Jason Crowe - Precision Nutrition & The _Great Reset_ In Coaching

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. This episode of the Future of Fitness is presented to you by the Fit Tech Club, a business network run by the creators of the FitTech Summit, Europe's leading conference devoted to fitness and health technology. Look, friends, the fitness industry is changing faster than ever. The intersection of technology with fitness and health is growing bigger and more dynamic by the minute. Gyms are exploding figuratively, and their constituent parts are ending up at home, outdoors, on your wrist, or in entirely new places with brilliantly new concepts. Investors are pumping astronomical amounts of money into the market like we've never seen before. The FitTech Club believes that collaboration is the advantage to these times of change. That's why the club aims to bring thought leaders together to inspire them by making the right contacts at the right time and giving insights to the industry's most relevant and current trends. Here's what Melanie Lauer, CEO of Kettler and TriSports, says about the FitTech Club.

We have joined the FitTech Club because it gives us access to the most recent iterations in the industry. It gives us access to a unique network and to potential business partners that help us developing our business further.

If you're interested in the fitness technology game and looking to accelerate your growth, I highly suggest you check out fittechsummit.com forward slash club to learn more. You can join the highly valuable newsletter, apply for the FitTech Club itself, or simply learn more or connect with people like me. That's fittechsummit.com forward slash club. This episode of the Future of Fitness is brought to you by our good friends at the Brand X Method. Kids deserve our best. Period. Full stop. Brand X has dedicated themselves to doing what is best for kids for over two decades. Here's the facts. All major pediatric organizations agree that youth strength and conditioning and fitness programs must be specifically designed for children and coached by those specifically educated in working with children. This seems like a no-brainer. Successful programs come from educated coaches who have all the tools to best serve youth. Brand X offers unequaled ongoing support through ever-growing relative content delivered monthly, plus the mountains of information leveraging their 20 plus years of experience. As the developers of the original Kids Functional Fitness Program and Certification with over 100 state and national record holders and recognize the world's leaders in youth fitness, Brand X not only offers the fully digital, take-it-your-own pace, professional youth coaches certification, but has recently added to their suite of custom education products to best serve educators and parents as well. Because kids deserve our best. So whether you are a gym owner, coach, educator, parent, or simply anyone who cares for the future of our children, Brand X is offering a 20% discount on all digital education products for a limited time. Go visit thebrandxmethod.com forward slash future to get your code today. Again, that is the brandxmethod.com forward slash future and claim your code. This holiday season, the best gifts are personal. And there's nothing more personal than the gift of good health. Whether your loved one runs, bikes, hikes, plays sports, or simply wants to improve their wellness, InsightTracker is the most personalized way to make sure their body stays in it for the long haul. Gift cards and clothes are impersonal and expected. So why not get your loved ones a gift that is truly special and unique to them? This Black Friday saved $200, $200 on Insight Tracker's Ultimate Plan, the most comprehensive way to get personalized insights into their body's well-being. No two people achieve optimal health the same way. Age, genes, nutrition, and lifestyle all play a part. But no matter who you're shopping for, Insight Tracker's Personalized Nutrition and Performance System provides the most detailed analysis of their biomarker data from blood, DNA, lifestyle, and fitness tracking. InsightTracker gives them the power to live a healthier, longer life through concrete, personalized action plans consisting of proven science-backed recommendations. So head to insight tracker.com forward slash future today to save $200 on InsightTracker's ultimate plan and enjoy 25% off site-wide. Give the gift of personalized health. We are live. Jason Crow, welcome to the Future of Fitness. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I this has been uh it's been a long time coming, man. I've I've been you know trying to get you on the show forever, but you know, you're a busy guy, and uh it's just it's not easy.

I've got to pin down apparently.

Yeah.

Uh it's it's really good to have you on the show. I've always, you know, you and I have had a a lot of conversations over the past few years, and I always uh really value your insights uh into what's going on in the industry, uh the leadership that you are uh presenting at at Precision Nutrition. And uh you got a great sense of humor too. So I think that always uh that always makes things more enjoyable. And man, you know, you know partnerships, business development, networking, uh all of that. You're you're I think it comes natural to you. So I think people glean a lot of uh that that value from you as well. So I'll stop talking here for a minute, but it would be great if uh you know, give us a little bit of your background. How'd you get to be one of the principals at uh Precision Nutrition?

