Henrik Almers - Coaches Congress

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[00:02:21] Henrik Almers.

[00:02:22] Did I get that right?

[00:02:23] Welcome to the future of fitness.

[00:02:26] It's a pleasure to have you.

[00:02:28] I've had some really cool conversations with you in the past, and I've been following what you do at Coaches Congress, the event, and the names, and the people you're pulling together, and how you're serving.

[00:02:38] You know, as I was just telling you, one of my favorite parts of the fitness industry, which is the coaches and the micro gym owners, which I think are so critical.

[00:02:46] They're kind of like the lifeblood of what we do as an industry.

[00:02:49] And, you know, there's plenty of events and things that I love to attend that serve, you know, the executives and the founders and the startups and the investors and all that.

[00:02:58] But like at core, at the community level, it's the coaches and the micro gyms that really do a lot of good.

[00:03:05] So I just want to commend you for serving that.

[00:03:08] And I'm excited to talk to you because, you know, I've heard great things about your events.

[00:03:11] I haven't attended yet, but I know, you know, good friends like Jim Crow speak at your events quite often.

[00:03:18] And you have really cool locations.

[00:03:19] And in a previous conversation you and I had, I found out that you know a lot about scuba diving, which is a wealth of information that I was really excited about.

[00:03:29] And yeah, man, so thanks for coming on.

[00:03:31] And maybe we could start with this.

[00:03:32] Just give us, you know, a little bit of your background because it is unique to our industry.

[00:03:36] You kind of came from different pockets and found your way here.

[00:03:40] So let's start with that.

[00:03:41] We'll take it from there.

[00:03:42] Okay.

[00:03:42] Thanks, Eric, for having me here.

[00:03:44] I'm excited to talk to you.

[00:03:46] So yeah, I might have a quite different background to most people in this industry.

[00:03:51] I started off as a marine biologist and got into entrepreneurship, built a few type companies, scuba diving.

[00:03:58] So that was my passion.

[00:04:00] And I thought that would be my future forever, my career.

[00:04:04] But I think entrepreneurship is my passion to build things and so on.

[00:04:11] So I did that.

[00:04:12] I'm Swedish, so I grew up in Sweden.

[00:04:15] And I traveled a lot and I've been to around 75 countries.

[00:04:20] So I've seen quite a bit of the world and I've been diving in quite a few spots too.

[00:04:27] So yeah, so that was the start of the first third of my career, if you like.

[00:04:31] So and then I got into the travel side, you know, one of my, well, it's a blessing and a curse.

[00:04:39] When I'm doing something, I want to, you know, start a business around it or I come up with business ideas.

[00:04:44] And so myself and my wife, we started a travel company called Scuba Travel that we ran for 20 years.

[00:04:53] So a couple of years ago.

[00:04:55] And so that was a big part of the career, so to speak.

[00:05:00] And it took us to a lot of great places around the world and got us diving with big animals and small animals.

[00:05:07] And then along the way, there was a bit of midlife crisis.

[00:05:10] I mean, fitness had always been a part of my life, but never as a profession until the midlife crisis hit.

[00:05:19] And I thought that, you know, I need to train even more.

[00:05:22] And then that had to become a business too.

[00:05:25] And so, yeah, three different segments of my career, so to speak.

[00:05:29] Winnick, I got to ask this question for diving.

[00:05:32] You know, maybe there's a certain percentage of people listening who are into scuba diving and they're probably like, where does he like to go?

[00:05:39] So if there's one place that you and your wife look forward to potentially going back to dive out of all the places you've been to, 75 countries, I'm sure thousands of dive spots.

[00:05:50] Is there one or two places that you really get excited to go back to?

[00:05:54] Yeah, there would be a couple of them.

[00:05:56] I mean, one place that I always want to go to, and I think, you know, I would love to go there on a yearly basis just to relax and to dive would be the Maldives in the Indian Ocean.

[00:06:07] It's fantastic for so many reasons.

