Episode 3: Lara Harrington

We’re only a few episodes into the We Are Here podcast, but after hearing today’s guest, I know it’s on the right track (no pun intended.)

Lara Harrington is the co-founder of Boutique Fitness and Track+Channel fitness studios. There’s so much good stuff in this episode you’ll feel like your entrepreneurial brain ran a marathon (pun intended.)

Enjoy!

Enter to win an amazing giveaway from Boutique Fitness or Track+Channel.

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Read the show transcript

Matt: 00:09 Welcome to the We Are Here podcast, a podcast all about entrepreneurship on the south coast, collecting stories and lessons from entrepreneurs and community leaders to learn firsthand how they’ve built their business or organization so we can build our own. The south coast is a small place and we’re letting the business world know that we are here. Show your support by liking us on facebook@facebook.com slash the. We are here podcast and join the newsletter for all of our latest announcements and upcoming episodes@southcoast.fm slash. Subscribe. That’s southcoast.fm/subscribed.

Matt: 00:44 Hey everyone. Welcome back to the. We Are Here podcast. This is going to be an amazing episode with Lara Harrington and boutique fitness in track and channeled, I mean just loads and loads of it knowledge in this episode and I’m pumped because we’re just getting this whole. We are here, podcast off the ground and this is an amazing episode already. Really hope you enjoy it. Make sure to find Lara and tell her. Thanks for doing this and sharing all of this great insider tips and tricks with us. Help us build our businesses a little bit better here on the south coast. Also, don’t forget, visit the website, southcoast dot FM. Go to Alaras episode in, in that episode posts. There’s a link. Click on it and you can win a couple of items from Lara for boutique fitness, for tracking channel. Get you some free classes. We’re choosing to winners.

Matt: 01:30 Just going to enter your email address to win. Share it with friends and family so that you can help increase your chances to win. And we’ll be pulling those, uh, those winters out in about seven days from the episode. So make sure that you like our facebook page over at facebook.com/the we are here podcast. We’ll announce the winner. They’re also email you with your email address when you enter. Really hope you’re enjoying this series of entrepreneurs on the south coast, all female founders. If you do go ahead over to itunes, search for us. We are here podcast, south coast, Emma, however you find us, click the links on our website. Leave is five star review. That’d be great. Helped us get found. Really helps us know that we’re putting out the right information that you want to hear. All right. Without further ado, let’s listen to Lara’s amazing episode.

Speaker 2: 02:14 I am co owner of boutique fitness first and then new to my life and new Bedford. I’m also co owner check and channel. So boutique fitness. Um, I started about six years ago with a good friend of mine, Angela Corey, Gary Johnson, and you know, this was back when there was no really not many fitness options in the south coast area. Um, so we sort of went in on that together and um, you know, been through hell and high water together and definitely stronger now than ever and then track and channels, sort of the cardio piece to that. Um, so it’s a good compliment to it. Uh, my background is actually in fine arts. It’s not in fitness at all except that in my mid twenties I had some health challenges where I had to either go on some medication or really just straightened out my health.

Speaker 2: 03:08 So I hired a personal trainer and she created a monster. I basically have never turned back since that experience. Um, so I’ve been a coach now for about 14 years. Um, during that time, you know, I got married, I had a daughter, so I’m a working mom full-time working mom. Um, so I understand life is hard and challenging with two businesses for locations altogether. Boutique fitness has relocations, track and channel has one. Um, and not just Angela, but I have two partners would track and channel Lara parish and Ryan dwelling. So I have four studios and three business partners. I have a husband and a daughter.

Matt: 03:52 Yeah.

Speaker 2: 03:55 Family. And then two cats. So you know, life is full. It’s very good.

Matt: 03:59 So not for Cat Lady, just a, just a small sliver of the pie is just the cats. Yeah,

Speaker 2: 04:05 take two because the shelter wouldn’t let us take just one if they’re going to be alone. So the more the merrier.