Yeah, no, it's so first of all, Eric, I really appreciate you having me on. Um, you know, I've listened to the podcast a number of different a number of times, and you and I have talked, like we said, about it, and it it just hasn't we haven't been able to nail down a date. Um but I think for anyone listening, um I agree. We we've had some really, really great conversations, and and I think people would hopefully will enjoy kind of what that sounds like and and some of the the insights that you and I both um were able to glean off of each other. So so looking forward to it. Um Jason Crow. Uh how did I get here? So uh very quick background on me is is prior to joining Precision Nutrition, I spent uh 14 years or so in in what I call reactive health care. So I worked for a large pharmaceutical company, um a couple medical diagnostic firms, um, and a pediatric hospital here in Toronto, Canada, where I live. Um and I kind of hit this point where I decided that there were two things that I wanted to expand on. Number one, I wanted to get out of that kind of reactive medicine, that sick care type model, and move more towards wellness. How do we help people before they uh get sick? And then the second thing I wanted to do was really go from being in a North American focus to something more global. And that's how I got connected with Precision Nutrition and and joined three and a half or so years ago and uh and basically have started and built up our partnership and BD programs here. So it's been a phenomenal ride, and and at some point we can talk a little bit about PN, but it's um yeah, it's been it's been just great for me and and having to learn in a completely new industry um has been has been fascinating.

Yeah, how how has it been learning the the finished? What have you noticed that's been different?

I think the biggest thing in in let's just call it well, like that kind of wellness world, that proactive piece is that the the companies in this industry that are that are you know, let's call them air quotes competitors, are are legitimately all in this together. And what I mean by that is kind of the first thing you know that you would do in any sort of partnership role is trying to go out and establish a network, figure out how all this thing works, who are the people that are um leading the industry, who are the people that influence the industry, what the connections are, all that kind of stuff. So my goal was to spend kind of my first six or nine months doing that. And coming from you know uh an industry that's incredibly competitive and very inwardly focused, people don't you know openly share a lot of information about what's going on. I I knew it was going to be a bit of an uphill battle. Um or I thought it was gonna be an uphill battle. What I got in return was a whole bunch of organizations, and again, people that have you know products that in any other industry would be seen as competing to PN that were openly making introductions, telling me about how the industry works, um helping me make connections, that kind of thing. So my onboarding to not only the company but the industry was significantly faster than I was expecting. Um, number one. And number two, um I tried to further connect those individuals to people that are just kind of on the fringes uh of wellness and kind of border that reactive/slash wellness world, which which helped them. So um was happy to kind of jump in and and not only be the recipient of you know what this industry is and and and how it operates, but also very quickly add some contributions and help some of these folks that are helping me uh expand their businesses and their networks as well. So that's that's probably the biggest difference.

Yeah, that's that's a really that's encouraging to hear that. You know, I've been in uh I've been in this industry for 14 years, and really, you know, before that, it wasn't I was in a role where I was doing a whole lot of uh you know professional network building or business development. So I've only known this industry. And I I think it's been, you know, uh I think you and I joke sometimes because you'll be like, yeah, you know, someone I don't want any of their name, you know, quoted this. I'm like, oh, I know exactly who that is just by the quote, right? Yeah. And uh so you start to come across the same people. You know, for for people who um maybe want to evolve or in a similar role of partnerships and uh business development, you know, you're you're very good at developing a professional network. Do you do that intentionally? Uh like is there work that you do intentionally, or is it just something that comes naturally to you, or is it a little bit of both?

Um I think as it's it's a good question. I think as my as my career has developed, I've discovered patterns in my own um kind of intrinsic behavior that I can now that I've now systematized and then used to a degree, but a lot of it is still kind of naturally who I am. Again, I think that you know, when I go out to meet somebody for the first time, and very quickly I can tell the story about how you and I met. Um you and I met as a result of three connections away from the first one of the the initial people that I spoke to who connected me with someone else, who connected me with with your partner Ken, and Ken connected with uh uh you with me. So I I think it's just at the end of the day, there's systems to it, but there's also just authenticity. So if if you're the kind of person that you know gives to a relationship, I think you're gonna get you can get significantly more out of it. So again, like I said earlier, whenever I am interacting with someone and asking them about the business that they have and you know uh the people that they're they're connected with, I'm not always looking, uh I'm not always uh there's not a scheme. There's not you know an underlying agenda where I'm trying to get to you know another person. I'm legitimately just asking about them. And not just about them, asking how I could potentially help them. And I'm listening for little cues where I could say, hey, here's a little piece of information, or here's someone that I know that might be able to help you based on something that you're working on. And as a result, I found that I get back, you know, multiple times over, um, again, more productive relationships both with that person and who they can connect me to. So I don't know that there's a um um a concrete system or or you know set of rules that I follow, but there is kind of a system through the patterns that I've seen over the many years that I've been been doing this work.

Yeah, and there's a there's a lot of value in that. I think always looking to offer value with nothing in return seems to be a pretty good just you know, ethos for for for this type of work, right? Um you know, I'm not gonna- I know this is a cliched question, but I'll ask it. Like, is there any kind of book that you've kind of returned to over and over again throughout the years that has given you kind of a a nice baseline for for how to do this type of work?

