Kory Angelin - The DRIPBar & A Great Customer Experience

Hey everyone, welcome to the Future of Fitness, a top-rated fitness industry podcast for over four years and running. I'm your host, Eric Balzone, and I have the absolute pleasure of talking to entrepreneurs, executives, thought leaders, and cutting-edge technology experts within the extremely fast-paced industries of fitness, wellness, and health sciences. Please stop by futurofitness.co to subscribe and get our interviews with summaries delivered straight to your inbox. Thanks for listening and on to the show. Hey friends, I couldn't be more proud and excited to announce that today's episode is powered by workout, the ultimate tool for modern fitness professionals just like you. There is one thing that fires me up. It's elevating the personal training and coaching industry. For that, the Workout app is an absolute game changer. No more promoting top brands without compensation or dealing with confusing social media links. In just a few clicks, Workout's user-friendly app lets top trainers and coaches curate and share the world's most sought-after fitness brands like Hyperite, Vega, and more. Product lines covering everything from fitness equipment to supplements and apparel. Save time and boost your earnings with generous commissions and bonuses every time your client purchases the product you already endorsed. Do not wait. Maximize your income and streamline your business with store by workout. Discover more at workout.com. That's w-r-k-o-ut.com. Just one-o. W-r-k-o-ut- go get it. All right, we are live. Corey Angelin. Welcome to the future of fitness.

Oh, Eric, you are, I told you this off air. You are on my bucket list. I love what you've done as a former fellow podcast host. But in truthfulness, I know I remember meeting you in New York City a couple years back. And uh you were on my bucket list. I'm like, I gotta get on this podcast. I I love the content that you do, and it's really about fellow leadership. So thank you for having me.

Oh, I appreciate it. And you you uh I'm sure anyone who's come across you or have met you know that you always leave you leave a good impression. Uh you have a lot of energy and you were very outgoing when you came up. And and uh I was like, who is this guy? And then I was like, oh wow, this guy's got he's got some history, man. He's got some experience. Like he's uh he's walked the walk. I mean, there's a lot of people within the industry who have over the last five years, especially, I'd say, who kind of come in from other industries and trying to sort out what the fitness industry is all about. And then there's you know, kind of uh the select few who have actually worked at every single level who have a deep understanding from what the fitness professional needs and does and how they can be successful to you know, what we're gonna talk about a lot today is crafting a client experience um to the management, to retention. Like you've done you've done every level, and I I really respect you know that that background. So I guess let's do this, Corey, because there's so many things I do want to cover with you today. Um, you know, from Drip Bar, what you're doing there, what we kind of just nicknamed Jim Adjacent model. I don't know if that's true or not, but I like it. Um, you know, to crafting a really good customer experience to, you know, obviously sales. I want to get your your input on how the boutique sector is doing post uh post-pandy, as uh Stuart Brouwer, our mutual friend, would say. Um, so we're gonna get all that, but but do this. Tell everyone who you are, how you got to be the president of Drip Bar, and then we'll go from there.

A lot of hard work, man. I mean, first of all, I wish my wife understood, like you understood what it's like to climb the ladder in fitness. She just thinks I I start a job and I quit. Like it's she's a teacher, right? She's been a teacher for 18 years and it's a great gig. But for us in the fitness industry, it's a grind, as you as you well know, Eric. You used to own a CrossFit, right? Uh too. Yeah. Yeah, see that I do my due diligence. Um, but yeah, I mean, you listen, starting starting young as a trainer, you know, I I was I was studying sports medicine in college. I come home, work as a trainer, got certified. I think it was like a weekend course. All of a sudden I'm I'm prepared to take someone through their gym lifestyle. And and but it, you know, I caught the bug early on. And fortunately, for me, one of my idols is my brother. My brother's 10 years older than me. Back in the day, if you remember companies like Metrox, Twin Lab, all these supplement companies, essentially they would sponsor these big bodybuilding shows with Arnold and all the great Mr. Olympias and all that stuff. And I remember sitting with the judges because I had it in. My brother was one of the guys that set everything up. And I really just loved fitness and bodybuilding. And and then starts the journey of climbing the ladder. And so you start off as a trainer and then an assistant department head, a department head, and then you know, a GM and so forth and so on. But really, what I tell everyone, Eric, is had it not been for lifetime fitness, um, I really wouldn't understand the business side of fitness because lifetime, if you've ever been in a lifetime, it's you know, 350,000 square foot building of every possible amenity amenity and ancillary revenue you could possibly imagine. And you just learn the sales and operations of the business itself. And I think that really prepared me for everything else I did, which essentially now is more in the wellness space with TripR. Awesome.

Awesome, man. Yeah, you you've gone through the ranks and it it is like, did you ever want to give up on the fitness industry? Was there ever any certain point where you're like, Oh yeah.

