To celebrate International Women’s Day, we decided to feature an inspirational graduate of The Training Room, Sarah Jordan.
Last year, we spoke to Sarah about
her journey into Personal Training and the opening of her own gym, Red Strength. Now, 6 months on, we decided to catch up with Sarah in honour of International Women’s Day to discover how she’s been getting on with Red Strength and what International Women’s Day means to her.
Red Strength
Sarah opened Red Strength back in March 2019 which is a private, luxury personal training gym which primarily runs one-to-one and group sessions and pride themselves on giving clients the best experience in a state-of-the-art environment. Sarah commented “Red Strength has gone from strength to strength in just under a year and I’m so pleased with how much we’ve grown”.
Reflecting on the past 6 months since we last spoke, compared with the first 6 months of business, Sarah found the last 6 months to have been getting increasingly better! As Red Strength has expanded and people have become more aware of them, its popularity has grown and Sarah’s been able to increase the amount of staff, as well as the number of sessions running at any given time.
Biggest Challenge
Starting a business will always present its fair share of obstacles, not least in the first year of trading! So, we asked Sarah what her biggest challenge was since launching Red Strength. “The biggest challenge was the transition from being a self-employed Personal Trainer to a Company Director/Gym Owner, the change in job role and extra responsibilities in which it entails.” Sarah also mentioned that getting the brand out there from scratch, getting noticed and making people aware was a challenge.
Best Moment
Although there have been many amazing moments, for Sarah, making a real difference to clients’ lives and providing a gym like no other, putting the ‘personal’ back into Personal Training like she originally set out to do has been the best. Sarah added “Taking on employees and being able to help even more people has also been great”.
The future of Red Strength
Speaking about the future of Red Strength, Sarah’s goal is to get the gym running to its full capacity. Red Strength is working towards that and is currently open from 3am to 9pm, to allow for out-of-hours sessions to the people who have awkward working hours or people who just don’t have the time to exercise in their regular day.
Adding to the above, Sarah said “I do also plan to provide some more training for current staff members so they’re better qualified and can start taking on more responsibility. I’m actually paying for a current member of staff to take the
Level 4 Personal Training course with The Training Room, as I once did!”.
Award Nominations
We were incredibly proud to learn that Sarah was recently nominated for TWO awards at the Yorkshire Choice Awards later this month! Sarah’s superb work with Red Strength has earned her the recognition and is up for the
Businesswoman of the Year and
Inspirational Individual of the Year awards! Speaking about the nominations, Sarah was really pleased to know that her hard work is being noticed.
International Women’s Day
Here at The Training Room, we love International Women’s Day as it is a day dedicated to celebrating women’s achievements. We’re delighted to be able to feature Sarah as the focus of our acknowledgement and celebration of the day as we truly believe that through her knowledge, dedication and entrepreneurial spirit, celebrating women like her is what International Women’s Day is all about.
Speaking about what the day means to her, Sarah said “I do actually post about International Women’s Day most years, predominantly on my personal account, as it represents what I stand for: strength and independence. I like to show people that you can do things for yourself and be successful off your own back if you’re willing to work hard, despite the challenges you may face.”
Finally, we wanted to find out what one piece of advice Sarah would give to women looking to either start a business or are thinking about taking the first step in switching careers. Sarah believes the most important thing is to follow your passion, do what you love and if you’re stuck in a job that you don’t like, try and find something you enjoy as you do spend most of your life at work. She also added “If people tell you that you can’t do something, then that should give you the motivation and inspiration you need to go out and do it”.
If you want to follow Red Strength on their journey or just find out a bit more info, you can visit their website and social media below:
Instagram:
@redstrength_personaltraining
Facebook:
@redstrengthgym
Website:
https://redstrength.co.uk/