Earlier this week one of our franchisees was ready to sign a lease. As a franchise we had agreed with the landlord to all the key issues that will appear on the lease such as, price per square foot, how many months free from rent and how many months at half rent. On paper the deal looked really good however, in the 12th hour the landlord shot an email out to our real estate agent telling us that they would not agree to warranty the HVAC system which sent up red flags for us at illuminate gym. However, our franchisee had been inside of the space and the HVAC appeared to be working great. However, using our wisdom and experience we wanted a company we trust to check out the HVAC sytem so we put a call into the landlord and told them we wanted into the space. The landlord quickly responded by saying they would have thier HVAC guy check out the heating and cooling systems and let him know that I wanted our own specialist to check it out.
Two days later our HVAC guy was at the space and he called me up and I asked, “is the unit working?”
“Yes,” he responded.
“Great,” I said.
“No not great David… The HVAC system is working but I have no idea how.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well the unit is 23 years old and it appears that the system hasn’t been serviced in the last 23 years.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“Well there are a few broken parts… The coil has been damaged by what looks to be hail and the unit is absolutely filthy. I’ll send you some pictures.”
Sure enough pictures were then sent to our franchise offices and the unit looked awful. We have since responded to the landlord letting them know that we won’t be interested in a lease if the unit isn’t up to par with the illuminate gym standards. The space is perfect for our franchisees’ needs but as a franchise we can’t put our franchisee in a position where they could be liable for a $10,000 HVAC system. This is another example of why it makes sense to join a franchise unit like illuminate gym. I know I made a lot of mistakes within the first lease of illuminate gym years ago and it ended up costing me a lot of money. Today we have attornies and specific real estate specialists ready to help our future franchisees with issues just like this one. People are always afraid of their initial franchise fee but the truth is you are buying a brand, a territory, training on a franchise model, and the support to make sure your business gets started on the right foot. If you are interested in learing more about a fitness franchise please contact us here at illuminate gym or check us out at www.illuminategym.com/franchises.php.