Bill Davis - ABC Fitness, Glofox, & Industry Consolidation

Hey everybody, welcome to the Future of Fitness, a top-rated fitness industry podcast for over three years and running. I am your host, Eric Malzone, and I have the absolute pleasure of talking to entrepreneurs, innovators, and cutting-edge technology experts within the extremely fast-paced industries of fitness, wellness, and health sciences. Please stop by futurefitness.co to subscribe and learn more. To live your healthiest, longest life possible, you need to understand what's going on inside your body. People age at different speeds, and generic annual blood work doesn't properly evaluate your biological age, but Insight Tracker does. Insight Tracker is a truly personalized nutrition and performance system designed to extend your health span and slow down the aging process. Created by leading scientists in aging, genetics, and biometrics, Insight Tracker analyzes your blood, DNA, and fitness tracking data to identify where you're optimized and where you're not. You'll get a daily action plan with personalized guidance on the right exercise, nutrition, and supplementation for your body. Add InterAge 2.0 to any plan to calculate your true biological age and see how you're aging from the inside out. For a limited time, get 20% off the entire Insight Tracker store. Just go to insight tracker.com forward slash future. That's insight tracker.com forward slash future. Bill Davis, welcome to the future of fitness.

Thanks for having me, Eric. It's my pleasure.

Oh, it's the pleasure is all mine, Bill. I'm I'm looking forward to learning from you and your background and what you're up to at ABC Fitness. So you are the CEO of ABC Fitness for people who don't know you. And there's a lot of news floating around as of you know fall of 2022 and what you're up to. And we'll we'll definitely dive into that. But you know, most of all, I'd love to get your perspective on the industry with what 20 plus 25 years of executive experience. There, there's a lot to dive into. So thank you for joining me. And most let's start with this. As always, just give us a little bit about your background and and how you got to be the CEO of ABC.

Yeah, it was it was an opportunity that I wasn't necessarily seeking or looking for. Um, as you suggested, you know, 20-some odd years um at the executive ranks, and most of those have been on the finance side. So the pleasure of being CF for three different enterprise software companies, um, uh 10 plus year stent and healthcare IT, five or so year stent and education IT. And most recently um became CFO of a um a pre-public human capital or payroll processing company here in Cincinnati, which is where I'm based out of. And that that opportunity translated into an unexpected sale to a private equity firm and um actually reintroduced me to Tomo Bravo, who was the owner of ABC Fitness. And with that transaction occurring, Tomo Bravo approached me about the prospect of joining them as an operating partner. And um I was excited about that because it was going to afford me an opportunity to um be engaged on you know, handful of their portfolio companies, advised them and helped them achieve their growth objectives. And the very first company that I was introduced to was ABC Fitness. And it was in late 2018, and by February of 19, I'd been asked to join ABC as its president, and then by July of 19, I became its CEO. So um I often tell the story that in my first meeting with the um my predecessor, a long-standing figure in the fitness industry, and then a gentleman named Paul Schaller, when I met with Paul, I said um something to the effect that I've seen this play before. And I think that was the I think that was the mistake or maybe the the operative uh you know observation that uh you know led me to ultimately you know being approached about joining them full-time. But it's been a fantastic, you know, three and a half years. Um really, really excited to share more about what we've been up to, but that's the backstory as to how I came to ABC. If you were to draw a common thread through my industry, through my experience, Eric, um, through healthcare, education, and now fitness, I would say it's mission-based, mission-based businesses that I find myself attracted to. And really, really like that about the fitness industry as a whole. Most people that are in it are are here for a greater purpose than just collecting a paycheck or running a business. They have real passion about what they are doing and the offerings that they are providing on a daily basis, which is which is really, really cool.

Yeah, that's great, Bill. And maybe you can explain a little bit about ABC too, because I think a lot of people in the fitness industry um may not be aware of exactly what ABC Fitness does. I mean, it's it's a obviously a very large company and operates in the background in so many different capacities, but maybe they don't really know the full depth and breadth of what you guys do there. So I I would I'd be curious to hear about that as well.

