Life & Work with Heather Barritt

Today we’d like to introduce you to Heather Barritt.

Hi Heather, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
Movement has always been an important part of my life. From my days in youth sports and as a three-sport athlete in high school to being fortunate to earn a scholarship as a collegiate track athlete, you can say my love for fitness RUNS deep (pun intended). I even decided to make it my career as a health and physical education teacher too.

After college, I found myself craving to do more with nutrition and fitness outside of just teaching kids about movement, so I got my personal training certification in 2005 and started training clients in local gyms around the Triangle. I fell in love with fitness all over again and over the years, improved my skills through collaboration with other top local trainers as well as continued education and certifications.

For years I taught PE to elementary students during the day and then trained clients in the evenings five days a week, working long hours but loving every minute. Speaking of love, I even met my husband at the gym I trained at too and found that those 14 hour days weren’t what I wanted anymore, so I opted to go out on my own as a trainer for more control of my schedule.

In 2009, I started training out of my home at an outbuilding we built. We called it the Shym (shed-gym) and it was small but mighty. I loved waking up at 4:30 am (yes, you read that right) and just walking outside to meet my clients without the travel and long hours of the gym. I was able to train a few clients before I went to school to teach and even started group training programs at local schools for fellow teachers and even some corporate training over the years.

As life evolved (married, moving homes, having babies, leaving teaching completely), so did my fitness business. My online business actually completely started by accident. I was sending my group training clients homework to do when they weren’t training with me in person. Those under 30-minute workouts became quite popular, and my clients started asking for more videos and how they could share them with friends that were asking about what they were doing to stay in such good shape. Clueless about running an online business but excited to share my smarter, not harder approach to training with more women, I uploaded all 24 workouts as private Youtube videos, made a free website and started selling my first online fitness program in 2013. I went from exclusively training 20-30 locally to virtually training hundreds across the globe in the first few years being online thanks to the word-of-mouth referrals of my happy clients. I’m forever grateful for all of my past and present clients because they have gotten me to where I am today, growing my business, increasing my impact, and giving me a platform to share my passion with so many and for that, I am forever grateful.

We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Oh my goodness, my road has been far from smooth. There have been many bumps in the road as an online business owner for sure. Technology fails has been a repeat offender over the years for sure. Internet is a blessing and a curse in my job, and while it provides me the means to reach so many, it’s also plagued me glitching during live workouts or when I’m hosting a live webinar too. Along with internet issues, the occasional broken funnels (sales pages that allow you to sell your offer) and undelivered emails are never fun.

Early on, I think for me the hardest struggle as an entrepreneur was going from a well-known trainer locally to being a small fish in a big pond of online fitness professionals. Imposter syndrome definitely got the best of me (still does on occasion), like who I am and why someone would choose to join my program above those larger brands and huge names in this industry. The struggle was being “seen” online. It wasn’t until I stopped trying to be like those larger brands or mimic other top fitness pros that I actually saw the growth in my business and started reaching my ideal customers and clients. Authenticity always wins and being relatable and real will trump perfect always.

The pandemic year the bumpiest for me as a business owner but not for lack of profit or sales. 2020 was actually my highest-grossing year as a business owner as well as the year I invested the most money I ever have into a business partnership and app development. I had signed the deal a few weeks before quarantine started and after months of beta testing my heart rate monitors and coaching app with a small handful of clients, I finally offered it to the public in Spring of 2020 during my launch of my exclusive Chase Your Better 6-week challenge. I was so excited to show what the app and heart rate monitors could do and how it would allow my clients to have even more accountability and support. Throughout the challenge, I found I was spending more time with my developer than with my clients. I was constantly trying to get them to fix issues that were arising due to the high volume of clients that were using my app during the challenge.

While the challenge itself was a huge success and my clients had incredible transformations and great feedback, I knew that the heart rate monitors and app performance wasn’t up to my high standards. So after lots of reflection and tears, I opted to end my partnership with that company because my clients deserved better. When I dissolved that partnership, it was a huge hit to my business, costing me thousands of dollars that were invested and time spent making on-boarding pdfs, editing client portal and re-taping videos because I know longer would be referencing that app and monitors now. Even more so, when I finally found the right fit for my clients and a heart rate monitor company I trusted to deliver the client service and app experience I want for my community, I decided I would make it right and purchase new heart rate monitors for those who purchased the previous ones months before. Yes, it was another huge cost to my business and impacted my bottom line, but it was the right thing to do for my clients and the person always matters more than the numbers for me.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar, what can you tell them about what you do?
My expertise is around fat loss and female metabolism. I cater to busy women and my motto is simplify to amplify. I help women boost their metabolism, burn fat and build their best body in under three hours a week. I show women a smarter not harder approach to working out and no diet approach to nutrition. By optimizing their fitness and through metabolic eating, my clients actually workout less and eat more yet see those fat loss results they crave and actually feel good too. My goal for all women is to build a body they love but also a life they love too.

I’m known for my effective, efficient training style and fun, never boring exercises. While the focus is never caloric burn, most women rave that they burn more calories in 20 minutes with me than they ever did 3xs that in the gym. What sets me apart from other online fitness professionals is that my fitness program is backed by science and through heart rate training, my clients truly get a more customized fitness program allowing them to achieve results quicker, have more accountability and never hit a plateau as they constantly progress both in their fitness and in their body. I’m most proud that I get women to fall in love with taking care of themselves, showing them fitness doesn’t have to be a chore and making it fun. I believe my realness (goofy don’t take yourself too seriously attitude) and relatability helps ease the fear around fitness and helps make new clients feel welcomed and also reminds those beginners that we all start somewhere and everyone was once a beginner.

We’re always looking for the lessons that can be learned in any situation, including tragic ones like the Covid-19 crisis. Are there any lessons you’ve learned that you can share?
Gosh, I learned that community and connection is more important than anything. During quarantine, I did a few live workouts to help bring my clients together online and found that the connection was everything that was needed during such an isolating time. I continued to offer 4x weekly live Zoom workouts for almost 11 months during this time and still offer bi-weekly live workouts in my EASE Elite fitness membership monthly too.

I know my clients love the online community and connection they feel on those live workouts and seeing other like-minded women showing up for each other and themselves, but I think the connection I feel to them has been the most impactful. I didn’t realize how much I missed people and the energy I get from them. I spent eight years simply taping workouts by myself and uploading them into my site. While my clients felt like they had a relationship with me (yelling at me, laughing with me, sweating “with” me), I didn’t get to feel that connectivity as I was just the recorded trainer and not live with them. Now I sweat right alongside them, watch them succeed in real-time and not just through a random email check-in you know. It’s so fulfilling, and I wake up excited to work out and see my live crew!

Pricing:

• $64.00 monthly EASE Elite online fitness membership

Contact Info:

• Email: giveinspirethrive@gmail.com
• Website: www.heatherbarritt.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/heatherbarritt
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/heatherbarrittfitness

Image Credits
Kathleen Nolis Photography