[00:06:10] And quite a lot of big animals like manta rays and whale sharks, et cetera.

[00:06:16] And another place is more of a weird place to want to go to.

[00:06:21] It's Sudan, south of Egypt, which is a part of the Red Sea.

[00:06:25] And for various reasons, you don't really want to go there, political reasons.

[00:06:30] And wars going on, but I was there on a dive trip, and that's one of my best ever.

[00:06:36] Wow.

[00:06:37] Well, I could actually ask you diving questions for the entire 45 minutes, but that's really beneficial to the audience.

[00:06:44] When did you start?

[00:06:46] When was the first Coaches Congress?

[00:06:48] Like, what did it look like?

[00:06:49] When did it happen?

[00:06:50] What was the impetus for it starting?

[00:06:52] When was the thing you're like, you know what?

[00:06:53] When I'm going to do an event, because anyone I know who runs events will tell you they're really hard to do.

[00:06:59] So you have to be a little bit masochistic, I think, to want to do it.

[00:07:03] So yeah, how did the whole thing start?

[00:07:05] Okay, so I'm not going to take credit for being the founder, because I'm not.

[00:07:08] It's my business partner, Per, who's also Swedish.

[00:07:12] And he started this event 2014.

[00:07:16] He was one of the first CrossFit affiliates in Sweden.

[00:07:21] And he's always been very active in that community.

[00:07:25] And he decided that was a great idea to gather other gym owners within not just CrossFit, but other similar type of gyms to meet on a yearly basis,

[00:07:38] to both learn from each other, to build a network, and also to have experts coming in to do keynotes, etc.

[00:07:49] So I came in there as a sponsor after a couple of years, actually, with another travel company,

[00:07:57] a company which was in the fitness travel industry that we started.

[00:08:02] So I can't really say exactly why I decided to do it.

[00:08:06] I just know that when I met Per and we started to talk, I knew that we had to do something bigger with it.

[00:08:14] And you recently, so how many have you done overall?

[00:08:17] Like how many Kokachikoners have you done?

[00:08:19] Okay, so Stockholm has been done 10 times.

[00:08:22] So we had our 10-year anniversary in January this year.

[00:08:27] Oh, wow.

[00:08:27] So that's our, you know, the OG event.

[00:08:30] And that's where we've been developing the concept over the years.

[00:08:36] I shouldn't say that we had a proper business plan from the start.

[00:08:40] It's been an organic growth.

[00:08:42] But also we, the last three, four years, we've been becoming a lot more serious about it.

[00:08:48] And that's when we also decided to do our first event in Berlin, aimed for, yeah, northern to central Europe, basically.

[00:08:58] And we're doing our third one in February.

[00:09:01] And on top of that, we, you know, we've added more, more now.

[00:09:05] We did, we just did our first one in London two weeks ago.

[00:09:09] But yeah, let's talk about that one because it's the most recent.

[00:09:11] It was, you know, in Q4 here of 2024.

[00:09:15] Maybe give us some insights into who attends, the speakers, the experience, like, you know, from top to bottom, what does the event entail and what's it like?

[00:09:26] Yeah, sure.

[00:09:27] We've standardized our events, obviously.

[00:09:30] So they basically look the same, even if the venues are different and the attendees might come from different countries.

[00:09:36] But generally, we always have two seminar stages with a few hundred seats for each of them.

[00:09:42] So we run parallel keynotes over two days.

[00:09:46] And half of them are more catering for the gym owners to help them to go from just being passion driven, which is the case sometimes, to learn more about the business side of things.

[00:09:59] And that could entail everything from sales, marketing, social media, leadership, business development, everything about running a business, so to speak.

[00:10:11] And the other keynotes are to help their coaches.

[00:10:16] They could be both an owner and a coach, but very often they bring a team of coaches.

[00:10:21] And then the other half of the keynotes are aimed to help developing their coaches in various ways.

