BrandBot and Becoming Customer Centric - Andrew Swansburg

Hey everybody, welcome to the Future of Fitness, where we talk with entrepreneurs, researchers, and practitioners in fitness, wellness, and the health sciences. I'd like to give a big thanks to our sponsors, Level Five Mentors, helping entrepreneurs achieve the highest levels of freedom in time, money, relationships, health, and purpose. Also, Certified Course Creation, helping entrepreneurs create accredited online certifications that are not only lucrative but highly scalable. Go to levelfive mentors.com or certifiedcoursecreation.com and learn more. I am your host, Eric Malzone. And once again, welcome to the future of fitness. All right, we're live. Andy, welcome to the show, man. Thank you, Eric. It's a pleasure to be here. Yeah, it's a pleasure to talk to you. I've had a you know some really good conversations with you previous to this and you know what you're doing with Brand Bot. But I love the approach. I love the problem that you're setting out to solve. And it's gonna be a really informative and high value interview for people within the fitness industry, especially. So uh Andy, let's let's kick it off. The place I like to start is off is tell us your story, man. How did you get to where you are as the founder of Brand Bot?

Yeah, it's a funny story. Yeah, this wasn't my path that I set out on. And I think that's how most, you know, this this goes most of the time. I was actually a studio art major in college. And so how I went up here is a fun one. But uh my mom actually opened a yoga studio north of Boston about probably a decade ago at this point, and just doing yoga, you know, is kind of in that moment where yoga is becoming really popular and you know, sort of smaller markets were beginning to really grow in in that sense. And then she did that for a couple years, and then something really interesting happened. She introduced different modalities, and so TRX was big for her, and then a year following that, cycling. And so she was a studio kind of having different modalities under the same roof. And once that happened, there was such an increase in complexity with how do I tell my yogis about cycling and how do I make sure that people that go to cycling understand why they need to follow it up with yoga. And you know, that was the ethos of our business was you should be able to come here, get you know, a great cardi workout, and then go and do some yoga, you know, the next day or on the weekend, and and holistically you're gonna be a better, you know, it's gonna fit your lifestyle better. And so I was just getting into sort of technology, I was uh doing some web design and all sorts of fun stuff like that. I was like, well, uh let's let's kind of see how we can build this. And so we started cobbling some existing tools together. It turns out when you do that and try to hand it off to somebody who's also running a yoga studio at the same time and telling them, all right, it's really easy. You have to export this CSV and then upload it, and then you know, you're gonna build a delay in this automation. It couldn't be easier. You're only gonna send to these people, and then it's gonna follow up with this. Turns out they don't have time to think through that. You know, the math was on fire, an instructor didn't show up, and so we had to do something a little bit of a, you know, very cliche, but uh, there was kind of that light bulb aha moment. And so we set out to build, you know, at the time I don't think that I would have articulated it this well, but a platform to help a studio or a franchise of studios deliver their customer terms. So the second somebody becomes a lead all the way through, you know, getting them on an intro offer and becoming an opportunity to how do they become my best member? And if they do drop off, how do we win them back? And so we've been really trying to champion that that notion of owning your customer journey and getting ahead of your customers and giving them what they want every step of the way.

Yeah, that's great, man. And you and you're not Brandbot is not a CRM, right?

Grandbot, I mean, so CRM is like it's become so many things, right? Like you helped manage the customer relationship in a very serious way. But I think that, you know, the word CRM is sort of all over the place now. So we're very much a customer journey plug.

Interesting. And what's the state of the business now? First question, who do you serve primarily? What does that look like?

Yeah, so we mostly focus on boutique studio. So to us, the vertical doesn't matter so much. We do see a lot in the emerging trends right now. So, you know, hit, boxing, rowing, bar, we have a huge constituency of yoga still, but a lot of our growth is in sort of those newer, I hate to say it, trendier uh modalities. And so that's where we've seen a lot of our growth.

Nice. And like what what's the status of the business? How how how big are you guys? How when did you start actually? Let's start there.

Man, so you know, I'd be the first one to admit I've made a lot of mistakes as a first-time founder. I started personally four years ago. I hired a coder off of Craigslist for anyone out there thinking that's a good idea. I will tell you otherwise. Uh definitely. It's like legal advice. You pay for what you get. That's another lesson I learned. And so if any of you try to start a fitness tech company, please talk to me. I'll save you a lot of money. So that's four years ago, and then we really hit our stride by launching a product into the market in March 2018. And so it's been almost two years, a perfect two years, actually. Funny enough. Uh, we have about 1,500 studios that use us right now. You know, we're growing pretty well, and a team of 13 now. Nice, nice, ma'am.

