Travis LaBazzo has always had a plan—and he’s always been true to himself. He started out in the early 2000s as a personal trainer and eventually started his own personal training business.
“Back then, PT operations were still subcontracted departments within gyms,” he says. “So, I started New You Personal Training and went from one to four locations almost overnight.”
At the time, though, subcontracted personal training clubs were starting to get bad press, things were going downhill, and LaBazzo felt the market was simply too volatile to continue scaling his PT business.
“It was hard to sit back and watch the lack of effort put into all aspects of the business,” he adds. “The only way I would ever be able to be surrounded by a winning culture is by having control of the entire operation.”
Bringing Amped Fitness to Life
In 2015, LaBazzo decided to hit the reset button. Going back to a trusted contact—the first person he ever subcontracted with—he decided to partner on a new high volume-low priced (HVLP) concept called Amped Fitness.
But everything he learned along the way came with him, including knowledge he’d gained about effective member marketing, setting up the business structure right from the start, and more.
“I felt that everything I’d done to this point was a stepping stone,” he says. “I’d gained a lot of confidence doing what I was doing enough to understand that not having all the pieces was OK.”
LaBazzo had a different outlook as well. While he’d always considered himself a straightforward guy, he entered this particular venture with a very specific mindset.