Businesses Speak Out - Health and Fitness Centers

Jacob Pauli, Co-Owner

THE DREAM IS FOR NINJA U TO BE THE KIND OF PLACE THAT WHEN YOU(OR YOUR KIDS) LAY IN BED, YOU ARE STILL THINKING ABOUT HOW TO CONQUER THAT OBSTACLE OR GET A BETTER TIME OR HOW MUCH FUN YOU HAD. WE WANT GRANDPARENTS TO BRING THEIR VISITING GRANDCHILDREN & LOCAL KIDS TO BECOME REGULARS. WE WANT IT TO BE A PLACE THAT YOU CAN BE….BE U, BE BRAVE, BE-COME STRONGER, & BE-LIEVE YOU CAN DO HARD THINGS!

HM:  Who is your customer target audience, the ideal customer you are reaching out to?

JP:  Definitely kids.  Kids can come in or anybody can come in anytime and just pay $10.  Then we have a team program, almost like a gymnastics team, where they’re coming in, kids on the team train twice a week.  We also offer adult fitness classes, we do a 55 and over and then we do an adult training as well.

HM:  What would you say was the greatest impact that COVID-19 has had on your business?

JP:  We basically had to layoff all 13 of our employees.  To maintain income revenue, we had to start offering all of the classes online.  We took every class and offered live on Facebook, at home.  We would film it in the gym or sometimes at our homes.  We’d set up different studio spaces around the gym, so you’d have a different scenery.  Scott would teach the teen kids, everything had to be tailored.  Me and my wife teach the adverse programs and preschool classes so we had to get very creative in creating at home workouts.  Basically we had to take everything, condense it to something you can do in your living room, that was the biggest impact.  Now that we’re reopened, everything has changed.  We still do online classes that we do in the gym as well.  We’re finding that this is going to be the hardest time right now, because we’re an indoor facility and people are not exactly comfortable yet.  We’re doing everything we can, cleaning constantly when you walk in, trying to make it a safe environment.  It’s going to be a struggle.

HM:  What one or two actions have you taken to make a difference in your business?

JP:  Right now, we’re trying to just suit everybody. For instance, my wife teaches this class that now is meeting three times a week, two of those times we’re doing as an outdoor class and one of them is in the gym, so she’s also filming classes.  What we’ve done is try to maintain something to suit everybody, bring people back in the gym and still offer the online classes, which has been a lot of work.  We’ve had an incredible amount of support by the community, people right away saying we are going to keep paying for classes.  It’s basically not anything that we’re doing, it’s an incredible amount of support from the community.  We teamed up a church and made a special t-shirt/sweatshirt logo and did it as a fundraiser and it blew up the Shirt Shack.  They were shipping out these shirts all over the country.  I see people on Instagram or Facebook wearing this t-shirt all over the place, that I didn’t even know.  I mean people have been quick to support.  

HM:  What mistakes did you make along the way in your career and how can other people in business learn from your experience? 

JP:  I guess maybe, people say you have to work AT your business, not IN your business.  I think in the beginning it’s not really a mistake, but we didn’t know how it was going to go.  Everything we did at the beginning was very much for cost savings.  We did all the work. We chose to paint this 10,000 square foot facility, and to paint the ceiling ourselves.  We saved a lot of money, but it was like the beginning of really getting burned out and really working hard.  You can pay to have things done.  I don’t know if that was a mistake or just a little learning experience.

HM:  What is most inspiring to you today and what is keeping you positive going through this?

 JP:  Again, it’s the community support.  The community loves to do what they can to help small businesses and I think it’s just the goodness of the people, honestly, its pretty inspiring.  The goodness of people in our town.

Contact:

https://ninjau.com

Info@ninjau.com

319-224-0836

Kristi O’Connell, Co-Owner

Benefits of Joining

Joining the ROC Gym offers members many benefits. Ask about benefits during registration!

HM:  Who is your customer target audience, the ideal customer you are reaching out to?