Well, congratulations. That's that's solid. I mean, that's that's pretty impressive for four years in my book, you know, especially in the software space within the fitness industry, which is starting to get crowded, you know. Yes. I'm not saying that it started to it's crowded. It's crowded. Yeah, we can go ahead and say that safely. We had talked before recording about you know some of the things that you tackle, and you you brought up a really good term, which I like a lot and I've heard before, but I want to dive into, and that's customer-centric, right? I think there's certain terms that are businessy or you know entrepreneurial by nature, and people throw them around, but they don't really know what it means. Like my favorite right now is personal brand. I really like what you've done with your personal brand. Yeah, what does that mean? They can't define it.

No one can actually it's your Instagram channel, right? That's what my I don't know.

I don't know. Maybe I really don't know, but there's people who seem to be experts in it who can't answer that question. Customer-centric. Let's let's dive into that. Let's maybe try to give it a good shot at what that means and define it.

Yeah, I mean, so how we got there, I think, is important. And, you know, if we truly look at, let's say, fitness 10 years ago, and I'm gonna use the word product. And what I mean when I talk about a studio's product or a gym's product, it's it's truly just the classes they're offering. And, you know, that's kind of what that means to me. It was enough to put a product in the market, and and that product was sort of probably the only one in town, or maybe one of the few. And so you did have just a natural inbound growth. Um, and so these studios, you know, truly just had to launch and they they did see success. With saturation, you know, with more studios and and and more different types of fitness modalities, we're starting to see that not be enough. And, you know, people that I've spoken to is like, oh, we're shifting into a marketing era and you know, all this stuff. As much as I would love everyone to think we're shifting directly into a marketing era because we're, you know, a marketing company in some sense. I don't think that's entirely true. I think we're shifting into an era where, you know, businesses need to start understanding who they want their customers to be and focusing solely on them. And I think that it touches every single part of a business from their brand, their messaging, their touch points, their training, their staff, even to the types of classes they give. And so when I say customer-centric, it's really just a reaction against wow, there's already five yoga studios in my area. I'm gonna do hip hop yoga. And there's gonna be enough people that are so into hip-hop yoga that they're gonna become diehard fans and uh and really be the foundation of my business. And then there's gonna be people that are interested and they'll come once or twice a month. And so um, I think that's the shift we're seeing is these brands taking, you know, I'll say the courage to be a very specific personality and using that to drive their growth instead of uh looking just or relying rather just on their product.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I really like that thought process and working through it. I think there's a couple things I would add in too is that depending on what where the business is and you know, a typical life cycle of a business, when people are first starting out, I think it's okay to be everyone, everything to everybody because you're kind of figuring out what your angle is, who you resonate with, who you enjoy working with. So I think a lot of people rush to a niche very quickly, and there's a lot of context to that conversation as well. And I think it depends on the market too, right? Like you're in a market that has two gyms in a small town, then there's really no necessarily need to be a big differentiator. You know, sometimes just the size of your market is your niche. That's another thing that a lot of people try to rush to really quickly. But I think in most competitive markets, which are a lot of them now, this makes an incredible amount of sense. When do you come into play? Do you come into play after someone has actually decided on who their customer focus is, or do you help them figure that out? Where does your service come into play?

Yeah, so we'll come into play day one. We'll be used differently throughout the, and I love what you said. There's a life cycle of a business, right? If you listening are a new studio owner, you know, in your head, don't think that you have launched your business quite yet. Because, you know, to Tarek's point, and I think it's fantastic, you're gonna go through these waves of reacting to, oh, well, I thought this, and then the customers told me otherwise, or let's try this idea, and that's perfectly fine for the first few years. You're figuring out what type of business you need to be to really serve your market. And, you know, I think that the one thing I would say is don't forget why you start. And I think the why you start is truly important as a whole or context. We see a lot of, okay, I started this business two years down the road. I can't change anything, right? Because this is what my business is now. And don't forget that you are running your business, the business is malleable, and you can make those decisions. And so Brandbot helps you react, right? And so, you know, at first, let's say a new studio is opening, you know, we're really there for some transactional stuff, right? It's how do we get Facebook leads followed up with that? I don't have to stay up till 2 a.m. in the morning for, right? And how do I email everyone that the studio opening's been pushed back two weeks because my general contractor, you know, did something, you know, messed something up, right? And so, you know, we're truly used a little bit more transactionally, uh, you know, at first. And then, you know, we always think it's a shame that we're continue to use that way. I think our savier businesses start using us to present their brand along the customer journey. Hey, you're a first-time customer. This is who we are as a business, and this is what you need to do to become, you know, the best customer we can be. And in turn, you know, hit all the goals you came to accomplish. So we do see that huge transition. I would say around year, you know, maybe 18 months, year two, really start figuring out how do I communicate with that customers? How do I make that journey solidified so I can package that and test it and repeat it, et cetera?

