Chris Clawson - Live At IHRSA - EGYM's "Genius"

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[00:02:18] All right, we are live. We are live. Who's class and thanks for doing this? Welcome to

[00:02:26] the future of fitness. You're welcome. It's going to be here Los Angeles and be here at

[00:02:31] Trade Show that enjoyed, it's like a reunion for me so I've been here many times and lots

[00:02:37] of people I know and it's just a fun time for me. Yeah well I'm glad we made this happen

[00:02:41] because obviously you've been busy man today. We're sitting in the middle of our sun today

[00:02:46] is today's Thursday of Ursa which is probably the busiest day and you've been doing your

[00:02:51] job pretty effectively from what I've seen. I'm trying. But you recently joined UGM not too

[00:02:58] long ago so maybe that's a good place to start because I want to cover, there's so much

[00:03:02] I want to cover with you. You want to cover about the you know EGM technology, you want to

[00:03:05] cover Ursa kind of your experiences over the years being here. I know you've seen a lot

[00:03:09] of cyclical things happen throughout the industry over your career but we'll start with maybe

[00:03:14] what attracted you to EGM and kind of how that process unfolded of you joining their team

[00:03:19] and then we'll take it from there. Sure so I've known Philip kind of since he came in the

[00:03:23] industry. Philip's a very gregarious person. He's first of all he doesn't have any ego whatsoever

[00:03:28] I wouldn't say I shouldn't say that his ego is so it's so controlled yeah and he comes across

[00:03:37] as just a nice human being so my experiences from the Roweys him being self-facing almost self-deprecating

[00:03:44] and you know I was at a very large company when I met him I was at life fitness which was the

[00:03:48] largest in the industry and I came over and spent some time with him and he was very appreciative

[00:03:53] of the fact that I took that time and I said listen what you know today isn't what you know tomorrow

[00:03:59] and the people that you know on the way up are often the same people you meet on the way down

[00:04:04] and I'm paraphrasing here but I said I always have time for people because someday they're going

[00:04:10] to be a partner. Sometimes there's some day they're going to be something that I'll work with or

[00:04:14] maybe you know in this case I work for him but I never burn bridges. In fact I worked at life

[00:04:19] fitness three times so 11 years six and a half years and three years so twice the CEO

[00:04:26] so if you burn bridges even within the realm that you operate in it comes back to hurt you but

[00:04:32] when you build bridges it also gives you lots of opportunities later on and I always had a nice

[00:04:37] bridge that I built with Philip he's a good person. Yeah you know it's I was joking with Sean earlier

[00:04:44] Philip's one of the only CEOs I see at these events who gives me a hug. Yeah like in the genuine right

[00:04:49] he's a hugger if you're uncomfortable with physical contact you don't want to be too close to

[00:04:54] fill up because he's going to figure out a way to hug you yeah I think the only person that he

[00:04:58] doesn't hug are probably people who are on the move if he can slow him down enough that he can

[00:05:03] sort of climb up on their back and hug him he'll do that but as long as they're stationary he doesn't

[00:05:07] have any problem hugging you. And I mean correct me if I'm wrong but I feel like you've been in this

[00:05:11] industry for a while you've seen probably a lot of personal success you know doing this like I

[00:05:16] you know I don't think you really have to be working or have to be here at EGM in my in my wrong

[00:05:20] like I do not I'm a very very fortunate person. I a long time ago people said you know that the

[00:05:27] greatest situation you can ever be in is work because you want to not because you have to and it's

[00:05:32] interesting because of my career I actually never felt like I worked because I had to I always felt

[00:05:37] I worked because I wanted to and been in great situations with some really good companies and

[00:05:42] some really great people and I always felt like tomorrow was going to always be better than the day

[00:05:47] before and somehow in my career it's been almost mostly true. I mean there's been some tough times

[00:05:52] I I only lost my I lost my job three times in my life but I guess four times in my life

[00:05:58] I used to play baseball and I got fired from a one baseball team oh and then I resigned with

[00:06:04] another team and a season later I got fired by them so the first two times and then twice I've

[00:06:09] lost my job as an adult and in both cases it was the same company the same job. So I never fear

[00:06:19] what it's like to fail because I don't ever think I would but I will tell you being in an

[00:06:23] organization that always anticipates and looks to succeed is so refreshing and that's really I

[00:06:30] will tell you that part of the reason why I came to eGEM is that Phillips team and the people

[00:06:34] on this organization they embrace tomorrow they're so excited about the future and all they can do

[00:06:41] is imagine success and they just do when they walk down the hall they have pep in their step when

