Chris Van Nostrand, Strength Wise Barbell

[00:00:00] Sanjay Parekh: Welcome to the Side Hustle to Small Business podcast powered by Hiscox. I'm your host, Sanjay Parekh. Throughout my career, I've had side hustles, some of which have turned into real businesses. But first and foremost, I'm a serial technology entrepreneur. In the creator space, we hear plenty of advice on how to hustle harder and why you can sleep when you're dead.

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These entrepreneurs are pushing the envelope while keeping their values. Keep listening for conversation, context, and camaraderie.

Today's guest is Chris Van Nostrand, a personal trainer based out of Evanston, Illinois. With a marketing background, Chris was in his late 30s when he discovered powerlifting and fell in love. In 2020, Chris launched his business, Strength Wise Barbell, hoping to unleash the inner athleticism in others. Chris, welcome to the show.

[00:01:17] Chris Van Nostrand: Thank you for having me.

[00:01:18] Sanjay Parekh: So, I'm excited to have you on because I'm sure my form in lifting barbells is probably not great. I don't know if you're going to be able to solve that during our interview here, but we'll see what happens. But before we get into kind of the current business and what you're doing; give us a little bit about your background and what got you to where you are today.

[00:01:36] Chris Van Nostrand: Absolutely. So, I grew up in Boston, then went to college in Ohio at a small liberal arts college called Kenyon College, made my way out to Chicago after that and then spent a little time in East Bay, actually almost a decade, before we came back to Chicago and settled just outside of the city.

And so that was my geographic path.

[00:02:00] Sanjay Parekh: That's East Bay, in California.

[00:02:02] Chris Van Nostrand: That's right. Yeah. Of course. All Californians know you just say East Bay, and everyone knows what you're talking about.

[00:02:08] Sanjay Parekh: There’s quite a few of us that don't live in California. So-

[00:02:10] Chris Van Nostrand: But it's the center of the universe, obviously.

[00:02:14] Sanjay Parekh: Ha ha ha ha ha! And when you went to college, what was your degree in? What did you study?

[00:02:18] Chris Van Nostrand: I was a political science major, and did consider a career in politics, and even spent a little bit of time in Chicago politics, decided it was not for me. It was something I was doing, that was maybe my first side hustle, not a business. But that was the first thing I was doing outside of my regular job. I was canvassing neighborhoods and working for a couple Alderman campaigns, but ultimately I just decided it wasn't the right fit.

[00:02:47] Sanjay Parekh: We, the rest of us have heard Chicago politics are a bit rough and tumble, so maybe that was the reason why.

[00:02:54] Chris Van Nostrand: Yes, that is the best euphemism you can probably use.

[00:03:01] Sanjay Parekh: We're not going to go down that path on this podcast, that's for a different podcast, to talk about politics and Chicago politics in particular. Okay, so you're doing that and, when did you decide to start this business up? Like how did that, falling in love with powerlifting, end up happening for you?

[00:03:19] Chris Van Nostrand: Great question. So, I had actually been obsessed with strength training most of my life. From the very first time that I ever picked up a barbell with a friend of mine, who had some old barbells in his basement and for whatever reason, I was just hooked immediately. So, I'd always been in love with, training and weightlifting. But I never considered it to be really a viable career path.

And so went down a much more traditional path in the sense of getting my degree, then went into higher education administration, that was my primary career. Got my MBA from the Kellogg School, was working in marketing, worked my way up to C level marketing positions.

And I turned 40 right around the beginning of the pandemic, as I was approaching 20 years in this primary career. And so, it forced a lot of self-reflection. And so, the question became, not what would I do if I changed paths, but when or would I do it, because the passion again for strength training was there.

By that point, I've been competing in powerlifting for a few years. I had really fallen in love more specifically with this niche of barbell sports and barbell lifting, so I knew what I wanted to do and so this introspection was more around, how would I make this work? Is this a crazy idea to get off of this path and do something totally different?

[00:04:46] Sanjay Parekh: So, okay. So, you ended up pulling the trigger. So, when you pulled the trigger to go in and do this, did you do it as a side hustle or did you go all in?