Matt: 04:11 So I go, I mean, this is this, you have a wealth of stuff that I want to talk about and unpack a lots of challenges here that folks might not be sort of privy to if they’re starting their first business or if they’re starting their first business with a partner who might be a friend or family member. Things can get pretty tricky. Uh, but uh, before we get there, the, you know, a lot of the folks I speak to on my other podcast, they’re sort of accidental entrepreneurs, right? They’re freelancers or consultants in the digital space. They didn’t really, you know, they just sort of happened on to running a business. They had a couple of clients on the side but they had a day job and then, you know, they weren’t thinking I’m going to start a business and I’m gonna pay taxes and I’m going to do payroll and do all this stuff. Um, but eventually they got to that accidentally through just word of mouth, collecting more clients. Did you set out to always want to be an entrepreneur or a business owner?

Speaker 2: 05:01 No, absolutely not. With, um, when I started training, you know, I, I suppose, and it’s not something I realized until I was knee deep in it, um, just how I sort of gravitate towards leadership positions. And when I started I started coaching for a studio called fitness together in Barrington, Rhode Island. Um, and they were a startup. They’re a brand new studio, so I was with them from the ground up and in that experience, um, I always said I would never own a studio because I knew exactly what it took to run one and I didn’t want people’s livelihoods to be dependent on me. Um, you know, the whole all the reasons why you will talk yourself out of owning a business. Um, and then I can just go to the point where, you know, my daughter was about two and a half and our lives are in new Bedford, a bunch of our friends own businesses downtown.

Speaker 2: 05:53 Um, and I had been doing a lot of in-home training, so I had a really great warm market and new Bedford already. Um, I had started a youtube channel because people kept asking me for help. So I would just post up post videos on youtube to sort of be a resource for them to not take more time away from my family. So, um, it just got to the point where my husband came home one day and said, this is silly, you cannot keep going in Rhode Island. I think you should open up a new Bedford, which was really scary, but he’s a lot more conservative than I am. So for him to say, it gave me a lot, a lot of competence and then everybody I talked to just really believed in me. You know, my business owner friends downtown were super supportive right from the, from the start.

Speaker 2: 06:38 Um, so when I talked to Angela, she was actually coming. She was a stay at home mom for six years and so convincing her to do it, um, it actually was a lot easier. I asked her to come up with as many manager and she actually offered business partnership, which surprises me and I was thrilled with it. But then, you know, there was a huge transition that comes from that. So I think helping her through it, I’m sort of stay stronger, you know, it was uh, the transition was definitely tough, but it wasn’t so scary because I saw how scary it was for her, you know, leaving her kids.

Matt: 07:15 Where are those gaps there that when you have a new partner and you’re sort of thrown into this partnership that you weren’t really thinking about having, like what were those big lessons you’ve learned? One or two of them now that you can look back on it and see where you, where you started from?

Speaker 2: 07:27 Uh, you know, I was really stubborn and um, I came from an area where we charged a lot for personal training, so I knew we would have to bring our prices down and I was totally OK with that. But there the few places that were offering personal training in the area, I’m really charged far too little for their services. And so we kept getting compared to, you know, the gym in the mill down the street or wherever. And it was sort of trying to set ourselves apart from that and making sure that we were fair to the area, but then also not selling ourselves short just because, you know, whoever was charging $8 a half hour. Um, so for me, I had all the confidence in the world because I was already an established coach. Um, I think convincing the people around me, especially my partner, that she was worth that money that was a little more challenging. And so we definitely had to hammer that out and you know, the numbers speak for themselves and we worked with the EDC, uh, really closely on establishing a baseline that would make sense for the business. Um, so that was a little tricky for sure.

