#awinewith Taryn Watson: when your business looks successful but isn't making money
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Taryn Watson built FitRight into 20 class locations with up to 40 instructors, and from the outside it looked like a runaway success. Behind the scenes, she was treading water on razor-thin margins, until COVID forced the reset that became FitRight Women's Health, a profitable multidisciplinary clinic in Perth with physios, GPs, a dietitian and exercise classes under one roof. In this episode she talks honestly about the gap between looking successful and being sustainable, the business partner who changed everything, and the mantra that carried her through.
When your business looks successful but isn't
At its peak, FitRight's pregnancy and postnatal exercise classes ran across 20 locations with 35 to 40 trained instructors, and everyone told Taryn how well she was doing. "From the outside, I was getting so much praise, saying, wow, look at how big this is now! But internally, I knew that I was just treading water, just keeping my head above water." Paid in advance for courses and running margins of five per cent or less, she was using money from the next course to pay instructors for the last one. "I knew it was not right. I just couldn't see how to get myself out of it."
The COVID rock bottom that forced the reset
When COVID closed everything, Taryn had a five-month-old, a three-year-old, instructors owed money and no next course coming in. "That was rock bottom. If I'm going to survive this, something has to change." Within a year she'd partnered with Jess, her former operations manager and one of her best friends from uni, and launched the clinic they'd talked about 20 years earlier: a multidisciplinary women's health clinic pulling all the puzzle pieces, physio, GP, dietitian, lactation support and classes, under one roof. Five years on, it's the business she'd always pictured, and a WA Business Awards finalist that's finally as good behind the scenes as it looks from the front.
Her secret? "Find a Jess"
When other clinic owners ask Taryn her secret, her answer is simple: "Find a Jess!" Her business partner's strengths (operations, finance, management) complement her own (marketing, promotion, mentoring, recruiting), and she's clear she couldn't run the business this well alone. The other game changer: "Business coaching has definitely been an investment that's been one of the best things we've ever done." Two courses over five years, including one specifically for female allied health clinic owners, taught two physios who never studied business their Finance 101. And yes, there's a proper partnership agreement covering the what-ifs.
Marketing when the regulator won't let you use testimonials
FitRight's growth isn't driven by GP referrals like Taryn expected. The tracking shows it's word of mouth, Meta ads and consistency: a Monday email newsletter that's gone out every week for more than three years, drawing on the whole team's expertise. Because AHPRA rules mean no testimonials, they get creative with storytelling instead. "The more that we talk about these things candidly, and I get my face out there, the more people know about women's health physiotherapy." Her next move: a podcast pulling the pelvic health puzzle pieces together.
Taryn's one piece of advice for women in business
"Perseverance, and never losing track of the end picture. Where I am now is what I had in my head 20 years ago, and it took a bit of a convoluted way to get there, but I didn't lose sight of what that picture looked like. I can remember saying in my head so many times, in those tough times when things felt really heavy and financially difficult: I am calm, I am happy, and I'm right where I'm supposed to be on my journey. That was my mantra, and it kept me grounded. This is tough, but I know where this is heading. Just one step at a time."
Meet Taryn, Founder of FitRight Women's Health
Taryn Watson is a pelvic health physiotherapist and the Founder of FitRight Women's Health, Perth's multidisciplinary women's health clinic with locations in Applecross and West Perth. With a Masters in pelvic health physiotherapy and nearly 20 years in women's health, Taryn and her team of physios, GPs, dietitian and lactation consultants help women through pregnancy, postpartum, pelvic pain, prolapse, perimenopause and beyond, complete with physio-led exercise classes and baby-cuddling volunteers.
You can find her here:
Full transcript
Danielle: Oh my god, so good. Taryn, welcome to Spark TV!
Taryn: Great to be here!
Danielle: I'm so excited to have you here because, you know, I don't often get to meet guests in real life, but we did start our journey, so, through another female founder at a little event, and sat next to each other, and now you're here on the podcast! So, how amazing is networking?
