Maine Couple Bootstraps Boutique Fitness Studio

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

[Music]

Are you living up to your potential? Well listen, I know this is a loaded phrase. I might sound like a middle school vice principal here. Are you living up to your potential? But stay with me.

The people who listen to this show regularly, especially those of you who've been around for a while, are people who want to excel and improve in life. Just because you're doing okay doesn't mean you can't do better. I think about that a lot myself, and I also think a lot about potential. With all the resources available to us, the opportunities, the advantages, et cetera, what will we do with our lives? Asking yourself this question on a recurring basis can help you make decisions and challenge yourself.

Now I got to thinking about this, about potential and challenge, as I tidied up this episode for recording. The story here is all about how to side hustle your way into owning a gym. The average gym costs anywhere from 20,000 to $100,000 just to get going and typically requires the owner to go into debt. But the couple in this story does it all on their own, bootstrapping a boutique fitness studio and turning it into a new career for both of them. These stories that I tell you every day, they're models.

They're meant to be examples to inspire you and me to take action in pursuit of that potential that we both have. So let's jump right in after this quick message from our sponsor. [Music]

Stacy and Jesse Coleman met in college where they were both dedicated athletes. Stacy as a soccer player and Jesse as a wrestler. The list of sports and extreme adventures each of them has done reads like a call sheet for a movie starring The Rock.

And while helping people improve their health would eventually become their business, they had to navigate an obstacle course to get there. After college, they jumped right into work and family life. Jesse took a job as a fish culturalist for Maine's Fish and Wildlife Department while Stacy was hired as the director of Parks and Rec for a nearby town. They had two kids and an idyllic life. Those early jobs came with an interesting perk.

The Maine Wildlife Park provided a small apartment with Jesse's job. So for five years, they literally lived in a zoo. It was a good time for the young family, but Stacy and Jesse also knew they wanted to build a business together. Now, one of the questions people often ask is, how do you know you're doing the right thing? By branching out and beginning something new.

In their case, Stacy and Jesse knew because they felt restless. They paid attention to that sense of restlessness. They had both grown up with parents who were business partners and they dabbled on side hustles as weekend DJs while in college. So it seemed like a logical step, even if it was a scary one at times. Being secure and comfortable meant a lot, but there came a point when they decided they weren't living up to their full potential.

They wanted to help other people find the same level of joy in life that they had. And that became the foundation of their mission and eventually their business. Stacy left her job with the town and worked part-time as a personal trainer while also raising the kids. Jesse continued his wildlife work, which provided the main income for the family, but he couldn't wait to follow his true calling. When they began their boutique fitness business, it was mostly Stacy, their minivan, and a personal training service that went to clients' homes.

Jesse helped out when and where he could. They started with hand-me-down dumbbells and medicine balls that they already owned. Their first big investment was a Bosu balance device, which sets them back $130 and seemed like a crazy amount of money. Speaking of money, at one point, they tried to get a bank loan to buy better gear. That's what people do when they're starting a business, right?

But when they sat down at the bank with kids in tow, the conversation with the loan officer didn't go well. Their response was to say, "You know what, screw it. We'll do this on our own." They decided it was their personalities and individual attention that would bring in customers, not fancy equipment. So as long as they were paying their bills, they kept going. Stacy offered free consultations and over-delivered on her potential clients' expectations.

She knew that if people were willing to meet with her, they had already decided they wanted help. So she spent time with each client, learned their story, and helped them with what they hoped to accomplish. In short, they were willing to do whatever they could to earn clients' trust, which meant continuing to hustle on the side to make ends meet. For two years, they took on a series of landscaping jobs, which included fencing, stonework, snow plowing, and lawn mowing. They replied to any handyman postings they could find, one time even building a windmill for a client.

But then one day, Stacy was sitting in traffic, hating the fact that she had to drive so much for work. In a perfect bit of serendipity, she looked over and saw a four-lease sign. They called the number on the sign and ended up converting an old office space into their first brick-and-mortar gym, spending their own money to make it work. And once again, they did everything they could to build the business. Stacy offered to write a fitness column for the local newspaper.

They volunteered for town events where they could promote, and they used the space to host free classes. After four years, they gave up the smaller side hustles and went all in. The following year, they expanded, taking over a second space in their building. Throughout the whole process, Jesse and Stacy kept their goals in mind and encouraged clients to do the same. Looking back now, she wishes they had followed the advice, be slow to hire and quick to fire.

They currently employ three people, two full-time and one part-time, but finding them took a lot of work and involved trial and error. Today, the business supports the family in full, providing a solid household income, which to them means they've met their important goals. They're now getting ready to launch a new online health and wellness business. The goal is to take the Coleman Method Global while maintaining their gym and continuing to focus on the life they've built for themselves. [Music]

So once again, a bootstrapped DIY gym, not the easiest thing to do in the world, but I totally respect this value that they had.

And in fact, just looking over the notes, they say the first couple of years were completely bootstrapped. They didn't buy a single thing, they didn't have the cash for. And eventually, as the business grew, they made more investments, but always with the eye on staying true to their goals and their values. So what is your potential? Are you continuing to strive and challenge yourself, even if things are going well?

What are you working on? And what will you do today to make progress? Before I go, I wanna give a shout out to Danielle LaPorte, a long time friend of mine from Vancouver, Canada. She has got a new podcast out called "With Love." It is a one-woman show about self-realization, featuring what she calls rock and roll spirituality and the goal of helping you live more deeply, but also lighten up, which is a good way to think about all the things in this story, right? Living more deeply, challenging yourself, but also having fun, focusing on your family and doing what is important to you.

So again, that's called "With Love" from Danielle LaPorte. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks so much for listening, my friends. Inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. Today's show notes, including links to everything I mentioned, are at sidehustleschool.com/1007.

That's 1007. Much more is coming up, including, guess what? Episode 1008. That would be tomorrow, and I hope you'll come back and join me. My name is Chris Guillebeau, your host for "Side Hustle School." [Music]

From the Onward Project.