[00:04:55] Chris Van Nostrand: I did. I started as a side hustle and decided to focus on what continues to be my niche, which is masters athletes. So, I focus on keeping athletes who are 40 and above continuing to play the sport that they love for as long as possible.

So, there's some unique aspects of continuing to train when you get a little bit older. And that was something that I had personal experience in, I was well read in, and I was studying these topics on my own. So, I felt I had something to bring to that population. Partly too, because I also had a family and a mortgage, and kids, and a demanding career.

So, I thought I could share a lot in terms of how to manage athletic pursuits, with kind of the general stresses of being an adult.

[00:05:42] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah, you used the term there, masters athletes. Is that like nice word for older people or is that something else?

[00:05:51] Chris Van Nostrand: That is correct. That is a very kind term for those of us who are 40 and above and competing in sport.

[00:06:00] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah, I think the one field that maybe needs to take cues like that is the medical field, because after a certain point, they start calling us geriatric and that's an unkind term.

I like the term masters better.

[00:06:12] Chris Van Nostrand: Yeah, the geriatric division doesn't exactly motivate a lot of great participation in sports.

[00:06:20] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah, exactly. So, okay. So, you're starting this as a side hustle. Did you need to raise any funding? Did you put money in yourself? Like, how did you get this up off the ground?

[00:06:31] Chris Van Nostrand: I funded it myself, and basically just made a small seed contribution because it was the height of the pandemic. And because I had a lot of experience actually as an online client, since my coach was online, and I was pretty well educated on how online coaching worked, it was a pretty straightforward process because there was just not even the consideration of opening a physical space.

Everything was shut down. So that in a sense made it easy where the focus was purely on continuing education and certifications, providing the best possible client experience and marketing. So, I really was able to be pretty focused and pretty disciplined around, how do I be most effective for my clients in this online format?

And so again, there were investments in education and platforms, but that was part of what made it a low-risk decision. And that was part of the motivating factor for getting off the ground was just that it was not going to be capital intensive.

[00:07:29] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah, do you feel like the fact that you started during the pandemic and you were basically forced to be online first, before having physical presence, do you feel like that helped or changed the style of the business because of that?

[00:07:44] Chris Van Nostrand: It was a huge advantage because it forced me to have lots of systems in place for managing clients really well. So, for instance, I had to make sure that my communication processes were really good.

I had to make sure that I had a simple, user friendly platform and app for my clients to use. Because when you're training in person, you can be a little bit more informal because you do have that direct meeting, you're getting together in person, you set a time and then things can flow from there.

But with online, you do have to be a little bit more rigorous around how you're keeping clients engaged, how you're keeping them accountable, how you're keeping them motivated, and how you're delivering the actual programming to them. And so, I do think it was an advantage to have to develop all of that in the online format first.

[00:08:36] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah, interesting. I wonder if that's the case for a lot of the businesses that started during that timeframe. They were forced into online only and changed the way they approach the business. So that is super fascinating. So, okay, when you were starting this business, was there anything that made you nervous about taking this leap?

It was a side hustle, so I guess a little bit less risk, but there might have been things that made you nervous.

[00:09:05] Chris Van Nostrand: Definitely. Well, because I had a marketing background, I knew that ultimately it was going to come down to execution, and whether I could actually get the lead generation piece going.

That was where the marketing background came in most helpful. It's just, I was hyper aware of the need to develop some lead sources and think about building that top of the funnel before anything else could really happen. So, I was obviously a little bit nervous about how that was going to shake out.

The other piece that I was nervous about was I had a pretty defined niche and so I was concerned about whether there was an addressable market there, even though the fitness industry is huge and growing.

My focus is building strength, building muscle, getting as powerful as possible. And I'm explicitly anti-diet culture. So, a lot of what I was setting myself up to do was in contrast or in opposition to mainstream fitness culture. So, I was not coming out with a 90-day program to get ripped, right? That kind of wasn't my philosophy. It was more like, how are we going to build strength over the next decade so that you can continue to compete in sport? Or, what's going to be your crash diet approach? So, I think I was a little anxious about again, whether I would find a resonant market for that.

[00:10:26] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. Yeah. And how did you then find that? So, like, first client, where did they come from and then how did you roll from there?

