Feed Your Soul Fitness is celebrating our 10 year anniversary here in 2024 and in celebration, I was featured in a podcast to talk a little bit about that journey. It’s hard to believe I’ve been running FYSF for 10 years!
I remember when I was “just a fitness instructor” and would tell people I wanted to own my own studio. I got all sorts of reactions. Some folks were supportive, excited and encouraging. Others, not so much.
It didn’t matter, though. We had a vision, determination, and a purpose. So this is for anyone out there that is considering getting into the fitness industry as a professional.
Being A Fitness Professional: Where It Began
For me, it began with an empty slate. I had worked in Corporate America for 6 years as a Store Manager for Starbucks. I learned a lot about running a business including staffing, payroll, margins, inventory, sales, and customer service but in the end, I was just putting my heart and soul into an empty dead end.
I quit in April 2009 and for a whole year I did not know what I was going to do. I put together some jobs here and there to pay the bills but long term, I was definitely lost.
It was January 2010 when I signed up for a yoga teacher training (YTT) hosted in July later that year. It was a 4 month intensive course and at the end, I’d be able to start teaching yoga (and getting paid for it) which was pretty exciting as I loved yoga and needed to make money.
I started teaching right away and that led into other certifications such as Indoor Cycling, TRX, Kettlebells, and then becoming a Certified Personal Trainer through The National Academy of Sports Medicine.
From there, the world was my oyster. (LOL)
I fought my way into 7 different places of employment as I was an independent contractor. It was a mix of corporate health clubs, big box gyms, and small ‘mom and pop’ studios. I taught a variety of styles of classes such as Barre, Weight Training, Yoga, Spin, and more. I drove around Denver like a ping pong ball. I paid so much money for parking meters. I would have an awkward period of time between classes where I would have to fill that space. I eventually got some personal training clients and I was full time, teaching and training 40 hours per week, Monday through Friday. It was fun, but definitely exhausting. I did that for about 4 years.
In 2014, we folded in “Fitness in the Park” which was at Sloan’s Lake four days per week. This is where we really started to find our voice, brand, and demographic on a very part time basis.
The fall of 2014, after Fitness in the Park closed out following a successful summer season, I rented space from a gym paying $500 for up to 20 personal training clients a week for 6 months. This gym was the catalyst for getting our own brick and mortar as it was dirty, had terrible customer service, and had a very intimidating environment. It was the opposite of everything I am and everything I wanted to be.
But that was just it.
All the places I had taught had not-so-good practices from a client and staff perspective and we wanted to make our community the best for both our clients and staff!
In the spring of 2015, after I ran my first half marathon, my husband said, “I want to show you something, get in the car”. I just wanted to go home, put my legs up and rest, but I got in the car. He took me to a building that did not look like a gym or a training studio at all. But he had the vision.
One month later, we signed our lease and we have been there ever since, blooming into what we are now.
Is It Hard Opening A Gym?
Opening a gym was a wild ride in retrospect. There is so much you don’t think about when you have been a trainer working in other people’s businesses. The build out alone was a challenge, so I was thankful that my husband was so handy. As I mentioned earlier, it took a whole month to negotiate the lease and that was intense to say the least.
We had been saving up equipment in our garage for the past few years. We would literally take the cash that I made from a personal training client and he’d go buy something off Craigslist. He would purchase things like mats or kettlebells or battle ropes. We did the build out in May of 2015, the soft launch in June, and the official opening of the Denver studio was in July for both personal training and group fitness classes.
I had Personal Training programs priced out and developed, but we wanted to offer classes now that we had a studio. Those programs needed to be designed and priced out and it was challenging to figure out what promotional offerings we’d have and what memberships we’d offer.
Additionally, we had to navigate insurance coverage for the business and space as that is an entirely different beast from just having insurance as a 1099 contractor (and more expensive)!
I was a one-woman-show for a few months, but we soon had two part-time contractors on staff beginning to teach classes and train clients. That allowed me to begin more marketing, being in the community more, and growing the business. My days were straight 5am-8pm, 6 days per week at the studio and then Sundays were a mix of sleeping or working from a park or home. We had no social life, we were stressed, and we were tired BUT we were excited because this was OUR dream!
Marketing the Feed You Soul Fitness Gym
I was thankful we had a small base of members from my personal training and Fitness in the Park clients because marketing is the hardest part of opening and owning a gym. Why? Because funny enough, people don’t just show up in your lap wanting to exercise.
