The journey to becoming a business owner!
I need to start this by saying “WOW, that was a journey!”
I have officially taken the jump opened my own business premises – going from a Sole Personal Trainer to a Studio owner! I wanted to go back to the start of this journey, because to some people, this may have seen like something that happened completely out of the blue!
About 6 months ago, I made the decision internally that if I really wanted to grow my business, and eventually have something that I could step away from and still make an income, my own premises was the answer. While I did try to hire trainers a few times in a commercial gym setting, for whatever reason, it just didn’t seem to work out. There was always that voice in the back of my mind as well that was saying “you can’t have people working in your business without you here, because people will convince them that they are better off on their own”. While this most likely isn’t true, it was always there in my mind.
So I started looking for spaces. There were plenty that would have fit but weren’t quite right. There was one that would have been perfect, but I unfortunately had some slightly dodgy real estate agents, who made the process much harder than it needed to be and ultimately pushed me away. I had been looking for quite some time, when a space came onto my radar again. I had seen it online previously, but for whatever reason, decided that it wasn’t right. Thankfully, this time round the agent was persistent (in a good way!), and he eventually got me in to take a look at the place. I knew then that this was where I was going to run my business. To give you a bit of an idea though on how it actually looked, it was pretty basic:
From seeing the space, it took me only a few weeks to do my research on the location, and the surrounds to know that it was going to be a good fit for me, I set things into motion to make this space a gym.
The flooring was the first thing to go in, because once the equipment was in, that part was going to be painful. To be honest, it still was painful to an extent, because each of the tiles was ~12kg, and didn’t like moving once they were on the carpet (lots of kicking and shoving to get things right!). However, it turned out pretty well, as you can see!
From there, it was time for equipment to come in! Thankfully it all arrived in pieces, so I could get it all through the front door. Unfortunately, it all arrived in pieces.. so I had to actually put it all together!
The construction process took me around 20 hours, but its all done now! The finished product is a space that looks like a great gym!
After the opening on the 15th, the plan is to go into overdrive with getting in front of new faces! It is my hope that within 6 months of opening, I’ll have myself plus another trainer working basically full time, with the aim to then hire a second trainer towards the end of the year! As long as I keep following systems that have been put down for me, there is no reason why this can’t be the case either!
On that note, if you have been on the fence for a while now about making a change to your health and fitness, now is your chance! If you contact me, you will get a free Private Training session, as well as a week of free Group Training!
https://newstartpt.com.au/contact-us/
Update as of February 2020!
It has almost been 1 year since I officially opened the doors of my Personal Training Studio, and to be honest, it has gone extremely well! While there were a few hurdles last year, everything is falling into place! The business is steadily growing, and we are becoming more and more known in the local area! I have a small team now working alongside me, and we are all working together to make this studio a success!
The biggest takeaway that I have from the last 12 months here is that none of this would have been possible on my own! I have the team of trainers to thank for their support, but even more than that, I have the clients of the business to thank, because without their support, we would have never been able to keep operating!
Update as of August 2020!
We are still kicking along, and stronger than ever!
The COVID19 pandemic has hit a lot of businesses hard, especially personal trainers and gyms. The important thing for anyone that made it through, and probably the key factor to any businesses that are still running, has been the ability to adapt – being able to transition from personal training in a studio space to running online personal training, or training people outdoors (for places where that was allowed and a viable option!). More than that though, forming a good community with the clients of our business has been the key! It’s easy enough to see the businesses that didn’t do that, because they are gone now. At the start of the year, if you searched personal trainers near me in Google, you got pages and pages of results. Now you get maybe 1 page. It is a shame that so many businesses have not made it this far, but it really shows just how important the community aspect of a business is!
We are looking forward to continuing on strong, and know that we are only going to succeed!
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