Coming from outside of an industry can give you certain advantages. There’s cross-pollination of ideas and best practices for sure. And, it can unleash a creativity the competition may not anticipate to allow you improve their wheel without reinventing it. Cory Brightwell of Chuze Fitness did just that, bringing his experience in hospitality into creating a unique, high-value, low-price gym chain that looks and acts like a high-end boutique.

A California native, Cory Brightwell was born into hospitality. His father and godfather created and ran Super Salad, a successful salad bar buffet chain concept. It was in the trenches of these restaurants working with his father where he learned firsthand the standard of execution necessary to provide an exceptional customer experience. A Pepperdine University graduate, where he played baseball, Cory took his love of the basics of culture and customer experience and married it with his passion for fitness to found Chuze Fitness.

Today, the father of a one-year-old, this successful young entrepreneur and his partners have taken what was their first location in Carlsbad of 16,000 sq. ft. with basic amenities to 22 locations across California, Colorado and Arizona that average 40,000 sq. ft. with all the amenities you’d never expect for the low monthly membership fee of $9.99.

In the high-value, low-cost club space, Chuze Fitness is unique. Boutique-like in spirit, they offer everything you might expect to find in a more expensive club, from the equipment, to the pool, to the kids club, to the sauna and steam room, to the team training and more. Chuze believes for too long exercisers have been overcharged and underserved. So, in 2008, they flipped that idea on its head to create an awesome gym where members pay just $9.99/month.

Chuze Fitness passionately believes its members deserve a gym that’s beyond friendly, beyond spotless, and beyond well-equipped, with every fun class you want, that feels like a country club, but costs like a couple of lattes. Because everybody deserves an awesome gym. Cory Brightwell walks this talk and that is evident from the moment a member walks through their doors.

 

Episode Highlights:

• Stick to the time-honored, tried and true, industry agnostic business basics and execute them really, really well.
• Don’t reinvent the wheel, make a better wheel.
• Hire people who are a right cultural fit, versus people who look good on paper who you hope you can make into a fit. It’s the only way to scale your unique brand feel.
• Hiring for culture and training for customer experience, plus ensuring the leaders live the values daily.
• Learn how to cram more value into what people already pay. They’ll love you and tell others.

 

Join Matthew Januszek in conversation with Cory Brightwell of Chuze Fitness to see how you can continue to add value for your customers without drastically increasing price if you really get the cultural and team basics right.

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