(Read that again if you are a trainer potentially interested in opening your own gym or business.)
Marketing remains to be one of our bigger levers in the business because in fitness, attrition is real. We had to work at creating effective marketing strategies that fit the current needs of our potential clients and set us apart from other gyms. We had 6 gyms within 3 miles of out location, not including recreation centers or big box gyms.
Our Gym Community
This brings me to talk about how we were going to stand out from all the other competition and gyms near us. Denver was saturated with gyms and training studios. How would we stand out?
From the start, maybe because of my Yoga Teacher Training background, I had developed a niche for working with folks that were in the beginner/intermediate level of fitness. It was important for me to be able to show people safe form, to slow down and be able to explain what they should be feeling, and to be able to provide modifications as needed so they were successful. (Going back to the places I worked in Denver, this was not an emphasis from the businesses, though I always brought that personally to my clients and classes) .
We wanted FYSF to be known as that safe space where people would get support and guidance so that when they were ready to make their health a priority, they would come to us first!
Over the years, we have had people tell us horror stories of body shaming, aggressive trainers, careless trainers, and poor customer service that kept reinforcing what our missions was all about. I was bullied in middle and high school so it’s near and dear to my heart to ensure people feel cared for, supported, and safe always, but especially when they are vulnerable. Let’s face it, when you’re starting out your exercise and weight loss journey and you’re overweight, you are vulnerable! The same goes for someone who has experienced a bad injury and may be afraid of making it worse. There is a lot of trust and vulnerability required when it comes to fitness and injury.
We knew our classes needed to be inclusive for those that were just starting out and dynamic enough for those that were more at an intermediate level.
Fitness Programs We Offer
On that note, we had to be selective of what our fitness program would entail. We wanted to provide a unique experience that was efficient, effective, and fit into busy peoples’ lives.
Originally, we chose 30 minute sessions for our classes but during Covid, that increased to 40 minute sessions when we went online (more on the Covid transition in a bit). People loved the 40 minute structure, so we kept it when we resumed in-studio classes again.
From an exercise standpoint, FYSF offers:
We wanted to provide three distinct options to help meet people where they are at.
Group Fitness Classes: These are 40 minute full body workouts that offer approximately 80% strength training and 20% cardio exercise. We cap them at 15 people so that we can still ensure everyone is using correct form and feeling engaged. Group classes are available 7 days a week and the offerings include:
- Strength & Cardio
- Circuit training
- Stretch & Mobility
- Zumba
- Kickboxing
Small Group Training: These 50 minute sessions are designed to be all lifting with zero cardio. By training in this format 2-3 times a week, people will notice they are stronger, they lose body fat, their clothes fit better and their confidence skyrockets. Capped at 6 people, it’s an intimate space for a lot of connection. I love when I see people exchanging phone numbers to go on a hike or swapping recipes!
Personal Training: These 45 minute sessions are solely dedicated to the individual and are 100% customized. This allows the client to get exactly what they need! Whether it’s lifting, mobility, or cardio, we can design a program that gets the results that are needed. By working with the same trainer consistently, people find that personal training provides the routine and structure they need for accountability.
Our Nutrition Program: Soul Fit Nutrition
Have you ever heard the phrase “You can’t out exercise a bad diet?”
That is why we offer Nutrition Coaching in addition to all of our exercise programs. Soul Fit Nutrition Coaching is customized for each individual because everyone is so different when it comes to nutrition.
Over the years, I’ve seen a lot of nutrition programs and most tend to be templated, too extreme, or not sustainable.
Our focus with nutrition (and fitness) is to make it sustainable. It’s the only way someone will stick with it and get the results they want and deserve. Sustainability is achieved when someone can start with stepping stone one and then take the rest one at a time. That’s why we take into consideration the individual’s lifestyle before we begin the journey.
We aren’t here to shame or make anyone feel guilty about their choices so we welcome anyone at any starting point. The bottom line is, when you pair consistent exercise with individualized nutrition, results will happen!
Our Plan For Corporate Wellness: BWell At Work
This same thought process applies to our approach for Corporate Wellness. About eight years into the business, we knew we wanted to help more people outside the studio. As we both came from corporate environments, we’re passionate about helping people in that arena to feel better and be healthier.
Workplace wellness is becoming more of a hot topic these days but there is still a lot of work to do. The concept of “corporate wellness” is outdated and stale, in my opinion. That is why FYSF created BWell at Work.
