We recently connected with Laurel Roach and have shared our conversation below.
Laurel, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.
Six years ago, I quit my corporate job and purchased an existing personal training studio. At that time I was completely burnt out with my job and thought that I wanted to be relatively “hands off”. Boy was I wrong! I made all kinds of mistakes in the beginning, the greatest mistake being that I was GUESSING who my ideal client was, the problem I was solving and our brand in general.
The Covid-19 pandemic turned out to be both the hardest and also the best thing that ever happened to my business. We lost 60% of our revenue those two years, I didn’t take a salary for 18 months, and almost decided to close the business. It was taxing on my mental health to keep things running and keep my employees paid, when it seemed to just drag on and on.
Through that process, I became obsessed with serving our clients, understanding their needs, and adding value. I hired Rob Knapp Marketing, and he helped me immensely to identify our key differentiators, and voila! A lightbulb went on for me. I realized that our solution is quite unique to everything else on the market in the training space. I started noticing that the clients we were attracting ALL had the same general struggles — they didn’t feel comfortable in a traditional gym, felt overwhelmed by where to even start, and really needed more hands on support, guidance and accountability.
For clients who are looking for an “in-person” training experience (vs online), they really don’t have a great option. They can try to figure it out on their own at a big box gym, pay $800-$1000 per month to work with a trainer one-on-one, or feel completely lost (or get injured) in a large group fitness class.
I realized that what we were doing was special. From that point, the team and I went to work on creating more and more value. We provide hands on personal training so the client could really learn how to do the movements correctly. They train in a small group so they have the energy of other fun people, but don’t feel overwhelmed by a big group. We track attendance, call and text them when they miss class or no-show. Lots of accountability. We track their progress using a sophisticated scale called an InBody so we can see the changes happening in the body with body fat & muscle mass. Lastly, we provide so many nutrition resources (meal planning calls, education, and accountability calls) that are all included in the membership —even one-on-one monthly meetings with a nutrition coach.
We have since passed our highest monthly revenue numbers and are gaining ideal clients consistently every month. It’s so gratifying and exciting to see all of the work that my team and I have put in over the years come to fruition — both financially for us as a business, but even more so for the clients that we are helping. I’m so blessed to love what I do, and wake up excited for work every day.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
My background is in Communications & Marketing. I worked in hospitality/fine dining through college, and I believe that’s where I build a strong customer service foundation, interacting with so many different types of people. I spent five years in a corporate position, starting in sales for a small commercial cleaning company, and gradually working up to the General Manager position. I managed a staff of 220 employees, and it was a very demanding and stressful job. Trust me, no one is calling you to thank you for emptying their trash — it was a lot of “fires” to put out, staffing issues, alarms going off, and upset people. I REALLY care about doing a great job for my clients, so it was difficult for me to manage everything. I worked very long hours, was constantly on my email, at job sites in the middle of the night and then doing it all over again. I loved the company & my team but decided I wanted to own my time/schedule.
My husband actually found TriFit Wellness for sale on a business brokers site. It was a dream come true for me because I’d always loved health & fitness, just didn’t know how I could make any money in that industry. I was so burnt out from my job, and the current owner was running TriFit semi-absentee. It was perfect. I figured I would do less — A LOT less.
Turns out I’m not wired that way. LOL! It took about a week of me owning the business that I was ready to dig in and grow the business.
TriFit Wellness is truly “the gym for non-gym people.” It’s for the average person who doesn’t know what they are doing, doesn’t feel comfortable in the gym, and is looking for much more education, coaching, accountability & support.
Our goal is to give our clients EVERYTHING they need to be successful — personalized coaching, accountability, nutrition support & a welcoming positive community where they will be welcome and can learn and thrive.
One of my favorite things to tell a new client is that when they finish their time working with us they will have the “two C’s” — Competence & Confidence. When you feel competent in what you are doing (nutritionally & training wise) that turns into confidence. You now UNDERSTAND your body, what it needs and how to reach your goals.
When we accomplish that for our clients, that is truly life changing stuff.
Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?
For YEARS I struggled with inconsistent lead generation. What finally worked for me was starting from square one and going through a detailed branding exercise. I hired an expert for this and it was the best money I’ve ever spent.
Until you are VERY clear with who your ideal client is, how you solve their problem, and what your key differentiators are, you are essentially just throwing mud at the wall and hoping something sticks. When I initially bought my business, it already had an existing clientele. I made the mistake of ASSUMING I knew our brand & what our clients wanted, and I was completely wrong. I spent tens of thousands of dollars creating a website that had completely incorrect messaging.
If you are starting a NEW business, great. You can begin the branding work right away and figure out who your target audience is and how to solve their problem. Big mistake if you buy an existing business. You need to slow down, get to know people, interview them and give it time before you go in and try to change everything. I would just “do things” back in the day, now I am MUCH more deliberate and strategic. Everything is “on brand” or we don’t do it. It helps me decide what content to post on social media, helps me identify who is a fit for our services and who is not. Branding is everything.
I also got very targeting with our advertising. I had a past and current client database of about 5000 clients over 15 years or so. I sorted last list by zip code, and had our google ads ONLY shown to our top 5 zip codes. This avoided a lot of unnecessary ad spend. I pay more per lead than lets say a Facebook or Instagram Ad, but I know that generally the leads that come in will be qualified. I close roughly 80-90% of them that come in.
I also spend some time coming up with a great referral program. Again, I hired an expert to help me with this. The offer has to be clear, the verbiage feels awkward when you first do it, so asking for referrals in your business is like any other process you need to have. Create it, test it, refine, test it some more and track your results until you get it right.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
Definitely COVID-19 tested my resilience more than anything else I’ve ever been through. I have poured my heart and soul into this business, and in April of 2021 I almost walked away from all of it. This is after not paying myself for over a year, and with $150,000 of debt on the business. I felt so defeated working so hard for so long with no payoff. I figured I could walk away and go get a high paying executive or sales position, make a couple hundred grand a year and be done with all of the stress of managing a business.
I tried to break my lease with the landlord, and even GIVE the business away. I believe to this day that it was God intervening on my behalf that THREE deals fell through. Hell, I couldn’t even give this business away for FREE. It made me so angry. I am extremely competitive and I was so sick of feeling like a loser.
I refused to accept failure and I remember one day making a very clear decision — I am not giving up. I will claw and climb my way out of this hole and bring this business back to life.
I set very small, but achievable goals and was insanely focused on reaching them. I tracked every lead, every call and every sale. I probably looked at my numbers daily and spend 70% of my time on sales. I cut every expense I could. I let go of one staff member, and gave his salary to my head coach, Steven. He was instrumental in our come back. I literally could not have done it without his help. We both worked overtime to make this happen. Steven coached split shifts from April to October (5:30AM-10:30AM and back 3PM-7PM). It was hard for both of us, but we hit our goals every month and just kept growing and were profitable by November.
Its been the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and I still have the fear of losing it all again sometimes. But I refuse to operate out of fear any longer. We made it through and there is a lesson in every challenge and dark valley you go through. I believe going through challenges makes us so much better leaders. We have to analyze every decision, every dollar spent, hold on to a vision and be positive for our team. It was a blessing at the end, and I wouldn’t change it.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.trifitwellness.com
- Instagram: @trifitwellness
- Facebook: @grouptrainingphoenix
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurelroach/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TrifitwellnessPhoenixAZ
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/trifit-wellness-phoenix-2
Image Credits
Brandon Sullivan