Specialist personal trainer wins Young Entrepreneur Award

A personal trainer from Tranent has scooped the East Lothian Investments Ltd Young Entrepreneur Award. 24-year-old Sam Stevenson of SS Coaching won the £1500 prize, which he says has moved his new business on six months faster than planned.

The award was open to 16–25-year-olds and was set up to encourage and celebrate young entrepreneurship in East Lothian’s young people.

SS Coaching started trading on 1 January 2023 and Sam was encouraged to apply for the award by Business Gateway Adviser Irene Ramsay. SS Coaching provides personal training and strength & conditioning coaching to those looking to improve their sports performance from individuals to members of local sports teams right up to professional athletes. Sam, along with his business partner Jake Beveridge who runs East Lothian Barbell, have joined forces in a new venture based at their premises at East Fortune, to offer bespoke programming and individualised one-to-one performance coaching. They have used the funding to buy equipment for the gym facility, helping them leap forward with their business six months earlier than in their business plan.

Sam said: “The prize massively helped with the start-up of the gym. We were awaiting planning permission on our new unit when I applied for the competition, therefore the timing was perfect, as we knew the start-up costs of opening our own gym for the first time were going to be significant. Due to the little capital that we had to start up our business and given the fact that we had a deposit to pay on the unit, alongside the high price that comes with buying gym equipment, winning the prize made all of this far more achievable, and took the stress off the coming months. This has now allowed us to begin planning forward, looking at potential pathways to grow the business ahead of our business plan timeline.”

East Lothian Investments Ltd (ELI) is an arm’s length company of East Lothian Council. The fund is managed by employees of the council but governed by a Board of Directors. The board comprises two East Lothian Councillors and three private sector business people who provide their time free of charge to the company and who take the decisions to award or decline loan applications.

Loans can be applied for up to £25,000 and are interest free with an arrangement fee of up to 7.5%. ELI is open to businesses at all stages and all sectors, including start up.

Rodney Shearer, Chair of East Lothian Investments Ltd, said: “We are delighted to offer this prize to encourage entrepreneurship in young people. Sam very much deserves this accolade and I’m sure he and Jake will do a fantastic job to promote wealth and wellbeing across the community.”

Councillor John McMillan, East Lothian Council spokesperson for Environment, Economic Development and Tourism, said: “Sam is a very worthy winner of this award and I’m delighted that it has allowed him and Jake to drive their business forward by six months and to start planning for the future. They have demonstrated a commitment to providing very high quality fitness and health promotion to everyone from children to professional athletes and have obviously used the very latest research and training to provide the very best service they can, and it’s accessible too. I was also impressed by Sam’s systematic approach to business, using the excellent business support services, including our own Business Gateway in East Lothian. I wish Sam, Jake and SS Coaching the absolute best for a very bright future.”

As well as personal training for sports, SS Coaching also features unique equipment for less able or injured clients. They have also been working with groups of children (between 11 and 15) through their summer camp, which promotes health, fitness, confidence and safe strength training. Sam and Jake are passionate about equal opportunities and are eager to work with more young people and low income households in the future. They are also looking at developing an app for online coaching.

Anyone interested in finding out more can contact Sam or Jake via email or Instagram: @ss_coaching_ and @east_lothian_barbell