Today we’d like to introduce you to Herb & Mindy Byers.
Hi Herb & Mindy, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstories.
Our Jackd Fitness story is a long one, but to understand why we are so passionate about the business we need to share our entire story. In November 2014 I (Mindy) created a class called MOVE at Jackd Fitness and was hired on as a class instructor. The class quickly grew from one time a week to five, and by July 2015 I was hired on by the then owners to a full-time manager position. Over the next two years, I created an additional class and held weight loss boot camps for many women in the area.
Herb began his journey in the fitness industry at a young age and had a goal of owning his own gym early in life. Over the last 29 years, Herb has experience in personal training (in gym settings, on his military base during his time with the Coast Guard, and while deployed from 2002 to 2003), supplement sales and manufacturing, powerlifting, strongman, bodybuilding, and college-level nutrition courses.
When Herb signed up for a membership at Jackd Fitness in April 2017, we quickly became friends and workout partners. After a few months, we decided we would take our friendship to the next level and create a life partnership together. During this time, the gym was listed for sale and after many conversations, we decided to make a valiant effort to purchase it. Prior to our purchase of the gym, we successfully added over 100 new members to the gym and acquired 30 personal training clients. On June 22, 2018, we were the official owners of Jackd Fitness, LLC.
Over the next 16 months, we worked hard to add members, bring in new personal training clients, and grow our classes. Unfortunately, our relationship with our then landlord/previous Jacked Fitness owner was disintegrating, as some business relationships do. We received notice on September 27, 2019, we were to vacate the building. And on that very day after receiving the notice, Herb got down on one knee to ask me to be his wife – at the gym, where we began our relationship.
After attempting to make peace or come to an agreement with our landlords we were forced to sever our relationship – leaving us just 20 days to secure a new location and move our 5,000-square-foot gym. With just six days left we settled on a small studio spot in the downtown Lancaster area after briefly talking with the owner of the building. Our plan with him was to transform the partially finished basement of his building to create an underground 2,000-square-foot area for the barbell side of our business while I would hold classes at the studio level. To get into the building quickly and attempt to keep the business running, we would open a portion of the basement for the barbell equipment and use a small space on the studio level for minimal equipment. The agreement was signed and we were ready to move.
Moving the gym was challenging as we had 5,000 square feet of gym equipment. Until the basement plans were established and finalized, we were forced to move equipment we would not be using right away to our home garage and the rest to the new location. We had a handful of people help us move, but ultimately it was Herb, myself, and my son Gunnar finishing the job at 2 am on October 31, 2019. It was raining, snowing, sleeting, and high winds. I know the three of us either cried or wanted to cry that night. When we left, we posed for a photo next to the words “Never give up” Herb had written on the wall months before we were forced out. We were not giving up anytime soon.
The doors opened at our new location downtown on November 1, 2019. Our members were skeptical, scared, and unconvinced this location was going to work. A few of the members did stay true and were there to work out every day that first week – but on November 6 our new landlord notified us that our barbell equipment was too loud for his other tenants in the building. Again, we had to make the difficult decision to shut a big portion of our business down. We lost members and personal training clients immediately. My classes and some personal training clients continued, but we needed to find a building.
Herb spent all his time looking for buildings all over the Fairfield County area and a small building for sale on the west side of Lancaster caught his eye. Not being married, having little to no credit, and zero money for a down payment we were in no position to buy a building. Herb approached his parents and together worked out a plan for them to purchase the building to rent to us until we were able to purchase from them. Our new plan was to operate with two locations – my classes and personal training in the downtown studio and our gym at the Garfield Avenue building. Herb spent countless hours gutting our new building and I spent countless hours at the studio. There were many days we would say hello and hug each other when I would head into the studio at 4:30 am and he would just be getting home from working on the Garfield location.
After months of remodeling, minimal sleep, and an astounding amount of stress, we set our opening date at the Garfield Avenue location for March 1, 2020. Before officially opening the doors, though, we wanted to open as a unit – a married couple. We planned a spur-of-the-moment, family-only wedding for February 29, 2020. We ordered pizzas, my niece made our wedding cake with the Incredible Hulk and Workout Barbie doll as the cake topper, and a close friend married us – at the Garfield Avenue location, under an American Flag. It was perfect for us!
We opened our doors on March 1 and received wonderful feedback from the members who stuck around. It was going to work! We were going to operate two locations and things would look up from here on out, right? Wrong.
On March 16, 2020, we were ordered by the state of Ohio to shut down our business due to COVID-19. Herb’s parents were understanding with rent, and we were able to halt our payments at that time. Our downtown landlord however would still require us to pay 50% of our rent and would require us to add on a month to the lease for each month we opted to pay the 50% rate. This was something we weren’t comfortable doing as we had no idea what having two locations would be like for us financially. Thankfully, he worked with us on breaking our lease at the studio. Now our challenge would be making both sides of our business functional at our 1,800-square-foot Garfield Avenue location.
Having little to no income at this point I decided to offer my classes and personal training online while the state was shut down, and it was a huge success! I even had women in other states joining online! While I conducted classes and training Herb spent time remodeling and rearranging the building to house our gym, my classes, and our personal training clients. The shutdown in many ways made Herb, Gunnar, and I closer. It gave us a chance to slow down, breathe, and spend some quality family time together.
We opened after the shutdown mandate was lifted on May 26, 2021, and we have been growing ever since. I have continued offering my classes online as well as recordings of all workouts to be done at home on their own time.
At this point in our business journey, we have added members, class participants, personal training clients, youth athletes, and have worked with local schools to promote self-love and self-confidence in young women. Our future looks amazing from this point forward and we are so grateful for the working relationship and marriage we have created together.
As I stated at the beginning of our story – it is long. But we have worked so hard to keep what we love, and we have never given up. We are a true story of what happens when you don’t give up. We want to continue our journey by inspiring others to keep driving toward whatever their heart wants and needs. Anything is possible!
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
We are a husband/wife team specializing in overall fitness for adults and youth athletes. We offer personal training, group workouts, and mental health seminars, in a privatized gym setting. We have something our town has never had before – a husband and wife team using our experience in our own physical and mental struggles to help others struggling with their fitness and mental health goals. I can say we are proud of our overall brand. We are honest with our clients and live very transparently to our followers on social media, our clients, and our members. We want to pass the message on to anyone who follows us that we are all humans, and we can take control of our overall health.
Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?
Our raw, uncut personalities and our willingness to stay the course no matter what has been thrown at us. We truly make the best combination for not only owning a business but maintaining a healthy marriage and family life. We are also 100% involved in Gunnar’s sports and the athletic world! One of us at every competition or game and we are hoping to pass on some of the business to him when he is able!
Pricing:
- Personal training – $200 for 10 sessions
- Monthly Membership – $50 per month plus a one-time $50 joining fee
- Six-month Membership – $250
- Twelve-month Membership – $420
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jackd_fit/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jackdfitness