[00:10:32] And on top of that, over the last few years, we have also added another aspect to it.

[00:10:38] When we have been able to rent bigger venues, we have also added to build up a gym space for the weekend.

[00:10:46] And where it's basically possible to do both the morning workouts with maybe one of the training camps that sponsors us, for instance.

[00:10:56] And the other thing is to have practical workshops where world-class coaches are teaching coaches how to be better coaches, basically.

[00:11:07] And that could be an aspect of weightlifting or gymnastics or something like that.

[00:11:14] And the fourth component is a vendor village with vendors and sponsors that are there to meet with the gym owners and coaches and to business platform as well.

[00:11:28] So I would say, I normally say it's three things.

[00:11:31] The main thing and the most important thing is for us to be an educational event.

[00:11:36] So for us, content is king.

[00:11:39] We want to have the best in the field for each aspect if we can.

[00:11:45] The second part is networking to very often as a small company and entrepreneur, you feel alone.

[00:11:55] You need buddies.

[00:11:58] You need someone to talk to, to share the struggles and the victories.

[00:12:04] And that's another aspect.

[00:12:05] And the third part is the business to business platform.

[00:12:09] So that's what we have become over time that our event coaches Congress.

[00:12:16] When we talk about coaching education, you know, over, over the 10 years you guys have been doing this,

[00:12:22] what trends have you seen as far as like shifts in, in, in, like types of education, like content topics,

[00:12:30] things that are being both, you know, wanted and needed for coaches to learn.

[00:12:34] Like has there been any significant changes or has it been pretty, pretty consistent over the last 10 years as far as the type of content that you guys are delivering to them?

[00:12:42] I think we see a wish for a request for more specialized, more of, for instance, nutrition coaching to add that to the exercise,

[00:12:54] to add how to coach people in terms of lifestyle choices, sleep, recovery, all of these aspects.

[00:13:03] So it's gone from being not just only exercise, but very much exercise to add the, well, you know, the holistic aspect, if you like, of coaching.

[00:13:17] So I see that as a trend.

[00:13:21] Interesting.

[00:13:21] And what about data?

[00:13:25] Like I had a conversation on a different podcast platform with Joel Jameson from Morpheus.

[00:13:30] And we talked a lot about data-driven coaching and, you know, is that, has that, you know, obviously wearables are ubiquitous now.

[00:13:36] And there's a lot of data flowing around even from like continuous glucose monitoring to, you know, sleep data from mattresses, like you name it, wearables.

[00:13:45] There's a lot of data flowing around for clients.

[00:13:47] Is that something that seems to be a focus of education or a desire for coaches to learn?

[00:13:53] Yes.

[00:13:55] When we, last year, we added a couple of really interesting guys from the Germans called WOD Science and they came to our event in Berlin.

[00:14:04] And that was a surprise to us all how, you know, how many of the attendees had said that that was one of the best, if not the best of the workshops.

[00:14:15] So they are coming to both the upcoming Stockholm event and the Berlin event and hopefully more.

[00:14:22] So, and, and they are in, in that category, if you like.

[00:14:26] And so, so the science, scientific aspect is definitely trendy.

[00:14:32] You said it was WOD Science that was the company?

[00:14:34] Yep.

[00:14:35] Okay.

[00:14:36] I'll look them up later.

[00:14:37] What about from the gym owner standpoint?

[00:14:38] Kind of same question is like, is there any shifts that you've seen for gym owners from, you know, what kind of education they're looking for?

[00:14:46] What kind of knowledge?

[00:14:47] What kind of speakers?

[00:14:48] Or has it been pretty consistent over the last 10 years?

[00:14:51] I mean, I imagine their lives are changing, you know, at a micro gym level, their lives and jobs are changing quite a bit too.

[00:14:59] Yeah.

[00:14:59] No, I think, I think.

[00:15:01] Well, what we are happy to see is that more and more of them are open to learn more about entrepreneurship and the business side of things.