Taryn: I know, I know, it's always so good. And things like that, where it was like a weeknight, and I was like, oh, I don't know if I want to go out. But then, it always ends up leading to something. There's always a reason for those networking things, aren't there? There's always something that comes from it.
Danielle: It's so true, and I'm the same. It's like, once 5 o'clock hits, I'm like, I wanna get in my PJs, I wanna sit on the couch, I'd like a glass of wine, and that's the day done, you know?
Taryn: We did have spicy margaritas, so, you know...
Danielle: That's true, we did! I haven't had a margarita in so long, and that was just so much fun. So good. So, now that we've made everyone jealous, let's tell everyone who you are and what you do.
Taryn: So, I'm Taryn Watson, and I'm a pelvic health physio, which I think is becoming a bit more well-known now what that is, but basically, I'm a physio who doesn't work with knees and hips and backs very much. I work with pelvic floors. I work with vaginas. I had gone and done a Masters degree in pelvic health physiotherapy, and then I started a business called FitRight since then. And the actual business is about 12 years old, a few iterations, and right now, the mainstay of FitRight is a women's health clinic. So it's a multidisciplinary clinic with GPs, dietitian, pelvic health physios, musculoskeletal physios, exercise classes, all in the one clinic. And that's what I really am passionate about, is pulling all those puzzle pieces together for women, under the one roof and the one banner, to help with very, very common, and often very embarrassing, pelvic health conditions and other women's health conditions. And, yeah, that's where my business has ended up.
Danielle: I love this, on so many levels, because I love the journey story, but also because I'm an old person now, you know, and discovering all of the wonderful things about being a woman.
Taryn: We're the same age, I believe, actually. I was listening to another podcast episode where you said your age, and I actually believe we are the same age.
Danielle: There you go. How did this happen to us? I don't know. It's so funny. But it's so true. I am just now... I guess I've been pretty lucky my whole life. I've been one of those people where it's just like, everything will be fine, everything will be fine, and then I think you hit an age, and then it's like, all of a sudden, nothing is fine. And I really feel like the general GP that you go to when you have a cold sometimes has no idea about what you're talking about, and I think that women's bodies are so beautiful, yet complex. So, having somewhere that women can go for all of those different things is pretty exciting, and kind of revolutionary. Like, it's kind of a shame that it's revolutionary, but so nice that it exists.
Taryn: Yes, yeah, and that lightbulb moment happened for me quite early in my career, when I started, you know, we're talking nearly 20 years ago, when I was a baby physio and working at a private hospital on a maternity ward, and in the outpatient clinic there. And I would be seeing these women for treatment. We can do physio treatment for mastitis and damaged nipples, and they would come and see me for these treatments that would really help, but then I knew that the other puzzle pieces were that they would have to see a lactation consultant, and they'd have to see a GP if they needed antibiotics. And these poor women, coming to this big hospital and finding parking with a newborn, and then coming to see me, and then I'm telling them they have to go do this and that. That was where the current iteration of the business stemmed from, way back then, when I was like, what if issues like that, such a common issue, could all be under the one roof, instead of women having to source it? And that's in the newborn phase, which is extremely important, but also perimenopause, also chronic pelvic pain, also prolapse, also postnatal rehab and pregnancy care. Like, why are we having to go to all these different places and work out ourselves where the gold standard is in all these different places? Like you said, it shouldn't be revolutionary, and it is becoming more common now to have multidisciplinary women's health clinics, but definitely when it was in my head back then, nothing like that existed.
Danielle: So, talk to me about your journey. So, how did we get here? Where did you start? What was the career? And how did we get to the clinic we have today?
