CURVES Franchise Owners React to Comments That They’re Being “Pruned”

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• Mike Raymond and Gary Heavin: You are living in a DREAMWORLD. I bought my franchise as a resale last Fall. Maybe you could say the PREVIOUS owner was being 'pruned' as she didn't participate anymore; but nothing could be further from the truth with myself and my husband. We worked INCREDIBLE AMOUNTS OF HOURS, and I was at my club EVERY SINGLE DAY. We poured over $40,000. into our club doing things "The Curves way" (i.e., we bought all the stuff CI wanted
  us to buy, t shirts, posters (? we can't even get a POSTER?), advertising materials, you name it. We worked our butts off. We doubled our membership but with today's economy that isn't even enough to BREAK EVEN. We poured $3,000-$4,000. a MONTH into our club, had staff meetings to educate everyone, made innovations (that CI didn't recognize, by the way), no one could've worked harder, I'm convinced of that. YOU CANNOT MAKE MONEY OWNING A CURVES FRANCHISE unless you are in a VERY highly populated area with a LARGE turnover. Women come, they stay a month, maybe 2, they get bored, and they LEAVE. PERIOD. The exercise system works....the rest does NOT. Curves does LITTLE to help, when's the last time you saw a Curves commercial on TV?
  They depend on their (overworked) franchises to do EVERYTHING. Local advertising, running around to doctor's offices (WHY? CI has the contacts!), buying and placing and checking on lead boxes, etc etc etc etc. The list of work is incredible and the amount of money they expect you to lay out on a monthly basis for all their 'Curves products' is ridiculous.
  You should be ashamed of yourselves. You're not listening. Your 'April Spring training' was a DEBACLE. Get REAL, thousands of clubs hitting ENTER at the same time and you DIDN'T anticipate bandwidth problems? Come ON.
  The policies of Diane magazine 'only' rewarding those members with over 2,000 (while at the same time publishing SOME 1,000 or more) is ludicrous.
  Curves talks out of both sides of its mouth. I couldn't even get accurate training info despite asking a thousand times and attending Club Camp and Convention.
  Your policies of asking members for buddy referrals is outmoded in today's
  day and age of privacy and confidentiality concerns. You aren't listening. You're too defensive and NOT open to criticism. You don't deserve to stay in business.

• We did things the Curves way, so well in fact that we we had nearly 1,100 members and were named one of six franchisees of the year for 2004. Then Curves opened territory to our west, where half of our clients lived. Rather than lose half our membership to another owner, we bought the territory. Today, both clubs are gone and we're financially ruined. We'd likely still be in business today had not Curves made that territory available.

  Little did we know that the Curves way including overexpanding the market, then allowing natural attrition to reduce our ranks and abandoning those clubs mortally wounded by oversaturization.

• I received this e-mail from my Curves Central Florida Association Coordinator to our Area director, cc Mike Raymond, and Curves Franchise association. I tried the number myself and put in the zip I live in, which the Curves closed there, it didn't mention my club which is 9 miles away or the two other clubs that are about the same distance. Is this the ExLax way to Prunes?

  Hi Julie, (area director)

  I called 800-Curves-30 (800-287-8373) and used option 2 which allows the caller to enter the zip code to find the nearest Curves. The recording said, "We're sorry. Currently there are no Curves clubs in your area".

  In addition to the main Curves 800 number several other Curves numbers have the same message.

  800-367-8050
  800-615-7352
  866-560-7614
  877-528-8434
  877-792-8129

  I tried several other zip codes where active Curves clubs are located including my own club. I received the same erroneous message.

  This is very disheartening. We are all struggling to convince the public that we are all still around and open for business. Meanwhile, Curves 800 numbers are telling the world the opposite; that there are "no Curves left in your area".

  The 800 numbers will discourage anyone from trying to find a Curves.

  A portion of the 3% advertising fees are spent maintaining these 800 numbers which are currently putting out erroneous and detrimental information.

  Julie, Please look into this matter as soon as possible. It is imperative that it be corrected.

• This is the response we got from Mike Raymond:

  Thanks. We’ll look into it right away.

• "Pruning the System" seems to be the company line now. Here's a quote from an article on 20 clubs closing in Indiana:

  Fitness company scaling back
  http://www.indystar.com/article/20100712/BUSINESS/7120315/1003/Fitness-company-Curves-is-scaling-back

  "Curves says the closings were simply about weeding out the poorly performing franchises and keeping profitable, well-run facilities.

  'Many of the club closings in 2009 were part of a plan to prune the system,"' said Kathy Carr, a spokeswoman for Curves, headquartered in Waco, Texas."

• Well if CI is weeding or whatever you want to call it, then why should we still be held to paying them anything when our clubs go down the toliet... No support, no nothing!! CI preaches women's health number one priority, well, they sures as hell don't give a damn about the owners. We are the ones who gave them their, rich lifestyle, sitting there like a fat pig, collecting our money, well we are unable to pay our own bills... PITYFUL!! I stated a comment yesterday and I did only have my club for a year, it was a resale, boy, oh boy what a freakin nightmare... Never would I ever by into a franchisee!! Could not afford it anyway, almost lost everything, including the most important thing, my husband... CI YOU SUCK!!

• Here is a very interesting interview with Gary Heavin made in 2007 by a Bazilian to watch now in 2010:
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCcbSFFEVkc

• It's not just CI that sucks Howie is so full of himself and both he and Diane suck!!!!!

• curves is actually sending out prunes as a promotion to some franchisee's. What a slap in the face. How low can Howie go??????

• Hey Howie is karma catching up to you and your family? Deaths usually come in threes same as accidents so are you next Howie?????