Opening small business with low overhead (fees, liability insurance, lawyer, licenses)

[TXboomerang]

Me and my wife have been talking off an on for over a year now about starting our own business. We are now getting more serious and talking about some of the details.

We are looking to start up a personal training/fitness studio. My wife is a trainer, and I was for 3 years before getting into the fitness equipment business. I would consider moving back into the training area if things work out, but our idea is initially based on her being the owner/trainer as I am happy with what I'm doing.

Here's what we have figured out so far. We would like to start small with as little overhead as possible. We currently own most of the equipment we would want to start up with. Our early estimates are that we would need approximately $7-$8k more in equipment to get going, although we may be able to do it for less. Square footage will need to be approx 1000-1400, and while a good location is desirable, we don't need a high traffic area, only visibility from a main road on the west edge of Knoxville/east edge of Lenoir City.

We realize there would be water/electricity bills, but are there other things we are missing here?

Also, we are going to be buying a home with acreage and had considered starting up on our property by building a small building that could be used (would build it anyway for storage/workshop/hobbies/etc). Are there some issues with using our property that I need to be aware of, aside from being a little distance from a highly visible area? In essence if we used our property, we could have almost no overhead/lease expenses and could possibly have some incentives tax wise to doing it on our property, however I would be interested to know if there are liability concerns that would make this a bad move.

[BobKovacs]

Have you look into liability insurance costs? I can't say for sure, but I'm thinking that it's going to be pretty costly to get insurance for a business with a fairly high risk of your clients getting (or claiming to get) physically injured due to what you instruct them to do. Of course, having a well-crafted liability waiver would be a good start, but nothing will protect you from a client who truly feels "wronged".

Bob

[TXboomerang]

Liability insurance won't be cheap, but actually isn't too bad. The business model I'm considering is similar to that of a gentleman I sold equipment to for multiple locations. Documentation of thorough liability waivers/informed consent/medical release type forms helped him get very decent rates for liability. Unfortunately it causes some people to not become clients due to not following through on paperwork, but that number for him was small, and if they aren't willing to follow through on the paperwork, I would rather pass on working with them to protect my business.

[mrdude]

you may already have thought of this, but you could expand from personal training into diet consulting. not only do people pay handsomely for custom diet planning, but it greatly enhances the results people see from personal training, thus increasing the value of your personal training.

also, i would strongly recommend installing a vending machine that has water and various "health drinks" (energy drinks, gatorade, propel, etc.). a friend of mine owns a gym, and he said that the gym memberships barely cover costs and that all of his profit comes from selling drinks.

[golfgal]

Originally Posted by tnbound2day

Liability insurance won't be cheap, but actually isn't too bad. The business model I'm considering is similar to that of a gentleman I sold equipment to for multiple locations. Documentation of thorough liability waivers/informed consent/medical release type forms helped him get very decent rates for liability. Unfortunately it causes some people to not become clients due to not following through on paperwork, but that number for him was small, and if they aren't willing to follow through on the paperwork, I would rather pass on working with them to protect my business.

Those waivers rarely hold up in court so you might want to have a lawyer draft one to have a better chance of it holding if someone were to sue you.

Often general liability policies will require you to have a 'members only' status so that might be a consideration.

You are also going to want to carry insurance on your equipment, your building-you will probably have to show proof of insurance to whomever you rent from that covers damage caused by you (or your customers). You will also probably have to have the building owners listed as an additional insured on your policy.

Keep in mind that business accounts for utilities, phone, etc. are a LOT more expensive then residential accounts--maybe as much as 5 times as much or more.

If you operate out of your home--or on your property, beef up the liability coverage on your home, get a liability umbrella policy as well.

[katzenfreund]

On top of liability insurance you will have to pay for various fees and licenses, depending on where you live - but most likely yearly.

[JMX]

A lot of cities have restrictions about operating high-traffic businesses in residential areas. I don't know if your business would fall into that category or not. Check with your city or town.

And remember...

When you work at home, you live at work.