Kristi:  We have our Taekwondo, three year old up to adults.  Then we have our fighting class, those seem to be mainly guys age 20 to 40, we have RocFit – more like 35 to 55, and then weights which are more guys; so many areas of the gym, so many different target ages.

HM:  What would you say was the greatest impact that COVID-19 has had on your business?

Kristi:  We had to stop our memberships so we had no money coming in at all.  People would freeze their memberships, they didn’t feel comfortable coming to the gym yet.  Negative that way.  Positive – we went to online membership, or not even membership, we just let anyone in the community watch us online.  I think we probably got a lot more people that would see what we were doing.  That was a good thing, and then we got support from KWWL and the Courier, that was positive.  But negatively, no income coming in and then bills that still need to be paid. 

HM:  What one or two actions have you taken to make a difference in your business?

Kristi:  Well, normally, I have like 50 people in my class, and I went down to sign ups and only can allow 10, much smaller classes.  Now we have our equipment so you have six feet social distancing.  Now 50% capacity, so main thing is just not letting the number of people in the gym I guess.  I have an online sign up, they get a ticket before coming in for class.  So far it’s been working, not everyone’s ready to come back to the gym.  We did add more classes where we can get more people in.  So that’s mainly the thing is just not letting the number of people in the gym.

HM:  What mistakes did you make along the way in your career and how can other people in business learn from your experience?

Kristi:  I would as a business owner, I wish I took more classes in business.  I just hired a manager who is amazing at it.  I can’t think of anything as a mistake, because I learn from it.   I just like the journey and can’t think of anything, but I am not the business person.  My husband and my manger, they run the business.  I just like to train people and get them in shape, that’s my number one thing.

HM:  What is most inspiring to you today and what is keeping you positive going through this?

Kristi:  Seeing people that were nervous about coming back and finally get back into the gym.  They say the feel so much better about themselves.  My thing is just raise people’s confidence.  That’s all I really care about.  When they’re not working out, they were just feeling so stressed, their mind frame changed once they started working out.  That’s inspiring.  People raising spirits by coming back to the gym, that’s inspiring to me.

Contact:

http://roctrainingcenter.com

KOFIT1@yahoo.com

319-234-7621

Joywheel Cycling Studio

Jess McDowell, Owner

Joywheel is a boutique fitness studio specializing exclusively in indoor cycling. We’re turning traditional workouts into an immersive experience with our concert-like atmosphere — a dark room with fun accent lighting and loud music, hand-curated by our instructors.

Our vision is to redefine the fitness industry — by emphasizing enjoyable, yet competitive workouts and by providing a sense of community. We aim to provide a one-of-a-kind experience, with the built-in convenience of our many amenities. You don’t have to worry about bringing your own towel or cycling shoes, we just need you to show up and enjoy your ride!

HM:  Who is your customer target audience, the ideal customer you are reaching out to?

JM:  Because we do specialize in the data and the power, we are probably a little bit different compared to the rest of the industry.  So typically gets a reputation for having more females. For us right now, three different types of class format, but performance is our main class.  I would say anywhere between 25 to 45 is kind of our target age demographic.  We’ve been slowly getting more and more males, which I’m really excited to see that kind of break away from the stereotype of being an only female kind of workout.  We get a mix of both indoor riders and outdoor.  We have low impact that is a good pool of people in their 60’s that come.  That’s a phenomenal way to be mindful of your joints and everything. 

HM:  What would you say was the greatest impact that COVID-19 has had on your business?

JM:  Obviously we were forced to close for two months.  You go from class revenue each month to nothing.  So that was pretty big.  Luckily, the biggest thing that helped save us during that part is we were able to rent out our bikes.  So we delivered them to people’s homes.  That is single handedly the thing that saved us to get through COVID, to remain open to rent out from the can’t operate at full capacity.  The biggest challenge has kind have been getting people feeling comfortable enough to to come back into the studio environment.  Ultimately it comes down to people in their perception of how well they feel safe.

HM:  What one or two actions have you taken to make a difference in your business? 