Matt: 08:40 That on itself, right? Charging what you’re worth, you know, getting the value per dollar, not just for you but for your customer. That’s a huge lesson in a lot of businesses, particularly in mine as well. They’re sort of get some parallels there. We’re in the digital world or web design or marketing consulting, like sort of everybody’s doing it right. Probably just like everybody’s a beach body coach. You know, everybody’s a web designer, so you’ve just got this flurry in the market of people who will do it for rock bottom prices and maybe because some of them they don’t have the overhead that you, you might have or they’re just not thinking of scale that you might have in most certainly not giving out the sort of, uh, the, the quality and the length of time and knowledge that you have over almost two decades now doing this stuff. But it’s interesting challenge for sure. And there’s, you know, how I’m trying to find the best way to phrase this but are there, or is it like just polar opposites in terms of clients that you saw in, in Barrington to sort of now new Bedford in the south coast area and does in the fitness industry specifically this location really dictate that, that sort of price point.

Speaker 2: 09:46 Um, you know, the, the clientele really isn’t very different at all. And that was sort of one of my arguments when I’m, you know, I had the people closest to me that supported, supported this decision and wanted us to do it and really believe that it would be great. But then I worked closely with the corporate through fitness together and um, I had a lot of people in the industry that I was working closely with and I didn’t get the same um, go ahead from them. And everybody in that part of my life thought that it would fail. This other demographics weren’t there. Um, you know, but coming from the south coast and having trained a lot of people in house, I knew that it was a service that people wanted and needed and just wasn’t available so that the people themselves and you know, if you’re going to invest in your, in your health and your wellness and your fitness, you’re going to invest in it.

Speaker 2: 10:39 And the thing is that there was nothing valuable enough for people to consider that as a viable place to invest their money or their time. And when we started, people were still just going to the gym and kind of lost for a couple of hours, so it was a very big shift for people to come in and just have a workout written for them. There’s only four people in a session, um, so your, your working very closely with a trainer so you get that personalized attention, but you’re not paying this crazy amount to work with a trainer. And then our sessions are 30 minutes, which, you know, people are doubtful that 30 minutes is enough time. But if you program properly then it’s plenty of time. So there were, there were a lot of, uh, basically everything that we wanted to do for boutique fitness, we had to convince people that it was a good idea. And then Angela, working closely with Angela and I started putting her through the workouts that I had in mind. We’ve evolved the programming together over the years. But initially to prove to her that a 30 minute workout was long enough. So she would come to my house twice a week and I would try my best to just annihilate her, put it nicely. Yeah. She likes to work out really hard. She’s, she’s a very strong girl. So, um, so that was really fun and definitely a great way for us to build our relationship.

Matt: 12:07 I guess that’s the, that’s the hard part in your business is paying you or paying you for them to work. They have to put in the work in a lot of people just are like, Oh God, I got to pay this person. What I feel is, is way too much money and I have to show up and do the work. Like can I just pay somebody and I just magically lose weight, write like that. I feel like that’s what everybody wants to do. Right. It’s probably why people get tied into, you know, so many a empty promise, a workout things, whatever that might be a shake, a video. I mean whatever it is. And you know, maybe some of it works if you put in the work right? But a lot of people I think are in your space specifically or are afraid to put in the work.

Matt: 12:45 Shifting gears just a little bit, speaking about putting in work. Usually I save this discussion maybe towards the end a little bit, but I find that on the south coast in the businesses that I’ve, you know, I’ve talked to for over a decade now on the south coast, a lot of people are afraid to put in the work of marketing. Um, and even before the show you sort of joke like, oh, you know, you and I record it through skype right now. And, and you said that I’d be teaching something, I’m teaching you something about doing a podcast, but you were early on in Youtube, right? You didn’t have this fear of Youtube. Youtube is really coming back around, which is funny in my digital space to see sort of this rebirth of people going back to youtube. But it seems like you were an early adopter. You weren’t afraid to put it out there. Uh, was that a pretty good online marketing channel for you? And what other online marketing channels are working for you?

