There’s a reason Mayfair takes prized place on a Monopoly board. Bordering leafy Hyde Park, it’s an upscale district of the capital filled with elegant Georgian townhouses, exclusive hotels, and gourmet restaurants.
It takes a brave person to invest their Monopoly money into the area, but an even braver person to gamble their own hard-earned cash opening a business in uncertain financial times.
But so often the ones who gain bragging rights at the end of the game are those who were bold enough to take risks at the start, and that’s exactly what James Dabbs has done.
Nestled among the understated glitz and glamour of one of London’s most desirable pockets is his new facility, Dabbs Fitness.
As part of our new founders series, we sat down with James to delve deeper into his motivations for launching the gym, his plans for the future, and everything in between.
The Birth Of Dabbs Fitness
I know what you’re thinking – why Mayfair? But what seems a daring move at the surface level actually makes perfect sense, as James explains.
“I set up a private personal training studio in Marylebone about 5 years ago, and I had been looking to expand with a proper site for a few years. I was searching in and around W1, so Marylebone, Mayfair, or Fitzrovia, and an amazing site in Mayfair, which I’m currently at, came available. So, I took the jump.
“It’s the perfect location, as there is a combination of residential people who live in the area, and also plenty of high-end banks and offices who are also potential clients. Plus, we are located close to Marylebone, and I managed to retain most of my original clientele.”
Asked to describe his dream client, James tongue-in-cheek said it would be his namesake, James Bond. And although everyone’s favourite charming, sharp-shooting, ladies’ man won’t be keeping in shape at Dabbs Fitness, the gym is kitted out to welcome a man of his stature (if he were real, that is).
James clearly didn’t forget where he was when he turned his vision into reality, creating a gorgeous facility that would be the envy of any fitness enthusiast.
He insisted he wanted to infuse the luxury element of Mayfair with the grit and mettle of hard training, adding: “We typically have high-end clientele who are based in W1, and we want the space to be inviting for everyone to feel comfortable, whilst also ensuring that the space is designed with the primary aspect being performance,” he said.
“We feel that many gyms in the area are very luxurious, but not as focused on performance and S&C, thus we wanted to create a space that was suitable for any top level athlete, but also aesthetically inviting for perhaps less confident gym goers who appreciate the small luxury touches, so we could appeal to all demographics.
“We also rent the space out to brands for filming and photo shoots, and have a lot of influencers, (and non-influencers), taking selfies and videos in the space which is all great for brand awareness so it helps a lot to have such an aesthetically pleasing gym.”
Gaining clients in a city with an abundance of choices is no mean feat, however. Whether you’re looking to eat, drink or, work out, Londoners have almost everything they could wish for and more within a short tube journey.
For independent businesses like Dabbs Fitness, it’s therefore essential that they bring something fresh to the table, and James is confident his performance-focused methods will do far more to progress his clients than any of his competitors.
“I have my own strong philosophies and views on training, and personally, I disagree with most gym concepts and most gym culture,” he said.
“Bodybuilding culture in many gyms can be a bit backwards, and if you are only training for the mirror and aesthetic reasons, you are missing 99% of the benefits of being fit and strong.”
“Frankly, building muscle and looking good is actually the easy part of training, providing you are disciplined. Producing performance enhancements such as increased power, speed, strength, aerobic ability, etc, is the tough part which requires dedication and planning, and this also creates objective data which you can’t argue with from a results point of view.
“Similarly, when I enter most commercial gyms now, and when I first entered them myself as a kid, most people don’t have a clue what they are doing, from a technique standpoint or a programming standpoint.
“I want to help people avoid the mistakes I see often, and that I used to make myself. We strongly promote our holistic, performance focus philosophy and basically, I felt that I could do it better than the other gyms could, so I thought I would do it myself!”
Given his headstrong approach and differing views, it’s unsurprising that James has few icons in the fitness space. While he admires the journeys of Phil Knight, the founder of Nike, and Ben Francis, the brains behind Gymshark, his business mentors are instead much closer to home.
