Ntiedo Etuk - FitGrid & Better Hospitality at Scale

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[00:02:16] All right, we're live. NTA took welcome to the future of fitness. It's long overdue and

[00:02:28] I'm really excited to have you on. Thank you sir. Appreciate you. Been a big satin for

[00:02:32] a long time. Oh, flattery goes a long way here. NTS.

[00:02:36] Well, you know, I'm watching all the episodes there. I'm like, how come I was never invited?

[00:02:42] Thank you finally. All right, now I'm going to take a seven years. Well, excited to

[00:02:46] write. I have been following you from afar. You know, I got to meet you. I was at one of

[00:02:52] your fitness summit events a couple of years ago and you know, you're seemingly kind of

[00:02:57] all over the place in the industry. And Fick created this is obviously your baby. So there's

[00:03:02] so much to talk about there and I mean, it'd been in addition to my other baby which I just

[00:03:07] sat on December 21st. Oh yeah, right on. Congratulations. Yeah.

[00:03:10] Huge man. Absolutely. Yeah. And make well real. I believe you're not. Well, that's great.

[00:03:17] Let's get into it. I think, you know, for people who don't know you, you have a great background

[00:03:21] and a great backstory. And I think that set the table for everything we're going to chat about today

[00:03:26] with FickGrid primarily but all the other stuff you do and your insights into the industry as far

[00:03:31] as artificial intelligence and community building and what that means in the modern age. All of that

[00:03:36] can be super exciting and valuable for the audience. But let's talk about you. Like you miss

[00:03:39] little insights into how you got to where you are. Yeah, sure. I like to say that I started

[00:03:46] life as a circle. I'm half in Nigeria. I'm half in Bahamas. I grew up between the two places and

[00:03:54] really, you know, when I was 11 years old, I taught myself six programming languages. I was just

[00:03:59] interested. I wanted to start the next Apple computer and so I was building video games.

[00:04:05] They were terrible video games but, you know, I was building them and I take pride in that.

[00:04:10] And I was also at the same time. I did the American International School when I was in Nigeria

[00:04:15] and I was also doing those presidential fitness awards, you know, so it's like how many push-ups,

[00:04:20] how many stuff all those sorts of things do you do? So I'd like to say that 11, I was an OG

[00:04:26] scholar athlete. You can call him 11-year-old a scholar athlete, right? Then I came to a medical

[00:04:31] and as I said, I'm going to go to medical to find my wife. No, but I came to America for

[00:04:35] boarding school. I ended up going to a school in Connecticut. I'll show it. Did that? Then

[00:04:41] I went to Cornell for electrical engineering and computer engineering. Again, my interest was sort

[00:04:47] of following the path of how do I build these computers. So I studied VLSI design and quantum

[00:04:53] mechanic theory, quantum mechanical theory and it was really like, oh, this should be interesting.

[00:04:57] I'm out of build the next apple, but I realized that I was following the wrong seed. Steve

[00:05:03] was in the act, actually did all the building and everything. Steve Jobs had all the fun.

[00:05:07] And that was the marketing dude, right? So I was like, oh, business! That's what I should do.

[00:05:12] So I took, I got my degree, I promptly parked it on the shelf, went off into the business world

[00:05:17] to go and actually really have some fun. So I did that for a couple years and then went back to

[00:05:22] business school at Columbia. I did an internship with McKenzie, which is a strategy consulting firm.

[00:05:30] I decided I needed more exposure to a business world that helped people think about things

[00:05:35] and all that. I realized pretty quickly that I wanted my hands more on the steering wheel,

[00:05:39] you know, than consultants seem to do. So when I came out of business, I parked myself where

[00:05:45] I was recruited to the R&D group for cities. So they were looking for ways to come up with the next

[00:05:52] PayPal billion dollar financial ideas. So I worked with that group and then I was pulled out of that

[00:05:57] group to work with the chief of staff to figure out the president globally at the time.

[00:06:03] And they wanted to take an analyst's giving the chance to see how the C-suite operated.

[00:06:08] And I was supposed to go up into glorious future of finance, but I already started

[00:06:12] working on my first business which does educational video games. So you know Halo, right?

[00:06:18] Yeah, I never played Halo. So I didn't do Halo, but imagine Halo, you know, multiplayer,

[00:06:24] multiplayer, three-dimensional world people playing against each other. Imagine that while kids learned

[00:06:30] different subjects. So kid in LA, get laid, get in New York, a kid in Legosla,

[00:06:34] Jerry or Tokyo, Japan to that matter while they were learning math and literacy and all of that.

[00:06:39] So I did that for a number of years raised a bunch of money for it. And along the way was

[00:06:45] invited into a bunch of really great rules where I met entrepreneurs who had done a whole lot more.

[00:06:51] So I was a fellow at this institute called the Aspen Institute in a group of entrepreneurs

[00:06:56] who started everything from like LinkedIn or former former classes, retasting to a startup

[00:07:01] Netflix which was from a former class and that was like wow, this is really great company.

[00:07:05] And then the stuff that happens in Davos, the world economic forum, that was a world economic

[00:07:10] forum technology pioneer. So I was around some really, really great entrepreneurs. And I'd like

[00:07:16] to say that I think that I picked up a couple of things from those folks that came into the fitness

[00:07:22] space next and I really looked around and I was like okay, this is a space that feels like it

[00:07:28] could use a technology upgrade. It's just fair, you know, understatement of the century, right?

[00:07:34] They sort of walk into most chimps or walk into a studio and you kind of like this should be sort of

[00:07:40] the epitome of like the hospital gallery experience. It's not right now. It's like there seems to be

[00:07:46] a space here where deep personalization, like an understanding of who the client is when they walk

[00:07:53] in the door and how to treat them or what they want and all the rest that could really work.