Yeah. Let's do a little exercise, put this in some context too. So just thinking of an avatar. Let's say there's a facility that deals specifically with youth athletes. And we can even get more niche if you want. We can say uh high school baseball players. Okay. Right? How does your software add value and kind of transform their business and the way they communicate with these people? Like what would that journey look like?

Yeah. So, you know, I think there's all sorts of different layers to that. But if we take a high school athlete, right, what can we assume about a high school athlete? Right, they they certainly have goals, especially at that age. You know, maybe it's a certain college, maybe it's a certain, you know, fastball speed, whatever it is, right? That's their customer journey. That's what they're coming in to seek, and that's what you have to deliver. So, you know, maybe they're on your website and they're filling out, okay, these are my goals. I'm signing up because I really want my the best chances to get into a D1 program. You know, you need to intake that information and do something with it. You need to say, hey, we've understood you, we understand who you are, and this is how we're gonna get you, right? And you know, the best companies have specific paths for specific customers, but you know, I would definitely say there's sort of a first step general path. And so that could look a lot of ways. But I think, you know, if we take that example in particular, it's hey, these are the programs we use and this is why we do it. I think education at the high school level is extremely important, right? And so not only are you saying, hey, practically you're gonna need to sign up to do three sessions a week, right? It's you need to do three sessions a week because that's all your body can handle, or because you know, we don't want you burnt out when you get to college, or because that's the maximum amount of things that you know, whatever that may be. I was not a high school baseball player. Yeah, me not me neither. Yeah, right. Okay, so perfect. So blind leave the blind here. So I think that uh, you know, those are the touch points you're gonna set up, right? It's what do you need as the business, which is the three times a week membership, and meeting them in the middle of why that makes sense for. And so, you know, they fill out a lead, you're on the phone with them, so Bramba can help prompt that. Maybe you're sending a text message, et cetera, you know, in communication, and then you align on why that's the best membership. So let's say they start that membership, right? Now it's your time to educate them and build momentum. Two weeks in, hey, I just want to check in with you, right? Or, you know, here's three things you should be doing between session. All of that stuff makes a huge difference to a consumer because it's the difference of wow, this place really gets me. They understand who I am, what I'm trying to do, versus, okay, this is a place I'm just showing up to betray. Um, and I think that's the difference that we're seeing today in the fastest growing brands versus the ones that are kind of, you know, status quo.

Yeah, it's interesting. I I reflect on this well because as your clients move along in the continuum from prospect to new client to kind of a medium range client to a long-term client. I think when, you know, I sold my gym, over 50% of my membership was have been members for over three years. And, you know, each one of those different points in time, they have different needs and wants. And there's different opportunities to serve them at a better level, right? Do you guys break it down into like those different areas of like, hey, here's where the client is on day one and you know, points of contact, how frequent you should contact them? Because people who are seasoned veterans of a gym or have been there for a long time, they don't want to be bothered a lot, right? They're like, I get it. I'm happy.

We we certainly help build that, you know, we call it the plan. We build that plan for them because one, you know, we don't expect anyone to come in here with a fully baked uh customer journey map. You know, we're a customer journey company and it's hard enough for us to do our own, right? It's just a really difficult thing to do. And it's because it's not something you do, it's something you're always, right? And so we'll help get you know all of our companies get started. But to your point, your customers continually evolve. And so it's super important to understand, okay, you know, if I've had a member for a year, they don't want all the flash sales, right? Or, you know, or whatever it is. They want here's four things that you could be doing on a day-to-day basis to continue to level up, right? Or to continue to reinforce why you came to us in the lifestyle you want. And so 100% we help our companies through every step of the way of, you know, we see a lot of people come to us, they're like, like, what do you want to do? They're like, Well, I need to convert more intro offers. It's like, okay, well, that's that's noble, but let's try to get them to come in more before we try to convert them, right? If somebody only comes in once and it's a 30-day trial, you're gonna have a really tough time converting them. So maybe the first two weeks, we tell them why they should come in, we should remind them to book. And it's stuff like that that I'm so surprised people skip right over and they say, Well, I need to sell a membership on day third. Like you do, but you gotta get there too.

Yeah, yeah. It's one of the things you've already figured out is that a lot of facility owners, a lot, I should say with the fitness industry, a lot of people get into it because they're passionate about helping new people. And, you know, that's kind of their their zone of genius. It's what they're, you know, like I said, it's what they're passionate about, it's their unique ability and things they invest a lot of time into. It's like, how do I, how do I run the class? How do I give the best a training experience? How do I do all these? But all the other stuff, either there's a lot of resistance, you know, for a facility owner or boutique gym owner to to do these things, and there's also just not a lot of time. So I think that's a big solution that you're coming in for and helping people out with, right?

