Brick-and-Mortar Coming Back To Life In A Big Way
But I'm not sure you need to mimic these examples just yet...
Quick question for you…
Are the results of our members + clients, our responsibility or theirs?
Is it 50/50?
Do we accept 100% responsibility for whether or not they lose their 20lbs or get their first pullup?
Or should they accept 100% responsibility for their own work ethic and the attached result?
I’ve been having this conversation often recently and here’s my opinion:
We as the purveyors of the service are responsible for the client experience, the coaching, motivation, accountability, and all the supporting elements that we promised when they signed up.
We can choose to go beyond that scope and provide additional help where it’s accepted - but it’s not required.
I certainly do not pass 100% of responsibility to us as providers in the industry.
It’s ultimately that of the clients.
Each party in this microgym-to-consumer transaction is responsible for its part.
I’ve never met an owner who didn’t want to see their clients succeed.
However, I have met owners who didn’t hold up their end of the agreement and let clients slip through the cracks.
I’ve never met a client who assumed just because they now have a gym membership, they should magically get in shape.
However, I have met clients who simply refused to do the hard work.
But I’ve also met clients who simply needed more or a different type of support. A level of support either their current provider doesn’t provide (and there’s nothing wrong with that) or didn’t know how to provide.
So my question to you…
Is it ultimately our responsibility or the client’s that the results they want to achieve are realized?
Stu
Digital Fitness Goes Bricks-and-Mortar. And Bricks-and-Mortar Goes Experiential.
And we all thought retail was dead…
The world of brick-and-mortar is evolving.
At the peak of the pandemic, I think many of us thought brick-and-mortar was dying, when in fact, it was just shedding its skin, providing new innovative opportunities for growth.
Within the fitness industry, we are seeing brick-and-mortar innovation in the form of experiential stores.
And for operational definition sake, let’s view experiential stores as any brick + mortar that is looking to go beyond their expected physical locations for offering services or products, and break into the unexpected.
Now you may think opening experiential brick-and-mortar stores amid a pandemic that aim to promote home-workout machines and athleisure might not seem like the most brilliant business move… however, brands including LIT, CLMBR, Lululemon, and GymShark see the benefits and are leading the way on this early trend.
LIT - LIT Method, the wellness and tech company known for its innovative, high-intensity, Low Impact Training (LIT™), is reimagining the future of fitness franchising with a first-of-its-kind hybrid digital and physical experience. LIT's hybrid model offers virtual training, LIT Labs with direct-to-consumer products, and its brick-and-mortar group fitness franchise.
CLMBR - If anything makes you drop $2,800 for CLMBR Connected, it might be its wild new fitness studio in Denver. CLMBR, whose vertical climbing machine offers on-demand, instructor-led classes on a large touch-screen display at home, has opened a seemingly counterintuitive in-person gym. The fitness studio has an interactive ceiling installation that syncs to the beat of the music and puts on a light show worthy of a Vegas resort. And news from one of my favorite podcasts indicates they will be opening more corporate studio locations.
Lululemon- Lululemon is experimenting with a new large-format, multipurpose store to drive customer traffic and reinforce its lifestyle brand image. The company has recently opened two new locations in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood and Mall of America. The locations feature several amenities not found in typical athletic apparel stores, including yoga and HIIT (high-intensity interval training) studios, men's and women's locker rooms, a "grow room" customers can rent out for group meditations or other events, and a "fuel bar" complete with seating areas that serve coffee, smoothies, and some other grab-and-go item, and of course a retail store.
Gymshark- Until now, Gymshark was an online-only retailer. Now, the athleisure and fitness brand company has announced the opening of its first-ever brick-and-mortar store on Regent Street, London planned for July 2022. The new store will host events and "community hangouts" and will feature workout studios and on-site classes, reinforcing the company's ambitions to encourage exercise.
MY TAKE
I’m not surprised by the LIT and CLMBR move. In fact, I’m a fan.
Digital fitness going brick-and-mortar makes perfect sense to me for three main reasons:
Personal Connection. People are still craving shared experiences and personal connections. Brick-and-mortars allow brands to get close and personal with their customers and create relationships otherwise unavailable with digital-only sales.