Speaker 2: 13:32 Uh, yeah, but, you know, I’ve never thought of it that way. And that’s really interesting. I would set up, um, I didn’t use the videos on my phone or anything like that and I had this rinky-dink little camera I would set up, um, in really strange spots in the studio. I used to work it and Jimmy rig everything up and, you know, hope for the best. But I had set myself a goal to do 100 videos in 90 days. So that was, it was sort of, you know, I just pull it out of nowhere and I said if I can do 100 videos in 90 days and they have to be quality videos, like, so, you know, something that people can actually use. Um, then I can, I have what I need to sort of figure out what I need to do from here in my life from here on.

Speaker 2: 14:18 And so I did 100 videos in 90 days and it was really hard and my husband thought I was bananas. Like he’d come home and I’m trying to figure out youtube and trying to edit videos and I didn’t have anything, you know, anything fancy I didn’t have a voiceover is I didn’t have anything written. It was really raw and they still tend to be pretty raw. I’m, I’m a visual person, so I just just give me the basics, you know, but, and it’s interesting because even my boss at the time, he didn’t think anything of it. He was like, you’re doing what, why? But then maybe started using some of those through social media from my old job, which was helpful. Um, you know, and it’s just interesting to hear people talk about it or even comment on when I see people out, you know, I saw that youtube video view which started to make me realize that people were watching, which was interesting and a little scary.

Matt: 15:14 I’m looking at the channel, I’m looking at the channel right now and I’m scrolling and scrolling and you have an insane amount of videos here and this goes back and I’m still scrolling. Um, this is going now. You’re six years ago. Um, which is even before I was on youtube, which was, which was five years ago. Um, so wow. Good on you. And it finally hit the. I finally hit the first video ever. Let me just click on this. It was called around the world and mountain climber. Ah, let’s see. That was March 16th, 2011. So it looks like you’re continuing to still do it. Is it, is it a driver for you and people still coming in saying, Hey, I saw that on youtube or do you direct people to your youtube channel for lessons and whatnot?

Speaker 2: 15:53 Well, you know, we actually, we haven’t used youtube specifically as marketing, but we, um, upload to youtube and then um, we have it on our website. So the videos that you see on youtube are typically in our website as a combo. So just some exercise suggestions, especially most of them are done without much equipment, so you can do when you travel. And then when we closed for a week every year during the fourth of July a. So we usually recommend specific videos for our clients to do so that they can have something. And not having an excuse that they didn’t know what. Yeah. So it’s. For us it’s about giving resources to our clients than anybody else who sort of happened upon it on our website is, is really nice. We hadn’t really done about a year and a half ago and so you can see all the videos and just kind of go right through them. So as far as youtube, I haven’t actually pushed youtube specifically except back then in 2011. Um, and I would just put those videos right on facebook. Actually, I still had my stuff.

Matt: 17:01 Yeah, you were probably going, what is this facebook thing

Speaker 2: 17:07 just gone? I had a friend who is actually trying to get in touch with me when my friends from middle school that I hadn’t seen since I was 12 and she introduced me to facebook as she sent me a request, which was really funny. And then I was like, wow, look at this there. And then I started sharing videos there.

Matt: 17:25 So is it. So is that the primary driver for you right now with fitness? Right? Or maybe even probably instagram at this point. That’s really blown up for the fitness industry, are those the two primary channels or is it still really just a strong word of mouth presence?

Speaker 2: 17:38 Um, it’s a, you know, a little bit of everything. I think definitely a word of mouth, but people like to see visuals. They like to see what’s going on and they want to know who we are and what our messages and, you know, people we just celebrated six years. I’m at the studio and for new Bedford and almost everybody I talked to was really surprised by that and you know, six years is a long time and we’ve had a lot of the same clients for that entire time, which is something we didn’t expect. We expected like a three month turnaround or retention. Um, but our clients really stay with us, so I feel like we’ve become such a household name that um, sometimes people stopped looking like boutique fitness, but then they don’t know. They hear about something else now there’s a ton of new fitness places and so they might try something else because it’s a new name even though they haven’t actually checked this out. So I think when they go on their website, when they find out we’ve been open six years and it surprises them and then pleasantly surprises about, um, so it’s, it’s nice that way.

