A Conversation With ... Cami White

Burn Boot Camp last month marked a year in business in Springfield, and you’ve reached over 600 clients. How has this met or exceeded your expectations for year one?
Our long-term goal was to be a 500-member gym. However, we achieved that within six months of being open. In the entire Burn franchise, we were the fastest-growing franchise to 500 that there has been in the last 10 years since it’s been a franchise. So obviously, that far exceeded our expectations.

You own this franchise with your sister Karlee Yount. What is the strategy you both have taken to grow your membership?
Most of our success in growing our gym has come off of what we call raving fans. So, once we get someone into the gym and they fall in love with it, using them as our referrals. What are we going to do to figure out a way to get into their bubble? So, allowing them to invite their friends for free camps. We do a free, three-day trial. We’re very community based. Through relationships I think is how our gym has grown because you come, you love something and what do you want to do? You want to tell your friends about it. Posting on social media, tagging people on social media, making sure we’re relevant and on trend, and just putting people first. We make sure to provide what we call a “blue carpet” experience for each person that walks through our door. You’re going to be treated with respect and welcomed.

What is a Burn workout like?
All of our workouts are 45 minutes long. In a six-day week, we do three workouts that are going to be strength focused and then three workouts that are going to be conditioning focused. Every trainer is a certified personal trainer. The trainer is going to demo the warmup, and then the people in the camp will do the warmup and then they will demo the workout and then they go through a workout. We always wrap up with a finisher, which is the hardest part of camp. And then we cool down. Every single day the workout is different.

Fitness news site Athletech News reported this year that fitness franchises are booming, citing Orangetheory and F45 Training, among others. What do you attribute that market growth to?
As a country, we’ve seen a big shift in mental health awareness. Physically working out is known to help your mental health as well. And people being more aware of strategies and things that they can do just for a healthier lifestyle. We’re having women and men walk through the door every single day that have never worked out. That’s very intimidating to go into a big box gym and try to figure out what you’re supposed to do. That’s where these smaller, boutique fitness-style gyms are going to be more user-friendly for that population. At the same time, Burn really prides itself on being for every single person. You’re going to be challenged wherever you are. The state of our country as far as health, we have obesity epidemic. And so, people wanting to see change in their lives is obviously going to drive them hopefully to a healthy option to make lifestyle changes that are going to help them physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually.

You previously taught for a decade in group fitness at The Studio, but you also worked full time at Nixa Public Schools. What has that shift been like to become a full-time entrepreneur?
At one point, I was teaching full-time, teaching group fitness classes and then Karlee and I also had a small women’s clothing boutique. On top of that, I have three of my own kids that are highly involved in extracurriculars. To do just one job, and I’m still a mom obviously and that’s my most important job, but I look back at the years past and I think, how did I do that? I currently have a senior and a freshman in high school and we’re at a sporting event every single night of the week. To be a business owner and have flexibility in scheduling has been the biggest blessing. It’s different in that I don’t have hours I used to, I don’t think it ever stops because I’m always responding to emails or checking social media or interacting with people on those different platforms, so I can never turn off, but I can step away. When I’m with my family, I know that we have an amazing team running the gym. We 100% trust them.

You constructed a building for the gym and SBJ reported you built the space with room to lease. Are you currently leasing any space in the building? Do you have plans to occupy those yourself with the growth you’ve had?
We needed somebody to lease it out at the beginning. However, because we grew so quickly, it became more of a cost for us to put someone next to us because we have to increase our parking because we’re maxed out on our parking as it is right now. We shifted our focus, took the signs down, realized we just need to focus on continuing to grow our gym and keep it healthy and not worry about having to be a landlord. We’re very close to something happening in the next couple months here.

Since you blew past your long-term goal within the first six months of business, what are your new goals as you look at year two and beyond?
We’re going to continue to grow. We want to retain members. But we also just want to make sure we have the healthiest gym possible. We want to make sure that everybody feels seen and we have to make sure that we have systems in place so that people don’t fly under the radar when they don’t come to camp for a week. I think just how amazing it’s been in the last 12 months to truly see this dream that we had that through fitness, lives can be transformed and empowered in our community. Our goal was to be able to open our doors and have people come in and see that they’re capable of so much more than what they think.