Josh

Ok well i defo keep an eye on this thread as i live in manchester and would be very interested in going
Good luck with it all mate

Peg

I've helped a MA school get started.

Sounds like you've got the right idea for location for your gym.
Finding the right location is crucial and is indeed the hardest part.

How are your management skills?
Those made me smile. Customer Service and Marketing 101 in action.


Make sure if you want the fit women that your gym smells clean and is clean.
No, it doesn't have to have the girly flower smell, just clean. LOL!

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Nine Pack

Management skills? Damn, I knew I'd forgotten something :p

As regards the female members I know that the changing rooms have to be immaculate as cleanliness is one of the main things a woman will notice. Blokes wouldn't care if there were rotting corpses lying around in the changing rooms so long as the dumb bells were big enough!

The changing areas are going to be where we will spend a lot of money. Nice lockers, island seating, slate tiled floors etc. One of my big gripes in a gym is that the ladies have seperate showers but for some reason they seem to assume that men like showering together & this really p*sses me off so it's 6 seperate cubicles in both. I am determined to keep the place immaculate at all times so my staff will be kept busy one way or another. Poor buggers.

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DB

fuk that sh1t dude..

keep it modern.. unisex showers

true tho.. it doesnt help your street cred when u go into the showers after takin some ephedrine!! :rolleye11

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often imitated never duplicated
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Littleluke

I'm with baz on that.. LOL me and my mates call it gym d!ck LOL!

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Nine Pack

This is true, but you don't really want to be stood there having to explain why your bits are up around your neck to some stranger!

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Great White

Can I just remind people that this is not the main thread that Nine Pack is starting

This was just a "Pre-Enlighten" style thread.

I see a lot of you saying that you`ll be following this thread, just remember, its not this one you need to follow ;)

Paul

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Nine Pack

I'll start it this weekend guys. Not sure how it will work out but it's going to be a 'real time' reflection of the processes we are going through to get the project underway. I'll put some progress pics up of the place from the bare shell of a building (once we get one, sore point!) right through the installation.

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''I reject your reality and substitute my own''
Adam Savage.

Nine Pack

As this one has been made a sticky, I'll continue the journal from here, but if one of the mods could change the title to ''Nine Pack's Gym is born'' I'd appreciate it.

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Nine Pack

Ok, so here we go then. I’ve never written a journal so I’ll do my best. I’ll start with a brief background about me & Paul who is barmy enough to venture into business with me.
We both used to train at the Powermill gym in Middleton & both competed for the gym too, that’s where I got to know Paul. This way, you’ll see roughly how & why we find ourselves where we are today.

After ten years of training with no real aspirations to compete, I found myself dieting in 2000 just to shed some lard & see what was under it. Little did I know that this was going to become a sport that would grip me so hard & eventually shape my career. Up to this point, I had been in the Motor trade, and then in insurance, spending the days waiting to get the hell out & get to the gym where I could vent all the frustrations of the day (sound familiar?). The gym was a release for me & if you asked me at that point I’d have frowned upon making my free time activity a full time job for fear of getting sick of it. Deep down, I think it was always going to be the end game, but I didn’t know it back then.

After a few years of being a competing BBer and trying to balance a 9-5 job with dieting & training I grew weary of being the office ‘weird guy’ and was actually on the verge of a breakdown if I am to be totally honest. Something had to change so I got myself qualified as a PT because I had been training people for ages anyway & couldn’t work in a commercial gym without the correct paperwork. In the three months I took off work to study for my diploma I seemed to forget how stressful the office job was & foolishly went back into it & did PT in my spare time as I could not bring myself to accept the salaries on offer in a gym. That was a stupid move with hindsight & after six months I was back to square one, ready to crack so I took the bold step to becoming a self employed PT at LA Fitness in Sale.

This move, although not in itself lucrative, proved to be a turning point as I realised the value of my knowledge & experience as I achieved massive results with my clients. I was not prepared to cram in 8 sessions a day to make big bucks, for me the emphasis was on quality and this is something that has proven to be vital if long term success is in the plans. My colleagues knew only what they were taught in their PT diploma courses, but I had 15 years training under my belt and more life experience so I had far more credibility with clients, plus the physique to prove I knew what works in the real world.

I spent six months there, all the time with people telling me I should have my own gym and me saying ‘’yeah, someday maybe’’. I could not carry on indefinitely there as the PT rent was over £600 a month and I was only doing enough sessions to cover this so my income was made up by my supplement distribution business I ran alongside, supplying the PT’s & some other gyms. I left LA Fitness in November 2006 & went full time selling CNP supplements, doing the PT as a side line. I had chatted with a friend of mine last year about opening a gym & he brought the subject up again this year & asked if I’d still be interested so I said sure, why not. During the early planning stages it became apparent that we both had a distinct mental picture of the type of gym we wanted & that we may not have the same vision so he decided to pursue his own project & we amicably agreed it was best. I’m still great friends with him & we compare notes on our plans & still help each other.