Taryn: Yeah, well, I think even before that point, even before, 18 or 19 years ago, at that private hospital, in university days, I remember talking with friends at university, one friend in particular, who's now my business partner, about this idea of, like, a women's health clinic with everything under the one roof. And then I went down that path, working at this private maternity hospital in Perth, and while I was there, there was a gap in the market that I saw. We were running, and I was running, multiple classes of these a week: aqua pregnancy and postnatal classes, like, in the water. And I loved instructing those classes, but I was also becoming a Pilates instructor, and I did a whole year of training to become a Pilates instructor, and I was like, I want to run a version of that that's Pilates. But physio clinics don't have space to run 10 or 12-person classes inside, then it's too noisy with all the babies, and, you know, why doesn't this exist, and how can I make this happen? So, that was 2014, that was when the FitRight name came about, and my bosses at the time let me go off and do this on the side, and hire spaces in community halls and things. And I ended up training other physiotherapists to do these, at the time, 6-week programs. They're now eight weeks. Pregnancy and postnatal exercise classes, where one of the big things was that we had baby-cuddling volunteers to look after the babies while the mums are exercising. And those classes still exist now, we still run those, have an 8-week course starting this week. That's been, what, 12 years. So that's where it all started. But that grew really quickly, and it was just me managing it, with my mum as my business manager for a while.
Danielle: I love mums in the business journey.
Taryn: I'm working full-time, and I'm doing my Masters, and I'm trying to do that at the same time, and I'm getting married, and then trying to have my own fertility journey over that time. It was a lot, and I didn't have any experience in business, and although it looked really good from the outside, it got to the point where there were 20 locations of these classes, with, at one point, 35 or 40 instructors who were trained and actively running.
Danielle: No.
Taryn: But behind the scenes, it was really, really tricky. It was really overwhelming, and it was me wearing all the hats. And from a finance point of view, there were things going on in the background where, because I was getting paid in advance for those courses, it was quite quickly snowballing, well, over time, snowballing, so that I was spending and having this pool of money for expenses, but then it was the end of the course, I'd have to pay the instructors, and I was ending up taking money from the next course to pay the instructors for the previous course. And it wasn't until I had my own children, and I kept it going, and then COVID hit, and we had to close down...
Danielle: Oh, boy.
Taryn: It was finally at that point that it was like, oh my goodness, I have to pay the previous instructors, with no next course coming in. And that was rock bottom. It had been struggling for a while, through my journey of having my two kids and just keeping it going with all these stresses, and then that was the point where I was like, right, okay, if I'm going to get this back up and running... and we pivoted to online classes really quickly, but I was like, if I'm going to survive this, something has to change. And so the clinic actually came about in 2021, so that was within a year after all the stuff happening with COVID. I had partnered with Jess, my business partner, who at the time had been my operations manager. She's a physio too, and was on maternity leave. And we launched the clinic in 2021, with the classes still attached to it, but now only the employees of the clinic run the classes, and the classes are only in three locations, not 20.
Danielle: Oh my god, that's wild! And also really interesting, COVID was such a massive reset, I think, for a lot of business. It's actually really funny, I have a similar story. Leading into COVID, my previous business was kind of that real touch-and-go, like, relying on the next thing to sort the last thing out. And COVID was the great equaliser of, you've gotta really actually face what's going on and make changes, if you want this thing to keep going. So, I always love a good COVID story. What was that like for you, though? How did that feel?
Taryn: It was really tough, because it felt like a failure, because the business at that point was 7 years old. It was quite an established business, and like I said, from the outside, I was getting so much praise from externally, saying, wow, look at how big this is now, and look how great this is! But internally, I knew that I was just treading water, just keeping my head above water. And when COVID hit, I had a 5-month-old and a 3-year-old. So, to suddenly go from just surviving and just keeping on top of the business stuff, to suddenly having to pivot quite quickly and launch online classes and train up my staff to have online classes... and at the same time, of course, having the 3-year-old, who had been at daycare 3 days a week, home with me, and a 5-month-old who suddenly didn't want to breastfeed, because she's always looking at her brother, and we didn't have any quiet time. And then I'm like, where do I put these children while I'm trying to save this business? Yeah, that was really, really tough. But I do sometimes wonder, if COVID didn't happen, how much longer I would have struggled along with that awful feeling that something wasn't right, and that it was going to implode at some point.
