Brandon Cullen - MADabolic - Boutique is Back!

Everybody, welcome to the future of fitness, it's operated fitness industry podcast for over two years. It's 2021. And I'm your host, Eric Melbourne. I have the absolute pleasure of talking to our innovators and cutting edge technology experts within the fast-based industries of fitness, wellness, and health sciences. Stop by futurefitness.co to subscribe and learn more. This episode of Future of Fitness is brought to you by our good friends at InsightCracker. You want to add more years to your life and more life to your years, of course. Which means you need to make a change. And that is what Insight Tracker is all about. InsideCracker is a personal platform flight. So, inside cracker used to find out, four data. Inside cracker, five, two, three, tax, active, fifty. Four is very limited. Inside cracker, features, twenty five, four five. Inside tracker.com. Inside tracker. Inside tracker. Fifty inside chat. This episode is also drop to five. The world's first intelligence platform built five coaches. Give us a favorable rating and share this episode on social media or wherever you like to go chat with friends. I am your host, Eric Malzone, and once again, welcome to the future of fitness. Boom, we're live. Brandon Cullen, welcome to the Future of Fitness.

Very excited to be here. Thanks for having me.

I've been looking forward to this interview for a long time. I mean, uh God, I just I love the metabolic brand. You know, me coming from functional fitness and athletics and all that. I just I I see what you guys are doing from a high level. I'm a huge fan. I know you've played uh your cards really well. And I think there's so much that people can learn from your story and and your input on everything in the industry. And you know, how is boutique doing? And that's going to be the big topic for for this conversation and what you're you're forecasting on that. So, man, thrilled to have you, Brandon. If you can um just give our audience a little bit of your background and and uh kind of how you got to be where you are now.

Uh yeah, so my first career, I was uh I was a minor league hockey plug. Uh just just being honest. Um, I grinded my way through the um the amateur leagues in Canada, uh, eventually got into the New York Rangers farm system. And at that point, it was uh the New York Rangers, the Hartford Wolfpack in the AHL, and then uh the Charlotte Checkers in the ECHL. And Charlotte is now my home where I live today. So yeah, my first career as a hockey player, um I mean I I realized I was a good enough player to play professionally, but I think it was the fitness aspect of the game, or I guess what I could control off the ice made me a lot more relevant on the ice, is probably the easiest way to say it. So I took that off-ice conditioning and off-ice preparation pretty serious because it was a thing that I could control uh more so than anything. So I if if people are old enough to remember kind of like the late 90s, early 2000s, you know, most hockey players at that point were arguably training like bodybuilders and mixing in some cycling classes here or there for cardio. Um and I happen to have a real great personal trainer from about 16 to 21 that put me on a program called Bigger, Faster, Stronger. I'm sure a lot of the listeners are familiar with it, but you know, it's a football program, and uh my trainer just adapted kind of like the time domains to fit 45 seconds on, a minute 30 off, um, and did all of the strength training more sports specific, but you know, when my um teammates and and guys I was playing against, when they were following more of a bodybuilding routine, I started powerlifting and back squatting and deadlifting and over speed training and agility training at at a time where it wasn't common in the hockey world, and I didn't really know what I was doing, I just know I would show up to training camp in a different level of shape um than the people I was kind of playing with. So as things developed and I started making my way into my late teens and early 20s, um, I started falling in love with the programming side of it. And uh after my first year professional with the Charlotte Checkers, I came home and my training career kind of started in an interesting way. I had teammates or local players that would say, Cully, do you mind if we follow you know your training program? And I said, Shit, yeah, I guess I should get certified and start charging for this. So that that's kind of how I got into fitness at 21 years old, um, selling the program I was already doing and working out with my teammates or uh my hockey colleagues.

That's awesome. And Cully, that's such a hockey nickname. I know it's embarrassing. That's great.

Very creative. Brandon Cullen, throw a Y on the end, and you got a great nickname. That's about it.

Yeah, I spent some time in my undergrad in Boston, and uh you know how many Sullies are there in Boston? Oh my god. It's uh it's pretty overwhelming. Um okay, so metabolic. So give us the origin story, man. How did um how did it start? Was it one location? Did it take, was it your training that you're doing? You're like, hey, well, I guess my next step is getting a facility. Like, how did how did it all begin?

