings on those line item expenditures to your P&L.  

5. LACK OF LEGAL RECOURSE: As a franchisee, you have little legal recourse if you're wronged by the franchisor. Most franchisors make franchisees sign agreements waiving their rights under federal and state law, and in some cases allowing the franchisor to choose where and under what law any dispute would be litigated (ref: NOLO.com). In real-time. A competitor comes to town with a superior gym model, better marketing, better equipment, better programming (the newest and coolest). A: You change your gym to match or exceed the new competitor. B: Acquiesce to your contractual agreement and remain tied to the franchise model enabling the franchisor to keep his brand consistent. Market revenue moves where?

6. RESTRICTIONS ON POST TERM COMPETITION: So you got "a learnin". Your franchise model's faults, and all the painful lessons have brought you to the realization that you now know how beat your competition, but you also know how to dismantle your former "employer/franchisor's" business model. Unfortunately, due to noncompetition clauses built into almost every franchise agreement, franchisees are not allowed to become independent business owners in a similar business after termination of the franchise agreement. By purchasing a franchise, you may be unwittingly limiting your business opportunities for years after the expiration of your contract.

7. ADVERTISING FEES: (Say 2% on top of the Royalty Fee.) It's 2016 fitness family and if you're not marketing like the A+ players you don't belong in a consumer driven business model. The ad campaigns and marketing generated by these brands are non-specific and globally molded by marketing firms 1000's of miles away. They have little sensibility of your community and your member base. In contrast, a stealthy, independent, and shrewd gym owner can craftily dance around the franchisee's generic marketing with their own organic and uber-cool advertising campaigns that are highly targeted and community-centric to the target demographic. Reinvest that 2% monthly royalty fee into geo-specific marketing that keeps your brand engaged and top-of-mind in your community. Don't give it to the franchisor and their Madison Avenue marketing agencies. 

8. DESIGN: I've resisted talking about design because it's not my intention to throw a right hook (in the wisdom of Gary Vaynerchuk). I'm trying to help independent developers sift through the onslaught of hyperbole directed at them by the investment groups and their marketing agencies who benefit from you buying into their "schist". I will say this. When gym design looks like a boutique hotel, or a sexy restaurant, or bar, or nail salon, it says nothing about fitness or a gym brand. When a gym design looks like a washed out Home Depot with a sea of exercise equipment, it says nothing about a unique and organic brand. All of the preceding gets me angry because I haven't done a good enough job in delivering my message to my fitness family. Before you buy into the smiling faces and the success stories of the franchisors, ask yourself. "Will hard work, in-depth research, detailed analysis, scientific inquiry and emotionless strategy, before I make this investment, lead me to a place (sometime in the future) that sustains my investment or puts it in a position of vulnerability?"

9. HIGH START UP COSTS = YOUR INVESTMENT. I recall reading the initial investment to buy into a franchise can fall between 55K and 3.9M. Really? You're going to sign that investment over to a franchisor and be locked into their business model. Again, every feature of a franchise model: equipment, programming, software, marketing, insurance, and design is accessible at trade shows and on the internet. You need to think unemotionally here.

1. Is turning over 55K up to 3.9 M, for goods and services that you can purchase yourself make sense? (PS those goods and services don't show the kick-back monies that went to the franchisor when you bought into the game).

2. Don't forget. Part of this investment is graft "skimmed off the top" for nothing other than buying into the franchisor's brand name. (Your investment in their brand name is their graft and how they pay for those Tesla's and college degrees for their kids). You've been "sold". The franchisor illustrates all the bells and whistles, but you can bet that my list is not part of their presentation package.  

3. Systems. Part of the franchisor's sales pitch is that they provide Support and Systems. This is marketing/sales hype, don't be seduced. Support and Systems are useless when a superior gym model comes into your marketplace. Really? A super-bad-ass-gym comes into your market and the franchisor will rescue you? There is nothing in the franchisor's goods and services that will usurp a superior gym model, it cant happen, you bought the template, templates are locked-down. As often happens these clubs are bought back by the franchisor, kept as a corporate owned facility, or as loss leader, or repackaged for another "franchisee". There are many outstanding gym consultants in the market, and software providers, and ancillary systems available that will provide you with equal, if not greater, support and systems than the franchisor.

4. You have little control over your franchise model if any of the disruptor's in this post impact's your club. Remember, you turned over control of "your investment" and how it's managed to the franchisor when your legal council authorized your endorsement to the franchise agreement. 

5. DO THIS. Invest these same monies in your OWN gym model and dominate those who were seduced into buying into the franchise, big-box or boutique studio brands. Create your OWN brand name and business model and out market the franchisee in your target demographic. Retain trusted fitness industry consultants to help you set up shop, plan pre-sale, strategize marketing, put systems in place, and train staff. Shop the marketplace for goods and services (you won't be losing money to kick-back commissions in this scenario). RESULT = A superior gym model that can tweak, adjust, change, adopt and differentiate from the static brands in the market.