[00:06:46] you're in meetings they're all talking about the art of the possible and then when you get with

[00:06:51] customers and the relationships that they've developed the customers everybody's excited about

[00:06:56] where the society and I'm excited to be part of it to be honest yeah yeah that's awesome that is

[00:07:00] awesome and I think that's everything you can hope for in your career right actually gets to that

[00:07:03] point and there are so many people that don't have that success partly because the way that they

[00:07:08] approach life they actually look for the dark cloud they're always worried about the other you know

[00:07:14] the hat that's about to drop and that that manifests itself and their lives in their careers

[00:07:19] but that culture also manifests itself in companies sometimes companies have a bunch of people

[00:07:26] that are fearful about failure and so they actually try to avoid failure more than they try to

[00:07:32] embrace success and that's a tough place to be if you've experienced 180 degrees different and

[00:07:38] this is a company that embraces success yeah awesome and your role I think it correct me again if

[00:07:44] I'm wrong but it's the the general manager of gym technology worldwide and so right that's

[00:07:49] correct so we the business that people know is the gym tech business because they've seen the product

[00:07:56] maybe they've experienced it but the business is way more dynamic than that the digital side of

[00:08:02] this business with what we call the fitness hub with the training app with the branded member app

[00:08:09] which looks like the customers app and what we're doing around this this genius solution and we'll

[00:08:14] hopefully get a chance to talk about a little bit for sure and then there's this entire business

[00:08:18] called well pass which is really an employer employee based wellness it's a membership that gives

[00:08:25] you access to fitness facilities in an area and all those facilities that raise their hand and say

[00:08:30] that we're in are open to the to this case the member is the employee and so it's a it's a joint

[00:08:36] venture if you will between employer and employee and so it gives them access to these amazing fitness

[00:08:42] facilities boutiques and studios and health clubs and that also brings us into the conversation and so

[00:08:49] when you look at the entire conversation around e-gym it's it's really all three and sometimes

[00:08:54] it's just one start and the other two come in after and sometimes it's all three of them to begin with

[00:08:59] so it's quite dynamic yeah it's great I mean today we'll we're going to get into the technology for

[00:09:05] sure because I finally got to experience it you know got it onboarded I got to do the game day

[00:09:10] stuff and like a lot of it was really interesting to me and I want to talk about that experience in a

[00:09:14] minute but we are sitting at the floor in Ursa right like we're in the middle of the floor it's

[00:09:18] pretty fun doing interviews like this you can add Ursa a couple times over your career yeah you

[00:09:22] know maybe it's bringing us back to the first time you went to Ursa what that was like and maybe

[00:09:26] throughout different it is now so my first Ursa was 30 years ago and it was an arena Nevada as I

[00:09:32] always call it a place you know I think Reno is probably a better place to live then we have

[00:09:39] friends that live in trucky so they're nearby they're and they love it so yeah family with

[00:09:42] them yeah I mean you're you're basically on the other side of Lake Tahoe so it's pretty spectacular

[00:09:47] from a topography perspective but Reno itself is it's kind of a blue collar town at some level

[00:09:53] it has obviously it's white collar elements but yeah 30 years ago Reno was Reno it was an old

[00:10:02] you know it was sort of an old tire from hospitality hotels were old the the meeting space

[00:10:07] that we had the convention area was kind of old but it was an interesting trade show for me because

[00:10:12] it was my first commercial trade show I've been to a lot of consumer fitness trade shows and there

[00:10:16] were much grander in scale so the super show which used to be put on by the sporting goods

[00:10:22] manufacturers association was the first trade show I'd ever gone to and it was the third largest

[00:10:27] trade show in the United States so it was in scale probably maybe 30 times larger than this I mean

[00:10:34] it was way beyond this it was millions of square feet but it was a different environment because

[00:10:40] it wasn't it wasn't customer and supplier it was retailer and supplier so the customer was

[00:10:50] the retailers we were selling to the retailer and so it was a different conversation and a different

[00:10:57] dynamic here it's you're much closer to where the rubber hits the road because you're selling

[00:11:02] to in most cases you're selling to the person that's going to be using that in their facility

[00:11:06] to sell memberships right and so my experience that that very first trade show that I went to

[00:11:12] was meeting with people who were professional buyers their job was to buy fitness equipment

[00:11:20] yeah and they didn't buy fitness equipment because they like fitness equipment they bought

[00:11:22] fitness equipment so they could sell health club memberships or beds and heads at a hotel or if it

[00:11:28] was an university rack it was for their students but it was a lot of fun and but it was quite

