Hannah and I were presented with that question during a recent audit of our branding. One challenge for us, we learned, was how to properly tell our story.
Through this question we went back to our mission & our longer-term goals. Our mission is to help people prioritize their own wellness in order to achieve more at work and in life. Currently, our vision is to do that by offering a modern coworking office purposefully designed with healthy lifestyle amenities. But, that wasn’t always the vision.
If you’ve caught up with our other blogs & social media posts, then you know the fitness side of the business started first with Hannah’s Personal Training company, Squadstyle Lifestyle. While Hannah was growing her Personal Training brand, I was getting burnt out of a 10+ year career in various corporate gyms.
I had seen firsthand how employees of the Fitness Industry frequently get overworked while being under appreciated and underpaid. In my experience, that led to two outcomes.
Health Professionals prioritizing their job and their clients while sacrificing their own wellness. (FYI: this is not sustainable!)
Extremely high turnover rate & good people leaving the industry.
It can be tough for a personal trainer to be self-employed because of capital required to start-up, commercial space to train, and fear of finding leads. Hannah knew nothing different – her personal training businesses was thriving in its first year! So, we brainstormed and decided we could be the ones to help Personal Trainers start, run, and grow their own business.
All our market research, commercial lease searching, and financial planning led us down the path of the Coworking Industry. It was that ‘light bulb’ moment for us.
OF COURSE we should open for everyone, not just Personal Trainers. So, we shifted the business model and planned for a space that could make a healthy lifestyle convenient for everyone. With work and wellness at the forefront we signed the lease and started building the SL Studio.
With this combination, Personal Trainers would finally have the space and resources to do all the work OFF the fitness floor (programming, outreach, social media management, content creation, etc.) And, at the same time, working professionals in other industries would have an alternative to working from home that included access to a productive work environment and an entire private gym.
So, are we a Gym with a Coworking space, or are we a Coworking space with a Gym? If we had to answer… we are a Coworking Office with a Gym.
As we plan for the future, we align more with being a Community Space. A place that people think of for their healthy lifestyle, which must consider physical, mental, spiritual, & financial health (to name a few).
We are proud to be redefining what work looks like, the environment in which it happens, and the relationship between work and wellness. #BeWellFrederick