[00:10:35] Chris Van Nostrand: So, I started with some online platforms for my marketing. Again, I knew that social media could be helpful or beneficial in the long run, but in the immediate, I just needed again to open up that funnel and get some leads right away. So, I found some platforms, that essentially did the lead gen parts of these.

Platforms like Bark, and like Thumbtack, would create inbound leads. And then you would pay for these leads and basically compete for these clients’ business. And so that is actually how I got my start. Before that, of course, it was just begging my friends to be my initial clients and train them for free.

But once I was actually doing it for real, that's where I started to find my clients, again, because there wasn't the possibility of doing any kind of in person networking. So those online platforms did end up being effective in part because I could be super transparent about what my message was.

So, I'm not the best person if your primary focus is weight loss, or your primary focus is cardiovascular training, which is great, but my thing is really, I was going to get you as strong and as powerful as possible.

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[00:12:12] Sanjay Parekh: Okay, let's change a little bit and talk about kind of the services now that you offer. Have you shifted them over time? So, you started with virtual only, obviously, because we had a pandemic going on — has that shifted over time for yourself? And why did you make that shift? And how does it work out for you?

[00:12:33] Chris Van Nostrand: So, the core service is actually still the same, which is a monthly subscription comprehensive coaching package. And that's where my clients are in my coaching app. And we're working on everything together, from habit setting to their comprehensive workouts that they receive on a daily or weekly basis.

And so that core online service remains and the other core part that remains is, I essentially have two options within that comprehensive package. One is a weekly coaching call and the other is a monthly coaching call, where we're reviewing progress again. We're checking in on, how you're doing with various habits that we're setting.

They're going to help you get stronger or we're doing a monthly call where we're reviewing the prior four weeks of your program and seeing how you're doing. Are you setting personal records? Are you progressing in the way that you want? The big difference there is initially those calls were totally online and now it's more of a hybrid format, where for my local clients, they will come to my training studio, potentially, for those weekly or those monthly sessions.

So, that's where coming back in person changed the business a little bit. I think overall, though, there has been just a general shift back towards being in person. So even my clients who did really well with the online format, a lot of them have switched back to being in person.

So, either in personal training or taking one of the barbell classes that I offer in my town; so even people who were very successful with this format, I think just eventually started to crave a lot more personal connection and community. And that has continued.

[00:14:19] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. How do you feel like that's impacted the business? Has it helped? Has it hurt? Does it make no difference?

[00:14:25] Chris Van Nostrand: I think it's been helpful in the sense that it's allowed me to attract some more diverse segments. So, they're just different preferences in terms of how people approach their training. And in terms of the level of community and the level of personal accountability that people need.

So, I think having a mix has been helpful, just as far as working with different preferences and different customer mindsets.

[00:14:51] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. I want to drill into one thing. You talked about using some of these platforms like Thumbtack and whatever to get your initial customers. Did you track your customer acquisition costs?

And if so, like how did that change over time for you and where's it gone from then to now?

[00:15:09] Chris Van Nostrand: Yeah, absolutely. So, I was tracking my costs from the get-go because I was actually really interested in being profitable right away. My focus was not necessarily, I didn't want to be a master of scale because I knew that it was at least for a good little while, it's going to be just me.

So, my focus was not on, how do I build a business that gets a hundred thousand users and eventually is profitable? It was like, can I actually create profitable customers from the get-go? And so, as a result, I was tracking things closely. Now, obviously there was some experimentation in marketing channels and other client services.

So, initially it was a tiny, tiny, little profit. But I was paying attention to what was working basically and what wasn't in terms of the customer acquisition costs. The big shift over time has been changing my marketing mix from more paid marketing into more organic sources.

So, I decided to ultimately really lean into SEO, for a whole bunch of reasons. And so, search engine optimization, has ultimately turned out to be the highest ROI thing that I've done. Even though it takes a little while to see results.

[00:16:26] Sanjay Parekh: Okay. So, so now what is your customer acquisition cost then? Is it pretty close to zero? Like where are you at?

[00:16:33] Chris Van Nostrand: It's not zero because, as an hourly employee, in the sense of, how my business is set up and how my finances are structured, the time that I spend on SEO still counts toward that acquisition cost, and there are software costs associated as well, with running SEO, but it's quite a bit more affordable. I'll say that.