10. THE BRAND: I recently blogged: "The Fitness Industry's Core Problem Is Better Sameness - At the core DNA of the problem is a fitness industry looking in at itself counterfeiting design, amenities, programming, to wit, the business models of its competitors. This is the alchemy of better sameness that dooms any one brand in a market". What's happening is the brands are trying to one-up each other, they've become B2B focused, rather than B2C focused on the consumer. This is prime opportunity for those developers who wish to dominate their markets. Strategy: Don't adopt ANY features of the existing brands simply deliver your own superior gym model to the marketplace.

"The Fitness Industry's Core Problem Is Better Sameness - At the core DNA of the problem is a fitness industry looking in at itself counterfeiting design, amenities, programming, to wit, the business models of its competitors. This is the alchemy of better sameness that dooms any one brand in a market" Cuoco Black

Learn more at: www.fitnesscenterdesign.com
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About Cuoco Black:  Cuoco Black is a design academic, interior designer, entrepreneur and natural bodybuilder. He's a former faculty member and holds a BFA with Distinction, and a Professional Design Diploma, from the New York School of Interior Design, ranked #1 in the nation for superior interior design curriculum's by the Design Futures Council.  Cuoco Black is additionally the designer of the Experimental Cocktail Club, Paris France, rated one of the top 20 Bars in the world.
Cuoco Black was recently retained to design a 35,000 square foot ultra luxury gym brand in Russia inclusive of an 8,000 square foot spa.
The designer is developing new gym models across diverse market segments including luxury brands, functional training franchises, independent gyms and residential fitness facilities.
"Brand don't Trend"....Cuoco Black 2016
#gymdesign #gymbranding #gymtrends #gymideas #gymrescue #gymmarketing #gymowner #fitnessentreprenuer #luxurygym #independentgym #fitnesscenter

Behold yet again, delivered across our digital and print media platforms, flawed opinion of another fitness industry talking head. Though I'm sure well intentioned and possessing two plus decades of industry expertise, his commentary perpetuates the myth of the demise of the independent gym.  Illusionary and subjective his indictment goes wide, not deep, committing to exile an entire market segment of the fitness arena.
His platform? The resultant phenomena of a robust marketplace dominated by big-box, chain models and the new boutique studios. As I'll explain, his tenor though authoritative and well meaning is prejudiced. He's an industry insider, and if I might add, reason enough to avoid his advice. My response to his message "utter nonsense....but also....absolute truth"
absolute truthIn part, his rhetoric rings true for those developers who continue to deliver the same pedestrian gyms to their markets. You know them when you see them. Cross category models including the big-boxes, the chains, small regional brands, and the many independents, all employing nearly identical design aesthetics. The signature features are imitated, duplicated, simulated and cloned by virtue of their adoption in facilities across the country.

• Home Depot style light fixtures that reduce a gym's interior to a clinical-bleached-out-barren-landscape.    
• Juvenile paint schemes, motivational memes, body building posters and edgy slogans.
• Mediocre branding, half-hearted and barely distinctive including the always imitated abstract logo of a running man/woman figure.
• Elemental exercise equipment with little differentiation beyond that of the competition.
• Anemic hyperbole as in "state of the art equipment or facility"
• Reception desks and decorative lighting specified for boutique hotels and restaurants.....(goodness, why would you want your gym to look like a boutique hotel or restaurant? Get some backbone and create your own brand)

These easily identifiable and widely duplicated design elements reinforce the dogma promulgated by fitness industry talking heads. To be clear, what I am saying is "those independent operators who embrace these same aesthetics are those same operators who weaken their market position and sabotage their brands".  Design alone isn't the only benchmark that undermines the independent. It's the wholesale adoption of fitness industry conventions, clichés, trends, pricing, programming and equipment. If you Mr. or Mrs. independent gym owner employ these conventions, than you should so deservedly own your pain.
"At the core DNA of the problem is a fitness industry looking in at itself counterfeiting design, amenities, programming, to wit, the business models of its competitors. This is the alchemy of better sameness that dooms the industry at large"