[00:11:34] different than it is today it was Teclow productile people pack their boots almost like it was a

[00:11:42] shopping mall and you're like there's no place to move in here and why do you have so much equipment

[00:11:47] you can't even have conversations so yeah it was a lot different then yeah I mean then how would

[00:11:51] you describe it now I mean it's it's tech heavy right and I've been to last three or four

[00:11:59] and I've just seen obviously three years ago it's a little dismal right for the industry it was

[00:12:03] quiet it's it seems to have come back but what's your kind of overall assertation of how it's doing now

[00:12:09] yeah so I always tell people the first day is always good I've never been with the exception of

[00:12:14] post-cover where it was a little funky yep but the first day is always good and there's always

[00:12:18] a lot of traffic and there's always a lot of energy the question of how well the show goes is

[00:12:22] really day two is what does it look like afternoon when noon hits is everybody heading to the exits

[00:12:29] to catch flights out of here or are they staying till the end of the show and to me that's the

[00:12:34] difference between a good show and a great show so we'll see I mean I'm bullish I we've we have

[00:12:40] 195 195 scheduled meetings it's crazy no it's been really I've been sitting in here most of the day

[00:12:48] yeah and it's bananas how many people are coming through yeah these are like high-level meetings

[00:12:52] what I've seen so they're great things coming through yeah they're great meetings so you know that

[00:12:56] that parts good and we have a really a really unique place in the industry so not only do we have

[00:13:02] meetings with potential customers and clients but we have vendor partners that we're working with

[00:13:09] so over my left shoulder and to my right here we have vendor partners products we have partner

[00:13:15] products from matrix fitness and from life fitness and from stairmaster and star track and pre-core

[00:13:22] and so our conversation isn't just about what we do it's about who we do it with

[00:13:29] and we have 200 partners that we work we work with Garmin and Strava and we work with people who are

[00:13:35] Apple and others right so we're an aggregator we're also a manufacturer and supplier of equipment

[00:13:41] but our story isn't limited to the 19 pieces of what as the Brits would say kit that we sell

[00:13:47] it's the ecosystem that we've created that includes our partners and all of their products

[00:13:53] well thank you for that beautiful segue because that brings me to the next piece of I mean most

[00:13:56] people listen to that they're like well that doesn't make any sense why is EGIM have you know

[00:14:00] all the other types of brands and equipment within their booths and they're you know promoting it

[00:14:04] that makes zero sense right but now I know what I know today and what we talked about with genius

[00:14:09] we'll get into that extensively like why does that make sense for EGIM why is that a unique case

[00:14:14] sure so if you think about why why you are or you aren't successful in the industry there's two

[00:14:22] layers of the conversation there's the layer of selling the product to an operator and the operator

[00:14:27] could be anything from a hotelier to a health club operator but you're selling it to somebody who's

[00:14:32] going to use it and that's not that's not the business they're in they don't self fitness equipment

[00:14:36] they're selling training or they're selling an experience at the hotel or at a university it's

[00:14:41] place to work out and to meet people but when you recognize that that's just who you're selling

[00:14:48] the product to who are they actually selling their product to and they're selling it to a staff

[00:14:55] member has to use it to sell memberships a general manager at a hotel that it puts needs to put

[00:15:00] beds in heads a college that's trying to recruit students and they have a fitness center

[00:15:05] that they use as a recruiting tool or it's for athletics and they use it to recruit athletes

[00:15:10] and then you also have the athletes themselves and or the person who's working out or the person

[00:15:16] who's traveling the person who works out in the corporate fitness center those are ultimately also

[00:15:22] customers but they're once or twice removed and so when you think about what we do

[00:15:28] we're actually trying to solve for what's been an obvious pain point that people didn't

[00:15:34] necessarily know how to articulate and so when you think of an app apps are mostly singular

[00:15:41] devices they do something right maybe they do some things but what we're talking about is doing

[00:15:49] as many things as possible so if you're somebody who wants functional training and you want it

[00:15:55] delivered through your app we can do that if you want to track your exercise

[00:16:01] and it's goal-based we can do that but with our AI and the 7 billion exercises that we have into

[00:16:08] 340 million encounters of onboarding we have the ability to prescribe exercise based what your

[00:16:15] goals are using our biometrics looking at your flexibility looking at at the information that we

[00:16:23] have about you as a person your weight your height your body mass index we have the ability to look

[00:16:30] at your VO2 max using our partners for VO2 max testing using what's called RPE which is relative

[00:16:37] perceived exertion we can determine what your VO2 max is we look at flexibility and all of those