Yeah, I mean, I think if you were to sit down with Google Spreadsheets and Gmail, even if you did have great ideas, they they couldn't be put in practice because it's just, you know, you don't have the data, you don't have that working with, you know, the specific tools, and they may not be easy to use. And so I think we make that accessible and in doing so, we save a lot of time.

Yeah. How have you seen growth within your company? I mean, you mentioned do you guys lean on digital marketing? Is it networking? Like how how are you focusing on your growth, Andy?

Yeah. So I mean, a couple different things that we I'll certainly say it's been a huge shift in the last three months for us. The first, you know, year and a half, we were strictly focused on delivering a product that people would be excited enough about that we had a lot of inbound coming in. And so that's how we grew, you know, probably from zero to a thousand was, you know, people finding us on Fine Body Marketplace through some of our other partners like Mariana Tech or Pike 13 and going to them like, hey, I need a marketing solution or I need a sales automation solution or I need a customer journey solution. They would point that to us. You know, we lean on them heavily for that. As studio owners know, you kind of that only lasts for so long, right? Start needing to build a more predictable, you know, revenue generating stream. And so we have started doing some digital marketing. Events are really big for us. Getting a bunch of people in the same place always has a lot of value. I think studios should always be doing events and you know, for their staff, for their customers. It's just so that you get such rich interaction there. And so we, you know, we rely heavily on the URSAs and the mind-body bold of the world for that growth. And we just started hiring some outbound reps. And I think that that's something too, you know, a strict sales process or a sales function. I think the big box gyms and I call big box gyms like, you know, the planet fitnesses of the world, those companies relied on that model for very long. And then studios came and they say, we don't, you know, we don't want that heavy of sales and stuff like that. But I I really seem to be a shift back to it, saying, hey, this actually works. You know, we can pull this off in a way that we're not like used car salespeople and strike a nice balance to have that have that growth. And so we're we're doing the same thing with our company.

Interesting. You're seeing some boutiques with success in outbound.

So not outbound cold, like just picking up the phone, calling, you know, the neighborhood, but certainly finding ways, whether it be Facebook lead ads, events, stuff like that, to really fill the top of the funnel. And then yeah, they're they're picking up the phone. I mean, we see very structured sales processes. We're being asked for customers to be owned by certain sales reps in our system. Like we're seeing a huge, huge push, especially in the hit industry, the high-intensity fitness one. I would say, you know, no stigma here, but back to the way of the sales model, the big box gyms are familiar with.

Yeah, it's interesting. I think it's a gap in the game that a lot of people are now focusing on. I mean, I I've had the pleasure of being on both sides as a facility owner, as an agency owner, and then I work with both agencies and gyms, and um, and the go-between, the most critical thing that everyone seems to be pointing the finger at either, but both both other parties, you know, agencies point the finger at the gym saying you guys don't have good lead management. Gyms are saying, well, you're sending me leads at 3 a.m. You know, it's it's this constant pointing back and forth. And I think the big thing in between is there's no sales, there's no sales systems.

Yeah, and I think that our world is, I think they're a little bit freaked out by the word sales. And I, you know, it's really important to us. It's like for a long time, I was just so excited about Brandbot that I was selling not understanding I was selling. I was just like, guys, I built something, I I think it's pretty darn cool. Like, I just want to tell you about it, right? And studio owners are the same. Like, I talk to studio owners, I'm like, I'm like, why is it that if I'm standing in front of you, you can make me fall in love with decisions you've made, right, about your studio in 30-minute conversation, but you have a tough time doing that to somebody who signed up and said, Hey, I'm actually interested in this yoga stuff or this rowing stuff, right? Like that, you know, that's they're not gonna sign up if they're completely uninterested. And and so I think that's where you know people think selling is transactional to know, just get them excited and then the rest will kind of evolve from there.

Yeah, well, that's an interesting it's a very interesting mindset about it because if you're looking at sales the right way, you're actually just helping people, you know. That they're raising their hand and they're saying, I want help with this. And by not following up, by not giving them the opportunity to buy into your business, you're not helping them, right?

Right. You're just not. And I think that people struggle, and and I'm sure you found this like people struggle with choice. And so if somebody can say, Hey, I think this is the next best thing for you, whether you're a member and it's teacher training or you're a first-time student and it's a certain intro offer, if you can go to somebody like, hey, it seems like you're this type of person, you've seen a lot of success with other similar type of people have gone on to do our 30-day, you know, trial. What do you think about it? They're gonna feel a lot more comfortable saying, Yeah, actually, you know what? That did make sense because I wasn't gonna think about it, right? Because yeah, and I think that's the difference. Studios that really understand the sales model versus studios that are uh still relying on just uh organic growth.