Yeah, happy to. Well, I start out by saying it's a 40-year-old company, and many people don't realize that ABC Fitness has been around that long. But I often like to say that for 37 of those 40 years, really leading up to my arrival, um, ABC was really focused on and very good at three things. First of all, membership management or tracking of membership in principally fitness clubs, the billing and collection of such monthly membership dues, and then the reporting on both the membership base and the revenue that they were generating. And that really was its focus. It was very good and revered in the industry of being the very best at tracking a membership and more specifically optimizing that monthly revenue. And as I came into the business, back to my comment, I've seen this play before, is what I observed was an industry that was relatively immature in its adoption of technology. And the way that you can observe that is how they're going about that adoption. And in the fitness industry, what was occurring is that most fitness clubs were taking what I would refer to as a point solution approach. And what I mean by that is if they wanted a door access solution, they talked to the door access provider. They wanted a scheduling solution, they talked to the scheduling solution provider. Points a mobile solution, I could go on and on. And in fact, we did a study when I first came to ABC, and what it revealed was most clubs on average were using anywhere from six to eight different point solutions to operate their club. And yet they did not have the requisite infrastructure or wherewithal to optimize that technology. And so I saw an opportunity for ABC to play a greater part in integrating those disparate solutions to where it became more of a turnkey solution and driving better insights through those integration efforts. And so over the past three and a half years, we have been deploying a build-by-partner strategy to do exactly that, to build the most comprehensive end-to-end club management solution that ideally can be deployed in that turnkey fashion, but better yet, really drive differentiated and improved experiences for club operators, their members, with improved insights. That's the simplest form. That's what ABC is attempting to do. Um, historically for North America-based fitness clubs, but now by virtue of our Glow Fox acquisition, ideally globally.

Yeah, great. So 40 years, this industry, like you said, it's very immature, really. You know, if if we're honest and open about it, like it uh we I've talked about this on the podcast. Like, when did the fitness industry actually start? Like, was it Jack Lelane? Like, was he the guy? Was it Arnold Schwarzenegger that really kind of made it famous? But 40 years, right, we've seen, you know, essentially that that covers the inception all the way through to where the industry is now. So uh how has ABC fitness adopted or changed, adapted, I should say, over time, um, you know, to where it currently is now? I mean, like the clients have changed, right? It used to be like kind of grungy gyms, and then the health club world started to pick up again. And then now we have studios and boutiques and all kinds of you know, digital and blah, gosh, it's it's getting really complicated. So, what have you seen? I mean, no, you haven't been with them for 40 years, but what have you seen historically looking back at how it's evolved?

Well, to your very point, again, ABC's origin was much more of a service company than a technology company because literally, when it was created, you know, agreements with members or contracts were in paper form. And you're billing, you know, credit card where the old swipes, you know, the old imprint, you know, type of devices that you know were being collected, cash was much more prevalent in the ecosystem of club operations and the like. And the models themselves, as you mentioned, have really matured. Where you know, 40 years ago, it was predominantly, predominantly single, you know, single location club operators that were creating that um relatively unsophisticated fitness experience for the members, where today the the high the introduction of hyperpersonalization and the use of technology and the delivery of that fitness experience is um you know central to you know many club operators' differentiation. You think about a brand like on this site of couple, you think about a brand like uh Planet Fitness, where you know they're really trying to drive a level of efficiency and um you know seamless experience, starting with the check-in to you know, utilization of their equipment, to the um the different access to different locations and the like would not happen without the use of technology. And then you go to the other extreme or another another example, I'm thinking of like Orange Theory, you know, where the um technology is being utilized throughout that entire experience, tracking um you know heart rates and their um the intensity of your respective workout, whether you're on the treadmill or on the rowing machine or the exercise floor. Um those those models heavily, heavily oriented towards that personalization and again um you know made made um accessible by virtue of use of technology. So it's it's really exciting if you just think about its evolution. And we were talking before the start of this. The other the other dynamic that is really fascinating to watch is the consolidation that is happening. I talked about single club operators some 40 years ago being the lion share. Today, you're seeing more and more private equity coming into the fitness industry. And what they're after is the maximization of that cash flow, which they realize through the consolidation of multiple clubs literally around the globe. So it's really fascinating to watch.

Yeah, I want to dive back into that in a minute, too, that that consolidation, what you're seeing at a high level. Uh, can you give us some insights too into like your client portfolio at ABC as well?

