Gymnastics Instruction Business Plan

Gymnastics Jump-Start is a business that has become necessary in today’s fast-paced world. People are always on the go these days and don’t tend to take care of themselves anymore. America has a large rate of obesity in not only adults but also children. Being overweight can cause many health issues as well as social issues for children. An overweight child will reach an age when they start to feel very unsure in themselves. Everybody goes through a stage like this, but this could be more intense to an overweight child. Also, there is an increase in the number of children with diabetes. Diabetes is occurring more and more in America’s overweight children. Children need to stay active these days, especially with all of technologies advancements. Now children can just sit around the house and watch TV and DVD’s or they can play games on anything from the computer to Playstation® to Xbox®. Children are not active as much when they can sit around their house and entertain themselves as opposed to going outside and play baseball or soccer. There is no doubt that there is room and need in the market for a private gymnastics gym.

4.1 Market Segmentation

Gymnastics Jump-Start has determined that its potential customers will mainly come from children 18 years old and under in Oakland County. The majority of customers will come from Oakland County, however when completing the market analysis table I added in Macomb and Wayne County. I expect these counties will make up less then 30% of our customers.

4.2 Service Business Analysis

The reason I decided that I wanted to open Gymnastics Jump-Start in Oakland County is that there are no real private gyms in the area. On the opposite side of Oakland County from Bouncetown there is one private gym, but I wanted to create a more centralized business. In this industry there are two options: public gyms and private gyms. The public gyms are the city recreation centers and facilities like the YMCA’s and YWCA’s. As I stated before, there is only really one other private gym close in the general area. Most recreation centers or cities do have some sort of a gymnastics program, but this could simply mean that it is as basic as a preschool program.

4.2.1 Competition and Buying Patterns

The public programs tend to be cheaper, but the equipment tends to be not as ‘top of the line’ as the private gyms. These public centers can only train children until they reach a certain point; then they must go to a private gym for training on advanced skills and equipment. In my experience I have found that private gyms have better trained staff and better quality equipment. I have come to that conclusion by both teaching and training in a public and private gym. The public gyms are cheaper but the training the children receive isn’t as good.

If a child is really serious about becoming a competitive gymnast they should attend private gym. The private gyms are more expensive but the classes are smaller and the skill level taught is higher. If a child is just doing gymnastics for fun and is not serious to compete then a public gym is fine. Having a child in gymnastics for them to gain from the social aspect is a great idea. In a private gym the child will also be exposed to the social aspect. There would be no reason to pay the expensive price of a private gym when the child could benefit the same from a public gym socially if that is the main desire.

4.3 Target Market Segment Strategy

Gymnastics Jump-Start is located in Oakland County, which by default means that most of our customers are coming from Oakland County. We also expect children from close surrounding counties like Macomb and Wayne. We do not expect anyone from other Counties to attend classes with us because the distance is too far for many people to travel for gymnastics classes. We will target children 18 years old and under in Oakland, Macomb, and Wayne County. The reason for targeting this age group is that any age after 18 most gymnasts stop competing or practicing regularly. Gymnastics is very rough on the body, by the age of 18 if you have not gotten injured your are normally burned out and lose interest in high level gymnastics. Now this isn’t always the case and I make gymnastics sound bad by saying that, but it’s the truth. Even with that being the case, there is still a large number of children who would like to make gymnastics part of their youth.