The One Element Franchise Opportunity

Cost: £4,165 + VAT (£5,000)
I think it’s really important to be upfront and honest so we start with cost. We want as many driven, energetic and positive franchisees as possible to be delivering our outdoor group fitness and we have done everything in our power to drill down on costs. I don’t want the barrier for a great entrepreneur to be the expense. If you are looking at other franchises and think this may be suspiciously cheap, it’s because we are not here to make a profit from you when you buy a franchise. We do however help you grow the franchise and then we will take a small percentage which will help us continue the brand for the long term.

What’s more, all the other costs outlined by gyms, studios, restaurants and shops simply don’t exist in our model. We don’t need the crippling loans to pay rent, rates, electricity, heating / air conditioning, cleaners, showers etc that can drive loans into the hundreds of thousands of pounds… All you need is a territory, training, webpage, start up equipment, weekly training programs. This and the ongoing support is this cost of £4,165 + VAT. We advise you to have a further £1-3k as a marketing budget which means you will be a profitable business from very early on in your journey. If you are taking the sessions yourself, you will just need a handful of members to break even.

Employing trainers can potentially your biggest cost with an OE franchise, but it needn’t be a cost at all and it need not hamstring your growth early on. Imagine you are running a gym or a studio or restaurant, you need to staff the place for 8-12 hours a day, 7 days a week (70+ hours a week) but with One Element we run 4-6 sessions a week and we try to encourage all our members to these sessions. This equates to about a tenth of the cost of running a gym and if you can take these sessions yourself then the cost comes down to virtually zero – I absolutely love taking the sessions and still after 17 years run 9 sessions a week.

And what about the cost of renting the park space? You may well ask… Most councils don’t charge rent. Some do but these are low, the highest rent we pay at any park, even in London, is £80 per month. Kit is also a consideration. If you are setting up a gym / studio / restaurant you would need a lot of kit but at One Element we simply use cones, some kettlebells, a few boxing gloves and a flag – all of this is included in your set up fee as part of the 2024 offer of £4,165 + VAT

Support
We support you in every way we possibly can including marketing and sales, as well as delivering the sessions. We provide operation manuals, trainer manuals and legal documents and contract that we have developed over the years. Most importantly though, we have written down every session we have ever developed (many with the help of international athletes and coaches) and we now have over 150 unique training sessions that make up our periodised training programmes. These are sent to you every week via email and I am always on the phone to answer questions about the structure should you need any help.

Business Model
From the recurring revenue membership model to member retention – over 95% of members stay with us each month – to a model with really no ceiling on how much you could grow, there is after all no limit to how many members you can have in a park not like a gym with 4 walls and a roof! Our membership model offers rolling monthly contracts so you know what is coming into the business and we have the privilege at One Element to be able to set these lower than other competitors due to the costs outlined above.

This is really important to me, just as we don’t want to charge you high prices for a franchise you shouldn’t want to charge members ridiculously high fees. People paying £100-200 pcm will ‘churn’ if they are not attending, will not build a social group and most importantly will not see results. We typically set our memberships at £30-60 pcm and focus on attendance and facilitating socials and holidays to help members build a strong social network to compliment training to ensure members see results quickly. Also, the type of training we do is unlike anything most people will have done before which provides a great hook for members to tell their friends about OE and leads to word of mouth becoming the most powerful marketing tool.

Website, Online Shop & Software
This is all the dull stuff, spending years working with software developers; refining this kit to suit us and our members; finding the right payment platforms. We build you a webpage on our website; integrate your own personalised merchandise shop (from which you receive all profits) and; connect you with our existing scheduling and payment partner. These are important foundations of your business, some people refer to it as a ‘turn key’ business model, and we have done all the hard work for you. The business is set up, built and ready to drive – the motor is idling, it just needs you to press the accelerator.

Huge franchise territory
We offer huge franchise territories and this is absolutely vital for you to be aware of. With most franchises you have, for example, a shop and then a small area around this shop within which you can market to potential customers. A One element we have colossal territories because we hope you will not just set up one park, but like the original One Element that I founded, you’ll eventually set up 4 or more parks to increase your turnover and profits as you grow as word spreads. You can develop into a market leader not just for outdoor group fitness but for the fitness industry in your area. Within your territory you will have between 30-60k people who fit our target demographic.

Our franchise network
Our group of franchisees – some who have been with us for 4-5 years – are a great wealth of support and knowledge. Some have come from marketing and PR backgrounds and many have been doing it for so long that they understand very quickly what will work and we all help support each other. We also have regular group meetings and online meet ups where we discuss wins and brainstorm marketing ideas. I am regularly on the phone to the franchisees helping gently guide trainers to grow their business.

Socials, Events & Holidays
This is a huge point of difference between One Element and other fitness companies. From its inception we recognised that the social side was paramount in not just having fun but in retention. It’s by leveraging the social side our members build life long friends, and when they have lifelong friends who they go for coffee with; black tie dinners with; the OEFEST with; ski and surf trips with; they stay as friends and members. This has been so powerful for us in the past and looking forward, particularly with the awareness of loneliness post pandemic, working from home and the decrease in social interactions, I am sure this will become even more powerful.

Community & Network
There are so many things I could have included in this list like the virtually zero emissions or the genuine up side of training outside in all conditions, but I have found that the friends, community and network you make at OE is truly one of the joys of running an OE franchise. The people you meet, the diversity of individuals. They say culture eats strategy for breakfast and, if you can create a friendly, welcoming, positive and kind culture, you will build a membership base that gives you so much more than just an income.

Hours of work
Running 3, 4 or perhaps 5 sessions a week; calling free trials and sending them some follow ups; doing a few hours a week of marketing; organising a few socials and; planning your business growth and next moves are some of the things you will need to stay on top of. We will give you direction on what works but you are, after all, your own boss and you can do the work at times that suit you. To give you some indication, for the four parks I run with circa 200 members, I do an hour of admin every morning; a training session at some point through the day and; I check my phone for new members and try to respond immediately to these.

Visit our franchise pages to find out more about our exciting franchise opportunity. You can find out more about our franchisees and the successes they’ve had. There’s also information about our key statistics, more detail about our launch model and a helpful FAQ page. We’d love to hear from you if you’re interested in this exciting opportunity.