[00:07:57] Right? So I had my first experience when I walked into a Pilates class and told the story a number of

[00:08:03] times now, but I walked into this class and it was one of those class group fitness 80% woman. So I

[00:08:09] was doing it because I was recovering from planar fascia, which is you know, this pain between

[00:08:14] the front and back of the feet and they said stretch a lot to yoga Pilates so walked into this class.

[00:08:18] I followed the instructor who was my private instructor, you know, she'd said come to this group

[00:08:23] here in this class and I was like absolutely not. And I was like why are there group fitness

[00:08:27] we're doing private sessions? It's straight. I was like when is it she's like Sunday? I'm definitely

[00:08:31] not. I'm like what time? She's like nine and I'm like salute that you train to see. I'm like where is it

[00:08:35] like? So Sunday, 9 a.m. half an hour where you want me to come? I'm just not it's not happening.

[00:08:41] Next week I was there. Interesting. I'm following my instructor. That's interesting. So park that,

[00:08:46] walk into class. I'm the only guy in class. That's immediately awkward for me. I've done stairmaster

[00:08:52] classes before, you know after about five minutes, I'm like on the floor in a puddle dying

[00:08:57] and everyone else is laughing at me like what's wrong with this dude? So like okay, this is going

[00:09:00] to be that experience in the end. But I put my mat down next to these three ladies and they're

[00:09:05] talking to each other and they're like yeah so are we doing brunch after Pilates? And I was like

[00:09:10] I like brunch. I was like hey you know what's up my name's Anti, what are we doing? Where are we

[00:09:14] going? This is really exciting. I've never been to brunch after Pilates. I'm like either follow

[00:09:19] this deal. I wasn't invited to brunch right but there's this sad thing I like to say that

[00:09:26] sucks started Facebook because you didn't have any friends. I started to fit great because I was

[00:09:29] invited to brunch right but I learned that it was all about community and the problem was that

[00:09:35] three months later, I didn't know 70% of the people in the community still. So I was like this is

[00:09:39] group fitness. But I'm sort of doing this individually. This is sort of this is sort of weird.

[00:09:44] What can we do to connect these folks together? Because my theory was that fitness is all about

[00:09:49] people like sports, sports is about the player, the coach, the spectator group fitness was about

[00:09:55] the instructor, the client and the staff right those three groups of people. And if you could connect

[00:10:02] them, the more you can connect the clients to each other connect them to the instructor, connect

[00:10:06] to the front desk person says hey good to see you when you walk in like you know hey I

[00:10:11] are good to see you again. Then it feels like cheers the bar where everyone knows your name right

[00:10:15] and you want to come back more. And no one that's sort of taken that approach towards like the

[00:10:20] fitness space and sort of state is deep personalization, deep knowledge of each person

[00:10:24] and affecting that would you connect people that you communicate with them could make a difference

[00:10:30] in increased retention acquisition all of that. So that was the big realization that I had that

[00:10:35] led to the establishment of the group right on. Yeah and there's something I want to touch on

[00:10:39] that. I think it's I didn't really think about it much until the last like a year or so and

[00:10:43] I've heard very smart people in the industry refer this and it was it was a mine shift change for

[00:10:49] me even though I've been doing this for so long as like we're in the hospitality right

[00:10:55] hospitality right like bringing in from Maddox about all the time Stu Browar from his podcast

[00:11:00] they talk about all the time like we're actually in the hospitality industry so maybe it's

[00:11:04] to be on that a little bit NT and why that's such a fundamental mine shift that's still critical

[00:11:09] to what we do. Yeah I mean look so first of all with everything that's been happening I mean

[00:11:15] I call it like the personalization of everything everything has become about me me me or you you

[00:11:20] that that started with social media and you know the just it just continues. It's now I think

[00:11:25] there was a study that was published it says about 73% of people expect personalization you know

[00:11:31] in their in the communication that goes out to them and you know I've had the good fortune of

[00:11:36] going to hotels that are managed by like the four seasons or whatever right and as you walk into

[00:11:41] these places and they know you they know your profile like they you know they know that you like

[00:11:47] milk chocolate and they know you like it on the tillo you know and so you walk and you're like wow

[00:11:51] I just I came home right they understand me and then you walk into your typical gym or your

[00:11:57] typical studio at this you know like half the time you look at the majority of the reason people

[00:12:05] in this industry sort of bounce after one time they visit you know studios because they don't feel

[00:12:10] welcome they're already walking to something's potential intimidating I mean I found out that people

[00:12:14] find yoga really intimidating. It's about to get my favorite pose that's where you fall asleep on

[00:12:18] your back. That's my favorite pose but people find it intimidating so if you walk in and they don't

[00:12:27] know you they don't make the the attempts to get to know you and they haven't made or established

[00:12:34] any kind of any kind of connection by the time you leave you're not coming back and the way that

[00:12:40] we've sort of broken it down for the industry is the industry. So the owners in the industry will

[00:12:45] sort of say hey if we can get someone to come back three times then we've got them. My point is

[00:12:50] if someone walks in the first person they interact with if you have front desk that is front desk

[00:12:55] person, second person is the instructor third person the other clients right and if your front desk

[00:13:01] person having a bad day guess what I'm not coming back right if if you your instructors like

[00:13:06] low energy guess what I'm not coming back if the people in your studio seeing stuck up or snobbish

[00:13:10] or you know aren't friendly or whatever yes what I'm not coming back all of that is hospitality

[00:13:15] all of that is something that you can expect with the things that you do you can train your staff

[00:13:20] to be more aware of that especially the first time clients are under open and welcome

[00:13:24] you can train your instructor to go up and say hey you can train your instructors to say

[00:13:28] everyone turns his right and that's give each other a high five introduce yourself you can do this

