Anytime Fitness has also brought on board a brand ambassador – fitness industry personality Shannan Ponton from Channel Ten’s The Biggest Loser.
“The main thing with Shannan was we thought we had a good affiliation and he was passionate about the brand,” McDonell-Jimenez says.
“He felt we were the right fit too. It’s important for anyone with a brand advocate to make sure it’s a genuine fit. It needs to be a natural fit and that’s what Shannon was for us.”
Aside from working with Ponton, Anytime Fitness does not do much conventional marketing, instead, encouraging its franchises to participate in the community to help out and simultaneously build brand awareness.
“We focus on the training around the culture of the club and getting involved in the local community events. It’s something we talk a lot about when we’re educating the franchisees,” she says.
“Many are located in regional areas, so we encourage them to get involved with local events and sports clubs. We don’t encourage a lot of them to spend on advertising, rather we encourage them to look at the local community.”
This occurs in the form of sponsoring local fun runs or school activities, sponsoring sporting teams and raising money for charities by having events inside the clubs. Many of the franchisors also write fitness columns for their local papers.
Anytime Fitness has a group of staff dedicated to franchise support and training.
“It’s a structured program that we make available. We also make it a requirement that all new franchises have to participate in new franchise training and ongoing sales training,” says McDonell-Jimenez.
McDonell-Jimenez says Anytime Fitness has “a diverse range of franchisees” and they select them by looking at their sales and marketing skills.
“Some really good franchisees have come from other fitness franchise systems, while others have come from a more corporate background,” she says.
The importance of work-life balance is something McDonell-Jimenez feels strongly about.
“We do a lot of surveys about our franchisees’ satisfaction and we’re always ranked the best among our franchise partners on work-life balance.
“It’s definitely something I’m passionate about.”
On a personal level, McDonell-Jimenez likes to go on holidays with her family.
“We travel with them as much as we can. We go to Bali a lot with the kids and we did an amazing trip with our eldest to Africa,” she says.
“I enjoy yoga too, and if I can get out of the house for an hour and a half, that’s what I’ll go and do; it keeps me sane.”
Anytime Fitness intends to maintain its position as one of Australia’s leading fitness clubs.
“We are now the largest fitness group in terms of clubs open and memberships, so we’re focused on staying number one. This is actually harder than getting to number one.
“It’s all about our brand and maintaining that number-one status. It’s been going for over 10 years in the US and we’ve only been going for five years here, so there’s still room to grow and develop.”
To be a successful entrepreneur, McDonell-Jimenez says to make sure you’re passionate about what you’re doing and have genuine interest in the product or service you’re launching.
“People can tell if you’re not passionate about what you’re doing. You should try and recruit people who are better at the job than you are. Recruit in the areas which aren’t your strength first and get some strong employees who are qualified in these areas,” she says.
