When American Executive Centers offered to give a year of free professional office space and support services, a lot of home-based businesses in the Philadelphia area jumped at the idea and entered the Instant Office Contest.
They all sent in essays to make the case for how a professional office would help them grow their business. And, they sent photos of their current workspace.
In the end, NBC10 viewers voted on the top three finalists, picking Flip Fitness as the winner.
Susan McInerney, one of the Flip Fitness owners, explained in their entry how the home office just wasn’t the ideal set up anymore :
Picture this: it’s Tuesday evening and three business partners, one investor and one IT consultant are huddled around a dining room table. Scattered about the room are boxes full of cards, clothing, marketing materials, and folders with important documents. As the meeting begins, in walks one of the partner’s eighteen-year-old daughter along with two of her friends. They plop down on the couch and begin watching TV. The meeting group tries to stay focused and move forward with the agenda. Shortly there after, hubby walks in, greets the group and begins to recap the inning-by-inning plays from the afternoon’s Philly’s game. Next a neighbor knocks at the door, goes to the fridge and cracks open a beer, not realizing that we are actually in the middle of a business meeting. Aggghh! Stop the madness!
Now, Flip Fitness can continue to build their business in a professional environment.
What is the idea behind Flip Fitness? “Basically, what we did is we took 9 different body weight exercises, assigned them to the suits of the cards and then your job is to select the workout that is best-suited to your fitness level,” says Heather Hoehn, Flip Fitness co-owner. Check out their website to see how it works.
American Executive Centers pitched the “free office space for a year” idea to help support a local small business. President Mike Howard says support, especially for start-up companies, can be a key to success for people trying to grow a business.
“Heather and Susan are great with their product and great with fitness, but they might not be as good at marketing their business or perhaps doing some of their accounting,” says Howard. “And that's some of the kind of support that American Executive Centers offers to their clients.”
Heather and Susan can’t wait to grow. Let’s just say FlipFitness.com is flipping out over its new digs!
