FitnessTogether

square foot as well as any tenant improvement dollars, rental abatement, etc.We’re in commu- nication with them on a weekly basis, guiding them through that site selection process. While that’s happening, we have an architec- tural firm that we use to help us with the space planning and design of the locations, and then, of course, we may recommend contractors in every market that have done work for our brand. The franchisee selects the contractor they’d like to work with.We have weekly phone calls during that entire process, as well as during the construction and setup process.We have weekly phone calls with the project management team, as well as the operations team and the market- ing team to make sure that everything is going according to plan. From a marketing standpoint, we have an experienced marketing manager assigned to the franchisee, who will help them put togeth- er a trade area profile and build a pre-opening marketing plan, as well as a post-opening mar- keting plan so that we know what the studio is doing to market the business; what the budget is, how much they’re spending per month, etc. And then, what’s fairly new to Fitness Togeth- er is managed digital marketing through social media channels. The franchisees still have other marketing that they have to do, and they’ll work with the marketing manager on best demon- strated tactics to help ensure everything will work together to produce the right results. FITNESS TOGETHER – they’re still going to be participating in running their business. BVM: How do you support your franchi- sees? Wendrych: We’re very involved with the setup of the business, the launch and on-go- ing support.We have a real estate team that helps franchisees navigate the real estate process.We’re familiar with brokers all over the country and the franchisee employs that broker.We’ve given them the site criteria and we assist the franchisee in helping them to select a great location.We already know the trade area we want to go into as a brand, because we do a lot of analysis upfront. Once we’ve done that, it’s a matter of finding the right kind of real estate.We encourage the franchisees to make sure they’re negoti- ating the best possible deal – the price per