Fitness studio & gym

1. Know your jurisdiction's prepaid-services rules before writing the contract. In Ontario, fitness club memberships sit inside the Consumer Protection Act, 2002, which governs what the agreement must contain, the length it may run, and the consumer's cancellation and cooling-off rights — and an agreement that does not comply may be unenforceable.
2. Write the agreement in plain language with the price, the term, what renewal does, the cancellation method and the refund treatment on one page the member can keep.
3. Give the member a copy at signing, by email, automatically from the system. 'We gave them a copy' is not a defence; the sent record is.
4. Honour the cooling-off period without argument and without a retention script. The cost of one refund is trivial next to a regulator's attention.
5. Make cancellation possible by the same channel as signing. Requiring an in-person visit or a registered letter to cancel is the practice that generates complaints and, in some jurisdictions, breaches the rules outright.
6. Record prepaid and unexpired membership value as a liability in the books, because that is what it is until the service is delivered.

1. Have every member complete a health screening before their first session, and have a written rule about what answer triggers a referral for medical clearance.
2. Take a signed waiver and assumption-of-risk acknowledgement — electronically is fine — and keep it retrievable by name and date. Waiver enforceability varies by jurisdiction and a waiver never excuses a failure to supervise, so treat it as one layer and the procedure as the real one.
3. Record disclosed injuries, conditions, medications and pregnancy, and make them visible to whoever coaches that member.
4. Run an induction on the equipment the member will use unsupervised, and record that it happened.
5. Set expectations about the schedule, the booking and cancellation rules, and the etiquette — most member friction is unstated expectation.
6. Book the next three sessions at intake. Attendance in the first fortnight is the single strongest predictor of whether a member stays.

1. Set class capacity by the space, the equipment and the coach's ability to see everyone — not by demand. An over-full class is a coaching failure and an injury risk.
2. Review utilisation per class, per time slot, weekly: booked against capacity, and attended against booked.
3. Cut classes that run persistently under about half capacity and move the coach's hours to slots that fill. Sentiment about a beloved empty class is what makes studios unprofitable.
4. Enforce the late-cancellation rule for class packs and unlimited memberships alike, or the popular classes will show full and run half empty.
5. Maintain a waitlist that auto-promotes, and measure how often it converts — a frequently-filled waitlist is the signal to add a session, before you add a coach.
6. Keep a documented substitute-coach plan. A cancelled class without notice costs more goodwill than a substitute ever does.

1. Walk the floor at opening: cables, clips, pins, collars, bolts, mats, mirrors, the squat rack, and anything with a frayed strap. Log the walk.
2. Service equipment on the manufacturer's schedule and record it. Take broken equipment out of service physically — tagged and unplugged — not with a hopeful note.
3. Have an emergency plan that names who does what: call emergency services, retrieve the automated external defibrillator, clear space, meet the ambulance, manage the other members. Drill it quarterly.
4. Keep first aid certification current for whoever is on shift, and know your jurisdiction's first-aid requirements for your headcount and premises.
5. Where you have an AED, check it on the manufacturer's schedule, keep it visibly signed, unlocked and accessible, and ensure staff know where it is without thinking.
6. Write up every incident and near-miss the same day — what happened, who was present, what was done, what will change. Report to your insurer as the policy requires.

1. Require a recognised certification and verify it with the issuing body rather than accepting a certificate image. The credible bodies include CSEP and canfitpro in Canada and ACSM and NSCA internationally.
2. Require current first aid and CPR, with the expiry recorded and a reminder set.
3. Require each independent contractor coach to carry their own professional liability insurance, and keep the certificate on file, renewed.
4. Classify honestly: a coach whose hours, rates, clients and methods you control is in substance an employee in most jurisdictions, whatever the agreement says. Misclassification is assessed retroactively, with interest.
5. Define the scope of practice in writing: coaches do not diagnose, do not treat injuries, do not prescribe diets where that is a regulated activity, and do not sell supplements with health claims.
6. Observe every coach teaching, twice a year, and write down what you saw. It is the only quality control that works.

1. Measure attendance per member weekly and define a lapse — two weeks without a visit is a common trigger — then contact them personally, by phone or a real message, not a campaign.
2. Report monthly churn as a number and know your average member lifetime. A studio with 8% monthly churn replaces its entire membership in a year, which no marketing budget survives.
3. Ask every leaver why, in a short call, and record the reason by category: price, schedule, location, result, injury, moved.
4. Run a referral mechanism that rewards the member and is easy to use; in this industry referral is the cheapest and highest-retaining acquisition channel by a wide margin.
5. Celebrate attendance milestones and visible results with the member's consent. Belonging is the product; the equipment is just the equipment.
6. Review the member mix against the lease cost quarterly: this business is a fixed-cost box, so the only questions are how many members it holds and how long they stay.

Licences and registrations

• Compliance with consumer protection law on memberships — Provincial consumer protection regulators — in Ontario the Consumer Protection Act, 2002 governs fitness club agreements
  Not a licence but the rules your contract must satisfy: required contents, limits on term, cooling-off and cancellation rights, and restrictions on renewal practices. A non-compliant agreement can be unenforceable, which means a membership base that cannot be relied on in a sale.
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• Municipal business licence, zoning and occupancy — The municipality and the building authority
  Occupant load, washroom and change-room requirements, parking and accessibility all come with the premises. Confirm the permitted use for the specific address before the lease.
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• Music performance tariffs — SOCAN and Re:Sound
  Both are needed in Canada, and fitness has its own tariff categories with classes treated differently from background music. A personal streaming account does not license commercial play.
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• First aid and, where required, AED provision — Provincial occupational health and safety regulators; local requirements vary
  First-aid provision is set by your workforce size and premises. Some jurisdictions mandate AEDs in certain recreational facilities — check yours, and install one either way.
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• Payroll, workers' compensation and the contractor question — Federal and provincial
  Studios run heavily on part-time coaches, and classification is the industry's standing compliance risk. Register for payroll and coverage where you employ.
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• Supplement and nutrition claims — Health Canada for products; provincial regulators for dietetic practice
  Selling supplements means selling regulated products with licensing requirements, and giving individualised dietary advice is a regulated activity in some provinces. Keep coaching inside its scope.
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Insurance

• Commercial general liability, commonly $2M–$5M — Member injury and property damage. The landlord requires it, and so does every corporate client who wants to buy memberships for staff.10
• Professional liability for instruction and programme design — The characteristic claim is that the coaching caused the injury — a service failure, not an accident. Confirm it covers every modality you offer, including anything off site.10
• Proof of contractors' own professional liability — Independent coaches must carry their own, and you need the certificate on file and renewed. Without it, their claim becomes yours.10
• Property, contents and business interruption — Equipment and fit-out are the capital in this business, and a closure still owes rent. Interruption cover is what keeps the lease paid while the floor is repaired.10
• Workers' compensation coverage — Mandatory for employees. Also note that a coach you have classified as a contractor may still be found to be a worker, which is precisely why classification is reviewed annually.4