Yeah, so I you know what, it it's probably good to walk that timeline because we come from a similar background. So once I got to that 21 and started training myself versus having a personal trainer, um, after that first season professionally, um, I was invited to I lived it, I grew up in St. Catharines, Ontario. So pretty much it's Niagara Falls on the Canadian side of the falls. And Buffalo is just across the border. So I could I could leave my house and be in downtown Buffalo in 30 minutes, just crossing the Peace Bridge. So a player that uh was a rookie like me, he said, Hey Brandon, there's a guy I trained with in downtown Buffalo that I think you'd find really interesting. And and he was a uh he was a boxing slash kickboxing trainer. Um so I said, you know what, why not? I drove up there on a Tuesday, and I'll never, I'll kind of never forget this day. It's I still love to tell this story, and for anyone that's heard it, you know, you can plug your ears. I apologize. But um I was I was a cocky, 21-year-old kid in the shape of my life, playing pretty well. The game was a very physical game at this point, so there was a lot of there was a lot of fighting, there was a lot of that kind of thing. So I get invited to this um really rough area of Buffalo to a church where there was a gym in the top of the church. So I'm walking up the stairs. This is an unheated attic, pretty much. There's samurai scripture on the walls, and I walk in and this uh 40-year-old man, his name was Kevin, um, kind of like greeted me and shook my hand with a very like loose kind of handshake and cupped my other hand with his hand. He's like, Hey, Brandon, it's it's really, you know, it's nice to meet you. We're gonna see if we can can help you today. And I said, Okay. And look like I'm um I'm old enough now to admit I was an arrogant 21-year-old kid at this point. And so he laces up my gloves, he um he asked me if I want some headgear. I said, no, I'm okay. And he doesn't he didn't put any headgear on. He's like, so Brandon, um we're gonna spar. And if I catch you out of place, I'm just gonna kind of tap you in the head to let you know I was there. And and so I'm looking at this guy, 20 years older than me. I'm like, I'm gonna knock this old man out in his own gym. I'm thinking, right? Well, um, 60 minutes later, I have not made contact with this gentleman once. Um, and every time I would throw a punch, he was so fast he would hit my hand and hit my forehead all at the same time. Where I had a goose egg the size of a water bottle coming out of the center of my forehead from him just barely touching me, probably 500 times in an hour. And the way the story ends is I he said, uh, so Brandon, do you think we could help you? And I said, I'll fucking see you next Tuesday. And I walked out of the place with my tail between my legs. Um, long story short, I trained with this guy for three, four years. Um, and he brought a different level of athleticism to my game because the way he translated movements, if we were to throw a knee or a kick, he would relate that to your first few steps on the ice or the way you would pivot to shoot a puck. Um, so it was very interesting and very kind of like innovative thinking, where instead of being this block that could move straight up and down and straight forward very powerfully and strong, I now played it about five pounds lighter and what was just as strong, just as explosive, um, but a lot more agile and a lot more athletic. So that kind of um brought a new way of thinking, kind of in my own head. Um and the craziest thing, and this is where the CrossFit um and our comparison comes in. We used to do our sparring or specific boxing, kickboxing related drills, and at the end we would do a finisher. Well, I used to see this guy that was in the corner of the gym that was doing kipping pull-ups, which I did not know what they were at the time, and just very intense workouts. And this guy would put me through a short ANRAP at the end of my 60-minute session. Come to learn, I started asking questions. He was one of the first CrossFit kind of trainers, and like us all, he pointed me towards main site, and I started doing my own research. And I think I got certified in 2006 when there was you know four certifications a year, I think. Um, and that was a pretty cool time in the in the CrossFit world. So when I did leave the game, I had an unexpected career-ending concussion, kind of at the height of my career, and was forced to leave the game. And my business partner and I now in Matabolic, we jumped into the 125th affiliate owner in the entire world and eventually opened our own spot about a year later. And that's kind of how I got into the CrossFit world. Wow.

Yeah, man, 2006, super early. Um, that was I mean, I think when was the first affiliate? Was it 2003? Anyway, doesn't matter. It's super early. Uh, so then you you learned some things from CrossFit, and what made you decide like, okay, maybe there's a a different or more refined way to do it? What was that aha mu?

Uh so there was a couple things. Do you remember at this point, too, there was only one owner per box or one box per owner? Do you remember that?

Yeah, um, I don't remember that rule. I mean, we got I got mine started in 08. So it may have been I think it may have switched. But we didn't I didn't I mean at that point I didn't want more than one.

