After years of dreaming and scheming, Chris and Sarah Holder found themselves with their own two-room personal training studio.
Before they knew it, their two-room “re:form Fitness Studio” multiplied as they added on a third room and grew into an entire building of personal training studios.
Each individual room allows for different group exercise, small-group training or one-on-one personal training. The Holders implement a multitude of new equipment in their classes.
They’ve stocked rooms with some free-weight training, spinning, a Vectra functional trainer and GRAVITY by efi Sports Medicine.
Actually, the studio started coming together because Sarah had started using GRAVITY at the club where she was training in La Jolla, Calif.
Well, actually that all started when Chris, an employee at efi in 2003, got the wild idea to buy Sarah, an already certified personal trainer, a Total Gym GTS for her GRAVITY training.
Sarah loved the product and convinced the club to start letting her use it to train clients. Her clientele started growing, and other trainers at the club started renting the equipment to train their clients.
That was when Chris and Sarah discovered they had a niche for a new club in San Marcos, Calif.
“We envisioned having a GRAVITY-centered studio from the start,” Chris said. “In addition to GRAVITY, we have two separate private training rooms. One has a Smith machine, dumbbells, functional bands, Bosu and Swiss balls, and the other room has open floor space and a Vectra Functional Trainer.”
The couple tries to incorporate every new concept possible. They put their clients through TRX training and plyometric drills on the Total Gym PlyoRebounder.
However, even though the ideas and equipment were readily available, logistically the couple got held up. “Opening the business was a challenge,” Chris said. “We are in a space where we didn’t want our rent to kill us every month, but with lower rent it’s hard to find the best area to run a fitness facility.
“We ended up opening in a light industrial zoned area, but it was good for us because there weren’t a lot of other gyms nearby for people to go to.”
The downfall to being in the industrial zone was getting the word out.
Prospective clients didn’t typically drive into the industrial zone looking for a health club or personal training center. “The reason we liked this facility is because there’s a very large dance studio around the corner that draws hundreds of kids and a big daycare facility behind us,” Chris said. “We got more visibility through these businesses. Once we got people to believe in what we were doing, we knew word of mouth would bring in business.”
The Holders didn’t spare expense to their marketing campaign. They used their young age to their advantage in creating youthful, modern designs, both for marketing and their studio’s appearance.
“We wanted to create a boutique atmosphere that appealed to our private and semi-private personal training clients,” Chris said.
“We also have a Facebook Fan page and we use Constant Contact e-mail marketing to send e-mails with different promotions and codes from week to week. These help drive people directly to our website.”
The re:form Fitness Studio has private training ranging from $65 to $80 per session and semi-private training, with up to nine people, from $15 to $28 for a single drop-in session.
“We also have a nutritionist onsite and available to our clients at an extra cost,” Chris said. “We do measurements with all of our clients and briefly talk about their goals and nutrition to help keep them accountable.”
The personal relationship to clients has been a key to the Holder’s success. “GRAVITY is also a key to our success,” Chris said.
“Doing small group GRAVITY training allows us to train every spectrum of fitness levels. It’s crazy looking in a class and you see everyone from a college athlete to an older person who had trouble walking up stairs just a few weeks ago all working out only a couple feet from each other.
“With GRAVITY, it’s easy for all fitness levels to get a cardio challenge and strength in one class without moving all over the gym.
“We try and be more fashion-forward, stylish and comfortable. People are blown away by the studio because we are in an industrial community and they don’t expect the look and feel we’ve created. It’s an inviting, comfortable place where you want to workout.” -CS
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