[00:15:09] That is not something bad to actually both be delivering great coaching and to change people's lives, but also make money and to be able to pay their bills.

[00:15:20] So, we see that people are much more open-minded in terms of that.

[00:15:26] And so, I would say that, you know, we're adding more and more of the business side of things like the profit first concept, et cetera.

[00:15:36] So, they actually put aside money to make a profit, for instance.

[00:15:42] And so, yeah, we're really happy to see that finally.

[00:15:47] Yeah.

[00:15:48] You know, my gym ownership career, I was always very aware of money, but I came from a business and sales background, which I think a lot of gym owners do not.

[00:15:59] You know, they come from a coaching background more often than not.

[00:16:01] But it does seem to be, you know, from a total market perspective.

[00:16:06] And by the time this airs, this partnership will be announced.

[00:16:10] So, you know, PushPress and CrossFit joining forces to build, you know, to kind of provide more insights from data that helps drive better business outcomes.

[00:16:20] And stuff like that is a very huge sign of maturation, I think, in the micro gym market where it's like, okay, they're not just great coaches who are following their passion, right?

[00:16:30] Which passion can lead you so far without profit.

[00:16:35] And then, you know, it becomes quite an ugly scenario for people who are stuck in their passion without making any money.

[00:16:43] But it does seem like there's a maturation of that particular segment of micro gym owners and maybe specific to, because I know you deal with a lot of CrossFit gyms and affiliates and other, you know, strength and conditioning, sports science type places.

[00:16:55] So, that's exciting.

[00:16:56] I mean, am I making that up or is that something that you're seeing very much?

[00:17:00] No, no, you're absolutely right.

[00:17:04] And other companies that we work with, like one of our long-term sponsors, Two Brain Business, a Canadian mentorship company, they are very much data-driven and best practice-driven and so on.

[00:17:18] And they always have quite a few speaker slots on our events.

[00:17:24] And that helps us to bring value to the attendees and get them to, you know, take action.

[00:17:34] That's one of the things that we tell all the speakers.

[00:17:36] If you pitch us, if you want to speak at our events, you bring the value to the attendees and you suggest actions.

[00:17:44] That's very important to us.

[00:17:46] So, it's not just an inspirational talk, but actionable.

[00:17:51] Yeah.

[00:17:52] Yeah.

[00:17:53] It's, I forget the events I used to go to back in the day.

[00:17:57] Very similar to what you had.

[00:17:58] I would bring my coaches.

[00:17:59] They would get a lot of coaching education.

[00:18:01] There'd be some business breakouts where you, you know.

[00:18:03] But the issue for me was always like, there was almost too many action items coming out of it.

[00:18:09] It's like, right?

[00:18:09] You're like, oh my God, like there's 10 things I want to implement.

[00:18:12] But you got to pick like one to two and maybe three that you can actually do, you know, over the next quarter.

[00:18:18] So, totally get it.

[00:18:20] And so, you guys are going into, like we look at 2025 now.

[00:18:25] How many events are you guys looking to do ultimately?

[00:18:29] Like how big do you think you'll get next year?

[00:18:31] I think next year will for sure be four events starting off the year with Stockholm and Berlin.

[00:18:38] And then back to London again.

[00:18:41] We need a bigger venue.

[00:18:42] We have to grow it the first year.

[00:18:43] So, that's awesome.

[00:18:46] That's a nice little challenge to find a new one.

[00:18:51] And then we are going to Australia in November to Brisbane.

[00:18:58] But we're also looking into another couple of new events.

[00:19:02] One would be an additional one in Europe.

[00:19:05] And the reason why we have been waiting with that one is because of the language barrier.

[00:19:11] We want to be able to cater for micro-dream owners and coaches from Southern Europe,

[00:19:17] where traditionally English is not as strong as in Scandinavia, for instance.

[00:19:23] So, we're looking at right now an event in either Madrid or Barcelona to cater for France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, for instance.

