Eamon Lloyd: Modern Approaches to Corporate Health & Wellbeing

Hey everybody, welcome to the Future of Fitness, a top-rated fitness industry podcast for over two years and running. It is 2021, and I am your host, Eric Malzone. I have the absolute pleasure of talking to entrepreneurs, innovators, and cutting-edge technology experts within the fast-paced industries of fitness, wellness, and health sciences. Stop by futurofitness.co to subscribe and learn more. Hey listeners, this episode of the Future of Fitness is brought to you by our good friends at InsightTracker. Do you want to add more years to your life and more life to your years? Of course you do, which means you need to make a change. And that is what Insight Tracker is all about. Founded by leading scientists in aging, genetics, and biometric data from MIT Tufts and Harvard, Insight Tracker is a personalized health and wellness platform like no other. So what's their secret? First, Insight Tracker uses its patented algorithm to analyze your body's data and offer you a clearer picture than you've ever had before of what's actually going on inside you. Then, Insight Tracker provides you with a concrete, science-backed action plan for living a longer, healthier life. And it tracks your progress every day, every step of the way. For a very limited time, Insight Tracker is offering future of fitness podcast listeners 25% off storewide. Visit InsightTracker.com slash future to get your offer code and try to Insight Tracker today. Insight Tracker, because change is an inside job. This episode is also brought to you by Morpheus, the world's first and only fitness intelligence platform built by coaches for coaches. Look, there is a ton of fitness and health data being collected on you and your clients, but are you leveraging it? And perhaps more importantly, are you saving yourself time and making more money because of it? Well, I'll answer that question for you. You're not, because you can't until now. Morpheus arms coaches with accessible, intelligent, communicable client insights to save coaches time and ultimately increase your value and earn more money. By collecting lifestyle data from 90% of the current wearable market and combining that data with cutting-edge proprietary technology, Morpheus provides an accurate and reliable recovery score for all of your clients served up on a simple and elegant dashboard. No more guessing, just the real, honest data alongside the insights from Morpheus into what to actually do with it. Combined with custom alerts, in-app messaging, and other amazing features, this is the ultimate coaching machine. Go to trainwithmorpheus.com to learn more. That's trainwithmorpheusmo r-e-us.com. Please go check out our wonderful sponsors. And if you get value out of this show, I ask you to do three things. Please go subscribe, 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. Amen Lloyd, welcome to the future of fitness. Thanks so much for having me, Eric. It's a pleasure. Yeah, it's uh it's an absolute pleasure. I've been meaning to talk to somebody from Gym Pass on the show for God, years now, really, probably since I started the show back in whatever it was, 2018, because so curious about how you guys came into the market, how it really kind of changed the way operators have to adjust, right? Or how and then the corporate wellness factor and everything that's happened in the last 16 months. It's just been a wild ride, man. I feel like you have a lot of really interesting insights. And the place I always like to start, Aim in is just for the human side of things, give us your backstory. How'd you get to be a head of partnerships there?

Awesome. Yeah, thanks, Eric. And really looking forward to this conversation. I think from my personal background, so uh born in born and raised in Scotland, spent um all of my life there until I left uh university about 10 years ago, where I I joined the graduate program at Anaheuser Bush in Bev. So I spent really an amazing six roller coaster years learning the alcohol business. But at a certain point in time, felt that I needed a not only a professional change, but also a lifestyle change. You can imagine the the environment when you're working in in that kind of business. I really felt like I was it was time to make a change. And I was really fortunate to come across Jim Pass. The opportunity, I think they'd been looking for head of partnerships for a while. I was able to be put in touch through a friend of mine, and I met Pietro, who's the who was the UK CEO at the time, and we just hit it off. Uh, and I was blown away by not only his passion, but the the passion of the CEO and and still CEO Cesar, who he's really on a mission, and I think you can really feel that in his energy, and that really inspired me to join the business. And I think since then the business has it's felt like we've gone through a few iterations, and particularly with last year, and now we feel I think more ready to grow than ever before. And of course, we've made our fair share of mistakes, as I'm sure everyone, I'm sure everyone has, but we definitely feel ready to to go to the next step. So I think super lucky to have been in a position where I felt like I needed a professional and personal change in lifestyle and and a different approach to my work. And the company I ended up stumbling across is invested in exactly that business, so which is cool.

