My wife and I had owned and operated our own business for over 20 years and had been very successful at doing so. While we were making a great income from our business there was something missing in our life. Neither us felt that we were contributing to society but just taking and we decided to make a major change in our life. That was when we heard about Curves for Women. It was a new franchise that only had 300 or so clubs and for the first time in years we both became excited at the prospect of actually helping people reach their goals. We bought our first club in 1997 located in a city of thirty thousand. From the first day it opened it was more successful than our wildest dreams. Not only were we making excellent money but the personal rewards helping people better their lives was a truly rewarding feeling. I can still remember as if it was yesterday the first time a Dr. of one of our members came in to check out what we were doing as he couldn’t believe the ch
We sold our first club in 2001 and bought two more franchises. My wife became a mentor for Curves International around this time and I was helping to sell franchise for Curves International as so many of are members wanted to own a club. It was at this time that we started to see problems arising with Curves International but we attributed it to the fast growth that Curves was going through. In 2002 we bought two more franchises but this time they were in what was called a metro-area instead of city under thirty thousand in population.
The first problem we encountered with Curves International was in early 2003. Curves sold a franchise that was a corridor of land between one of our franchise’s and the next city 8 miles from our southern boarder. It was obvious to us that the territory didn’t have the necessary population to support a facility and that Curves International was selling any location just out of greed and the fact that there were so many people who wanted a franchise. The people who bought that franchise tried to open up on our border but it had always been an unwritten but followed rule of Curves International that you open in the middle of your territory so that disputes between owners over stealing members from your territory didn’t arise. We immediately filed a complaint with Curves International and they stopped the new owner from opening at that location. Unfortunately for the new owners there were no other commercial locations between the two cities so they were forced into selling that franchise back to Curves International for a loss.
It was also at this time that Curves International started to change personnel. The employee’s who we had a personal relationship with that had started Curves International with Gary Heavin were leaving the company at an alarming rate. Seven employees that were the top management of Curves left or were forced out because of Gary Heavin’s greed. They ended up filling a law suit against Curves which was later settled out of court. It was at this time that Diane Heavin became involved with Curves and a whole new history was being written about how Curves was started. The original Curves member guide which was written by Gary Heavin and June Manley was taken off the market and the new Curves book authored by of course Gary Heavin was on the top 10 of the Times best seller list.. To make sure it was on the Times best seller list all the clubs had to order at least on case. That is when we as owners realized Heavin was a manipulator and not the born again Christian he portrayed to be. It was also at this time that the price to buy a franchise more than doubled in price. This came as quite a surprise as Heavin had always maintained that he would never ever increase his franchise price and he even swore on the bible in front of a group at club camp that he would never break his word on that. Well as we all know he didn’t keep that promise for long, which just shows his greed.
At this point my wife and I became quite concerned and even considered selling our business but other problems arose concerning Curves International that demanded our full attention. In 2004 another Curves location located on our boarder of one of our metro-areas hired two of our employees and stole around 15 members from our club. Both employees had signed the anti covenant not to compete and in our state those agreements are strictly enforced by the courts. We considered going to court but since it was another Curves facility we decided to file a complaint with Curves International. And to let them handle it. What a mistake that was as they did nothing. We transferred the members files but refused to transfer the money for the members dues until such time that Curves International responded to our complaint. We were told by the area director, which was a new position at Curves International, that we were trouble makers and he refused to send any of are clubs the members appreciation bags. Shortly thereafter Curves International resold the corridor of land that had been sold back to them at a loss from the previous owners and they allowed the new owners to open up in nearly the same location that they had refuse the previous owners only a year and a half before. The new owners advertised in our area and ended up getting 10 or 11 members to transfer to their club. Again we held their monthly dues but did transfer the members files. We immediately filed a complaint but again got the same response nothing. It didn’t take long for most of the members who transferred to come back to our club as the other location was small and in a very run down area and to this day that club has not shown a profit and has been sold numerous times over the years for little to nothing.
