Buyers spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars on exercise equipment each year for their home gyms and personal use.
Gyms, hotels, spas, rehabilitation centers and schools spend tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars on their workout equipment.
And, unlike being an inconvenience for the casual user, for a gym or rehabilitation facility, equipment not working means their customers aren’t being served.
But, it’s not like there’s some magical person that makes house calls like a gym equipment doctor, right?
Wrong.
Meet Kevin Bracy, owner of Fitness Machine Technicians based in Avon.
While Bracy’s not magical, his customers think he and his team of 11 technicians work miracles on their fitness equipment, keeping casual exercisers and professional gyms alike moving smoothly.
Serving throughout Lorain County and virtually all of Ohio, Bracy opened the franchise in November 2019.
He is one of 53 franchise owners across 115 territories in the United States and Canada.
His company provides repair services and general preventative maintenance on virtually every brand and type of fitness equipment.
It also provides assembly and disassembly, as Bracy explained equipment is getting more and more complicated.
“It’s not quite as simple as a nut or bolt these days,” he said. “Moving in general is a daunting task, particularly if you have quite a bit of fitness equipment that is too large to move and has to be disassembled and reassembled.
“Our technicians are expertly trained. Think about it — each technician is working on 20 or more machines a week. You probably have never worked on one or maybe once every five years or longer maybe when you first put it together.
“It’s just easier, faster and safer for us to do it. And, generic moving companies are not equipped to do that.”
Understanding the equipment
Exercise machines are composed of various distinctive components such as consoles, cabling and belts, Bracy said.
And, understanding how to correctly manage them, is essential in order to guarantee that the gear functions at its peak performance at all times.
He likens it to having a mechanic do routine updates to your car, such as an oil change or tune up, or going to the doctor for a check up yourself.
“That’s where we see most of the issues with the equipment is that it’s just not properly maintained or on a maintenance schedule,” Bracy said. “Once most folks set it up, they use it until it breaks.
“A little prevention goes a long way. And, with the newer equipment becoming more and more technology and software based, maintenance and repair is going far beyond belts and motors and bolts.”
Bracy explained that most equipment has a warranty of between one and three years.
Most brands and individual machines have a parts inventory of up to 10 years.
The problem that arises is that most machines, and even most brands, don’t have standard or interchangeable parts, and each requires
some very specific parts if they need replaced that you can’t simply find at the local hardware store.
He added that in his travels, he’s seen many simple repairs like the user forgetting to turn the machine on, to far more complex repairs that exceed the cost of the machine in the first place.
“That’s when we explain to them that it may just be better to invest in a new machine,” Bracy said. “I’ve seen machines that only a few months go bad, and others that have lasted 25-plus years.
“I’ve seen folks walk a mile or so on a treadmill once in a while to folks training for marathons. It just rums the gamut of how folks use things and the wear and tear on the machine.
“Plus, you have hundreds of different brands, so it’s a lot to keep up on to fix a broken machine, and we can’t keep all the parts in the back of the van. As of now, there are more than 400,000 different individual parts needed to repair and maintain all of these different pieces of equipment.”
And, it’s that commitment to training and customer service Bracy liked about the franchise, when considering to start one, calling himself a “start up and entrepreneurial kind of guy.”
The company provides several days on nonstop video training about the fitness machines themselves, allowing technicians to garner a deep understanding of the errors, safety needs and quirks of the machines.
Then, each technician works with an experienced technician almost as an apprentice learning more skills such as customer service, solution options and highly technical maintenance.
The franchise
Bracy has worked with another local franchise called FrafNet.
He began with a list of 80 franchise options and whittled it down to four before selecting Fitness Machine Technicians.
Bracy said he really enjoyed the type of franchise it was, providing a beneficial service to its customers that also is recession resistant.
“When times are good, people are buying new machines,” he smiled. “When times are tough, people are repairing what they have.
“But regardless if times or good or bad, folks need to keep moving. Exercise is so important and such a valuable part of our everyday life. I like that I work in an industry that is helping to get people to be more active, to be more healthy.”
A standard maintenance call is $139.
The technician will come out and diagnose the issue then write the prescription for the cure, which would include all parts and labor necessary to correct the issue.
In Lorain County, Bracy said it only takes a couple days upon contacting his company that a technician is likely to be available for the call.
Fitness Machine Technicians can be reached at 440-252-0164 or online at www.fitnessmachinetechnicians.com.