Yeah, I have to I'm curious, Eamon, with going from the the liquor business into the health and wellness fitness business, is did you notice any pair any parallels or is it completely different?

It's it's funny because I thought I'm gonna go from what I would find a pretty social industry. I was thinking I'm gonna meet loads of fitness professionals who don't want to meet for a beer uh after work, and I couldn't have been more wrong. I honestly think that this is an even more social industry, which I didn't expect at all. I don't know if you I don't know if you would how you would class the the fitness industry, but they seem like the most social animals I've ever come across.

Oh, for sure. Yeah. It's now mind you, I came from my introduction to the fitness world came via CrossFit, and that was where I spent a decade. And extremely social. My wife still jokes that when she met me, she was a client at my gym. Yes, I was that guy for listeners. Uh and she was when the first time she saw us went out and as a gym gathering, she's like, Can't believe you were drinking beer. I'm like, Yeah, no, actually, fitness professionals like to have a good time too. It's not, it's we're human. And actually, I it's funny because you'll go to a conference or something like that and network and do all that. And man, the hotel bar, it's fairly busy. I don't know if you notice that with fitness professionals. So I think they are very social. We do have to like to have a good time. There's stresses just like everything else. But overall, the people who do get in the fitness profession want to be there because they overall want to help people and they enjoy it. So hopefully that's the size side effect of people just being happy. But who knows, right?

Yeah. Yeah, no, I I a hundred percent. I think that was the real foundation for me. The more people I met was seeing that everyone had a true passion in making people you know feel good and and and be healthy. And I think obviously working in the alcohol industry, it was all about responsible drinking. But ultimately, there was I was working for a very large business who do extremely well when people drink more. So to actually switch gear a little bit and come to an industry where everyone is putting in so much, but the output is such a good thing for everyone, it really meant a lot to me to be a part of that mission. And I think I'm really lucky that every year I've been at Gym Pass, I get more and more passionate about not only the mission of Gym Pass, but the the mission the whole industry is on in general, which is super exciting.

Yeah, man. So give us for those of us who maybe aren't indoctrinated super well, I know from a high level what Gym Pass does, but how do you guys describe your mission, how you apply it, who you serve, and how you serve them?

Yeah, great question. So I think the the best way to explain who we are is we're Gym Pass is a complete corporate well-being platform, and we look to ignite and fuel every journey to feel good. And we've done this, or we're doing this by reinventing well-being, making it super engaging and accessible, and and we're doing this in a very specific place. So we're doing this with worldwide companies or companies worldwide who really rely on our proposition. We've we believe that by working exclusively with companies in the B2B space, we're able to offer unmatched variety, convenience, and flexibility to support the employees' health and happiness. And I think when we look at who we want to work with, we work with the the kind of best in-class well-being providers in multiple markets across North America, Latin America, and Europe. And the total number of that, when we look at it after, particularly after last year, where we accelerated our digital offering, we now partner with over 50,000 fitness partners, around just under 1,500 on-demand classes are available, 2,000 hours of meditation, a thousand healthy recipes. We've got so much going on, and that's really that well-being platform coming to play. We, in terms of our mission, we really changed since when I joined it. We really focused on physical activity. So our mission was to defeat inactivity, working with companies to defeat inactivity in the in their workplace. Our mission changed last year into making well-being universal so everyone can be happy and healthy. And again, that's all about how we've created this corporate well-being platform to ignite and fuel every journey to feel good. We believe this is feeling good, is ultimately what we want people to feel, and particularly these employees of large companies.

So it's interesting. You tagged on it. Maybe we can explore it a little bit more, is we went from a focus on defeating inactivity to an overall well-being. And you mentioned a kind of what a well-being provider would be by your guys' definition of obviously fitness establishments, but meditation and nutrition plans. What how do you guys it's a broad term well-being, right? Yeah. How do you guys narrow down the definition so you guys know you're on the right track?

