Angela Parker, Body Inspired Fitness
The goal of Los-Angeles-based Body Inspired Fitness is to get you to your goal – whether it’s to lose weight, gain muscle, recover from injury, develop healthier habits or just add energy and excitement to your life.
‘Ah ha’ moment that led to launching the business: Back in 2003, I looked around the very crowded fitness landscape and recognized there was still a need to make fitness attainable to anyone who wanted it. I founded Body Inspired on the belief that it’s never too late to improve the quality of your life, regardless of your current situation.
Ideal customer: We’ve got something for everyone — kids, teens, expectant moms, women who’ve just given birth, senior citizens, athletes and couch potatoes. We work to get your health on track and, more importantly, keep it there.
Landing first customer: I made flyers from my home computer that had tear-offs with my name and number. It’s crazy to go from black and white paper flyers to being on my fifth website, surviving countless photo shoots, dealing with ‘creative and advertising writers’, and having a marketing and pr team. It has been quite a journey.
Measuring Success: I measure success by how many people return to my classes. I have a 90% return rate. I measure my personal success by how many people maintain their goals.
Biggest Struggle: Being able to accept that I can’t want my clients to succeed more than they do. It is a constant struggle and all I can do is ignite the desire to stay in shape, develop new workouts, and continue to provide innovative and unique programs that keep my clients engaged, motivated and inspired.
Surprise!: I never knew it was possible to love every aspect of a job. In following my passion I found a career and in having this career I found out who I really was. In seeing your dreams become a reality you truly realize that you can do anything you set your mind to.
Getting Sales: Hands down the smartest move I ever made was hiring a PR team.
What I wish I would’ve known: To always trust my gut and not be afraid of what people think.
What keeps you up at night (business-wise!)?: I’m a perfectionist, always have been and always will be. I stay up at night thinking about all the things I still want to accomplish.
Ever tempted to throw in the towel and just get a job?: No way. There’s absolutely nothing else I’d rather be doing.
Moving Forward: I am looking to build my new blog into one that is successful and well-respected. Looking forward to traveling to workout with clients all across the country. Excited to keep shooting my videos and developing my hotel series. Inspired to work with kids and teens in my community teaching them the power of exercise. Working on the difficult balance between my business and my personal life and allowing myself to enjoy all the things that my business has brought me.
Pricing, Getting it Right: You have to make it affordable to your customer and it must be something that the customer feels they have made a good investment in.
Funding: I had not a dollar to my name when I started this business. I earned everything that I put back into my business – true proof that nothing should get in the way of starting your own business.
A Few Good Tips: The tricky thing with fitness is making it attainable and affordable, even though it is something that can potentially be out of reach. It is critical when putting a website or advertisements together that you accurately market what kind of fitness program you are offering. There is nothing worse than someone getting excited about or committing to – and then finding out that it is not a fit for them or not what they had expected.
Must-read Online Resource: I read mostly medical journals because the fads tend to fade, but science always offers the truth.
The absolute best part of owning my business is: I am the only one who can tell myself what to do.
If I had to start over again, I would: have not cared about what anyone thought and did exactly what I wanted to do from the beginning.
If standing on a rooftop facing crowds of aspiring or struggling small business owners, I would shout: : “I am the most beautiful woman in the entire world.”