I were yeah, you know, first of all, my friend, my friend many, many years ago told me a phrase, uh, fail fast, right? Because you're gonna fail in the fitness industry. But when you do it, it's okay. Just learn from it, move on real quick, easier said than done. But I remember leaving Lifetime back in, I don't know, 2012 or 13. And one of my clients, benefit of being a trainer, right, is you meet a lot of successful people, usually. And um, he had a he had his own company, was in tech, and wanted me to be a project manager. And I'm like, this is my opportunity to get out of the fitness industry. It's like the mafia ever, you play in, right? You can't get out. And I remember, I remember studying for it. I took the exam, I became, I guess, a certified project manager. I worked for him for a month and I was like, I'm not gonna do it. And I went back, not to lifetime. I think at that point I went to 24-hour fitness. The luxury of my career is not just being at every level, which I think really helps understanding how to coach people up, is man, some of I I reflect now some of the companies I work for. I mean, Lifetime, 24-hour fitness, F-45, right? Some of some of the biggest, biggest big box and boutique fitness, you know, franchises in the world. And so you really learn perspective, you learn how to fail. And just back to the point I made before, it's like I classify my career as the first half. It was all about me, which is not the best approach. What because like I could be doing 25K a month, you know, as a department edit lifetime, but my staff was doing like 5K a month. That's not really great. Although, Eric, I was walking around like I was the man. 25K, why can't you do that? And it's because I really wasn't teaching them anything. And so the second half of my career, I focused on two things. Number one, customer experience, which we'll talk about. But number two, how do you get someone to really um want to come to work, be passionate, and then want to move up? Like so many trainers are stuck at that level where they're just like a trainer. And you ask them, like, where do you want to be in a couple years? And they're like, it's you sometimes it's more monetary. They'll be like, Well, I want to be making this. Yeah, but do you still want to be a trainer? Which is fine, but that's a grind, man. I don't want to be doing 200 sessions a month like I used to be doing.

So, you know, when I I had this recollection, I was at Idea, we were just talking about, which is, you know, LA is um is always interesting because all the stars come out, right? Like, you know, I was like, oh my God, there's Billy Blanks, like, you know, all these people who were like showing up. And I was just uh it was exciting for me. And then I felt old. But yeah, I I was able to uh David Jack, you probably know him as well. He he's been around the industry for a long time, and he kind of grabbed me. They were doing some uh impromptu interviews for for Lionel University. And one of the things they asked me is like, you know, looking at your career, what what advice would you go back, you know, and give yourself like 10, 15 years ago? And uh I picked a 15-year time frame and I was like, I would have told myself not to be so goddamn competitive with every other gym and fitness professional in the area. And it really made me reflect on like, and I think you probably had these points in your career too, where you're like, God man, I if I was just a if I didn't know what I knew back then, I would have been so much more collaborative, but I would have been more encouraging, would have been more supportive. Because you know what? Like what you're talking about, it is so challenging in the industry to get started and stay with it. Because, you know, nowadays, and I'll probably get your input on this, is like the career path. Like, I don't know if people look at the fitness industry and say, you know what, I'm gonna start as a trainer, I'm gonna work my way up, I'm gonna be a regional manager, and I'm gonna do this and this and this, and this is gonna be the next three years of my life, gonna have 400K, I'm gonna buy a house, I'm gonna put a kid into college, all that stuff. And in my mind, I was like, you know, if I was just if we were just more supportive of each other and less competitive over time, you know, could could we be more successful to the industry? Now I'm seeing more collaborative collaboration across, you know, silos and things like that. But, you know, looking back on your journey, I'm gonna ask you this question because it's fun, what what would you have told yourself 15 years ago?

Yeah, I you know, I remember the specific moment in my career when I changed my attitude, which is sort of goes to the answer to the answer to your question, which was I remember teaching tours, you know, the the the old gym tour. Got it, god I did that. We wrote the museum tour essentially. We we show you everything in the gym as if you're gonna use everything. Um, I remember though teaching that, and then I I would do a mystery shop. So I'd walk into like a 24-hour fitness and have them tour me around. And I remember one time, I was the regional director at the time, they didn't know who I was. I was traveling somewhere, and the salesperson was taking me around. They got to the pool, and they said, Um, you know, where do you work out now? And I was just like, New York Sports Club. And the New York sports, New York sports clubs by trade don't don't have pools. And I remember he said to me, Oh, well, they don't have a pool, we do. And I go, ooh, that kind of rubbed me the wrong way. Cause like I found myself early on in my career competing against other places, much like what you had said, and always saying that we were better. And then I then I paused and I was like, What? I don't need to talk about other places. Like if you just focused on what you do well, just by default, you're separating yourself from someone else. And so that phrase could have gone a lot better. And like you could have said, like, well, we have a pool. Do you swim much at where you go now? And that was a better way of framing it. And I would have said, Well, we all actually have a pool. Oh, okay. There's no reason to be competitive or negative. And that that holds true with me today. When when we're teaching our franchisees or our staff members, whether they're on the wellness, fitness, or sales side, just focus on what you do great. It's why I talk about Starbucks. Uh, my friends hate when I tell Starbucks stories, but it's it's so true because and I've said this before, but I I literally go to Starbucks every day and I spend a lot of money on a coffee that to me isn't that great, if I'm being honest. I mean, McDonald's coffee is a dollar. To me, it tastes better. And and so they go, why do you go? But it's just cool to go. Like you see people sitting down getting stuff done. Like Eric, you you can walk into a Starbucks, sit down, and get stuff done for your day. You could, you know, write notes for a podcast, you could, you could do some homework, you can go on a date there. You speak different languages. I say things like venti macchiata. I don't say like I'll have a medium coffee. If have I ever heard someone say, I want a medium coffee in a Starbucks, I'd be like, get the hell out of here. We don't say medium here. We even call the people there baristas, right? Like it's just cool. And so when you relate that back to fitness or wellness and what I think that experience should be, that's what I've learned is stop worrying about the people down the road and start worrying about what you do well.