Danielle: I've learned you can carry that feeling for a long time. You go, it'll be fine, one more time, something will give. You can say that to yourself for a really long time.
Taryn: Yeah, yeah. I was paying the instructors quite a high rate, thinking, in my little non-business mind at the beginning, it's not fair what us physios get paid as a percentage. When I own my business, I'm going to pay my instructors better than the measly percentage that I've been paid. And so I started it from there. And I remember somebody else, who owned a much bigger business than me, asking me about my profit margins at one point, and I was explaining the percentage that goes to the instructors, and the percentage that goes to the rent of the halls, and they were like, oh... And I was like, no, it's fine, we just need more classes. It'll be fine when we get to this point, and then the revenue will be this, and therefore the profit will be this, and that'll be great. And it's like, if the profit margin is 5% or less, it's only gonna get to a point where it's okay when it's way up here. I knew it was not right. I just couldn't see how to get myself out of it.
Danielle: Yeah, and that is so hard, right? When you're in it, and it is that, on what day of the week am I getting an hour to sit down and solve this problem, because I've got 12 fires that I need to put out. It is one of those things that you kind of carry that weight of, like, oh my god... and when you are operating on such low margins, it just takes one thing. And I can just imagine, because I have done this too, you're just going, when is that thing happening? What is it gonna be? I don't think people understand stress like that, like financial stress in a business, when everyone's relying on you. It's a wild amount of stress.
Taryn: Yeah, it really is. It really is, especially when, like I said, you've got people thinking that you're doing really well. And that was actually a big milestone recently. Last year I applied for the WA Business Awards, and we were a finalist, actually.
Danielle: Congratulations!
Taryn: And that was a real aha moment, because I was like, oh my god, I now have a business that, behind the scenes, is as good as it is outwardly facing, you know? I just have a sense of calm now, compared to before. And to get recognition like that, that other people can see that this is a sustainable, profitable business model, it makes me feel really good now, because I know what it felt like to run a business that wasn't like that.
Danielle: I've said this before on the podcast, the hard thing is headlines in the media, right? It's always, big fancy office, or many studios, or raised capital, or did XYZ, and it's like, I want headlines that are like, she ran a profit this month, you know? This business model is gonna scale! It's so boring. Everyone does look to the external metrics, or the follower count, or the this or the that, but if you don't have the boring stuff sorted, it's just chaotic and stressful.
Taryn: Yeah.
Danielle: How did you get yourself there? I know COVID was obviously such a big proponent and kind of the kick up the bum, but how did you go from that to now feeling like, okay, I know my business model works, I know it's scalable, I know it's profitable, I can actually sleep at night?
Taryn: A really good business partner, who complements me. Her strengths and my strengths are not the same. And I know now, even now, that I couldn't be running this business in this way, with it being as successful as it is, if I was doing this by myself. Having her is really great. And also, we invested in business coaching, quite a bit. I think we've done two main courses over the last 4 or 5 years. One that was more a general business coaching course, and then one that was specific to female allied health clinic owners. And that's the coach we're still working on and off with now. And that was having someone handhold us little physios who didn't study business, and saying, okay, and I know that this is what you do too, I've seen the modules that you go through as well, it's the same thing. It's so important to have somebody who can just go, okay, here's Finance 101. Let's sit down and start with what we do here. This is marketing. This is what we do. And to have Jess, who's much better at operations, finance and management, and I'm better at marketing, promotion, mentoring, recruiting, that side of it. It just works now.
Danielle: That is literally the dream. I love that. And it is so true, I think sometimes as women in business, we do feel like we have to be experts at everything. And finding people that complement you, or bringing in experts, even if it's just one-off bits and pieces, and tapping into people who've done it before, I just think it's like the cheat code for life. Because why have to figure it out yourself? We've both done that. We've both figured it out ourselves. It wasn't ideal. And now, bringing in people who have experienced it, both negative and positive, and can impart that wisdom, I just think it's the key to success.