Yeah. ABC, as I alluded to earlier, historically has been primarily focused in North America, so US and Canada, um, and also oriented towards what we've referred to as traditional club operators. And all I mean by that is their business model is principally anchored to memberships that are a monthly subscription. That that is where ABC has operated. And I think what is a little bit of a misnomer about ABC is we don't just support the largest brands in North America. We we support all sizes from independent operators all the way up to the very largest franchise names that are well known in the industry and everything in between. What we have added to our capabilities over these past three years is through our trainerize acquisition, which we did back in 2020, that gave us access to the personal trainer segment of the market as well. So we have that. We also acquired a business in Brazil called W-12 that is like ABC, but oriented historically almost exclusively in Brazil. They're now beginning to expand into Latin America. And then most recently, we have acquired Glow Fox, which now gives us capabilities in the boutique studio market and um a much more expansive international reach, recognizing that they operate in some 80 plus countries today.

Yeah. So I'm excited to talk about the Glowfox acquisition. I am big fans of Connor and Finn. I get to talk to them periodically. And in fact, I talked to Finn right after I got some of the news. And for people uh listening, we're recording in Q3 2022 just to put a little bit of a timestamp on it. And it was, it was funny when I I reach out to Finn, I said, congratulate, I was on a call with him. I'm like, man, I thought you'd be taking at least like a couple weeks off and just, you know, you hit a major milestone in your entrepreneurial journey. It's like, oh no, man, we're working harder now than ever. And you know, we feel like it's just beginning. So I that's such a great attitude, and I'm sure that's exactly what you want to hear from your portfolio partners, right? Um, so tell us about that. How like how that how did that work out and what does it mean for you know the two entities in the industry overall?

Yeah, a little bit of the backstory is um just about a year ago, maybe maybe 15 months or so ago, we ABC, I really try to promote an annual strategic planning process that's really designed to do nothing more than let's lift our heads up and let's look at the industry, what's going on, and where we're positioned and more specifically where we want to go. And I asked the basic question, which I try to shape our strategic planning efforts around one or two basic questions. But last year's question was where is ABC's growth going to come from in the next four to five years? And it led us to a really thoughtful discussion that yes, we can take our existing ABC Ignite uh product, which is geared towards traditional fitness clubs, we can start to take that into other countries, which we're committed to do. And we've started to explore Mexico, the UK, Canada more extensively. So we have we have plans to do that on our existing capabilities. But we also saw this phenomenal opportunity in the boutique or studio space, for which ABC again was not participating in a year ago. And we went through that thoughtful: can we build our capabilities? Should we consider buying them? And we have a head of corporate development that did some market surveying and came back and said, there's several players in this space, but Glowfox is one that is really distinguishing itself in terms of its offering, the market's receptivity to how good that offering is and its overall growth profile. And so the first encounter with Connor O'Laughlin, the CEO of Glowfox, was me reaching out to him unsolicited via LinkedIn. I literally just sent him a LinkedIn message and I said, Connor, I'm new to the industry. I'd love to, I'd love to meet you. And so he agreed to have a phone conversation with me almost probably a year to the day. It was sometime in late August, early September of last year. And we hit it off and we agreed to meet in person at Ursa in Dallas in October of 2021. We agreed to meet for a pint of beer, and that pint of beer turned into three pints. And um we what was blatantly obvious to me was our cultures, our shared views around what our stated missions are and our commitment to shared values, that's where we spend most of those three pints talking about. And yes, we we saw the fitness industry as a whole benefiting from what we were offering, but I think we both gravitated to the fact that we were both like-minded companies that we could do greater things together. Now, Connor admitted at that time that they were in the midst of raising additional capital to do the next stage of growth. And by December or so, I said, please, Connor, give me an opportunity to at least attempt to compel you to consider an offer from ABC. And by late February, early March, that's exactly what happened. And it took us a few months to effectuate, but you know, we eventually got there. But it really was grounded in this shared purpose and common values that led us to believe that we could do better together than apart.

That's great. Great story. And I like any meeting that happens with a couple pints of beer, and you know, it always seems to go better, doesn't it? Yeah. So what does Glowfox bring to the table for ABC specifically?