[00:13:32] and you can create software platforms that make it a lot easier to store the information

[00:13:37] where to take the information you have you know about each person and make sure the message is

[00:13:42] specific to them so guess them right person's right time right place for the right goal yeah that's

[00:13:47] what we do awesome awesome and we're going to dive into all the functionality and how that works

[00:13:51] and it's it's uh I've had a couple people on the podcast our last year too when we've talked about

[00:13:57] how much of getting a client's success within your four walls of a gym comes down to this

[00:14:03] what we call the soft skills right like you know creating an environment welcoming right and

[00:14:10] microberton was on he's like at least 60% of that it's not the programming right it's always

[00:14:16] all thinking like jack Thomas and what he's doing at the fit guide right and they're

[00:14:20] yeah I'm feeling like it's the little things that cost nothing right call someone by their name

[00:14:26] right that subtle touch on the shoulder at the right time when appropriate right like all these

[00:14:31] little things that make the experience a hospitality thing right and I think that's a big mental shift

[00:14:37] that is I think that's exactly right I mean another analogy that I use is politics right if you think

[00:14:42] about the the politicians that we say are the best at what they do what do they do like

[00:14:49] love more hate them right they say the bill Clinton's special skill was it if he was talking to you

[00:14:56] you felt like you were the only person in the room that's what we're talking about here

[00:15:01] if I walk in and I feel like you know me so I mean I know that there are 20 other people in here

[00:15:06] but if we feel like you understand me or you know me or you you care we live in a world right now

[00:15:11] where people feel more and more disconnected they feel more and more alone despite the technology

[00:15:16] they're looking for something to connect you right in many cases they're looking for their tribe

[00:15:21] you know so to speak and they've already walked into an affinity group because these are people

[00:15:26] that are interested in food care we're interested in bar Pilates or yoga or whatever happens to be

[00:15:31] so there's an affinity there that means they're more open but if you don't take that next step

[00:15:35] and say what is your name you know if you don't take the next step and say oh and you know do

[00:15:40] you have do you have kids for example and then if you can imagine you can remember the kids birthdays

[00:15:45] like the next time or the next time that you see them you're like hey by the way how's your trip

[00:15:49] in from you know what would it be what are you called like Brooklyn or whatever like wow okay you

[00:15:54] remember who I am right so those things are things that make all the difference for someone's

[00:15:59] feeling like they're seen they're noticed they're heard it's a big deal today yeah there's

[00:16:04] uh you're probably familiar with the Dunbar number right it's like yeah it's so I got Mr. Dunbar

[00:16:10] whoever he is um came up with this thing is like and it in the CrossFit space which we're all

[00:16:14] I came from it's like this number 150 people is the most that one human being yeah managed to

[00:16:20] mess with you like relationships in their life right and it was it became and maybe it was an

[00:16:26] exact like 150 with darn close man like when I remember she bought to 150 everything seems like

[00:16:31] the community was strong right like yeah and yeah I could do all those things I could say hey where

[00:16:35] you come from how's the kids whatever you know yeah what's the little supercam blah blah blah very

[00:16:40] personalized and then you start to get to 200 they get to 250 you're gonna get a bunch to 15

[00:16:44] and you're like man I need I'm the leaks in the bucket are everywhere right that's right it's

[00:16:50] that's right thing it's a hard thing which you what you're looking for because many studio owners

[00:16:54] in the gym space in the studio space they start their businesses because they care about the people

[00:16:59] they're actually trying to help people be better right and so you you start with those personal

[00:17:05] relationships and and why people are there and they're motivated and then you realize once you get

[00:17:10] to a certain point call it 150 or or higher how do I replicate me yes right like that's that's the

[00:17:16] thing like you want to replicate that special secrets of course you've now got four other people

[00:17:21] who don't know as much who don't care as much right so how do you how do you actually replicate

[00:17:26] that thing that you did and the the only answer to that is two things number one you have to find

[00:17:33] people who on the emotional connection level and seem to this they care that much but then you have

[00:17:40] to replicate what knowledge right and that's super hard to do so that's what software can help with

[00:17:47] is to give the knowledge to someone who has the EQ to then go and the you and that's how I think

[00:17:53] about how I talk about it with owners I'm like think about how you can replicate yourself half of

[00:17:58] that is your responsibility the other half I could take care of so that that's the big question

[00:18:03] that I have for you is like how do you take such a human to human thing right that seems you know

[00:18:08] intuitive for some people other people have to learn an emotional intelligence is something

[00:18:12] that's kind of come across last five years I don't know what to think of it really but you know

[00:18:16] and that's the question how does technology take such a human human thing allow it to scale effectively

[00:18:22] and presumably that's kind of what Fickrid is doing so how does that actually happen

[00:18:27] yeah so so I think that there are a couple of things and with this by the way the conversation

[00:18:32] around this sort of stuff is shifted remarkably over the course of last year and I'm proud to say

[00:18:37] these Fickrid's is the at the forefront of that with using artificial intelligence to to do this

[00:18:42] sort of thing so the big first stake that we put in the ground around this is seems excuse me

[00:18:49] so the segmentation of people right so I look at the customer journey right and that's from

[00:18:54] the time when they are a lead to the point when they first walk in the door and take their first class

[00:19:00] to see the middle of their experience to potentially or hopefully not but when they start to

[00:19:05] fade and go out the door right sort of take that customer journey and if you can identify through

[00:19:10] the use of data the points at which someone you know might be on their way out so we call that

[00:19:16] segments of first Fickrid for example we'll take a segment of folks we call decrease in

[00:19:20] frequency and that's just people who they were coming 20 times consistently a month they dropped

[00:19:26] to 10 and now they're at three all right well the trends speak to themselves unless it's the

[00:19:30] summer undergoing on vacation or something like that so let's identify that person that's the