[00:19:33] But also, I have to say one thing.

[00:19:35] All our events, people are flying in from wherever.

[00:19:38] If you look at the last three events, it's been an average of 20-22 nationalities coming to each event.

[00:19:48] So, even if an event is in Stockholm, it doesn't mean that it's 100% Swedish people.

[00:19:52] It's actually people flying in from all over Europe, US, Canada.

[00:19:56] We've had people coming in from India to our events too now, the last couple of events.

[00:20:01] But we've had a challenge with how can we overcome the challenge of the language barrier there.

[00:20:10] So, we are currently looking into using spontaneous translation in smartphones as an app and using AI as a translator,

[00:20:23] both possible with a voiceover or with subtitles.

[00:20:27] So, we're testing that right now and we'll probably do a beta testing in Berlin with it.

[00:20:33] And that would definitely help us to go to places like, you know, Southern Europe, Brazil, wherever,

[00:20:41] where English is not as natural or as strong amongst the attendees.

[00:20:47] So, that's quite exciting for us.

[00:20:49] That's wild, right?

[00:20:51] Like, that's some futuristic shit that I never, right?

[00:20:57] Like, you saw, like, it's something you watch in a sci-fi movie that was made five years ago

[00:21:01] and you're like, well, the future is going to be amazing.

[00:21:02] But now, that's, like, happening now.

[00:21:05] Yeah.

[00:21:06] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:21:07] No, we're very excited about that.

[00:21:09] That's a very cool thing.

[00:21:09] And we're looking at, you know, the possibility to do our first event on your side of the pond in the U.S.

[00:21:17] for maybe next year, but for sure the year after.

[00:21:22] So, yeah, there are plans and ideas.

[00:21:24] And we have a lot of people requesting us to come to their neck of the woods.

[00:21:30] So, let's see.

[00:21:32] Yeah.

[00:21:33] You know, at one of your events, is there any other parts of the world that you see attendees from

[00:21:40] that maybe it's, like, a sign of, like, a market is starting to emerge or grow, like, across the globe?

[00:21:47] Like, where are you starting to see, like, the coaching and microgym industry start to thrive a little bit

[00:21:52] or show life or just simply on an upward trend?

[00:21:55] Well, some of our biggest groups are booked for the upcoming events in Stockholm and Berlin.

[00:22:03] They come from Eastern Europe, from the Baltic states, Lithuania, for instance, and so on.

[00:22:08] So, we're getting more and more people from that part of Europe.

[00:22:13] And we did not see that coming a couple of years ago.

[00:22:17] But that's definitely an emerging market.

[00:22:22] And I believe that we will see the same thing or similar thing in Asia.

[00:22:29] If we would be able to place one somewhere in Southeast Asia, we've had a lot of people

[00:22:35] reaching out from various places in Asia and ask when we're doing something over there.

[00:22:40] So, I see these two markets as definitely emerging.

[00:22:45] Yeah.

[00:22:46] Interesting.

[00:22:46] And when I'm looking at, like, your coaching lineup or your speaker lineup, I'm looking

[00:22:51] at the one, I think, is this London?

[00:22:54] No, this is Berlin, I believe.

[00:22:55] You know, people like Ben Bergeron, right, from CompTrain and a big name in the CrossFit

[00:23:02] space.

[00:23:03] Obviously, Matt Frazier, you know, CrossFit champion.

[00:23:07] I think he's considered the best of all time on the men's side.

[00:23:11] You know, some really interesting people.

[00:23:13] I mean, who from your perspective, you know, from your perspective, you know,

[00:23:16] the population you serve, who draws people in?

[00:23:19] Like, who are the big names that makes people want to show up more?

[00:23:25] Yeah.

[00:23:25] Yeah.

[00:23:26] That's a hard one because the people that understand why they should come to the event

[00:23:32] in the first place, they want their business knowledge and so on.

