Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Brandon Parker. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Brandon, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. One deeply underappreciated facet of entrepreneurship is the kind of crazy stuff we have to deal with as business owners. Sometimes it’s crazy positive sometimes it’s crazy negative, but crazy experiences unite entrepreneurs regardless of industry. Can you share a crazy story with our readers?

Even though our business has thrived throughout the most recent years, this has not been the easiest task. The kind of crazy stuff we had to deal with came just 18 days after we first launched our business. After opening our business, the worldwide pandemic had thrown a huge gap into our progress. We were legally shut down for three whole months. This left us with not much hope of how to get things running again or how to bounce back to any type of normality. As the entrepreneur, I had to figure out possible loop holes to ultimately keep my business alive. At one point, I had loaded up a big truck full of equipment and would do private sessions at clients homes. I would bounce from home to home, session after session, cleaning the equipment each hour, and anxious to know what would be next for my business. Luckily because of our persistence we were able to reach breakthrough and the business was allowed to legally open back up. Due to the migration of the residents from larger cities, our business began to flourish. It was a lesson for us that if you could weather the storm, there are clear skies ahead.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I grew up and always found myself in the world of athletics. I went to college to play football and wanted to be a physical therapists. After I graduated, I found a Craigs list add for a new gym opening in west palm beach. I worked at that gym from the day it opened until 4 years later when an eviction note had been enforced. I started to do more research within west palm beach and found that there wasn’t a “high end” clientele facility. This is where I saw a hole in the market. I had the vision to open up my own high end personal training facility in west palm beach. I opened 1Fitness which was the home for luxury personal training in palm beach. In 3 years we outgrew our 3k sq ft facility and went from 2 trainers to 8 trainers. We then graduated to a 5k sq ft facility and went from 8 trainers to 15 trainers. We now are opening an 8,200 sq ft facility in addition to our current location. This will be our private members only fitness facility. The new facility will include open gym access, group fitness classes, cold plunges and saunas. Traphouse is the training recovery and athletic performance house. Members will apply for a membership and total membership will be capped at 300 members. The idea of trap house is to provide a comprehensive home for all of their fitness and recovery needs while providing an intimate social community. I would have to say that seeing the growth and opportunities in the trainers lives throughout our explosive expansion has made me the most proud!

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

I have always been into real-estate. I purchased my first house at 25 for $76,000. I took a gigantic risk because this house had a Lein to it for $75,000. After renovating the house we went in front of the city for a Lein reduction hearing. I explained our circumstance and Lein was reduced down to $2,000. I then refinanced the property and borrowed the equity in order to fund 1Fitness. I sold that house and bought a second house, renovated it and then borrowed the equity again to open Traphouse.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

When I was opening the second 1fitness, I would train 8-10 clients a day and then work on the new facility at night. For the 2 weeks leading up to our opening I survived on Celsius and would eat Taco Bell at 1am because it was the only restaurant still open. The day before we opened, my brother and I stayed up the entire night before our 6am class. At 4:435am he was going to Walmart to purchase toiletries. After staying up all night, we both had to work the following day, teaching class after class until late that night. I would say this is the difference between being good or great.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.1wpb.com
• Instagram: @1fitness @bpfla
• Facebook: @1fitness
• Linkedin: Brandon Parker
• Yelp: @1fitness

Image Credits

the Tyler James