Shane McGuiness works on patching and painting walls in one of the organi-
zation’s first clubs in Florida.
25 Years
Continued from page 27
from New Hampshire, Dore and McGuiness were just testing the
waters of franchising. “We still felt like, ‘Maybe we could tweak it a
little bit, do it a little bit differently and maybe get a little bit better
results,’” Dore explained. “We learned pretty quickly that wasn’t the
case. We were the poster child for a little while of what not to do.”
“I think the line of communication we had directly with
Michael, Marc and Chris was something that was unique and
different. We were able to experience what maybe a lot of the
newer guys don’t get the opportunity to do. We have been able to
pick their brains, pick up the phone and have conversations with
them, which has been very helpful,” he added.
All the while, the franchise was growing. Joe Pepe opened his
first PF® in October 2003, a conversion of one of his World Gyms
in Connecticut. He would be credited for bringing on board a
number of franchisees, including Joe Rizzo and Jerry Mastrangelo
who joined the system in 2004.
“When we were a World Gym licensee, a student from Bentley
College came in to our Waltham club and told me that all of
the World Gyms in Connecticut had changed to Planet Fitness.
I called Joe Pepe to find out what was going on, and he invited
us down to tour his PF clubs and tell us all about it,” Rizzo said.
When Sunshine Fitness opened the first
franchised PF location, clubs had a completely
different appearance than those built today.
28
“With Joe’s introduction to Mike and Chris, we were accepted as
the 28th PF club in the chain.” P-Fit Development, LLC now has
11 locations.
The fitness industry veterans, like Pepe, Rizzo and Mastrangelo,
saw PF through the early years of adapting to being a franchised
organization. “We came in in the infancy of its growth. You had four
walls; the franchise agreement might have been eight pages. Today it
makes a telephone book look small. There are more rules and restric-
tions,” Mastrangelo said. “Part of the challenge was you have to grow
along with the franchise, and as the franchise continued to grow, all
of a sudden a box with four walls became an expensive buildout. You
just had to continue to adapt to the growth.”
Mastrangelo opened the first freestanding Planet Fitness at
25,000 square feet that, while standard today, was unheard of in
2004 when most PF locations were conversions at 15,000-16,000
square feet. From cost to appearance, it soon became clear Planet
Fitness was changing the game.
THE EVOLUTION OF AN INDUSTRY
Ask anyone what PF did for fitness and the answer boils down
to: PF changed the industry. From price to practices, Planet Fitness
accomplished what most said couldn’t be done.
The disruption to the industry began with the fees. “It clearly
changed the industry with the price point,” Pepe said. “Most
people in the industry would never think you could sustain that
price point and succeed, but we have proven otherwise.”
By making fitness affordable, Planet Fitness opened the doors
to so many who had been untouched by what PF was offering: a
healthy lifestyle in a welcoming environment. “Nobody had ever
done that before them; the low-hanging fruit was going after the
people who didn’t work out,” Dore said. “Fifty percent of our
members in our first club had never belonged to a gym before.
That was astonishing. Planet Fitness was everything the other
fitness centers weren’t.”
“You go in there and you actually create and support the
concept of the Judgement Free Zone, which is something that we
became better and better at as franchisees. It is something that has
separated us from other competitors in the market and the industry
itself because it created a strong foundation and consistency within
the brand,” McGuiness added. “When people stepped into a club,
they knew what to expect. They knew we were doing this to the
benefit and the value of the member. You combine that with what