BC Business
30 Minute Hit, Deanna Loychuk | BCBusinessDeanna Loychuk, 30 Minute Hit president.
Creating a workout regime that fits into women’s “busy lives”—and turning it into an ever-growing franchise business nationwide and in the U.S.—has earned North Vancouver entrepreneur Deanna Loychuk a YWCA Women of Distinction nomination in the Entrepreneurship category. The award ceremony will be held on June 3 at the Westin Bayshore and includes nominees across 11 categories.
Deanna, president and founder of 30 Minute Hit, has seen “thousands” of women train through her female-only high-intensity boxing and kickboxing circuit since debuting in North Vancouver in 2004. She and her CEO husband, Jackson, have now expanded the franchise to 39 locations throughout B.C. and Alberta, and farther afield, including Bellingham, Halifax and Montreal. It is also set to open in Texas this fall.
“They are always looking for people who make a change in the community,” Deanna says of the nomination, adding that the fitness program gives people the feeling of belonging to a community within the niche market. “I know the 30-Minute Hit has touched so many women—hitting those bags is a great way of finding some sort of release,” she says.
Deanna says that she has found franchise owners in her client base: “Once women see the culture here, they really want to buy into the lifestyle.”
With the rise of other high-intensity fitness workouts such as CrossFit and boxing for women, the pair believes its style of 30-minute workouts was ahead of the curve. Espousing the common theory that shorter-duration training is more effective (Shape magazine touted the popularity of express workouts or the “train smarter, not longer” trend for 2014), Jackson suggests, “We’re reaping the benefits of that forward thinking now as it starts to become more widely accepted as a staple of functional training.”
The “serial entrepreneurs” who have spent 15 years in the fitness industry originally looked into expanding into the U.S. just before the 2008 economic meltdown. “We consciously made a decision to do all the preparation at that point,” Jackson explains. “We were patient until the right time and the right fit came along where we knew we could make the most of it.”
Working with consultants in the States in advance of the current expansion, Jackson says, “We can sustain some pretty aggressive growth curves with the tools that we have in place. When they did an audit of our management system, they said they would anticipate that the tools that we have now would put us in the position of being a franchise owner with 150 to 200 locations rather than 40, so we’re in a very good position to sustain rapid growth.”
He knows franchising in the U.S. is a “whole different animal,” including more costs and more complications than in Canada. “It’s tough to predict down there,” Jackson concludes, “but we’re ready for anything.”