No, I get it, but I I had my business partner, right? And we were trying to think like, can we really make like a life for this? Can we make a career out of this? And then there was also a there was a giant shift. So in those early-on affiliates, I always tell people, you were really working with like ex-collegiate athletes, ex-military, um, people with weightlifting backgrounds, people very used to true intensity. So the whole recipe made a ton of sense. Well, when we opened our gym in that 2008 or nine kind of area, it's kind of when it hit pop culture as well. And out of nowhere, and I don't blame CrossFit for this, it was an unstoppable, disruptive, awesome thing. But all of a sudden now you have people kind of coming out of jazz or size and they were underneath a barbell, and it just it made us have these honest conversations with like, yeah, I get it, and it can be done well, but does the everyday person exactly need this? Um, so that started the conversation. Then I started thinking about the training, the martial arts background, and how it changed me as an athlete, a more of a straight up and down, straightforward person, and just very athletic person, I think. And and the tipping point, I think, was we started, we were one of the first people that I know of that started running conditioning-based workouts on the weekends, and we started doing partner workouts. Um we removed the scoreboard and started doing uh more work-to-ress ratio driven workouts. And that was the big light bulb because all of a sudden our Saturday and Sunday classes were busier than our Monday through through Fridays when we removed the barbell. Um, yeah, so we started experimenting with things like foot speed, jumping and landing correctly, um, a lot of kettlebell stuff, a lot of single arm stuff. And I'll be honest, I just had this idea that you had CrossFit or sports-specific training at one end of the spectrum, and then you really didn't have good quality training somewhere in between that and and your YMCA boot camp. Um so we set out to do something different, and you know, Matabolic is quite a bit different than it was in 2011. I mean, it is now a legitimate program that people follow the way they would follow CrossFit, but that was the start. I mean, just experimenting um in that single location in South End Charlotte.

Right on. So fast forward now to Madam Bollock's current state. I mean, it is uh, and for people listening, today's March 24th, 2021. Um, where are you guys at now? What does the company look like?

Yeah, it's it's wild. It's it's exciting. Um we have 14 locations open right now, and we have about 30 in development or under contract. And you know, I don't I'm a very superstitious person and I'm cautious to kind of overstate and under deliver, but we're very close to a big area development deal and also big multi-unit deals, which could take us over 40 in the next uh few weeks. So just in all in all truth, it's it's it's very exciting for me uh to be one of the founders to see this kind of take shape now. Oh, right on, man.

So, you know, as you've grown, I mean, what it's been 12, 13 years you've been at this now. December?

Yeah, I think the true Matabolic product, um, we started experimenting in two uh late 2011. We kind of hit our stride into 2012, and then we're approached uh middle of 2012 to do that first franchise. Well, and we didn't even know it was gonna be a franchise, it was more or less someone saying, Would you ever consider this in another city? And we said, uh sure. How the hell do you do that? Kind of thing.

So so you guys are a uh overnight success in 10 years, essentially. Exactly. Stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah, right. Uh so uh, you know, before we started recording, we talked about uh your excitement that boutique is back. And I'm like, well, that makes a great title for a podcast episode, number one. Um but number two, what does it what does that mean to you? I mean, there's god if if you're in the fitness industry, the all the same questions are still coming around, right? Is digital here today? Is now connected fitness the new leader? Um, will gyms uh you know get through this? And how big will demand be when people, when gyms do reopen or are reopening? All these these questions of un obviously uncertainty, which is totally understandable given the last year and a half. Um so what makes you feel uh so strongly that boutique is back?

So I think high quality boutique is gonna come back stronger than ever. Um I think digital is also here to stay, but let me circle back to that. I think the people that deliver high quality strength and conditioning in that in that uh boutique space uh where coaching uh or um attention to detail is really important, I think that will come back strong. The same way I think the community-driven um volume models like a F45 or Orange Theory or Soul Cycle, I think they'll find their way back. They're gonna have to deal with more capacity type issues than we will. But I think it's kind of funny, right? It really doesn't matter at what period of time we're in. It it it's almost like the the the cream of the crop will rise. And I and I think that's no different here. I think the the hobby boutique fitness. Jim could be in trouble, but I think the big business boutique fitness uh offerings, I think uh you're gonna see a uh a strong, strong comeback. That's just my opinion.

Yeah, I mean it's it's it definitely uh as painful as this has been. I mean, I I read statistics all over the place. I think Anthony Vederi wrote something about you know, 54% of fitness professionals are out of work in 2020. Wow. Um, a huge percentage of gyms closed down, I think something around 20%, or if not more. Uh it's awful.

