Lately I’ve been experiencing the stresses of dealing with a competitor who seems to have an extreme dislike of direct competition.
My first day running my boot camp in Coopers Park, I was approached by the owner of a franchised boot camp company in Vancouver, who politely told me to take my group to another park because he was there first (not a valid argument). I asked him how many people he had there, and he proudly proclaimed “40”. I responded by telling him about the Vancouver Parks Board guidelines on outdoor boot camps, which states that no company should have more then 20 to 25 people exercising in a park at one time (which he seemed to have no prior knowledge of), and that I would be keeping my small group of 5-10 people in that park.
One of the reasons that the Vancouver Parks Board has the policy on class sizes is so that one company can’t monopolize an entire park, which would ultimately be a very bad thing for consumers. Less competition means higher prices, and often a lower quality of service. Everyone loses except the company with the monopoly, who ends up laughing all the way to the bank.
All along, I’ve only wanted to share the park with the company in question, but the owner of said company seems hell bent on being the only boot camp company at that park. I can only imagine how many previous companies he has shouldered out of that park, as it seems like I’m the first person who has stood his ground and understands the rules (i.e. that I’m allowed to be there, and he isn’t supposed to have 40 people there).
This situation has slowly escalated into an almost daily bickering match with this guy as I attempt to keep a small group of people exercising in a public park that he otherwise has a complete monopoly on (and on most days way more people than he’s supposed to have in one park).
If there has been a bright spot in all of this, it appears that my presence in the park has greatly improved the quality of workouts being offered by the other boot camp company. I’ve noticed that during the time I’ve been in the park, he has completely changed the format of his workouts to what looks to be an almost exact replication of the style of workouts I’ve been running there.
Those franchised boot camp companies are well known for running aerobics workouts in a “follow the leader” format, where everyone sets up with their exercise mat and light weights, and the instructor leads them through the workout.
In the first month that I was at the park, I never once seen them run a workout consisting of anything other than a follow the leader aerobics workout. The fact that they charge upwards of $20 per session for such a low quality workout is appalling (some days it looks like they bring people to the park and charge them to jog). In the second month I was at the park, they started running their workouts in a circuit training style, which was a huge step up in quality for them. It was one of my own boot camp clients, who used to do the other company’s workout and had recently joined my boot camp program, that mentioned to me that in all the months she had been with the other company, she never once did a workout other than their standard follow the leader format, and certainly no workouts even remotely resembling the circuit that they had setup the day she remarked about it to me.
I’m glad that they are improving their quality, as that’s the wonderful thing about competition. I welcome more boot camp companies to join us in the park, as it will only help push me to continue to step up quality of my own workouts. But in order for competition to exist in the outdoor boot camp business, we can’t have one company monopolizing an entire park, and trying to shoulder out any new competition.
I will continue to run my outdoor boot camps at Coopers Park, and I will continue to stand my ground there as I have every right to be there based on the Vancouver Parks Board guidelines that I went over in detail before ever running a single outdoor exercise class. Although it can get a bit awkward bickering in public with the other boot camp guy (who seems to believe that those rules don’t apply to him), ultimately everyone benefits because clearly my presence there is pushing him to no longer rest on his laurels, and to start offering a higher-quality workout that’s a bit closer to being worth the money he’s charging.