[00:23:38] They're more attracted to the keynote speakers that are specialized in, on the business side,

[00:23:45] sales.

[00:23:46] It could be sales or marketing.

[00:23:47] The other ones are mainly attracted by the big names.

[00:23:51] And so, obviously, it helps us to have people like Matt Frazier, Ben Bergeron.

[00:23:56] We have Rich Froning coming to Berlin and so on.

[00:24:01] So, that is selling a lot of tickets.

[00:24:04] But a lot of people are actually saying afterwards that, you know, we never expected it to be like this.

[00:24:11] They are becoming more and more interested in developing their business rather than just, you know,

[00:24:19] taking a selfie with a star.

[00:24:21] Sure.

[00:24:22] Which is quite fun to see, that change of mind from buying the ticket for the selfie and to work out with someone famous too,

[00:24:33] to actually being able to change the future of their business.

[00:24:37] So, yeah.

[00:24:38] Yeah.

[00:24:38] Yeah.

[00:24:41] It's always interesting because the coaching industry is very much just, we get starstruck as coaches, right?

[00:24:48] With great athletes and people we admire, people who have written books that we've read.

[00:24:53] You know, I'm trying to think of my question here, like Dan John, like when the first time I met him,

[00:24:57] and he wrote all these books.

[00:24:58] And I was just such a fan of his email newsletter.

[00:25:00] And, you know, you get to me, I'm like, he's just a guy, right?

[00:25:03] I had a couple of beers with him.

[00:25:04] Great dude.

[00:25:04] He's been on this podcast numerous times.

[00:25:06] And, you know, it's interesting how we do that within our own, like, spheres of the industry.

[00:25:11] But I think the fitness industry is very unique that way because we have this mixture of athletes and coaches

[00:25:17] and, you know, in business minds as well.

[00:25:19] So, yeah, it's fascinating.

[00:25:22] When you guys look from a partnership standpoint, like who are you guys looking to partner with?

[00:25:27] Like, you know, obviously you want sponsors, right?

[00:25:29] At the event, you want great speakers.

[00:25:31] But, like, who's an ideal partnership for you guys?

[00:25:33] Well, I think what we are looking for is partners that can not just add, you know, money to an event,

[00:25:44] but also add value to the attendees.

[00:25:48] It has to be both.

[00:25:50] I mean, obviously we need money to run the events, but we are looking for partners that are sharing similar values

[00:26:02] and people that or companies that we would like to use ourselves.

[00:26:07] That's what we prefer.

[00:26:09] That's why we've never been growing the vendor village side too much.

[00:26:14] We've been able to actually say no if we don't think it's a good fit, which we're quite proud of.

[00:26:21] But, yeah, we like to reach as many gym owners as possible.

[00:26:26] I had a really good conversation today with Hyrox.

[00:26:30] And they are growing so fast all over the world right now.

[00:26:37] And now they have their affiliate model.

[00:26:39] And most of these gyms are very similar to CrossFit Affiliate.

[00:26:42] They are passion-driven and maybe, you know, in need of a bit of help and support and guidance

[00:26:50] in terms of the business side of things.

[00:26:52] So these organizations that are in the, you know, typical coaching gym or micro gym,

[00:27:01] they are great partners for us.

[00:27:03] And also other companies like Two Brain Business that I mentioned before, being able to, you know, to add with the knowledge and great keynote speakers.

[00:27:15] So, yeah, that's a few examples of good companies.

[00:27:19] Yeah.

[00:27:19] And running an event perspective, like what's the biggest challenge of what you guys do?

[00:27:26] Like when you're running, I know there's a lot, a lot of them, right?

[00:27:30] But what keeps you up at night when you're running events like this?

[00:27:33] Well, I would say that initially the hardest part is to find a suitable venue that is both affordable and can cater for what we want to do.

[00:27:45] Not just having great seminar rooms, but also so we can build up a gym space of, you know, a decent size.