Yeah, it's a it's a great question. And it's one that we love discussing with the uh corporate clients that that we engage with, because I think recently there was a a survey in the UK that said that half of businesses, so I think it was 44%, uh, only half of them have a well-being strategy in place. And I imagine if you know you dig under the bonnet of, or under the hood, I should say, of that well-being strategy, it may feel still quite broad because there's so many things that that can be included in well-being. For us, we think that well-being is split into two uh distinct categories. So happy mind and healthy body. Within happy mind, we are looking at therapy sessions, meditation and sleep support, mental health and motivation, and financial well-being. So those are the four four areas for there. And then on healthy body, physical activity is a huge part of it, nutrition, specialized, specialized physical support, and then anything that includes kids and and family fitness as well. Because we believe that's a huge opportunity to help help families become fitter rather than just one person within that family being the person who's getting after it. If everyone's joined in, there's a high likelihood that people are gonna continue to be fit and healthy. And that also bleeds into everything else, right? If people are spending a lot of time getting fit and healthy, they're then gonna think about what they're eating, and then they're thinking about the mental health of everyone in the family as well. So that's how we've split split the different pieces between uh body and mind.

Yeah, that's a really good description of it. And over my career within the industry, I've seen a lot of very ineffective corporate wellness plans, mainly because maybe a fitness professional or someone who really wants to get into corporate, like I did. I took a venture into corporate wellness and we did more of a lifestyle approach than the fitness approach. Because the fact of the matter is, like most of the time in most places, the most organizations, people who will take up a free gym membership are probably already going to the gym anyway. You're just saving them a couple extra bucks. The people that really where you can affect change don't really have any plan to go to a gym, even if you offer it for free or you put it on site. So it's gotta be you gotta get it's which becomes a much more difficult task to to get at. Like, how do you get Bobby and HR, who is a few hundred pounds overweight? How do you initiate that conversation or how do you get in there and start to help them? And I think one of the ways what I like you guys are doing is well, you maybe you approach it from a different angle. Maybe you start with the finances. But what do you what have you noticed as the evolution of this corporate wellness world? Because it's A, it's big, it's huge, it's a huge market, and but it can be challenging to done to be done effectively.

Yeah, definitely. No, it's a really good point. And I think the you know the we definitely learned our lessons along the way. When Gym Pass began, it it wasn't exclusively a B2B operator. And and I think over time we switched to be entirely B2B because we realized actually the the power of working with a company is such that you can unlock a variety of tools that you wouldn't normally get if you're just a B2C operator. So if you're a a local gym trying to get into a local business, there there is a such a long sales cycle and input from yourself to then get the right meetings, unlock the right communication channels, and then ultimately you you might find out that you're only really suitable for a small proportion of the of that business. I'd be interested to find out from you, Eric, when you said you tried a corporate fitness, what what how did you find your ability to connect and understand the strategy of that business's well-being strategy and how that plugged into your own proposition?

Oh, nice. Are you interviewing me now? I like it. So uh yeah, I started off with it was relationship-based with someone who obviously was in my network in Santa Barbara area in California, but we looked to bring it as gamification of all factors of life. Their goal was we came in to educate and motivate and do it in a way where nobody was left behind. It was a matter of six weeks, and we had a scoreboard, and we had we made it an event. It was a six-week event where we came in one day, we had people come in or we had a chef come in and do, you know, hey, here's how to meal prep for a week. And then we had someone come in and we did a mobility session, and we had a meditation session, and then every week we layered in another behavior that they could learn and add to their life with just the simple goal of, okay, if we go through these six different categories of life and we add in a new layer every week, even if you walk away after six weeks with one new thing, you're you've probably got people going massively in the right direction. So it was, and it was a testing ground. And if I didn't sell and leave Santa Barbara, it probably would have grown into something bigger. But that was our approach. I'm like, I can't come in this as a gym owner and a fitness guy thinking that I'm gonna get everyone to do burpees and push-ups. It's just not gonna be working. I think that's where a lot of fitness professionals come in. They're like, well, everyone should be doing burpees and eating paleo, but it's just it's not that simple. Does that answer your question?

