2023-11-03 12:00:00
José Mársico revolutionized the world of gyms 20 years ago with Body Systems. Since then, he has faced significant expansion in Latin America. It was a crisis that triggered his foray into corporate wellness with Sukha, and today he is a benchmark in the industry.Do you already know our Instagram account? Follow us.
José Mársico has been a purpose-driven entrepreneur before this concept became popular, this led him to develop Sukha, a comprehensive wellness platform for companies.
In addition to practicing sports for as long as he can remember, he graduated as a national sports coach in Argentina. This allowed him for years to dedicate himself to the training of thousands of high-performance instructors.
At the same time, he found the business model of his life, Body Systems, a venture for which he will be recognized in the business world from 2001 to date.
Today you have taken your business to the next level.
Health as a trigger
“I like to say that you need to have a plan A, a B and a C, because of the new variables that can be incorporated into life. To that we must add an ‘obsessive’ approach to planning,” says Marsico.
After several years of training and applying his marketing training to the sports field, José decided to attend the Idea Convention in the United States in 1997. This event brings together companies focused on well-being to develop their own business idea.
The destiny was set, since Les Mills, the New Zealand company dedicated to the world of gyms, was at the same event.
Mársico’s track record of success in fitness education prompted him to give traditional gym classes a twist, which at the time weren’t focused on calorie burning or holistic health.
That reputation made him the best ambassador for the Body Systems firm, from Les Mills, to grow the chain of sports solutions and its famous “Body” routines in Latin America.
Its innovative model offers predetermined exercises that burn a certain number of calories in a certain amount of time.
Since 2001, Argentine gyms were already able to offer Body Systems services within their facilities and the success was such that they soon offered it in Brazil and other South American markets. It finally arrived in Mexico, where it has impacted more than 300 gyms, clubs, universities, and even companies.
Thanks to its reputation, in 2014 it managed to partner with IHRSA, International Health, Racquet & Sportsclub Association, to bring the Mercado Fitness congresses to Mexico, where industry participants from all over the continent gathered.
The Body Systems business scheme
Body Systems is today a well-known and replicated business scheme, but in its beginnings few had implemented it as effectively as José Antonio Mársico. “We innovate with the distribution of this product. “It was very disruptive to pay for a license, which at the time was very strange.”
As organizer of the IHRSA congresses, called Mercado Fitness, he managed to standardize the fitness industry, eager to contribute to a critical situation in Mexico. The country ranks first in childhood obesity in the world, according to the World Health Organization, a position it maintains to date.
The penetration of fitness services still had a lot to grow.
From this business development, Mársico drew a lesson: “the entrepreneur is usually in love with his business idea,” he says. But he realized that his mission was bigger than just the romantic idea of getting people in shape. His goal would become to influence leaders and organizations to prevent health crises in people.
New market in sight
If there comes a time when everything is under control in the business world, “it means that we are going slowly, that we are not seeing areas of opportunity,” comments the entrepreneur.
Entrepreneurship—for José—is including and managing unknown variables to incorporate new variants into business development. The fact of maintaining the balance between impacting physical health, with training in gyms, and observing that the Mexican population was experiencing a crisis due to obesity, led to Mársico’s incorporation into a new area: well-being in companies.
“I thought regarding creating a product related to how to gain well-being in a more complete way. It is not useful—nor is it necessary—to be a marathon runner to say that you are in shape. In life it is good when you have peace of mind in managing your personal finances, having spaces to measure, taking care of your sleep hygiene, doing an activity with your children. That’s when you connect with happiness and under this concept I generated my next business idea.”
Thus Sukha is born
Mársico develops Sukha in 2020: a health platform that integrates fitness classes, yoga, nutrition, and even personal finances. Create a unique online on-demand training platform.
It was the same companies that I already had as clients who, along with home office work, endorsed and increased the need to generate virtual well-being sessions.
It was a way to bring well-being to wherever the companies’ employees and collaborators were present; especially with the Covid-19 pandemic, since its employees might no longer be cared for at the facilities.
Perhaps, and without being so clear, Mársico hit the nail on the head with the proposal of virtual classes to a corporate well-being environment that was being impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, by the “forced” home office and by the launch in 2018 of NOM 35. This standard obliges companies to identify and prevent psychosocial risks in the workplace. “The party is starting.”
When it came to expanding his wellness business with Sukha, Mársico already knew the model of generating health with physical training; However, he now had to start and grow a scheme anywhere. “It’s up to you to stand up, be a reference and become an agent of change on the subject,” he thought.
Their approach continues to have an opportunity in a corporate wellness market.
It is in this sector that the number of illnesses among workers is not lower. In Mexico, 82% of directors consider that well-being should be the number one issue on the work agenda. This is a figure greater than the 68% of businessmen who think this way in Latin America.
Furthermore, according to the WHO, 78% of Mexicans suffer from stress, depression or chronic fatigue syndrome. Interestingly, 32% of employees in the country say they require training from their employers to reduce the risk of financial stress.
“A model like Sukha’s, and that is how it was thought, is very susceptible to implementation in times of crisis, because following these comes a rethinking of how to trigger well-being at different moments in life. We think regarding how to provide people with knowledge to create new habits, and all this driven by the leaders themselves in the workplace,” commented Mársico.
The Body Systems and Sukha businesses emerged stronger. “As a team today we plan to consolidate all the courses and processes that we launched to help companies make well-being a business strategy with a return on investment, which also generates retention and impacts the commitment and lives of collaborators. ”says Mársico.
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