Sandra Rotunno & Carol Bosward
Proud owners of Contours Narre Warren South & Contours Endeavour Hills
August 2008 : Winner – Contours ‘Franchisee of the Year’ Award
September 2009 : Franchise Council of Australia : MYOB Excellence in Franchising Awards 1st Runner Up Victorian / Tasmania Franchisee of the Year > 2 staff
The success of both Contours Narre Warren South and Contours Endeavour Hills is attributed to our strong and focused leadership. We follow the Contours model and have our own goals and a business plan, which is always growing and changing. We employ staff that are passionate about helping women with their fitness, weight loss and health related issues and offer an energetic, positive environment for women. Communication is the key to excellent team development and we encourage our staff to share ideas to help improve, revitalise, and refine our procedures, studio operation, member sales and retention.
We treat all our members as if each and every one of them are special and we give a personalised service ensuring their experience with us is valuable.
We are always striving to grow and improve our business learning from other successful people. We have a strong marketing plan and understand our target market. We are also very involved in our local community including charity events.
Chris & Alison Cooper
Proud owners of Contours Bowral
First is business passion, our studio is not a job but a way of life. We believe in and share the journey taken by our members as we take them to a new level of health and fitness – literally giving them back lives they had long forgotten about. The magic and energy we share makes our workplace vibrant and alive. Passion is important – love your work and it turns into play. Running a studio does need hard work, and we found the effort often extends into the night as we catch up on business admin or planning for the future, but it is all worth it when we see the next members winning smile.
A strong involvement in community events brings untold benefits, both personally as well as for studio kudos with members, and finally with numerous free editorial content. We have made the front page story of our local newspaper on two occasions in the two short years we have been open, and had numerous stories published as editorial content – totally free, and of far more advertising value than the biggest full page ad could ever achieve. Knowing how to work the media was part of Contours HQ training, and we have seen the commercial realisation of this time and again through relatively small effort, other than constantly keeping an eye out for the ‘news angle’ in everything we do.
Our studio is alive with ongoing promotions, activities and events. It is fastidiously clean and we always invest in the best fittings and equipment, as ‘cheap’ only pays cheap dividends. The high weekly cost for fresh flowers is one of many touches that pay back indirectly, in talk about town that Contours Bowral is “the only gym worth joining” from among many.
Team focus is important. We select staff carefully, focusing on personality and passion far above any formal qualifications. Our team is our family, so we have to get the mix right. A range of staff ages (not too young) is good, as life experience is needed when turning lives around of our members who age 42 on average. We pay reasonable but not too much – we want staff who love the place more than a job. There are plenty of stress jobs out there, for those who seek wealth instead of smiles.
We moved as a tree change to Bowral, but a year later we knew nobody. Since opening our Contours studio we are now regarded highly in our community, and count many hundreds of members as our friends. It is rare to walk down the street without seeing a smiling member waving hello, thankful that we have turned their life around, as our own studio has turned our own lives around.