utter nonsenseAt present, the boutique studios predominate tabloid play. But it's not the studios which transcend the dystopian future prophesized by fitness doom struck Cassandras. The boutique studios will be gone in five years upstaged by models promoted by a new breed of snake-oil salesmen. It's the new independent gym developers who will usurp market share, you just haven't seen them coming at scale. They are converging. And that is good for them. And you. If you are one of them.
The developers we've engaged are a new breed of fitness entrepreneur. Outsiders whose vision hasn't been blurred by the death-spiral of better sameness which permeates the very fabric of the fitness industry. Their clubs are dropping into markets overrun with "like" gym brands...and I mean all of them. These new developers come to the table embracing innovative gym branding philosophies.
Equipment selections are shrewdly specialized, there are no wide swaths of any one manufacture's brand. Programming and amenities are member specific, diversified, customized and tailored to the member base. Luxury, or better said, upscale, is a common denominator employed as a marketing strategy that reduces the aesthetics of the existing gym brands to pedestrian stereotypes. Design (of course I'm going to promote our contribution) is simply arresting, dramatic and specialized to the model, it is powerfully branded.
In summary, this post is all about branding and marketing. I'm providing you with real-time evidence of a new breed of gym developer coming to market who isn't swayed by media rhetoric. They trust their instincts. They are B2C laser focused and fitness consumers know it when they see it. To paraphrase serial entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk "the market doesn't care about your feelings". I would venture to say that could be extrapolated to infer loyalty metrics which would include fitness consumers who will abandon one brand for another they deem superior.  
If you think about it, those better sameness gym models I've been talking about are B2B focused.  They're trying so hard to upstage their industry competitors that they've lost sight of marketing to the consumer. Let me know how that works out for you.

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Opinion: There is a gym model that can serve every customer demographic for better or worse depending on your philosophy. Society benefits regardless of the modality. The following article is not a condemnation of any one market segment but rather a impassioned reflection of the emotions and perceptions of the developers who've decided to deliver their own unique gym model to the marketplace.

No doubt. The big-box gyms own the lower priced demographic and the luxury gym brands the top. The chains, the lazy man’s portal to gym ownership offers developers a viable turn-key fitness solution ripe with systems affording efficiency and fast-lane access to market. Currently media rhetoric celebrates the new emerging boutique cycle-barr-bootcamp-crossfit-esque gym trends (the flavor of the year) as intimidating fitness modalities. All told, the preceding conjecture possesses all the trappings of a garden variety Orwellian conspiracy capable of great evil.

There’s another prevailing fitness argument that’s been reduced to old news as a counterpoint to the gym models described above. Content delivered by fitness talking heads dismissing the very cradle of fitness, the old school mid price gym model as forlorn, rudderless and doomed for extinction. In real time, nothing could be further from the truth.

As these new developers pass our doors I admire their optimistic mantra which contradicts the rhetoric we’ve all come to accept as Gospel. It’s as if they’ve fallen upon some Arthurian “Holy gym Grail” and foresee the promised fitness land.They rebuff the siren-song promoted by fitness editorial and other media trumpeting the $9.99 gyms as an invincible model poised for global domination and exponential growth.
Next the chains, one notch up in market segment, category, and price-point promise a juggernaut of passive income, a carefree lifestyle, and the prestige and ownership of their superior fitness brand. The developers have confided in me, first hand, that they’ve “kicked the tires” and shopped the chain franchise models and have resolutely said no thank you.
These new developers are not so poised (or inspired) to develop a luxury facility either, those elitist-gym-snobbery-models that resemble boutique hotels and say nothing about fitness, energy, or a fitness brand. (Reality Check Here)> The luxury gym brand is derivative design adopted from the hospitality industry. It’s defined as boutique design and celebrated by design intelligentsia as chill, sophisticated and oh so sexxy. So there you have it. Boutique design’s core ideology is chill and sexxy and as far as I can reason, chill and sexxy has nothing to do with a fitness experience. I would argue that a fitness experience must amplify energy and excitement and a unique brand, not a lounge vibe.
Finally their take on the new “pop-up” trends. Maybe it’s their entrepreneurial spirit that move them to reject the cycle-barr-bootcamp-crossfit-esque gym trends. Perhaps they like the game, the challenge, the climb, ownership if you will, in contrast to a templated gym model where authority rests with the all powerful “franchisor” Wizard of Fitness. Candidly, and just maybe, they’re life-savvy enough to know a trend when they see it. I do.

So what are the common denominators of these new maverick developers that empower them to reject wholesale all of the models illustrated above?Pretty much they’re all passionate fitness enthusiasts, that’s a given. It’s certainly in contrast to the investment groups and stockholders who’ve usurped the benefits of health and wellness for gym models that reduce fitness to a commodity beholden to the financial statement.
Secondly, they’re intimately connected with their members, not that the other models aren’t. It’s just that they’ve got skin in the game, there’s no hierarchy or pyramid fitness scheme that has their back.
Third…they deliver marketing, social, community outreach, and programming in an organic geo-specific stream demographically targeted and strategically scrutinized, they walk the walk.
Finally they promote, promote, promote, results in a fitness vernacular that reflects their own vision and business model and experience with the game. This is an interesting insight inferring that each developer delivers fitness service to their membership base in their own unique voice.
In summary, the independent gym developers are moving the fitness landscape along a new path. Applaud them all for they’re the new disruptive force emboldened by an ideology of wellness and health which has lost its way.