Then in 2005 the real problems with Curves International started that we are still contending with today. In one of our metro-areas a competitor by the name of Ladies Workout Express opened up right across the street from our location. Unknown to us they had hired our manager and one other employee from that location and when the employee’s left they had stolen off our computer our member files. They ended up stealing over two thirds of our membership with in a week. The employees had signed the covenant not to compete so we immediately hired a lawyer and prepared for a lawsuit. As I stated before in our state that agreement is strictly enforced but it took four months to get it into court. During this time that location was losing so much money that we decided to move the location next to our other territory so that both clubs could stay open. We sent in the required change of location form to Curves International but never heard anything back from them so we went ahead and relocated in late 05. The owners of the Ladies Workout Express eventually went broke because of the lawsuit and the fact that they would end up owing us monetary damages. They filed for bankruptcy to prevent us from collecting any monetary awards in Dec 05 but we did have the satisfaction knowing that we did what was right
In early 06 we were informed by Curves International that because we abandon that location they were terminating all of our franchise agreements. We immediately requested mediation for all of our clubs which is authorized by our franchise agreements with Curves International. We never heard back from them so we hired a lawyer in Waco, TX to represent us. He proceeded to send them a letter requesting the same mediation process and they did respond to him. They sent him letter stating that it was premature to go through the mediation process at that time as they were in the process of researching our reason for moving. Curves International continued to debit our account for the franchise and advertising fees for all the other clubs we owned but stopped talking the fees for the one territory that they stated we abandoned. The lawyer had us send Curves International a check for the fees and a new authorization form for them to deduct it from our account. Neither our lawyer or ourselves ever heard anything back from Curves International so we all assumed that things were back to normal.
In the spring of 07 we made the decision to start selling off all of our clubs and to completely retire. It didn’t take me long to sell the club we owned that wasn’t in a metro-area and I agreed to stay with the new owner’s to help train them how to run the business. We sent all the documentation into Curves International and the sale was completed by January 08. That freed my wife and I up to concentrate on our metro-area clubs and to get them ready for sale. In Feb of 08 we heard that a Curves club was opening in one of our territories within a mile of our current club. We could not understand how Curves International could do such a thing. We again filed a complaint by phone and e-mail to Curves International and several weeks later we were informed by e-mail that they didn’t know what we were talking about. We were told we didn’t own any franchises and hadn’t since we were terminated in 05. That came as quite a shock to my wife and I as our franchise and advertising fee’s had been deducted all along from our checking account and we had just recently sold a club that they were telling us we never owned. We had a local lawyer send a letter to the new owners explaining the situation and that we would be seeking legal recourse against Curves International and depending on the outcome they were opening themselves up to a potential lawsuit. During this time we had bought and paid in full for the Smart Equipment for Curves International and were waiting for the installation which was scheduled for the June 24th. On June 20th , a Friday we received a phone message telling us that the Curves Smart Installation was canceled and that we had to call Curves legal for an explanation. We left messages both e-mail and phone every 30 minutes on Monday June 23rd and finally late in the afternoon we received an e-mail stating that one of there lawyers would be in touch with us before the end of the day, They never sent an e-mail or a phone call as was promised but by mid day the next day they did respond by e-mail. It stated because of the problems with the members transfers, the fact that we abandoned a franchise, and that we had interfered with the opening of the new franchise located in our territory we weren’t approved for the Curves Smart. Yet in late May they had sent all the promotional ad material for the Curves Smart and of course we had gone to a considerable amount of expense for training the employees, advertising and promotion of the Curves Smart equipment. It was at this point that my wife and I decided that drastic action had to be taken against Heavin and Curves International.
