Fitness guru Duncan wins major award for playing to strengths

21-July-2022

Duncan Attwood, owner of fit20 Exeter, is living proof of the survival of the fittest, thriving when so many others in the industry fell by the wayside in the pandemic.

Forced, like them, to lock his doors due to Government lockdown restrictions, he helped develop a new version of the company’s training that could be delivered by Zoom into members’ homes.

“We described it as an Emergency Ration, to distinguish it from our standard training, and we charged half the usual fee,” he says.

“In order to support my team, I gave all the training sessions work to them, didn’t do any myself, and paid them their normal rate.

“It meant the business didn’t benefit financially from the sessions, but our team did.”

His efforts to not just keep his business going but develop it have won him a major industry honour, a Great British Franchisee Award, that puts him among the elite.

The awards, organised by whichfranchise.com, recognise the best in the franchise industry.

“When you see Duncan speak about fit20, it's effortless and genuine,” says Niri Patel, Managing Director of fit20 in the UK.

“He tells story after story of how it's changed his members' lives - and you see people hanging on his every word.

“The way he does business inspires people around him to be kinder, more thoughtful and think about the greater good - and that’s something the world desperately needs more of right now.”

Duncan, who opened for business three years ago, broke even in his firth month, and hopes to open a second studio, also found a way around the misplaced scepticism some potential clients feel about the company’s approach to training.

“One of the biggest challenges I’ve faced is convincing people our USPs are genuine and our system works,” he says. “So I changed my approach to focus on the health benefits and outcomes of the training to complement the unique approach used by the franchise.

“When I combined this with my own experience of traditional exercise versus those of our brand, it became a compelling proposition and our enquiries and subsequent sales increased.”