It's a it's a funny, yeah, so it's a it's an interesting one because and and I want to say right off the top that this is not a this is not a shameless plug for our you know PN's founder, but uh one of the best books that I've read um about this whole kind of idea of business development and marketing yourself and self-brand and that kind of thing is is um John Berardi's book Changemaker, um, which he wrote now two years, I believe two years ago. And as soon as I read it, where we were fortunate enough to get kind of advanced copies here at PN, and it was really a product that he was putting out as his, you know, one of the things that he does to give back to the industry, because one of the things he noticed is that there's a lot of amazing coaches out there, both movement and nutrition and lifestyle coaches. But one of the things that unilaterally um a lot of coaches struggle with was this idea of how do I go out and promote myself? How do I go out and ask people for business or ask them for something? And as when he wrote it, again, he focused really on the fitness industry. But as soon as I read it, I was like, this could be like a monster of a business book. And and John and I had a conversation afterwards, and I said, you know, JB, this could have been like if you would have positioned this at a business book that as a business book, this could have been like, you know, huge. And his and and in a very John Barardi way, and this, you know, arguably is the the lesson that you and I are both talking about, is he's like, I didn't I didn't want it to be that. I didn't I didn't need the money, I didn't need the accolades from people outside of the industry, but the industry is the thing that got me to where I am. So I wrote this for them because I saw an issue or a gap for them, so I I helped fill the the help them fill in the blanks. So I can tell you as someone who you know I think is is pretty seasoned in this business development partnership networking world, um, there were even tidbits in the book that I've taken away with with me. So um, yeah, if there was one I would go to, it would definitely be Changemaker by John Barardi.

Oh, right on. That's great. I've never read that one. And I have to say, I I like uh one of the ones that I've gifted the most, which is simple read. You know, it's under 30 minutes. Uh if people haven't read it is The Go Giver by Bob Berg. He's been on, I I hunted him down, I had him on this show, and it's uh it's a short story, um, but it proves a lot of the points of you know things we're talking about here. It's really good. I encourage people to check it out. I get you know what uh let's do this. I I'd be curious, like as you kind of because I I want this lesson to be kind of concrete, because I I do coach a lot of businesses, um, not a lot, just a handful at any given time. And everybody's looking for like the uh quick fix, right? Yeah, like how do I generate more more leads? How do I build my email list faster? And there's a lot of marketing tactics for that. Um am I the one for that to coach that? I mean, maybe I know enough to be dangerous, but that's not my area of expertise. And I I had a lot of really successful people on this show. Uh Kelly Starrett seems to come to top of my mind because he preaches it in all the time. It's like, listen, you know, wherever you're at, um, especially in this industry, in the coaching or fitness and health industry, is like you're gonna have to start and you're gonna have to eat shit for a little while, right? And as you grow, just remember that your professional network is gold and it will grow with you because you know, you see someone like uh KSTAR who's now you know 20 years in the industry, or Joel Jameson, who's 20 years in the industry, right? At a coaching at a high level, uh you your network grew with you, and now the people that were you know slaving away with you for $12 an hour are now executives at companies or highly influential in their field. And I think that's something that people forget is like, you know, you can do all the marketing things, but at the end of the day, if you focus on having quality relationships and conversations, if that's one of the things that you focus on and extending your network and being some someone of value uh within your industry, good things will come. It's just hard to quantify. Um, so after I just did that little diatribe, my the question I want to ask you was can you maybe just walk us through an example of how you started um with being someone of value and offering you know something expecting nothing in return and how maybe it's walked through to something really big that you didn't expect.