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"Regardless of your existing architectural envelope, your windowless basement box, your featureless sparse warehouse or unimaginative strip mall rental... dramatic design transformation of your space can profoundly alter the public's perception of your gym" Cuoco Black 

Greater still is the impact you can make as the outstanding gym brand in your market.

The before and after images of the cardio section of Mid City Gym (above) illustrates the dramatic transformation of this New York City subterranean concrete box. The client questioned the viability, challenges and investment required to transform the utilitarian space into a profitable gym model. Our design recommendations centered on one trajectory.  


Embrace the concrete environment, don't try to hide it with sheetrock walls, ceilings and rooms which would require labor and materials for framing, wiring, mechanical ventilation, sheet rocking and finishing.  

1. The strategy focused on an open plan with few rooms.

2. Painted walls and ceilings (concrete colored of course) were left exposed with sparse ornamentation mechanically attached to the walls,  
3. Floor and furniture finishes were specified in colors and patterns that which reflected the brand and concept.... but also in dramatic contrast to the concrete envelope.

In essence the concrete room became a canvas, as in a painting, to the few design elements which punctuated the space.

TAKE AWAY: Savings in tens of thousands of dollars in labors and materials by embracing the existing architectural features of the space rather than designing over them.

IN CONTRAST: You will find many design firms which will recommend complete transformation and build-out of like environments. Such recommendations result in two outcomes. The squandering of your investment and the padding of the designer's portfolio.
RECOMMENDATION: Before committing to construction and build-out take inventory of your pre-existing architectural environment. Elements which appear challenging may in fact be powerful design features that can reinforce your brand, save you substantially in construction, and result in a super-cool design that transcends the clichés and trends employed by your competition.  


Arrest design egos, build smartly #savemoney

Cuoco Black Learn more at: www.fitnesscenterdesign.com
Follow Me On Instagram @ GymDesigner
Facebook/ FitnessCenterandGymDesign

About Cuoco Black:  Cuoco Black is a design academic, interior designer, entrepreneur and natural bodybuilder. He's a former faculty member and holds a BFA with Distinction, and a Professional Design Diploma, from the New York School of Interior Design, ranked 4th in the World for superior interior design curriculums by US News and World Report. Cuoco Black is additionally the designer of the Experimental Cocktail Club, Paris France, rated one of the top 20 Bars in the world by foodandwine.com
The designer is additionally developing new gym models across diverse fitness market segments including luxury brands, functional training franchises, independent gyms and residential fitness facilities.

#gymideas #gymbranding #gymdesign #bestgymdesign #gymreceptionareas
#gymlockerrooms #fitness #gym #muscleandfitness #mensfitness #gymrescue #menshealth
#gymtrends #fitnesstrends #hgtv #bravo #spike #disneyabctv #aetv #gymlighting #gymdesignexpert
#worldsbestgyms #beautifulgyms #bestgymbrands #gymowner-

"Brand Don't Trend" Cuoco Black 2015

TOP GUN: Slang, a person who is the best or one of the best in a particular field; the top ranked person in a group.

I admire the insights of Guy Kawasaki. Kawasaki, former technology evangelist for Steve Jobs at Apple states that A players hire A+ players, and B players hire C players, and C players hire D players...obviously metaphor for the value smart leaders (A types) desire when hiring top (A+) talent for their team. 

This post asks... "Why would one hire B players to execute when the ROI generated as a result of the A+ player's pedigree and skill set is known widely in the marketplace?"

Well, a number or reasons. 

Often B players are in close proximity to the principal. B players are understandably less expensive to retain than A+ players. B players, on occasion, are friends or family. B players are peripherally familiar with the skills required to design but they're not A+ specialists...in other words, architects and designers who design homes possess design skills....however they don't have the expertise or insights required to design gyms. Be forewarned. If your objective is to scale and grow your gym business and compete in this oversaturated fitness marketplace, your B player gym design is sooner or later going to encounter A+ gym design delivered by your competition.

"If your objective is to scale and grow your gym business and compete in this oversaturated fitness marketplace your B player gym design is sooner or later going to encounter A+ gym design delivered by your competition"

The pool from which gym designers are often sourced is deep and robust.
1. Friends
2. Lovers and Spouses
3. Local Architects and Designers
4. Residential, Retail, Hospitality Decorators, Designers and Architects
5. Some hybrid matrix of any of the above

Friends:  Friends, or friends of friends whose design expertise is limited to building man caves and consumed episodes of HGTV will assuredly undermine any effort to create a dominant gym brand. 