[00:19:34] first thing identifying the person the second thing is you want to stage an intervention right and

[00:19:39] when you when you stage the intervention there are some key things that you would like to do or

[00:19:44] like to understand before you go and do that first thing is if you could understand who do they

[00:19:50] actually listen to right so the way that I think about it is we we're basically building a network

[00:19:55] of communication that can happen from anyone inside the studio we have the ability for message

[00:20:00] be sent from instructors message to be sent from different people on the staff including the

[00:20:04] owners and managers etc. And also messages to be sent from clients as well right so if I say all

[00:20:10] of that information I look at the response rate that a person has had to messages that were sent

[00:20:15] well then I can identify who the person is that they tend to listen to the most right so you would

[00:20:21] always say that that's basic if you think about that just in the world and you know kids are like

[00:20:26] hmm I wonder if you can convince mom or dad that she'd really go to that like party right they know

[00:20:31] it's not them so then they'll send their older brother assist me like I'll take him it's

[00:20:35] the enough on that on the side the brother assistants like y'all drop you and then you don't let them

[00:20:39] know I'm going off and doing this okay right so people know this so if you can identify the right

[00:20:43] person that's key if you know that this is the right time to communicate with them that's also

[00:20:49] key the next question is what do you say right and so that's where our system you know again will

[00:20:56] take all of the information that we have about that client all the things that by the way it's really

[00:21:01] hard and takes a long time for an individual person to go out and find oh their birthdays this

[00:21:07] this is how many classes they've been through this is how much money they've actually spent at the

[00:21:11] studio these are other people they've been in class with this is the instruct that they last gave

[00:21:15] review to here's what the review actually said take all imagine having all that information in your

[00:21:19] mind as you're about to write a message to person that you're thinking about or you're about to say

[00:21:24] something if we had that information we would probably say write a kick-up message no one has

[00:21:29] the time to go out and research that information we can do all of that you know with with our software

[00:21:34] and then what we've applied the artificial intelligence to is actually writing the message right so

[00:21:39] let the artificial intelligence write take the data versus an assignment let's have it write the message

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[00:23:02] you know and then you can review whether or not you like that message you believe in it

[00:23:07] and then we see over time as we get as we as you train you know our systems

[00:23:12] that our messages get better and better and better right and after a while you're okay

[00:23:17] with turning on like the automations of the messages that would go up because the AI is actually

[00:23:22] doing it in the voice the brand voice that you would use and and saying things that you kind of

[00:23:27] appropriate so we're very very excited about that because we believe that that can actually

[00:23:31] do two things reduce the cost of like time it saves time allows for you to be more strategic

[00:23:37] it reduces the cost of the cost of the studio because now people can actually spend more time

[00:23:44] doing strategic things as opposed to doing just grunt work that you have to you have to go and get

[00:23:50] done so it's big it's a big advance for industry yeah so it's kind of from the internet right it's like

[00:23:56] you have like a when who how kind of thing like when do you you know communicate with people

[00:24:04] at the right time like when is it you know a critical point of contact who's the person who's

[00:24:08] actually going to be reaching out to them like who's who's the person they have a relationship

[00:24:13] and and feel good about and then exactly how you're crafting the messaging and sending it out because

[00:24:18] that's right getting that that's right and then the last thing of course is you know you send out all

[00:24:24] these messages I mean I know I do this and we learn as human beings we learn automatically

[00:24:29] I sent that message oops no one responded to that one I'll try different craft in a different

[00:24:34] way right you want to measure the effectiveness of these things that you send out so if you're

[00:24:38] getting better and better better it's sending the messages that you get the responses so again

[00:24:43] as humans and in studios there's no time for that you send out your message you to blast

[00:24:49] out a newsletter or an email or broadcast or whatever it is or you send a follow-up to something no

[00:24:55] one's sitting there you know I'm saying did that actually work just don't have the time just don't

[00:24:59] have the people in many cases don't have the skills go back and actually analyze it that's the

[00:25:04] stuff that again software can do really really well and really leverage it can help you I call it

[00:25:10] like it's your assistant it's like having a personal assistant has the ability to do all those

[00:25:14] things for you including the analysis including the actual copywriting including the editing you know

[00:25:19] all that sort of stuff there you go and Tee what do you think nowadays is the most effective

[00:25:24] communication channel for studios to contact their clients is it SMS is it email like

[00:25:31] picking up the phone like what do you think yeah so so it's it's it's funny my answer is going to be

[00:25:37] it depends and never never sleep on email right everybody sleeps on email says emails completely

[00:25:44] overrated or whatever look we have over 70% open rates with the emails that go out a large part of

[00:25:51] what happens on the email front really just depends on whether or not you're someone that

[00:25:56] someone's paying attention to right like if you're someone who I'm not paying attention to I don't

[00:26:01] care about or have no relationship with or something like that then you know what your

[00:26:04] open rates can be zero percent let's like I will never open an email from someone who I don't know

[00:26:10] but if the studio has done its job and people actually care about these grants with the student

[00:26:16] oh this is coming from the studio I will open it I will pay attention to it now if you want

[00:26:20] something that is more immediate then SMS is by far the best channel I just like to say don't

[00:26:27] overplay your hand with the SMS because if I keep getting if I keep getting irrelevant texts

[00:26:33] then I can stop that from happening so ping me every once in a while you will get a response

[00:26:38] right ping me all the time I'm annoyed these should be emails like in pick and choose

[00:26:43] whether or not I want to do that and final thing that I'll say like telephone calls don't sleep on

[00:26:47] the phone either I know that all these young gents ears you know they're like you know I

[00:26:52] I remember I remember back in the day I'm happily married now I have a baby and all that sort of

[00:26:57] stuff but I remember back in the day when I was dating like years ago and I was just I would try to call