That I can share that's not a PN inside thing. Yeah. Um so here's here's one example. PN has um one of the programs that um I got started here was this idea of us having a reseller network. I can tell you what I mean by that. So PN for many years um only sold its products through PN. So if you wanted to buy it, you bought it from the PN website, and we had uh we had a restrictive launch model. So um individuals come to the website, they'd kind of join a nurturing series and they would get ready for you know a launch. And I thought, okay, well, maybe there's some opportunities to work with organizations like NASM and ACE and ISSA and the individuals that are um uh you know selling certifications and already selling continuing education. And a person that I got connected with um is at ACE. And I just reached out to her one day just legitimately to learn about their their business. And we started talking, she was telling me how the whole thing worked and and and that kind of thing, and we just kind of chatted, and it was nothing, you know, it was nothing really um there was no intention, it was just more me learning than anything else. And this isn't the story about us becoming connected. What's the story about is I had provided some information to her about the ways that we market um the product in our in our conversation, and again, not expecting anything other than just trying to you know build a relationship. But one of the things that she started telling me is the way that their company sells through inside salespeople, which is something that we don't we didn't have. Everything here was digital, we ran digital funnels, we used paid media ads, that kind of thing here at PN. And what the thing that she said to me was you guys should really think about it because it drives disproportionate amounts of our sales, in part because for a lot of people, um, this is an expensive purchase. This is an investment that they're making in themselves. And sometimes they might not get the information that they need, or they just need to talk to somebody to confirm that this is the right decision. And that kind of went, you know, that came back and I sat. And thought about that for a bit. Um, and then you know, brought it internally and subsequently had a number of other conversations with other individuals. And we subsequently launched an inside sales team here at PN. And instantly we started to see people phoning and doing exactly what she said, asking very simple, like clarifying questions that I think they knew the answer to, but they just wanted to hear someone tell them it was going to be okay, and let them know that their concerns were valid, and you know, giving examples of how other people have overcome those in the past. So the inside sales team here at PN is is now completely humming and has grown significantly, and it we it's been handed off and it has its own um separate manager now who's who's running the program and and continues to expand it. So it's amazing. But when I originally reached out to Ace, it was legitimately just a you know, hey, how you doing? She was telling me about some you know things that they were doing. I shared some things that we do at PN. Again, was it something that was competitive? No, I don't think so. Um, it was just a way that we approached our marketing process. You know, she was really appreciative, told me all about their process, um, and opened the door to something that is now a you know a pretty significant portion of our sales come through the inside sales team. So that's an example of having a conversation with someone without an intention other than just to meet with them, talk with them, and if a door opens for you to be able to provide information or value uh to them, jump on it. Um, you know, one of the things that Phil Caravaggio, who's the other co-founder with um um John Barardi of PN, uh always said to the company is never you know turn down an opportunity to do a kind act. Um so you know, and that kind of that that's you know laced within everything we do here at PN. And it's also kind of the way that we we look at hiring. So we're constantly looking for individuals that come um with that innate ability to think of another person and not just themselves. Um so so that's an example of of how it, you know, how it was utilized and how it benefits um, how it benefited me into something that's actually turned out to be pretty significant for the company.

Yeah, that's a great story, man. Great lesson. You know, it's interesting. So at the uh the end of most of these interviews that I do, I always ask people uh, you know, in the spirit of collaboration, what is some of the bigger needs that they have right now as a business owner or entrepreneur? And I asked that question because I I don't I generally don't have a direct solution for them that I can offer, but I generally do know someone that posts recording I can introduce them to. Or so it's something that you can, you know, you talked about who who that it's just part of who you are, but there's also ways you can kind of use to recognize it and build systems behind it that become you know more of a I guess habitual, right? In in the work that you do. Um yeah, great anecdote, man. Uh I guess one of the things that we haven't covered, which you definitely want to, is you know, tell us about what precision nutrition is up to now in its current iteration being uh September 23rd, 2021.

Yeah, it's um yeah, yeah, it's it's I appreciate the question. Um I'll try and make this I'll try and make this brief. Um, but I think the important thing you know for those that are listening is to understand who PN is today and and how it's evolved over the last 15 years. Um Precision Nutrition has a number of different products that we put out to the market, but at the end of the day, we really just do two things. Um we we coach people and we teach people how to become coaches. Um and up until this year, that's really been focused on primarily nutrition and a little bit of lifestyle management stuff. And what separated the company from most of the people in our space, in our education space, is that not only do we teach people how to become coaches, but the idea of coaching people ourselves helps us become better educators. So, you know, PN has coached uh over 120,000 people around the globe over the last 17 years, and we've subsequently educated more than 150,000. So I think a lot of people know PN for education, particularly anyone listening here, because that's you know, that's that's what we're known for in the fitness industry. But we've our our first product and one that still is is active and port and important to the business is the coaching business. Um what's interesting now is that the company's actually at a pretty significant inflection point where both of those sides of the business are going to dramatically expand. And I'll tell you what I mean by that. Um again, focused on the thing that a lot of the listeners might know about, is the education world. Um, you know, people probably know we have our level one nutrition certification and our level two master's program. Um one of the things that's happening this year is the level two master's program is actually becoming a health coach certification. So it's being completely revamped so that it not only focuses on nutrition, sleep, stress management, recovery, but also a lot on you know what our bread and butter is, is change psychology. So we're gonna be now educating um accredited uh through NWHBC. Um we're gonna be accrediting health coaches out of PN for the level two product, but for the level one product, which again is is primarily our our our gold standard product, what we determined is that what our real you know what our real unique ability here at PN is is change psychology. How do we move someone from you know where they're at today to where they want to go? And really that's the that's always been the vessel for for PN. Um all of our change psychology curriculum is built not only on published literature, but like I said, experience with us coaching individuals. Um and nutrition was always the thing that kind of went in that vessel. What's gonna be happening actually in November is we're gonna be launching a sleep stress and recovery certification. It's gonna be called SSR. And what's interesting about the sleep stress and recovery certification is we're gonna be taking again all of the systems that PN uses and teaches around change psychology, and we've partnered with a number of industry experts in those three disciplines that have helped write that portion of the curriculum. So, uh, and this is probably the first time this is being mentioned publicly, but we're gonna be working with uh Dr. Michael Gervais, who's from the Finding Mastery podcast. He's also the performance coach for the Seattle Seahawks, um, Dr. Chris Winters, who's a neurologist and sleep scientist, uh, Dr. Greg Wells, who's a performance physiologist and recovery expert, and then Dr. Jen Martin from UCLA, who's a clinical psychiatrist and a sleep researcher. So those folks have handled all of the scientific elements of the discipline-specific stuff to SSR, and PN has lended everything around the change psych. So what I think you're gonna see from Precision Nutrition over the next um couple years is a number of certifications where we partner with industry experts in their particular field, and we are educating and leading on uh change psychology and coaching methodology.