[00:16:43] things combined with your strength and your capabilities around strength we assign a biohage for each

[00:16:47] one of those and sometimes that biohage is younger than your chronological age and sometimes it's

[00:16:52] the same and sometimes it's slightly more but it's all about achievement and so we bring all of these

[00:16:58] things to bear so if you're out running we can capture that through your garment if you're riding a

[00:17:04] bike we can capture that through Strava if you're working on an piece of strength equipment we can

[00:17:09] capture that on selectorized free weights or functional training or we can do that on the computerized

[00:17:14] smart strength equipment we have or we can do cardiovascular exercises that aren't VO2 max

[00:17:19] you just exercise we can capture all that and so we bring all that to bear and why do we do that

[00:17:24] is to benefit the operator who's selling memberships reporting beds and heads the staff that's

[00:17:29] selling whatever the services that they offer and ultimately the person who's using that to

[00:17:33] exercise and we can do that globally and so it's it's a power of AI is about to become exponential

[00:17:41] because we already have seven billion exercises and as we add all their strength equipment including

[00:17:46] other cardio equipment it could continue to build on our partner member conversation that seven

[00:17:53] billion will become 14 billion in the blink of an eye it's for me having covered the fitness

[00:17:59] industry for the last seven years on this podcast I talk a lot about technology right and I've

[00:18:03] talked about this kind of like this dream point of like where AI will use Gerald Jackson's term

[00:18:09] of giving credit contextualize the data yeah right where it's like it makes it useful

[00:18:13] to the individual and I always thought about you know I know you guys from my understanding maybe

[00:18:18] you can correct me if I'm wrong yeah but like wearable data is still being worked into this situation

[00:18:23] but I've always imagined this world where like your program change is depending on the data that

[00:18:26] it's being fed from you personally and specifically right so I didn't get enough sleep I'm over stress

[00:18:31] something hurts right so that the program will change automatically yeah and I've written

[00:18:35] thousands of programs for people and I know it's never really that good because I can't contextualize

[00:18:41] it I don't know what they're what's going on their lives but that to me that seems like where

[00:18:44] you guys are going and at some point that could you know the portion around sleep you can do

[00:18:50] that with a partner because a partner can track through with with a phone they can track your sleep

[00:18:54] in the quality of your sleep and that can become part of the AI component of the AI the parts that

[00:18:59] we don't track now and at some point we may again we don't track nutrition but we may integrate

[00:19:04] with somebody who's tracking nutrition because that's a big part of goal setting for on on on

[00:19:09] multiple levels one is if your goal is to lose weight calories and calories out it's a big part

[00:19:14] of that equation so you can work out all you want you can but if you're consuming more calories

[00:19:18] than you're burning you're you're going to gain weight doesn't matter I mean it is what it is

[00:19:22] but all those factors are going to be important but for what we can do right now already

[00:19:29] it's pretty important if you're choosing a goal around strength training and you want to focus on

[00:19:34] specific parts of your body or if you have an injury and you can factor that out we're only going

[00:19:39] to prescribe what exercises are available in the facility that you belong to so although we might

[00:19:44] have 10,000 different pieces loaded in it's only the hundred pieces that are available in your club

[00:19:51] that are that are part of the assortment but only working them based on what your goals are so

[00:19:57] the beauty of the AI is when I do a training protocol for you and a prescription for you

[00:20:03] I only know Eric Malzone I only know you and I may not know you well enough because I might have

[00:20:08] 19 other clients I'm working with so I'm actually trying to piece it all together and I'm seeing

[00:20:12] what's working for you and what's not working for you. What we have through the AI is we have in this

[00:20:18] case thousands then 10,000,000,000 then 100,000,000 millions of Eric Malzone's we're going to start

[00:20:24] to know more and more people who are your age who have your goals who have seen your progression

[00:20:30] and your success and now we can start to bring that to bear so that when the trainer is trying to

[00:20:33] build a program for you he's drawing on all of the Eric Malzone's that are out there

[00:20:39] that are having success and he's pulling from the things that have been most successful and in

[00:20:43] some cases factoring out things that have been less successful and he doesn't have to remember all

[00:20:47] that that's being created for him now he can customize it and he can optimize for a situation

[00:20:52] and so can the member the member can say you know I'm actually feeling a little pepier than

[00:20:56] than I thought I was and I know what the what this is I'm going to hit the plus button I'm actually

[00:21:01] going to do more resistance and that's okay too you have flexibility to customize the workout while

[00:21:06] you're there. This episode of the future of fitness is brought to you by our friends at Wattify