Lovers and Spouses: Gym developers who enable spouses to specify design based on having, good taste, design knowledge of gyms they've frequented, a stack of Lifestyle Design magazines and access to Google Search, place their investments at risk as the preceding are not prerequisites to pedigreed gym design or branding.  

Local Architects and Designers: Proximity to your facility might seem like an advantage in retaining a design firm however the advantage gained is soon lost when designers unfamiliar with the ethos of fitness place their aesthetic stamps on your facility resulting in nice design.... but not outstanding gym design.  
  
Residential, Retail, Hospitality and Office Designers: The least effective way to develop a gym brand is to invite home designers and decorator's to brand your gym. Resultant aesthetic...the Boutique Design Trend, an over exhausted style exploited across all of commerce that says nothing about fitness nor your brand.

Boutique Design (above) says nothing about fitness, nor does it exhibit energy or excitement, nor does it reinforce the brand, yet the aesthetic continues to be sold to gym developers as sophisticated and relevant. The design firms who promote this aesthetic are less interested in creating a dominant gym brand and more interested in creating design that embellishes their portfolios. Don't squander your investment on this over exhausted cliché.

To be clear, when savvy gym developers hire A+ talent and Top Gun consultants their strategy is to enter the market with a gym brand that is exponentially superior to the competition. Their objective; market domination and supreme ownership of the target demographic. I.e., they retain the A+ players because the skill sets A+ players bring to the table results in a superior brand that upstages the competition. This strategy also provides a hedge against those who are considering entering your market in the future but are unable to deliver an equal or greater brand or brand aesthetic.

Gym Branding and Design should telegraph fitness, reinforce the brand, promote the mission and exhibit excitement, energy, and power, as metaphors for exercise, strength and fitness. Friends, spouses, home decorators and local designers don't roll this way, they're simply interested in creating nice design. 

Design Takeaway: Be the A+ Gym Brand..be the Top Gun

Mid City Gym's entry in Manhattan's Times Square is an uber-cool and innovative design that immediately telegraphs fitness. It exhibits energy, excitement, and the interior color scheme and concept in a unified aesthetic that powerfully reinforces the brand. This is a marketing strategy that seduces prospects to buy into the brand.
Learn more at: www.fitnesscenterdesign.com

About Cuoco Black:  Cuoco Black is a design academic, interior designer, entrepreneur and natural bodybuilder. He's a former faculty member and holds a BFA with Distinction, and a Professional Design Diploma, from the New York School of Interior Design, ranked 4th in the World for superior interior design curriculums by US News and World Report. Cuoco Black is additionally the designer of the Experimental Cocktail Club, Paris France, rated one of the top 20 Bars in the world by foodandwine.com
The designer is additionally developing new gym models across diverse fitness market segments including luxury brands, functional training franchises, independent gyms and residential fitness facilities.
#gymdesign #gymbranding #gymtrends #gymideas #gymrescue #gymmarketing #fitfam #fitlife #fitfluential #hgtv

.....If Walt Disney designed your gym, do you believe you would have a greater or lesser chance of success? Better still, how would your competition fare? To be clear, I'm not promoting that your gym aesthetic be Disney-esque, or themed, I'm making a case for powerful and beautiful design that seduces prospects to buy into your brand. 

"Disney's genius was his ability to take something from his imagination and forge it into a reality that directly influences the experience of others in a positive way"

(Copyright © 1996 by Robert Dilts., Santa Cruz, CA.)

Consider embracing Disney's strategy when developing your gym model.......that is, create spaces that transcend the ordinary, that upstage the conventions, that defy the clichés. Why? Because Disney, like Howard Schultz of Starbucks, created spaces that gave us a place between "work and home".

The Big-Box Chains Are Not Invincible

I have commented on the rise of the independent gym model in an earlier post making a case for the "erosion in the belief of the invincibility of the big-box gym model".

Yes, I'm directly saying that the big-box chains are NOT invincible in contrast to the rhetoric, illusion and smoke and mirrors that the populate the media regarding the chains indisputable, inevitable, undeniable, superior business model, that is, at one time. 

Looking back it's no wonder the chains had made inroads against the independents. Historically the fitness industry lags, by a decade, the global vernacular of cutting edge design. One of chains strategies was to create operating systems and better design than the independents. Yes, there are many factors other than systems and design that are a result of this phenomena, however, this is a 250 word blog post and our clients are keen on the design equation. In design summary, the independents thought little of the marketing impact that interior design could have on their business and kept delivering, and still do, gym models that are simply antiquated.

.....a few of the antiquated gym design elements that continue to be embraced by independent gyms are as follows.

