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

Alright, Mike and Erin thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us 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.

When we set out to write our business plan for Fit Social Club back in 2017, we had one goal in mind – to build a community space for everyone to come to have fun, work out and be social. We both had years of experience operating under someone else’s roof, and now we wanted to be able to build something with our vision in mind. We chose Dallas not only because it was our original client base, but also because it was being underserved in our industry compared to other big cities such as New York and LA.

We created a model so that everyone could make it their one stop shop for all things fitness. We offer heavy weight training, functional movement, indoor cycling and HIIT classes. Fit Social Club is a place where you can program out your week, month, and year because we have universal programming. There is no where else in Dallas that does that – it’s what our clients need and want. The pandemic actually bred one of new popular classes out of a need that our clients had and we wanted to fulfill.

We now are able to offer back up our social events and gatherings which contribute to our original vision of a community based fitness studio. Saturday happenings and weekly/ monthly events continue build as we grow as a business. Now that Spring is in the air all things patio season are at play!

Looking back at 2017 and where we are now, we are proud of what we have gone through but mostly we are proud of the people we are surrounded by. Our team, clients, and overall atmosphere is what continues to excite us.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Mike and I met in 2016 at the DFW based fitness studio we both worked for at the time (we causally thought no one knew we were dating although hindsight everyone knew we were dating). After both exiting from that studio and a short stint in Austin, we were finally able to put our combined 15+ years of experience to use under our own brand. We brainstormed for what seemed like years about what we wanted to company name to be, what our goals were, what the vision was etc etc etc. At the end of the day we both agreed that having the best coaching staff in town and offering the most safe and effective workouts was the top priority. Secondary to that was creating a space that was full of life. Clients and staff lingering after classes, everyone meeting up for happy hours, bonding over stiff legs and sore bodies. Fitness being the reason for entering The Club, as we like to say, but the community being what drew you back in time and again.

If you were to ask us both, I think that would be the top answer. Yes we do believe we have the best programming in Dallas, yes we do have the most talented staff, yes our classes are the best in town. But we are most proud of the strength of community we have built in such a short about of time. FSC’s original location opened in June 2019 but because of Covid shut downs, a change of location and supply chain delays FSC has only been open for a combined 10 months. If you walked through the doors as a new client you would not imagine that we are all still pretty new friends.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

When looking at marketing plans for FSC or any small business and trying to gain clients/ have client retention it is mostly the usual suspects. What is your social media presence like, how many other small businesses within a certain radius of you are you connected with, have you done pop ups outside of your location to generate more interest. The list can go on and on.

One thing that Mike and I have learned is that good old fashion word of mouth is still the best way to create brand loyalty. It might look a little different such as a client posting and tagging you in their instagram story, but it is still 2022’s version of word of mouth. When it comes down to it are you delivering a product, in our case fitness classes, that people will see results from and tell their friends/family/ coworkers about.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

Ill spare the back story of Mike and I meeting. We can always talk about that. :) This is more of a business shift / overcoming another challenge but in the end it still feels like we made a big pivot for the future of Fit Social Club.

After what we all thought was the conclusion of the covid spikes back in November 2020, before the big Holiday scare, we were offered to leave our original location. Our landlord presented us with dates, numbers and a deal to consider. We then had to make a decision. What is the future of Fit Social Club. We had already done the big pivot of going digital and renting out our equipment to get through lock down. We created a new schedule to accommodate more cleaning time and space between client once lock down was lifted.. Now we were looking at starting over, again. It was a big shift not only financially but also mentally and physically (did I mention we found out we were pregnant just after this).

With the help of our board we set out to make the change. If we were going to move locations we wanted bigger and better – and that is what we have done. We are in a great location at Mockingbird Station. Our shiny new studio is closer to our original vision back in 2017 and we couldn’t be happier. There were plenty of set backs including a 6 month HVAC delay. But we took the leap, pivoted the business to a brighter version of ourselves and are hoping that the gamble pays off.

Contact Info:

• Website: fit-socialclub.com
• Instagram: @fit.socialclub @bedeezy @michaelvara
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/fit-social-club-dallas
• Other: https://fitsocialclub.uscreen.io

Image Credits
Mike and I take our photos Michael/Erin Vara