Um by the way, Anthony. Sorry to cut you off, but Anthony, I don't know him, but that dude's a ninja. Like, where does he get all his stats? I love reading his reports.

Yeah, I don't know. I I really like it. I've actually not spoken to him. I've kind of followed his stuff. And obviously, you know, I love uh I'm a big fan of any fitness industry podcast, um, what he does and how he takes all the data and photo and puts it out there. And it's a really interesting model. If I was had more time and more devoted, I would do something like it. Uh, but yeah, it's like he's like the guy, he's like the wizard of Oz. You don't know really where he is, right?

It's wild. He just he pops these things out and um it's very informative. Um, and he does a great job too, taking a neutral approach. So I really like his uh what he's putting out there right now.

Yeah, yeah. So shout out to Anthony. Well done. Come on my show, Anthony. Let's have a chat. Uh uh so I the point I was getting at is those numbers stuck, right? It's painful to see. I also think it is a triggering point when we look back for a major surge in the professionalism of the industry. You know, I talked to people like you, I talked to people like Joel, like Jamison, I talked to people like Jim Crowell, I talked to uh Dr. Sean Pastouch and all these people who are leading education. And, you know, people who are, like you said, are not hobbyists are should be excited because there's there's just going to be less noise. Um, you know, now of course there's these huge competitors like you know online connected fitness and digital offerings and apps and all that stuff, but really people want professionals, right? And uh I think that's that's a key difference. And I'm wondering through um metabolic lenses, and I'm sure you guys hire and train extremely well, how do you what what do you think gives your coaches an edge in being more professional?

Um let me go out on a limb here, and and I don't know if you know the people behind not the people behind, but my partners. But I I want to just make an honest statement here. So when my partner and I started the program uh programming for Matabolic, one of the things we wanted to make sure was that the workout was so good that you can almost have a poor coaching experience or not vibe with the person in front of the room. And you could still walk out and say, you know, that Brandon's an asshole. I'm not a fan of his, but shit, that was a good workout. Like, you know what I mean? So we put so much focus on the program that hit the floor, and our training, like you said, it's pretty extensive. So the way we on-ramp somebody is we bring them in for a two-day intensive boot camp, and then they go back to a four-week on-ramp program where we teach them how to navigate the group fitness uh floor. And we go as far as teaching them how to, so we go through, we have five movements a day. Well, we not only provide them the movements from the the most risky to the least risky in order, tell them how to create a traffic pattern to get through the room, but also too when you follow the traffic pattern to start at the feet, work to the knees, to the hips, to the torso, to the gaze, find the major movement flaws, move on to the next client, move on to the next most risky movement. So I believe the way our system is designed, we can take a very naturally athletic person and teach them how to run an efficient um group fitness training model while they better their skill set of seeing movement over time, if that makes sense.

Yeah, yeah, it makes total sense. And you know, I what you stated earlier about having the workout itself, which is essentially the system, deliver a great workout, that's what allows scalability. You know, I think uh, you know, as a obviously as a former gym owner, I I realize that uh if I and this is where ego comes in for many uh gym owners, it's like, well, if you are the uh icon, right? If you are the center of uh the whole thing, that's uh extremely limited. And you want it to kind of fade back, right? And let the systems and the coaching kind of take a hold, and then you got scalability. Um I'm one of the things I'm curious about because with boutique, obviously the experience, right? Like it's it's not, I don't know how much how much do you guys charge on on average for does it differ on the location or is it pretty standard across the board for end users?

We do um yeah, so one of the one of the stats I love about our program that is unheard of in the boutique fitness space. Um, and even we're doing some consulting work looking at the right kind of membership programs industry-wide, and we're struggling going back and forth because 70% of our membership system-wide are on a unlimited monthly contract, which you you know and and I know the industry standard is like that one or two days a week. And 70% of our membership are coming four to five days a week on unlimited contracts. So we look at, yeah, it's um it puts a ceiling on how many people can come into your gym. Like we kind of sell out around that 350 to 400 members, but it also is a retention model where you don't lose many people. Um, like our average lifespan of our clients over two years, which is also great. So um it's just a different model than say the orange theory kind of model. You know, a lot of turn and burn. We're very different where we are we convert at a 30 to 40 percent rate and we hold on to those people for two plus years, which is great. And they're all on big monthly contracts. So we look at um A, B, and C markets typically. Um, and it's just because we're not in an A plus market yet, like a New York City or something, but we may have that coming soon. Um but in let's say A markets, you're gonna be somewhere between 200 and 220 a month, and B markets, like a Charlotte, between 180 and 200 a month, and then in your C markets, which would be our Asheville, North Carolina, Greenville, South Carolina, you're gonna be between maybe 140 and 160. So it just depends on uh cost of real estate typically.