Yeah, no, I completely I think the the because I think you've explained exactly the challenge that a lot of our partners have have found, which is you can build out these programs that that try and speak to some of the big areas of well-being, but but it's super hard to get everyone bought in. And how do you then ensure that lives and breathes within that business when you your pro your six-week program finishes? How do you ensure that you know that hard work doesn't get undone within the next four weeks? And I think that's something that it's a that's one of the problems that we're trying to solve with our our approach. I think to answer your question, what we've what we recognize is that well-being means so many different things to different people, and and particularly when you work with the size of the employers that that we work with. But it's super hard if you're a uh you know head of well-being or head of HR and you're tasked with finding a provider who can help you build a strategy around all these areas of well-being, but you've got tens of thousands of employees across multiple, um, across multiple offices, to find one thing that can plug into all of that is extremely difficult and and actually quite a daunting task in itself. So we believe that by offering our marketplace of digital well-being providers that are uh you know in the areas that are more around kind of you know, therapy sessions, meditation and sleep support, nutrition, finance, and mental health, that's an that's a could be a really good gateway into the physical activity stuff when you can then start to help people on the right track towards improving their physical activity by using one of our operators in person, all the gyms that we work with across the globe, versus doing a live class. Or we actually recently launched uh a PT product as well, which it you know, I think is innovative. I'm not sure anyone else is doing it in the industry, but we were able to bring PT at scale to to employers, which is super exciting. So, yeah, it's finding a toolkit that is a one size fits all for the well-being team to plug in and share with their entire workforce in one click of a button, really.

Yeah, it's interesting. I coming from a business background, I'm always what are the KPIs, right? What are the key performance indicators? And I'm wondering, I know each company and each organization is probably gonna have different initiatives and strategies to implement for a wellness plan. But when you look at it from purely a corporate standpoint, which at the end of the day, it is a bottom line thing. Yeah. We can't, I'm not gonna sugarcoat that. So I'm wondering like what tends to be the most important metrics for most companies? Is it like pharmaceutical spend? Is it sick time? Is it productivity rates? What do you think is really driving the investments?

Yeah, it's a real combination. I think it's you've mentioned a few of the key ones there. I think for those companies that do have private medical medical insurance, I think the the big one that's really a great one to keep an eye on is absenteeism, tracking the number of of days off for sickness, that kind of thing. I think increasingly you see a lot of employees will they'll not register sick days anymore. They'll they'll put it through as annual leave when actually they they may be really unwell, but they're too afraid to show that. So I think the bottom line definitely, but the there's a lot of companies who are are not even measuring uh the ROI on this. I think, yeah, there was a in terms of I think it was less than 10%, there's again in the same survey that we saw last year, I think they found that 10% of companies measure the return on investment of on their well-being strategy. So if you think about how few less than half have a well-being strategy, and 10% of the 44% don't even measure its return on investment. So I think there's also a huge exercise which we're trying to solve with our approach, which is listen, we're gonna connect your investment to the upside of doing it, and let's track it together in partnership and show that all the metrics are moving in the right direction from the bottom line, private medical insurance, absenteeism, and another interesting one we hear more and more of, which is uh engagement. So loads of companies are now moving towards really good engagement uh surveys and platforms in order to measure the engagement of their employees uh and retention of staff as well, is a key one.

Yeah, the surveying is really powerful. So it's an interesting noticing will actually bring us into the next kind of phase of what I want to chat about with you is my wife is in the corporate world. She manages a team of nine. And she pre-pandemic, she noticed that and they're all the employees that she works with are all kind of entry-level 20 something. She's like on Mondays, there would always be at least a third of them would call in sick, right? Yeah, because they didn't want to come into the office. Now no one calls in sick because they all work remote. Yeah. So they just know that maybe if they had a big weekend or they're not feeling it, they can just mindlessly be in their pajamas and get through the day and not have to use a sick day. So, in other what other ways have you noticed this, the corporate environment, which has changed so fast in the last year due to the pandemic and shuts down? What what other big noticings have you guys had about wellness and how corporations are adapting and your company adapting?

