Brett Long and Todd Scarce on the success story Down Under

fM: The first Kieser studio was opened in Australia in 2006. How did ‘Kieser Australia’ founder Gary Harley become aware of Kieser and what convinced him?

Todd Scarce: It’s actually a funny story. Gary was looking for Keiser training equipment online, but he misspelled it and came across Kieser Training.

Since he was already a franchisee for a women’s fitness center in Australia at the time, the Kieser concept immediately aroused great interest in him. When he saw what Kieser was doing in Europe, he immediately realized that there was no comparable concept in Australia at that time.

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At that time, gyms in Australia were primarily focused on the 18 to 35 year old target group. Gary himself was in his early 50s and saw that there were no training options for people like him who wanted to stay active and healthy.

He wanted to fill this gap, so he travelled to Switzerland to meet Werner Kieser in person and convince him to bring Kieser to Australia.

What is the USP of the Kieser training concept in the Australian fitness and health industry?

Brett Long: At the core of our value proposition is that our effective method offers our members tangible health benefits.

Kieser’s medically oriented strength training concept was unique when it was launched in Australia. And we are still the only ones offering it at this level.

Todd Scarce: With the high quality of our training equipment and the ability to precisely measure and monitor the development of our customers, we can not only achieve short-term improvement, but above all achieve long-term success through regular strength training.

In the European fitness industry, Kieser is one of the most traditional companies and has its trainingmethod has been established over several decades. How is the Kieser-Method first arrived in Australia?

Brett Long: In the beginning, it was not easy to establish the Kieser method in Australia. One reason for this is that we were the first to offer medically oriented strength training.

So there was no real awareness of the role that strength and strength training play in health.

Only in recent years has there been a trend in Australia where more and more people are beginning to understand the importance of strength training for an active and pain-free lifestyle. In some ways, the Australian market is 10 to 15 years behind the European market in this regard.

What Werner Kieser promoted in Europe several decades ago, we are now pursuing with Kieser on the Australian market: We want to offer access to health-oriented strength training to the people who need it most.

Todd Scarce: Since we introduced a completely new training concept to Australia, it took a while until we were able to establish the corresponding brand image as a health-oriented training provider. At first, the Australian population did not understand that they actually needed what we were offering.

How was the offer advertised at the time and how did Your marketing strategy has changed over the last 18 years further developed?

Brett Long: We started with the message ‘Strength for health’. However, we quickly realised that we were not able to reach some of our potential customers with this.

So we adopted the slightly more problem-oriented claim ‘A strong back knows no pain’ from the European studios.

Todd Scarce: Another development we have made has been the integration of physiotherapy into our studios. Physiotherapists are highly regarded as medical experts in Australia.

They are also the first port of call for many Australians with any health issues, so having physiotherapists in the facilities has helped us to cement the perception as a medical training facility.

What is your membership structure? Who trains with you and what goals do your members pursue?

Brett Long: A new customer who comes to us for physiotherapy is on average 49 years old and our existing members are on average 59 years old. The ratio between women and men is approximately 50:50.

Our members generally lead an active lifestyle and often have a sporting background, such as golf. A large proportion come to us with back problems and the desire to be able to pursue leisure activities again without restrictions.

Todd Scarce: The majority of our customers initially come for physiotherapy. What is unique about our offer is that we not only alleviate acute symptoms, but also want to show the way to long-term improvement through the Kieser method.

What expertise and qualifications do your employees have and to what extent are they trained and educated within your company?

Brett Long: Physiotherapists in Australia are required to complete an academic education, so all of our therapists have either a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree.

In addition to the physiotherapists, our studios also employ sports and training scientists who also have to have at least a bachelor’s degree. All of our employees have therefore completed around four to five years of academic training.

You now have 28 locations and are planning to open more Kieser studios. What are your plans for the future?

Brett Long: Our vision is to give every Australian access to one of our facilities. To achieve this we need a total of 60 studios and approximately 100,000 members.

In addition to these very precise goals, it is of course still our mission to educate the population about the positive health benefits of strength training twice a week. Awareness of this is not nearly as widespread here as it is here in Europe.