That's uh that's a powerful team you just laid out there.

It's it's a pretty yeah, it's a pretty big, it's a big group. And we're we're fortunate that they recognized who PN is and the value that we bring. And I think what we heard from each of them is you know, change psychology is the hardest part of everything, you know, behavior change is the hardest thing that they do. Um, so they wanted to partner with us to be able to do for their particular disciplines what we've already done for nutrition. So we're we're super excited about the SSR program.

Yeah, it's really cool. You know, I one of the questions I think about if I if I'm a coach or you know, maybe a gym owner listening to this, I'm like, well, I I'm a you know, I'm a fitness coach now. Let's say I want to become a health coach. What are the benefits for me to become, and I guess we can call it an evolution, right? A step up, really, uh, into becoming a health coach. Like what does that mean for my career if I become a health coach?

Well, I think there's so I think there's two ways that I can answer this. I can answer it from the standpoint of I'm a gym owner, and what is the value of this type of coaching for my business? And then I can then answer it from the standpoint of being a health coach. I I think that one of the things that we've learned particularly not because of COVID, COVID has just highlighted something that's been going on for a number of years, is that what our our clients actually require is not just movement coaching or just nutrition coaching or just SSR coaching. They actually require all of it because it's all interconnected. So, you know, using the the sleep stress management recovery thing, um, if you're not eating well, if you're eating a lot of you know sugary, salty, fatty foods, typically those folks don't sleep very well, especially if you're eating those kind of late at night before you go to bed, you don't sleep very well. And if you don't sleep very well, you're not really recovering your mind or your body. So then when you wake up the next day, you're groggy. And if you go back, if you run back into the gym or a CrossFit class or whatever, whatever you're doing, you're actually increasing the likelihood that you're gonna get hurt. So, and again, if you're not sleeping properly, you might not be eating properly because you might be snacking in the middle of the night because you're bored. So the whole system kind of feeds on itself. So the idea of a health coach, um, I think for an individual separates you from other folks in the industry and provides a well-rounded set of services to be able to meet your clients exactly where they're at, not just in one particular area, but in the area of their life or their overall health and well-being that's gonna have the greatest impact on them. From a gym owner's standpoint, and this is one of the things this kind of leans to the other side of PN that's gonna be growing around the coaching side, is we're gonna be offering a whole new set of services, both to individuals and organizations, to be able to provide coaching services. So let's pretend I'm a gym owner here for a second. We run a very efficient gym, we have amazing training staff that are experts in their particular uh area, whatever that is. But they don't, they're not really interested in learning more or kind of you know altering their focus. They really want to focus on their particular area. But you, as the gym owner, realize that this is something you know that's gonna be important for your clients, like I was saying. PN, and we do a little bit of this today with a product we call enterprise coaching, can provide coaching services for you. So it can be branded as you know, Eric's gym or Eric's nutrition coaching services, but it's really powered by precision nutrition. So now the focus for you and of the coaches is for you to run an efficient business and for your coaches to be experts in their particular discipline area. But if you have clients that are looking for nutrition or lifestyle coaching, PN can step in and be your representative in that space, and we can handle that coaching for you. So, again, over the next couple of years, we're gonna be looking for a number of different ways to, again, broaden our um uh education services into a number of different new and exciting disciplines, but also offering a set of services for coaches and gym owners uh and the public to be able to supply this type of coaching using the network of people that have been trained under our uh under our systems.

I really like that. You know, the uh uh the there's such a healthy balance when you go B2B and B2C, right? And how those those two support each other if it's done right. I guess when you look forward and and now you know you guys are starting to because we're going consumer now, right? Essentially, is that part of this uh part of this plan?

Yeah, so so and again, we've been consumer for 17 years, but it's just not the area of the industry, the area of the business that a lot of folks in our industry know, because it it's not promoted to professionals, it's been promoted to consumers, um, that we're looking for kind of body transformation services. What we're gonna do is kind of expand in two different directions. We're gonna it and the ultimate goal for the company at the end of the day is to be able to help more people. Whether we can help them, um, we can help individuals through direct coaching services for us, if we can help them by uh training more coaches so the coaches can go out and deliver more assistance for folks to live better, healthier lives? Or is it for, like we were talking about, gym owners, insurance companies, corporations, that kind of thing, to be able to help their clients, employees, what have you with this type of offering? And again, what makes it very unique, and this is something where PN differentiates itself, is the people that will be delivering the services for us are people that are inside of our network. So it's not PN kind of turning into a company that has, you know, all these internal coaches. It's gonna be actually us, and I hate this example, but it's really the best one, essentially becoming an Uber-like tool, matching up a highly trained uh nutrition, lifestyle, sleep stress management health coach with an individual wherever they come from who's looking for service.