Awesome. Awesome, man. Well, I want to get into client experience and crafting that, right? Designing it. And I think, uh, correct me if I'm wrong, but I imagine, you know, with your new role, not new new-ish, as president of Drip Bar, I mean, the franchise is fairly new, the concept is fairly new. So you've got a great opportunity to kind of restart with something fresh, given all of your experience that you've had in the industry and all like 24-Hour Fitness and um F-45, like all these places that you've worked lifetime, you've you've gotten to kind of piece things together. So maybe we can discuss that topic um in relation to drip bar and how you've intentionally designed the client experience um to make it sticky and worthwhile and talk talkable, right? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

I mean, customer experience, Eric, is all about that first interaction that you have with a customer. It's probably typically on the phone for the first time. Someone might see an ad, or they might drive by and pick up the phone or respond via like a DM and an Instagram post, or but the reality is, is the first half of my career, I always used to think that trainers were were the most important part of any gym, for example. And what I realized is no one sees the great trainer if the salespeople can't convert you into a member or to just to even get you in the door. And so, like the second half of my career, I made this whole epiphany of like, what is the sales process like? Because if you don't know your own sales process, you cannot craft a customer experience. And so at the drip bar, much like any of the other companies I've worked for, it's it starts with teaching owners what is the right staff to have, because you have to have qualified people. It doesn't mean you can't coach them up, but and so for us, it's like you got to have a qualified owner or salesperson at the front desk, because that really sets the tone to get you to the back end of the house, which for us it's RNs typically. If it was fitness, it would be your trainers, right? And it's all about understanding what asking powerful questions can do. So a great customer experience starts with that first conversation. Great. What is said in that first conversation? I'll bet you most places, because I've mystery shopped a thousand thousands of places, most businesses talk about themselves more than the customer. And so, for example, if I was to call a random fitness place or a random wellness place right now and ask a question about them, well, it's it's logical that they would answer about them and talk more about them. Oh, well, we're running a great promotion today, it's 50% off. I think you'll benefit greatly from you know, X, Y, and Z. The problem is nine times out of 10, they don't even ask me my name, how I heard about you. And here's the most important thing what's your goal? If you were to ask Corey in my 30 years, Jesus, of experience in the health and wellness industry, it's what's the most underrated question in that you could ask a customer? It's what's your goal? What do you what are you looking to do? We never, we hardly ever ask that question. And I always find it interesting when I am mystery shopping these places, they're very quick to give me a solution. They don't even know what my problem is. And so effective needs analysis up front. So customer calls in, what questions are you asking? A lot of times a trainer will tell you, well, we use the SMART acronym. You remember the SMART acronym, specific, measurable, attainable, right? Yeah. So we teach things like that, but it's really to be consistent in asking more about the customer than you. So 90-10 rule 90% of that first conversation sets the tone. It should be about the customer, lead back to you as the solution. And that really sets the tone for the entire experience. If you can do that, you'll accomplish a couple of things. Number one, you'll build more rapport, you'll build um um trust because it doesn't come across like a sales pitch. Why? Because I'm only really talking very little about what we do. It's all about why Eric called me and what Eric's looking to do. And so, and and so that that that's step number one. Um, step number two is when you do come in, you know, what is that experience like? Again, so building off of uh what those initial questions are, your staff needs to know what that conversation was like. So, is that salesperson putting in notes about what they talked about on the phone initially? So, yeah, Eric's walking in, his goal is to increase energy. He's never done a drip before, but he's looking forward to it. He's a little nervous. Great, all those should be notes. So when you come in, like, hey, Eric, we talked on the phone. I know it's your first time. Don't worry, we're gonna take good care of you. You know, Helen over here, our nurse, is is awesome. She's a rock star, right? And so it just really is not rocket science. I think a lot of times we think about a customer experience is just like all of these different things. It's like just be genuine. Just don't be salesy, just like care about what Eric wants, right? And then at the end, at the very end, we can think about you know how we get Eric back in. Um, but it's really just about build building that experience while you're there. Does that make sense?

Oh, it makes total sense. And I think it's uh you can you can put this towards just about anything in life, right? The uh and I think when people think about class, you know, crafting a client experience, they think about email series and drips and all that stuff, and it's it's interpersonal. I mean, my uh my dad taught me a long time ago you would have loved this guy, Italian immigrant, Gennaro Mario Malzone, uh grew up in Jersey City, right? Um but he always I would watch him, and in a very young age, he would always like get into a conversation with somebody. It wasn't sales, it was just, you know, and he built a really good, a great dental practice, you know, from the ground up because of his interpersonal skills, and he was a good dentist. But that aside, he always had the 80-20 rule. He's like, and I would watch him do it so artistically within conversations of like just random people at a party or whatever it may be. Ask them, start asking them questions. Your goal is to speak for 20% of the time, get them talking for 80% of the time. And he would wink, right? He'd walk away, you know, we'd walk away from a conversation and wink and maybe like say, hey, that's it. And now it's not just sales, it's like any social setting, all you have to do is just ask some really good, open-ended questions. And all of a sudden, people walk away, be like, you know, I've heard this so many times. Hey, man, I like your vibe. I'm like, I didn't do anything, I just asked you questions and got you to talk about yourself and you loved it, right? So I think there's just so much applicability to like not just sales situations and growing your business and networking all that, but just being a human that people want to be around. They want people who are interested in them, right? It's just a human desire. So uh I'm just curious, you know, from a personal perspective, like how does that leak into your everyday life?