His mother, Margaret Dabbs, founded a large beauty business, and he also likes to gain expertise from several of his successful gym-goers.
He continued: “I have a large network of fantastic clients, who are all very successful and interesting in their own fields and I’m fortunate enough to be able to ask them questions. For example, legal questions to lawyers who I train, financial questions to financial experts, etc. I try to make the most of this opportunity and enjoy taking in different perspectives, and then coming to my own balanced conclusions.”
Unlike your typical membership-only gyms, Dabbs Fitness instead invites people to book personal training and small group training appointments. That, he said, is key to his philosophy, with clients instead benefitting from elite strength and conditioning programmes under the watchful eye of himself and his team of expert coaches.
“Of course, we want to increase our client base as much as possible,” he said.
“However, we also want to keep the training product to as high a standard as possible, to ensure the maximal results and satisfaction for our clients.
“Thus, we want a balanced combination of quality, and quantity with our gym, ensuring slow and sustainable growth for a continued amount of time. We are here to change the gym industry and become one of the biggest if not the biggest training brand in the world. Thus we have a long-term focus, as well as a short-term business focus.”
The more astute of you may have noticed Dabbs Fitness describes its offerings as ‘elite’ training programmes, and that’s because James is no stranger to training like an elite athlete. In fact, he was one.
Speaking about what ignited his passion for health and fitness, he said: “I have played and loved sports my whole life, and played professional football for a few years in my late teens and early 20s. I played in Spain for a couple of years, loved living and training like an athlete, and was always trying to improve my performance – becoming fitter, faster, stronger, and trying to jump higher.
“This was mixed in with exploring recovery strategies such as sleep, cold plunge, and nutrition. This naturally developed my performance-focused philosophy, and I saw how much fitter and healthier I was compared to many of my friends who were at university, drinking all the time and living poorly. I want to share this holistic, performance philosophy through my business, and manifest how I see fitness, and how training should be done right.”
Financing Dabbs Fitness
As we previously eluded to, opening a gym in one of London’s most expensive districts was always going to take serious investment on James’s part.
He was tight-lipped on an exact figure, but he did admit a sizeable sum went into creating Dabbs Fitness, in more ways than one.
“Of course, it cost a lot as we took a 10-year lease on a basement space in Mayfair. However, the biggest cost has been the hard work and years put in.
“I have been building Dabbs Fitness for the past 6 or so years, and in that time have grown a client base, and reputation, and also studied for an MSc in S&C to put knowledge directly back into the business to ensure we are the best around.”
And becoming one of the biggest brands in the world is James’s aspiration. But for the time being, he’s keeping his focus firmly fixed on ensuring he makes his mark on Mayfair.
He continued: “Obviously, we first need to ensure that this location is a success, and we want to remain exclusive and not create a chain as such.
“However, many of our clients travel to key cities in the world for both business and pleasure, and we love the idea of having multiple boutique locations in key places, such as New York, Dubai, etc, and this is our long-term goal.
“We have a strong training philosophy, and have everyone’s training data and program on our cloud system, so it would be easy for you to train in London, and then go to say Dubai, and our coaches there would be working under the same philosophy, and know your strength and fitness data, creating a personalised, but systemised training model.
“I am very particular about the quality of coaching and product, so would rather grow slowly rather than create a franchise model, as it’s hard to control the product when this is done.”
Dabbs Fitness still offers remote strength and conditioning programmes complete with coaching to satisfy the needs of clients who aren’t on the doorstep of Mayfair, so for now, that will have to suffice for those of you who are further afield.
Now we’ve set the scene, I think it’s time you heard a little more from the man with big plans.
Questions With James Dabbs, The Founder Of Dabbs Fitness
What are the 3 USPs of Dabbs Fitness?
We are bespoke, have a great central location, and we have amazing expertise.