It brings it brings three tangible opportunities for us. First, as I mentioned, a industry um leading solution that is laser focused on the boutique and studio market, for which ABC really did not have capabilities to do at least at scale the way that Glow Fox is able to. One. Two, international reach. I talked about the fact that they're in 80 plus countries and it gives us opportunity to scale geographically, I think, quicker than we would have been able to do ourselves. And then third is we have ABC, some existing capabilities that are highly sought after and attractive to the Glow Fox base. The best example of that is the trainerized or the trainer, personal trainer solution that many of GlowFox's customers are interested in. And so it's those three things that we're focused on capitalizing on. And to your point of Finn saying, hey, I'm not taking any time off. My ask of them is keep running as hard as you guys are running, seize as much market opportunity as you guys think you're capable of doing. And my aim is to do no harm. And I really want to afford them an opportunity to do that. Now, what I think ABC brings to Glow Fox is a level of scale and maturity that I think is very attractive to some of the largest global franchise brands that like Glow Fox but were maybe a little bit hesitant as to whether or not they were big enough to really support them on a global basis. I think ABC brings a level of scale that helps in that regard. And I can tell you, post-announcement a month or so ago, those conversations have already multiplied, which gives me confidence that my our thesis was right in that regard. That the fact that ABC is there and can bring that scale gives them some requisite assurances to at least start to have some of those conversations.

Yeah, that's great news. That's great. That's very exciting for you guys. And you know, like I said, congratulations to to Finn and Connor and everybody included in that. And I want to bring it back just a couple steps too, and just look at the market because we discussed prior to this, consolidation is everywhere, right? It's it's a very uh dynamic time for the industry just due to post-pandemic and you know, like you mentioned, you know, a lot of investor money, private equity coming in, although that appetite seems to be um shifting quite a bit over these last few months. So when you look at the industry overall and the the path forward, uh consolidation is going to be a huge part of it, I presume. You know, what what do you when you kind of clean off your dust, your your your crystal ball here, Bill? Like what what what is it what does it look like moving forward? People age at different speeds. And the date on your license may not represent your inner biological age at all. If you're looking for ways to extend your health span and slow down the aging process, the keys to health and longevity run in your blood. That's why Inside Tracker provides you with a personalized plan. Boost your metabolism, reduce stress, improve sleep, and optimize your health for the long haul. Created by leading scientists in aging, genetics, and biometrics. Insight tracker analyzes your blood, DNA, and fitness tracking data to identify where you're optimized, and more importantly, where you're not. You'll get a daily action plan with personalized guidance on the right exercise, nutrition, and supplementation for your body. Add interage 2.0 to any plan for a definitive calculation of your true biological age to see how you're aging from the inside out. I was proud to find out I'm a few years younger than I thought I was. For a limited time, you can get 20% off the entire Insight Tracker store. Just go to insight tracker.com forward slash future to check it out, learn more, and get your own. InsightTracker.com forward slash future. On to the show.

Well, to me, I start with the member experience first and foremost. And I think what you're going to witness is continued emphasis and enhanced capabilities around hyperpersonalization for that member in terms of how they procure and consume their fitness, their fitness regimen. We run a market survey every year. And the most recent one that we have done that it really highlights the fact that people are looking for that personalization, but there are segments of the population that pre-pandemic were simply not interested in fitness that today are. And so our ability to access them in ways that create sustainability in terms of their commitment to fitness regimen, um, I think happens through that personalization. So I think it starts there. Second is I really genuinely believe it's a hybrid approach, meaning many of us, myself included, had to find ways to pursue their fitness regimen while clubs were shut down during the pandemic. And it opened our eyes to the possibility that it's not an either-or. It can be an and. In fact, I enjoy going to the club personally a couple of times a week, but I also enjoy going to my basement and doing a Peloton, you know, once or twice a week. I enjoy going out and running outside a couple of times a week. Um I mentioned as part of my running club. So it can be a complement of both, but I don't want three different apps. I don't want three different devices tracking my wellness. I want one. And I think that club operators or the fitness as a whole has an opportunity to help members kind of figure out how they do that effectively. And the telemetry that is available to us as an industry in terms of tracking workouts, heart rates, sleeping rhythms, all of that, that is only going to continue to amplify. So, how does all that information get synthesized in a way that, again, improves one's pursuit in terms of healthier living? So I'm very excited about that. From the club operators' perspective, I think it starts and ends with their ability to respond to that hyperpersonalization, but also avail themselves of the data and the related insights that increasingly are being made available to them. And let me just give you two tangible examples. One is how is data being effectively utilized to accurately predict and get ahead of anticipated member attrition? There's a lot of behaviors that can be understood in a way that allows a club operator to become more anticipatory that a member is in fact at risk for attrition, and how do you intervene and hopefully prevent that from happening? In a positive way, that actually helps the member, mind you. But secondarily, is how is that data really being effectively utilized to optimize club performance? This is my second example, whether it's um class utilization or equipment utilization or um frequency of you know, frequency of attendance in the club itself, and you know how that how that impacts down to the basic level of how a club is configured to optimize workflows and and and patterns and the like. Um again, retail industry as an example, really, really good. Um, I often use the example of targets. Targets are designed very intentionally to optimize traffic flow and traffic flow to optimize what goes in consumers' carts. And I could I argue that fitness clubs can embrace themselves or embrace similar concepts in in terms of really thinking about how they're optimizing their business models. Again, all geared towards for the benefit of the member experience and the members' health journey.