Matt: 18:41 Hopefully lots of people listening to this and certainly the people that I’m interviewing are all in a situation where they’ve got a great product or a great service. It’s super valuable and they want to be able to sell that to their customer. How do you take the planet fitness type in, sell them into boutique fitness?

Speaker 2: 18:58 It’s really about the personal attention. Um, you know, it’s, if you give somebody the opportunity to be vulnerable, they will be vulnerable, which is something we all need to experience in order to get over ourselves and move forward in life. Um, so with fitness people really can come in and just be themselves. And I think as far as that goes, that’s the word of mouth is super important. So with, you know, there’s so many, um, Internet fitness stars and you know, people want us to do all these fancy things or there are videos, but that’s, that’s like a whole other business. And our business is really the people that walk through our doors, um, and if we put out a ton of free content and I have no problem with that because I want to help as many people as possible, but if you really want to be helped by boutique fitness, you’re going to come in and if you come in you’re really going to get help. So it’s a completely different business from all of the online stars and you know, we work hands on where people were constantly fixing form, helping them elevate their game. And if people are working out in their living room, chances are 90 percent of what they’re doing is, it’s probably more harmful than good just because they don’t. They probably don’t really know how to move properly. So we’re definitely a hands on.

Matt: 20:18 A lot of people are running it in their sort of traditional way the way that they’ve always been. You just mentioned something like, Hey, we have customer requests that are saying we want you to do something different with video. We want to have you have this sort of maybe online training component to the business. Are those areas, so the question is, what new areas might you, might my cube moving into maybe something like new technology or just a whole different genre of, of workouts? Um, but is it that online thing, is that a component that you are exploring? Are those the big sort of, you know, bigger pivots that you might have on the horizon or, or is it still just like you said, just focused on the customers coming through the door?

Speaker 2: 21:01 Um, that’s a really good question and it’s actually if we switch to our attention or even added the other component of the internet that’s literally like learning an entirely new business for us. So we are actually expanding on our corporate wellness programs so it is still very much hands on, but now we are offering, um, you know, special packages and programs for corporations that are interested or already investing and the wellness of their employees. Um, and through that we, uh, we will be offering or our offering in house services. So either workshops, um, fitness assessments, you know, anything that can help people, um, sort of bring down those barriers or think that they could never work out or fitness isn’t for them, you know, and to just really become a part of the corporate wellness solution which could be hands on at the place, their place of business or have them come into the studio. And so we have options for both,

Matt: 22:04 which sounds like an interesting new target market for you to explore, right? Because now you’re, now you have to find somebody that’s going to be your champion internally at, at a corporate organization. There’s way more red tape for you to jump through, no pun intended, a, you know, but it sort of gives you that nice thing where you’re like, hey, we can target a corporations where we know people are sitting eight hours a day, right? You know, and they’re sitting in the cubicle, they don’t get out and stretch. They’ve got a half an hour lunch, you know, and you can actually target that and really know your customer, which is a huge part to doing business and understanding the customer, the customer Avatar is sort of how I refer to it as, um, uh, how has that evolved for you? Is that something that you work on, uh, in your business now is sort of painting the picture of who your perfect customer is and how much on target do you stay when you were recruited a new, a new member? No,

Speaker 2: 22:58 that’s a really good question too. We’ve done. I’ve done customer avatar every year since we, since we’ve opened and every year it’s helpful because it does change a little bit. Um, you know, before I had boutique fitness, I’d say 95 percent of my clientele were men, middle aged men that I would train all the time. So it’s a very, um, it’s very natural for me to coach guys. And then when we opened boutique fitness, 99 percent of it was women. So that was a learning curve for me. So when I did my customer Avatar that first year, it was a man and then it became a woman, then it was like a 65 year old woman than it was a 25 year old woman and it, it really does change and now I just do the one on one training. So once again, the majority of my clientele are men

Matt: 23:47 and now you’re shaping this as the market is responding to you, right? These, these are people who are literally knocking on the door, like you paint the picture. That’s your target for the year, but perhaps in 90 days, a hundred 80 days, your, your, your avatar has changed because the market just responded differently.