Yeah, well, it's funny. I I'm such I I consider myself a really good communicator. One is because I just love interacting with people. Most of the day, though, it's with our drip bar community or with my F-45 community or you know, work working most of the day, right? My wife will tell you that I never speak because at the end of the day, I'm I'm almost talked out, right? And I don't know if you have this issue too, because I know you talk to a lot of people as well, and you're a great communicator, but it's weird, it's this weird dynamic. Like I just sometimes I'm just exhausted of that. And you know, I'm a pretty regimented guy, 6 a.m. at the gym every day. You know, I'm you know, if something's off, it throws me off. That like I just I'm just really regimented. But but those interpersonal skills when I'm out and about for the most part, I'm the same way. I'm that you know, what right now is how I am when I'm out because I just love learning about people's stories. Um, because again, the the story is what crafts everything else. I for some reason, probably because my son is eight, I'm really back into wrestling. WWE, right? I was a huge fan. Were you a WWE guy back in the WWE? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, of course.

So so I, you know, I had all the action figures and the and the whole bit. And now my son loves it. So I kind of got back into it. Took him to his first SmackDown at Madison Square Garden. But and I started to, because I'm a big podcast fan, I started to watch these, you know, wrestling podcasts, which I I have to start to get a life now, because like if this is what my life is now, I I gotta re you know, reevaluate. But wrestling is all about the story. And I I hear them, I hear these guys and girls talking about it all the time. And it's so true. Like the match is the match. Like, you know, the match is probably gonna be pretty good because they know what they're doing. It's the same thing, right? Like, like you have you have to start off with a great product or service. Like that's a given. Let's just assume, though, that your business has a great product. Like we have great trips, but so do the people down the road. And so, again, when I think about all of these questions you ask and the 80-20 and what it's all about to build trust with a customer, and how does that relate to customer experience? It's like at the end of the day, we all like-minded businesses that are in the same industry have the same things. Fitness, they all have trainers, they all have music that plays, they all have equipment. So, how do you separate yourself from someone else? The customer experience. And so that's why 10 years ago, I started to think more about man, I would love to speak more about customer experience and teach that than like how to do a proper squat. Like, nothing, nothing against doing a proper squat. You know, you got to teach that to people. But like that, you could go on YouTube and look at that. Like, I like talking about what is that experience. And it's about all the things we talked about, asking the right questions, making sure you shut up the right amount of time, empower a customer to talk about what they want to do. And then you lead back to you about why you're so great, right? And so that's how I that's how I think every day on a daily basis. I I think about all those things.

What's the uh it's cliched, but you know, most cliches are around because they're they're true. Uh, just make sure I get this right. So people don't care. How much you know until they know how much you care, right? Yeah. And that there's no, I don't know if there's any industries more applicable than the fitness industry for that. And it's really true. Like you really have to get the interpersonal skills down because the program design, the the squat mechanics, whatever you know about human physiology, like people don't really care until they know you give a shit, right, about them and their goals. And I think that's, you know, something that's um that's never gonna go away. And I really appreciate, you know, one thing, like, and I I've had the opportunity working over the last few months with um people who want to get on more podcasts, right? It's kind of like uh you and I had talked about this service that I'm quietly providing on the side, but it's like getting people to get their stories down. Like people like, I don't have any stories. I'm like, bullshit. Yeah, you have stories, right? And I think everybody who's listened to this podcast, you have stories that people are interested in. And stories are how you effectively get across messaging, right, that people can understand. That's been around since human beings forever, right? We love stories, we love getting the messages out of stories. Um, when you look at your ability to teach, you know, to tell stories, because I know uh you're you're great at it. Um, and then how does that incorporate into a business setting for you?

Oh, it's everything. What what a great again, that's why I love you, Eric. It just gets me rolling because um many years ago I wrote a book and it was a sales book. And all my friends were like, Why are you writing a sales book? And even if you look at a lot of my content and education, it's a lot wrapped around sales. But again, it goes back to like, if you can't perfect that, it does not matter how great of a trainer you are. I'm already, I'm already believing you're a great trainer. I don't need to teach you anything there. You've you've mastered that. You haven't mastered how do you get a client to train with you, right? And so the book is all stories of my entire life. I and I relate it to more of how does that affect like how does that craft into a customer experience? And you know, a a great example is like I discovered, I discovered how to actually ask for a sale. I was always a great trainer. I but like how do you actually get to the point? But you, you know, like great trainers are great trainers, but you know, when you sit down with the client after that free session, now you got to get them to buy a package with you, a 10 or 20 session package, and you're like, oh, you don't want to say it's a thousand dollars, it's a thousand dollars. Like you're you're afraid to say the number because that's a lot of money to you.

Yeah.