Yeah, it's it's interesting. I use this anecdote personally. There was a local jujitsu gym here, and I sent in a you know an application or whatever it is. I filled out their form saying, hey, I'd love a free first session. And then I got one text message and a call and I wasn't available. And then they just gave up.

Yeah, can't give up. You can't give up.

You just can't.

It's like, so, you know, we're we are a tool, right? So we don't tell people how to use it. Um, and I caveat that because we have some customers that they get a little trigger happy with the text messaging. And I think, you know, we're still in a world where everyone's figuring out, okay, am I comfortable with this text messaging? Am I not? Um, we see if done correctly, it's an enormous, enormous advantage uh to getting sort of results as a business owner. Um, but we had this one cup, this one company, I won't name names, but it was like, you know, it was basically like, hey, you know, can I help you with your package? Uh, you know, no answer. Hey, you know, are you still there? I'd love to talk to you. Hey, you know, and seven texts went by. And I was like, wow, you know, this person's really spamming their customer base. But like four or five people replied after a seventh message. I was like, I would never reply to any of these, but it happens. I mean, you know, you continually stay top of mind. I wouldn't suggest doing that, but it shows that if you if you stay top of mind, that spark that got somebody to reach out in the first place will reignite and uh and you will have better success.

Yeah. Yeah, well, I think you have to assume too that it had nothing to do with you. It's not your business, right? It's something like, like me, I just got busy. You know, maybe someone had all the intention and then the baby started crying, right? You gotta stay on top of it, you gotta automatically assume that, you know, these people want to hear from you and you just gotta make it your job to help facilitate that.

And go ahead. I think I already cut you out there, but I think that you know, be okay if somebody says, hey, you know, get out of my face, right? Like, and if they're not saying that it's so easy to unsubscribe from text and emails. If they're not, it's because there's a kernel in the back of their head saying, you know what, joining this gym would be a good idea for me, and it's worth having these emails in my inbox reminding me versus unsubscribe.

Yeah.

Uh and same with tech. So it's it's valuable real estate for sure.

Yeah. Yeah. It's uh it took me a while to get used to people unsubscribing from my email list too. And I'm like, well, let's do it. You know what helps with that? Just stop looking at it.

I know, you just, yeah, exactly.

That was an epiphany in Eric's life. And yeah, I'm I'm curious about you too, man. So you've founded this company, right? How are you? I mean, and compared to me, M43, you're a relatively young guy. How are you dealing with the growth of your company? How is your role changing? What are some of the challenges you personally encountered along the way?

Yeah, I mean, I think that uh one thing, for better or worse, I've picked up is just like complete transparency. So if I started out, if I think back to when I started, I dropped out of college and so I had a lot of riding on this. You know, my personally, my family is, you know, we're Catholic. From Boston. So just natural guilt from that of getting clicks, right? Yeah. And you know, self-deprecation there, of course. I felt a lot of pressure as you know a young 20-something to get this right. And I think not being able to manage that in the early days certainly made self-filling prophecy, right? If you're stressed out all day, you're not going to make great decisions. So back then I actually went to a gentleman who specialized in corporate culture when two big companies merged. And I don't know how I found this guy, but I'm so glad I did. He walked me through sort of evaluating your thinking as an entrepreneur and really being able to discern when you can trust your thinking and when you have to just let thoughts kind of simmer. And so over the years, I've been able to better gauge, Andy, you're pissed off or you're stressed or your egos involved here. You're going to have these thoughts and you can't suppress them. You know, maybe you want to go build a piece of functionality because I lost a customer to a competitor, right? In the heat of the moment, that makes a great deal of sense to somebody who's all worked up, but you can't trust that thinking because you're going to make, you know, you're going to diverge from your vision and having confidence in that vision. And so that foundation has really helped me transition from, you know, focusing on just the product to managing a small team and some customers to start thinking about, oh my God, I'm going to have to scale myself. I can't be everyone's, you know, uh go-to person anymore. I can't know all my customers' names anymore. And so trusting my team, all those transitions were extremely difficult for me on a personal level, on a how much I slept every night level. I mean, I think that's true for every entrepreneur. But what helped was I was able to get better at stepping back and saying, okay, you're thinking this way because this is a transition and change is hard for every single human on the planet. You know, you're not special, which was a tough pill to swallow for a young 20-something. And uh so, you know, I think it's just been through those transitions of continuing to try to push myself and step up to the plate of, you know, really basic next steps for entrepreneurs. I've gotten better at taking a step back and saying, is this a thought I'm able to trust, or is this a thought I'm gonna have to sit for, you know, maybe days or even months? I mean, that's truly been helpful to me as I've grown.