It's uh you know, so essentially it becomes in in some way a marketplace. Right? Two-sided market. Yeah, and that's uh you know, I've seen it attempted in uh in this industry for you know at least five years. But what I found now is you know, since the pandemic, that it's these types of efforts and and PN's different. You guys have a huge network already established, right? You have essentially the two-sided market already here, you have demand on both sides. Um but I've noticed you know, since the pandemic started is that people are are taking stabs at marketplaces, two-sided marketplaces like this, and they're they're getting a lot of traction now. Uh is that something you guys have noticed over the last 19 months? Um is that part of was that part of your and if so, was that part of kind of your strategy to launch this now?

Well, what yeah, and and so the short answer is yeah, but with a little more color, um that's where the whole idea for the enterprise coaching product came from. Uh early in the pandemic, obviously we we saw a tremendous initial impact on the fitness industry. But what we started hearing is employees are working from home, um, there's a lot of environmental pressure and stress that people are feeling, and the traditional corporate wellness products that that companies were offering didn't make sense anymore. If your corporation had on-site fitness facilities, or if they had a yoga instructor that came in every Thursday, or a masseuse that came in every Thursday, no one could utilize those services anymore. But what we did find is that people were at home, they were under a lot of pressure, and they were, you know, in a lot of cases, folks were eating everything that wasn't bolted down. So we kind of launched this idea of can we provide nutrition coaching to those services? And very quickly assigned a small group of individuals who were um of level two graduates from PN and started delivering services to third-party benefits administrators, an insurance company, and a handful of progressive kind of corporates that we reached out to. Um you know, I I was on a handful of HR podcasts last year, and there were two things that popped for me with that. Number one, I had no idea there were HR podcasts. And number two, um, I was amazed at how many you know people reached out to us after the fact to say, I heard from I heard about you on this podcast. We'd love to to chat about you know what this could mean at our our organization. And and the feedback that we've we've gotten is is absolutely amazing. So um yeah, so we're we're kind of on a a journey. It was a it was a um a situation that was just presented to us, and and thankfully we have some some very intelligent people here that that saw an opportunity and we kind of pivoted quickly and and did a quick test, and it's worked out well, and now we're we're trying to formalize how this could look on a very grand scale uh going into 2022. Awesome, man.

Awesome. So one of the things that we talked about right before reporting, and uh you know, you being in the Toronto area, I'm in you know Montana, and you know, I we talk to people all over uh the world. Uh but there seems to be a lack of talent for employers within the industry, and that's that's universal, man. I mean, I mean there's everything here, especially I live in a resort town, is they can't find anybody to staff anything. And uh, you know, what from your point of view, which is you know fairly high up with you know a lot of uh a lot of room to see, what are you seeing with like the shortage of overall trainers? Are we attracting talent to our industry? Is it leaving the industry? What what are you seeing?

Yeah, it's one of the unfortunate results, but it's understandable, uh, of the pandemic is you know, in an in an industry that normally sees you know turnover in the neighborhood of twenty to thirty percent annually, which which is high, first of all, um I I think as a result of the pandemic, we're seeing that number get much closer to 60%. Um and the unfortunate part about that is that a lot of very good people, very seasoned people, have left the industry. Um and I think where you're you're hinting at is one of the you know one of the the the most fortunate elements of of this job for me, and and I guess the combination of me in the job, is that I get to chat with organizations around the world, and it's one of the questions that I ask all the time is you know, you know, where are you guys at with trainers? How's it going with hiring? Are new people joining? You know, did you get people to come back? Um and resoundingly, it's not you know, it's not geographic specific, it's it's it's pretty broad across the board. Um, and that's a lot of folks have just left. And for the most part, people are joining civil servant roles, they're becoming paramedics, firefighters, the kind of things where someone has to be um uh physically fit to kind of do perform the job well. Um and a lot of folks are picking up trades as well. Um, you know, kind of two industries that you know are not just recession proof, but have actually grown significantly during the pandemic. Um so, like I said, it's unfortunate that a lot of people have left. That being said, what we saw at PN and kind of the shift in our mix of people joining is that you know 70 plus percent of the the people that bought the PN level one program in 2019 were professional coaches. It was a continuing education purchase for them. They had bought their CCP or CPT, I'm sorry, they had bought their CPT and uh you know had been in the industry for about two years and they were getting another cert. So we're typically the second or third product that people buy. Um what we noticed. You know, about halfway through the pandemic, so let's call it somewhere around this time last year, um, we saw a massive influx of new people to the industry, what we categorize as career switchers. So folks that had a marketing job or an accounting job or you know, something that they had been doing that they had just kind of fallen into, and the pandemic either forced them by way of being laid off, um, or just you know, encouraged them to have some self-reflection to say, is this actually what I want to do? And um I I'll never forget a conversation that I had with somebody because we do a lot of customer insight work where we reach out and talk to people that have purchased our product and people that have uh actually not purchased our product to you know learn a lot more about them and kind of what their journey is. And uh someone had said to me uh that had had recently purchased a product that you know came from a completely different industry. He's like, you know, a pandemic is is a horrible thing to waste. And but when I first heard that, I was like, well, that's that's that's a little on the nose, isn't it? But uh but then when you think about it, for him, it was like it was all reflection. It was like, do I actually want to stay in this industry for the next you know 20 years of my career? And what he decided is to kind of follow his passion, which was in health and fitness and and wellness, and and he decided to become a remote nutrition coach and not be actually not actually deliver coaching in the geography that he lived. Um he was going to focus in a completely different area, so had his marketing and everything set up for somewhere else. So what we're continuing to see now as we kind of look a year past that point is that we're still seeing a significant number of people that are entering the industry. And again, the big mix for us is we're seeing people enter as coaches versus uh as nutrition coaches, let's say, versus coming through the CPT route. Um so it we're seeing people come back, but all of our large partners, uh our large club partners, aren't anywhere near where they were, let's say, in 2019 from a staffing perspective.

