In 2015, my gym had two locations. We were in just our second year of business, and less than a year in, we decided to open another location about 30 minutes away in a bigger city. You’d think that location would have taken off more easily due to the population size and lack of kids sports in that town; however, we quickly learned that the second location couldn’t successfully function exactly like the first. 

It had its own vibe. The clientele had different preferences and expectations than at our first. In hindsight, I don’t know how we could have expected they’d be the same. Geographically, the locations were just 30 miles apart, but operations at the two had to be much, much different. 

So, if you’re considering opening a second location in 2025, I’ve got a few “lessons learned” for you. 

Lesson 1: Affinity to a core group is key to early growth.

Ultimately, this was our demise. Though our first location, Warrensburg, Mo., was in a smaller community, I had lived there for seven years. My business partner, Angie, was born and raised there. Most people who came to our gym in the beginning were military families from the nearby Air Force Base (many of whom I had coached on base) or local townies Angie had grown up with. This was our “affinity circle” and the easiest group of families to have in our gym on day one. 

Over time, we grew beyond this circle, but it was our core group of families in year one. We didn’t have that affinity at the second location. There were a few families who had been traveling to our Warrensburg location, so they were a “core group” in a sense, but we had no real ties to the community itself. So when we started our gym, we truly started at zero.

Lesson 2: Adaption is necessary.

Luckily, our first gym was fairly well systemized when we decided to open the second location. My Air Force background made me pretty good at social media and community relations, and we used many of the same principles and tactics at the new location. In the first 18 months, we had grown the second location to about 200 athletes. Though the location was profitable, the tactics that got us to 200 kids were no longer working to grow the gym further. 

I had to start looking at our processes. The same pricing for a clinic in Warrensburg just wasn’t hitting in Sedalia. In Warrensburg, we’d host a six-hour camp for $69 and it would sell out; in Sedalia, I’d have just one or two registrations. I had to play around with our pricing strategy to hit our target audience. That often meant a lower overall cost, but higher cost per hour. The same camp that had just a couple registrations at $69 would sell out when priced at $39 for three hours—though the hourly price was much higher. It took me about six months to fine tune this. By year two, we had grown to 250 athletes.

Lesson 3: Systems aren’t everything.

Though we had the same systems and processes, we were missing a key component at our second location: staff who were engrained in the community. Many of our front desk staff and coaches were commuting two days a week from Warrensburg. As owners, neither of us lived in Sedalia, and we too were commuting a few days a week. Though it wasn’t a far commute, it was harder to connect with the gym families. We weren’t going to fireworks shows, Christmas parades and school programs alongside our athletes in Sedalia because we were already doing all those things in Warrensburg. I truly believe a second location is best served by those who live and interact daily with those in the community.

Our second location was open for three years and maxed out at about 250 athletes. It was profitable, and I’d definitely consider it successful. But although we loved the athletes, we felt this location kept us from maximizing our potential at our first gym. When we eventually closed our location in Sedalia, about 50 athletes transferred over to our Warrensburg gym. By the end of that year, only about 25 were making that commute, and seven years later, only about 10 still are.

However, by devoting our full potential to Warrensburg, we’ve since grown by nearly 200 athletes—and in a community with just two-thirds of Sedalia’s population.

Is a Second Location Right for You?

Having multiple locations is a big goal for a lot of people in our industry. Several owners and coaches at Next Gen have also owned multi-location gyms. Some have found huge success, and others have realized that devoting their energy into their primary location was a better fit. If you’re considering opening a second location in 2025, make sure to do your homework and invest in staff who can call that location “home” and love it like their own.