You know, I I applaud you, man, for bringing that up because it transparency is really big. And ultimately, transparency and authenticity is what allows us to grow. Because if we if we don't have that and we can't look at the gaps in our own game, then no one can help you. What I really like about that is when we can and Kate and I, when we work with entrepreneurs and kind of get them started, one of the first things, the first thing we lay out is you know, we call thinking about your thinking. Like, are you really aware of how you approach things? Because that's the most critical gift you can give, right? Is like, well, let's let's actually let's take a step back objectively and look at your thinking for a second. You know, is it is it serving you? Is it hurting you? What are some of the mistakes you made? Like you put in some mechanisms to pump the brakes, right?

I mean, yeah, I was forced to in my early years just due to you know stress, to be honest. And then it became an invaluable tool to be able to kind of evaluate that.

Yeah. So walk me through that. You're like, okay, you're maybe getting wrapped up in an old thought pattern. What does that old thought pattern look like? What's the mechanism you put in place to break that?

Yeah. So um it's the most so if I go, if I go back to when I started the company, I was very stressed out. And I come from a wonderful, wonderful family, but you know, mental health was a stigma for my family for a long time. I gotta get ahead of that as a through the world. Uh, that's a different conversation. And so I was so stressed out and I was trying to deal with it all internally. And I was like, you know, what the hell am I doing? I'm spending more time thinking about it, I'm stressed out than doing anything else. And so when I when I went to kind of find somebody to help me through that, there were two things that he instilled in me that I keep to this day. The first one is, you know, you can't exceed the pace of life. And I'm just naturally high strung. And if I feel like I'm getting anxious or agitated, I have to remember that we're all just kind of going down the same stream. There's not much you can do to accelerate that. Things are gonna happen at the pace they're gonna happen at. You know, the anxiety of getting it done quicker just hurts you from getting it done correctly. So that was one thing that I was like, okay, that actually slowing my thinking down just consciously was super important. And then secondly, he said, you can't change the way you right. And so thoughts just come into your head. You're not, you know, those are reactions from internal things, external things. And once I realized that, okay, I'm not gonna suppress those thoughts from happening because if anyone out there learned how to do that, please tell me. But I don't think it's possible. Um, it's the judgment of those thoughts that you have control over. And by judgment, I mean, okay, again, losing a customer to competitor, maybe a member quitting your gym, you know, that pisses you off. This is your baby. You put a lot of time into it. Why doesn't everyone love it? Right? Something like that, that thought's gonna trigger inside always. I'm always gonna be upset about that. I don't think there's ever gonna be a point where that doesn't work me up in some sense. Now that that thought's in there, now is in the realm where I can take over and say, hey, hey, thought, like, what are we gonna do with you, right? Are we gonna listen to you or are we gonna move on? And then, you know, the more mistakes I made about listening to them and getting myself into situations, the quicker I was able to realize, you know, what type of thoughts were coming into my head and be able to manage those effectively. And it's, you know, those two things that I learned, you know, back five years ago or four years ago were the most invaluable tools as a manager I could ever be taught.

Yeah, it's beautiful. It takes people a long time to go that deep, you know, because it's you know, a couple things I think in reaction to what you're saying is I I love it all. I think one of the hardest things for entrepreneurs to do is walk that fine line between urgency and patience, right? Because you do have to have some urgency. You have to push things through. But ultimately, if you look at things from a grander scale, is we control a very, very, very tiny percentage of everything that happens in our life, you know. Uh Joe Rogan has a phony quote. It's like at the end of the day, just remember they're walking talking monkeys flying around on on an organic spaceship, right? Like anything can happen. We're naive to think that we can control basically anything. And and it's in that understanding is actually quite powerful within itself. It relieves a lot of anxiety. I mean, I'm an anxious guy too. I always happen, just part of my blog.

I mean, I think that things are always going to be urgent, but your thinking does not have to be urgent with and I don't, you know, it's a weird dichotomy and it's very ephemeral. It just it took me a really long time to understand, a very long time to understand that. There was moments where I thought I understood it, and then you just, if you continue to think about the way you're thinking, a lot of thinking about your thinking, and you're gonna get better at it just naturally.

Yeah, yeah, it's it's an interesting thing. The other thing, man, is like you people talk about their don't understand in between their their thoughts and how you react to them. Like if people are listening right now, okay, listen up. Whatever you do, listener, do not think about a pink elephant holding a yellow umbrella. Don't think about it. Right? What's the first thing that pops in your head? Pink elephant holding a yellow umbrella. You can't control that. That's just your thoughts, right? What you can control is your awareness of the thought that you actually did that. And that simple exercise helps people be like, oh my God, there's a lot of things going on in my mind that I can't control.