• Lifeless plants in macramé baskets
• Garish juice bar signage and graphics
• Juvenile and unimaginative branding and aesthetics
• Finishes and fixtures sourced at the local Home Depot
• Bleached out interiors courtesy of HID and fluorescent lighting
• Refrigerators brimming with muscle drinks beyond a reception desk 
• Third world marketing efforts such as muscle T-shirts suspended on wire hangers

Avoiding Change Undermined The Independents

Gym developers, you just can't do this any longer, it's a new game. The chains in are streamlined and updated and the consumer knows the difference. Chains aside, I'm sure you've seen your social media feeds brimming with stories of the new boutique gym models....sexy, slick, sleek, all of whom are making inroads in the marketplace, and there you have it. The new cycle is unfolding in real time, right before our eyes, because the new boutique gyms are really just a resurgence of the independents. Employing new aesthetics, programming and marketing, those features which the early independents were resistant to change.

The antiquated independent gym brands believed their membership base was loyal and dedicated but the consumer psyche is far more fickle and promiscuous. The chains exploited the consumer appetite for new and cool and the independents weren't agile and nimble or market savvy enough to shift and embrace change.

“Now, these new boutique brands are upstaging the big-box clubs, so yes, the boutique independents are wining smaller battles in a larger war”

New gyms brands are simply adopting strategies employed across all of commerce and are keeping a pulse on all that is new and relevant across their entire branding platform. Change is your friend, conformity, convention and comfort are not.  

How To Design A Gym?

1. Reject the 6 design trends that have the fitness industry locked in a death spiral of better sameness and avoid with great prejudice boutique or luxury design.

2. Create Your Own Unique Power Brand.

"Gym Power Branding is the integration of a brand aesthetic across all the features of your gym resulting in a unique and uber-cool gym model that upstages competition"

                                                                                            Cuoco Black 2015

"Employing Design Trends Blurs Your Brand --- Power Branding Makes Yours The Market Standout"

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CASE STUDY

“Cuoco Black's design helps us close the deal on the presale tour, hands down, end of story”.                           Vince Consalvo, Owner, Mid City Gym

Client: Mid City Gym established in 1962 is arguably the oldest continuously running gym in the country predating Joe Gold's 1965 opening of his Venice Beach landmark. It was home to notable fitness celebrities including Dave Draper, Lee Haney and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Concept/Inspiration: The design was inspired by an old photograph hanging in the gym endorsed by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Sparked by Arnold's illustrious career we cultivated an idea that a gym design reflecting the excitement of one of his Hollywood Blockbuster's, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, would make a fitting concept exhibiting energy and excitement.... powerful motivators in a gym environment. 

Context: Situated in one of the busiest neighborhoods in the world, Times Square and 42nd Street, the gym's design would need to exhibit powerful aesthetics in the highly energized and vibrant Theater District.

RULE #1 Have A Concept

The men's and women's locker room for Mid City Gym validates our argument that locker room design does NOT have to embrace the boutique design trend. Colored panels, metallic curtains, concrete, plastic laminate lockers, and picture lights above them, meld into a powerful design aesthetic that reinforces the brand. This Is Gym Power Branding at its finest. The circa 1960's Italian scrolled mirror in the women's locker room leavens the harshness of the concrete and provides a subtle yet feminine aesthetic for the room..



In summary: Envision your own unique concept for your gym brand....integrate all manner of back-linking and reinforcing of the concept...reject all design trends and specifically boutique design....deliver a unique model to the market that which the competition cannot copy.....dominate your market.Brand Don't Trend

 

Learn more about Mid City Gym: Mid City Gym

About Cuoco Black:

Cuoco Black is a design academic, interior designer, entrepreneur and natural bodybuilder. He's a former faculty member and holds a BFA with Distinction, and a Professional Design Diploma, from the New York School of Interior Design, ranked 4th in the World for superior interior design curriculum's by US News and World Report. Cuoco Black is additionally the designer of the Experimental Cocktail Club, Paris France, rated one of the top 20 Bars in the world by foodandwine.com.

Consider printing this helpful guide and keeping it at hand when developing your new gym brand.                                                                                                          Cuoco Black 2015

The design elements, ideas, and practices illustrated in this post are routinely embraced by many gym brands and across all market segments. Luxury gyms, the chains, independents and even CrossFit Boxes employ many of these commonplace and cliché design elements. The elements themselves are not so much the problem as is the blurring of your brand by adopting them. As well, these cross category design ideas are used in all manner of commerce leading to pedestrian and exhausted design trends.  

The underlying message.... deliver your own unique brand to your market and reject formulaic design features used by your competition.