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[00:22:09] the Wattify team go to Wattify.com forward slash future of fitness that's WODIFY.com forward slash

[00:22:19] future of fitness now on to the show yeah you know it's it's it's really cool it's really cool

[00:22:26] and I got to experience a lot of it today at least part of the assessment things like that

[00:22:30] happen to say younger than I am nice on just strength flexibility I suck so I need

[00:22:36] I know a lot of work on that so that would that age me a little bit but you know I think people

[00:22:41] when they listen to this maybe who aren't progressively minded in the industry will think well

[00:22:46] this is going to take over the personal trainers job right and I 100% disagree with that I think

[00:22:50] you know it's like the selling over in thousands of programs takes a lot of time it's probably what

[00:22:55] I did on my Sundays and I wish if I could get one thing off my plate it would be the you know

[00:23:00] the programming especially because they can't adjust to it so you know when people are worried

[00:23:03] about the personal training industry like and when they hear something like this what what do you say

[00:23:07] to them you know what's what's your messaging for that now I mean okay let's let's say this

[00:23:12] imagine if you're a personal trainer and I took away your smartphone how successful would you be

[00:23:17] so now you don't have your calendar on your phone you don't have the videos of the exercises that

[00:23:21] you're going to send to your client or the videos you've taken of your client you don't you don't

[00:23:25] have any any access to information you can't go to the cloud you can't do anything it's just

[00:23:30] you gotta remember it's kind of a spiral notebook your entire career is in a spiral notebook

[00:23:35] and you can operate that way they do you stop right that way but imagine if you had access to

[00:23:40] all the equipment that's in your facility it's right there at your fingertips and if you wanted

[00:23:44] to customize it you can choose it you can say this these are the actions I'm boom boom boom boom boom

[00:23:49] boom send and it tells them what pieces it tells them what their seat adjustments are tell them

[00:23:55] what the tibial adjustment is for a leg extension tells them what weight they're supposed to lift

[00:23:59] and you hit yes after you're done and it all gets uploaded to the cloud and the trainer knows

[00:24:04] that the exercise that he prescribed you eight of the exercises you did two you didn't do that's

[00:24:08] okay yeah that's that's I'll call that an analog becoming digital environment now imagine if he

[00:24:15] has access to all of the Eric Malzones and he sees what things have been successful and he can

[00:24:22] prescribe from that and so now instead of trying to spend all was trying to figure out what it is

[00:24:27] it you should do he can spend his time trying to figure out how to move you forward recover

[00:24:32] from an injury make you stronger make you more capable he's spending more time with you as a person

[00:24:38] less time trying to figure out how to prescribe something to you I think it is I think it's an

[00:24:43] accelerant and which elements that you want to use out of this AI technology is really kind of

[00:24:49] up to you and it's also up to the member rights where they can continue to to change the dynamic

[00:24:55] but when they get to go back and they get to say when you started with me you were 42 years old

[00:25:00] biological age in four of the categories you were 50 years older older and now you come back

[00:25:07] six weeks later and you've taken two or three years off that and 12 weeks after that you're now

[00:25:12] below your chronological age how many people is that person gonna tell you know my bioh I'm 42

[00:25:19] years old my bioh for flexibility is 38 but my strength is 29 when I started my strength was at

[00:25:25] 50 that's a story and that trainer can use that's to say okay you know what you're the new Eric

[00:25:32] Malzone I have not worked with you I've worked with Eric Malzones before I've just onboarded you

[00:25:36] I know what your BMI is I know what your weight is I know what your goals are I've worked with four

[00:25:41] different Eric Malzones already and this is where they started and this is where I move them to

[00:25:45] the person's gonna go I want to be the next Eric Malzone I want to be that person that's biological

[00:25:51] age is something less than my chronological age I'm ready to go let's go yeah you know I think

[00:25:56] there's something to it as well just like skill ability of the great trainers I mean I've had

[00:26:01] enough people on this podcast and I've talked a lot of great coaches right it's been awesome to do that

[00:26:07] and I ask a lot of questions like how much of great coaching and being a trainer is the

[00:26:11] interpersonal skills like setting up the environment right it's welcoming that you know the soft

[00:26:16] skills that we get trust the trust right yeah and I think the smart ones will realize the technology

[00:26:21] like this provides skill ability for great coaching right because now instead of like you know 20

[00:26:27] clients 30 clients 40 clients where you know like I said program design all weekend and adjusting

[00:26:31] things in the morning now you can take that time and work on the soft skills and things that really

