Srdjan Draskovic | Dreamstime.com
Memphis based Treadmill Doctor makes house calls for broken fitness equipment.
When Jon Stevenson was in high school, he needed a job to make ends
meet.
“I got involved in fixing fitness equipment for Richard Mercer,
owner of Super Store Exercise Equipment,” Jon says. “To boil it down, a
nice old man took pity on a kid.”
It’s a high school job that has continued to pay off. With his
brother, Clark, Jon now owns the Memphis-based Treadmill Doctor, the
largest fitness-equipment service company in the nation.
“We decided to start [Treadmill Doctor] in 1998 as a result of going
back to graduate school,” Clark says. “Both Jon and I had worked in
fitness assembly, repair, and sales. It was a natural fit to do
something that we didn’t need additional training to do well.”
The company, which repairs commercial and home fitness equipment,
grossed more than $2.5 million for each of the past two years.
“We have a 70 percent growth rate in our sales year over year,” Jon
says.
For 2009, they’ve already grossed about $6 million.
“The growth of the company was completely a surprise,” Clark says.
“And it was a result of putting up a website where people could get
answers to commonly asked questions.”
On the site’s forum, customers can ask questions about servicing
equipment, which has led to requests for parts and supplies.
“You try to identify products and services that have a good
potential for high-gross margin and then work really hard to control
your expenses,” Jon says. “If you do it okay, you end up with Treadmill
Doctor.”
Repairs are performed either in the company’s offices or at the
client’s property. The company has six locations scattered throughout
the South and Midwest, including St. Louis, Atlanta, and Nashville.
They plan to open an office in Boston by the end of the year and hope
to open locations in Houston, Dallas, Phoenix, Chicago, Philadelphia,
and Miami in 2010.
“Our five-year plan has us continuing to grow the parts business
with a strong focus on expanding our remote repair operations,” Clark
says. “We hope to have a geographic representation in the entire
continental United States, as well as offices in Canada and Asia.”
