"Be humble enough to recognize your own shortcomings and be willing to take constructive criticism and make positive changes" with Donna Pierce and Lauren Closic
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Donne and Laruren
Donna Pierce and Lauren Closic have worked in the fitness industry for a combined 49 years, 20 years virtually side by side.
After becoming Certified CrossFit instructors in 2007, Donna and Lauren realized that this was their true passion and decided to work towards developing their own box. The idea was to bring their love of CrossFit to the masses and help people realize how much they are capable of doing; from the person who has never exercised before to the elite athlete.
Can you tell our readers about your background?
We worked together as Fitness Directors for a medically-based fitness center before deciding to open our own gym in 2010.
What inspired you to start your business?
While working in a medically-based fitness center broadened our education and skill, there were over 5,000 members and we felt that we were losing the personalized connection. We decided to open our own gym in order to have a smaller facility and to be able to interact on a much more personal level in order to help people achieve their goals.
Where is your business based?
Baltimore, MD
How did you start your business? What were the first steps you took?
We contacted different small business owners throughout various industries to discuss our business plan and model. We wanted to draw upon their experience and knowledge in order to ensure that we were taking the appropriate steps in order to start a successful business of our own.
What has been the most effective way of raising awareness for your business?
We bring awareness to our business via social media pages. Our members enjoy sharing our posts along with pictures highlighting their accomplishments for their friends and family to see.
What have been your biggest challenges and how did you overcome them?
By far, COVID-19 has been the biggest challenge that we have faced. We had to switch over to a virtual format nearly overnight and are working tirelessly to keep our business afloat. We hope that we will overcome this.
How do you stay focused?
There are two of us so we keep each other on track. While some tasks are shared, there are others that we work on independently but keep the other informed and run things by each other.
How do you differentiate your business from the competition?
We differentiate ourselves from the competition by promoting our extensive educational background along with our own personal challenges that we have faced. Throughout our lives, we may all experience physical and mental challenges that prevent us from being able to live our best lives. At Arenal Fitness, we are no different from anyone else. We too have faced challenges and have come out the other side. Through our own life experiences, we have found passion in our work and want to help others to feel empowered and resilient with whatever obstacles they may face in their lives.
What has been your most effective marketing strategy to grow your business?
Word of mouth and building personal relationships with our members and community.
What's your best piece of advice for aspiring and new entrepreneurs?
Constantly network and interact with other business owners in order to take their words of wisdom and experience and adapt them to your own business model. Also, be humble enough to recognize your own shortcomings and be willing to take constructive criticism and make positive changes. Often, you learn more from your mistakes and failures than your successes.
What's your favorite app, blog, and book? Why?
App: Anything that can track our progress such as Wendler 5-3-1 to enter our workouts and personal records as well as My Fitness Pal in order to maintain a healthy eating lifestyle.
Book: How To Be An Imperfectionist: The New Way to Self-Acceptance. This book was a major help in understanding many of our clients and how to best work with them in order to help them achieve their goals. People who are “perfectionists” will often get frustrated or give up if they are not able to do it perfectly so this was a very helpful book in order to keep them on task and moving forward with their program even when things are challenging or more difficult for them.
What's your favorite business tool or resource? Why?
MindBody Online is by far the best business tool. This is a daily resource for running our business successfully from scheduling to bill pay, marketing, attendance, etc., everything that we need to know is at our fingertips.
Who is your business role model? Why? There is not one specific person but we have several clients that we have come to know well and have learned of their business practices that we are continuously in awe of and aspire to run our business with the same level of expertise, care, and commitment.
How do you balance work and life?
Between the two of us, we have created a rotating on-call system in order to designate one of us to handle the incoming and day to day tasks. This allows each of us to have a bit of a breather every other week.
What’s your favorite way to decompress?
Anything active whether that is in the gym or outdoor activity such as hiking, biking, skiing, swimming, etc. We also enjoy spending time with family and friends as well as reading.
What do you have planned for the next six months?
This is a challenging time to plan ahead however, we are working hard to sustain our business and livelihood.
How can our readers connect with you?
Email owners@arenalfitness.com which comes to both of us.