[00:27:02] and you know after you after you met someone on like a dating app they're like why are you calling me

[00:27:08] hey it's like there's like the weirdest thing in the world and I was like oh my god you're so such a

[00:27:12] just different generation than I am right but don't sleep on like the phone especially because

[00:27:17] it's so unexpected these days so I like to go in when when no one else is doing something yeah you

[00:27:24] might get the person they pick up and they're like oh and especially if you're you're doing a

[00:27:31] favor as opposed to making an ask then it just it's solidifies that solidifies that that bond

[00:27:38] that experience most folks will be like oh thanks I didn't know or thank you for you know reaching

[00:27:45] out to me after my first visit either that's really really great no one else has done that you know

[00:27:49] it's served as distinguishing facts for you so don't sleep on the phone all the more effective it

[00:27:53] just depends yeah something I would advise people all the time because it's so unexpected and we

[00:27:58] did it all the time is when I wrote my gym as we would write handwritten notes and the

[00:28:03] absolute thing about we call them adabois right adagurals adabois and we would you know sit down

[00:28:07] on Fridays and review what happened that week as a coaching staff when everyone would be

[00:28:12] responsible for sending a couple out and I would go to people's homes clients my ends of being invited

[00:28:17] you know over for barbecue or something event and I would look at their fridge and there'd be like

[00:28:21] three adabois cards from our gym yeah magnitude on their gym like stuff like that is really good and

[00:28:27] I think there's so many different creative ways of communicating that people don't expect that's

[00:28:31] right everyone expects an email and when I agree with you don't sleep on email at all

[00:28:37] and everyone text message very few people expect a phone call or very few people would

[00:28:41] threat to handwritten note a postcard you know snail yeah people still open this still open their

[00:28:48] mailboxes you know we actually my first my first job out of college I was responsible I'd work

[00:28:55] for a credit card company and I worked on was ultimately responsible for a program 100 a

[00:29:01] hundred million dollar program there was all about how do you get people to actually open

[00:29:06] and take advantage of credit card offers and so they're two parts a big sort of matrix sort of

[00:29:11] thing where you had a whole bunch of tests that you sent up but if you think about like snail mail

[00:29:16] as an analogy for email then back then the analogy to a good subject line was what envelope is it right

[00:29:25] and so you would test different types of envelopes there's like the plain wide envelope nobody's

[00:29:29] looking at but a sweepstakes looking envelope you know what's what's that you know you open it up

[00:29:34] or if it's the big like vanilla 8 by 8 1 1 2 1 2 and a half by 11 sort of thing like this must be

[00:29:38] important they spend it's been a lot on paper here right so yeah so that the actual form which

[00:29:44] it comes and then once you open it up again if it's just a piece of white paper and start nothing

[00:29:49] interesting but if it's like glossy and it has you know pictures and images and

[00:29:54] it can actually be really really effective and so all of these things are like shock factors

[00:29:59] that the people do not expect to test into them the same way you test it down yeah

[00:30:04] in funny anecdote because it really has nothing related to this but I just think it's funny is

[00:30:08] I have my nephew visiting his 24 yeah he's up here to ski and ride and we were talking about

[00:30:14] the differences in dating apps between when I was single and what he's doing now and one of

[00:30:20] the things that blew his mind it was like when I was in high school early college when we still

[00:30:23] still live with our parents for the most part like dude I used to have to call the house line right

[00:30:28] and get right parent first right it would be like hey miss this is this is Eric mouse

[00:30:35] that's right I was hoping I could speak with your daughter maybe like who is this look what does

[00:30:40] this do you hear the Melissa you know it's that's right yeah it's anyway yeah I digress

[00:30:50] so getting back to this I mean there's really you know working with studios and being a studio

[00:30:53] for a long time we're talking about the boutique you know especially it's like two things that

[00:30:58] really matter right at the end of the day can you save them time help them make more money

[00:31:03] but right it doesn't have to be more complicated than that that's two biggest pain points all

[00:31:07] the time so I presume you have some you know insights into how you guys do that you probably analyze

[00:31:13] it to death yeah no that's right let's right look at it's not only is it just fundamentally

[00:31:19] the biggest things the closest thing to their to their business but at the end of the day what

[00:31:23] what I find is that oftentimes there isn't the because there's so much that needs to be done

[00:31:30] there isn't the brain space to think much beyond that so it's like these are the two fundamental

[00:31:36] things that I need to do to operate my business I have a whole set of costs I can only squeeze so

[00:31:42] many costs out of you know out of that because I think rent is a big cost like the pay the instructors

[00:31:48] and then there's some additional bar so you're not helping with that right how can you get me to

[00:31:53] make more money or how can you help to save time so I can figure out how to make more money that's

[00:31:58] the big that's the big thing so you know on our platform you know as a whole I'll start with I'll start

[00:32:04] with saving time I described a little bit of it you have there's nothing there's nothing worse if

[00:32:09] you need to send out messages which is what studios do studios are actually big communication

[00:32:15] communication groups or whatever and the communications they've sent out they bring people into

[00:32:20] experiences right and and those experiences maybe they're tremendously different like maybe

[00:32:27] this colliding experience is much different from the next is much different maybe but possibly not

[00:32:33] right like you can go and find the same modalities somewhere else so the way in which you actually

[00:32:39] make a difference in terms of getting good back in is all about the process that you have for follow-up

[00:32:44] and what you're actually saying in that follow-up and because there's a limit to how much you can do

[00:32:49] in person that means that all these other communication medium become a critical tool

[00:32:54] you get that across so I'll go back to the analogies that I had that I had given before if

[00:33:00] you error or if I could sit there and handcraft a message that means person that walked in the door

[00:33:06] then we'd probably have like a 60% return rate 70% return rate it'd be fantastic right but that means

