How this family-run club turned disaster into triumph

Sounds like you have quite a story to tell?!

Jaedon Burregi (JB), Fitness Manager: Where to start? We’re based in Cut Off, Louisiana, a rural town with about 30,000 residents and lots of water around it. Absolute Fitness first launched 20 years ago and the club’s had a couple of owners over the years. When the hurricane struck in 2021, it wiped out much of the town and this place lost its roof entirely. The club was out of action for quite a while, so we made a proposal to take it over and five months later – in April 2023 – we were back open for business. Because of the long gap, all our members had found new facilities and we changed to new membership software, so we literally started with zero members or leads, but we hit 150 in our first month and we’ll be close to 1,000 by our first anniversary.

How did you get into fitness?

Alice Adams (AA), Owner: We’ve both been involved with Absolute Fitness for a very long time. A good friend of mine launched it 20 years ago and we were all pushing for Les Mills programming, so she said ‘If y’all want it, then y’all have to step up to the plate’. So I certified in BODYPUMP™ and I’ve been teaching ever since. As a child, Jaedon used to steal my releases and learn the choreography before I could, so he certified as soon as he turned 16. He’s been teaching here for over 15 years now and he must be qualified in eight or nine different Les Mills programs. Les Mills has been central to the story of this club and it was one of the first calls we made when we took over as we knew it would be key to our success.

What’s been the driver of your focus on group training?

JB: Community is everything for a club like ours and so group training sits right at the core, building connection and powerful bonds among our members. In a small town like ours, you really have to hustle if you want to survive and thrive – it’s about making your club the beating heart of the community. We work really hard at this, constantly running social events, dinners and parties to build up a strong connection between our club, our members and the wider community. Group training is the gel that helps bring our members together and they’ve really taken ownership of their in-club community. They bring their friends and family along to join in the action and they’re always calling up people if they aren’t in class to check in on them and ask when they’re coming back. There’s a lot of love there.

How do you maintain a strong team of Instructors in a small town like yours?

JB: Again it comes down to being plugged into the community and making sure we know and are known to as many people as possible. Off the back of the pandemic and the hurricane, a lot of people moved away from here, so we’ve had to take a really proactive approach to finding new Instructors. This has meant scouting the front row of our classes, networking in the community, and re-engaging some of our previous Instructors who have come back to rock the stage. It definitely makes it easier to find Instructors – and keep them – when there’s a buzz around your facility and the classes you deliver. People are drawn towards the positivity and then they want to be part of it. It’s a tough thing to get going, but once you do, it very quickly gathers momentum. We both teach a lot as well, so we instil a strong team culture where we’re all in it together and supporting one another.

And how do you drive membership growth when there’s low population density?

AA: It goes without saying that you have to be nailing the basics and keeping your club on top of the trends, but you also have to look at things a little differently to identify opportunities. In keeping with our community ethos, we’ve placed strong focus on driving growth through partnerships. It’s not a massive pie here, so rather than fighting with our peers, we look at ways we can team up and grow the pie together. We have partnerships with the local CrossFit and the martial arts studio, where we’ll offer a generous discount (40%) to their members who want to also join our facility and vice versa. Our facilities complement each other quite well, so we’ve seen really strong take up on that initiative. We’re now looking at dance studios and exploring what a tie-up could like there. If we can attract the dancers, there’s an opportunity to win their parents and relatives as well. We’re always looking at new ways to grow, as well as spread capacity throughout the day, so we’re not attracting a bunch of people who all want to train at exactly the same time. Being a 24/7 facility means we maximize the range of members we can service.

How else are you planning to drive growth?

JB: We’ve got a large group training studio, so we’re constantly exploring ways to keep filling it and funnel more members into our classes. We’re about to host a big Les Mills launch event to really put the studio in the spotlight. Where we have the Les Mills Ultimate package, we’ve got access to all the programs, so we regularly review which programs we can add to the timetable to meet members’ needs and spark excitement. With this in mind, we’re diving into the Limited Edition Collection of programs and leveraging this to help grow our small group training offering. Lots of our members were asking for STRENGTH DEVELOPMENT™ and SHAPES™ after seeing them on LES MILLS+ and we’ve just launched FUNCTIONAL STRENGTH™, which is going really well – as is our own program Bungee AF. We weren’t sure whether members would be willing to pay extra for small group training classes (we’re charging $15 per class for members, $10 if they buy a pack of 5, while classes are $20 for non-members), but they’ve been super popular. We’re seeing lots of new faces coming in to do the classes and then taking out a full membership so they can get the class discount and all the other club amenities.

What’s made your small group training offering so successful?

JB: A variety of factors. We work hard to market the offerings on social media and we also talk to our most influential members and ask for their support in getting the others to give new classes a try. The programming is to a consistently high standard and we know it will keep us covered across the latest trends, while our Instructors love what they do and always deliver the goods. We also invested in the full suite of SMART TECH equipment because we wanted to do Les Mills properly; we’re really seeing the benefits of this integrated approach for leveraging the full suite of Les Mills workouts in one room and being able to seamlessly add newer workouts to our timetable. There’s still so much more potential in our club and I’m excited to see how far we can take it.