Taryn: Yeah, absolutely. I think so too. And, you know, I've had other people who are doing similar businesses ask, what's your secret? And I'm like, find a Jess!
Danielle: Yeah, totally! Totally! Oh, isn't it funny?
Taryn: Like I said right at the beginning, Jess was one of my best friends from university, and we talked about something like this way back, 20-plus years ago. So, to be here now, and to be doing it with her, I just feel so lucky that we found each other back then, and that we happened to work well together. June will be our five-year birthday for the clinic, and we've just never not worked well together over that time. So I feel very lucky, but I do know how unusual that is.
Danielle: Yeah, well, I was about to say, okay, well, what's your secret for that? I think it does really come down to finding that right person, you know? Did you do any kind of planning together, in the event of, we don't love each other anymore?
Taryn: Yeah, yeah, I guess you have to, don't you? At the beginning, when you go into partnership as a business, we had to create the new ABN, and we had to do all this as a partnership. You have to create a partnership contract and go through all that stuff about, if this, then this, if this, then this. And there will be one day when one of us might want to sell and one of us doesn't, or there will be one day when, you know, it won't go on forever. But I just feel very lucky that we know that we can nut things like that out together.
Danielle: Yeah, that's so good. And it always fascinates me as well, I mean, I see this a lot in clinicians, allied health, but realistically, anyone who starts a business: you have this expertise, and a lot of people do then go on to starting their own clinic, but then, where was the business training? It is really something that you just have to learn on the job, which is really, really challenging. So I love that idea of bringing in support. It's amazing.
Taryn: Yes, well, business coaching has definitely been an investment that's been one of the best things we've ever done.
Danielle: So good, I love it. And now, so you're 5 years into the new model, I always love to ask people how they attract their customers, because a lot of people listening are like, I want to grow my business, and customers are a huge part of that. You mentioned you were more on the marketing side. How have you grown the business over the last 5 years?
Taryn: Yeah, obviously in multiple different ways. One of the big things that I love doing from a marketing point of view is, every week, I have an email newsletter that goes out. And that's such a lovely chance to write. I like creating that long-form content, and then I've got a marketing manager who puts that into short-form content for other things. I also love liaising with other team members, because obviously we've got this wealth of knowledge in our team. We've got 7 physios, 2 GPs, the dietitian, the team of lactation consultants. We've got all these people who know so much about different things in women's health, so to be able to get them to also create some long-form content, and put that into that Monday email, and then for that to go elsewhere. I think we're at three and a bit years now of every Monday having an email. So that's been consistent.
Danielle: Love that consistency, that's so good!
Taryn: Yeah, and the other thing about attracting customers has been that I think I always thought that, in allied health, you had to have referrers, you know, GPs, specialists, and that was the main way that you get new patients. But our tracking definitely shows that that's a smaller proportion of the people that come and find us. It's mainly word of mouth, Facebook and Instagram sometimes, and we do run Meta ads, and those campaigns have been quite successful as well. But in general, it's just having me and the other team members talking candidly about the things that we do. I was just telling you before about how I'm starting a podcast, and the whole concept of that is showing how puzzle pieces can be brought together for different aspects of women's health and pelvic health. And I think that the more that we talk about these things candidly, and I get my face out there, and write, that's such a big part of my role, and I really love having the space in my week to be able to do that. So that I can make sure that lots of people know about women's health physiotherapy, and the rest of the team.
Danielle: I just think, yeah, it's so interesting. That idea of storytelling, of sharing your expertise, of people getting more of an understanding of a complex topic, I think that strategy really applies across so many different businesses. And my love would be for every woman in business to take that approach, because that's actually something that I really changed over the last 12 months, just telling more of my story, and it's wild how well it's doing. People do want to know about your experience. It's not just the end result and outcome. It's like, how did you actually get there? And I think when people learn to trust you based on those emails and that long-form content, that just goes so far in helping people feel comfortable to come in and use the service.
Taryn: I love telling stories as well from our clients' point of view, you know? How they have used and put their puzzle pieces together, and found success where they hadn't otherwise. That's tricky, though, because AHPRA, the regulatory board... we're not supposed to have any...