While we still love the concept of Curves we feel that because of the deceptive and we believe fraudulent business practices that Heavin has allowed under his management Curves will eventually end up in the toilet so to speak. After spending many hours on the internet we have found that there are many lawsuits against this man and his company. Just read some of the post’s that are on franchisepick.com from owners concerning the new ten thousand fee if your club goes under and closes to the vitamins that were sold in Feb and March by Ideas in Action at a discount to owners without telling them that they would expire at the end of May. The lack of support and communication from Curves International that all of us owners are going through is intolerable. It is impossible for an owner to get through to them on the phone and good luck if you expect a call back in a timely manor. The fact that we as owners pay a lot of money for our advertising fees and have no accounting of where it is spent and a quite frankly we never see many ads in our area.
I have taken the time to do the necessary research to find several good lawyers who handle franchise law who are more than willing to help Curves owners who are having similar problems with Curves. I for one am going to go after Curves International and Gary Heavin in a court of law. These are not class action but group action lawsuit and if you don’t understand the difference contact me and I will explain it to you. There have been over 200 such lawsuit filed against Curves in the last several years and while some have been settled in mediation others are in the process of going to litigation. If you are a past or present Curves owner who has experienced these problems and want satisfaction whether it be monetary or revenge please contact me. We have several options that we can go and I for one am positive we will win as the other lawsuits have been successful so far and have set a precedent for ours. It is time for the owners of Curves franchises either past or present to stand up together and put a stop to Heavins’s ramped destruction of peoples lives just for monetary greed.
Thanks for reading our post and God Bless you all.
ARE YOU AN CURVES FRANCHISE OWNER OR FORMER CURVES FRANCHISEE?
ARE YOU FAMILIAR WITH THE CURVES FRANCHISE OPPORTUNITY?
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Judy said: “Without the fees you would at least have a chance of a profit.”
Quit kidding yourself. With Curves minimum monthly fees at just 95 and 195, if you think you can turn an unprofitable business around simply by eliminating those fees, you are sadly, but not surprisingly, mistaken. Somewhere else on this site a PACE distributor tried the argument to convince people if they dropped those gigantic franchise fees (by buying HIS equipment) they’d be profitable. What a load. If you cannot control your rent and payroll you are finished. Plus, most re-sales overpaid and THAT loan payment and mismanagement is what makes them unprofitable.
Here you go, here’s that advertisement “article” for the PACE guy. There is actually some pretty healthy debate and intelligence in the first half dozen or so responses in January. Then in Feb to the present, unhappy and the PACE guy get on a mutual admiration rant and it degenerates into the norm.
https://unhappyfranchisee.mystagingwebsite.com/curves-can-indie-clubs-thrive-where-curves-failed/
Unless you work every shift and hire NO help and don't give away free T-shirts and other prizes, you will not survive long with a 260- member club, especially in Newark, NJ. Most owners need 400 members to break even or make a small profit.
But go for it, Guest. You sound so confident. Put your money where your mouth is and buy that Orlando Dr. Phillips club, with its 350 members, for $5,000. We sold a club with 300 members at the time of the contract signing for more than $100,000 just three years ago. THIS Orlando club is a bargain for only $5K .
Show us how we could have been successful. We'll be waiting for your sage advice.
Guest will be much better off with the Hope Mills NC Curves location. The asking price is $500.00, but they usually price high so there's room for negotiation. I bet with Guest's business acumen he can get it for $250... $350 tops.
I'm sure the rent is reasonable in Hope Mills, NC and at I doubt the resale is "overpriced" at $350. With your superior business mind, Guest, I think you could make a killing turning around these bargain Curves run down by lesser franchisees than yourself. Go for it!
Wait, it looks like the consensus here was that anyone who sold their club was ripping the buyer off and that CI should have stopped them! Isn’t that part of the basis of one of these law suits?
But more importantly, three years ago you sold a club for “more than $100,000”. Then, less than a year and a half after selling that club to (as unhappy refers to them) some “SUCKER” for “more than $100,000”, you posted here in Jan ‘09 as being “Wipedout” (you may have been using that handle elsewhere even before that). Hmmmm. Looks like you should have sold more than the one club, huh? No, no, I’m sure you knew what you were doing.