This is where Paul came in to the equation. He found out I was going it alone on the venture & asked if I’d consider him to be a part of the business. I had known him for six years or so & knew he was as genuine as they come so after a while, agreed. I knew the job would require more than one person & I needed someone I could trust implicitly. Neither of us have any experience running a gym, but we have both ran our own businesses in the past & would learn together. To me, the most important qualities at this stage were reliability & a strong work ethic which Paul has in spades. Paul had always wanted to own a gym & saw this opportunity as one not to be missed. I knew how determined Paul was from his past.

He was involved in a near fatal car crash about 20 years ago & was told he would not walk again, and may lose one of his legs as they were smashed to pieces in the crash (he has more metalwork in his legs than you would believe) . He actually spent several years in a wheelchair & gained a lot of weight. He could not do his previous job as a taxi driver so got qualified in IT & began lecturing & teaching at Oldham college, eventually working in the private sector on contracts for EDS & working in the music industry. During these years he was inspired by a friend to get off the painkillers & to try to take some form of exercise which he did eventually. This was to be Paul’s pivotal moment. To cut a long story short, as it would need a journal on it’s own, he turned his life around 180 degrees & ended up playing squash, doing martial arts & eventually got into bodybuilding, and even ended up competing and standing on stage at the EFBB British finals. All this after being told he’d never walk again. I have heard all Dorian Yates tales of his blood & guts determination and to me this ranks just as high, if not higher so I knew Paul was no quitter. I knew I could at least rely on him to give 100% even if at this stage, he was not as knowledgeable as me in the fitness industry. He could learn as he went along, we both could, but the basic qualities & desire to succeed were there already. I have several dear friends who would have been equally welcome on board but sadly geography makes it very difficult.

This is where the actual plans for the gym started to take shape which I will expand on in the next post. I thought it best to give this background before we go on to the gym itself.

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''I reject your reality and substitute my own''
Adam Savage.

shorty

long road to go paul, but it will all be worth it.....im sure when its all complete it will be great sucess......cant wait to follow this thread till the end!!

ps great to meet and talk to you at the gym friday....my back is still killing me today!! LOL....

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Deano!

shoulnt it be a new topic buddy?

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Bulldog77

Rooting for you all the way pal

I will be one of your sucess storiers that you can show to the new gym members

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Nine Pack

Deano,
Wev'e just started the journal from where the original thread left off & changed the title.

We are going to view a few more potential properties tomorrow & arrange a formal viewing if any of them seem suitable. The process of finding the right place will be the hardest part of the process but if we are to succeed, we must be prepared to be patient & get it right. when viewing these places on the websites, many look great till you get up close & realise that you'd end up blowing half your budget getting the place in a useable state as I know if we are changing from industrial use to leisure, the landlord is not going to pay any more towards repairs than they would if it were still a warehouse etc. For this reason, we have to get a nice modern business unit, or else a good quality place needing little renovation. In an ideal world, a building that has already been a gym or leisure facility would be perfect as invariably the basic infrastructure would be there (changing rooms & showers etc) so all we would need to do is re model the place. The chances of finding such a place are slim so we just have to keep scouring the websites & keeping our eyes peeled everywhere we go.

Almost everything else is in place already & the equipment suppliers are on thier starting blocks so the task of finding the property is really the last bit of 'searching' we have had to do. Once we have the property secured, we can begin remodelling & decorating, getting the plumbing installed, reception & changing rooms built and everything else that is required to make an empty shell a fully functioning gym. It's only when you walk yourself through a gym in your mind that you realise what a mind boggling array of stuff you'll need to buy & install.

Aside from the fixtures & fittings, equipment wise we are having a full range of Gym80 equipment shipped in from Germany. I have used this equipment on several occasions, and was finally sold on the stuff when I trained with James L at Beefs. The stuff is very expensive (three times the price of the closest rival), ridiculously over engineered but solid as a rock, so much so that Beefs have hardly had to spend anything on maintainance in years. As the main marketing angle is going to be quality, I think the investment at this stage is well worth it.

Dumb bells, barbells, plates, racks, cable handles & all ancillary equipment will be sourced from various places in keeping with the quality we are looking for. Cardio equipment is one area where we have not made a final decision as there are a myriad of suppliers out there doing new & quality refurb stuff at very good prices. I think if the refurbished ones are of sufficient quality, we'll use them at first as for example, a decent new treadmill can cost £7500, but the same unit refurbished can be supplied for £2000 and has warranties & service packages just as the new ones. Bit of a no brainer really!

I'll update tomorrow after we have had a preliminary look at the places I have bookmarked today.

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''I reject your reality and substitute my own''
Adam Savage.

TypeR

i can say gym80 stuff is great! the gym 80 stuff at my gym is never broke , good choice mate if i owned a gym i would use there stuff for sure

Ben

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