Yeah, Target and one of my favorite places, Costco, right? Amen. Oh man. Every time I walk in there, I think to myself, You always leave the stuff you don't need, right? Do I need an 80-inch TV? You know, I didn't I didn't know if I did, but I'm pretty sure I do. And uh, you know, all the electronics, everything, they just do a great job seasonally. They set things up so when you're walking by, you're like, Oh, I do need 300 batteries.

It's all data driven. And I I the other the other thing, and I know we're gonna talk, you know, kind of where's fitness as a whole going. I I know a lot of people talk about you know, the intersect or the connectivity of fitness to wellness to health, but you are already beginning to see real active interest from, in particular, the payer community in healthcare, wanting to better understand behaviors in fitness and how it can positively influence healthcare and more specifically outcomes. And um, again, I feel very blessed of having 10 years in healthcare IT. I understand that ecosystem in a way that I think ideally becomes highly leverageable for ABC in the future in terms of how we how we promote and hopefully accelerate that that connectivity between those two disparate um you know industries today that quite candidly should find a way to become one.

Yeah, that you you're a great person to dive into that. So maybe you can unpack that vision a little bit because I think that's really critical. I talk about it on the show all the time as a merger between health and fitness and what that means for the you know, this huge bohemoth of an industry called healthcare, right? Um, and what the opportunities lie for fitness and what that actually looks like. And I know you know, platforms like ABC and and all your constituents, it's it provides a conduit, right? Um, from between those two things, because data needs to flow in one way or another to show efficacy of what we do in the fitness industry. So if you can, maybe just take a minute or two and unpack what your vision of that looks like to whatever extent you can.

Well, I see it. I can I see it evolving in a couple material respects. Again, in my healthcare experience, I had the distinct pleasure of being involved in the early adoption of electronic health records and in the healthcare industry. So taking a totally paper-based industry, the paper charts, to electronic health records literally has taken now the better part of two decades, you know, 20 years. And yet, what it affords us is an opportunity at a very personal level with your primary physician to no longer just simply say you should eat better, you should exercise three times a week, you should sleep better, but affording that physician in a highly curated, highly actionable way of me, Bill Davis, as a patient to my doctor, am I doing that? And not in any sort of policing or big brother sense, but actually, again, its efficacy and its impact on the medications that might be prescribed, to the testing that they may want to run, um, and further um, you know, further um prescriptions, not from a from a medicine, but just prescriptions of healthier living that they would offer me, you know, on a continual basis. That connectivity is imminently doable. It's it's us having the foresight and thinking about that. And I think you know, the fact that we in the US have 20% of the population that exercises today, as physicians really understand its efficacy on their patient base, you know, the opportunity to ideally be a positive force from the physicians to their patients. I see that as a real opportunity. The second dimension is back to the payer community that I talked about. There's no mistake in that big pharma drives so much of the spend that occurs in healthcare today. And yet there is real interest in understanding the efficacy of chronic illnesses and um and how fitness is influencing that care plan. And you could think about chronic illnesses or diagnoses like diabetes, you could think about hypertension, um, you know, cardiac, more extensive cardiac considerations, and they're again improved visibility that students are having this efficacy when they're exercising three days a week, and it's having this efficacy if they're not exercising at all. And how you start to see those correlations and start to positively influencing populations in and around those common chronic diseases, you could see happening as well. And it could be done in a highly effective way without violating patient or uh member privacy, but use for the betterment of all of us is, I think, real opportunity. And what I can say with great confidence is the payer community, pharma, and the medical providers, they're interested in that conversation. It's it's it's us kind of meeting them in a way that it actually could prove to be more constructive and and start to you know see that move that needle begin to move.

