SKfit Personalized Private Training, a health-focused fitness company with three locations in New Jersey, two in San Diego, and one in Louisiana, has built a name for itself in the industry. SKfit was founded 20 years ago by Sly King, a NASM, CPT, FNS, CES, and PES certified fitness enthusiast. Since then, under his supervision, the company has grown to become one of the fastest-growing franchises in the country.
As the CEO, Sly values the company’s hardworking approach of providing ‘blood, sweat, and tears’ to its clientele. He believes that the corporate owes substantial gratitude towards its clients and franchisees, as they are vertebral on which the foundation of the company’s success is laid. Meanwhile, he ensures the company has a strong and successful business model by paving decisive pathways.
Making it Personalized
Sly sought to solve a problem that most gyms were unaware of: a way to maximize the efforts of personal training. “I’ve been doing this for over 20 years and never seen a successful franchise in this part of the fitness industry, I decided to see if I can make it work,” says Sly. Eventually, he opened a business on his own to help clients and trainers simultaneously and realized the power of the franchise industry. As a fitness training company, SKfit offers personalized private training by eliminating the feeling of being at a big facility on stage performing in front of a bunch of people. SKfit commits to challenging and leading its clients to achieve the highest level of sustainable fitness while also maintaining and providing a comfortable, personal, and judgment-free environment. Every client gets a personalized approach to their goals based on their current fitness state, ambition, and the amount of time they are with SKfit. “We specialize in helping our clients reach their fitness goals, in a SMART way. SUSTAINABLE. MEASURABLE. ATTAINABLE. REALISTIC. TIME-BASED,” says Sly. “SKfit is not like your typical corporate gyms where there are many fees to be paid before you get to the service cost. Instead, at SKfit, we simplify the process and benefit our clients by having NO membership fees and NO start-up costs! We want all of our clients to succeed and focus on their goals at hand.” By eliminating gym fees and charging at a price or less than the big guys, SKfit maintains a higher retention rate on the clients with a full training schedule that delivers amazing results. Again, SKfit enables trainers to grow their clientele by providing a space that is always readily available and allowing the trainer to be more client-focused and more profitable. “Our goal is emphasizing convenience for client and trainer, client-focused environments, and high-value return.”
“The people who come to us want the private setting, they want the one-on-one field and small business touch,” shares Sly. SKfit provides private personalized training, small intimate classes of 4 to 8 people, and stretch therapy to help with flexibility. “We have our own supplement line where we offer a men’s and women’s multivitamin, collagen gummy, pre-workout, and Whey isolate protein,” he continues. The company specifically has a target audience who are willing to pay for private personalized training. “Our private environment means we do not have to pressure on us to sell-sell-sell rather than just give great results and have the clientele for years on end,” he says.
“For the private personal training world, we are all small and local shops,” proclaims Sly. It’s indeed challenging to compete in markets when there are industry behemoths. The competition is tough, but with a unique and different approach, one can easily thrive in this field. Unlike F45 and Orange theory—which essentially does not allow any of their trainers to independently train their clientele, SKfit provides their clients with private personalized training. “The trainers at these locations are given the work out from corporate, they put the work out on their board or television and guide a room full of 20+ people at certain stations,” mentions Sly. As SKfit offers smaller intimate spaces that hold fewer people the training is personalized and focused on every individual. “We ensure that our results will continue to get better as our client develops because of the personal attention to detail as well as being able to adapt and change when our client is Developing and getting better,” highlights Sly. “We are easily able to continue to challenge our clientele as opposed to putting 20 to 50 people in one room and having everybody do the same workout. Those people have big names tied to them and have a great marketing campaign, we are on our way there but we will only do so and grow as we make sure all of our franchisees and trainers or at the top of their game and get our clientele the results they’d likE!”
“We are differentiating ourselves by being a smaller brick and mortar, lower overhead than any of our competition, the option of having no employees, and being open by appointment only,” adds Sly.
A passion for changing lives
Sly says that everyone’s health should be their top focus. But in this consistently growing hectic world, people are failing to invest their time in health, thus causing an immense portion of the population to be unhealthy. This is where SKfit comes in. He says, “There are not many things in life that we can do at 100% every day, this is definitely a job where you can put the time and effort in and your clients will succeed and you start to change lives.” Sly feels proud as SKfit is growing and transforming into a big family together making people healthy. Even though some of the franchise owners had no prior experience in the fitness industry, they were able to overcome several challenges and achieve a successful stature. SKfit’s business model proved highly beneficial to these franchisees since its techniques elevated them to attain the franchisor’s approach. Apart from guaranteed success, by choosing SKfit one will be making a great decision for giving back to the community by making people overall healthy and fit. “This is such a fulfilling part of franchising that I don’t think many other franchisors Experience. You’re going to change so many lives as well as your own!” asserts Sly.
After purchasing the franchise, Sly and his team offer continual training post-initial training to the franchisees. It weekly and biweekly gets in contact with these franchisees, carries out two seminars annually to guide them as per the company’s values. Moreover, it also implements a franchise advisory council, to encourage franchisees to present innovative ideas in front of the company’s panel for a better prospect. “The continuing education for our franchise doesn’t end, it continues to go it continues to grow week after week,” he asserts.
Surviving the pandemic
Many businesses have been severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic since last year, but SKfit’s business model has continued to yield results. “While our places are smaller and intimate, we do not have a bunch of people in one small room side to side with each other sweating and breathing heavy,” points out Sly. Furthermore, the facility follows all COVID-19 guidelines. “The ability for an hour to be blocked off because it is fully booked, and it allows us as a Franchise and Franchisee’s the ability to control the health and safety measures in all of our studios without feeling overwhelmed,” says Sly.
Looking in the future, Sly has several new fascinating projects in the works. “Everybody better watch out because we are coming!” gleams Sly.
