After years of treating patients with preventable chronic illnesses, Nicole Batts wanted to leave the healthcare industry and help people get healthy before reaching the hospital.
Batts took over ownership of Old Town’s Fitness Together Alexandria (300 N Washington Street, Suite 106) in 2019. That comes after working in nursing in the surgical intensive care unit at Washington Hospital Center, the emergency room at Inova Loudoun Hospital and nursing manager of the clinical cardiac rehab program at Inova Fairfax Hospital.
“Spending my time in nursing, I realized the biggest piece was the lack of movement and the lack of exercise and the lack of education on knowing what was required to make healthy changes and the consistency that was needed and the foods that we should be eating on a regular basis,” Batts told ALXnow. “There’s only so much education that you can do, and I really, really, really wanted to be more in that promoting health, preventing illness space.”
After nearly seven years in nursing, she transitioned to buying the personal training gym in Alexandria. When Batts bought Fitness Together Alexandria, she was a new mother on maternity leave. Since her father worked in venture capital to buy and sell businesses, Batts knew growing up she wanted to break into business ownership.
With personal training, Batts said staff “meet our clients where they are.” Fitness Together Alexandria operates as a by-appointment small studio for 45-minute sessions, and much of the clientele is women in their 40s to 70s. Typically, its personal training program begins with building strength before gradually introducing nutrition.
“You don’t want to just throw everything at everyone at once, so it’s a little bit stages,” Batts said. “You start out with the exercise piece, and I think exercise can go a long way because a lot of times when you feel better, when you feel stronger, when you have more confidence, you’re stronger, you’re more resilient, and then often gives the opportunity of being able to eat better.”
October marks National Women’s Small Business Month, a time to celebrate the accomplishments of female entrepreneurs in the small business community. Batts finds doing business in Alexandria rewarding due to the small town feel, walkability, restaurants and small business community that partners together.
“You can find your people, and it’s nice to work with individuals who want to work with business owners who are local, who are Alexandria, who are small, who are mom-and-pop-type places,” Batts said. “I think that’s the beauty of Alexandria in particular.”
Batts said it has been challenging to balance family life with running a business. With her husband traveling a lot for work, she has brought her now 7-year-old daughter to work at times.
“I have a lot more time freedom than I would as a nurse working 12-hour shifts,” Batts said. “We work a lot and our hours are long, but I think the work is fun. It’s really important to me to have a little bit more of the time freedom that nursing doesn’t allow.”
Batts had the support of entrepreneurial parents and Fitness Together’s franchise system. But she said Black business owners may often lack the support they need and recommends finding an organization or mentor to guide them.
“I enjoy what I do, and I want to keep doing this for as long as possible,” Batts said. “So it is really special to be a Black business owner and a woman business owner as well, and hopefully just able to be an example and showing that you know it is possible. It’s challenging, but it’s doable.”
