Dynamic Business

Assume the personal trainer would be one of the first ‘luxury’ items to be ditched when times are tough and you’d be wrong. Business has never been better for Andrew Simmons, head of growing Australian franchise Vision Personal Training. He spoke exclusively to Dynamic Business on the business’ tenth anniversary.

Andrew Simmons is one of those entrepreneurial success stories who started with the passion for what he does and learned the business side of things later. Ever since the two came together, he’s proved to be an unstoppable force in the Australian fitness industry.

These days, he is a successful author, lecturer, natural body building champion, franchise owner and businessman and Vision has been named the Franchise Council of Australia’s Emerging Franchise System of the Year. But the 37 year old came from very ordinary beginnings before realising his potential.

Big ambitions

Vision was launched in August 1999 and the first Vision PT studio opened in Caringbah NSW in 2001. Today there are 32 studios with ambitious plans to have 225 in four countries (Australia, New Zealand, the UK and the USA) by 2013.

Simmons claims Vision differs from personal training schemes offered by large gyms because of its personalised service. He wants all the studios to be places where everyone knows each other’s name. At Vision, they focus on his fundamental four Es: emotions, education, eating and exercise. “I wanted to work with a whole person to create enduring lifestyle changes as opposed to just treating a symptom of a person’s health dissatisfaction, like exercise,” he says.

The Vision difference

“Once I created the system, I wanted to give people a place that was comfortable and inviting for them to come and enjoy getting healthy. Coming to Vision is like coming home, to your fitness family.” Vision also offers its customers a results guarantee, surprisingly lacking from other fitness providers. If, after following their advice, you fail to achieve your agreed goal, you get your money back and they keep training you for free until you do.

Commenting on Fitness First, which dominates the industry, Simmons says: “I don’t see them as competition because we’re very different but you have to say good on them for achieving so much success without ever guaranteeing any of their customers anything in terms of results. All they guarantee their members are their quality facilities and the ability to use them when they want.”

Franchise or fail

When Simmons and his then business partner started Vision, they quickly began to realise that their best trainers were leaving them and starting up on their own. “We’d always thought about franchising from the start but there came a point where we realised if we didn’t franchise the business, the business was going to die.”

Since Vision became a franchise in 2004, most of its franchisees have been former Vision employees, who choose to go a step further and start their own business with an established brand behind them. Others have even been former clients.

Simmons explained that the average personal training career lasts just six months and the hours can be very antisocial. He believes he’s giving trainers an option with longevity and better financial reward. “Most trainers are extremely passionate, however they are sold on a dream of minimal hours and huge dollars that is not overly realistic,” he says. “They’re not given any business training, often causing them to become discouraged and give up. I wanted to change all that.”

Improving Australia’s PTs

He has strong views on the quality of a lot of trainers out there and the standards for Vision PTs are high. They must be minimum Certificate IV in Fitness qualified and they must live and breathe Vision’s fitness and weight loss philosophy, practicing what they preach.

“A lot of PTs start training people after a nine-week basic course with no training in the business side or experience of working with people one-on-one. This doesn’t help the reputation of PTs overall when there are people like that, not getting their clients results. They’re also not being supported by anyone.”

Vision’s trainers are also set the same kind of fitness and weightloss goals their clients are. This means they have to experience and succeed at Vision’s way of working before they’re allowed to instruct clients in it.