Try-Before You Buy. For customers who may be on the fence about a product, allowing them to test a product may be the secret sauce to closing the sale. Which is a nice segway to…
Higher Closing-Probability. Consumers are much more likely to make a purchase in-store than online. By the time they are in the store, they have already emerged off the couch, transformed from a sweatpants garbage human into a presentable version society deems acceptable, muscled through road rage with traffic and parking, and now are in the brick + mortar. They are not doing all of that for nothing and to them, completing the purchase makes it all worth it- thus, the probability of closing the sale is much higher.
Those three benefits can all be attributed to most any traditional consumer-based brick-and-mortar, but as we see from the fitness brands above, many are going one step further to make them experiential.
Why? Well, because in an online eCommerce driven world where everything you could ever want can be shipped to you within 24 - 48 hours (thanks, Jeff Bezos), creating a shared experience is really the only thing that can differentiate a brand from the millions of similar products purchasable online.
I am sure we've all seen the IG influencers sharing their "Lumlulemon dupes" - comparable style and quality for a lower price. The only difference between a "dupe" and the real thing is the brand and experience.
So the experiential store early adopters are adding class components, one-of-a-kind interactive installations, exclusive amenities, and fostering community to their bricks-and-mortar locations.
The gamble here lies in whether there is a strong enough cultural + social change to turn these locations into a one-stop catch-all place that people actually want to go to.
Will consumers want to visit the physical Gymshark store, get in a lift with their bro, and then buy some new Gymshark swag to post some pics on the 'gram… I don't know. Time will tell.
But if I'm a retail location and see that the end is near, pivoting to an experiential model where my brand can create tight personal connections with my customers is really the only other play and worth a go.
YOUR TAKEAWAY
I feel confident speaking to creating an experiential fitness location because I did with Urban MVMNT. I created a place where people could work out and get work done.
Within my brick-and-mortar, I combined a very lavish fitness facility, with all the private showers, toiletries, cell phone chargers, and amenities you could want, along with two really convenient in-house neighbors; a coffee shop and spin studio.
The result is a place where someone could grab a coffee and sit down for an in-person meeting, jump in, take an Urban MVMNT class, shower, refresh, reset, and then get back to work.
That was my approach to creating an experiential fitness brand and was something I started cooking up back in 2015.
In addition, I've visited microgyms that literally shared a wall with a microbrewery owned by the same owner. I've also seen microgyms with a full athleisure retail boutique inside them. All dope options and all designed to create a location that people visit and stick around for longer than just the fitness class.
Like most fitness trends, the concept of an experiential brick-and-mortar isn't new. It is just evolving and being redefined.
And after having created an experiential fitness service myself and visiting several others, here are some honest takeaways for anyone contemplating making one of these for their brand.
Consider Your Avatar. As with anything, align with your client avatar. If your avatar isn't interested in visiting a brewery outside your facility, don't incorporate one into your brick-and-mortar.
Think Holistically. Do not add an entire retail store to your microgym and not include showers. Who wants to workout, get sweaty, and try to Houdini their way out of their damp gym clothes to try on fresh new retail clothes? No one. And then your retail clothes stink too. This is just one example, but be thoughtful when designing and think holistically about the whole customer experience.
Create an Additional Business < Rental Income. If you are considering creating an experiential location for your microgym, please look at this as an opportunity to develop rental income by having a subtenant, not a chance to establish other new businesses in which you have no idea how to operate.
Less Can Still Be More. Your microgym does not have to create an experiential model to survive. There will always be a strong market for locations that offer none of these experiential accommodations, amenities, and components and instead simply provide a place for people to get in, get fit, get out, and get going on with the rest of their daily lives.
Last but not least, Learn From Others. As some of these digital fitness products open brick-and-mortars and as retail locations become more experiential, take a learning opportunity to go and visit these locations. Pick up what you can learn from them and get inspired because I believe that we will continue to see the evolution of brick-and-mortar become more experiential.
I’ve got a huge favor to ask.
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