During a Market Makers segment on Bloomsburg in August of 2016, Harvey Spevak, then-CEO, Equinox discussed the company’s growth, acquisition strategy and the state of the fitness industry. Mr. Spevak also shared something I found very interesting as he discussed “a lot more bad stories than good stories” in reference to the fitness industry and Equinox recent success.
What was so interesting?
Mr. Spevak doesn’t run a gym. Rather, “we are an operating business.”
For those of us not fresh out of business school an operating business harvests value from assets owned by a business. Spevak’s approach isn’t new. In fact, just ask DuPont Country Club manager Jeff Bradway: Instead of thinking like a gym owner
“Last, we have never sold a single club. We are in the private club operating business, after all. As Mr. Bradway at DuPont CC states, we always guarantee in writing that our clubs will remain private clubs after we invest our capital in them.”
How does this perspective change how you assess and management your sources of revenue and costs? Here’s a traditional line-up of expenditures for a club operator managing costs and revenue. Ever wonder why operational software expenditures get lost in these detailed business expenditures? Me too.
The real question is how does this approach change you view on how to run your club or operations?