[00:33:12] that we would again need to understand each person then we need to take the time to actually write

[00:33:16] out or create a message for that specific person and you just can't do it so our system will take all

[00:33:22] the information that we can find about that person will actually write that message we'll put them

[00:33:28] into the segments for you it's basically like you turn it on set it in forget it and one of the

[00:33:32] things that we have most recently rolled out which is really a great you know innovation from our

[00:33:37] perspective and what we call daily automations right so we basically say two things the first is

[00:33:43] that there are some key segments in the sort of decline journey that you need to pay attention

[00:33:49] to first of those segments that are up for conversion segments those could be that could be a lead

[00:33:54] you know for your website that could be the first is the first time they walked in the door

[00:33:58] that could be someone where their package and expired their members should just buy it up the

[00:34:01] first week intro offer or whatever those are all people that are up for conversion you want to

[00:34:05] communicate with those people as rapidly as possible the second group of people it's sort of the

[00:34:09] field grid people the milestones it's your birthday right or you had a 10 class 25 class 100 class

[00:34:16] milestone you need to make sure that people remember you and that they remember that you remember

[00:34:22] right and and then the last group is the risk group and that asked risk group for those who are

[00:34:28] you know sort of slowly declining or heading out the door and you want to stage an intervention

[00:34:33] so what we've done is we've created a what we call a daily automation

[00:34:37] that will take the people in those segments as they roll into that segment this particular day

[00:34:42] they roll into that segment and it automatically generates the message with all the data that we

[00:34:47] have on it by the artificial intelligence right and as you have as if you trust the artificial

[00:34:52] intelligence you just turn it on so every day you know those things will go out but the big

[00:34:57] innovation around that which is interesting is that up until this point anyway the state of the

[00:35:04] industry and state of art and industry has been templates so templates were created by template I

[00:35:12] mean you know that you'd go and you would say hey this person is research 10th class you know

[00:35:18] and the studio would say okay write the message or create a message they would create a message

[00:35:23] it's like hey it's great to see if you hit your 10th class we'd love to see you for your 11

[00:35:27] generic message right so if there are 100 people in a given day who hit that milestone then

[00:35:33] does not aware that John or Jacob Mary or Mary Lou right they will all get that same message

[00:35:39] and studio spend hours hours I mean 10s of hours in times these hundreds of hours

[00:35:45] breeding those templates you know we're center generic and actually don't evolve over time right what

[00:35:50] we've done as an innovation is we've said yes you can create that sort of period in time or that

[00:35:56] that trigger but the artificial intelligence will create the message all of a sudden instead of

[00:36:01] spending 20 30 hours setting stuff up there's no set up time you can actually even jump in and just

[00:36:05] test this the artificial intelligence would create the message and as you send more and more of

[00:36:10] these messages out it will get better and better at the types of messages that you want to have

[00:36:14] crafted right so it saves time which is what you were talking about not just from the set up

[00:36:19] perspective but it evolves over time automatically based on how well those messages are doing

[00:36:25] and in addition to that it saves time from the actual writing and the data gathering that's

[00:36:31] yes search read a good message and that's actually a huge leap and that is a very different thing

[00:36:36] it's a paradigm shift you know in the industry and so we're very excited to get that out

[00:36:39] and tell people try because it's been it's gotten great response so far that's the staging time

[00:36:45] awesome man and you know I presume with the make more money it's just those those conversion

[00:36:50] point it can be chaotic as a as a G-Motor and studio manager like there's just a lot of stuff flying

[00:36:56] at you all the time like just feel like when you get the opportunity to sit down and focus on one

[00:37:00] thing like you can pipe breaks or you know something happened like you know someone got their

[00:37:05] card in the parking lot right it's like oh man god you know so it's just it can be chaotic and I

[00:37:11] think that's the point is we miss all these opportunities for conversion whether it be lead

[00:37:14] management or you know upsells or you know saving somebody on a retention because you know maybe they

[00:37:20] just need that that right touch at the right time so they don't quit so yeah no question no question

[00:37:26] there and that the system does all of that so we get we get better and better and more effective

[00:37:32] at doing that we see the actual effects as it's right we've seen if you look at it we've seen

[00:37:36] that we increase for example first time conversions across our portfolio by 35% now how does that

[00:37:41] translate into revenue the people that stay end up spending 2.4 times more money over the next 90

[00:37:48] days than the people that did not get those messages that came from our system 2.4 times more

[00:37:53] money and then the people are staying in the studio 3 4 5 months longer on average so that's just

[00:37:58] the conversion points that you were talking about but in addition to that one of the big things

[00:38:02] that we've been focused on again we're a community we're a community engagement system right so

[00:38:06] our need to be software helps to connect community when we when COVID hit we were the first system to come

[00:38:12] out with the ability to take your schedule attach it to zoom meetings so you can extend your community

[00:38:19] out virtually and hopefully get more people in even though they were in a distance

[00:38:23] and now we've also launched as a version or component of our program that helps studios to take

[00:38:28] their clients on retreats you know two places you know around the world which is something that

[00:38:34] two guys have been very into for a while and have not done because it's very difficult it's time

[00:38:40] consuming to come up with it time consuming to do the deals with the hotels the places

[00:38:46] they for massive deposits that the studios then concerned that they don't have the ability to

[00:38:51] actually do the marketing you know it's their clients and don't know if their clients are really

[00:38:54] interested or whatever and from my perspective for this from a studio's perspective I'm like look

[00:39:00] you can run around and you can find new clients that's great that's not that's one way of driving

[00:39:04] more more revenue increase the queue right you could change your prices you could increase your

[00:39:07] price that's one way you're driving more revenue but honestly you could take let's get more revenue

[00:39:11] from your existing clients that's that's this and if you can do that saving time then that's awesome

