Before Weaver arrived, Gold’s ramped up its corporate club ownership. In the past four years, Gold’s expanded its corporate clubs by 60 percent, Weaver says. The focus on corporate clubs won’t go away entirely, but Gold’s plans to expand in all areas, including internationally, Weaver says. Gold’s has 475 U.S. franchise clubs, 61 corporate clubs and 125 international clubs.

“My vision for Gold’s is for us to be the very best solution to the world’s fitness needs,” Weaver says.

Without providing specific numbers, Weaver says that attrition has been stable, and that Gold’s finished strong in the fourth quarter of 2008. December 2008 was an improvement over December 2007, Weaver says, and the company met its 2008 expectations.

Weaver adds that Gold’s clubs enjoyed a healthy January, and that February had been performing well, too. Gold’s has an aggressive plan revolving around franchisees for 2009 that includes creating new concept clubs for them that center around a low-budget, low staff business model. In the next five to 10 years, Weaver says he hopes to double Gold’s revenue.

“You can’t do that without engaging our franchise community,” Weaver says. “Our relationship has improved dramatically with our franchise community and will continue to.”

To Weaver, business is business, and the same principles that make a successful business can be applied to the fitness business, too. For Gold’s, Weaver has three simple principles: be friendly, keep the club clean and make sure the equipment is working. If Gold’s can do that, then Gold’s can “close the back door,” as Weaver puts it, resulting in lower attrition levels.

“The attrition in our industry is just horrible,” Weaver says. “Depending on what study you look at, it’s somewhere between 40 and 45 percent of the members who leave. I talked to people in the industry, and they say you just simply can’t impact that, that’s just the way it is. I refuse to accept that. What I learned at Johnson and Johnson is listen to the customer and give them what they want. If you do that, then you can take price out of the issue, and you can maintain the longevity of that customer. I think that same thing works in the gym industry.”

Even in a tough economy, Weaver says that Gold’s can still grow.

“What really gets me up in the morning and gets my blood pumping is not the opportunity but the obligation that we have,” Weaver says. “I really feel like Gold’s has an obligation to do this. We’ve been given a great brand. We have wonderful, dedicated employees. We have a franchise community that’s second to none. And we owe it to the American public to go out and reach out to those people and make a difference in their lives. We have a chance to make people better husbands, better wives, better employees, better employers. We have a chance to help them enjoy quality of life. That’s what drives this company.”

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© 2012 Penton Media Inc.