                                                                   BRAND DON'T TREND

Boutique Design is a beautiful design aesthetic which we often advise against embracing as it says nothing about fitness or a gym brand. However, like every trend, these models cannibalize their own as evidenced by the identical long wood slab in these three different gyms...........If you're going to develop a luxury brand ignore the design features that others use, don't be an upscale gym wannabe. Leave this aesthetic to the luxury gym 1%-ers and be your own brand.

Graffiti was a popular social and political art form reaching its zenith in the late 1970's and early 1980's. Its urban colorful caustic vernacular was initially revered, but then loathed as it became associated with a crime, yet the art continues to be embraced by gyms....it's 2015. For all intents and purposes there is a goldmine of graphic design talent online at websites like 99 Designs that can provide you with graphics that are beautiful, stylish, contemporary and "uniquely marketable".

Slogans There is nothing that de-motivates me more than slogans meant to motivate me. I'm not sure of the intent. Is it subliminal mind mapping or the fact that the brand could find nothing more to fill a blank wall. This design feature borders on pandering and the Internet is overrun with motivational jargon and meme's in our social media feeds. Be original not subliminal.

Stone Walls So many gym brands use this design element as a symbol of strength, warmth and luxury. However, after seeing it gracing the walls of a McDonald's (snobby-sarcasm) McCafe, center image, I knew that it was a luxury design feature that had run its course.

Minimalism "Less is More" is the mantra of this American visual arts phenomena of the 60' and 70's. It's an aesthetic defined as pared-down that has paired-up with boutique design providing gym developers with a style that is simply banal. You can call it sophisticated but I see little that says anything distinctive with this over exhausted cliché.

Mirrored Soffits The happy bedfellow of our preceding hanging pendant light feature is the geometrically shaped overhead soffit that mirrors the shape of the reception desk below. Occasionally, this can be done exceedingly well. Often, as in this image, the design feature is too literal and contrived.

Boutique Design Lighting Fixtures The hallmark of the hospitality design industry are these cylindrical lighting fixtures which grace the ceilings of virtually tens of thousands, if not hundreds or thousands of hotels, restaurants, retail stores, condominiums, dry cleaners, Rite Aids and now......fitness facilities. Again, the center and far right images are McDonald's...don't be a McGymDonald's. 

HID (High Intensity Discharge) and Fluorescent Lighting This is often difficult to overcome as it's usually bundled with the build out provided by a landlord. However, moving to LED' has many benefits beyond what I can deliver in this post. The greatest disadvantage of these lighting fixtures is the quality of the light washing the interior of a gym, rendering the aesthetic sensibilities to that of the interior of a department store or Home Depot.

Reception Desks Gyms, McDonald's and Boutique Hotels embrace the boutique reception desk design trend....angular, minimal, geometric, sophisticated. Why would any gym brand create a design for a reception desk that was anything similar to these? Because their design team recommended they do.

Case Study This group of images was presented to us by a gym developer submitted as an inspiration board by another design firm. All the cliché's are here...the stone wall, the boutique lighting fixtures, minimalism, the cliché-cliché reception desk.

So, what does this say about his gym's brand?

How do you deliver this to a market and be the dominant player?

How do you prevent your competition from modeling this aesthetic if it’s available for all to copy?

simple.....Brand Don't Trend 

Snake oil is an expression that originally referred to fraudulent health products or unproven medicine but has come to refer to any product with questionable or unverifiable quality or benefit. By extension, a snake oil salesman is someone who knowingly sells fraudulent goods or who is theirself a fraud, quack, charlatan, or the like. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_oil).

When it comes to preventing my clients and prospects from squandering their investment on boutique, bespoke and or luxury design, I will speak out. I may ruffle some feathers. I may not be politically correct. Many may not listen. I have literally shown prospects that the design aesthetics they were considering were identical to that which McDonald's was embracing, yet they could not see it. Better explained, they saw it, but they've been so brainwashed by lifestyle magazines and HGTV that they will sell out their OWN brand identity to the boutique design trend rather than developing their own. Imagine, opening your fitness-wellness-gym model and your interior design was not to different from the local fast food restaurant....and this does happen.

It's not just the magazines, its the rhetoric being sold to developers. If all this sounds like design double talk, it's meant to be, here's the snake oil. Design firm's espousing terms such as bespoke, intelligent, sophisticated, popular and stylish should cause you to question whether or not the restaurants, lounges, condominiums and McDonald's, down the street from your gym, have also employed bespoke, intelligent, sophisticated, popular and stylish design, because they have.

We've recently had some back and forth (third party removed) with colleagues who are developing a low price point gym. So how does luxury gym design now segue into a low price point gym model? We'll it doesn't, and that's the point, yet the developers of this low price point gym model are hiring a residential luxury design firm to design their facility. Residential/luxury designers daily practice revolves around selecting carpeting, dining tables and artwork for their clients homes. However, if they design anything commercial, it's simply another W Boutique Hotel design wannabe. And now their going to design you're gym. Let me know how that works out for you.

