We recently connected with Cory Ferris and have shared our conversation below.
Cory, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Often outsiders look at a successful business and think it became a success overnight. Even media and especially movies love to gloss over nitty, gritty details that went into that middle phase of your business – after you started but before you got to where you are today. In our experience, overnight success is usually the result of years of hard work laying the foundation for success, but unfortunately, it’s exactly this part of the story that most of the media ignores. Can you talk to us about your scaling up story – what are some of the nitty, gritty details folks should know about?
Where to begin…
I started Ferris Fitness with a dream to help others overcome loss, battles with addiction, and stagnancy. I offered my training services free of charge during covid to help others. I started with recording exercises, and sending over videos with how to do it, and writing down all the sets and reps.
In 2021 I filed my trademark, and established my company. I spent thousands of dollars trying to market, and fight the right angle of attracting clientele. I fought for every single person to trust me, so I did everything I could to stand out. Coming from Food and Beverage, service was extremely important to me. I took every session I possibly could, whether at 5 am, or 9 PM.
I spent 3 years building clientele off of referrals, and other different advertising methods, like road signs, Thumbtack, Bark, etc. These first 3 years, I was working online, travel sessions, and out of my apartment gym proving I had the knowledge to change people’s lives, no matter the location.
In November 2023 I signed the lease on our gym today. It was a scary investment, but I knew that I had the discipline, and methods to make it work in notoriously a high turnover industry. The past year has been an absolute whirlwind. Between building the gym, branding concepts, coming out with our own app in the appstore, it’s been a rough one!
Ferris Fitness has scaled beyond my wildest dreams in this very short time. We now have 9 trainers, a full staff of social media managers/ content creators, a marketing team and more team members on the way. Every single step has been a challenge, but I would not change a single thing.
My scaling concept has been slow, manageable, sustainable growth. This is very important to me as I keep retention and customer service as my highest value. I wanted to offer things that no other gym has, to be able to provide our clientele the best value all while keeping an affordable, accessible rate. This is why we have our own app that provide meal plans, track all their meals, provide offsite stretching/workouts. We have a state of the art 3D Body Scanner that can tell you where you carry the most fat, provide accurate depictions of muscle mass.. and much more. We provide all of this, in a completely private setting with extremely knowledgable trainers.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
My name is Cory Ferris. I have worn many hats amongst my career. I toured in a rock band in my 20’s named Woe Is Me. Our travels brought us to 48 states in the U.S. and many international markets. During my touring career, I was eating horrible food, and drinking a lot of alcohol. When I quit touring, I decided to take my health a bit more seriously and attempt working out.
I spent several years as a wishy washy gym-goer. In 2018 I had some friends/family battling addiction. I was extremely upset that I couldn’t help them, so I started working out again to attempt to find peace and help with the frustration and I quickly fell in love with the process.
I took this new found love, and decided to go back to school. My goal was to help other’s find this satisfaction of self-care that I had found.
Years later, I now own one of the fastest growing gyms in Gwinnett County. We pride ourselves in what I call “The Circle Model”. This is all focused on our client. Our main pillars are 1.) Program 2.) Nutrition 3.) Assessment and 4.) Accountability. We take a data driven, science backed approach that places our clienteles needs, goals, and journey above all else.
We have several products here to fit all price ranges. We offer 1-1 Personal Training, Semi-Private Training (Custom program built specifically for our client, but then placed in a group of 4 people to cut down on cost, Group Classes, Meal Plans, 3D Body Scanning and we even have an in-house meal prep company. We use all of these services to completely tailor someone’s journey.
We solve all sorts of problems here. Between weight loss, fat loss, muscle building, preparation for body building, injury rehabilitation, and many more nutrition components.
Over the past couple years, I have been so incredibly proud of how many people’s lives we have been able to change. This lifestyle can completely change your trajectory in life. There are tons of science-backed reasons to work out. You live longer, you age slower, increase bone density, fight off illness better… and MUCH more. I am so grateful to help others enjoy their life as my job.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
Hmm. Well, one thing to know about our industry is it has an incredibly HIGH turnover rate. As everyone reading this has probably been through the gym phase of consistent, and inconsistent.
Over the years I’ve had had great retention for industry standards, but still lose people left and right. Most personal trainers don’t last in the industry very long because of this, or they just do it part-time. Over the years, I have been doing this Full-Time due to my perseverance.
I would wake up at 5 AM on Saturday’s and Sunday’s to put road signs out. Any profit, went right back into advertising or something to make my business better than the next. When building the gym, I would train from 7 AM – 6 PM, and build my gym from 6 PM – 12 AM. I have simply just worked harder than the next guy which in turn has lead my business’ to success.
I have always looked at my business has 2 roles. 1.) Working in the business (50 hours a week) and working on the business (30-40 hours a week). This has helped me scale, but also has built an extreme amount of discipline and resilience.
Can you talk to us about how you funded your business?
When I first started, I used all my own money to establish the LLC, file my trademark, and several other operating expenses. Throughout my first couple years of business, I would re-invest any profit back into my business for advertising, etc.
In November 2023, I had built up decent business credit and had been around for more than 3 years. I was able to get Equipment Financing to cover most of my equipment. The deposit for rent, smaller equipment, flooring, the marquis, and other smaller expenses all fell on me. I used saving’s and business line of credit to get everything else I needed.
As the business grew, I kept re-investing any other profits into other businesses, more equipment, or any part of the business that would generate more revenue.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.ferrisfitness.co
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ferrisfitness
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ferrisfitness
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@ferrisfitness
Image Credits
Adaja White – Photographer