So, so great example. Many years ago, I was traveling for 24 Hour Fitness and I was teaching a two-day course. The first day was for salespeople, the second day were for the trainers, right? So I taught day one. I ended up going to a cheesecake factory, sat down alone, I was starving. The only thing I knew is that I wanted a salad. But you know, the Cheesecake Factory menus, they're like a thousand pages. That's ridiculous. And so I opened up the the pay the menu and there's like 17 salads. Waitress comes over and I'm like, what do you what do you recommend in terms of a salad? And without hesitation, she's like, I would recommend the grilled chicken avocado salad. And I perked up and I asked her one question before I said yes. And that was, why do you recommend that? And then she said, because it's got fresh avocado. And I'm like, yes. And then I said, that's how you ask for a sale. In other words, you make a recommendation because you're the expert, you give a reason why, and then you just ask. It's the same thing. And so 10 years later, I teach people how to ask for a sale. Eric, I think you should do the membership that has two drips a month because it's the perfect one that relates back to your goal of trying to increase energy since you just got a new job and you're sitting at a cubicle all day long. How does that sound? It's the same thing. And so I just reflect a lot about storytelling, you know, and that's why I always talk a lot about Starbucks, Disney, um, you know, a lot of these companies that they're we consider them these great companies, but like Starbucks doesn't do anything different, really, than another coffee company in terms of what they sell, right? But why is that F-45 better than that CrossFit or vice versa, right? And so it's probably the people and how you're interacting with that experience. It's all about the story.

I agree. Yeah, totally agree, man. I'm I'm a huge fan of stories, and I always use them to sell too. I mean, I, you know, I think about those consultations of sitting in my office uh with a potential new client, and you know, I would try to find, I always had four or five client stories of success that I would recommend be like, hey, you know, if I was sitting with Jill and she had similar goals to a client of mine who's been successful named Susie, I'd be like, you know, Jill, I just want to tell you about a client of ours named Susie. And she came in here about you know a year ago with the same very similar goals. And, you know, and this here's her story and here's where she's at now. And um, you know, I think when you go to recommend a package or whatever you're gonna do to sells, I always try to take money out of it because you're right. Like most fitness professionals don't make a lot of money. So when we're trying to sell a two, three thousand dollar package, it's like, whoa, right. But I try to take money out of it. I'm like, okay, if this was my relative and I wasn't gonna charge them, what's the best possible package or program I could put them in to get them to the results? And then it comes with a certain level of genuineness, right? Like, okay, and I'll even say it'd be like, hey, if you were my my relative, family was out of the, you know, money was out of the equation here, this is what I would recommend. And they're like, oh, well, then let's do that. I'm like, okay, great, let's do that. And that that's uh it's not hard.

It's another great point. I I think I did a recent piece of content where it was like practice what you preach, which is like I remember several times in my career where like someone at the front desk at a gym that we worked for never would work out there. And I'm like, you get you got to practice what you preach. You gotta but like if you're gonna be if you're gonna be selling a membership at 24 hour fitness or at lifetime or at F45 or a membership at the drip bar, like you got to be using the product and services. At the end of the day, like, listen, when your experience, I guess you can fake it till you make it. One, that's not fun. Two, it's disingenuous, right? So there is that element as well. Like those personal stories, by the way, whether it's you or your clients, to your point, same thing. Yeah, I would I would have all these client stories teed up that were real, but that were just designed to relate to someone that's going through the same thing.

Yeah. Well, I want to um I want to slightly pivot here to you because I want to talk about drip bar as a business. And what uh let me start with this. What got you excited when you accepted, you know, the role as president? Like what was made you think like, okay, this is a real opportunity.

Yeah, well, I think I'd be lying if I said uh, what do you call pandy, the pandemic? Obviously, that had something to do with it only in the sense of you know, fitness is hard as you know, in general, during the pandemic, like probably many of your guests. And um what then I looked at the wellness industry and I was like, I started to see the trip bar and these other companies that they never closed during the pandemic for obvious reasons. It was more wellness and uh some of it was you know government related. And I was like, Well, that's interesting. And I said, Well, wellness really never goes away. Fitness, we there was this whole divide with with digital, and even though we not we we we know digital is not going to take over the that in-person experience, but it was a presence. I said, that's interesting. And like many others, when when I think about drips, even my friends, when I first got to drip bar, they're like, Oh, the hangover. You do that when you get a hangover. I'm like, Yeah, yeah, that's that's like two percent of our business. But I was the same way. I knew nothing about IV vitamin drip therapy. I think, in answer to your question, first conversation I had with our CEO Ben, who hopefully I'm gonna introduce you to sometime, um, because he actually comes from a fitness background. He actually was responsible for back in the day, tap out fitness. You remember Tap Out Fitness? He actually started to franchise a lot of the tapout. It ended up becoming clothing company, UFC, WWF at the time was doing some of that stuff. But um, so yeah, he comes from a fitness background. So there's that clear connection where we would talk about fitness in general and our backgrounds, and then how does that relate to the wellness space? So, for example, really we instituted memberships, you know, to go to an IV drip therapy place years ago, there were no memberships. I mean, and so it was really cool to number one, introduce clients to that so they can have this recurring journey and wellness at a cheaper price. And for the business owner at the drip bar, it was recurring revenue. And so there were a lot of cool things that we can use from fitness that translates over to a company like Drip Bar. And so between just me aligning with the CEO and the opportunity to bring all these ideas over, those are nails in the coffin for me.

Awesome. I love it. Well, give us some of the benefits, like uh, I think I know, but you know, for for Ivy, well, okay, what does Drip Bar actually do as a service offering? And then you can maybe tell us, like, you know, what how do you position this to the consumer for the benefits thereof? And yeah, I mean, because it's not it's not a cheap price point either, right?

