Medium
Cereza Richeson of Motivate Studios: Five Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Launched My Business or Startup
[as originally published on medium.com]
Taking the risk to start a company is a feat few are fully equipped for. Any business owner knows that the first few years in business are anything but glamorous. Building a successful business takes time, lessons learned, and most importantly, enormous growth as a business owner. What works and what doesn’t when one starts a new business? What are the valuable lessons learned from the “University of Adversity”? As part of this interview series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Cereza Richeson.
Cereza Richeson is the CEO of Motivate Studios and a Master Trainer in Lagree Fitness. Soon to unveil her 11th location in Southern California, Cereza’s dedication to empowering her community through fitness is unmistakable. From investing every penny into her dreams to attracting a roster of celebrity clients, Cereza epitomizes the transformative influence of unwavering passion.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
Ididn’t have any sort of athletic influence growing up. Actually, it was quite the opposite! But I did grow up around entrepreneurs in my immediate and extended family. This instilled a foundation where I felt confident to make my own way. I took my first Lagree class after having my third child. I was struggling to keep up with the physical demands and decided to give this workout a try. Almost instantly I started feeling stronger, more energetic, and an increase in confidence. I soon after began teaching because I wanted to help change others’ lives in the way the workout had changed mine.
Can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey?
We came out of the recession pretty bruised and literally bankrupt. We were unable to get financing, so we had to get creative to fund the opening our first location. We took on the construction portion ourselves and I taught class myself every day for months to keep the costs down. When our doors opened, we had zero dollars for operating costs. Amazingly, I had enough sales the first month to pay rent and overhead!
Where did you get the drive to continue even though things were so hard?
Growing up around entrepreneurs instilled a foundation where I felt confident to make my own way. We have a mantra that we “figure things out!”
So, how are things going today? How did grit and resilience lead to your eventual success?
I’m immensely proud to say that we’ve grown from one to (soon to be) eleven locations in nine years.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
This is super boring, but I don’t know if I have a funny mistake. I definitely had some embarrassing and unfortunate mistakes, but none of them were very funny.
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
We hear regularly about how special the atmosphere is at Motivate. Living in Los Angeles, we have many fitness studios a stone’s throw away from each other. I’ve had multiple experiences where I would try a new spot and was either made to feel unwelcome or felt like I was the uninvited kid at the cool party. It was really important to me that, as our team grew, everyone was on the same page about our main goal, which is to ensure that every person who walks in feels welcomed and encouraged — and leaves feeling empowered and accomplished!
Which tips would you recommend to your colleagues in your industry to help them to thrive and not “burn out”?
I would say that you should prioritize supporting your team, because this is truly the backbone of your success. One single person can’t grow a business. Cultivating an amazing team will absolutely help make the journey more fun.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?
I wouldn’t have been able to grow Motivate without my husband. He was there to support the journey every step of the way. Our kids joked that whenever I had a particularly busy work phase and dad was in charge, that it would be “eggs for dinner until mom isn’t busy anymore!”
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
Every day we’re reminded by our members just how much Motivate means to them. They keep choosing to walk through our doors because we’re dedicated to bringing positivity, growth, strength, and health into their lives. We also collaborate with local, female-owned businesses to help raise awareness and support. Recently, we collaborated with Wild Acai, which is a female-owned business that opened in Montrose. And when a former Motivate trainer opened a med-spa named Beauty & Brawn Aesthetics, we were thrilled to help spread the news to help support our former teammate!
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first launched my business,” and why?
1. Don’t give away your services. This was a tough lesson for me because I wanted to encourage people to try out our studio, but I quickly learned that giving away classes devalued how special Motivate is.
2. Ask for help. In the beginning, I had to wear every hat in order to save costs. But it didn’t mean I couldn’t ask for help in other ways. When I eventually did start asking for help with various things, I was surprised at how willing people were to contribute in their own way.
3. Focus on what you do well. I used to struggle with comparing myself to similar businesses and doubting if I was doing enough or being edgy or cool enough. I had to remind myself that what we were doing was really very special and that we were building an amazing member base in our own way. So I stopped following the other business’ social media, un-subscribed to their emails, and continued to focus on what I was doing well. This was a game changer for me.
4. Create your ideal scene and write it down with coordinating policy to support it. In the beginning, I “winged it” a lot. Something would happen and I’d make a policy for or against that occurrence. This went on for a few years. Eventually I assembled proper policy book, because if you aren’t clear with expectations and standards with your team, you’ll leave a lot of space for interpretation. And I’ve found that you just can’t assume that people will just know how you want things done.
5. Remember that success has no quantitative limit. You can succeed. I can succeed. And the other guys can succeed. When I started I remember being in fear of someone opening a fitness concept near me and that I’d lose clients. After a while, though, I realized that no one business can service everyone, and that someone else’s success does not mean my failure.
Can you share a few ideas or stories from your experience about how to successfully ride the emotional highs and lows of being a founder?
A very recent lesson for me was the importance of being a friend to yourself. I was dealing with something really difficult and I asked myself, “If a friend were telling me about this situation, what would my advice be?” I realized that I wasn’t listening to that advice. It was really interesting. This shift enabled me to grant myself grace where I once couldn’t, find the courage to face my fears, and acknowledge the value of my accomplishments!
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
This may be very cliche, but I’d love to see more compassion in the world with everyone keeping in mind that all of our interaction are with other human beings. I understand the value of review-based platforms and that it’s a part of the current world we live in. That said, unless the intentions are truly egregious, whether from a patron or the business side, I believe some compassion could go a long way. I think people sometimes lose sight of that and expect 100% out of people 100% of the time, which is an impossible standard to achieve because everyone has “off” days. You never know what someone may be going through in their life and I think we could all benefit from a more compassionate world.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
Our website is motivatestudios.com. And its instagram is @motivatestudios.
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!