Yeah, it's that's a great question. It's interesting because well, I could maybe ask you the question, Eric. Is your assumption that people are exercising more or less than pre COVID? Less. Which is it's interesting because I I think I would have been the other way around. I would have said, yeah, of course, like of course, loads of people are exercising more. But I realized it's because I was speaking from a blinker's position, which is that I'm lucky enough to work in a company that really prioritizes physical and mental well-being. There was a survey conducted by Sport England here in the UK that found that around 40% of consumers in England had exercised less than usual and prior to COVID, and 30% only 30% have exercised more. So we're seeing in the UK that there is this shift now of you know the people who maybe were slightly less inclined to exercise anyway, but battled through it, are really exercising much less. And those who are really feeling the benefits of it are exercising much more. And I think we're seeing that in the workplace. I think we're seeing the impact of COVID really is really harming people's ability to step away from the desk and get stuck in. And then you flip that to people who are maybe not in a desk job. If you work in in retail, if you're driving lorries, if you're stacking shelves right now, when do you get the time to stop? You're a frontline worker. The pressure on these work different workforces is really quite intense.

Yeah, it's everyone I talk to who made, I've been working from home for four years now. So we're and so is my wife. So we're a little bit ahead of the curve, but undoubtedly we work more because we work from home than we would if we drove to an office every day. And there's so much more distraction, I feel in people say there's a lot more distraction at home. Depends if you're in a family. We also don't have kids. So you yeah, that factor, and people have one to four kids running around, they're having to homeschool. I'm like, that's just that's nuts. And it's such a big ask for people. It's absolutely bananas. And but I think that people do like working. I think most people like working from home, but you do end up working more because it's so easy to just roll up, get checked in, and then start working. And then work, you never leave work because it's always there with you. So yeah, it's really God, man. Five years from now, Amon, I can't wait to see what the history books are when all the research is done on this period of time. But yeah, you guys are getting some interesting statistics, but it's really what do you think? What's your gut say numbers decide?

Yeah, I think a lot of people would definitely consider a well-being routine as an important aspect to guarantee productivity at work. And I think it starts with you can have a top-down well-being strategy. That's great, but I think it it also has to come from the bottom up. I think the in every company, the entry level, the manager who who's managing the entry level from that person up the way, they need to be leading by example. And I think we talk in Gym Pass, we've mentioned that the three E's around well-being at work. The first one is around enabling the team to prioritize themselves. I'm a manager, I'm fortunate enough to work with a fantastic team. And every week we will have a discussion around right, what is everyone doing to get outside today? Like has everyone been outside and seen the sun? Because and I know we don't have great weather here in the UK, but it's starting to get better, and it's it's super important for people to have found that moment to step away from the desk, get outside, and breathe some fresh air. So we talk about really enabling the team. I think we we want to empower people by setting self-care examples. I'll make sure actually it's interesting. Maybe if your wife's mentioned this as well, but I don't know if you've noticed that people are taking less, they took less holiday last year because they felt, well, I'm at home, I can't really go anywhere, but also everything's closed. For sure. For sure. Yeah. Which is super dangerous because you need that punctuation point in your week, your month, your year, whenever it is you decide to take vacation, to to really take a step back and and reflect and look after yourself. I know it's it's not exactly the most, you know, exotic thing to go from your living room to your like study, but a taking time off to do that is is super important. And I think leading by example and empowering the team to do that is is something that I think we try to do. And again, that encouragement around good working practices in the team. One of the things we've done in my team recently is we we've set uh 25 minutes is the standard meeting time in our Google Calendar. That means that you always finish five minutes before probably your next meeting is due to start. It gives you five meet uh five minutes to go for a quick bio break, get to the toilet, maybe make a cup of coffee or a snack or something, or stand outside and breathe some fresh air for a couple of minutes. But we realize that small change has made a massive impact on the happiness of our team because they're no longer just rushing from call to call, dialing in two minutes late. That added pressure was really building up on people after nine months of doing it day in, day out.

