On this episode of Rick and Friends, Rick Maddison sits down with former corporate lawyer and entrepreneur Tricia Chrzanowski.
She tells her inspiring journey from having a prestigious law career to selling everything, going all in and starting 9Round Fitness, not knowing what was looming ahead.
Tricia Chrzanowski
“It was amazing, and I would never change it,” she says of opening three 9Round locations. “Even with the way that it ended, that we've had to close them, I wouldn't change it, ever."
Tricia takes us back in time to the day-to-day of an impacted small business owner who went from flourishing in the spring of 2020 to shutting their doors permanently, all while setting a positive example for her son.
“We thought it might be a week,” Tricia recounts of the first closure. "Then it ended up being three months.”
And like many others, she adds one more memory.
“I cried, I was so sad.”
Originally opening their doors in September 2018, the couple's entrepreneurial spirit and skills were evident, as the family business had been very successful.
Tricia recounts their impressive 18-month growth.
“We had three gyms, three locations open," she explains. "We had a manager in each of the locations, we had 25 trainers.”
That all changed in March 2020.
“We heard about it on the news,” Tricia explains. “There was no separate phone call, maybe other businesses had that, but not us."
"We just were watching the news like everybody else and heard that everything was shutting down, and then there were publications, both the mandated closures and public health orders."
Tricia shares that she didn’t regret shutting down, particularly for the first two closures.
“We thought that was right, and I think it probably didn't help us,” she reflects. “But I wouldn't change that either."
Rick and Tricia discuss when things began to get to the point of no return, and how challenging it was, even for business owners with law degrees, to navigate.
“My husband and I were challenged by trying to understand why we could do one thing, but we couldn't do another,” admits Tricia, whose previous career was a highly accredited corporate lawyer.
“For example, members had to wear a mask coming into the gym when they could take it off for the workout,” she recalls, adding that it seemed like an odd twist.
She says that 9Round Fitness never broke the rules or got fined, explaining that public health officials were consistently checking in.
“There are lots of other organizations that fought those fines," she says. "I didn't want to be in that position."
"We were spending all our time just trying to survive.”
Tune in to hear the rest of her journey and how Tricia is continuing to take everything in stride.
“It's devastating,” she says. “But I refuse to see it as a failure in any way.”
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