[00:39:18] so what we've what we've developed is a way where studios can get some are you know up to a thousand

[00:39:24] dollars per client per first per client sent on a retreat if they're working with us right and

[00:39:31] so if you send 10 or 15 people on a retreat that's 10 15 thousand dollars to your bottom line do that

[00:39:36] a couple of couple times a year and you just funded you know whatever initiative you want to do

[00:39:41] to the next year at not much in the way of additional work for you because we take on a lot

[00:39:46] of the work especially around like the marketing and the sales process even all the rest of that sort

[00:39:50] of thing so we call it on we call it a sort of almost term key retreat program and that's been so

[00:39:57] it's gotten huge huge response as well yeah well whenever I think about community too and something

[00:40:02] that took me years to sort out and figure out was like events are really powerful you know just

[00:40:08] my treats which are awesome but you know local community events like we would you know I wish

[00:40:13] I started my charity event sooner my annual charity event because that was so a it just made me feel

[00:40:18] great right and right and doing it and then cut that check to a local charity but also like the

[00:40:23] people you get to partner with how the community feels about it the new leads that come in it was just

[00:40:27] a really really good use of time and energy and then also just you know events for you know like

[00:40:32] a beach workout or whatever maybe you know little things that you can do so how do you guys

[00:40:38] assist with with the events segment outside of just retreats yeah you know it's interesting I

[00:40:43] would love for someone to some of the come to us and say that that's something that they're

[00:40:48] interested in we have the ability to help we have data to say this is what what would be helpful

[00:40:52] we haven't done a whole lot this has been our first foray into into events you know with the retreats

[00:40:58] but you're absolutely right that even local events to the extent that they can be helped with would

[00:41:03] be great the only thing that I'd say is is that we do have this concept though you know we have

[00:41:07] this massive ecosystem now we have so many studios so many instructors and millions of consumers

[00:41:13] it sort of flow through everything that we're now starting to see brands by brands I mean you know

[00:41:19] like the product companies the service companies that want to get access to you know these communities

[00:41:26] we're starting to see them come to us so if someone is interested in doing an event you know

[00:41:32] and they and they get in touch with us in that way then we aggregate up here's the amount of

[00:41:37] information here's the amount here's the potential number of deals that exist for people that are

[00:41:42] interested in this sort of thing and then we can go and do brand deals or deals with the brands to

[00:41:47] actually bring that you know onto the platform and introduce some of those people so we don't get

[00:41:51] involved in the actual creation of the event itself in that case the retreat case we will help

[00:41:55] facilitate all that sort of thing but in terms of bringing the brands there you know that's been

[00:42:00] something that's been very very interesting very parcel yeah yeah imagine it's great and ultimately

[00:42:03] I mean I think the local studio owner or manager needs to treat the events themselves no one knows

[00:42:09] their area like they do that's right but they help in the communication and the promotion and the

[00:42:12] buzz around it using something like what you guys have there and then you know if gosh if you guys

[00:42:17] can pull in like a momentous supplements or you know I think your you know come in to help

[00:42:22] and to the event that's that's pretty strong value that's right so you know kind of

[00:42:27] D'Aurge I want to talk about your third baby right you have your baby baby you have a great

[00:42:31] and then you have a deep finish solution yeah tell me what's what's going on how was you know

[00:42:36] kind of the state of the boutique industry over 2023 and then you know what do you

[00:42:41] what do you look at you know for for next year and maybe we can stop but let me hold right there

[00:42:46] but who do you guys serve at boutique fitness solution because boutique can be kind of a large

[00:42:51] all-time company so we've actually we've actually just gone through another another evolution of our

[00:42:56] brand new initially boutique fitness summit evolved boutique fitness solutions we're now the BFS

[00:43:01] network right and the reason the reason that we've done that sort of the the way that things evolved

[00:43:06] we started so Julian and I started the company Julian runs it day to day on channel and you know

[00:43:12] we started it as we were looking around the boutique fitness space and we were like you know we found

[00:43:17] that we were going to all the same conferences guess what they were all in California like well you

[00:43:21] know there are there are companies and a little country and an over on the east coast of the

[00:43:26] country and and they're not they're definitely not making it over to these big conferences are

[00:43:31] happening at that point in time so we said there needs to be or there has to be a solutions oriented

[00:43:35] conference we start as a conference there's there has to be solutions oriented conference

[00:43:41] that is one day so that someone can just you know come in that's relatively local to where they are

[00:43:46] that hits sort of their major needs with the ability to them to walk away with something tangible

[00:43:51] they can do as opposed to these big events where you have all the big vendors that are selling you

[00:43:56] something and all that that's that's where we started but we always plan to do plan to do more

[00:44:01] plan to evolve into into different spaces whether it was the training or consulting space or

[00:44:06] even in terms of bringing groups together so they might find funding or something like that we

[00:44:10] always expect not plan to do that COVID hit we've done think five conferences at the time and one

[00:44:17] of the things that we did was realized during COVID that that members really need to help each

[00:44:23] other and so I'm a member of whiteio and whiteio has sort of the sort of gatherings that it has every

[00:44:30] month of a group of like eight individuals called forum so we created mastermind groups for

[00:44:37] studio owners that were seven eight people that would get together non-compended and they would

[00:44:42] actually talk through with different COVID policies that you're seeing how are you handling your

[00:44:46] instructors what are you doing for marketing all of that sort of stuff these became very powerful

[00:44:51] very sort of cohesive groups of people that walked through the COVID in the post-COVID experience

[00:44:56] um together and in the process we learned some of the challenges that existed around training of staff

[00:45:03] and all that so we then evolved into you know creating sales and training you know formats and

[00:45:08] programs for folks so we call it the we call it the the BFS network because it's sort of this