Somebody uh, it's really funny. I was talking to, and I forget who, and I apologize if they're out there and you could claim credit, please let me know. I was having a conversation with them many years ago, and they're like, you know, we we've gone through a couple evolutions as a society. Yeah, I think the first one was truly kind of if you think about what is empowering to us as a society, I think for a long time that it was chalked up to wealth and sort of influence. And then I think that we went through a whole thing of being healthy and happy in. I think that that's become very empowering over the last few decades. And then I think ultimately we're gonna shift into another one, holistic, just adopting a lifestyle that resonates with you. It's gonna be a very empowering move. And I think that that's where the sort of macro of where our society's heading and what these studios are trying to accomplish really start intersecting of people are gonna be hyper-tuned into the type of lifestyle they want, right? The type of lifestyle that's going to make them feel a part of something. And I think that's a very human desire. And if you can give that, you know, all the studios out there, you guys are in an incredibly powerful position. There's not, and I always say this, there's not another business in the world where people show up to your doors three to five times a week. I wish our customers came by three to five times a week. It just doesn't exist. And you go to a retail shop maybe once every month, maybe every two months, maybe even fewer than that. And so you have this huge influence over delivering what the customer wants in a really meaningful way. And I think as those two movements kind of start congealing together, we're gonna see a lot of people that have never tried fitness before starting to try it and starting to try wellness. And uh, and I think that's where we're gonna see a ton of growth in this.

Yeah, yep, I agree. I mean, it's interesting. It took me, you know, better part of 10 years being in the trenches, coaching people, both in groups, small groups, teams, personal training, all that. It didn't take me long to realize that as a fitness professional, you have access both in depth and frequency to people's lives that almost no other profession has. You could say therapist, maybe, but they only want, you know, once again, if you're meeting with a therapist, it's like once a week, tops, right? But you know how many times I was sitting in my office doing a consultation with a client and someone starts crying, not because of me, but you know, was was a lot once a week minimum. And that's crazy, right? Like we have access to these people's lives, and that's the beauty of the profession and why I'm so, you know, hell bent on helping in advance to a place where fitness professionals aren't hurting for money all the time. You know, how do we, that's the big question is how do we take that level of value and service in someone's life and then equate it to a point where everyone actually makes a really solid career and it's a it's a profession that's respected and sought out? I don't know that answer. I'm I'm thinking about it every day, but that's where I would like to see and and software solutions like this who start to understand like, okay, how do I empower the gym owner and boutique fitness owner and fitness professional, you know, whatever you want to call it, in in a in a much greater way so that enables them to do more good for more people. I think that's that's really important. And that that's the exciting thing about technology, it's just giving us more access in a deeper way.

Yeah, it's just, I mean, what I think a lot of people get tripped up with in software in general, and certainly our product, is they they try to translate their thinking into software world. And so when they get in front of our product and they're like, okay, I need to, you know, trigger emails and text messages and tasks from my front desk, they start thinking very transactionally and and they forget about the customer for a second, right? So going back to customer-centric, it doesn't take a lot to spark a moment of, wow, this is the place for me. It could be something as simple as recognizing, hey, Eric, wow, you've been here five times the last week. That's awesome, man. Right. You as the customer have been working, you know, your butt off to get in there five times a week. And then just that one second of appreciation solidifies all that hard work you've put in. And they're like, wow, this is the place for me. And so it could come in a lot of different ways. And so as a studio owner, you know, I always tell my team, like, these people are creative, passionate entrepreneurs by nature, right? I haven't met a studio owner yet that can't solve their own problem. It's practically bringing it to life, is the issue. But don't forget about that, right? Don't forget, hey, is there a way I could have a water bottle waiting at, you know, their their bike when they get in because they're just a valued customer? Um, you know, it's it's the smallest moments like that in aggregate that build up the customer journey. It's not the moments that are like, hey, your class package is running out. We need you to renew. Those are really important moments, but those are not the customer journey. Those are just a small piece of it.

Yeah, yeah, that's a transactional moment. And I like to ask this question of founders and CEOs on the show because sometimes it turns out to be a very good thing. What's the biggest need you have in your business right now?