Yeah. I mean, those are those are solid rates, definitely not on the low end, but not on the super high end that you know would break a bank. But at that rate, you know, you have to at the boutique level, you always have to create a great experience, right? It has to feel good. Um so you know, the everyone kind of focuses on, well, what's the training like? You know, if we're if you're in the fitness industry, you always want to, well, what's the programming, right? How do you deliver the coaching? Uh, but really what I've found, and you know, feel free to disagree, but is that the overall experience, the feeling when someone walks in, the what they see, the way they're greeted, um, all of those little things make such a astronomical difference. How do you guys approach a consistent and great overall experience for for the clients?

Yeah, you're gonna laugh, but I had to get some deep tissue neck work uh this morning. And uh just it helps with my post-concussion uh uh symptoms, but there was a uh it um what do you call them, a diffuser going when I walked into the place.

Yeah.

And I'm like, huh. I'm like, this kind of has a like a like a grittier kind of smell to it. I'm like, what is that? Because I was thinking in my head, could this work work in our lobbies? Because exactly what you're saying, um whether we are putting a certain kind of shampoo in our bathrooms, um, the type of shirts we print on, the type of supplements we carry, we would rather give the client um the value add versus having the big margin to make money on. We are a membership-driven business, and we think anything we can do from a professionalism side of things, at the same time, too, like we have every one of our facilities professionally cleaned every single night. And I'm talking bathrooms, lobbies, floors are vacuumed and mopped every single night. And we get as many comments, just like you would imagine, about the cleanliness and the structure of our business as much as the program.

It's it makes me remember. So, Greg Glassman, the founder of CrossFit, and say whatever you want, it's fine. Um but he did say he's done some really incredible things, and uh he said some things that have always stuck with me. One of them, which maybe you remember this, he's like, you know, if you walk into a CrossFit gym, uh you can tell uh the quality of the owner by uh how nice the bathrooms are.

Interesting.

I always take that to heart because I it's true. I traveled around, I saw a lot of different CrossFit gyms. And I found that, especially uh, you know, my wife was originally a client, and you know, she always gave me very honest feedback. Uh, she was like, you know, your your bathrooms are, you know, you need a you need a feminine touch, right? And so we had we hired some, you know, as soon as we started hiring uh female coaches, you know, it went from left like athlete locker rooms to actually really nice, you know, there's like books and there is you know feminine product and all kinds of things that we just never thought of. And people started noticing. And I was like, damn, like Greg Lap, right? Like people walk in because everyone goes to the bathroom at some point, right? And if it's disgusting, it just leaves that feeling. And it's like it's just a really solid minder that those little things across the board um make such a huge difference. I mean, I was always a um huge advocate. Like if someone walks in the gym, they should be greeted with a smile. And that's it. You know, because the goal was always, well, you know, our job is to give them the best hour of their day because they may go back to screamy kids or a shitty job or whatever it may be, but they come here, you know, um, it's not it's their third place, right? Kind of like a Starbucks if you're doing it right. So how do you promote that? And um, a lot of that comes down to intentionally building community, which is my next question to you, is how do you guys do you have to intentionally build community, or do you find it's something that happens organically, or do you have to give it a nudge every once in a while? Where do you stand on that?

It's weird because I'll be honest, I've screwed this up a few times over the past 10 years. We definitely have a strong culture. I get a little bit nervous of the word community. Um, and what I mean is if you're to go into, and I'm not name-dropping because I would say this is the reg the rest of the industry. You're gonna walk into a very nice smiling face, and I'm talking about the big boys that are that are scaling huge right now and are very, very good at what they do. They're gonna have an amazing front desk staff, they're gonna have clean lines, they're gonna have clean facilities. Um, but a lot of their community is driven by the raw-rah, the high-fives, the I don't want to call it a false sense of community, but is it is more of the like the rah-rah, high-five kind of nature. Let's just say that. We have somehow created a culture that our people show up, you're in a very structured environment. Yes, there is someone smiling at you, but they're also not exactly holding your hand and high-fiving you through your workout. They're there to make you better. And it's interesting because when our classes end, you don't have the 20 people sitting on the floor talking for 15 minutes about the workout they just had. They say thank you, they rip out the door because they're off to the other part of their life, whether it's their kids, if they're on the trading floor, if they own their own business. They are a bunch of high performers that fitness is a huge part of their life, but it's just a part of their life. And um, it's weird. So I always get into almost like a negative space trying to explain this culture because I realize why the high-five culture works, and it's hard to explain that there's another culture over here that works too without sounding like an asshole. I think they both can live in the exact same space, and I think it's okay to be one or the other.

