How Fitness Guru Taryn Toomey Learned to Love Cash Flow and Created Jennifer Aniston’s Favorite Workout
Taryn Toomey launched the fitness phenomenon that would become known as The Class in 2011. Almost from the start, the cardio-meets-Pilates workout attracted famous fans. Jennifer Aniston has shelled out for an intimate retreat with Toomey in Ojai, California. Christy Turlington and Gisele Bündchen are a routine presence at her Tribeca studio in New York City. But The Class isn't just a fad for the elite. Toomey—a former sales executive at Ralph Lauren and Christian Dior—is determined to make it a viable business. Here's how she created it and what's next.
I’ve always had a drive in me that’s wanted to work. I remember when I was really little, I set up an office in my dad’s home office and used a step stool as a chair. I used our old typewriter and wrote “Taryn’s Office” on it. My dad would give me little jobs, putting labels on envelopes. And I just loved it. It made me feel important.
The summer after fifth grade, I got my first job. I picked vegetables at a farm near our house for $3.25 an hour. I immediately felt proud, doing the work and getting paid. Whatever I’ve accomplished, I’ve done with sheer will and focus. That’s what’s opened doors for me, as opposed to going the traditional route, graduating from college and deciding on a certain career. That’s not me at all. I do and live first, plan later.
And even as a kid, the money part mattered to me a lot. I remember I would go to the store and I would look at the magazines I wanted to buy and think, It will take me an hour and ten minutes to be able to buy that. For a long time, that’s how I operated. I would calculate in my head, This costs 10 hours of work, or whatever the number was. And then I would sit there and decide if I wanted to do it. I still think like that, thinking in terms of hours and labor. When you frame it like that, all of a sudden that random purchase might not feel worth it.
I first started working at Ralph Lauren in one of its stores. During those years I saved a lot. I used checkbooks and would handwrite each purchase down to the dollar; coffees, dinners, I kept track of it all. I was able to save thousands just because I really put a lot of thought into how I spent. When I moved to New York for a job in fashion, I found out as soon as I got there that the job had been cut. I was in New York for three months before another job at Ralph Lauren opened up. This was a while ago, but I had saved up enough money to live in New York for three months with no job.
I’ve always looked for opportunities to stretch a dollar. I once spent a summer at the Ralph Lauren store in East Hampton, New York, and at the time the company gave the people who worked there a stipend to find a place to live. I took that stipend and put it toward a house, and then I rented the other rooms out to people so that I could make extra money while I was there. I’m interested in cash flow, probably because of my dad, who always really wanted to get a business off the ground. I learned a lot from him about how to see opportunities, how to make the most of them and just keep going no matter what.
When I moved out, I clung to that, I think. I didn’t really have a choice. There was no family money to fall back on. I had to succeed. I had to figure it out. And I had to save a lot because I had seen how quickly money could disappear.
Even now that The Class is a success, I’m always thinking about how to create more cash flow so I can live a life that I love, and for me that’s meant figuring out how I can make money doing things that I enjoy. That summer in East Hampton, I got to live in the house and make money on the house. When I started hosting retreats, it was because I wanted to go on vacation. I never traveled much and I wanted to experience music, movement, community, and good food in beautiful places. I built the retreat so I could make money on the retreat so I could then go on the retreat.
People didn’t believe that what I had created could scale. It was like, “It’s just you, Taryn. This is a brand of personality. This is not something that you can teach other teachers to do.” I would just tell them, “I appreciate your feedback.”
That’s really how I created The Class. I taught it for two years with no name and for no money. At some point I decided I needed a website so I had to have a name, so I called it The Class. That was September 2013, and I did two classes a week. Demand was insane, so I added a third and then a fourth. And then it was like, “Wow, wait a second. This is an income.”
At first I rented a kids’ dance studio, and I had zero other overhead costs. People signed up because a friend told them about it. One summer we had to last-minute move because it was summer and there were more kids’ classes. I found a place down the block and just hauled the 45 mats over there so that we wouldn’t have to shut down for the entire season. It was hard to grow, though. Really hard. Because people didn’t believe that what I had created could scale. It was like, “It’s just you, Taryn. This is a brand of personality. This is not something that you can teach other teachers to do.” I would just tell them, “I appreciate your feedback.” I knew in my gut we could pull it off.
We have 22 teachers now, and I recoup 15 percent of revenue. We’ve proved it’s a method and not just me. I also think it was important that I invested in the teacher training manual, which I would recommend to people who run businesses. I saw that as intellectual property, and I wanted it to be really solid. We’re now on our fourth iteration of it. When we nailed that down, I felt like, OK, this is a real business that I operate and that will be able to exist when I’m gone.
One piece of advice I got early on was to hire slow, fire fast. We have a really supportive company environment, but it works for some people and it doesn’t for others. That’s fine. It's vital to know when something is not working and act with precision to execute and be as unflappable as possible because your team is watching you. In those moments, trust your gut. Elizabeth Cutler, one of the cofounders of SoulCycle, once said that. She probably doesn’t even know what an effect it had on me. It really empowered me. And it’s the truth. The answers are in you.
This year, 2019, is going to be the year you’re going to see us everywhere. We’re going to be out there in a much bigger way, and I’m excited. When I first started it, it was just The Class. But an old business partner suggested we make it The Class by Taryn Toomey, just to give it a human behind it. I understood it at the time. But we’re at a phase right now where I want to take my name off it and go back to the spirit and ethos of how I started it. A good business is bigger than one person; this is bigger than me.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
April is Financial Literacy Month on CNBC. To mark it, we don't just want to talk about the wage gap or the disadvantages women still face in the workplace. We want action—to the tune of $10,000. This month we'll explore what women can do to net a cool $10K. That means strategies to save more and spend smarter, tactics to negotiate not just at work, but on health care, home decor, and more, and stories to inspire your inner CEO.