No, I mean, relatively speaking, right? Like it depends what you're looking for. Um at the end of the day, we we try to provide health at the cellular level. I love that tagline because it's, you know, you have to understand it's it's it's a hundred percent absorption when you're getting an IV drip, as opposed to chewing vitamins, for example, where you're gonna lose a lot of that. Um, so obviously you have that fast delivery component. You know, there is a barrier when which is crucial for our marketing team, and it's less and less now. But years ago, sticking someone with a needle, it's not like walking into an F-45 and thinking about joining, right? It's surprising though nowadays how willing people are to do that. It's not so much. I think people understand now that to get vitamins and minerals delivered through an IV is much more advantageous because of the fast delivery, because of the uh the opportunity that not a lot of that breaks down like it would in the traditional vitamin. Um, I think they're understanding that more. And to give you a great example, we we're we're about to have this national partnership with F-45. We did an event with them in Brooklyn, 200 athletes. We had three days to market that we're gonna be there. We had a sign-up sheet, people wanted to do B12 shots and drips. I think we service 75 people with like three days' notice. So we had people coming over, like, what do you guys do? Oh, B12 shots today. We we have our RNs delivering it. Um, or if you want to do a drip, we could hydrate you either pre or post-workout. And they're like, okay, where do I sign? Like we're we're giving them an IV in their in their arm. And like their attitude was like, okay, I don't know if I'd be like that years ago. Um, but I do think there's a lot more education. So at the end of the day, we try to educate the public on what it means to deliver uh vitamins and minerals at the cellular level.

And how about the business model, Corey? Like it's obviously a friend when you guys are franchising. Um, how how did it start? Was it, you know, did it start like most franchises? It was like one or two corporately owned locations. Like, yeah, give us a little insights on that.

Yeah, it wasn't even corporately owned. It was it was one or two locations that that a family started. Ben, our CEO, would would go there. He comes from franchising. So I guess, you know, in his mind, he's like, how can we franchise this? It was an opportunity to buy them out, which is what he did. And the rest was history. Now we're at, I don't know, 62 years later, 60 plus locations. We're gonna be at 100 probably by the end of the year. We have 600 in our pipeline, which is crazy. 600 at different stages in the sales pipeline for us is astounding. And I think one of the reasons is listen, our bread and butter business model is a 1200 to 1500 square foot brick and mortar. So a high-end luxury medi spa where we primarily offer drips. We want to be really intentional in telling the public our primary offering is drips. You want to drip, you come to the drip bar. Sometimes you can get convoluted with a lot of other services that you offer. We want to know, like, we we do drip shots and other ancillary services like infrared sauna and halo therapy, but like we want to position ourselves as as the leaders in in IV drip therapy. Um, but the great part about being an owner at the drip bar at any level is it's not just limited to a brick and mortar. I'm sure you've seen some drip places in in airports. Our goal is to be in airports, army bases, cruise ships. We're already in gyms. So that's that's really great because that was one of our goals. Um, and there's more to come on those partnerships. So I think when when I made the move here, it was it was thinking about the opportunity to not just be in the brick and mortar space, but to be well into a lot of other various um segments.

And if I'm you know considering a franchise, right? As to buy one and start one, you know, what what makes it so attractive to own a trip bar?

Yeah, I mean, being you can be an absentee or a semi-absentee owner. I think for an owner, owner, you know, I listen, at F45, what we have 2,800 locations at one point during the pandemic, we were overseeing all of them. I've talked to many owners in my day, too many to count. Owners could be really um confused when they're trying to run the business at the front desk. Like they want to be the the guy or girl that are that's there. And and listen, that's great for some people. I think most owners in any franchise don't get in it to be boots on the ground. It's more power to them, but like like I I can't imagine why you would want to do that. You want you want to appoint the right people and you want to make money and then hopefully open up more, right? I think at the end of the day, most owners would agree that that that's the model. I think for us, it's it's really great. It's it's a lot, it's really scalable. If you compare it to an average fitness franchise, we're half the size with half the staff. And I think you asked me what's attractive about it, that's what's attractive about it. I mean, we usually run with one salesperson at the front desk. You can call them a GM or a front desk manager or a sales associate, whatever you want to call them. They own the front part. And then we run with two, three, four RNs, registered nurses. And that's it. Um, and I think it's really attractive in that way, is that it's very scalable, um, where you're not banging your head, where you're always having to be hiring, like which was my mantra in fitness, always be hiring because a trainer would start and then they would quit. Um, or a salesperson would start and then they would quit. And as you're in this vicious cycle of uh fitness in general, but I think that's why it's so attractive.

Yeah. And um and the RNs, I mean, is that easy to hire at this point? Are those roles? Yeah.

Absolutely. You put it indeed up right now to hire an RN. We'll have 35 applications before the end of the day. That is a fact. It is crazy. But but listen, you you had a great um uh a great line before, and it's sort of similar to my line. Of course, I stole my line from Simon Sinek, um, where people don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it, right? So I I think if why is it so attractive for an RN to come to us? Most of our of our RNs are ERRNs. Uh, what happens in an ER all day? It is life-changing. It is crazy, right? And it is stressful. And when you give an RN an opportunity to come to a place where you walk in and there are chandeliers hanging with white leather couches, and all they got to do is do what they do every single day with their eyes closed, right? It's fantastic. And by the way, a lot of what we do is is is um, you know, not just lifestyle support, like like a cool energy drip or a hangover drip, but it it's health support. We deal with a lot of cancer patients. It was astounding to me how many cancer patients we do we deal with, high dose vitamin C and a lot of these other things. And so, listen, the RN, it's a lot more relaxed environment. They get paid pretty well. Um, and so that's why I think we attract so many great RNs around the country.