[00:27:55] And also to fit in maybe 25, 30 vendors and their stand spaces and so on.

[00:28:00] So that is a pretty tricky one where we actually are using experts in the field right now to find a new venue for London, for instance.

[00:28:13] I would say that that is initially the hardest one.

[00:28:17] Otherwise, I mean, over the years, we built a network of really good speakers and coaches.

[00:28:24] So it's more like we say no quite a lot to people.

[00:28:30] And so that's not really a hard one.

[00:28:33] But obviously, we can always have new people, new voices coming in.

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[00:30:01] Both being a bit refreshing and come with maybe even with new knowledge.

[00:30:07] So that's something that we, you know, that's not the hard part, but we're always looking for that to be able to create events that, you know, that become really attractive and where people can really learn.

[00:30:23] But yeah, no, it's become second nature to do these things.

[00:30:26] We were in the travel industry for a long time and it's not too different to run a travel company to run an event company like ours, to be honest.

[00:30:37] I would say one thing that has been hard is to navigate to when to put events, what time of the year and so on.

[00:30:46] Because since quite a lot of our attendees, gym owners and coaches come from the CrossFit scene,

[00:30:54] we have been trying to navigate the changes of the game season quite a bit over the last couple of years.

[00:31:02] And also the freestanding competitions too, because we know that that could potentially affect both getting the best coaches to attend and to speak,

[00:31:15] but also to, you know, potentially not having the attendance that we want.

[00:31:21] So, yeah, that's basically what we are fighting sometimes.

[00:31:29] I look at what I think is really cool about your events is, and this is just me speaking as an American,

[00:31:36] is like all the places that you guys hold events are places I want to go visit, which I think is a nice bonus, right?

[00:31:41] I mean, is that something like realistically, do you consider that?

[00:31:43] I mean, it's got to be like London's a cool town, right?

[00:31:46] Absolutely.

[00:31:47] Stockholm sounds amazing.

[00:31:48] Yeah.

[00:31:49] No, we do.

[00:31:49] We do.

[00:31:50] I would say that Stockholm is a lot nicer in July than it is in January.

[00:31:56] But so many of our attendees and also speakers and vendors, they actually choose to come for the added bonus of exploring Berlin to adding a few extra days there.

[00:32:08] So, yes, we're looking at what could be attractive.

[00:32:13] We have to look at the logistical aspect, whereas when we have an international airport with a lot of connections worldwide.

[00:32:22] And the other one is definitely, you know, people want to go to London, Travolta Square and Piccadillo Circus and all of these things.

[00:32:29] I would say that of all people that came there from abroad, all of them, all of us, I should say, added extra days to explore London.

[00:32:39] So, yes, absolutely.

[00:32:40] And that's why we're looking at places like Barcelona, for instance.

[00:32:44] That would be a place that Northern Europeans would love to go to as a weekend as well.

[00:32:49] So, yeah.

[00:32:50] And that's definitely something we will look at when it comes to, you know, our first event coming to the U.S. at some point.

[00:33:00] Yeah.

[00:33:00] Yeah.

[00:33:00] Awesome.

[00:33:01] Yeah, I'd love to go.

[00:33:02] And it's a nice write-off, guys, right?

[00:33:04] I mean, do I have enough to say that?

[00:33:05] Like, it's a tax benefit.

[00:33:09] Pay me a picture here, Enric.

[00:33:11] Like, we'll just put an even timeline of year 2030, right?

[00:33:15] Like, what's the vision you guys have for Coaches Congress?

[00:33:18] Like, what would you like it to look like?

[00:33:19] And, you know, I always phrase it like this.

[00:33:21] You and I are having a beer in 2030, maybe in Stockholm, right?

[00:33:25] You're like, Eric, I'm so excited.

[00:33:28] Yeah.

[00:33:28] Yeah, we're up in Spain.

[00:33:30] I'll propose Spike.

[00:33:31] Yeah, that sounds great.