[00:45:15] period of period of network basically connection you know individuals and individuals being connected

[00:45:20] to in a similar sort of way that allows us to get out there we have this concept now the BFS

[00:45:27] wellness network right so you're connected to the individual folk connected to us obviously we can

[00:45:32] help you in the industry uh you've got the trainings that can happen and the wellness network are

[00:45:38] it's like a marketplace it's like a set of partners the industry that would like to get access

[00:45:44] you know to those studios and basically by studios being a part of our network they get better deals

[00:45:50] for the things that they need to buy on an ongoing basis and we have big plans for that but

[00:45:55] it's obviously infinitely scalable especially as we bring more and more and more people on so we're

[00:45:59] we're very excited about all that awesome awesome man and when you look at the state of boutique

[00:46:07] this year I mean I think from there's certainly uh you could say some headwinds between like uh

[00:46:13] well just cost of capital you know obviously real estate expensive and a couple of you know

[00:46:19] things like that but what do you looking at you know what do you think uh for happens conversation

[00:46:26] in you know February 2nd of 2025 like what do you think we'll be talking about happened

[00:46:31] yeah you know we we think that the recovery the recovery is happening but it's sort of like

[00:46:37] consumer sentiment you know right now like the economy is clearly doing well and we just got a

[00:46:44] jobs report and said you know that said people are people are being hired right but when you talk to

[00:46:50] people in general they don't it's it's lagging like they're not feeling that that's necessarily

[00:46:55] cases and as a result also because of COVID it's like PTSD they're very cautious you know about it so

[00:47:02] you have the consumers that are out and now they're out they're going and they're traveling and

[00:47:06] they're doing this that and the other and they're going back to jimmy's and we see them coming back

[00:47:09] to studios more slowly in some places than others but studio owners are still cautious you know

[00:47:15] about it and that caution you know unlike the go-go years before pre-COVID when

[00:47:20] who see you know sped like 43% of the gym industry right I like to say that at that point in time

[00:47:25] that was fueled by a lot of I was called a free customers there were a lot of companies or a few

[00:47:30] companies out there like Groupon like class pass etc they were basically throwing big cash you know

[00:47:36] at getting people in you know and then feeding them to studios so these studios didn't have to do

[00:47:42] they didn't have to flex their own marketing muscle you already get people in that just they

[00:47:46] just kept flowing and they kept flowing in and so I think the the industry got overbuilt you know

[00:47:52] during that time with studios that hadn't mastered the fundamentals and the basics of what it

[00:47:58] took to build like a core studio audience we saw you know during COVID 30% of the studios ended up

[00:48:05] done and so we've had that correction as they as we come back now it's a slower more organic you

[00:48:11] know more organic build so I think we're 12 months you know eight maybe 18 months away from now

[00:48:17] the sentiment like hey yes we made it through and people are not doing this you know still doing that

[00:48:23] yeah but actually like truly investing you know in the in the growth again and also the replenishment

[00:48:29] of cash because they crunched down on all expenses they're still running on a shoe strength

[00:48:34] if they need to get their cash vision back where they can really make investments and then ultimately

[00:48:38] I think you'll start seeing the industry again growing faster than the general gym industry the

[00:48:43] reason is simple we aren't experiential industry you walk in you have an experience you have that

[00:48:49] experience with 10 15 20 other people when a percentage of those people go out and talk about

[00:48:54] that experience by definition they're talking about it with more people the person that goes out

[00:48:59] and speaks about their individual treadmill workout or their you know their gym workout that they have

[00:49:03] at a particular gym so we'll start to see that effect start to start to grow again but it isn't

[00:49:09] fueled by the same cash and the same companies that with throwing clients there and consumers there

[00:49:15] before so to come back 12 to 18 months we back and and that's my that's my opinion and studios

[00:49:21] we're talking about okay how do I really accelerate what I'm sure you know I'm putting places

[00:49:27] awesome that's a nt's crystal ball right that's right well it's it's great last question I was

[00:49:35] enjoying asking people but you know as a community of you know fitness and wellness business folks

[00:49:39] and and people would just generally give a shit about it you know how can we help you what would

[00:49:43] you like to hear from people about how how can we support you and see yeah now listen I we

[00:49:49] appreciate everyone you know that's out there if folks do want to check out the software go to

[00:49:54] fitgrid.com that's for the B2B software we'd love for you to come and check it out they're obviously

[00:49:59] free trials let it check out the artificial intelligence check out the things like the instructor feedback

[00:50:04] or surveys that we have and just get in touch with us we always love a conversation if there's

[00:50:08] studios that are interested in doing retreats where your people you know come come see us on that

[00:50:14] if you just want to have a great conversation about the state of the industry and how we can help

[00:50:17] then I'm always open to that always want to make sure the industry stays strong stays looking forward to

[00:50:22] the state's possible awesome man I appreciate that and I think I want to get a hold of you

[00:50:26] personally and do you have like a media you like to go to or email that email so

[00:50:33] I keep on mailing address yeah N.C. that's N is a Nick C is in Tom at fitgrid.com so ntitfitgrid.com

[00:50:42] hit me up with love to hear from awesome man really appreciate your time N.C. I'm glad we finally

[00:50:46] made this happen and you know like I said I got to attend your conference the summit a couple

[00:50:52] years ago and and saw you on stage and you know really well spoken great job great job on that

[00:50:57] and yeah just keep up your work thank you ladies and gentlemen I love what you're doing here thank

[00:51:01] you everyone appreciate the time hey wait don't leave yet this was your host Eric Malzone and I hope

[00:51:08] you enjoyed this episode of future of minutes if you did I'm gonna ask you to do three simple things

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[00:51:52] love to hear from our listeners so thank you so much this is Eric Malzone and this is the future

[00:51:57] of fitness have a great day