Yeah, that's it's interesting insights. And I, you know, I I want to bring this up because I want your opinion on it. I I recently had um Adrian Aoun, he's the founder and CEO of Ford. So uh what they're doing is you know, he's ex-Google executive, right? Trying to take the whole healthcare system and completely recreate it. And his his time horizon's like 10, 15 years. And, you know, more of a concierge model all cash, removing the insurance agencies, you know, the insurance companies all together is what he's trying to do. And he's very passionate about it. People can go back and listen to that. Very passionate about doing that. Do you think what what do you think about is if if we if the fitness industry kind of gets on to the the partnerships with the insurance companies, is that overall a good thing in the long run? I mean, where do you stand on that that perspective?

I think if that's all that the fitness industry does, I think it'll help, but I don't think it, I don't think it is as transformative if if we have an opportunity to do that in parallel engagement with the provider community as well. What what people, and again, not to get off on healthcare, but since you brought it up, that's a really aspirational goal. And I would say if they're able to do that in 10 to 15 years, God bless them, and they're worth they're entitled to all the gazillions of dollars that that that will undoubtedly unleash and produce and in value creation. But um, here's the fundamental problem with healthcare that I think most people understand, but often don't talk about in these terms is you have three or four um constituents that have competing priorities or conflicted interests. And those are the patient, the provider, the payer, and the fourth that I would add is pharma, which you know plays a really influencing role. And you have to find a way to line up the interest of all four of them to where they um they effectively are working together as opposed to working against each other. And um that's a that's the dilemma. And and so I think if you my point of raising that is if all you do is focus on one of those four constituents, in some respects you're only perpetuating the problem by giving them insights or perspectives that could be used to the disadvantage of the other two or three. And so how you reconcile that is um you know really what's at stake here. And that, you know, how how you ultimately re-architect that and have the means, you know, because the federal government is is the largest payer, you know, through Medicare, Medicaid, the largest payer in the world. And so, and they've they've been trying to you know kind of ununtangle this for literally decades. Um, and uh it's a it's a it's a tall tall order. But my point is you you can't, I think, over-index or emphasize just one constituent. I think you need to be thinking about all four.

Yeah, I appreciate that that insight too. With some of the time we have left here, Bill, I want to get your insights on, you know, like we said at the beginning, 20 plus years of executive experience, right? All across a bunch of different industries. When you look at the, I guess, the executive talent within the fitness industry specifically, how does it, you know, how do you grade it? How does it contrast or or compare to other industries that you worked in? Like how how is the leadership doing here? Because I mean, and I'm just gonna put the cat like everyone's following Peloton, right? And everyone wants to, you know, just give them hell for mismanagement or whatever it may be, and and you know, all kinds of different things have gone into that. I'm not part of Peloton. I don't know what happened, right? But where where do you see leadership in comparison to other industries?

Yeah, I think there, I'll make three observations. I think there's some really, really talented leaders in the industry. So I don't think I don't think it's a function of shortage of talent or or competent leadership by any stretch, but I think people need to understand the industry the fitness industry as a whole today is relatively small. You line up the the just the total economics associated with fitness vis-a-vis any other industry, um, it is it is small. Uh join that with the fact on the delivery of fitness, the fitness club operators, a vast majority of them, a vast majority of them are by definition small to medium-sized business operators. And I'm defining that as any business that is generating less than $10 million of revenue a year. Okay. If you think about fitness operators, most of them fall into that realm. Now, what you are witnessing, and we touched on it earlier, a year ago, the amount of money that was flowing in from private equity to aid in the consolidation of bringing these brands together was substantial. And yes, there's been a little bit of shift as of late, you know, by virtue of broader economic considerations, but the cash flows are highly attractive, and there's economies of scales that can be can be realized that unto itself is driving a level of sophistication. Because as you bring a hundred clubs together, it by definition becomes a much bigger business that needs a higher level of leadership and infrastructure and the like. So that's occurring. But then the third dimension, I talked about this mission-based dimension, and it is as prevalent, if not stronger, than I've witnessed in my 20 years, is it is as strong as it is in the fitness industry itself. And you have a lot of really, really passionate people. Now, the the tension point on that is are they are they so kind of beholden to the way it was or the way they want to do it? Are they open to the transformation that naturally has to occur? There are some of those tension points, I would say, that the industry is working its way through. But overall, I think it's it's not a function of talent as much as it's a recognition of really understanding its scale and what's necessary to be successful at that scale. I would observe, because I wrote a blog on Pelotyme specifically, um, you have many folks or companies that realized outside success during the pandemic. And I think, you know, part of management, you talked about crystal balls earlier, is kind of predicting future demand and where that growth is going to come from. And I think what some people overestimated was the pendulum absolutely swung towards in-home exercise and related equipment and digital content and the like. And I think underestimated whether or not the pendulum would swing back, you know, in favor of brick and mortar club operations. And the reality is what we have observed in the last 18 months is that pendulum has swung back. And I think people, Peloton as an example, anticipated a level of sustained growth that was really grounded in pandemic experience and not indicative of what we're witnessing post-pandemic. And so I think they'll eventually, there's strong demand for what Peloton has to offer. I think that I think they're going through, in essence, a equalate, you know, their equalization or equilibrium that they've got to, in essence, get back in check. But the capability is needed and will be sought after, I think, for years to come. And optimistic they'll sort that, they'll sort that out.