Oh, interesting. And what type of markets have you guys seen early traction in? I mean, are you looking at large urban markets? Is it yeah? Give us some insights on that.

Crazy. And this goes back to providing a great customer experience. We did a lot of analytics at F 45. Like, what's our top performing locations? Where are they located? What's their average household meaning and income? And I learned something. It doesn't matter. If you put the right staff there, people will come. And so we have a location in Reston, Louisiana. It's average household meaning and income of like, I don't know, $39,000. And they're one of our top performers, right? And then Long Island, which is where I'm from, crushes it at well as well. And they're on their the top pricing tier. It's expensive, right? But again, if you're providing a great experience, people will pay the money, regardless of what that is. And again, it it starts at $99 for a drip, and it could, you know, it could be a couple of hundred dollars for a drip. It really depends what your goal is. But um, but that's what we do. We base it on our goal. We don't care what the price is. We we honestly take a look at what you're doing, what your goal is, and then we just give you a recommendation, no different than that person, that waitress at the cheesecake factory. You have to give an honest recommendation. Um, and no matter where I've worked, that's that's the intent on teaching, is give an honest recommendation. If they say no, they say no. But um at least you're true to yourself and what you offer.

Yeah, interesting. Um, and what is it for if someone's looking to franchise it? What is what's the startup cost generally? What do you guys think?

Yeah, as low as 150K to you know, 350K, some somewhere in there. It depends. You know, if obviously at the 1200 square foot space, um, you know, uh in rest in Louisiana, it's gonna be quite low. If your online or our Manhattan store opened up, it's it's uh similar to to uh very close to Times Square. Obviously, they're paying a pretty penny for their total break-even costs, it's probably on the upper end of that. But yeah, I mean, that and and again, we're you know, let's use an F-45 or an Orange Theory. That that could be pretty pricey. That that could start at 400k and end at you know, a million bucks. Um, so again, we talk about what why it's so attractive for people, that's why.

Yeah. And uh you've been partnering with a lot of gym chains. So are you like inserting yourself into the actual gym space or is it like adjacent to it, you know, on the like right next door? How's that working?

You know what we're taking over, probably because of post-pandemic, is the kids club. I don't know. I guess kids clubs are it's a dying breed in gyms. I don't know if you've seen it because you've been in a lot as well. But like, you know, we're in talks with some big box places. I mean, Lifetime. Um, we're we're in a uh a gym uh called Fit Factory. There's several of them. We're in one of them right now, but the plan is to be in all in all seven. And we took over their fit the their kids uh club. It's great because it's usually a thousand to twelve hundred square feet, right? It's already built. We just got to renovate the inside of it. We go in and listen, we have an instant membership base to market to, which is great. Um, obviously, it's it's it's a great synergistic relationship between trainers and what we do, their influencers as well, right, within the community. So, you know, a lot of the stuff we do also parodies what we're doing on social media. I think that's a that that's also something, Eric, as you know, that we teach a lot of, or I do. I'm really passionate about how are you marketing yourself on social media? Because again, like you could have a great, great experience. How do people know about that? And it's about being thought leaders in the industry, right? So and and you alluded to it earlier. I do think it's a crime when someone that's been in the industry for 10, 20, 30 years and they don't try to get on podcasts and teach what they've learned, bad or good. Like I tell my friends that all the time. They're they're doing everyone a disservice. Man, you have war stories. If you've been in fitness for more than two years, there are war stories that people I bet would love to hear about and what to do and what not to do. But it it all goes back to that entire package. But yeah, usually we're inserting ourselves inside that facility.

Yeah, it's such an interesting model. And it I probably don't have time here, but I'm just curious, you know, why the kids' clubs. I personally always had a challenge getting kids' programs going off the ground. I know they've been done successfully. I've seen it. I just always had a hard time doing it personally or having the right person do it. Um, but yeah, I mean any insights on is it just because they don't like regulations around kids being in one small grouping? Like what is it?

I just I think there's just so many things kids can do now that you know we're back in the day. I mean, and it's also like limited hours, like kids are in school, you don't need them to go there. If you're working out later at night, maybe you would take them there. I I don't know. I it it's a weird thing. I I think, but on the business side, I think people are looking at it like that's not really bringing in revenue. So, you know, I think you got to look at it from there's that customer aspect. Why are people not bringing kids there? But then there's like, well, why what you know, why is it they're so quick to bring in us versus like have it at kids' club? Um, it it is interesting. I haven't landed on the answer, but uh listen, it's great for us, I can tell you that much.

Yeah.

Um I want to zoom out a little bit too, because I know you have a unique perspective with all of your experience, but how in relation to maybe like the health clubs, which seems to be bouncing back um post-pandemic, how do you think the boutique sector is doing after the pandemic? And we're just for this is Q3 2023.