Well, a lot of it comes down to who your clients are, right? Like me, um, I'm 44, athlete all my life. Man, if someone comes at me with a high five in the beginning of my class and be like, dude, I know what I'm doing. Like, just run me through the workout, right? Um, you know, if people come up to me and they're cheering me in my face during a workout, I'll hate it. I'll hate it. Yeah. Uh so I guess it depends on on who you're serving. So to that point, who who does Matabolic serve for the most part?

Yeah, and we found this really a unique niche. So I think to to throw a blanket statement out there, from what I see in the fitness industry is a lot of different products. So call it the high-intensity boot camp style training, cycle, hot yoga. Um, they're all going after this, they're they're chasing this similar consumer. And from what I can tell, a lot of it, a lot of the times it's about 25 and under, or 35, 40 and older, and it's very heavily weighted towards females and weight loss, you know, and and I don't I hope that doesn't come off as as a rude statement. I just this is just what I see.

These are just numbers.

And where yeah, and where we have seem to like find this pockets right in the middle. It's 25 to 40, 40 to 45 year olds, and it's a he it's a very healthy male to female split. Um yeah, so we do real well in fast-paced millennial-driven markets right now, but I think it's too because we're just working on our name recognition to start branching out more into the suburb markets. But yeah, we we've got this we've got this unique niche right in the middle right now. And um I know why the other model works, but I feel much more comfortable uh with our little niche there in the middle, 25 to 45-year-old high performers.

Yeah. Well, it's a really fun one to work with. I mean, I would imagine um, you know, anybody who's ever gone to CrossFit Gym knows that it comes with a certain amount of drama built in. Uh it's just gonna be part of part of it. Uh just a cert about yeah, I I don't know what it is. I guess that's the dark side of community, right? Um, that everyone talks about is yeah, you get this tight-neck group, but then all of a sudden, like who's sleeping with who and your coach did what? Um so that always was annoying. Uh but that that group, you know, the high performers, you know, like you said, just them knowing that it's it's an integral part of their life, but it's not their entire life. And to me, that sounds like a very refreshing group to work with, especially I would imagine a bunch of them are probably former competitive athletes. Do you see that as well?

You know what? And this is where I need to dial in my messaging. Because even when I hear you see the say the word high performer, it high performer is a mindset. It's not a body type, it's not a certain level of athleticism, it's the way this individual approaches life. So I want like anyone listening here to think they may not be ready for metabolic. If you have the right mindset, you're ready for metabolic today. It's just a different culture. So, like I said, it's if you come in and you value structure, you like one-on-one attention and you're looking for results, that's not a body type. That's just an individual that's looking for a specific thing. So the word high performer, I've misused it so many times that we're starting to use like more generic terms like go-getter or high achiever and stuff like that, you know, because I feel like the word performer and athlete people think they have to be a former performer or a former athlete. Like it really isn't that. We're we're much more everyday people than you would think.

That's a great point. And I think, you know, putting your painting yourself into a corner with high performer is is challenging. I mean, so I always struggle with like, okay, who's my demographic? Like, it's really easy to say, well, you know, I work with uh 25, you know, I was more of like the 30 to 50 year old affluent, right? That was like demographics. I'm like, well, what's a psychographic? And I it took me so long to try to figure it out, really. And I really didn't figure it out until much, much later in my owner, my gym ownership career. And it came down to survey people and like what drives people. I took multiple so many clients out to coffee, like, what made you start? What were you feeling when you started? What made why are you different now? All these questions that we're always dying to know. And it really came down to use kind of Carol's uh terminology as a growth mindset of people who are there to learn and get better and don't take failure as the end all be all, but are willing to just kind of keep on going and learning and maybe being um uh vulnerable. That was a big thing too. It's like, hey, and my stats are similar. Like if someone stayed with me for six months, they were there for three plus years, uh right. So we just had to get them past that point and just making it a routine and getting them probably through those first couple hiccups of being vulnerable and understanding that, hey, you're gonna you're gonna be challenged here and that's okay, and everybody fails. And you know, it's it's that's part of the growth program. So for me, it was growth mindset. And that's a hard thing to describe or even identify by looking at someone. Um, but I think it's kind of the same thought. Would you agree?