And it's also quite a bit more durable. So as opposed to paid marketing where you might get some short term boosts, I found that the more I invest in SEO, not only the better my results, but the more sustainable those results are in the sense that a piece of content that I write for my website, over time, as I get more views on that piece of content, more engagement with that piece of content, its ROI actually increases.

And I knew from my prior career, having run very large marketing budgets, in a corporate marketing setting, that those, the paid advertising could be really powerful. But again, you tended to get an initial infusion of leads, but those would not necessarily be sustainable without continued major reinvestments in those ad campaigns.

[00:17:48] Sanjay Parekh: Right. Okay. So, along this path, so it's been four years since you started this. When did you decide — I assume you've gone all in now in your full time — when did you decide to make that leap?

[00:17:59] Chris Van Nostrand: I did go all in after year three. So, it's been a year now, of being entirely a full-time strength and conditioning coach.

[00:18:11] Sanjay Parekh: Okay. And what was the thing that made you make that decision of being like, okay, now's the time to go all in?

[00:18:16] Chris Van Nostrand: So, what I realized was, that the business was going pretty well, and I had things pretty well set up. The only major cap to growth was just time because I was working 50 to 60 hours a week in my primary job.

And so, while it wasn't a guarantee, it was a relatively smaller leap of faith than it would have been a couple of years earlier. So, I knew that both in terms of investing time in marketing and being able to spend more time on the sales side that I would just be able to see more clients, of course, if I had more hours in the week.

So that was really the big decision was just that, I came to the conclusion that time, the number of hours per week, was really what was limiting growth at that point.

[00:19:02] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. And so, in the 12-month retrospective, good decision?

[00:19:08] Chris Van Nostrand: It was, yeah, it turned out better than I could have imagined as far as just once I made that mental switch to being full time, things totally opened up and I realized that I had been holding back a little bit.

Because I was a little concerned about having enough capacity to serve clients. And so, I had not been necessarily all in. And so that was leading me to sometimes not pursue opportunities that I could, as soon as I went full time. And so, when that transition happened, it was almost immediate that the business started to grow quite a bit.

[00:19:43] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah, okay. So, four years now. So, three years as a side hustle and now one year full time. There's a different level of stress through all of that, right? So, in the first three years you're juggling two different things. Now, it's the stress of, oh my god, I only have one thing. How do you manage that for yourself in terms of, on both sides of it, when it was a side hustle now that it's full time?

[00:20:07] Chris Van Nostrand: So, the stress of the new business, was again really just, is there an addressable market here, where and when will the clients come? And the only answer to that was to have a process in place. You know, have the marketing process in place and then be patient, which is not necessarily my forte. But I had to learn that it was just going to take time. Again, because I wasn't going for scale right away.

I think that, to the second point going full time, think that there is a certain amount of, there's kind of a rhythm to the year, right? And there are business cycles in this business. And so, keeping that in mind, I think, is helpful. The summer tends to be a little bit lighter because people are traveling quite a bit, so they're not as committed to their training. Whereas fall tends to pick up quite a bit. So just having been through now a full year, the biggest way that I manage that stress is to just keep those long-term business cycles in mind.

[00:21:12] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah, I don't normally ask this, but I think you're in a particular position that's interesting. So, you were pretty high up in marketing in an organization. Did they know that you were doing this as a side hustle for those three years and then, what did people say when you announced that you were leaving the company to start a power lifting business? What was the reaction there?

[00:21:34] Chris Van Nostrand: It's a great question. Early on when I first started it, at a prior position or at my current job at the time, it was quite small. And so, I didn't mention it, because I was doing it basically before work and on the weekends. So no, it was not explicitly out there.

I then left for another position, and we never actively addressed it, but I think they had a sense that this was a business that I had on the side. And I think we had a tacit understanding that so long as it wasn't affecting my daily performance, then it was a fair exchange.

And so, I just was adamant that it wasn't going to affect my performance. But I don't think it was necessarily widely known. I think probably, a few superiors were aware of what was happening. So, when I announced, I think it was perceived as a pretty big shock, just because it was sort of like, what does one thing have to do with the other?