Yeah, it's it's an interesting thing. I mean, uh I I I laugh about that line, you know, don't waste a good pandemic. And you know, when this whole thing started, I remember being in a you know a mastermind group that I meet with every week, and you know, we're like, well, there's there's always opportunity, but like consumer needs are shifting drastically, which means that old models need to shift, and there's gonna be opportunities all over the place. And you know, now uh I think what we're what it's now being called is the great resignation, we're getting a lot of people sitting around their homes thinking, like, is this the shit I want to do for the rest of my life? Or you know, is there something more meaningful or something I'd enjoy more? So seeing that shift. Um and I just wonder too, I mean, one of the longtime grumblings of this industry is that you know, we don't attract talent as much. You know, it's always kind of people who are one foot in just doing an hourly job, but you know, like you said, the turnover has always been high. Um but people who weren't seriously committed to being a professional, right? Taking the long view and being a professional and growing, getting the education and increasing their value and all the things that it takes to be uh you know a pro, really. And uh, you know, from your point of view, do you think this is a necessary um pain point in the growth of the industry, or do you think it's something that is underlyingly more serious uh in the long term?

I think it I think it's gonna be I think this is gonna represent a dramatic shift in the way that we've done things. Keeping in mind, and you know, you know this better than anybody, this is actually a pretty young industry. And I think I think that we, you know, from time to time forget that and compare yourselves to other professional organizations that are out there. The ha the idea of commercial fitness is is only like 70 years old. Um so you know, we started very quickly. I think a lot of organizations fell into these models that have just been replicated with you know fresh lipstick on each one of them or positioned in a different way. And I think what this is going to do is in the same way that you know, the whole concept of work, and this can be a whole podcast in and of itself, the whole concept of the way that we work and what work is and how work um interlaces within your life and your family has completely changed and been possibly fast-forwarded 15 years in 15 months. Um this is almost a great reset for the fitness industry to say, okay, we kind of fell into this idea of we had to put up these boxes and you would go to this place and you would push around a bunch of weights, and someone would, you know, help you with form and counting reps and that kind of thing and keep you accountable. And now I think what we're seeing is that there's actually three different ways that it can be delivered and delivered well. We can deliver in-person services, we can deliver virtual services, we can also do it in a hybrid way. And the thing that I think we're in the middle of right now is the pendulum swung so quickly to that you know virtual world, and people had to figure things out quickly, and you know, arguably, in a lot of cases, it wasn't, you know, it it didn't work out the way that I think it could have, um, but people had to make quick decisions. Now we're in this very quick reset. Markets are reopening, you know, clients are trying to run back into the gym to pick up where they left off and and you know get back to the equipment. And I think one of the things that one of our change psychologists um talks about uh a lot here is this idea that you know someone can run back into a gym and they're 10 pounds heavier, you know, possibly as a result of the pandemic, and they think that all they need to do is just do what they did in 2019 to pull off some of the weight. But the thing that they're not factoring in, and subsequently a lot of coaches uh don't factor in, is that person is like 50 pounds emotionally heavier.

Yeah.