Oh man. Um resources. Anyone out there can't relate to that, but that's another, that's another day, you know, always too few people to get the job done. I would say that the biggest need we have is to get better at educating our customers and where we come in and just kind of the nature of how the fitness world's been adopting software. It's truly in its nascency of people understanding why these tools exist, how to use them effectively or most effectively. And we get a lot of people understandably come to us and say, you know what, I think I think I could really use this customer journey stuff, or I've been trying to do this very particular moment. You know, how do I use your tool to do that when we're really trying to get people to say, hey, this is who we are as a company. What are all the touch points I need to make to make that come to life at the different customer stages? And it's a huge, huge educational challenge. I think that all companies have somewhat become great educational content producers because you want people to understand, you know, even studios. I see a lot of people that are like, how do you get better? You know, how do you do things at home when you're not at the studio? So I think that we're seeing a lot of businesses adopt that and something that we need to adopt in a meaningful way.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think that's that's the challenge.

Right. And I think that we're getting to a point where all these, you know, a lot of software companies are going to start doing very similar things. And again, we're going to get hyper focused on our customer race and remain there. And uh it's going to be educating customers about the decisions we've made and why, you know, they should continue to use us over other providers because we understand them a bit better, right? And I think that that's what we work really hard to on a day-to-day basis to get to get to at our company.

Yeah. It's interesting. So when you say customer education, is it how to use your platform better to get more engagement in the software?

We're really careful between the distinction of how and why. I would say there's always a challenge with how, which is to us like click this button, you know, put the title here, hit publish, versus why, which is, hey, I have this problem that I basically hired the Brandbot software to help me with, which is I need people to come in more often during their two-week trial. And the why is I think people have a great understanding of a few key moments of their customer journey, but we can continually educate people around, you know, a great example is this. A lot of our customers spend 80% of their focus on the first 30 to 45 days of their customers' journey when most of their revenue is coming from, as you know, as a business owner, a former gym owner, from the people that have been there longer than 45 days. And so it's like that's the education we need is like that's a really important part to figure out, but don't discount that you also need to figure out how to keep your members happy and build momentum, even at you know, that sort of threshold that they've reached.

Yeah, you know, it's that's it's no easy feat, especially right as you're growing, you're you're still at a fairly early stage in the business, not having the resource. I mean, ultimately you would love to have just like a live chat 24-7 where someone can just jump on when someone has a question in the moment, right? That's what a gym owner would want. Yeah. It's like, hey, I got 10 minutes right now. I need to figure this out.

So we we do have a live chat, but it's not 24-7, and it's certainly something that we need to get proactive with as well. But also, it's you know, it's to your point, it's funny. A lot of people think software and fitness are two different realms, like running my business and a studio owner running their business. We could talk for hours about the similarities. There are very few differences, you know. We need people to stick around just like you guys do. Uh, we're we're always capped for resources, right? Like uh, it's funny how similar that my business, you know, uh your former business truly are.

Yeah, well, there's similarities across all. I mean, we're running a business academy right now. We have a SaaS provider, two E Crommer, Swan Consultants. Just what I'm getting at is the variety within the group is couldn't be more robust, yet everybody has the same problems. Yes.

I mean, at the end of the day, we're just, you know, we're trying to build a really we're all trying to build relationships with our customers and get them to believe in the thing that we've built in the same way we do. And that challenges universal.

Yeah, I love that. I'm gonna leave it there. Andy, where do people find you, man?

Yeah, you can go to our website, brandbot.com. If you're a fitness consumer, we're most likely partnered with your booking platform. So, like Mind Body, you can find us on the marketplace there. Mariana Tech, I'd ask your account rep, Pipe13. And if we're not, we're looking for new integrations, so we'd love to hear from you anyway. But just brandbot.com, there's a chat in the bottom right, and then also you can book a demo on the page as well. Awesome.

Well, Andy, thank you so much, man. It's been a real pleasure talking to you as all conversations have been.

Yeah, this is fantastic, and I cherish when I can step away from my day-to-day and kind of get back to what keeps me up at night, which is just how exciting this industry is. I can't stress enough that if you're in the fitness industry, this is the best time to be in it. It may not be like that, but there's so much going on and there's so much dynamism that you're really it's it's awesome.

Yeah, I I totally agree, man. It's like there's so much opportunity right now in the fitness industry. I'm I'm like a Labrador with too many tennis balls.

Yeah, exactly.

You know, so it's it's a great time to be in there. And people who don't see it, you just got to start looking for it because it's everywhere. So yeah, man, thanks for coming on. Really appreciate it. Ladies and gentlemen, Andy Swansberg of Rand Bot. Hey, it's your host, Eric Malzone. Thank you so much for listening to another episode of the Future of Fitness. If you enjoyed it, please do me a huge favor by going to the website and signing up for our newsletter. The website is futurofitness.do. Again, that's futurofitness.do. We've got some big, big announcements coming down the pipe, and we want you to make sure that you are on top of it. Thank you again. Signing off