It's as great as the people running the particular location and as great as their willingness to market and and how creative they are. I mean, really, listen, some people will say F-45, they they went through a rough period. Um, my location that I go to on Long Island is one of the oldest owners. Um, they were around, they were one of the first F 45s in America. They've crushed it, they've always continued to crush it, they will always crush it. And it's because they have the same trainers there that they had five years ago when they opened. And so, you know, if you pull back a little bit, I think. As a whole, boutique fitness still does well. I think now more than ever, there's a lot more competition. So that's a thing, right? I mean, um, but again, if you're if you're willing to market, and by the way, marketing, as you know, is not just digital marketing. I think there's this misconception, at least I tell a lot of owners this, that just because you spend money on marketing doesn't mean that that's all you need to do. Most of leads come from grassroots marketing, like walking into another business, seeing if you put up a put up a table, bring that sales wheel, have the customers win something. But for boutique fitness, I think the ones that do that well are the ones that are thriving right now, regardless of how the market looks, right? And for fitness in general, but it's bouncing back. I think it'll always continue to be there. And listen, at the end of the day, the ones that do it well are the ones that provide the best experience and have the best staff.

Awesome. Awesome. Well, uh, I know we're button up on time here. It always goes fast, uh, especially people like you, Corey. It goes really fast. Um, one of the questions I always enjoy asking is, you know, what do you need right now? Um, you know, if you're people are listening and they want to reach out to you. Like, what's important to you as the president of Drip Bar and you know, just Corey as part of the industry.

Yeah, listen, uh, a lot of the people I talk to in my career are always fitness-minded, but I think now more than ever, my goal is to get people to think about total wellness. It always annoys me when I when I walk in and someone says, like, I'll say this to our owners. I'll say, like, stop talking about a drip. If Eric walks in and tells you his goal is energy, it's okay to mention the power pack drip because that will help solve that. But like, one drip is not gonna do anything, right? Overall. You got to talk about wellness. It's it's no different than you telling me, like, oh, just come in Wednesday and work out with us. Like, you should be planting the seed that, like, for me to lose 10 pounds, like I can't go just come Wednesday. Like, like that's not gonna do it. It's gonna be, you know, an overall program. So listen, people need to think about overall wellness. And hopefully part of that should be not just their fitness program and what they're doing there, but like how are they addressing what's happening internally? And and we could be a great solution and and and adjunct for that. So I think that's the biggest message.

Yeah, it's it's a really important thing. I mean, I I contemplate this a lot, is I think whether people know it or not, they're within our industry, we're faced with the a unique challenge is like, well, how does fitness as we know it play into the new health and wellness ecosystem that is evolving? And you know, it's so broad, right? Like, but people really want it. People want health, they want wellness, especially the younger generations. I just talked to my wife the other day about like how like my niece and nephew in their 20s are like they're you know abstaining from alcohol for a period. I'm like, what? Like that wasn't me in my 20s. Like, you know, it's just like it's it seems to be more of a thing. And I think that's a big challenge is we're trying to figure out well, how do we take these models that we've always known? And how do we what's our part now? How do we play a role in that? Um, and I know we don't have a whole lottime to talk about, but if you had a a few a few quick takeaways on that, what do you think?

Well, first of all, wasn't alcohol part of our fitness routine back in our 20s? I thought it was um well, first of all, and then you mentioned it by the way, millennials are running the market, right? Millennials and Gen Z, I had the opportunity to work for Les Mills, one of the leaders in group fitness, and they would always do research and develop and analytics and millennials and Gen Z corner the market on boutique fitness places. They're willing to spend, to spend the money, but but it's just mindset. Like I always tell people, like, what is your clear goal? And if you don't have a goal, go seek out an expert that can help you with that. It doesn't mean you need to spend hundreds of dollars, but you know, for us, we we we wrap, we wrap what we do along with what you're already doing or not doing. And we talk about it in the sense of a total wellness program. We don't just talk about drips. What are you doing nutritionally? What are you doing from a fitness standpoint? And we just try to give great advice with all the experts that we employ at at the drip bar. And I think that that's really the biggest takeaway is stop thinking tunnel vision and start thinking more broadly about what you can do to be uh to live a healthier lifestyle at the end of the day.

Awesome. Words of wisdom. Uh Corey, where would you like people to go? Uh if you're gonna send them somewhere online.

Um Yeah, go to at CoreyFit, K-O-R-Y-F-I-T. I mean, you know, that's really where I do most of my communication. Um, you and I are both big on LinkedIn. I think it's an undervalued platform. I think people can learn a lot on LinkedIn in terms of education. Um, but yeah, I mean, uh, you know, and go to thedripbar.com. Um, we'll we'll hook you up literally. Uh Eric, we're waiting for you to come in. So I'm gonna tell you right now that we're in a lot of states, not in Montana yet, but if you do go to a state and we were just starting to pop up in California, because I know you were recently there for idea, but you let me know what your travel schedule is. I'm gonna make sure we get you into a drip bar and hook you up right. And and hopefully we'll see each other soon as well.

I will I will absolutely take you up on that. Corey, thank you so much for for spending your Friday morning with me. It's been uh it's been a lot of fun. I'm glad we uh you know we had a schedule reschedule a couple times, so I appreciate uh your your flexibility there. Um yeah, it's been awesome. We'll uh we'll be talking to ladies and gentlemen, Corey Angelin. Thank you, sir. 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 future of fitness.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.