Speaker 2: 24:04 Um, it, I think it evolves a little bit slower than that. Um, you know, we got involved with the, um, Mr Newbedford scholarship pageant right when we first got started and it’s taken a little bit, you know, a couple years. But throughout the years we’ve gained more and more women that come from the pageant world, which is for us was, that was a whole other learning curve. So we have sort of these groups of people, you know, we have a lot of, um, teachers and we have a lot of nurses. Um, we have a lot of sort of heads of companies that come to us and it’s funny because it’s all dependent on the time of day, you know, we get a lot of our teachers and principals and administrators early, early morning, um, you know, and it varies throughout the day. For me, when I write the, my customer Avatar, when I tried to figure out who exactly my customer is, I have to think so immediate because if I thought of the whole group of people that come in, it’s so diverse and our youngest is [inaudible] in our oldest is [inaudible], um, that train in the group sessions like the full out group sessions.

Speaker 2: 25:11 So it’s, um, it, it’s wonderful. I mean, it’s a, it’s a great confusion to have because we really do cater to so many different types of people.

Matt: 25:21 Number one, if you want a job in digital marketing because you’re doing a cornerstone content with your youtube channel and you’ve been doing it for forever and you’re pushing facebook and instagram a, you’re painting customer Avatar is not just once but yearly and for my last decade of doing this, of doing this type of stuff on the south coast, I haven’t heard of anybody doing it every year. And so that’s, I mean, that’s amazing. And, and, um, hopefully that, that’s a huge lesson to anybody listening to this, what are the challenges you think this area of faces not just in health and fitness, in, in buttons, in small business or business in general? Um, what, what signals have you seen either positive or negative going in either direction, um, that you think are big indicators for a, either an uptick or you know, things that we could be doing better on the south coast. What really signals you for this area?

Speaker 2: 26:14 Um, you know, we’ve been really fortunate and we’ve had a lot of success with the organizations that we’ve partnered with, like the EDC. I think that a lot of times when people open a business, you know, it’s really hard to get it started, but it’s much, much harder to keep it going. Um, and the sort of a feeling of complacency and people not knowing what their options are. Um, I’ve been very fortunate to be approached by several programs that have gotten involved like, um, interiorized I did the streetwise Mba a few years ago and that was really what propelled our business forward. But if it wasn’t for being a part of the chamber and having met, you know, the recruiter for enterprise and her insisting that I get involved, I don’t know where I would be right now, you know. So I think that, um, the trust, I feel like small business owners are not very trustworthy and you feel like everybody wants your money.

Speaker 2: 27:13 Um, and I think it’s important to try to really look at things objectively and really figure out what our weaknesses are and seek out programs that can help us build on those. And it’s usually, you know, I went to college for fine arts. I have a degree in sculpture and even though I’m not doing anything with that degree, college taught me work ethic, taught me what it, what it takes to survive, you know, and it taught me how to build relationships and how to think of projects through. So it’s nothing is for not, you know, if you’re going to do a program, you have to give it your all, you know, I’ve been involved in a lot of programs that business owners will come in and they really need it, but then they claimed they don’t have the time to do it or they really don’t devote, you know, the effort, um, to succeeding in that program. And that’s, that’s the big problem. You admitting that you need help and finding it. We all need help. I still need help. I’m constantly learning. I’m now a mentor for you for all you learn best by teaching. Um, so it’s that constant search for. I think a lot of the problem and the south coast is that people don’t really know what their options are and they’re untrustworthy or interesting.