[00:22:41] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. It's really funny to see those reactions. I remember when I was in my first job out of college and then I announced I was leaving to start a company. And I wasn't really sharing what we were doing, didn't share that we had a name, none of that stuff. And people were like, what are you doing? You're messing up your life and everything. I'm like, yeah, okay.

It's just interesting, the reactions that people have to those of us that are entrepreneurs when we decide to step out and do these things. And it's oftentimes not supportive because they're scared for themselves or jealous or I don't know what that the motivation is.

So, it's interesting that you had a similar reaction. Because power lifting is definitely not the same thing as just being a chief marketing officer.

[00:23:27] Chris Van Nostrand: No, they're pretty different, some overlap and some commonality. Yeah, the funniest part was the confusion from friends that maybe I had fallen out of touch with for a little while, because I'd always been interested in strength training, but it was more of a hobby on the side. I didn't really talk about it.

And then, so those people that I hadn't talked to in a long time, when I told them about this change, then it was, just true confusion. One friend said, I've been racking my brain to try to figure out if there was something I missed when we were friends before, once we reconnected, something 10 years ago that I wasn't paying attention to.

[00:24:06] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. Yeah. And it's funny people are like, wait, you had such a good job before. I'm like, yeah, but that's not what I want to actually do. Like it's-

[00:24:14] Chris Van Nostrand: That's a big part of it. Yeah. The questions around, the trade off, I get a lot of questions around trading off stability, for uncertainty.

And I'm still very surprised myself, just because even when I was in business school and surrounded by a lot of aspiring entrepreneurs, I never considered it to be a possibility. And so that's one thing that I do tell people is, I'm not one of those folks that grew up, dreaming about owning my own business.

Even when I was in business school, sometimes even taking entrepreneurship classes, it was more academic for me. and I just could not envision leaving something stable and particularly leaving a career that had been really gratifying and which I had a lot of advancement. So, it really was this, kind of change in life stage and turning 40 and having gathered all this prior experience in business that ended up being the big motivator.

So I do sometimes share that with people who are thinking about entrepreneurship is, if it doesn't feel right when you're 30, it may be totally different by the time you're 45.

[00:25:18] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. And I'll say one thing, I'll challenge that idea of stability. I often say this to people when they talk about us as entrepreneurs and, oh, I don't think I could be so courageous to do something so risky.

And I'm like, well, actually, it's the opposite. I'm so impressed by you, going into having a job where, any day they could just fire you. I'm a chicken and that's why I do my own jobs and I'm an entrepreneur because I'm the only one that can fire me. And so having a job, that's a much more courageous role in life than being an entrepreneur, I think.

So, it twists on its head that kind of idea of stability and risk taking. I think both just have different risk profiles. At the end of the day, it's different kinds of courageousness. And I think in the end of it, like you said, it's what you enjoy doing is what you should do.

Neither one is more risky than the other at the end.

[00:26:12] Chris Van Nostrand: I think that's right. And, also from my perspective, part of the risk profile was lowered because I was going into something that I already felt I had a pretty good command of. I still don't think I'm an expert cause you're never really, truly an expert, but I wasn't trying to launch a business in which, I wasn't intimate with the industry or the product or the customer market, right?

This was something I was really living. And I also, again, felt like I was really passionate about this. And so, it was obvious that this is what I would do. So, I think that is different from entrepreneurs who maybe have an idea for a disruptive product, but it's in a space that they're not necessarily personally familiar with.

[00:26:57] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. Okay. I want to ask you a question that I ask a lot of entrepreneurs, but for you it's a little bit different because it's kind of your business. So, for a lot of entrepreneurs, exercise is the way that they do health and wellness and make sure you're doing that, that's your business.

So, do you think about exercise? Is it just a part of work and you take care, or do you have another routine for like self-care and personal wellness?

[00:27:22] Chris Van Nostrand: Great question. So, since I'm a strength and conditioning coach, and not necessarily, my primary focus is not personal training.

A lot of my work is around providing programming to clients. So, I don't actually do the workouts with my clients, even in the classes that I teach. I'm more of a coach and a facilitator, than I am a fellow participant in those workouts. So that's one big thing. I'm not, doing 12 sessions per week.

