Interview with Josh York, CEO and Founder of GYMGUYZ Franchise

Best Franchise Brands Podcast

In this episode, I talk with Josh York, CEO and Founder of GYMGUYZ about how he started his franchise in his parent's living room and has grown it into one of the largest in-home workout and personal training brands in the world with locations offering personal training in over 1,000 cities in the United States.

Josh started the GYMGUYZ business in 2008. However, it was many years prior that he began creating the path that would lead to a successful mobile personal training business. In 2007, after graduating from college, Josh began working for a marketing firm and continued working as a personal trainer in the evenings. It was on one of these evenings at the gym that something clicked. He noticed that gym members were inconsistent. They had too many excuses not to show up at the gym and work out. Whether his clients were working late, unable to leave the house after a busy day, or just needed to get dinner on the table, Josh realized that there are dozens of rational reasons why many people aren’t consistent gym-goers. This is when he started developing a solution.

Tapping into his creativity, his professional background in marketing, and his solid knowledge of health and fitness, Josh decided to launch his own company. He would offer an experience that was completely different by bringing customers a unique service: a mobile fitness company that comes to the setting of your choice. GYMGUYZ was invented, with a fully equipped van containing weights, resistance equipment, body bars, and so much more. The personal trainers would develop personalized exercise and nutrition programs designed to ensure clients achieve their fitness goals.

Josh created GYMGUYZ from an idea and, like many great entrepreneurs, he started the GYMGUYZ business in his parents’ house in 2008. The dining room became a mini GYMGUYZ office. He started with a vision, a laptop, and one van. He conducted business at the dining room table with a cordless phone and one folder with a few client names.

Josh was not only running the business, but he was training the clients as well. When not training his clients, Josh drove the GYMGUYZ van every day, up and down the Long Island Expressway, in an effort to market the GYMGUYZ brand and attract new clients. Soon that one folder became multiple files, and the dining room became crowded with file cabinets, a printer, a fax machine, and marketing materials. Today GYMGUYZ is a leader in the in-home personal training space and you'll learn about their start and growth strategy in this informative interview.