Some folks are like the people who invested poorly in the stock market. A business is an investment. If you are not treating it as such, you shouldn’t be in business. If you are going to take risks, you have to be willing to accept the responsibility when those investments fail (especially when they fail because you didn’t manage your portfolio correctly). “2 years ago my club/portfolio was worth $100,000. Today it’s worth nothing.” Who’s fault is that? If you INVEST in something and then don’t sell at the right time, you may have made a great investment, but you failed to sell. You sold one of your clubs for $100,000, I guess you should have dumped all your stock in Curves back then too!
And sure, I’ll zip right down there and snap up that FL club. Please. Stop being ridiculous and learn something for a change. I’ve been driving a car for 40 years. I’ve seen plenty of accidents in my time. I don’t have to be involved in the accident to understand what that person did wrong. Likewise, I have been running businesses for over 30 years, I don’t have to mismanage your business to see what you are doing wrong. Also, you make the assumption that I never owned a Curves or similar business.
But if you are actually willing to learn (and sadly, it doesn’t really look like many really are, but for the few that are)… at 260 members, between dues, new sales, product sales, etc… should be bringing in AT LEAST $10,000/month. Speaking of product sales, NEVER give away anything that does not lead to another LARGER sale. Give them a DISCOUNT on something, not the something! Outside of Curves I’d NEVER seen that. It’s utter nonsense! Now, to the biggies: rent and payroll. A quick search shows that there are PLENTY of commercial spaces going for $1 a Sq/ft or LESS in the Newark area. So even if you are tied into a lease, renegotiate. 260 members should be in no more than 1300-1400 Sq/ft space. Hours listed were pretty good (that’s the max I’d recommend, unless you’re going with the 24/7 system). As I said, 3 staff – 1 full time and 2 part time. Notice how I didn’t say “full time manager”. Even if you are not in the club daily, YOU are the manager and so long as you do your job, you just need staff that does THEIR job too. I’m assuming for this exercise that you are NOT working the club, if you are, eliminate either the full timer or BOTH part timers. Always only 1 on at that early morning hour/hour and half and the last hour. Full time covers 8 of the 10 weekday shifts. 2 staff on on Monday and Wednesday (typical busy gym days), 1 part time on each of the 2 remaining uncovered weekday shifts and rotate Saturdays. Near and above double digit unemployment means that you can get GREAT help at a bargain! Is that the end? No, of course not, but that’s your two most costly expenses PROPERLY sorted out and I didn’t have to actually drive a car into a tree to do it! The question is though, are you willing to do what needs to be done? Are you capable of making the cuts that are needed and renegotiate when you have to? Are you a charity or are you done overpaying help? Are you done paying twice the going rate for rent? Do you let people bounce payments to you and NOT collect from them? Are you scared of the competition or are they scared of YOU? Times are tough for EVERYONE, myself included, so quit whining and blaming everyone else and sack up already. That, or you too will be “Wipedout”.
Now, before you claim I’m some Curves plant and throw the baby out with the bathwater, think about it. From what you all have written here, it doesn’t look like anyone there has much more business sense than you, so I couldn’t possibly be with them!
NC, there you go. At least you’re getting closer. However, I still have no desire to have a business three states away. See if you can find me something on the coast and maybe I’ll think about it. At least then I could make it a working weekend holiday!
Also, all you sharp business minds are forgetting that these re-sales are going to be tied to taking over crazy stupid leases as a condition of the sale. A $500 cost to take over a $5,000+/month lease may sound like a great idea to you, but then again, many of you thought it was a good idea to pay $150,000 to take over a $200,000+ worth of lease liability – and THANK the seller for the “opportunity” on top of it!
Wipedout.
Why waste your time replying to guest when it is obvious she, he or it, doesn't know her ass from a hole in the ground. Her points are not valid, she has never owned a Curves and knows nothing about running a business much less a curves. If curves was such a good business do you really think that the State of California would have declared that the FDD was fraudulent and stop all sales of new and resales of curves franchises? Of course not and any one who has owned a Curves knows how dishonest, unethical , immoral and anti-christian Howie is and continues to be. !00 clubs a month are closing and by the first of the year this company will be bankrupt!!!! If not before........................
