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Adala Bolto, founder of ZADI Training, has shared how the female fitness franchise she created adapted to Coronavirus closures and has emerged with its blend of nightclub, lifestyle and fitness environments continuing to attract members.

Having secured investment to expand the Sydney-based business just before the Coronavirus forced facilities to closed for two months, Bolto advised “2020 has been a year that no-one asked for, especially for business owners with many businesses losing a lot of money, growth and investors.

“For me, I have spent the past three years grinding to make my fitness franchise business model the success I’d always imagined it to be, and weeks before our forced closures, I had secured the exact investors who I had been looking for.

“Watching other businesses in my space close their doors for the last time was daunting, but somehow we managed to keep our investors on board, the majority of our members, and with exception of the obvious social distancing laws, we are back to business as usual.”

Bolto has shared what she calls “the top things that kept us in the game”.

Her advice is “don’t make it about you, instead foster your relationships.

“This pandemic was stressful for almost everyone regardless of whether they are in the fitness industry or not. Therefore we made sure we were reaching out to our clients to check in on them and we quickly got an online model started so at the very least, they could at least keep up with their exercise while everything else was happening around them.

“Our studio is not just about feeling your best, it is also about community and relationships and we really proved that going through COVID-19. Pretty much all of our clients are still on board as we are a close knit here. That was also a really good thing for our investors to see.

“Keep investing … be smart with your budget of course, but we could see we needed to pivot online and therefore we invested in videographers and started filming immediately to move our offering online at a quality and standard that ZADI likes to emulate. ZADI is all about the experience and we tried to get that across online too.

“In NSW, we were fortunate enough to be able to re-open our doors after lockdown, and we were happy to see our members returning as usual, and more excited than ever. However, if we didn’t have an online offering for them while they were stuck at home, there is a chance we could have lost them. That’s why that investment was important.

“Staying optimistic - this is so important during these times you don’t want to cause any panic in your staff, franchisees or investors. You have to push forward top ensure they continue to have confidence in you.

“Change of strategy - given the hard times for everyone, we have changed up our franchise strategies, offering potential franchisees, a COVID package, where we help the franchisees throughout the entire process, such as, site selection and negotiating with landlords to help them secure the best deal possible.”

As for dealing with investors, Bolto states “the key is communication. I only secured my investors weeks before lockdown happened. It was touch and go but in the end they liked what they saw and they stayed on.

“It was not easy, but it is something I am very proud of.”

Previously a franchisee at Fernwood Fitness and a personal trainer for 12 years, Bolto was backed by Fernwood founder Di Williams when launching the ZADI brand in July 2017.

The ZADI concept was born following Bolto having spotted a gap in the market to build a strong female focused fitness brand that was results and technology driven but which also created, what she says is  “a unique ‘badass’ experience for female clients - ‘exercise science made sexy’.”

ZADI studios are designed with what Bolto calls “the girl gang on a night out experience, set in a nightclub fitout, loud empowering music and a great of like-minded ‘boss babes’ community vibes.”

ZADI’s workouts are all developed by exercise scientist Damien Kelly while ZADI has also partnered with Technogym to create bespoke technology to help in a consistent member experience which will support the roll out of more studios and a way for clients to track their results and stay connected.

Having opened her first two studios, in Sydney’s Surry Hills in June 2018 and Neutral Bay in November 2019, she has plans to launch multiple studios in the next two years.

Images: ZADI Training (top), ZADI Training founder Adala Bolto (middle) and exercise scientist Damien Kelly (below).

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