Is the Fitness Industry coming of age?

Given the fact that blogs are meant to be a direct and informal communication between two people - the blogger and the reader - I have to tell you about the week I've just had because it is a testimony to how far we have come as an industry. To me, these were rays of hope which eclipsed the clouds of recession which haunt us.


In the last seven days, I have met with one of the oldest and most respected food brands in the world. This was followed by a meeting with one of the world's leading sports brands. The next day I met with a multi-million pound conglomerate which works with the Government at in a number of different sectors - from health and education to prisons. On Friday I have a meeting with a gold standard celebrity: what all these meetings have in common is the fact that every single one of them want to partner with our industry.

As I sat in a traffic jam yesterday, quietly fuming because I should have been at my weekly meeting with my management team, I had to take some comfort from the fact that 20 years ago, when I started as a trainer in our industry, these global stars would have not given us the time of day. I never dreamed I would one day be representing a multi-billion pound industry in meetings where the Secretary of State was promoting exercise as the way forward for the health of the nation. It never occurred to me, all those years ago, that the potential Government-in-waiting would invite us to contribute to their public health strategy process.

However, there is nothing quite like the cool sharp shock of reality when faced by the soul destroying prospect of sitting in stationary traffic (when you don’t want to be). As any manager of a sales team knows, the euphoria of salesmen has to be divided by two, and then by four in order to get to the truth. The truth for this salesman is that we have some very significant brands who want to do business with us, but we still need to close the deal.

That’s my job, so beware of COO’s blogs painting rosy pictures of the future.

Wait for the punchline.

David Stalker
COO
Fitness Industry Association