[00:26:36] create the environment that makes people successful so when you're minding what you guys

[00:26:39] have seen so far am I making that up or is that tend to be no it's actually it's quite true and

[00:26:44] they're actually there's opportunities for you to have different clients you can have a client

[00:26:49] that's high touch environment where you spend time with them and you're and you're with them then

[00:26:52] you travel through the journey with them every exercise your with them side by side yeah there's

[00:26:56] a client that you see every week there's a client you see every two weeks of a client you see every

[00:27:01] month a client you see every 90 days and the beauty of the onboarding is that the onboarding is going

[00:27:07] to constantly give you an opportunity to go back and revisit where they are even if they're working

[00:27:12] on them by themselves and they're working with a virtual program that you've given them they can

[00:27:16] always go back to see where they are and see the progress they can look at their chart they can

[00:27:21] look at their branded member app and go I started a 150 pound bench press around at 175 pound right now

[00:27:27] I used to do one set I could do now two sets and they can see their capabilities scale as well but

[00:27:33] the real the real beauty of this is and this is the truth of the matter whether I'm not going to

[00:27:38] stereotype trainers okay sure trainers become trainers for one primary reason they really like

[00:27:45] train people yeah that's what they really like to do you know most of them hate doing selling

[00:27:52] if if somebody could deliver clients to them and all they had to do was train they would be so happy

[00:27:59] because they would say I really don't want to have to go on and tell people how I'm a great trainer

[00:28:04] I don't want to do that I just want to be a great trainer and so with and this is going back to

[00:28:10] the fitness hub the beauty of the fitness hub is that if you have a trainer led onboarding

[00:28:16] I just had a relationship with you I don't have to sell you my wares I have you know who I am

[00:28:21] and I know who you are and I know what your goals are and even though I can set you off

[00:28:25] and on your way to go into this journey I can still touch you and say how's it going you know we

[00:28:32] met two weeks ago how are you doing are you are you finding success is there anything I can do to help

[00:28:38] so they have a touch point in the beginning they have a touch point if they want to and any where

[00:28:43] along the conversation or the relationship and if the client decides to start to work with them

[00:28:49] now they have a lot of different touch points not only in real life but virtually and they can do

[00:28:55] that based on information not just how are you feeling hey I noticed that you're three years younger

[00:29:01] you're six weeks and you're three you're three years younger on your strength training how is that

[00:29:05] feeling do you want to accelerate that I can help yeah I mean that's so compelling and you know I think

[00:29:11] the the elephant in the room for e-jim I mean obviously in Europe there's a tremendous amount of

[00:29:16] success yeah specifically in Germany right the cost right this isn't inexpensive equipment

[00:29:21] no right the hardware is is you know I don't know what two to three times what maybe some competitors

[00:29:26] maybe I think three is probably fair yeah so like let's let's just nail that one right in the head

[00:29:33] what is the price point how do you guys overcome that why is it you know so important for

[00:29:37] gyms to at least consider investing more at this point in time so we have a we have a history that

[00:29:42] goes back you know more than a decade and so we know what attrition looks like for membership

[00:29:47] it's way lower with an e-jim I mean it's it's it's substantial or and it can be as much as 50% lower

[00:29:53] depending on the facility two is there are our membership striations within clubs where they

[00:29:59] they have memberships that are based and they go up in some of the club chains that we've had

[00:30:03] success in we actually see the conversion from base membership to the higher membership

[00:30:08] as high as 60% which is more than double with their their membership where they don't have e-jim

[00:30:14] so the e-jim expense if you will or the investment in e-jim in some cases pays back at less than

[00:30:20] six months just with the move from a basic membership up to the higher membership but out the

[00:30:25] analogy I like to give is let's talk about smartphones when smartphones came out smartphones were

[00:30:30] two three and four times more expensive but they created tremendous value and so do you blink at

[00:30:36] a thousand dollar phone could you buy a flip phone for 200 hours all day long you go to Walmart

[00:30:41] by a phone for nothing right I mean you buy a phone for less than 100 hours would you ever do that

[00:30:45] I mean if all you want to do is make calls yeah but the value that it brings and the story that we

[00:30:51] have now with open mode and with with with our ability to have game day coupled with all the

[00:30:58] things that we're doing with our vendor partners it's actually a nominal investment and it pays

[00:31:03] itself back pretty quickly yeah interesting and when you look at the United States and North American

[00:31:07] marketing as well extending to but with your health club and gym operators like who who's the

[00:31:13] shining example here in the States of people utilizing leveraging e-jim technology yeah

