Photo by Sarah Marcella
WTF IS GOING ON HERE? A Letter from Betsy Weissman, Owner of sculp'd Of all the business scenarios I planned for as the owner of my fitness studio, sculp'd, managing through a global pandemic never made it onto my list of worst-case scenarios. What does this feel like? It's just like riding the scariest roller coaster, after eating a corn dog and fries, and they won’t let you off the ride. Here is an inside look into the mind and wild thoughts of a small business owner trying to survive through COVID-19. sculp’d forcibly goes from 75 in-studio classes a week to zero. From 18 employees and instructors to three. I cut as many expenses as I can, call the landlord, call all suppliers & vendors. I close the doors, and encourage my staff and clients to shelter at home. I talk to my webmaster every day – we get our YouTube Channel launched. I update the website, learn WordPress and start coding on www.sculpd.co. The new website is ready to go. Maybe I should go into web design? Two weeks in and sculp’d has over 10,000 streams from our free videos. Amazing! We are killing it! We are going to make it!
Our sculp’d squad knows we need their support – they will, of course, join our new paid platform. We just need to cover our expenses to get through this.
We’ll make it. Three weeks now and I think we are total rock stars! We changed our business model overnight and they love us. They really love us! In just three weeks, sculp’d went from zero online classes per week to 20 and we now have over 100 OnDemand videos in our library. Our total views top 15,000. But wait .... people aren’t converting to paid memberships. They are only using the free videos. What?
Did I totally screw this up? I became a Small Business expert on the loans and Payback Protection Program (PPP). I share my knowledge with all of the other Old Town Boutiques. Do this! Get ready for that! Prepare
sculp’d | Pilates, HIIT, Yoga & Barre Studio 703-567-4442 | 1103 Queen Street, Old Town Alexandria hello@sculpd.co | www.sculpd.co
26 • VIP ALEXANDRIA MAGAZINE
