Entrepreneur Tony De Leede launched a stamp trading business at the age of 12, opened a surfboard shop at 16 and ran a fashion business with his mum before moving into the fitness industry in 1982. He talks to Kath Hudson

My biggest life lesson was way back in the beginning, in the early 1980s, when I first got into the fitness industry. It taught me the importance of marketing, promotion, selling and doing things a little differently: putting the sizzle on the steak.

I invested a lot of money in a women-only aerobics club in Atlanta, Georgia. It was 10,000 sq ft with the biggest aerobics room in the city, accommodating more than 100 people.

It had magnificent locker rooms, two whirlpools, the best aerobics teachers brought in from Australia and all our classes were pre-choreographed to give consistency. It was also in a great location. I thought ‘build it and they will come’. Guess what. They didn’t.

We gave free classes for the first 10 days and were packed and then after that we were empty.

Even though it was self-funded, fortunately money wasn’t a problem. I’d already made a lot of money from a family-run fashion business and property investments, so I decided to double down by opening a second club. It was a risk, but I knew the product was good.

I found a site that was a quarter of the size, in a better location and built it for a 10th of the price. We kept the fitout simple and ran consistently good classes. That club had far lower expenses and took off a lot more quickly, but I still needed to do something to promote the first club. So I decided to make a statement.

I was good friends with a nightclub owner who was opening a new club in Atlanta and I approached him to run an aerobics competition, which at that point had never been done in the world. Olivia Newton John had just released the hit song Let’s Get Physical so we held a competition to find Atlanta’s most physical woman. The idea took off.

Brilliance and bullshit
I say that if you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit, and I’m not sure which one I used, but I managed to convince a car dealership to give me a car as the prize for the winner.

The place was packed, we had to run the competition over two nights and it got a lot of publicity in the press and on TV. It really put us on the map. I subsequently gave away five more cars in other competitions.

The lesson I learned is the importance of promotion and needing to do something different. Just building a great facility isn’t enough. Those two clubs developed into a successful 23-site chain, Australian Body Works, with a membership of 50,000, before I sold it to LA Fitness in 2000.

Thirty years later, having launched multiple fitness businesses, I’m putting the same lessons into practice. The co-working and wellness business I’m running with my daughter – Wello Works – is having a slow start because the concept is new. Wellness and co-working are growing trends, but we’re the first to put them together. Now, as then, we’re having to promote and sell.

Know when to quit
Sometimes businesses don’t work out and it’s a gut call about whether or not to keep backing them. My advice is if you’re going to fail, fail fast. Take the hit, lick your wounds and move on. If something doesn’t go right, pivot and head in another direction, or restructure, or let it go and look around to see what else is out there.

My view is that if you’re not living on the edge, you’re taking up too much space. I’ve lived on the edge all my life, but not quite as close now as I did 20 years ago. I’ve always risked things and I’ve had some failures, but I’m resilient and thankfully I’ve had a hell of a lot more winners than losers, including the Australian Bodyworks business.

I grew Fitness First Australia from 11 clubs to 88. My Gwinganna retreat [which has actor Hugh Jackman as an investor] continues to do incredibly well, as does my surf resort in Bali – Komune – and I’m launching another destination retreat venue on the Gold Coast.

At the ripe old age of 72, I’m not slowing down and still teach the occasional Bodycombat class, but I don’t play golf, don’t enjoy watching the cricket too much and don’t go fishing.

Business is what I enjoy – talking to people and meeting people. I’ve promised my wife I won’t invest in too many more businesses – other than our own stuff, of course… but maybe occasionally…