BUSINESS PROFILE

Co- founder of Shapesmiths CrossFit

Richard Dean, co- founder of Shapesmiths CrossFit

After working in local government and the insurance industry for 20 years, Richard Dean started a family business with his parents, selling free- range pork.

Within 10 years, the business was a multi- national, multi- million- pound company. But in 2011, on one of his sales trips, Richard chanced upon a CrossFit gym — and found he had a new passion.

“I saw people doing amazing things and wondered if I could do something like that,” Richard says.

Then, when a friend was struggling with the business side of opening a CrossFit gym, Richard decided to leave the family business and joined the team, and in 2016, CrossFit Shapesmiths opened its doors under Clapham Junction station.

What was the biggest challenge you faced when opening the gym?

If you were trying to do it as an individual it would be very stressful but we have a strong team so the process was easy. The biggest issue was the planning application, which we contracted out to professionals.

How do you split responsibilities with your two business partners?

Lee Stables does all the programming and looks after the coaches, Brett Pateman has his own job in the city, but does the spatial side of things — how the gym is laid out, the rigs, the equipment, that sort of stuff — and I take care of the finance and business side.

What has the growth been since launching?

We established a modest business plan to begin with and it took me by surprise how quickly we managed to surpass even the best expectation of it. We estimated it would take three years to fill the two arches but we were full within 12 months. Then we took on another two arches. In 2017, we had to start a membership waiting list and took on another two further arches so we’re back in sales mode again. If we had more space, we would still be expanding now. We currently have 440 members and expect that to rise to 550 in a couple months. I would say we are the biggest in Europe.

The biggest in Europe?

Yeah, certainly the biggest in the UK. I don’t know where all membership levels are, but certainly in terms of space: we’ve got 11,000sq ft of useable space.

What do you think attracts people to your CrossFit gym?

The fact that the business works really well means the stress is lifted from not just the management team but potentially the coaching team. That filters down to our members. It’s a very happy community and that breeds a fun environment.

What would you say is the difference between a typical gym and a CrossFit gym?

The fundamentals of why people walk through the door are all the same, they might tell you they want to get fit or lose weight but actually the reality, in their mind’s eye, is they want to look good naked! It’s difficult to actually achieve that, it takes a lot of time and effort. What we do is try to distract them. With CrossFit you take away all those reminders that allow self- criticism, so you won’t find any mirrors here. The other thing we do, in terms of distractions, is to put them in a social environment so they are having a lot of fun with their friends, that positive vibe keeps them coming back. It’s reverse engineering, they believe they are coming here for one particular reason but the reality is they keep coming back for [ the social aspect] and in turn [ what they were hoping for] when they first walked in is fulfilled.

How do you help your members bond?

Almost every month, we put on some sort of party that allows people to move away from a workout environment and just have a bit of fun. We have annual parties now such as the diversity party and at Halloween. Pretty much everybody dresses up and we operate a system of “we don’t care here,” so we don’t care who people are, we’re not bothered what their background is, what job they do, what size they are, their sexuality or what religion they follow. We only care about how they treat people within the gym.

As a business, do you have to worry about members injuring themselves?

When CrossFit first arrived in the UK, there were a lot of [ stories in the] press about injuries. The reality is we monitor everything that goes on within Shapesmiths in terms of our client’s experience and more than 90 per cent of our members’ injuries happen outside our environment. If you come to a CrossFit coach, they will have their eye on you full time to make sure your movement and stance is correct and we will teach those movement standards rigorously until someone is performing in a safe fashion. Only when that happens will we start increasing the intensity and weights. Although we do work people hard, they’re less likely to get injuries during CrossFit than they are doing other sports.

And how do you keep the company ethical?

We try to operate with many local businesses in the area and we’re constantly doing all sorts of charitable work within the gym. As you can imagine, a lot of people like to do sporting activities for charity purposes so there is a large pool of people donating to various charities.

Has being gay ever affected you in the workplace?

I came out in my first corporate work placement when I was 24 and I never found it held me back. In fact, I found by being quite upfront with who I was and what I did, it challenged other people’s perceptions and allowed them to rethink their position. I have always held the view that if they don’t know then I can’t change their thinking and I was always very uncomfortable in the corporate world, in a lad’s environment. Coming out dispelled all of that and it became other someone else’s problem rather than mine.

And how does running a gym compare to the corporate world?

Being on this side of the fence now, I can’t tell you how grateful I am to be in a position where I am spending hours a week with hundreds of amazing people, having a lot of fun. You couldn’t wish for a better role.

“What the people who walk through the door actually want is to look good naked!”