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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jd,
As you are not a Curves owner why don't you but out. My wife and I made the mistake of buying a Curves and we are dealing with all the problems of trying to keep it open. Not only are we not getting any help from CI, we moved it in to a brand new facility, and no one from CI has yet set foot in our club. We have been open in the new location for over a year.
To all the rest of you thank you for the information you are posting. We are hanging on by a thread and may have to shout the doors any day.
rb
jd
It is, after all, "Robert Lay's Story." You see, only in your mind is it all about you.
For those of us that are trying to hang in and make this work, I just got off the phone with Curves International to find out that in March 2010 they had dissolved their partnership with BlueCross Blueshield 365 and were only billing until July 2010, this was the last month for the automatic payment to us. When were we going to be told? They also dissolved the partnership with Walmart and McDonalds employees. And has hindered any marketing we could have done with Weight Watchers. I have also experienced one health plan that pulled out of the SilverSneakers program with no notice to the club or the members. I lost 8 months of payments. So where is the backing of being part of a franchise. We invested in the franchise to have a name. Well the name is going to hell. What choice do we have, we are all tired of beating a dead horse. Going to every business group in the area, handing out flyers, working 40+ hours a week and nothing to show for it. And starting this month, July, we will be payed the max of $32. for 8 workouts for the SilverSneakers. Doesn't seen like anything is getting better, just worse. So if anyone can give us something positive to look forward to in owning a Curves, please post it. Otherwise I will also be volunteering for the plan to "prune the system"
I visited Bluecross Blueshield 365 website to look at their discounts for their policy holders, sure enough Curves was replaced by SnapFitness. CI is really working on us staying in business.
One thing I don't tolerate well is the infighting and name calling on any type of website. It gets old and downright dirty at times which in turn defeats the original purpose of such a forum. I originally posted my comments to vent a little and hopefully gain some support from other struggling Curves owners. I know there are more out there like my mom and I in similar situations.
I was disheartened by the WSJ article (7/7/2010) and have since had a few ladies come in and ask if we were closing or they bring in the actual article like I hadn't already seen it. I feel like we were blind sided and all I could do was tell these ladies that we are not closing, but I have no specific answer for them regarding a corporate response. We have made some recent updates to make it look more inviting and OPEN FOR BUSINESS! We repainted our street signs and building sign. We added flower boxes in front of our windows and I got vinyl lettering to post our hours to look more professional than a taped up paper.
What I've learned from marketing recently is that certain places will not let you leave a lead box or flyers. If we do leave a lead box, it is stuffed with bogus interested people as a joke or there's nothing at all. I personally have never filled out a form for a lead box, nor would I in this day and age of ID theft and constant calls from telemarketers. Since it's just the two of us, we can only get so many flyers out at a time. We've aksed our members to place some for us (of which they have obliged). However, they do not like to give out information on their friends. I have heard many comments from the members that the previous employees would constantly hound them about referrals and they are so turned off at the prospect that we very rarely approach our current members. Our co-op has tried very costly newspaper, radio and television advertising. Some of these worked a little, but mostly it was too much money spent and not enough in return to even recoup a little back. We're trying to find other ways of marketing that might not be as costly with the same impact. I will repeat myself here and state again, since we pay advertising dues to CI, it should be invested in prime time TV (ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox) not cable. We need a spokesperson (Olivia Newton-John?). Heck, in the Spring 2010 issue of Diane magazine there was an article about Kathy Kinney (formerly "Mimi" from The Drew Carrey Show). She has already been a Curves member for seven years. Wouldn't she be perfect??? Her "before" picture could show her in the garish makeup as Mimi! We NEED something major in advertising, but locally we can't afford it; we need our advertising dollars put to good use!
The products are coming around, but very slowly. We have very minimal clothing items to display right now. We don't like to display things for too long, because eventually we can't get a certain size or style because it's out of stock. Our current members are looking for workout gear, not more water bottles and gym bags! And they can only have so many t-shirts. Of course the new Stronger Together shirts are more expensive and in this tight economy, the last thing someone wants to do is pay MORE for another Curves shirt. We need workout gear!
I understand the concept of packaging items and selling them as a 10 pack, especially if it's trinkets. But for a small club like ours, ordering 12 protein shakes or a case of 25 weight management books doesn't work. Would it hurt to reduce the sizes? Maybe a case of 6 protein shakes or 10 weight management books? We cancelled our subscription to Diane magazine for the very reason that we always had at least 50-75 left over. How about packages of 25 for us small clubs to purchase as needed, not the case of 100!