Matt: 28:24 Part of the reason why I started this particular podcast is because I do think that it’s w, it’s just a very unique place. Uh, it’s such a diverse group, um, you know, well, from cultural and experience wise, I mean there’s just a huge mix of different type of people on the south coast and um, people’s mindset are different even though we’re sandwiched in between, you know, half hour to Providence, uh, an hour to Boston. Um, you know, you would think that some of the bigger city, I guess a mentality would spill down a little bit on the entrepreneurial side or business side. Even some of the community stuff. Um, but when I was talking to shelley, I interviewed her on another episode here in one of the things we talked about is there’s still for, for all the ways that people are trying to find a way into something, there’s a whole heck of a lot of noise too.

Matt: 29:18 And maybe more specifically on like facebook where there’s like facebook groups for everything and you just don’t know, like which group to join. Like, which one’s going to be the most beneficial to your business? Um, and maybe even the same thing in, in person. Like, do I do the chamber, do I do? Um, uh, you know, forgetting the name of that, of the rotary. Uh, you know, there’s a whole bunch of different like organizations that you can join a bni and now with meetup.com, like I use that for the wordpress meetup, but now there’s a slew of meetups happening that people are spinning up and it becomes so fragmented because it’s good to see all of this activity. But at the same time, south coast isn’t that big, right? There’s 100,000, 100,000 roughly in your bed for 100,000 in fall river and then whatever you get in between, it’s not massive. Um, how do you cut through the noise? Like, I mean, I’m sure people are approaching you all the time. Like, don’t you want to join the BNI? Don’t you want to join rotary? Don’t you want to do this? How do you cut through that noise? And where do you devote your time to?

Speaker 2: 30:18 It’s really hard when we got started, um, you know, we’re were members of the chamber, um, call me old fashioned, but I think that any business should be a member of the chamber because the Chamber really does represent your territory and if you don’t like the way the chamber is run, there’s always ways to get involved so that, that changes, um, plus the more people in at the, the better the chance that you’re going to surround yourself with some people that can actually be useful to you. Um, so through the chamber that’s always were kind of. I look first, so can we go to an after hours doesn’t make sense, who’s going to be there for me, it’s really hard to commit to any evening. I’m at work at 4:30 in the morning, so it’s very hard for me to commit to any evenings networking.

Speaker 2: 31:06 So, um, that being said, [inaudible] that happened in the morning would be ideal, but then you’re, the commitment you make to these groups are so. It’s so great. I don’t have that kind of time. But aside from that, I really just, I reached out to businesses individually, so I build my network that way if I know some places opening, like when Maria is opened, we actually happened upon it on their first day. It was a soft opening, but I made sure to introduce myself to Jessica and I made sure to become a part of her world, you know, and I didn’t need them organized group to do that for us. Um, indigo spa companies, same thing. We’re heavily involved with cross-marketing the beehive downtown. We cross-market um, brick has been awesome with us for that and you know, no problem. Oh, solstice, we all really work together and it’s, it’s more seeking them out then going to any networking event. I basically find who I wanted.

Matt: 32:04 Yeah, I mean that goes back to sort of what you were saying before. It’s not like you know how good you are at selling a product or where your finances, um, or how good you are at doing a, you know, you’re doing your taxes. A lot of it is like this humility, right? The self awareness of, of, of who you are. What you do and what you represent in this area and they’re just reaching out and not being sort of confined to this. Like, you know, I, I believe everybody’s in competition with one another. Yeah. At the end of the day, yeah. I mean, people might be saying a dude, do I go in and go to match a wordpress meetup or do I go do a group session at Lara’s studio tonight? Right. I mean, there’s always some kind of competition that crossover over at some point of somebody’s time.

