My biggest mistake: Ian Jensen-Muir, CEO of Genesis Health + Fitness

It’s been 25 years since Genesis Health + Fitness launched its first site in Ringwood, Victoria, a significant milestone for the industry leader that has grown to encompass 40 locations across Australia — servicing 60,000 members, employing more than 740 staff, and hosting more than 1100 fitness classes every week.

While this kind of healthy business growth is cause for celebration, taking time to reflect on how the company got there is just as important to its CEO Ian Jensen-Muir. 

Given Genesis Health + Fitness’s track record, Jensen-Muir has obviously made a lot of good decisions since he left a career in the retail oil industry but he says it hasn’t all been personal bests, with one of his biggest mistakes occurring early on in the business.

The mistake

When Jensen-Muir began his foray into the fitness industry in 1997 after leaving a career in oil behind, it was brand new territory for him. The common sense approach of turning to peers for advice early on was a given for the experienced businessman but it was also a double-edged sword that ended up costing him time and money along with an unwelcome dose of self-doubt.

One of the first things he was keen to get off the ground was a 24-hour gym, but early ambitions were thwarted by the negative responses he was hearing from people he considered to be experienced peers.

Genesis Health + Fitness CEO Ian Jensen-Muir. Source: Supplied.

“Twenty-four-hour gyms were just taking off but I was told by a few people ‘oh no, they’ll take up too much time and big box health clubs can’t do that’.”

Mercifully, Jensen-Muir trusted his own instinct on that occasion and was reasonably swift in rejecting that notion, going with the 24-hour gyms by Genesis’s second year of operation.

“I knew there was demand for (those gyms) coming out from a 24/7 industry like petroleum.”

Where he wasn’t so quick to reject advice was around the early structuring of memberships and the peer pressure to only offer 12-month sign-ups.

“I was talked into only selling those rather than also offering the easy-on easy-off type memberships we have today.

“Because I hadn’t been in the industry long, I probably let other opinions and the status quo delay me from taking action on a few things instead of opening up the business to members and really listening to what they wanted.”

The context

Because Jensen-Muir was new on the health and fitness scene he did what any fledgling startup might do and looked to experienced players for advice but as he found out the hard way, it can sometimes sway you in a direction that goes against your better judgment.

“I let other people’s past practices and strong opinions influence me too much rather than trusting my own analysis and research and my gut feeling about what needed to happen in the fitness industry as opposed to just following what the status quo was telling me to do.

“I really should have taken action more quickly to rectify that at the time.”

The impact

Delays on opening up memberships and the structuring of pricing arrangements cost Jensen-Muir time and traction but when the business did install the tiered memberships it made sure it got it right, with all the details properly communicated to potential customers and members.

“At the same time we were looking at memberships, we were also introducing our Coaching Zone high-intensity interval training product.

“We spent a lot of time getting that right before launching the price model so it didn’t happen until another couple of years in.

“In hindsight, I think we probably could have moved quicker to market to meet our customers’ needs because the impact of that was we let a competitor like F45 Training get out in front of us.”

The lesson

While he says listening to his peers early on in the business did sow a few seeds of doubt, Jensen-Muir had learned a lot from the experience.

“If you trust the research, understand the analysis, and communicate clearly with customers and members, you can see the opportunities that people, who have been in the industry for a long time, don’t necessarily see.

“I suppose that’s never been more relevant than watching all the disruptor industries come out of various fields. They weren’t set in their ways. Those people saw things differently.

“Then, when you have an idea, it’s about implementing things, new concepts, quickly so you have that first move advantage.

“We ended up creating a whole online program Home Fitness Network in the first lockdown in March 2020 and had that up and running within two or three weeks. That really helped us stay in touch with our staff and members throughout the pandemic.

“If you trust your instincts and the research, and follow the customer’s lead, your ideas will generally be pretty successful.”