What's happening in BOUTIQUE? First Stop SUCCEED!

Big Names in Fitness

Hanging with some major movers and international influencers in the Fitness Space! Josh Leve, Founder & CEO of Association of Fitness Studios, Todd Durkin, conditioning coach and motivational speaker, Maureen Hagan, health wellness and anti-aging expert, Petra Kolber, speaker and educator and Fred Hoffman, fitness expert and consultant

April proved to be a busy travel month with two conferences centered around “Boutique Fitness”. The first stop was Orange County, CA for the Association of Fitness Studios Annual Business Convention & Expo SUCCEED. This was their inaugural conference and Josh Leve, founder and CEO along with his passionate team brought on their A-Game! With three heavy hitting Keynotes, Todd Durkin, Augie and Lynne Nieto of Augie’s Quest and Adam Robinson CEO of Hireology. There were fist pumps, tears, motivation, personal stories of heartbreak and triumph and real world takeaways that we were all blessed to hear and experience first hand.

The weekend was full of great sessions in marketing, fitness future, retention, financing, wearable tech, working with special populations and more. But what was new and fresh to see was the energy from ALL of the small gym and studio owners that attended. Boutique is such an emerging market and Josh Leve has his finger on the pulse! There are now 100,000 small “boutique” studios compared to 10,000 BIG BOX Gyms in the U.S. We at SoulBody work primarily with the bigger clubs, offering them “boutique” group fitness programming to level up and compete with these smaller studios. But what was interesting was a session and message from World Gym CEO Guy Cammilleri and COO Doug Katona telling the boutiques to watch out because BIG BOX is coming into their market. These larger clubs are not only offering “boutique” inside the clubs (like SoulBody’s offer) but now they are getting into this space with stand alone studios. Watch out for sure because larger gyms have buying power and experience behind the build. Their message was “Be Harder to Kill” - a message we all need to armour up for in the FITNESS BIZ.

Next stop the Boutique Fitness Summit NYC!

Best in Health and Fitness,

Ann Marie