[00:31:19] historically it's been the YMCA's okay for sure because they were using the circuit product

[00:31:25] for onboarding and they have this huge cadre of people who are fans of e-jim and they never

[00:31:31] late I mean they're they're just they love e-jim and so what they've seen is they've actually now

[00:31:36] migrated on to the main gym floor and so now it's on the main gym floor with people who are intermediate

[00:31:42] but with our our new product particular with with with the open mode where we have eccentric overload

[00:31:48] where we have explanet so you can do ballistic exercises where we have adaptive exercises

[00:31:54] where now as you start to get to the point where you're struggling with your rep at auto

[00:31:57] automatically reduce resistance to get you back into your your rep goal and to get to your

[00:32:03] to your full range of motion and then you couple that with the ability to do eccentric

[00:32:09] overloads and concentric within an iso kinetic exercise environment it does things that no product

[00:32:15] in history has ever done and it does it flawlessly and that can be part of what's programmed is that

[00:32:21] today you do you the regular mode tomorrow you're doing eccentric the next day you're doing

[00:32:26] explanet in the day after that you're doing adaptive you don't get bored and so it's a it's a

[00:32:33] completely different conversation in that sense yeah it's really interesting I mean I enjoyed it

[00:32:38] and the game day thing was pretty fun especially in this setting right yeah some some beast came in

[00:32:43] before me like bench press like what was it like seven thousand pounds in the squirrels like oh man

[00:32:47] I'm not going after that guy he's an animal that's absolute savage okay so I want to zone out a little

[00:32:52] bit and just talk about ursa and kind of our last little segment here but I mean I've noticed a

[00:32:56] few things about this trade show as I've had limited time to kind of walk around I mean anything to

[00:33:00] you if this particular show like stand out any kind of major trend that you're seeing or theme

[00:33:05] of this one or anything that really kind of majorized pop a little bit well I wouldn't say pop

[00:33:11] what I would say what's interesting for me here is that and we talked about it before where we feature

[00:33:17] our vendor partners products we have it in our advertising they're talking about us and their

[00:33:22] booths and sending people over here cool so it's pretty unique and I'm not in the history a long

[00:33:27] time here for somebody to send somebody to somebody else's booth but when we have these conversations

[00:33:34] and we're talking we have their product in our booth so we can talk about theirs in our booth and

[00:33:39] in some cases like in Feebo the trade show that we have in Germany in April we'll have a huge

[00:33:43] presence in a lot of their booths as well because our partnership is longer so we're in their

[00:33:49] booths and they feature our fitness hub in their booths and they talk about us as a partner and

[00:33:54] that's what's happening here now so people are bringing customers over and introducing them to

[00:33:59] Egypt it's pretty amazing actually yeah that's nice to see that kind of collaboration across the

[00:34:03] the major brands too and one thing I've kind of noticed is I walked around and it was relevant

[00:34:08] last year but this year it's like just straight up in my face it's just the amount of recovery and wellness

[00:34:14] science that we have here like the amount of infrared the amount of like stuff I've never really

[00:34:18] seen before like I don't know I mean have you tried any of this stuff yeah I have I have so it's

[00:34:24] interesting that you wait you're talking I would say the two things that have changed in this

[00:34:28] industry particularly in the last I've caught seven years or less it's not 10 years one is

[00:34:35] pre-workout so it's the warm up its flexibility and is post-workout so next conversation

[00:34:41] it's about recovery so the exercise portion of it although there's a lot of new modalities within

[00:34:47] the protocols for exercise those continue to expand but what you're seeing is you know cryotherapy

[00:34:53] yeah you're seeing the the you know plunge tanks and you're seeing things around you know red light

[00:34:59] therapy and all these things this is all coming into play and it's coming into play sort of in real

[00:35:05] time in places you wouldn't expect it to be yeah at price points you wouldn't expect to see it yeah

[00:35:10] I mean the price points are I mean they're high but they seem to be coming down a little bit but

[00:35:16] in some cases but I mean when I'm saying price points as I'm saying price points for clubs that

[00:35:21] are introducing these technologies they're not expensive clubs they see it as a benefit for

[00:35:26] someone their membership and so some some cases they're actually they're high value low price

[00:35:32] facilities and they're looking at adding things that are more amenity like yeah because they think

[00:35:37] it's it's worth it to their members and their members will say yeah I want to be a member there

[00:35:41] and I can do that for a lower price pump if they have these amenities this is pretty awesome yeah

[00:35:45] yeah it is and it's just so interesting I mean obviously we don't have to talk about connected