Unhappy wrote “Why waste your time replying to guest when it is obvious she, he or it, doesn't know her ass from a hole in the ground. Her points are not valid…”
That’s right! Controlling your payroll, reducing your rent, NOT giving away free stuff that doesn’t lead to a larger sale – this is NOT sound advice. Listen to unhappy who, by his own admission FAILED to keep his own business alive. I’m sure he’ll help YOU stay in business though. Yep, that sounds like a good plan to me. Reading his rants, it looks like he’s just pissed that he couldn’t unload his last two clubs to some “sucker” like he did before. All this, despite his vast knowledge and abilities!
Don’t you people get it yet? His “business” now is tied to YOUR failure. The more YOU fail, the more business his lawyers get. It’s awe inspiring!
But please tell us, how many law suits have you actually WON against Curves, unhappy? I’m not talking motions, but actual cases. Come on now, you don’t even need your fingers to count so this should be easy. And all those wins (0), how much has it cost OTHER owners? Hasn’t cost you anything though, right? You’ve already said before that YOU aren’t in the first round of law suits – you know, the round that COST owners up front money. You’re waiting for the SECOND round, the one which will go forward ONLY if the first one is won.
Maybe it’s me, but reading what you’ve written, it looks like the only thing you’ve been successful at, is being a failure. That and convincing yourself that you being a failure is not your fault. Seems like you’ve had more success as a failed businessman (and I’d guess earned more in, what do they call them?? “finder’s fees”? from lawyers?) than you probably did when running your business into the ground. Well done.
But let’s take a moment to listen to unhappy from a couple of weeks back: “Thank you for addressing and clarifying the guidelines of the posts on this site. It should put a stop to the Ad Hominid attacks that several posters continue to post.”
First, I’m going to assume that you didn’t actually mean “advertising attacks against primates” (“Ad Hominid attack”???) and actually meant to say that there should not be any arguments based solely on irrelevant facts or opinions about the author (argumentum ad hominem). I find you praising that idea to be pretty close to the definition of irony. It is in fact YOU who simply dismisses the content of anyone’s post who does not agree with you SIMPLY because they do not agree with you and justify this with false and irrelevant character assassinations (and worse, character attacks on people you don’t even know!) never to respond to the actual content.
Just to clarify though, what you and “admin” are referring to as ad hominem attacks are not in and of themselves improper forms of debate. When a person’s opinions, motives, conduct, etc… DO relate to the issue and ARE relevant reasons not to believe their arguments, they ARE legitimate points in an argument. So, when someone points out that you don’t even know the status of these cases you point to, that you’ve misquoted other articles to fit your argument, that you’ve never actually won a case against Curves, that you’ve not personally paid to join the lawsuit you think everyone else should join, that you will financially benefit from THEM doing so, that you attack the person instead of the argument, that you regularly claim one small thing to mean an entirely different thing (for example, your statement about what is going on in CA has nothing to do with anything OTHER than late filing of paperwork and NOT an indictment of the franchise system as a whole - like you would have readers believe), that you state opinion as fact and routinely make up numbers that you can not and will not back up, that whenever anyone points any or all of this out that you say they should be ignored because they are a plant or “he, she, it” is “immoral, unethical, dishonest, anti-Christian” (just like “Howie”), etc… these seem to YOU to be irrelevant “ad hominem” attacks but in reality are perfectly legitimate sticking points as to why no one should believe a word you print.
Oh snap!
Guest, let us know what city and state you live in. I'll do my best to find you a deal on a nearby struggling Curves and you can buy it and turn it around with your business acumen and by doing things "the Curves way." Then you can REALLY experience what we've all endured. If you make it, congratulations. If you don't, welcome to the club.