Danielle: Testimonials. Yeah, yeah.
Taryn: So we have to get creative with how we tell the stories of how we help women, without using direct testimony.
Danielle: Yes, I know, it is interesting. I mean, I think it's for good reason, but it really does make it challenging in this space, doesn't it?
Taryn: Yeah, it really does, especially when you see other people in non-health-practitioner roles, who may be trying to attract the same clients as you, but they don't have the same regulatory body making sure that they don't use words like specialist when they're not a specialist, or testimonials about how things were fixed by seeing them. We just have stricter policies on us. Unfortunately... well, unfortunately, but also fortunately.
Danielle: Yeah, totally. And I think that's an interesting point around why, then, it is so important to go into the storytelling and sharing of the expertise and finding the creative ways. Because I think people also do get that you can't just be like, we'll cure everything, you know? People have to feel that trust, and feel like they've been heard, and that you do have the experience. So, I love that that's kind of the way that you can still get there.
Taryn: Yeah, yeah, that's right.
Danielle: Oh, so good. I love it. Any new plans on the horizon? So, we are almost mid-2026. What does the next 6 months hold for you?
Taryn: Yeah, so the clinic is a four-room clinic at the moment, and like I said, links to other exercise classes. The big aim would be to have an even bigger space, where we've got space for the classes to run in-house, rather than continuing to rent other spaces. So that's definitely on the horizon. Just can't find the ideal location yet, but I'm sure that will happen. And then, like I said, the podcast is my project of the moment, to launch that soon. And the clinic at the moment, how it's going at the moment, is really, really good. If everything stayed as it was right now, this is a very happy place. It's just that, as I'm sure you feel as well, you always just have to look at what the next thing could be, and, you know, if this happened, do we have a backup? And space in the clinic is definitely one of the limiting factors.
Danielle: I love that thought process, because you do want to take that time to really appreciate where you are, and, oh my god, you should be so proud of what you've done and what you've built, and it's so nice to actually take a breath and appreciate that. But I totally get the idea that you're going, yes, however, the world still moves. So, what is that next thing, and how do we expand, or optimise, or create efficiencies, or reach new people through new mediums? It is the balance of the business owner, isn't it, to keep things under control, but always looking forward.
Taryn: And that uneasy feeling, I get it often. I know that I should just be sitting in the good part, but there's always that little bit in the back that's like, what can you do next? Is this enough?
Danielle: Yeah, totally. I think we love the pain, don't we? We love it! Well, you'll have to share the podcast with me so that we can share it with our community when it goes live, because I think not only is it exciting from a business point of view and fabulous to watch other business owners do well, but I just think there's going to be some important nuggets of wisdom in there for every woman who is listening, so we'll make sure that we share that as well.
Taryn: Thank you.
Danielle: So good. Oh my god, I could talk to you all day, but I always love to wrap up these podcasts with one last piece of advice. So, reflecting on your time in business, what would be a piece of advice that you would give to another woman on her business journey?
Taryn: I think it would just be about perseverance, and just about never losing track of the end picture. Because, from my point of view, this end picture, where I am now, which I'm sure won't be the end, but where I am now is what I had in my head 20 years ago, and it took a bit of a convoluted way to get there. But I didn't lose sight of what that picture looked like. And I can remember saying in my head so many times, in those tough times when things really did feel really heavy and financially difficult, I just kept saying in my head: I am calm, I am happy, and I'm right where I'm supposed to be on my journey. I can just remember that being my mantra, and just seeing it as a point on the journey. And that kept me grounded. I was like, okay, this is tough, but I'm on my way. I know where this is heading, and just one step at a time.
Danielle: Oh my god, I feel like that was the advice I needed to hear today, so incredible. Taryn, thank you so much for being here, for sharing your journey and your wisdom. I know I took away so many nuggets of wisdom, so I'm sure everyone else has as well. Thank you so much for your time.
Taryn: Thank you.