We need some FRESH IDEAS to market through corporate and on our own. The programs in place now are no longer doing the trick. People are very suspicious of your intentions any more. Many times I have salespeople call or come in and I'm always on edge about what they are trying to rope me into.
I will once again state that without Curves, I would still be an overweight, unhappy person still on antidepressants. I started workoing out at Curves 25 lbs. heavier and I stopped taking all meds cold turkey because I wanted those happiness endorphins to start working instead. Besides, being a busy mom, I really liked the idea of ONLY 30 minutes. I watch my mom deal with knee issues and workout because I don't want to be in that position when I'm her age (or sooner). I think MANY women would be lost without Curves. Big co-ed gyms and the equipment in them are itimidating. Curves has taught many women the benefits of cardio and strength training in a safe, non-intimidating atmosphere, some of whom have never set foot in a gym in their life! CurvesSmart, while it has some issues, still kicks butt every single time I work out!
I do believe that the old tried & true methods no longer apply though. Curves needs to make a major splash across the country, but not in the form of unpleasant press (WSJ).
I AM NOT AN UNHAPPY FRANCHISEE, I AM A SURVIVING FRANCHISEE. I DO NOT WISHED TO BE "PRUNED"! I WISH TO BLOSSOM!
HusCurves Fan:
Welcome and thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts, what's working for you, and what isn't, etc.
It's a good reminder that not everyone is closing or has closed. Hopefully some of the veterans will share some ideas here for things you might try.
We know that CI reads these comment threads (as do WSJ writers). Everyone should feel free to to post ideas & requests as to what marketing changes they'd like to see. Maybe the glare of public scrutiny will prompt some positive changes. (more wishful thinking?)
To HusCurves fan--
You are on the wrong web site....most of us here have tried all that and then some and we no longer have any advice to shell out to franchisees who are still trying. I admire you and all that you are doing/trying to do.
Are you a member of the Yahoo Curves Owners group? If not join that group and there are other franchisees like you that are doing well and want to do better.
I wish you all the luck in the world and much success.
Keep on Blossoming!
More stories coming out using Curves closures like
"Curves, other gyms in Utah cope with downturn" http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/money/49936718-79/club-health-curves-cut.html.csp
"Curves, which has cut thousands of locations nationally, is down to about 40 outlets in Utah after climbing to more than 50 (the parent company won’t provide exact numbers)."
Hard to believe it was just last June, in the middle of "pruning" 1000 clubs the AAFD named them franchisor of the year. http://www.aafd.org/thefranchiseevoice/2009FranchisorOfTheYear.php
"The American Association of Franchisee and Dealers (AAFD) announced Curves International, Inc., as AAFD’s Franchisor of the Year for 2009.
"Curves International is the franchisor of Curves fitness centers, the world’s largest fitness network with nearly 10,000 franchisee-owned fitness clubs serving four million women worldwide. Curves is also one of the fastest growing franchise companies in history."
"Under the leadership of company founders, Gary and Diane Heavin, Curves has defined itself as a franchise system built upon a culture of collaboration with and respect for its franchisee network, as well as setting a high standard for customer satisfaction and commitment."
"Said CEO Gary Heavin, “We have always made every effort to work hand in hand with our franchisees—as partners and as friends. The CFA is an indispensable resource, providing invaluable feedback that allows us to serve our franchisees at a higher level. I am pleased to accept this award in recognition of the collaborative efforts of our corporate employees, our franchisees and the CFA.”
New article about Curves in the Waco paper that owners should read....
http://www.wacotrib.com/news/Waco-fitness-chain-Curves-finds-itself-shrinking-closing-more-than-1000-locations.html
Why didnt any of you owners who say you had wonderful booming clubs put any of that fabulous money away when you were doing soooooo well????? Dont blame Gary for your poor business sence!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Curves did grow very quickly. Many of the origionals whom I too know and worked with very closely, filed suits because they thought they deserved a bigger piece of Garys pie!!!!! Obviously they didnt and they are no longer here. Grow up people and take responsibility for your business......ONLY YOU make it what it is!!!
Thanks for changing my mind about buying a curves. Good luck to all of you.