Yeah, great insights. I'm curious too, because do you see any parallels between the fitness industry and other industries that would be now considered more mature? Yeah. Like do you you said you've seen this this play out before? Like in what other industries can we maybe look at and be like, okay, that that's a maybe a potential, you know, a path forward that that we can you know look at to compare?

Well, again, I I I mean, I'll draw from my own experiences because I came from two industries that that really grounded my statement of seeing this play before. It was healthcare and then more recently education. And both were you know laggers in adoption of technology. Um, and I always go to the end user because, again, you think about it in the context of healthcare and why I focused on the payer community. The adoption of electronic health records was either going to survive or succeed or fail by virtue of getting physicians on board. And in the physician realm, you have large integrated physician networks, but you also have thousands upon thousands of independent sole proprietors in healthcare, not too dissimilar to the fitness industry itself. In education, similar. You have the behemoth, you have small. You have high school, lower, you know, K-12, you have higher ed. So their needs and their capacity to adopt technology is different. And I would say, and coincidentally, in both instances, passion around the mission of you know what they were there to do, um, very, very strong. And so I, by virtue of those two experiences, I have outsize optimism that fitness industry will get there. My my hope for the industry is again focus on the US right now, but we could talk globally, is that we don't just see people talk in terms of, man, wouldn't it be great if we got 20% of the population exercising to 30? That would be great, but why set the bar so low? Why are we not saying 20 to 50 or 20 to 60% of the population? Because the reality is we all need it. And yes, it's tough, but um you know, presumably everybody wants to live longer, everybody wants to live more productively, everybody wants to live healthier in the context of living longer. So there's a need there, and it's our job to figure out how we fill that need. And I think again, technology and related Insights has an opportunity to play an outsized role there.

That's great. That's great. So one last question. It's kind of a doozy, but it's it's dwelling on your experience, right? Leadership.

Yeah.

So when you look at what makes great leaders, and you you put in enough time where you probably boiled it down, I would imagine, is some tenets, right? Some qualities, some things that you know make leaders successful when some others may falter. What what are what qualities do you think in your your experience and your opinion make great leaders? Because it's something I'm always fascinated with.