Matt: 32:49 I get it, but a lot of people are just like, I’m not going to introduce myself to, you know, this other spa because maybe they’re going to open up a yoga studio which will eventually take away from me and all this stuff. I’m in the south coast, like we were saying before. It’s not that big. It’s not that big a. and if you can work together, uh, and, and just find some common ground, that’s going to be a huge bonus. Number two, guess what, everybody, if you’re doing your customer avatars, your customer might not be for you, right? The customer that you think you might be competing with for even like another gym, like even a bigger box gym, like, Hey, you want to pay 10 bucks a month? Go for it. That’s not going to be a good fit here. When you’re ready to spend a couple hundred bucks a month, then yes, when you’re ready to take health and fitness to another level, then yes. But if you just want to hit the treadmill every now and again, maybe not for us. I don’t know. Um, so yeah, I mean if people just reach out a little bit more, I guess is what I’m getting at here. They just talk to people like you were doing. Um, then everyone’s going to be a wiser in the bedroom.

Speaker 2: 33:47 Yeah, I totally agree. You know, when, when we opened track and channel, it’s literally a block from boutique fitness and a very common question is don’t you think that that’s going to be in competition with boutique and honestly as a fitness professional, it’s a great compliment to what we do at Boutique. But on the flip side, um, it’s a completely different workout and we’re part of the same community and I feel like it really pulls the community tighter right in downtown, which is where my heart is, you know, more than anything. Um, but even like spin studios, so we, um, we definitely work closely would spin studios. They’re seaside, um, cycle in Wareham and salt and psychology in Surbiton. Um, you know, we have really good relationships with them. Um, is a new one opening actually in south coast called Soco Cycle. So that’s going to be really great.

Speaker 2: 34:36 Excuse me. So it’s not, um, you know, and then even with, um, the y or with yoga teachers and just the more, the Merrier, there’s plenty for everybody. At the end of the day, there’s plenty for everybody. I don’t think anybody’s going to open a business in the south coast and expect to be some crazy multi millionaire from it unless it’s something that’s international. So when we’re, when you have four walls around you and you’re depending on your community, that’s the whole community that you’re depending on, including all the other businesses. The minute you start shutting people out, you’re going to start fending for yourself and that’s not the most sustainable approach.

Matt: 35:19 That’s what we’re going to end it. Lara, that’s an amazing closing to this, uh, interview. Where can folks find you to say, thanks for doing this interview? Where can they join a, your programs? Where can they find you? Go ahead and feel free to promote whatever you have.

Speaker 2: 35:33 Awesome. Um, so, uh, we have, uh, our website, w, w.boutique fitness.com, and then also track and channel without, um, you can find this on youtube, but it’s actually under Lara Harrington because I didn’t have boutique fitness back then. Let fitness, we both consultation. So consultations are complimentary and we do just the questions and answers and then we actually do a very comprehensive, um, movement screen to see just where people are starting. So it’s a really great way to just get an idea of where you are and where you want to go. Um, and those are really no strings attached. So it’s complimentary. No strings attached. You really just going to make a connection with a fitness coach. And then see if it’s a good fit at track and channel. You can book classes right through the website so that one’s nice and nice and easy. You can look today

Matt: 36:26 else. South Coast Dot fm slash subscribe to join the mailing list, the south coast duck fem slash subscribe to join the mailing list. Find us on itunes and leave a five star review as we kick off this new season of female founders around the south coast doing amazing things, businesses, communities, organizations, organizations, and everything in between South Coast Guard FM. We’ll see you in the next episode. Thanks for listening to this episode. Hope you learned a ton from today’s guest. Shared a lot of value and experiences running a business and doing entrepreneurship on the south coast. So hope you take a lot out of it. Don’t forget to subscribe to the show. This episode is brought to you by slocum studio. You can find slocum studio at silicon if you need to get your marketing in order landing pages, get your conversions up, build that email list. Look no further than slocum. Studio at Slocum Studio. Com.