We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Chloe Valerio. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Chloe below.

Chloe, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

In a competitive field such as personal training especially in a big city like Los Angeles, seems like the biggest challenge. A challenge to flourish. A challenge to be lucrative. A challenge to stand out. Right before the 2020 pandemic changed everything, I had passed my ACE PT and gained my personal training license. During the pandemic where all we had was idle time gave me a chance to get my LLC, create a website, get a logo, and finally launch BODY BY CHLO. With all of the rules put in place with social distancing, indoor spaces (especially gyms) being closed, I still convinced clients to work out at local parks or outside of their houses/apartments. I learned some valuable lessons while people were in a vulnerable state and trusting me to be around them and train. Even with hauling all of the heavy equipment, I was still grateful to have a successful business that launched during a very trying time. The risk has elevated my business in the best way.

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?

Fitness is my passion. Along the way I have had many other passions. I grew up in a small town Ashtabula, Ohio until I was 18 years old. I attended two colleges; University of Toledo and The Ohio State University. After 4 years, I decided my real calling was make-up. I saved up all I could and moved to Los Angeles to attend Make-Up Designery Academy. I crashed on a friend’s couch and graduated after 6 months learning film make-up, hairstyling, and special FX application.  I was working 2 jobs while going to make-up school. I truly loved make-up but learned the industry was full of politics and nepotism. For me, that took away from the creativity so after my first 6 jobs I wanted to take a different route. I was working terrible restaurant jobs, partying, and completely irresponsible. I decided to clean up my act and work an office job where I had no idea what I was doing. During that time, I thought to myself, “What am I good at?” “What do I enjoy doing?” “What comes naturally to me?” The answer was working out. I studied to get my certification for personal training and passed shortly before I was fired at the office. As scary as it was, it gave me the time to really lean into my own business. And that was the beginning of Body by Chlo.

My training style is a mixture of weight lifting, yoga, high impact. low impact, and pilates. I tailor the workouts to clients’ needs and to what will help accomplish their goals. I consider myself a cheerleader more than a drill sergeant. I have women and men clientele but women usually come to me for something specific. That specific thing is BOOTY workouts! I would consider it my expertise but I don’t like boxing myself in one category. However it is a great selling point.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

For a long time I was going off a strictly referral basis. I was doing this for safety reasons mostly. I felt more comfortable training friends of friends rather than someone off the internet. Along with referrals, social media has helped. The more content I put out, the more interest in getting trained by me peaks.

From a personal standpoint, I build very strong, safe, and healthy relationships with my clients. I feel like a therapist at times and it makes me feel useful even if I can just be a listening ear. Fitness for a lot of people can be something they squeeze in. So when they make the time to see me and utilize my expertise, I feel grateful and make extreme use of that time. Accountability is important and I want to see my clients crush their goals but at the same time I know we are all human so grace plays a big part. I might not be a before and after type of trainer but I inspire to impact their lives by being a safe space to improve at their pace.

Other than training/knowledge, what do you think is most helpful for succeeding in your field?

I think the most successful thing besides training knowledge is a business mindset. People are paying for your services and expertise so you must have a strong will to show up and be your money’s worth. This requires you not to change their schedule so much it disrupts the flow of their consistency. When you are your own boss, you are responsible for your hours and adhering to them so clients take their accountability seriously.   

Contact Info:

• Website: www.bodybychlo.com
• Instagram: bodybychlo
• Youtube: bodybychlo

Image Credits
@leelens @azdepictions