JM:  Besides reaching out, we developed a virtual platform.  So we filmed classes, to sign up through Facebook Live.  We developed basically an on demand video library.   So then we are able to provide workouts for you from their homes, whether they had a bike or not, and we got so much good feedback.  I just feel like that just humbled you, and cheered you up a little bit about how appreciative people were to kind of have that joy at home because they miss that.  We were able to kind of still do our job of providing joy to our customers, even if it’s not face to face.  You can still connect with them online and provide that workout for them.

HM:  What mistakes did you make along the way in your career and how can other people in business learn from your experience?

JM:  There’s been a lot of them.  I think one of them goes back to the people aspect that I touched on earlier, not realizing how much that would impact my day to day work of managing people.  I would also say I struggle, I still constantly struggle with this, with knowing what aspects to do myself to try to save money versus knowing out front that I need to reach out and hire somebody else for that kind of job.  I wish I would have gone back and just upfront invested the money, and they could just get done quicker than me to save me money in the long run and save my time.  Those are a couple of efficiencies that I could go back on.

HM:  What is most inspiring to you today and what is keeping you positive going through this? 

JM:  Definitely our customer’s stories.  During COVID we reached out with so many people that sent us positive words just to get us through this, but also shared their journey and how we came in with support.  We got an outpouring of email messages from people wanting to find ways to support us because they valued our community so much by paying for memberships in advance because they wanted to ensure that we were going to be here.  We had so many people reach out and just kind of share what Joywheel meant to them and how thankful they were to have the joy at home experience.  So I would definitely say it’s the customer stories that keep me going.  Knowing we’re changing lives both physically, but also mentally.  And it’s very, very humbling.

Contact:

https://www.joywheelcycling.com

Jess@joywheelcycling.com

319-249-5944

FIT CEDAR VALLEY

Summer Meyer, Fitness Instructor

With two locations in the Cedar Valley, free child care, weekly fitness classes, and an amazing new state-of-the-art facility at Viking Road in Cedar Falls, FIT gym is the ultimate option for a gym membership in the Cedar Valley.

All FIT members will have the flexibility to workout at any of our locations. We provide the Cedar Valley with premier fitness facilities that are clean and meet your everyday fitness needs. Our knowledgeable and friendly staff provide all new clients with a tour of the facility as well as a thorough explanation of our services and products. Our expert staff will be available to help you achieve your fitness goals in a relaxed, friendly environment.

HM:  Who is your customer target audience, the ideal customer you are reaching out to?

SM:  I would say anyone just looking for a good community of people and a place to exercise and find a variety of classes and programs as well as gym equipment.  So anybody looking for classes, high quality gym equipment, some programming, offering a wide variety of options for gym goers.

HM:  What would you say was the greatest impact that COVID-19 has had on your business?

SM:  Prior to COVID, we had four locations, then once COVID hit, they had to close two of the four locations.  It was very sad.  Your gym is shut down and the bills still keep coming, you have to make some tough business decisions.  And recently even remodeled one area of the Waterloo FIT, and they still had to shut Waterloo down, that was not the plan or they wouldn’t have remodeled..  So now we have the two locations that are open. 

HM:  What one or two actions have you taken to make a difference in your business?

SM:  One thing FIT did was the quit charging people, so they weren’t paying a membership while they were closed, which I thought was just very respectable.  They also put some different workouts up on their Facebook page to keep people engaged.  They had the bad news of having to close two businesses and I think that was hard.  They just did a really nice job of offering online workouts. They are even offering them now as the gym is reopening.  I thought that’s nice for people who have maybe a high risk factor, like a health risk or they’re just not comfortable coming in yet, they can still take those classes as long as they have an active membership.

HM:  What is most inspiring to you today and what is keeping you positive going through this?

SM:  I know this sounds crazy, but I can’t wait to get back to my people at the gym and my people in my classes.  I actually was texting with some of them today and just excited to see them.  I’m one of those people that I kind of get my energy from other people and so I’m probably most excited about just being able to be with people again. 

Contact:

https://fitcedarvalley.com

(319) 266-6888