Yeah, I'd a hundred percent agree. Like, um, I don't know if you've ever had a scenario. So I have two um, I have two young, two young, beautiful boys, a five and an eight-year-old, Logan and Grayson, and they're very much boys. So I'm at sports with them, you know, the majority of the weekends. I will say I'm the dad that stands off to the side, away from the the chit chat among a lot of parents, because a lot of times I stand in these conversations and I don't feel like I relate to the conversations that are going on. Um kind of like you said in the CrossFit gym, I feel like there's a lot of drama and a lot of talking about each other's neighbors and a lot of this. And I prefer to just be in the corner and I usually catch one or the guy or that's a that's a workout person, and you start vibing around um that yeah, like the the the growth mindset. Um, and people are probably listed like this guy sounds like a real treat. You know, he doesn't want to interact with blast at dinner parties. But I mean, like I love coming to work, I love my staff, I love my teammates, I love our clients. It is a very special place to be because I I feel like it is not forced. And I don't even know if that makes sense. It's like there's this facility that like-minded people show up to. They come from tons of different backgrounds, they sweat together and then they go out to the street to whatever they love most, and it's Their job, their kids, their whatever. It's just, it's really hard to explain the culture piece of our business.

It's, you know, I've been in so many gyms, and the one I train at now in Whitefish, Montana, is called The Wave. It's a great, it's more of a large kind of community health club. So, you know, I've kind of done the small boutique, I've done a lot of different things, obviously own gyms as well. But the thing I always look at is that when I walk in, I see everyone there. Everyone's there for self-improvement in one way or another. Right. And that's what I love about it. It's like, hey, I feel like a weird camaraderie, even though in like the place I go, no one really talks to each other. I'm sure I see a few people every once in a while and we chat, but I'm there to get my work done and get out. But I feel good knowing that everyone around me is there also just to improve themselves in one way or another, whether it's a new person, just like, hey, I need to learn how to burn calories and get on this treadmill to, you know, people who are more advanced trainees doing Olympic lifting. And I I love it all. I love it all. And I think that's kind of a you know, when you have a culture like that where it's like, well, it doesn't matter where you're at, we're all here to improve today. And we're here to be a healthier person. We're here to, you know, just be a better human, right? I think that's fundamentally it.

And I just had an experience. Um, I turned 40 two weeks ago. Um thank you, thank you. Yeah. So I went down to West Palm Beach. Um, my family has a place there with three of my closest friends. Um, one of them owns a men's custom uh suit company. The other one owns um Not Just Coffee, uh, which is an emerging coffee brand about to do some major scale. And then my other buddy that was with us, he's very high up um with Cisco on their sales division. So all of them are very entrepreneurial driven people, I would say. And you know, the whole world thinks you got four 40-year-old or 40 to 45-year-old guys heading down to West Palm for a big banger. And what I valued most about that trip was listening to them talk about their communities. So we're talking now about a coffee shop, custom uh suit company, and one of the bigger companies in America being Cisco, and all three of them are celebrating this same type of client, and many of them train here in Charlotte with us. So that's why I say it's it's more of the mindset of the individual and the growth mindset because this culture is not exactly a fitness thing, it's just a type of person that they are out there. Just as much as somebody needs the kind of cheers vibe where everybody knows your name and the high five, I see where there is a place for that, but I also uh I uh I'm telling you, there's a place for this other individual as well.

Yeah, well said, man. So I know our time is is getting limited here, but I always like to, due to the the name of my podcast, The Future of Fitness, is kind of look forward a little bit and get your get your crystal ball reading. Um how if let's put a timeline on it, Brandon. Three years from now, how do you think the fitness industry will be different than it is now?

