Jazzercise reimagines itself for the 20-something fitness enthusiast
while embracing its legacy as an accessible and fun workout.
By Tim O’Connor
The fitness market is filled with newcomers. It seems like every month a new boutique workout studio starts a wave across the industry – often by tweaking established programs to appeal to the millennial audience. Companies such as SoulCycle and Flywheel evolved the spinning class and yoga fans turned into hot yoga fans. Fitness enthusiasts have more options than ever before.
Rather than seeing that increased competition as newcomers muscling in on its business, Jazzercise embraces the elevation of the fitness lifestyle. Today’s customers are less likely to stay with the same program every day of the week. They want variety in their exercise. A person who attends a barre class on Monday might go to cycling on Tuesday and dance on Wednesday. Jazzercise wants to be part of that routine cycle.
“The biggest competition is probably the couch,” says Kelly Sweeney, chief sales and marketing officer for Jazzercise. “Only 10 percent of Americans exercise. If we could get that [other] 90 percent up there’d be no competition.”
The dance cardio class, which has been around since the late 1960s, doesn’t have the same newness as some other studio programs, but its choreographed hour-long workouts set to modern pop music are just as trendy and effective today as when the company began.
Changing Image
Jazzercise hit its peak in the 1980s when workout fashion was synonymous with neon colors and leg warmers. Back then, Jazzercise was so popular that classes had to be limited to 100 people. Nowadays, classes average between 20 and 30 attendees. But Sweeney says the smaller class size is not a result of decreased popularity; rather, it’s a reflection on how Jazzercise adapted to its customers. We didn’t hit our peak in sales in the 1980s but we did seem to peak in the minds of consumers. Is there a way to reflect that in our first sentence? Maybe something like “Jazzercise was at the peak of its national recognition in the 1980s” or the like.
When she started with the company, most locations would only hold one morning and one evening class, but those limited options no longer fit the flexibility customers want. So Jazzercise increased its schedule to accommodate customers’ busy lives. “The public is more accustomed to more convenience and options and you have to be able to offer that,” she says.
Still, Jazzercise understands that there is a generational gap in its image. Younger fitness enthusiasts think of it as the program their moms used to follow and it takes some effort to get those 20- and 30-somethings in the door to remind them how much fun a dance workout can be.
A new generation of women is discovering Jazzercise through the company’s GirlForce initiative. The program was inspired by The United State of Women Summit at the White House last year where female business leaders, including Jazzercise founder Judi Sheppard Missett, were encouraged to reach back and pull up the woman behind them. At the same time as the summit, Sweeney was offering free classes to young women at her Jazzercise centers in Kansas City. Sweeney’s program was a good template for introducing young women to a fit, healthy lifestyle and Jazzercise realized it could be adopted on a company-wide scale as a way of giving back to communities. The GirlForce initiative offers free classes to women aged 16 through 21 for all of 2017 with the goal of boosting participants’ self esteem and confidence.
Some individual locations have had as many as 200 young women sign up since it began in January. “It’s more of a community service program but it’s also been great at planting the seed of Jazzercise in the heads of young women,” Sweeney says.
The company has also embraced digital technology and allow its data to access fitness trackers and calorie counters. A new Jazzercise phone app offers more robust options and encourages users to keep tracks of their fitness goals.
“We would hope that people recognize that it’s an updated modern workout that still really relies on interaction and the fun of movement,” she adds. “It’s got that great dance component everybody can like without having to be a dancer.”
Even as it updates its brand and image, Jazzercise is careful not to leave its longtime fans behind. “We have a large veteran group of franchisees, instructors and customers that are very happy about it having the history that it does,” Sweeney says. “We want to respect that, embrace that, and show we have a lot of instructors that are 30, 35 years old.”
Accessible Franchising
Jazzercise has multiple formats for programs that each offer a unique spin on dance workouts so that customers can enjoy variety. There’s interval training, cardio, a strike class with kickboxing movements, core and even a class designed to tone legs and rear ends call “New Year, New Rear.”
Classes take place at two different kinds of locations. Between 500 and 600 of the company’s locations are centers with dedicated space and signage. The rest are satellites, temporary spaces that franchisees rent from recreational centers, churches, schools or other organizations.
Each instructor, from 30-year veterans to newbies, is considered a franchisee, giving them the flexibility to work according to their schedule and passion. In all, the company has more than 8,000 franchisees divided between owners who operate an entire location and associates, who are responsible for teaching an individual class and typically work under one of the owners.
The setup gives associate franchisees the opportunity to increase their involvement in the company over time. Many who start with Jazzercise as a part-time role end up increasing their workload as the company becomes a more integral part of their lives. Low franchisee fees and no need for expensive and bulky workout equipment makes it an accessible path to enter the fitness market.
“Our new owners come from our associate franchise base,” Sweeney says. Most associates spend five years with Jazzercise before deciding whether to become an owner. “They tend to get a pretty good dose of it before they jump into it,” she adds.
To better address the needs of its center and satellite franchises, Jazzercise last year restructured its sales management team into two groups, one for each type of location. Some meetings now are tailored only to center owners, for example, allowing sales managers and center franchisees to set agenda specific to their issues.
Every franchisee also has an assigned sales manager they can speak to specifically about items such as pricing changes to moving locations. “We’re really going to continue with that and support those areas in different ways specific to them,” Sweeney explains.
Prioritizing Support
Sweeney herself started with Jazzercise as an instructor 34 years ago. Six years after becoming a franchisee, Sweeney joined the company’s management team. Plus, she still owns two locations and teaches two or three classes each week herself.
Her dual role as both a franchisee and manager is common within the company and it gives her a ground-level view of Jazzercise’s policies and initiatives. “I get to test it on myself first, I get to be my own guinea pig,” she explains. “I’m out there each day trying to do what it is we suggest that [our franchisees] do and I immediately can see if it works.”
Jazzercise’s corporate management is organized to prioritize the support of its franchisees. Because the company has comparatively low franchise fees, the bulk of its earnings come through a cut of membership and individual class revenue, tying it directly to the success of its individual operators. “We have to have successful franchisees in order to keep our wheels turning,” Sweeney says.
As a result, Jazzercise corporate’s goal is not to simply sell more franchises, but to direct customers to its existing operators. Its corporate website does not predominantly feature franchising and sales information, but acts as a portal to market the company’s brand of exercise to potential customers. “We spend a crazy amount of time helping our franchisees get customers,” Sweeney says.