[00:33:33] And you're like, Eric, I am so thrilled with the way everything's gone so far.

[00:33:37] Like, what does that look like for you?

[00:33:39] Well, first of all, I really hope that we've been able to help thousands of gym owners and coaches to create both better businesses and better careers for themselves.

[00:33:53] And to be in it for longer than a year or two years, but to be able to make that a real career.

[00:34:02] That's what it comes down to.

[00:34:04] That's why we do this.

[00:34:05] In terms of the amount of events at that point, I think we can do 10 really good ones worldwide on a yearly basis.

[00:34:14] I think that's a realistic goal for the next five years to grow from where we are now up to 10 and to be able to help microdream owners and coaches basically everywhere in the globe.

[00:34:27] So, yeah, that would be a success for us to build it to that level.

[00:34:34] And with the great partners and friends that we have now, I think we'll definitely get to that point.

[00:34:43] Yeah, fantastic.

[00:34:45] Last question.

[00:34:46] Well, maybe last question.

[00:34:47] We'll see.

[00:34:48] When you're looking for topics that you want covered in 2025, I'm sure there's a lot of topical experts that listen to this show.

[00:34:57] Is there anything you want to really start to focus on for next year, whether it be something like longevity science or we talked about wearable data or AI applications for coaches?

[00:35:09] I always think about things around GLP-1 integrations, stuff like that.

[00:35:14] Is there any particular topics that you'd be interested in hearing from people about to discuss at your events?

[00:35:20] Yeah.

[00:35:21] Let me put it this way instead.

[00:35:23] Everyone who thinks that they have something to add to bring value to our events, please pitch us.

[00:35:32] Send us a short video where you're talking about your topic and a short outline of what that would entail.

[00:35:41] And we promise to have a look at it.

[00:35:44] It's important for us to be aware of new things, new science, new findings, new technology.

[00:35:54] So absolutely in that space.

[00:35:56] But it can also be something, you know, someone who's really good at sales that, you know, want to come and speak at one of our events and maybe has a different angle to it.

[00:36:08] Maybe it's very good at making, you know, more of a, not just a keynote, but we try to have more of workshop style seminars where we really get the attendees to maybe even role play in the sales process, sales pitches, et cetera.

[00:36:28] So yeah, please, please, please contact us and send us your pitch and we promise to, to consider it for sure.

[00:36:38] Awesome.

[00:36:38] Awesome.

[00:36:39] I think you'll get some nice, some nice feedback on that.

[00:36:43] Besides coaches, congress.com, Henrik, is there any place that you'd like people to go maybe to get in touch with you specifically or anywhere else you'd like them to follow you?

[00:36:53] Well, please, please follow us on, on Instagram, coaches, congress official.

[00:36:57] And, uh, I'm on LinkedIn.

[00:36:59] Uh, that would probably be the best place to find me as Henrik Almers.

[00:37:03] And, uh, yeah, no, I think that would be the best place both to contact coaches, congress as, as an event and, and myself.

[00:37:12] So please reach out.

[00:37:13] Awesome, man.

[00:37:14] Awesome.

[00:37:15] Uh, Henrik, this is, it was great.

[00:37:16] I've been looking forward to this for a long time to get some insights on what you guys do and, you know, I've been following the success of your events from afar.

[00:37:23] And, and now, uh, you know, now we're connected and I'm, I'm really happy about it.

[00:37:27] And I, I'm, I'm excited to, uh, find a way to attend one of your 2025 events and one of those locations that you have.

[00:37:34] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:37:36] Let's make it happen.

[00:37:38] Yeah.

[00:37:38] Oh yeah.

[00:37:38] You got my word, buddy.

[00:37:40] Ladies and gentlemen, Henrik Almers.

[00:37:42] Thank you.

[00:37:44] Hey, wait, don't leave yet.

[00:37:45] This is your host, Eric Malzone.

[00:37:47] And I hope you enjoyed this episode of future of fitness.

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