I think that probably would be totally different. But yeah, it's the same for me as it has always been, which is, my workouts are a big part of how I actually structure my week. So, I build my week around what I'm going to be able to get in my training.

And it's an important boundary setting lesson, I think, that I actually try to instill in my clients, which is I treat my training sessions, like they are one of the most important things I could do during my week. So, I block off my schedule and I don't open up that time unless, it really is, if I have to serve a client, of course, and I have to change my schedule then I will do that. But for the most part, I really tried to protect that time because it makes me a better coach.

[00:28:40] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. Do you use your time of your own workouts as an opportunity to do R&D? Do you learn things while working out that then you use for your clients?

[00:28:51] Chris Van Nostrand: Absolutely. Yeah, I was just thinking about that, actually, in anticipation of this interview. Yes, I will often as I'm working out, as I'm doing, for instance, the squat, I will think about how I'm performing that squat, in different ways that I could communicate correct cues to clients as I'm experiencing it myself.

So, as I'm going through the different phases of the movement, and as I'm using different muscles and joints, I'm thinking, how am I experiencing this? And how could I share that in a way that might make the most sense to somebody? And then, it's always a good excuse in, my line of business to, to get new toys and new tools, and test out new products that might end up working slightly better than something else.

I'm a little bit of a gear head, so it does help in that regard.

[00:29:36] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. Yeah. I love it. Last couple of questions here for you. I'm thinking about now the last four-ish years of time, you've probably learned a lot now. If you could go back in time and do something differently, what is that and why?

[00:29:54] Chris Van Nostrand: Good question. Don't know that I would change anything fundamentally in the business. I think what I would do is I probably would be less receptive to all of the business pitches that you get and all the services that get sold to you. For the simple reason that, you know, one of the philosophies I have when I was in corporate marketing was just solve the challenge that's in front of you.

Yes, we want to have a strategy. Yes, we want to think in terms of a 12-month and 24-month roadmap. But at the same time, if customers have pressing needs, let's solve those first. If the market, if the business is facing a primary marketing challenge, if we're having a middle of the funnel problem, let's solve the middle of the funnel, right? We're not going to worry about the bottom of the funnel.

If we're really stuck on the client engagement side, if we're not getting people to talk to our sales team because they're not liking something about our products when they're researching it, let's focus on that first. And so, I think I would have embraced that message a little bit more on my own and realized that I can only really solve one problem at a time.

Or that's probably the best use of my time, is just to focus on the next immediate roadblock. And so, these myriad services that you get pitched as an entrepreneur, I probably would have not listened to as many of them and just focused on, how do I get a few more leads? Once I have those leads, what's a simple step that I could take so that I'm improving my conversion rate on my website?

And I don't necessarily need to entertain as many of these offers because they are promising a solution that might not even be relevant to me at the time. But they're also incented to convince me that I have a problem.

[00:31:54] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah, that's great. That's great advice to the folks that are out there thinking about starting their own thing as well.

Chris, this has been fantastic. Where can our listeners find and connect with you online?

[00:32:06] Chris Van Nostrand: Absolutely. So, on Instagram, I'm StrengthWiseBarbell, and that's the same on Facebook. And those are the primary channels that you can reach me at StrengthWiseBarbell.com as well. If you go to my social media, my focus really is on, I love being a coach, and so my focus is on providing useful information.

So, if you go to my sites, you'll see, I'm posting articles pretty frequently because I really want to empower people to understand how to lift barbells, because they have such a huge mental and physical benefit.

[00:32:40] Sanjay Parekh: Awesome. Thanks so much for being on the show today.

[00:32:42] Chris Van Nostrand: My pleasure. Thank you.

[00:32:47] Sanjay Parekh: Thanks for listening to this week's episode of the Side Hustle to Small Business podcast, powered by Hiscox. To learn more about how Hiscox can help protect your small business through intelligent insurance solutions, visit Hiscox.com. And to hear more Side Hustle to Small Business stories, or share your own story, please visit Hiscox.com/side-hustle-to-small-business. I'm your host, Sanjay Parekh. You can find out more about me at my website, SanjayParekh.com.