Yeah. Yeah, that's uh you basically just described my wife's working environment as she goes meeting to meeting, very little breaks, and it's just yeah, it's we're built to work. It's so you had enable empower. What was a 30 encourage, sorry, encourage. Yeah, it's it's a huge shift. And a lot of people say that this is gonna the pandemic's gonna be good in the long run because it's gonna have people more focused on their health. It's I don't know. I just don't know. I'm an optimist. I really am. I'm super optimistic about things, and I think we're coming up with a lot of innovative solutions, but I do think that people need to take responsibility given the freedom in the in their work environment to do it. You look at what keeps people happy and healthy. I don't know if you ever you know looked at what the blue zones are, some of these areas around the world where people live the longest. And there's there are certain things. Number one, latitudes are you know a big deal too. The location and the and the the weather and all of those things, humidity, but also the community and the social aspect is really what drives people. And a lot of them don't have gyms, let's be honest. Like they're not, yeah, they're active and they're social and they have community. I'm here's an a question I would love to hear your answer to is because you do work across multiple countries within Europe. Who do you think, out of the countries, who do you think has the best sense of well-being and and why do you think that is?

Wow, that's such a good question. So I was I've been lucky enough to work across a fair bit of Western Europe, both in Gym Pass and A B and Bev. I I I don't know if this is so this is definitely just my own thoughts, but uh when you start to go further south into Europe, so Spain, you know, France, Spain, Italy, I think in those countries they have a great understanding of what it means to to live well, particularly when you look at how they eat their working patterns, the famous siesta in Spain where people I love that. And when I was in Italy, they all took siesta, it was amazing. Yeah, which is awesome, right? Like, can you imagine that in the US? I I don't know.

I I I would love to see that in the US, but we just work, we're in such a cultural, and we're not the only ones. I mean, you look at a lot of the Asian countries, Japanese, China, Singapore work, but it is it has become the staple of the American dream is hustle, work harder, get yours, and then not to get to high level. Well, then your life flashes by. And then you're like, whoa, what happened? Yeah, well-being is an interesting thing. It's just got I think it's it's a it's a huge thing to tackle because everyone in some way, especially nowadays, maybe you are physically active, but mentally you're not doing so well. These lockdowns have taken a we won't, like I said, we won't even know for a while about how drastically this affected people's you know mental well-being. And but that's a touchy thing to approach as well within corporations. How do you guys tactfully approach the the mental well-being side of things? Meditation is good, but it's hard to get people to engage. Therapy is probably what a lot of people need, but maybe they're scared to admit it, or maybe they just don't think it's going to be helpful or their problems aren't that bad. How do you tactfully approach that?

Yeah, that's it's a really good point because I think what you just mentioned there, Eric, around when will we see the impact of the last year on everyone's mental health? I think that there was a an underlying current of ill mental health, and particularly in the in terms of how that's dealt with in the workplace, was coming before the pandemic. And I think this has dramatically accelerated that situation. You're already we're already hearing about it in 2019. The the the push for better working practices, more balance between work and life. And I think last year, as you said, like there are it's now so easy. The two hours that you may have lost from commuting have now gone straight back into the laptop. Yes. They've not got they've not they've not gone into anyone's personal routine. I think when we went into the uh pandemic, I was still getting up at 5 30, 6 a.m. to work out because I was like, that was my routine, because then I would travel an hour and a half to get to work and then start my work. But immediately that what that time moved straight into working time. So I think that you're right, there is a groundswell of that as an issue that's going to come. I think for us, what we've tried to do as much as possible is to normalize these conversations. We run a webinar series called Wellbeing Unplugged, and we run a new one as well called Rethinking Wellbeing, where we really try and unpick some of these topics particularly around mental health. We've had some fantastic guests on who we and we'll just send this out to our clients and ask them to join. And just talking about the issues that everyone's going to face in the time to come and how important it is to prioritize your mental health has really started to get some fantastic feedback. We've had loads of clients come to us to say, okay, we now want to do a much more localized version of this because those previous ones were very open and for everyone to join. And this is so encouraging to hear clients looking to bring in experts to give a free seminar to you know 20,000 staff on how to maybe even just work what are the warning signs for when your mental health is maybe taking a bit of a downturn and what are the action points that you can do to reverse those. I think is a huge step forward from where we were 18 months ago, which is great. And we we are then able to connect them to some of the services on Gym Pass. We do work with some fantastic partners, like Healing Clouds, for example, who offer one-to-one uh counseling. We also have a global partnership with the sort of meditation app, CAM, who have been a fantastic partner. And we've had their chief medical uh officer on doing one of these webinars to explain what are the really clear actions that you can take in order to look after your mental well-being. So I think that the what's really encouraging is that the appetite is definitely starting to come to the fore. I think as with everything, mental health is it, you're right, it's gonna be a huge challenge for everyone, but hopefully we can get out in front of that as soon as we can.