I think I'm gonna I'm gonna go completely rogue. I don't think it's gonna be much different at all. I really don't. I think that the big box gym will find their way back. We all know this. Our world is very cyclical. So I think the big box gym will find their way back. I think the digital consumer is the exact same consumer, in my opinion. The person, let me put it this way we're just doing a way better version of P90X now because of technology, is my honest opinion. And I realize that's a bit of a blanket statement, but I think digital or the digital consumer has always been here. It's just a much, much better experience than plugging in a DVD, like we used to, because now they have technology, they have the right kind of personalities, they have community brought into that. I think boutique fitness, like I said, I think the strong will survive and get even better. I think you can possibly count on boutique fitness getting more expensive because it will be more exclusive as well. Um and I think those pro uh those companies that are in between offering a good product, but not a great product, are going to have to buy into this hybrid model to survive. Because I think you can do boutique fitness without digital. I think you can do digital the way it's growing now, but I think it's that in-between business that is gonna have to figure out that that hybrid version is my honest opinion.

Good insights, man. So what uh how do people get a hold of you, man? Where where do you send them now? Give us the goods.

Yeah, so I recently, you know what? I am loving LinkedIn.

Me too.

I know it's making a resurgence in the last year. Um, I kind of, to be honest, to stay focused, I popped off of Instagram years ago. Um I found it to be a time suck. I still manage our corporate voice on the kind of the metabolic side of social. But as far as like a personal side of things, I just re-uh re-upped my Twitter account and I've been heavy on LinkedIn. So you can find me at LinkedIn, just Brandon Cullen, and my Twitter account is uh Playing Guilty. It's actually the name of the new podcast that I just launched a couple weeks ago. So those are the two places you can find me.

Oh, right on, man. Well, real quick, plug the podcast.

You know what? Uh we I'm taking an interesting approach. So we are having difficult conversations um talking about the dark side of entrepreneurship and the struggles that no one talks about. Uh recently, my most recent one, I interviewed Stuart Brouwer. Um, you know him?

Very going on his podcast next week.

Well, he's a trip and he's down the street from me. So we have a real fun like business relationship. Um, but we talked about conversations with competitors and having a very professional business relationship while we are operating one another's backyard for the past 10 years. So guess what? I'm new to it. I don't know if it'll stick or work, but I've had fun with the first two episodes. And it's it's called playing guilty, and you can find that on any of the uh the regular podcasting channels.

Oh, that's great, man. You're gonna love it. Um you learn so much. You uh it's it's a blast. It's my favorite time of the day, is when I get to record interviews. And uh, you know, you just seem to have such a natural flow and you know, genuine sense of curiosity um and openness too. So yeah, I think it's gonna be really good. I'm excited to I'll get subscribed today and start listening, man. That's that's fantastic.

Well, so is is is that is that you say yes, you will be a guest?

Oh, yeah, for sure. Hands down. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, you got me. Um yeah, and I you know, it's funny on my other show, The Black Diamond Podcast, we we talk about uh, which is like like lifestyle entrepreneurship, just kind of my own personal journey. Um and I interview a lot of like Montana entrepreneurs now that I live here, people in industries that I find interesting. Uh, and that's one of the big things we are we oftentimes talk about the dark side of entrepreneurship and um how it's you know very glamorized now, but man, it can get dark quick. And uh it's good that you're talking about it.

Well, I'm that's exciting because I get it. Um we are forced to talk about the same fitness topics on every kind of podcast you go on. So I I love listening to this specific podcast, but I'll be honest, what what you're offering on that other side sounds extremely interesting for my own growth mindset, to be honest. So I'll be checking that one out for sure. What was the name of that again?

Uh the Black Diamond Podcast. I think there's uh another guy launched one with the same name uh within a week of mine. So you just have to look for mine. But it's uh yeah, it happens. It's podcasting. Uh all right, cool. Brandon, man, super fun, great interview. Um, really enjoyed our conversation. Congratulations on all our success with Matabolic. I think you have a very, very good reason to be excited moving forward, especially as this pandemic releases and uh things go back to. I hate myself for saying that's the new norm. Um yeah, so thanks for coming on. Really appreciate your time. Ladies and gentlemen, Brandon Cullen.

Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. That was great.

Uh wait, don't leave yet. This is your host, Eric Meldone. And I hope you enjoyed this episode of Two First Minutes. If you did, I'm gonna ask you to do three under five minutes and it goes a long way under the number one, please subscribe to our two. Number two, three, five, eight, six, four, four, three, two, three, number three, yes, five, five, two, five, three, feet, twenty, fifty, five, fourteen, two, four, five, five, fifty, four, five, fifty, five, five, five, fifty, like, two, four, four, give it, fifty, do, two, two, two, five, six, two, fifty, six, five, two, two, four, five, four, fifty, fifty, five, fifty, five, smart, smart, so thank you so much.