One year ago, Jolene and David Telesco opened Fit Club, a cardio fitness studio based within a mixed-use building in Shelton. And it seemed like the perfect location for the business ”” until the studio hosted its first kickboxing class.
“Five minutes into the class, I get a call from the landlord and he was like, ‘What are you doing down there?’” Jolene recalled “We had knocked all the pictures off of the walls upstairs.”
Luckily for the couple, they also operated a Pilates studio in Shelton called The Pilates Barre in a space that did not include upstairs residences. The Telescos switched the locations for their studios while simultaneously running Anything Goes Fitness, their first business which opened in October 2015.
Jolene stated the couple”™s journey into entrepreneurship came from her own frustration within the local fitness industry.
“I was a manager for a local big box gym and then became a trainer there,” she said. “I decided that I really wanted to do something more personal and private for clients who needed to be able to move better and feel healthy. And so, David and I decided that we were going to do this crazy thing called opening a business.”
David Telesco did not come from the fitness industry ”” he was a shop foreman at First Transit in Shelton, where he serviced transportation fleets.
“I did not have anything to do besides having a passion with fitness,” he said. “And I had to learn the entire industry. I am now certified in several different modalities of nutrition and in facilitated stretching, and I’m also a certified personal trainer and life coach.”
In switching out the two studios, David also doubled as a moving man.
“It was a ton of fun moving 10 100-pound boxing bags down the stairs,” he laughed.
Jolene defined the couple”™s fitness brand as “community-based health, wellness and nutrition.” Most of their clients are within Shelton and the surrounding towns, although they also attract clients from as far away as Fairfield, Westport and Greenwich
“Most of our clients are individuals that don’t want to go to a large gym,” Jolene explained, noting that many of the Telescos”™ clients are “immune-compromised, immune-deficient, injured post-surgical people who just need to move their bodies differently in order to stay active without pain.”
By keeping their client work to small classes and one-on-one training, the Telescos have encouraged a sense of trust that has extended beyond their studios.
“We know our clients, our clients know us and they feel very comfortable,” Jolene said. “We have a very good relationship with the medical field ”” we’ve partnered with a nutritionist, chiropractors and doctors that refer us clients and we refer them clients. So, if you were my client and you do a weekend warrior thing and suddenly your arm doesn’t work, I know where to send you to get the care you need.”
Jolene added that the couple have become prominent within Shelton to the point that “our kids joke they can’t go anywhere in town because everybody knows us.” However, when the Covid-19 pandemic took root, the Telescos quickly pivoted from in-person to virtual training.
“When the pandemic happened, we closed on March 16, which was a Monday,” David said. “On Tuesday, my wife started doing FaceTime calls with her clients. By Wednesday. I started with my clients. By the following week, about 80% of our clients were back on-board virtual training with us, and we trained like that for about three months through the quarantines.
“The clients that did not train,” he continud, “I’d say about 70% of them, donated their monthly membership to keep us open in business, with no expectation to get those services back. And that’s the type of rapport that we build with these people.”
The Telescos recently started an internship program and they have their first intern who is using the experience as a path towards industry certification. Looking ahead into 2022, Jolene is predicting a “year of onward, steady growth, having a good growing plan and partnering with some good peers to take us to the next level.”
Jolene is also planning to “enact our long-long-term retirement plan where we start to bring on trainers that we train in our style and our modality” while the couple spend less time working and more time with their family.
“It”™s 12:30 at night on a Saturday and we’re still talking about work,” said David, with a smile.
“Well, that’s because we”™re super-married,” Jolene responded. “So, we go home and the business goes home with us.”
