Meet Tracey Rodriguez | Gym owner – CanvasRebel Magazine

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

Tracey, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. 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?
I have known since right out of high school that I wanted to be my own boss. I just loved the idea of the freedom and different choices in life it would bring me. The scariest thing to me was the risk it would take to do it. I started small, my first was a home lingerie business. I loved being able to create my own schedule however this soon was taking time from my family the busier I got. I started playing a game called Cash Flow with a group of friends. This is a financial education game by Robert Kiyosaki. I figured it would benefit me to get my financial skills up so I could truly create that freedom I wanted. Through this, I ended up meeting Robert and his wife Kim at a local event. They ended up really liking me, not sure what I said or did, but I was excited they did. They invited me for over a year to go to their local offices every Friday and play the Cash Flow game with their staff.

This was one of the most defining moments in my life and career. I was able to create 2 businesses that I had learned from the game and turned into real life, a Snow Cone business and a Self Serve Medical Vending Machine business. Both were financed by others and very profitable for me. I was asked by Robert in 2002 if I could be interviewed for his then upcoming book called Rich Dad Success Stories because of what I had done through the game. I ended up being the 2nd story in his book and my story is called MINDING MY OWN BUSINESS. Such a great experience. During my interview for this he encouraged me to find a business that I could build, have others run by systems built and that was a passion or gift of mine. This let me to the fitness industry, however I was currently very overweight and did not have the first clue on how to do it. The RISK WAS HUGE!!! The risk was huge but I decided to do it anyways. I just kept telling myself that I could do this, I have a gift to inspire and I can change lives. So 2004 was the first facility that I opened called Fitness Lady.

After many small wins and HUGE loses in 2012 I was at a turning point. I was at a point to either close it all down or to get help and make it work. Honestly the thought of having to go get a REAL job made me sick to my tummy….lol so I had to find help and make it work. THE RISK WAS GOING TO BE WORTH IT, THE ALTERNATIVE WAS NOT AN OPTION FOR ME. I ended up finding a business coach in my industry and IRON Girlz became a success and put us on the map in our area. We continued to grow and help 1000’s of ladies in our area up until MARCH 2020 (we all know what happened then). We were ordered by our Governor to CLOSE OUR DOORS TILL FURTHER NOTICE. Oh man this was a scary time for us. We ended up losing 80% of our business and had to be closed for about 6 months. Closing the doors for good was not an option for me, so we had to figure out how to take the risk and make it work. We ended up going online like most in the fitness industry. Started with Zoom and then built an app that we could program custom workouts. This was 100% unknown territory for us but we had to figure it out. Fast forward now almost 2 years from that time and we have made it. It is for sure a different industry then it was pre covid but we are fine tuning things to be exactly what ladies are looking for. It has been 100% worth EVERY RISK I have ever taken to create our business. Was it always easy, NOPE. Was it scary at times, YEP. Would I do it again, YOU BET I WOULD!!! NOT TAKING RISK IS LIVING AVERAGE, AND LIVING AN AVERAGE LIFE IS LIVING SOMEONE ELSE’S DREAM….. I WILL ALWAYS TAKE THE RISK THEN LIVE AN AVERAGE LIFE! Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers. HI I’m Tracey Rodriguez and am the owner of IRON GIRLZ training facility located in Peoria Arizona. We have been in business for over 18 years. I started in this industry to help not only myself but to help other ladies who would never normally step into a normal gym or feel judged, not know what to do or just ladies that do not know how to start. WE SPECIALIZE IN HELPING LADIES CREATE A BETTER QUALITY OF LIFE How are WE different from the other fitness programs? ⁣ We focus on why your previous attempts at getting (desired result) fail? What was missing?⁣ How is our coaching different or superior to what you tried before?⁣ WE ARE NOT JUST A GYM BUT A COACHING PROGRAM…. Does It get YOU results quicker ?⁣ YES Does it get YOU results in a way that’s easier?⁣ YES Does it get YOU results without YOU having to do stuff you don’t like?⁣ YES With being in buisness so long, we literally have 1000’s of testimonials of ladies lives we have changed… We have 2 types of programs: 1. SMALL GROUP TRAINING 2. SEMI PRIVATE TRAINING (complete custom program to you) Please go here to https://fb.com/book/IRONGirlz/ go here to pick a convenient time to chat I am most proud of the fact that we do charity fundraisers EVERY MONTH to help people in our community. It is not just about us but about those around us and how we can help them. IRON GIRLZ 9800 N 91st Ave #118 Peoria AZ 85345 Have you ever had to pivot? I am not sure that a PIVOT even starts to encompass what we, as an industry, had to do once covid hit our world. The fitness industry was one of the HARDEST HIT industries with the pandemic. All facilities, no matter how large or small had to close their doors ALL OVER THE WORLD! This has NEVER happened before and no one knew what was going to happen. I recall sitting at my daughters house in Huntington Beach, after just having our first grandson born. I was sitting at the kitchen table by myself, looking at my computer, listening to the ALERT NEWS that we had until 8pm 3/20/20, which was that day, to close our doors until further notice. I just started crying uncontrollably. Had NO IDEA what to do, or what was going to happen. After I got myself together, I contacted my team, who by the way, I could NOT have pulled any of this off without them, and we got on a Zoom call. We put together a plan for our members to do our workouts via Zoom till we could build an app to serve them. We also set up mindset zooms, happy hour zooms and anything we could think of to keep our members encouraged. This PIVOT saved our business along with rethinking our expenses and downsizing our facility while closed. We did end up losing 80% of our clients but those that stuck with us made it so that we could make it through and rebuild once back open. I sadly have so many friends in this industry that did not make it. Of all the businesses forced to close, all have received financial help except the Fitness Industry, so those that have made it through this, like us, had to figure out on their own. Our industry is very different from what it was pre covid. I am not sure that it will ever go back to the same but we will continue to test and pivot till we rebuild to what we were and beyond. I am very grateful and blessed for our members, team and community support that helped us survive. Can you talk to us about how your funded your firm or practice? Prior to opening IRON Girlz, we had HUGE losses in this industry. Lost home, cars repoed, thousands in debt and messed up relationships just to name a few. I wanted to open the doors 100% debt free and in the positive unlike everything I had done in the past businesses. I started 4 months out from my open date and put out an email to my past clients for a FOUNDERS special. There were 4 available at a huge discount for a 1 year prepaid membership, plaque on the wall and a custom shirt. This would pay for the down payment for the building rental as well a small budget for ads on facebook so I could start the build out and getting pre-sign ups. I sold all 4 in less than 1 hour…. BOOM I then started my Facebook ads for pre sign up specials. I had a goal to get each week and month in order to get the supplies I needed to open the gym. I scheduled it all out so I knew what I needed and by when. I was able to hit and exceed my numbers and ended up with 175 pre sign ups which funded my entire fitout in the gym. I did have one item I had to finance and this was our artificial turf. It was about $2000 and I paid off in 4 months from opening but that was it. Everything else was funded by the pre-sales. There was a huge risk in doing it this way because I had no back up plan…lol IT JUST HAD TO WORK!!! AND IT DID, THANK GOD ;) Contact Info:

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Meet Tracey Rodriguez | Gym owner

Meet Tracey Rodriguez | Gym owner

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