Yeah, said amen. I I'm curious given the the context of this podcast, it's the future of fitness and a lot of it we talk about tech and data and AI and all the things that are influencing what we do. From a technology standpoint, what I guess two points is what do you think is having the greatest effect on corporate health and wellness now? And what technology would you be most excited about coming down the pipe?

Yeah, I think so. I think the for corporate health well-being, I think the the biggest thing for companies to realize is that for the majority of people who are coming back to who are interested already in fitness and maybe were a member of a gym. I think there was a recent study in there was a McKinsey report on, I think it was called the Sporting Goods Industry Report for 2021. And they mentioned in there that the 53% of members of a leading US gym chain plan to complement their gym routines with digital and other equipment. So there's gonna be one in two people is gonna be looking to have a digital aspect to their training, which is a completely different aspect to what we've had before. So I think companies can do a great job of understanding how they can help facilitate that for as many of their employees as they possibly can. Because I can guarantee if if the people who are already interested in fitness are thinking about this, then the people who were maybe too intimidated to get involved in in you know a corporate well-being program or a physical activity program beforehand, digital may be the gate, the gateway into that because of the fact that you can do it from your own front room. I think then the next challenge is not everyone has the space to do this at home. So I think it's finding a way to make sure that there's some sort of provision for people when they're at the office. But I think for and whether that's even just a workout space for them to access digital digital resources when they're at work, I think would be great. So I think there's a huge, a huge opportunity as well for companies to to get behind the digital, the digital push, mainly because of how accessible it is and how scalable it is. And there are so many good partners out there. I I think from technology coming down the pipe, what what excites me the most, and and I think there are a few out there that are doing this, but the the social community aspect of fitness is something that people would have greatly missed last year. And I'm sure as a previous CrossFit box owner, you would have seen the benefits of a community. I'm not sure yet that I've seen the technology that can emulate the kind of experience that you have. I also did CrossFit for a few years. I found it an amazing replacement for team sports that I did prior to that. And it was one of the main reasons I kept going back was because of the community and the feeling you get when you're you've just done a crazy wad with some guys that almost took your head off. By the time you recover, you really feel like you've made a bond. I think technology that can replicate that, I think, could be really exciting. And I know there are elements of it in the you know, Peloton and Nike Trading Club and those kind of guys, but I think someone who can bring that to life could be the next thing that could that could break up, break open the whole digital experience and and the community aspect of that, I think.

Yeah, I think there are a lot of people working on that and doing it really well out of the gates. I had especially a lot, I think a lot of these companies that do subscription-based fitness that I focus on the online community. A couple Garage Gym Athlete is a really good example, had him on the show, Miranda from street parking. They've developed these communities online, but then those communities also do their own thing locally. So they'll do meetups with just organically. And I think that's something, like you said, in CrossFit is you just after a while, as a gym owner, I didn't really have to plan the events anymore. Community just did it. And that's that was cool because it was really tiring to do all that planning and executing. And yeah, I think that is really exciting. And people who are focused on that, it's one thing to have the technology, and like we talked about before, recording omnichannel or OTT or all these balances of the hybrid model that's coming down, which is great. Executing that is critical, but the most important and perhaps intangible thing is how do you build a community? Because that's what keeps people staying around and that's what keeps people engaged and motivated. So I think you're spot on. Is there anybody out there right now that you would say is doing it really well?

