Where Business Gets Down To Business
Growth Strategies
by ADINA GENN
The Long Race To Entrepreneurship
No job can ignite this businessman's passion like running his own gym does
Bob Mittleman loves of running and fitness, and he wanted to own a business. In May, he opened a Fitness Together franchise in Woodbury. The company offers one-on-one personal training in two private studios and offers a personalized running program for those training for marathons, half marathons and five-kilometer and 10-kilometer runs.
Fitness Together doesn't have the distractions of a large gym, said Mittleman, a former Wall Street trader. He's also a marathon runner whose personal best was 3 hours, 7 minutes in the 2004 Chicago Marathon.
The company has 45 clients, and Mittleman is considering purchasing other territories. Currently he employs a full-time manager and two trainers, one full-time, one part-time. And he plans to bring on more trainers as the client roster grows.
Mittleman said he invested about $225,000 of his personal finances to open the studio, including equipment and franchising fees. He owns an interest in a Fitness Together in Massachusetts, and has been approached about financing two other Long Island locations. "My goal is to open two or three myself," he said.
Membership packages vary. Mittleman said there are no monthly dues or initiation fees. Clients can purchase packages of 10 or even 50 sessions, depending on their goals. But according to their Web site, the running program costs $799, and discounts can apply.
Though his road to entrepreneurship wasn't necessarily direct, Mittleman refers to his journey as "good stuff."
Mittleman spent 1986 through 2002 on Wall Street, in his last stint he traded Israeli securities. But the market's crash, combined with 9/11, prompted a series of layoffs, of which Mittleman was a casualty.
"I tried to get back on the Street in different arenas," Mittleman said. When that didn't pan out, Mittleman tried his hand at financial planning in 2003, but he didn't like it.
He came across a Wall Street Journal article about career change that featured a Long Island professional coach, Deborah Brown-Volkman. Mittleman looked up Brown-Volkman's phone number, and after several conversations signed up as a client.
Through Brown-Volkman, Mittleman began thinking about bringing passion into his career.
He left financial planning to pursue his passion, sports. He joined the National Sport Marketing Network, an industry group with a charter in New York. Through networking, Mittleman went on a series of informational interviews, but said, "it wasn't clicking." He spent four months becoming a certified personal trainer, and thought about purchasing a gym.
During this period, Mittleman began working at Fauna, an Aquebogue-based restaurant owned by his parents and brother. Serving as manager, Mittleman became involved with the local chamber of commerce. Looking back, "it was a perfect segue, hands-on training," to work in a small business, he said. Mittleman stayed with the restaurant until November 2004, when his family sold the business.
Before the restaurant had been sold, Mittleman had already started to think about the gym business again. Earlier in February 2004, he spotted a Fitness Together ad. He flew to the meet the franchisor's executives in Colorado, and "loved the model," Mittleman said. They agreed to let him incorporate a running program into their concept, which, if successful, Mittleman may offer to other franchisees.
Mittleman doesn't miss Wall Street. As an entrepreneur, he said, "I couldn't be happier."
Copyright Long Island Business News