Meet California Franchisee Erick Salgado, The Camp Transformation Center

First-time owner finds fast success in one of a kind concept

Erick Salgado always had a passion for fitness. However while studying business in school and working for his family’s tortilla factory, he wanted something more meaningful. In 2011 he opened The Camp Transformation Center in Riverside, California, the year the business began and made his location’s return on investments before the end of his first year. Now he has six franchise locations in the area.

Salgado found his calling through his friends Sam Bakhtiar and Alejandra Font who founded The Camp Transformation Center, a radically different type of gym franchise growing in a variety of markets due to its scalability, low investment costs and unique business approach. Challengers work out five times a week with a goal to lose 20 pounds in six weeks, while receiving meal planning and emotional support. By tracking weight progress publicly, people who succeed are converted to members.

“I ended up being in a tough situation where I suddenly had no source of income, no job. I went to Sam basically just to confide in him about what’s going on, and his response to me was, ‘You know what you’re doing, you’re passionate about fitness. I’ll help you out so that you avoid making those mistakes that a lot of beginners do in this industry, and you could go ahead and open up The Camp, because this is really taking off for us.’ ”

So Salgado found his first unit in Riverside, selling his car and spending a year living in his warehouse with a futon, a mini fridge and fiance as he and Bakhtiar were working to get The Camp going and grow the business. Soon, he needed to expand and add locations in order to keep up with the demand.

“When we started The Camp, we obviously knew we wanted to build something that could be duplicated and could be successful for multiple people. We had that vision from the very beginning. It has worked really well. A lot of my employees in the very beginning were just people that were so excited about what we were able to do for them, that we just wanted to be involved somehow in helping others.”

For fitness enthusiasts who love working with people in gyms but ultimately want to make more money than a trainer, Salgado says The Camp is an affordable business to own and operate. “There’s a lot of those people in the country. We’re marketing to them to say ‘a lot of your dreams could be built through this.’ ”

“There are a million different business models that are out there,” he says. “If you could make a decent living and make a good return on your investment while changing people’s lives, it makes all the difference. It definitely made it when we were starting the business and wondering if it was going to take off – hearing from clients how desperate they were and how it’s really lifted them up and given them a new sense of life, a new outlook of themselves and their self-confident awareness.”

That’s why Salgado says it’s not been a problem with finding people to expand The Camp, because it does change people’s lives. “A lot of people that have invested in The Camp were one-time clients who’ve experienced it,” he says.

The Challenge is thriving for several reasons, he adds. “It’s not too long, but long enough for people to get nice results. People are willing to sign up for it because it is an incentive to be successful. That’s how we’re going to be able to grow our brand in the future. I explain it to my clients that it is basically like, ‘imagine if a university said you have to pay your tuition for the first quarter semester and if you finish your classes with a B average or higher, we’ll roll over your tuition to the next semester, and you could do that until you get your degree.”

Converting challengers to members is not difficult either, Salgado says. “The idea is basically the challenge is their trial, and your opportunity as a business to basically sell yourself. If you help someone lose 150 pounds and they’ve come to you depressed, tried a bunch of other things and you helped them lose all that weight and show them that they’re capable of doing it, it boosts their confidence so much.”

“This is a business that makes a big impact on people but it’s not an expensive facility, compared to competitors,” he says.

“The model works, but you still have to work it. You have to be able to build rapport with your staff, your clients, and add value. If you’re willing to do that, or at least have people like that working for you and around in the organization, the model works.”