We are Beth Anne Kennedy and Ellen Cobb, co-owners of Novo Fitness Studio in Columbus, Georgia. We’re sisters, best friends, and seven years ago, we added “business partners” to our relationship classification as well. When Ellen’s Master’s Degree internship fell through and Beth Anne stopped her teaching career to be at home with a newborn, we felt it was the perfect time to take on a new venture. And who better to go into business with than the person you know best?
We opened Novo Fitness Studio in February 2014 as the first “fitness studio” in Columbus and the surrounding areas. Our goal was to create an encouraging community for women of all fitness levels and experience to work towards total-body wellness. In our minds, this was a risky concept since Columbus was saturated with big box gyms and had no concept of the difference between those and boutique fitness studios. We found a vacant cell phone store next to Tractor Supply in (what was then) an undeveloped area, held our first week of classes for $1 per session, and said a prayer.
Our studio has grown more than our wildest dreams could ever envision seven and a half years later. Our space, community, staff, and methods have exponentially expanded, which means our workload has as well. Our “behind the scenes” operations haven’t changed, though; it’s still just the two of us, sitting at our Mom’s kitchen table, dreaming big things as the kids run around and the dog barks in the background.
We’ve learned astronomically more lessons over the last seven years of becoming entrepreneurs and growing a successful small business – we’ve got enough to write a novel (or four). But for this blog, we are focusing on the top five lessons we’ve learned to create a successful business partnership.
Lesson 1: Be honest and transparent, even when it gets uncomfortable.
We keep an open dialogue and always state our honest opinions. This came easy for us because we’ve had a 25+ year friendship rooted in just that – honesty, and of course, unconditional love. So there’s minimal “at-risk” for us if one of us presents the other side, nixes an idea, or suggests a different way to think about something. And because we are opposites in most ways, we realize the benefit of truly hearing the other person and expanding our own perspective in turn.
Lesson 2: Communication is critical.
We’ve learned the importance of keeping constant communication with each other and the value of truly listening. It’s this combination that allows us to run things smoothly, efficiently, and effectively. On any given day, we will touch base a minimum of three times via phone to brief each other on studio happenings, share new ideas that come to us in the shower, problem solve, brainstorm, etc. We keep a shared note on our iPhones to constantly log things that need to be discussed between the two of us.
Lesson 3: Timing is everything.
This lesson took us longer to learn. Our studio operates from 5 am to 8 pm, and we are open every day of the week. So there is always something that needs our attention regarding the business. In addition, our schedules are polar opposites. Beth Anne is a morning person, and Ellen is a night owl, so our daily schedules regarding the studio and our personal lives are never in sync. Our solution to the endless cycle of never having a moment “off” has been to divide our time “on-call” with things at the studio, set designated time blocks for work sessions, schedule meetings in advance, and make a point to respect each other’s personal schedules and activities.
Lesson 4: Play to each other’s strengths and know each other’s weaknesses.
While there are, inevitably, countless situations regarding the studio that demand attention from both of us, we do our best to take the “divide and conquer” route. And most of this happened naturally for us, as we gravitated towards the work “to-dos” that we felt we could accomplish well. Our personalities and interests and our strengths and weaknesses are opposite of each other, so we use this to our advantage daily. While Ellen, a long-time “fashionista,” handles clothing orders for the boutique, Beth Anne, an English major, creates the copy for our written marketing. At this point in our business, we don’t even have to discuss who will handle a specific task – it’s just understood.
Lesson 5: It’s a whole family affair.
Although technically it’s just the two of us who own Novo, it takes our whole family to run it smoothly. Our husbands both supported our dream from the beginning, but we don’t think either of them realized exactly what they were getting themselves into. From handyman work to accounting and everything in between, our two husbands save the day regularly. Our parents are also a huge asset to us and regularly watch over Beth Anne’s three kids to allow her to be present for all things Novo-related.
To learn more about Novo Fitness Studio, visit their website at https://www.novofitnessstudio.com/. If you missed our discussion with Beth Anne and Ellen, you can visit our Instagram TV to tune in.
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