We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Tiffany Nesfield a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Tiffany, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today If you had a defining moment that you feel really changed the trajectory of your career, we’d love to hear the story and details.
After devoting years to my professional running career, I decided to focus on my professional career. This shift in focus put things in motion, and within five months, I started my own business and got hired to be the personal trainer of a professional tennis player.
Preparation and intentionality made me available for new opportunities and helped me to make peace with laying down my pursuit of being a professional runner. It was always a long-term goal to own my own business and work with people to help them improve and perform better in life. This moment was a launching point for the success I have experienced thus far.
Another significant moment was closing the chapter on training my first major client — a professional tennis player. This change was due to my wanting to get a massage therapy license while building clientele in Maryland and becoming a weightlifting competitor. I was looking for a way to compete, but the time commitment took up so much time and forced me to be honest with my weightlifting coach about my inability to continue so I could focus on my career.
This lesson reminded me that in life, we could have good intentions and have desires to do the things we love, but there are times when doing too much can prevent real progress.
Putting more time and effort into something you want to grow will force you to make hard decisions in limiting or spending less time doing other things. Understanding this concept has helped me through moments when I needed to change paths or if I wanted to experience exponential growth. When I was able to make that decision, the opportunities were endless.
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?
My name is Tiffany Nesfield, personal trainer, massage therapist and owner of Nesfield Performance, a Chevy Chase, MD-based fitness company. As a native Marylander and former University of Illinois Division I track and field athlete, I have been an active member of the fitness industry for over 13 years. In addition to working with Division I, post-collegiate and professional athletes as well as the general public, I have spent more than a year traveling around the world training professional tennis player Daniela Hantuchova.
I provide a unique set of skills to teach clients the diverse, effective strategies you can count on during the course of your journey into healthy living. As a certified Active Release Techniques (ART) and NueroKinetic practitioner, I offers an extra layer of knowledge about the human body that rounds out my services, enabling me to treat various systems of each client’s body so they can learn how to not only adopt but sustain a holistic healthy lifestyle.
I am dedicated to working with clients to provide the physical training, nutritional coaching and massage therapy necessary to train safely and effectively. I am passionate about training and helping others live active, healthy lifestyles.
Our team really makes a positive impact on the clients we serve, and we go out of our way to make them feel like they are a part of our family. Sometimes it may feel that we care more about our client’s success, but we do a great job finding the balance between pushing them and meeting them where they are currently.
Our business model also focuses on the holistic view of a person’s well-being. Our company pillars are mindset, physical, nutrition, regeneration, and lifestyle because there is a connection to all of these elements that can ultimately impact their overall success in performing better in life.
From the personal training aspect, we teach our clients more about their bodies, how to move, and gain a true mind/body connection. We know that many people have limiting beliefs based on life experiences. They can also be unaware of the source of the physical pain they are feeling, and we aim to open them up and guide them to see themselves and feel differently. I like seeing clients have that “Aha!” moment after the experience of doing something new with their bodies.
From an internal standpoint, our company thrives by the way we care for our employees too. We’re a small, minority-owned business, and only some fitness companies can offer full-time positions to trainers and massage therapists. Our goal is to provide salaries and benefits in a way where people can grow in their careers so that they don’t have to fight to sustain a lifestyle, support their families, or support themselves.
Finally, I am incredibly proud that during the coronavirus pandemic, we were available to provide a location where clients could get 1-on-1 training in a clean and safe environment even when they didn’t feel comfortable training around other people. Overnight we turned into a personalized and boutique facility, and we’re still able to do that even though we plan on growing. Still, we’re looking to provide a new commercial unit that will give clients that same feeling in a bigger space.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
A lot of companies had to pivot during the coronavirus pandemic, but the pandemic sent shock waves through our company because, in February 2020, we were thriving and were in a position to hire two new full-time employees. March started so well, and then everything changed almost immediately. Because of our ongoing stewardship in building reserves, I was so grateful that I could keep my employees, keep their salaries, and make changes like increasing capacity to provide one-on-one training and virtual classes to keep the business afloat.
I am thankful for the clients who stuck with us as we shifted to try and do more virtual sessions or meet us outside for workouts. The massage arm of the business halted, which was 30% of our revenue, so there was a negative impact, but we kept going. We had clients who thought the pandemic would only last for a few months and opted to just “come back later,” which also impacted our bottom line.
Over time, while we maintained, by the end of 2020, we felt a significant financial strain. Thankfully, through the PPP loan program, I could continue supporting employees and was also able to purchase a new home that would also serve as our temporary gym space and offset the cost of renting another space.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
Like many other business owners, making certain decisions helped us to survive during the pandemic. As a team, we learned that while we can be experts in our field, work hard, and provide excellent service, we must also be flexible to shift to the needs of the market, our clients, and our employees — even without a global pandemic! On a deeper level, the emotional impact of the pandemic took a toll on many of us, and we all had to dig deep to offer empathy and support to each other, whether we were serving or receiving services.
Some say, “Trainers are like therapists” because of the proximity of connecting a person’s mindset to their goals. In order to train them properly, we have to understand our clients by helping them to share how they think, live, and move. At times, this may require deeper questioning and conversation. That knowledge allows us to adjust and tailor our coaching style to work with different personality types.
Everyone needs help, and in order to do that, we must all remember that at the core of what we do, we must show support, empathy, and understanding — even in the gym!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.nesfieldperformance.com
- Instagram: @nesfieldperform
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NesfieldPerform/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tiffanynesfield/
- Youtube: @nesfieldperformance7505
Image Credits
Trisography Flix Julian Magloire