BWell at work allows the same principles of consistent exercise and individualized nutrition to come to life in a workplace setting. We have a dynamic approach in that we support each individual worker and the working team as a collective. This allows for each human to get what they need individually, but also allows the team to improve as whole, inevitably helping and benefiting the business!
We provide creative, unique wellness programs and challenges to help any team in any industry from anywhere. All of our offerings are done both in person and online remotely! We know sometimes businesses or teams are only ready for a few small steps whereas other businesses or teams may be ready for bigger leaps. We can offer both and meet the team where they are!
We’re excited about getting into more businesses so we can make a bigger impact on wellness.
How Covid Changed Our Fitness Business
As far as Covid goes, it’s a chapter every single person has written about in their personal book. Business owners like me get to add this chapter not just on a personal level, but also on a professional one.
As mentioned above, we’re able to offer our fitness and nutrition support both in person at our studio in Northwest Denver and remotely anywhere in the world! This blessing and silver lining came from Covid.
Funny enough, we were actually ahead of the game as we technically offered our Nutrition Coaching remotely online starting in August of 2019! Naturally, most people didn’t quite understand the concept of online coaching so when Covid happened, it taught so many what remote coaching is and how impactful and convenient it can be!
Fun fact: the week that they shut us down in March of 2020, we had 84 group classes on our schedule PER WEEK. That is how much we had ramped our business up. We shut down for a total of 9 weeks, reopening in June. We were able to go online with workout classes held via Zoom 7 days per week. Our members loved the ability to tap in, see other members, connect with their trainers, and get 40 minutes of exercise to help battle their stress during that challenging time.
When we opened back up, we had built such a strong online fitness community, we couldn’t do away with it. We then offered “hybrid” classes, meaning we had a coach leading a workout that had both people in the studio and online! The dual dynamic really added to the community as quickly, peoples’ cousins and best friends were joining from various states scattered across the country. Past members that had previously moved but had not found a fitness community came back and used our online classes to get back into shape.
We loved the opportunity to connect with people all over the USA and the ability to make it convenient for folks that could drive to our studio! Whatever we could do to provide consistency for our people, we were thrilled about!
How To Manage Work-Life Harmony While Running A Fitness Business
I get asked as a business owner a lot, “How do you manage the work-life balance?”
If I am being honest, it’s shifted over the years. With that said, I’ll be the first to tell someone that if they need two days off a week, structured hours like an “8-5,” or just can’t handle a massive hustle, opening a business of your own is most likely not wise.
The “work-life balance” for the starting phase of the business was incredibly different from what it is now, 10 years later as an established business. Recognizing that it took me 10 years to get where I am is often a sobering thought. I have to truly zoom in and think of all the strategic decisions of hiring, training, off-loading, and trusting others to help me with the duties at hand.
I know business owners that won’t let go of menial tasks yet have capable help. It only holds them and their business back, negatively impacting the business’s ability to help more people. I learned that lesson many times in the beginning and have not looked back.
When I am able to create a role within our business where someone can take over the tasks, it allows me to scale myself to do what I am really meant to do. Be the owner. Run the business. Not be in the business. It’s taken a lot of time and effort to navigate away from being a personal trainer and into being a business owner.
But that transition allowed me to do more of what I love. Traveling, hiking, mountain biking, swimming, reading, napping, and being with my family.
I often find being gone and away from the business is hard; a sweet spot for me is four nights away. With that being said, I find great reprieve in just taking the morning to go for a trail run versus sitting down at my desk at 7am. I take a two hour nap every week on a Friday or Saturday and it helps me reset my brain and heart so I can stay focused and driven. I thrive on routine and schedule with consistency so I try to breed it as much as possible while staying flexible to the business needs.
Embracing the Journey: The Realities of Being a Fitness Professional
Bottom Line: I LOVE WHAT I DO. I really do. I thrive in the purpose and the sense of accomplishment daily. I love making a healthy impact on people’s lives. I love the fun of the community and the energy of the studio. I am so lucky!
The reality of becoming a fitness professional has provided me with a lot of perspective and has changed my life for the better. I did not know that when I signed up for the YTT in winter of 2010 how much it would change my life.
If you’re passionate about helping people and you have a solid work ethic, go for it! Be ready for exponential growth and a journey no one can predict!
If you want to hear more, check out the podcast interview I did with the folks at Barpath Fitness on the Stronger Than Your Boyfriend podcast!
