From Thursday 21st until Saturday 23rd of March, Body Fit Training (BFT) – Australia’s fastest-growing fitness franchise – hosted its annual conference, welcoming more than 400 franchisees and suppliers from around the world to the Gold Coast in Australia. With this year’s theme – ‘Building Better’ – signalling an exciting era for the international franchise, the network came together to celebrate recent achievements and the brand’s continued success.
“Our annual conference is the highlight of our year, and this year’s event – our sixth as a network – certainly didn’t disappoint,” explained Cameron Falloon, Founder and Director of BFT. “As a global brand, it’s not often that we’re able to come together as a collective and recognise the hard work our franchisees and their teams do. I was very proud to celebrate and congratulate them on their continued success. It was wonderful to see so many of our international franchisees in person – and to award the UK franchisees flying the flag for BFT on British soil.”
Franchisee Charlie Hendrie relocated from Australia to the UK to launch the first BFT studio in the developing district of Battersea, London, just over 12 months ago. Along with his wife, Lauren, Charlie and his team were awarded two prestigious accolades during the annual awards ceremony – commending them for their unparalleled success following their launch in February last year.
“We feel proud to be recognised for the efforts we have put in the last 12 months. From delivering an exceptional product and service to our members, along with giving the brand a strong start in the UK,” commented Charlie. “It’s nice to have that recognition within the BFT network but, at the same time, we’re very much only just starting out on our BFT UK journey. My wife Lauren and I have some exciting plans to scale. The goal is to represent the brand as best we can on a much larger scale.
“The conference was great for so many reasons – I loved the energy and passion from our peers within the network. The ways studios are always optimising, improving brand standards, chatting challenges and celebrating the wins was invaluable to absorb. The sessions run by head office on building better pre-sales, studio performance, high-performing teams, staff retention and equipment maintenance will all be crucial to our UK ambitions. All this supported by the award ceremony was just such a powerful and impactful three days.”
As well as honouring the achievements of the brand’s global network, the annual conference offered a whole host of networking and breakout sessions for delegates to attend – including workshops on re-evaluating and benchmarking business operations. Franchisees were encouraged to ‘choose their own adventure’, opting for specific sessions that related to the operations of their own franchise.
The keynote session was delivered by Amanda Stevens, customer experience specialist. With a background in consumer psychology and marketing, Amanda combined current consumer insights with research into buying behaviour, offering BFT franchisees powerful strategies for connecting with their members.
“This year’s theme reflects the importance of building a product from the ground up, nailing the foundation before setting off to be bigger and better. It’s about honing in on our core competencies and what we do within our four walls, to Build a Better BFT experience. As well as providing a chance to bring our more established franchisees together, this year’s theme supports them to re-evaluate structures, processes and foundations to continuously improve and better our BFT experience – and invigorate our newer franchisees too. A great time was had by all, and I’m looking forward to seeing what our network will go on to achieve in the next 12 months,” added Cameron.