What is your day-to-day involvement with the gym?
I currently wear a lot of hats, and have a hand in pretty much everything, from coaching the clients to business development, and social media/marketing. I am slowly moving away from coaching, to running the business and reducing the coaching hours as I drive business growth and direction. However, as any business owner knows, when you start you have to do the dirty work and I regularly end up opening, closing, washing towels, and everything in between.
What has been the one biggest mistake you have made whilst setting up the gym?
Obviously, there are plenty of small things to do with the fit-out which in hindsight I would change, such as small equipment swaps, or trying to get things done sooner – but it’s all a learning process so I wouldn’t classify anything as a mistake. I have been learning as I go and things seem obvious with hindsight, but there’s only one way to learn and that’s by trial and error and experience.
What is the one stroke of genius you had when launching your business?
Similar to above, there are no massive ‘strokes of genius’ but we have had a very small budget, and have had to be extremely resourceful with everything we do, particularly our marketing and recruitment.
For example, one good idea I had was to directly email our coach job description to heads of S&C courses at a few universities, to get candidates to apply who are young, hungry and just out of university. Also, we have struck a few partnerships with brands and influencers, to drive organic awareness of the gym. We are learning as we go, some ideas work, others don’t and we adapt them.
How do you plan on increasing membership numbers?
Our reputation continues to grow, and we continue to grow organically through word of mouth and also social media. We have a very small budget so we have to be inventive with our marketing and keep providing an excellent service to create more word-of-mouth referrals, and continue the natural social media buzz we have started to create.
Personally, I am trying to get out to many events and meet as many people as possible to discuss fitness, and the gym, as you never know who may be able to help, or what partnerships you may be able to create.
If someone wants to come to your gym, what’s the one class they should join?
Personal training is our best and most bespoke service, and our coaches are excellent. Aside from this, we offer two group classes – training and conditioning. Conditioning is a great way to get fit and get a sweat on, however, you can achieve similar effects by performing hill sprints on your own, or by performing CrossFit WODs for example.
However, our training class is our niche, and is more like small group PT, with programmed strength sessions focusing on big lifts such as squats and deadlifts. This class is a high-quality, well-coached, effective class, which is hard to find elsewhere and is the next best thing if you can’t afford personal training.
What’s one fitness business out there that you wish you owned?
My own gym – I wouldn’t swap Dabbs Fitness for anything.
Your branding is very similar to Gymfluencers… what about an event collab this summer?
I’m always on the lookout to do collaborations and events with like-minded people and companies, so why not!
What advice would you give to someone who wants to set up their own gym now?
This is a hard question. I would say to do your research before you start. Many people see fitness and gyms as one category, but you wouldn’t compare a McDonald’s, or Nandos, to a Michelin Star restaurant for example. There is a big difference between commercial gyms, CrossFit gyms, spin studios, PT studios, etc.
There is also a massive difference between a bodybuilding gym, and a yoga studio, or CrossFit gym, for example. So do your research and understand your product and competition. Don’t just open a gym because you like training – this probably isn’t enough. Also – if you’re a coach, and open a gym – you’re no longer a coach – you’re a businessman/woman. Remember that, it requires a shift in focus and perspective.
The floor is yours. Please share with our audience anything you want!
Following on from the last point, if you want to start a business – focus on business, and look at business and brand stories.
Don’t look at coaches or athletes as much, look at the Jordan deal with Nike, look at Red Bull, look at Facebook, and read Elon Musk’s book. Your perspective has to change – I’m not saying forget fitness, and values and start selling nonstop. But fitness and coaching are the easy parts. Growing muscle is really simple. Business is the tough part.
Opinions on energy drinks?
I often take caffeine before I train, either with a coffee or a more aggressive dose such as a NOCCO or red bull if I need it. There is nothing wrong with caffeine, or many other drinks if you understand the pros and cons.
One supplement everyone should use?
Daily Multivitamin or creatine.
