Looking Forward

Thank you to everyone that stopped by to celebrate our 5th anniversary in style during our Red Carpet Event last Monday and Tuesday. We had a great time honoring you, our clients and friends, and we are looking forward to many more years of empowering the Durham community to lead stronger, healthier, happier lives. If you havenít been by the studio in the last week or so make sure you stop by and receive your FREE client appreciation gift. We also captured some great testimonials from many of our clients so be sure to check our Facebook page and our YouTube Channel often to see what our current clients are saying about Empower Personal Training.

Now that we have spent some time reflecting on the past 5 years I wanted to take just a few minutes to look to the future. About a year ago Jessica and I sat down with our fabulous business coach Ben Quinn of ActionCOACH and laid out a strategic plan for the growth and expansion of Empower Personal Training. Prior to the meeting with our coach we were just humming along with no clear idea of where we wanted to take Empower Personal Training. We both knew that we wanted it to grow, but we had not fully conceptualized what that meant and how we would achieve this arbitrary idea of ìgrowth.î Plus as the organization was getting bigger we realized that many of the systems and processes that we relied on in the first few years were not suitable for a growing client base and staff.

One core value of Empower Personal Training is that we strive to always provide excellent customer service, and we did not want this value to be compromised as we continued to grow. So in turn we decided to spend the last year developing systems that can support our ideas of growth. One major change weíve adopted in the past year is the migration to a new and more robust software system. You may have noticed other changes as well such as Michael Whitehurst stepping into a General Manager position and being the go-to person for day to day operations. Also we have two excellent shift supervisors ñ Jamie Ives for the morning shift and Paul Piracci for the evening shift. Michael, Jamie and Paul form an excellent management team and have really led the staff and the organization as a whole to excellence. By forming this management team Jessica and I have been able to spend some time working on the business and determining our next steps.

At this point we are still in the research phase, but it is our goal to continue to grow Empower Personal Training. Our first goal is to determine the ideal size of our current location (i.e. do we need to expand to accommodate the growing need), and then beyond that we would like to open additional locations throughout the Triangle in the next few years. If you know Jessica and me personally then you know that we are very cautious when it comes to making such a big decision so we are working closely with our business coach to make sure we are primed and ready for success when the time is right.

The next five years should prove to be very interesting as we work towards our overall business goals. As many of you know life has changed a little for the both of us and Jessica and her husband Taylor recently welcomed a beautiful baby girl named Emery to her family. Also just to keep life interesting my husband Kelly and I are expecting a baby girl in February 2011. Needless to say being ìmomsî will add a new dynamic to the growth and direction of Empower Personal Training, but we are both excited and committed to making it a success.

Thank you again for your loyalty and support these past 5 years. We look forward to what the future holds and we welcome you all along for the ride.

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