2024 Member Letter
Hi Members,
Each year, I sit down to write a letter to all of you as a way to say thank you for the amazing year, for choosing SSP, and to recap all that’s happened as well as share about our future. These letters always serve as a way for me to also personally reflect on what’s happened these past 12 months.
We knew going into 2024 that it was going to be a year of immense growth with the opening of our third location in West Seattle and building out a team structure that was set up to support our business long term. It was also a big year for me personally as the professional demands on my time outside of SSP grew as I was speaking at fitness summits as well as coaching other business owners around the country and world.
There’s a stat I’ve referenced before from IHRSA that 81% of gyms fail within the first year. It’s always been a staggering stat to me, and it’s kept me grounded in the challenges of running and scaling a fitness business. Beyond that, I know that 50% of all small businesses fail within the first 5 years according to the US Dept of Bureau and Labor.
2025 will be year 5 since we opened our Queen Anne location in 2020. Our business has obviously evolved tremendously since that first year, but some things haven’t changed. Most notably, we still remain true to who we are. Our core values remain unchanged. We still and have always believed in creating inclusive and welcoming spaces for people to exercise and strength train. We don’t use shame or scare tactics to drive people into fitness spaces, and we care about making this a lifelong habit for everyone (not a short-term challenge or shred). These values will always be what we stand for. The industry ebbs and flows in their messages, but we don’t, and I’ve always said that if what we do and how we conduct ourselves doesn’t resonate, I’m not interested in doing it. And for me personally, that will always be true.
I know some of you don’t see me as often on the training floor since we’ve opened our third location, and both my personal and professional schedule has shifted, but when I do get on the floor, I’m always encouraged and humbled by some of the feedback I receive. When I was coaching at Phinney the other night, a newer member expressed to me how she loved our latest podcast episode about holiday fitness nonsense and how refreshing it felt to be in a gym environment that allowed her to focus on enjoying her workouts again as opposed to “earning” or “working off” her food which the other gym she most recently belonged to had espoused. Feedback like this always reminds me that what we’re doing here is so important.
In addition, one of the very cool things that happened this year is SSP was in the local and national spotlight quite often. Whether it be Coach Natalie and I doing a segment on FOX13 about strength training as you age, or Coach Natalie being featured in a Peloton article, or Coach Sam being featured in Well & Good, or myself being featured in Seattle Magazine and Seattle Refined, or an industry article in Athletech News titled “How a Strength Training Gym Conquered Seattle’s Boutique Fitness Market”. Coupled with my business coaching of other gym owners, we received a LOT of attention this year. The flattering (and a little mind boggling) thing to me is you can go to many gyms across the country and world now similar to SSP and see a lot of the things we do at SSP copied there, whether it be a gym launching a Master Class series or copying our team structure or rethinking their coaching model to bring on more full time staff. You can literally witness SSP’s influence in a lot of places, which is so gratifying to me.
One of the things that I was honestly criticized for when I first opened was my emphasis on hiring full time roles and providing consistent salaries and good benefits. I’ve talked a lot about my opinions on careers and development in the fitness industry at length on our podcast so I won’t bore you here. But, one thing that really differentiates the way SSP does things versus others is our emphasis on team. If you know my story at all, you know when I first left Amazon in mid-2019, I chose to start as a trainer. I wanted to know what the experience was like, and I worked in a lot of different models, starting as an independent contractor out of a gym and later getting paid per client session which meant I worked “split shifts” that looked like 12-14 hour days with only 6-7 of those really being billable hours. This industry is notorious for burning people out and pushing them to different careers.
When I decided to become a gym owner, I said I’m going to try a different way of doing things or I’m going to die trying. I’ve been stubborn about it, and the good thing for me is, it’s worked. Not only in being able to attract the type of talent we want in the business but also to provide a growth and development path that largely doesn’t exist elsewhere. I’m proud of what we’ve been able to build so far with not only emphasizing continuing education for our coaches (taking our team to attend seminars this past year in Austin, LA, and Boston) as well as other local certifications, but also the fact that most of our team is full-time with full healthcare coverage, 401(k), and PTO and paid holidays on top of receiving profit-sharing bonuses and up to 12 weeks of parental leave starting in 2025.
And, speaking of 2025, we’ve got some really interesting things in the works. I joked at our recent leadership offsite that we weren’t going to open another location next year, and I *think* that’s true. 😉 But, we do already have a few exciting things to announce.
New team members: We’re in a fortunate position where we now receive a lot of interest in our roles at SSP and can be very selective in our hiring process. We received well over 150 applicants for this last job search, and we landed on a couple hires who I believe are going to be really great additions to our team. Miranda Perez moved from Texas to join us in Seattle and will be working out of our West Seattle location. She comes with a background as a trainer but also GM at her town’s Anytime Fitness. Zaira Armendariz also moved to join us in Seattle from LA. She’s just finishing up her Masters from Arizona State University in Positive Psychology and will be working in our Queen Anne location. In addition, Sam Holter who has been amazing in her role as our Facility Lead at Queen Anne will be stepping into a broader Sales & Membership Experience role supporting all 3 of our locations. She’ll be working closely alongside myself, Lauren (our marketing manager) and Natalie. I’m really excited for her. Please congratulate her if you see her.
New partnership: We were presented with a unique opportunity to partner with a local USL2 soccer team to be a big sponsor for their upcoming season. As of 2025, we are the Official Training Partner and Jersey Sponsor of the Junction FC and West Seattle Rhodies men’s and women’s soccer teams. On top of training their teams at our West Seattle location during the season, you will also see a strong SSP presence at all of their events. We’re really excited about this partnership and to be a stronger part of the community there next year.
New event: We’re really stepping out and trying something new by putting on an event for the entire Seattle fitness community called Seattle Fitness Week. This was inspired by Seattle Restaurant Week, and a mission of mine which is to help drive more consumers into fitness spaces. Seattle is a very physically active city with less than 20% of its residents holding gym memberships. This event is designed to increase accessibility and awareness across the city for fitness studios and gyms. It will bring together multiple gyms and studios under one event where we can celebrate this city’s diverse fitness offerings and help people find their fitness home. There is a lot more to come here as we are still in the early stages of chatting with sponsors and working on logistics. Follow @seattlefitnessweek on Instagram to watch how this all unfolds.
And there’s also a lot more we’re working on if you can believe it, but it’s not quite ready for prime time!
Last thing I’ll say to close out this long note, I again want to express my gratitude for you. SSP now sits north of 650 members, and I thank every single one of you for sharing your days with us.
Happy new year,
Chris