This developer (above) would've been better off compensating their general contractor to develop the design rather than retaining a firm that practices residential luxury design. At least the contractor would have the detached sense of ego to know that he was designing a gym and not a glorified residential exercise room, which by the way, will be the result of the work developed by this type of design firm.

This is not cynicism or sarcasm, this is reality. I continue to see design firms exploitation of their clients... delivering aesthetics which are pedestrian, commonplace and trendy, that in short order will be upstaged by the competition or simply be seen by the public as non-event, another Boutique Hotel wannabe. Boutique Gym Design

The design firm of this facility above placed pretty framed art work on the treadmill wall which illustrates that the principals of this design firm may have never stepped on a treadmill before.

Here you go. You can build an upscale luxury wellness-fitness-health-club-gym without embracing the boutique design clichés. However, your aesthetics must evolve organically and reflect your business model and reinforce you branding platform. Your design can be luxurious, or cool, or stylish, or powerful and it can telegraph fitness or excitement. But the only way to do that is to look inward for your own brand identity and entirely ignore the noise generated by those who want you to buy into their vision, not yours.

About: Cuoco Black is a design academic, interior designer, entrepreneur and natural bodybuilder. He's a former faculty member and holds a BFA with Distinction, and a Professional Design Diploma, from the New York School of Interior Design, ranked 4th in the World for superior interior design curriculum's by US News and World Report. Cuoco Black is additionally the designer of the Experimental Cocktail Club, Paris France, rated one of the top 20 Bars in the world by foodandwine.com.   

Does you gym's reception area sell memberships? It does for the gym in this header image above!

Yet consider the aesthetics of the reception areas of its competitors below...

This is no condemnation of these two brands nor their aesthetics, they're highly successful business models, and they're in close proximity to the club in the header image......however, there is something significantly important emerging here for the industry

While your entry is a transition space between outdoors and in, your reception area is the front office and nerve center of your business. It’s also the space where members get their first impression of what to expect of your offering. If you’re going to be in the gym business then you need to think like the A+ players, and I don't mean the existing gym players, I mean Apple, and Disney and Tesla.

"If you want to dominate your market you must steal the show...." While the club in the header image, Source Fitness of St Clairsville OH., does not have the eyes of fitness editorial or the ear of the investment groups and franchisors and their deep pockets, this independent gym, and more new brands on the horizon, are making headway against the chains baby's, their franchisee's.

I'm sure you've heard little about it i.e., the de facto invincibility of the chains. Yet new, stealthy, entrepreneurial independent gym developers are waging small battles in a larger war and emerging the victor. Since our content is design-specific and delivered in direct proportion to those who will most benefit, independent developers, we'll focus on aesthetics and leave global-fitness-political-rhetoric aside.

Simply....a fitness prospect researching the marketplace as a means to select a gym would get what impression when visiting the three gym brands illustrated in this post? Really, after looking at the three gyms pictured, what impression does each have on you?

Its been noted that a consumer shops with their eyes and commits emotionally, or not, if the right triggers are pulled. It's our understanding that Source Fitness reached their target membership numbers exceedingly fast, excitedly so, in a marketplace with firmly entrenched chain models. That's a refreshing insight into the power of pedigreed and superior design and its ability to seduce a savvy public into buying into your brand, let's just nicely say they usurped their competition.  

The good news is that any gym brand can employ this strategy by considering the following principals.

1. Know the Six Gym Design Trends that hold the industry in a death spiral of better sameness, and commit to NOT embracing their aesthetic models. Produce and deliver to your market a superior and unique branded design that is exponentially 10X better than your competition. In essence, don't do better sameness. 

2. Know the 80/20 rule, theoretically invest 80% of your construction budget in your facility's reception area and the remaining balance in the remainder of the facility. Remember, I said theoretical. The point being, if you build a dramatic reception area, as did Source Fitness, it will most likely trigger prospects to buy into your brand and dismiss your competitors as an inferior product.

3. Know you marketing platform and brand identity and differentiation factors. In harmony, you can upstage and dominate your market, and you don't have to compete on price.

About: Cuoco Black is a design academic, interior designer, entrepreneur and natural bodybuilder. He's a former faculty member and holds a BFA with Distinction, and a Professional Design Diploma, from the New York School of Interior Design, ranked 4th in the World for superior interior design curriculum's by US News and World Report. Cuoco Black is additionally the designer of the Experimental Cocktail Club, Paris France, rated one of the top 20 Bars in the world by foodandwine.com.