Yeah. It's um three things, three words come to mind empathy, transparency, and humility. And I think that um people in leadership positions um have an opportunity to spend more time and lean into a greater degree of empathy for the people that they lead and what they're being asked to do, and the resources that they're being afforded to do it with, and and and you know, can you align on measures of success that the people you're leading really feel are attainable? I think as a leader, you do have a job to try to stretch and encourage to do more, even things that they're not initially feel that they're capable of doing. But I often describe that in terms of you know reaching reaching for that goal, but ideally doing it where you know at least your toes, at least your toes are still touching the ground. And and our jobs as leaders is calibrating and understanding that. But I think the way in which you go about doing that and garnering that that conviction that that there's a will and there's a way, you know, is through a greater degree of empathy. I think as as a as a CEO, one of my greatest responsibility is effective communication. And that brings into transparency. And I think that you know, organizations that are better aligned on what we're trying to achieve and how we intend to get there, um, and why, at a highest order, decisions are being made in the manner that they're being made, um, I think again, fosters um a higher level of trust and a greater level of followership as well. And I think it improves overall um effectiveness of an organization. And then humility is um, I'm always intrigued by those leaders that seem to have all the answers. I I confess day in and day out. I don't. Um people say I confess too much that this is my first CEO role, but it kind of goes back to the the you know, the uh empathy point of, you know, oftentimes I'll take the pandemic. None of us, none of us had a crystal ball of what was going to happen during the pandemic, and back to the Peloton example, where that pendulum was going to swing. And creating an organization that has the requisite level of nimbleness and flexibility, you know, to adapt to those ever-changing kind of requirements, um, it just by definition has a level of uncertainty associated with it. And I think, I think us being humble enough to kind of recognize that, but also the intestinal fortitude to be able to pivot, you know, when you need to pivot, I think is is part of that humility. And um I really on a daily basis try to embrace all three. And that really has been garnered over you know 20 plus years of experience that I feel distinguish those that you know are are proven successful and those that you know may not.

Yeah, that's great. Empathy, transparency, and humility. Those are very pretty solid pillars and not easy to do, right? Especially the last one, I think is is probably the most difficult for a lot of people in leadership positions. Um I lied. One more question for you. I know you are you know involved and have been for some time in philanthropic uh efforts. So I always like to, you know, let's give a little bit of information to people and what you do on that side of things.

Well, I really appreciate that. I I I now, for a better part of a decade, have been um intimately involved at the board level and donor level of uh an organization called uh the Jack and Jill Um Late Stage Cancer Foundation. And um the unfortunate truth, kind of tying back into our health care, is cancer devastates so many families. And uh Jack and Jill's mission is really to um work with oncologists to actually allow for a prescription to be written for um young parents that inevitably are facing you know the eventual outcome that they will they will succumb to their cancer. And oftentimes um you know their lives have totally unequivocally been turned upside down, and um, they're facing the harsh reality that these young children are going to be raised by you know a single parent. And Jack and Jill is is not it's not a make a wish type of experience. It's really designed to just simply create a timeout for the family to for three, four, five days just focus on family and and creating ideally lasting memories. They actually, they are actually afforded a professional photographer that is taking pictures of that experience, you know, that's memorialized in a both a digital and a hard copy memory book. And it just the number of testimonies that are centered around, you know, how how impactful that timeout was at such a critical time, because typically, you know, within anywhere three to six months after that experience, that parent, you know, usually passes. And so something I'm very, very passionate about. My sister lost her husband at a time. Their daughter, my niece, was nine years old. So had firsthand experience of that. And it's it's devastating. So thank you.

Well thank you for your yeah, thank you for your work there. I mean, it's it's cancer is obviously something that touches every single one of us. I mean, if it hasn't yet, it will. So yeah, I appreciate it. Well, Bill, this is this has been very insightful. And, you know, congratulations on everything that you guys are doing, the consolidations and the glow fox acquisition. I think it's awesome. If if people want to get in touch with you, want to reach out or want to learn more about things, where do you where would you like them to go online?

Yeah, I'm accessible on all social media outlets, but you're also more than welcome to reach out to me, you know, via email directly at bill.davis at ebcfitness.com. Welcome any uh feedback or questions folks have. And Eric, again, just really appreciate the opportunity to spend some time with you today.

Oh, the pleasure's all mine. Yeah, I know you're a busy guy, so getting an hour of your time to throw a bunch of questions your way. It's it's a blast for me. So, ladies and gentlemen, Bill Davis. Hey, wait, don't leave yet. This was your host, Eric Malzone, and I hope you enjoyed this episode of Future of Minutes. If you did, I'm gonna ask you to do three simple things. It takes under five minutes and it goes such a long way. We really appreciate it. Number one, please subscribe to our show wherever you listen to it, iTunes, Spotify, Catbox, whatever it may be. Number two, please leave us a favorable review. Number three, share. Put it on social media, talk about it to your friends, send it in a text message, whatever it may be. Please share this episode because we put a lot of work into and want to make sure that as many people are getting value out of it as possible. Lastly, if you'd like to learn more or get in touch with me, simply go to the feature of fitness.co. You can subscribe to our newsletter there, or you can simply get in touch with me as I love to hear from our listeners. So thank you so much. This is Eric Malzone, and this is the feature of fitness. Have a great day.