I think it's it it definitely the way Peloton have have grown in the last 12 months. I think they've done an exceptional job. I think I believe they had a class with over 20,000 participants on it. Uh that it's hard to look past that as a great example. And I think even looking into something like Strava as well, which is which has been doing this for a number of years, I think there are some players out there who are doing a great job. I think how you bring that into the front room of everyone rather than people who can afford the technology, I think that's the sweet spot that could be really exciting.

Yeah, very cool, man. I know we're just running up on time. One more question for you. So if I'm in the fitness industry and I'm like, I really want to create my path into the world of corporate health and and well-being. What do you let's give you a more distinct avatar, a gym owner, right? What what do you suggest that they do? How do you what's the first step that they can take to start to get into this world?

I think it's understanding what tools are at your disposal. I think there are some gym uh gym locations which lend themselves really well to the corporate space. And I think there are some who will probably find that actually there's a maybe corporate isn't the market for them, or there's a different way to approach corporate. I think from our side, we would love to speak with any partner who's looking to get into corporate because we believe that by partnering with us, there'll be a win situation ecosystem whereby we can do a lot of the heavy lifting for them into tap into that market. And that's not to say that we we compete with them and that we take away that part of what they do, but to complete their offering and work in partnership. Because I think particularly now as we step forward into the post-COVID world, there are so many challenges on people's time and resources. And I think for a fitness operator, corporate is a really difficult area to crack into uh unless you've got you know loads of experience in that place. So I think it's understanding which are the areas that are the most appropriate to spend your time on and who could you partner with in order to tap into those different areas. Uh, because I think we're gonna see more and more companies looking to spend money on well-being. But I uh in terms of which partners they decide to use as well, is gonna be a super, a super interesting uh discussion in the industry. And I think for many people, it's gonna be a real challenge to break into this space. I think it's knowing what your offering can bring to local companies, what your offering can do digitally as well. Finding a digital proposition that works for the companies in your area, and then finding a partner who can also help you break into that space. I think it's a balance of those three things that is probably the best place to start.

Yeah. Yeah, that's great, man. Really good advice. And I think we'll knock it off there. And people who I know Adam Zeitziff and televideo has been on this, people can check out his interview. He's they do a great job of helping people pull together that army channel offering and that hybrid offering, and they do it really well. And uh sometimes you just need a little bit of help because for most fitness professionals, the tech side of things may be a little foreign, like myself, for example. Yeah, Amon, thank you so much for coming on. So give it tell everyone where can they reach you? Give us the goods.

Yeah, you can you can just reach out to me on on LinkedIn, no problem at all. I think we've got people in every market. So please just search Jim Pass in your market and please just reach out to us. We'd love to, we'd love to work with you both on the corporate side if you've got a company and and looking to implement and get advice on a well-being strategy. And then also on the fitness or well-being side, we we want to speak to as many partners as we can.

Awesome. Eamon, thank you so much for joining us. This was a real pleasure, packed with information and you brought a lot of value today. So I really appreciate it. Thank you so much, Eric. It's a pleasure. Ladies and gentlemen, Aaman Lloyd. Hey, wait, don't leave yet. This is your host, Eric Malzone, and I hope you enjoyed this episode of Future of Minute. If you did, I'm gonna ask you to do three simple things. It takes under five minutes and it goes such a long way. We really appreciate it. Number one, please subscribe to our show wherever you listen to it, iTunes, Spotify, Castbox, whatever it may be. Number two, please leave us a favorable review. Number three, share. Put it on social media, talk about it to your friends, send it in a text message, whatever it may be. Please share this episode because we put a lot of work into it. We want to make sure that as many people are getting value out of it as possible. Lastly, if you'd like to learn more, get in touch with me, simply go to the futurofitness.co. You can subscribe to our newsletter there, or you can simply get in touch with me as I love to hear from our listeners. So thank you so much. This is Eric Malzone, and this is the future of fitness. Have a great day.