And the tactics that may have worked in 2019 might break that person in 2021. And this is where I'm seeing what what I think is again, we've swung back the pendulum so quickly, but I think we're gonna see into 2022 that somewhere land in the middle or or closer to the middle, whereby we can have people, again, talking about coaching in a very different way, not just about movement, but about different disciplines, delivering services through different modalities. Again, virtual, hybrid, in-person, the whole, the whole thing. And I think there's some, you know, again, fortunately for this role, I get the opportunity to talk to some very intelligent people that are consciously stopping and thinking about what this great reset for this industry could look like and how it could be not in 2022, but in 2023, 2024, and and beyond. So I I think from a health wellness industry, we're gonna see some transformative change over the next few years for what we as professionals can provide individuals and what clients similarly will be seeking from us. So it it's an amazing, an amazing time to be part of this industry.

Yeah, it's uh it's challenging what we've always believed to be true in the industry, right? Um that's just been kind of passed down. Actually, it reminds me of a joke. Can I tell you a joke, Jason?

Eric, if you didn't tell me a joke, uh I would be hurt.

Yeah, and maybe I don't know, maybe you told me this joke, but I'm gonna pull it off.

It would be great if I did.

Yeah, so uh this girl gets invited by her boyfriend over to the family's holiday dinner. And she goes to the house and she notices that you know they're having uh traditional ham. And she sees the ham and it's it's cooling off, it's about to be served, and uh, it's got the the ends cut off of the ham. So she asks the mother uh who is cooking, you know, why have you cut the tips of the ham off? And she goes, Well, you know, I'm I don't really know. Uh that's the way my my mom did it. So she's like, Oh, okay, well, you know, grandma's over there. She walks over to grandma and she asks, you know, grandma, why do you cut the tips of the ham off? And she's like, Well, that's the way my mom always did it. So she goes over to the great grandma who's sitting in the corner quietly, covered in a blanket, and she quietly goes over, she goes, Great grandma, why did you cut the tips of the ham off? She looks at her, she goes, So it fits in the pan. And that's why we do a lot of the things we do, is we don't know why. It just keeps getting passed down. And when I look at the model that traditional uh you know fitness has had is you know the pay per hour, um you know, this grinding, you know, low value, really uh type of service that we've offered. I think we've seen an opportunity here to reset the whole thing, like you said. And I think that that's that's pretty exciting. So we'll see where it goes.

What you've basically summarized is the exact reason that I left again, what I call reactive health care. Because that's essentially what the entire thing is, is it's organizations, and again, I'm this is me kind of separating Canada here, right? Because Canada obviously runs on a on a social system where the government pays for healthcare. But even private organizations are have been doing the same things for decades. And when you ask somebody, when you come in with a fresh set of eyes and say, hey, like why why do we do that? Everyone's answer is I don't know. That's that's just what we that's what we do. And then think of an entire system built on, I don't know, that's just why we do it. So that's fundamentally why I came here and why I'm so excited to be here now, because I think we're gonna have again this great reset that's gonna lead to transformative change for what um wellness looks like. And the hope is that that transformation is gonna lead to the change eventually in healthcare, because different people are gonna be coming into the system you know, potentially less sick or sicker later than folks do today. So very exciting for for again health and wellness for the next 20 years.

Awesome. So, Jason, in uh in the true nature of the show, uh, and I asked this question once again in this in the you know uh purpose of collaboration, what are some of the bigger needs that you guys have at Precision Nutrition or you personally and your role there?

Yeah, I you know what, I think my need, my need three and a half years in is the same as it was on day one. Um I'm just looking to meet super progressive individuals in the organization that are looking to network and connect and tell me about things that they're working on, and I can share some things that I'm working on. Um so if anybody's you know interested in reaching out, by all means I can I can provide some some contact information. Um so so yeah, that would that would be it. It it hasn't really it hasn't really changed for me. Each day uh I go in with the same level of intention. And and you know, if I could share, you know, an analogy quickly, um my favorite comedian is is George Carlin. And he ended a uh one of his comedy specials, he ended with a line that is my is really the ethos of who I am and and the way that I live every single day. And that is take care of yourself and take care of somebody else. So I get up every morning, firstly, before everybody wakes up, that's when I do my exercise, that's when I focus on on myself, and then I kind of transition to helping the kids and my wife, you know, live their best lives so that they can subsequently do the same thing for me. So um I take that exact same, you know, uh approach into work. So if there's anyone out there that wants to, you know, that lives by that same that that rule and wants to reach out and have a conversation, I'm I'm happy to connect anytime.

Right on. Jason, where do people get a hold of you? Where do you send them?

The the best place to reach out to me is you can reach out to me on LinkedIn. So uh just search for Jason W. Crow. Um I have a uh a pretty noticeable picture of myself on there. Uh and uh yeah, that would that would probably be it. Or you can reach out to me directly if you want, uh Jason.crow at precisionnutrition.com.

Right on. Jason, thank you for spending this hour with us. It's been uh it's been very insightful. Um I think there's a lot of value for people. I know I learned a lot. And uh yeah, man, it's always a pleasure chatting with you. So um really appreciate the time.

Always a pleasure, Eric. Thanks so much for the time.

Ladies and gentlemen, Jason Crow. 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.