[00:35:48] fitness and how about three years ago connected fitness was everything in this trade show right

[00:35:52] now it's just it just seems like it's it's just full-blown health club gyms like

[00:35:57] it's really cool to see I mean that it seems like the industry and you've seen a couple cycles in

[00:36:01] this industry right I think we're we're in the middle of a cycle right now or towards the end of

[00:36:04] one what do you think well I think the connectivity was all reaction okay there were a lot of extreme

[00:36:10] valuations for companies yeah so you know if you think of an industry I'll use an auto

[00:36:16] minute auto mode of equivalent so you know there's a reason why Toyota and Daimler Benz and Ford

[00:36:22] and General Motors and Volkswagen Group didn't go ahead long into electric cars okay because they

[00:36:29] were traditional manufacturers of internal combustion engines and so if they were to go into a segment

[00:36:35] of the market where they were going to lose billions of dollars it would crush their stock price

[00:36:39] but they did get in the hybrids and then a little by little they expanded and they offered

[00:36:44] electric vehicles but the the electric vehicle manufacturers like Tussle were being valued not as an

[00:36:49] automotive manufacturer they were tech play our industry had that where you had people that were

[00:36:54] developing content and they were being valued as a as a tech play and people kept saying why aren't

[00:36:59] you going into headlong into the content business to say because they're losing billions of dollars

[00:37:06] and if we did that we would be crushed in the marketplace because we wouldn't be able to invest

[00:37:10] in our core business we would be investing in something that we're going to lose billions of

[00:37:15] dollars on so why would we do that and so I think what you're seeing is the content is still there

[00:37:22] the monetization of content and all called profitable monetization of content is a very very small

[00:37:28] number of people there aren't many that are out there doing that so I think there's just this cold

[00:37:33] slap in the face of do you want to develop content okay do you want to make money maybe I

[00:37:40] want to develop a lot of content and think that's how you're going to make your money so I think

[00:37:44] content some port we have partners that develop content and we're putting them on our platform

[00:37:49] but they're doing it smartly they're going after the commercial customer where the investment

[00:37:54] the investment isn't a thousand conversations it's one conversation to get to a thousand clients

[00:38:02] that's a smart plug yeah well Chris I guess I'll sort of wrap this up a tapy hour here so it's

[00:38:09] important I can spell the beer over my shoulder so last question for you is you know as an industry

[00:38:15] you know in your new role how can we help you what would you like for people to reach out to

[00:38:20] you about and then how would you like them to get a hold of you yeah I think I actually would

[00:38:25] love to see more partners reach out to us more people who want to integrate we are an open source

[00:38:30] API okay we we're not we don't vet anything you know there are people who can integrate with us

[00:38:36] that can have tremendous products and great experience and then we'd have people that maybe

[00:38:40] are just starting to get into the market and want to have access to conversations with customers so

[00:38:45] I think the conversations around people who want to partner with us were we're we're totally

[00:38:49] amenable with this conversations but we also obviously would love to sell so our wares to people and

[00:38:55] you know we're we're a global company we're headquartered in Munich Germany and we have offices

[00:39:00] here in Denver Colorado and yeah we're ready to take on the world yeah okay last question I

[00:39:06] lied that one more for what I've learned today is like eGM technology needs to be experienced right

[00:39:11] I think so I think so so if people want to do that it like do they what do they do they set a

[00:39:15] time come out to Denver and you have a showroom there what's the best way we also showcase facilities

[00:39:20] that are regional so you know we have a great partner relationships with people who are willing

[00:39:25] to open up their facilities for us to show what we're doing and then what they're doing they get a

[00:39:29] chance to bang their chest a little bit say yeah we really like eGM and let's tell you how we're

[00:39:34] doing it it's pretty good pretty good partnership for us so it's a sort of a symbiotic relationship

[00:39:39] awesome so where do people get hold of you well I think the easiest way is I guess through my email

[00:39:44] it's Christopher the CHR STO PGR dot-closons CLAWSLN at eGM dot-com right on man well I know it's

[00:39:51] been super busy day for you I really appreciate you carving out the last half hour before half

[00:39:56] the hour and hopefully we'll go have a beer right now it's been a real pleasure thank you

[00:40:00] thanks you Christopher Clausen yeah appreciate it thank you hey wait don't leave yet this was your

[00:40:07] host Eric Malzone and I hope you enjoyed this episode of Future of Minus if you did I'm gonna

[00:40:13] ask you to do three simple things it takes under five minutes and it goes such a long way we

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[00:40:58] Malzone and this is the future of fitness have a great day