In this episode, Eric Malzone chats with Pete Moore about using Health Savings Accounts (HSA) and Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA) to cover fitness costs, reducing individual expenses. They also discuss adapting to new technology and medical advancements in fitness, like GLP-1 inhibitors, to better serve clients. Pete stresses the importance of personalized fitness programs tailored to each member's needs and motivations. Tune in for practical insights on navigating the evolving fitness industry and driving business growth.
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[00:00:00] Everybody, welcome to the Future of Fitness, a top-rated fitness industry podcast for
[00:00:07] over 40 years in running. I'm your host Eric Malzone and I have the absolute pleasure
[00:00:12] of talking to entrepreneurs, executives, thought leaders, and cutting-edge technology experts
[00:00:18] within the extremely fast-paced industries of fitness, wellness, and health sciences.
[00:00:23] Please stop by futureofitness.co to subscribe and get our interviews with Summary delivered
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[00:00:35] Five industry experts, five different opinions and tons of valuable insights for free at
[00:00:40] futureofitness.co. Thanks for listening and onto the show.
[00:00:44] Hey friends, Eric Malzone here. I've had the honor of interviewing over 750 professionals
[00:00:54] across the fitness health and wellness industries. There's one thing I know for sure.
[00:00:58] Without a doubt, there is a tremendous opportunity to leverage a highly valuable and relatively
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[00:01:22] collective. The ultimate solution is to empower executives, founders, and thought leaders
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[00:02:23] All right.
[00:02:27] Pete Moore, welcome back to the future fitness, my friend. Good to see you. I feel like I'm
[00:02:31] living the future of fitness so it's nice to be on. We're definitely living in a thousand miles
[00:02:36] per hour. I know that. To know a shock to anybody has ever met you, you're a hustler man.
[00:02:41] I always scramble in producing a lot of value for the industry and I've always had a lot of
[00:02:45] admiration for specifically the podcast. We said this last time I preferred you as prolific
[00:02:51] as a podcaster. I mean, almost more than 80 episodes. Is that right? So I don't know.
[00:02:56] To the queue. Yeah, we got another 20 in the queue and another 12 tomorrow. So yeah, basically,
[00:03:00] what you know, started doing it just to make sure I get everybody's, you know,
[00:03:03] infomercial out there of what they're doing. And I give them mouthpiece and a lot of these podcasts
[00:03:08] have led to commercial transactions where somebody didn't know about someone or partnership deals
[00:03:14] or cap away. So, you know, we're going to keep doing it not necessarily for a P&L item but really
[00:03:21] just to serve the industry and to serve entrepreneurs. Yeah, very cool. And I talked to David,
[00:03:28] your partner in Integrity Square fairly often. And you guys have been a great friends of the podcast
[00:03:33] collective and what we're doing there. So I really appreciate it. And thank you for this,
[00:03:37] just tuck on the podcast a little bit more. Who are you looking to talk to on the podcast?
[00:03:43] Like what are the guests you find and our ones that really get you? Get you fired up.
[00:03:47] Yeah, you know, the ones that I found most intriguing for entrepreneurs to then listen to when
[00:03:54] I interview venture capital firms or private equity groups and just understand how they think
[00:04:00] what they're looking for, what kind of key performance indicators matter to them? What do they do
[00:04:06] once they get involved in a company and really kind of like set the stage and set the narrative
[00:04:11] for people to understand? If I take in this capital, you know, here's what I could potentially
[00:04:17] have as resources. But, you know, we also cover how the transactions get done, you know,
[00:04:22] how the structuring of them are. So a lot of them put in money as preferred equity. So in a
[00:04:27] worst case scenario, you know, they get their money back first. If you're an entrepreneur and you
[00:04:32] take in private capital, you're not necessarily renting capital like you are is when you're
[00:04:37] borrowing debt, they kind of stay out of your business. If you're bringing an equity partner,
[00:04:41] they have something called negative controls, which are typically positive controls,
[00:04:46] which is, you know, Eric, you want to open up this new location. You know, that's a million dollar
[00:04:50] capital commitment and you have to get my consent to do that. So they call that a negative control
[00:04:56] because you need my approval. But at the end of the day, an approval is an approval. So it's
[00:05:01] really a positive control on the business and they're in the boardroom. So, you know, when you take
[00:05:06] on private capital, you need to understand what the rules of engagement of that relationship are
[00:05:11] upfront for it to be successful. And I think that's something that people learn from some of the
[00:05:17] podcasts on that front. I think the other ones are groups where they have got a new technology or
[00:05:24] new service and you know, they open up on the podcast to really talk about how hard it is
[00:05:29] to build a business and, you know, a lot of entrepreneurs, you know, have conviction about what
[00:05:37] they're doing but might not be pivoting into where the market is. And you know, we have pretty
[00:05:42] healthy conversations related to where the opportunities are. How do you pitch your business?
[00:05:47] And what frustration you're solving? I was trying to key in on any kind of private company
[00:05:53] or new idea of like, what are you solving? Are you saving me time? Are you saving me money?
[00:05:58] Are you helping me with revenue? Are you, you know, mitigating some of my expenses? I think
[00:06:03] sometimes people start up companies and think that it's a good idea but not necessarily solve the
[00:06:10] frustration that they had or someone else had. They think it's just like a cool thing and cool
[00:06:13] things don't really turn into businesses. They turn into, you know, product for short periods on.
[00:06:19] Yeah. Well, I think we saw a lot of cool things come out over the pandemic that didn't really
[00:06:23] pan out to be good businesses, right? I'm sure we can we'll touch on some of that during this
[00:06:29] conversation and the backup too for people who don't know his, your show is Halo Talks and it's
[00:06:34] excellent. Really enjoying it and I set the table for that too. Halo stands for Healthy Access. Healthy
[00:06:40] use of that lifestyle and outdoor so we're trying to get Halo effect and I'm trying to get
[00:06:45] people to stop using the word wellness which is developing in 1950s as the opposite of
[00:06:50] antinimilness so if you're not secure okay. And I think everything going on right now with,
[00:06:56] you know, the pharmaceutical side which we'll touch on in some of those new drugs and what
[00:07:00] our industry could potentially support related to that and not negate as well as what I think
[00:07:06] is going to happen on the HSA FSA side with some new loopholes in the IRS tax code and usage of
[00:07:13] those funds and what a couple of interesting companies are doing related to that. You got to get
[00:07:19] on the front end of these things as well as you know touching on silver sneakers and optimum
[00:07:24] and active and some of the groups peer fit that are coming in and Jim Pess that reserve with
[00:07:31] opportunities to bring in significantly more revenue if you're a bricks of mortar provider.
[00:07:35] Yeah, awesome. Well let's start the medical stuff. I mean why not? I was telling you pre-recording
[00:07:41] that spend last week that connected health and fitness summit and I don't think there is a
[00:07:45] single conversation whether it be on stage in a breakout session or even just me personally having
[00:07:49] someone you know talking to someone in the hallway. In between that didn't come like GLP one was
[00:07:55] everywhere right and everybody's trying to get ahead of it. Everybody's theorizing people have
[00:08:01] so many strong opinions. You get the old school fitness people are like, I it's you know there's
[00:08:04] no shortcuts right there's no magic pill you know you got to do it the old fashioned way and then
[00:08:09] there's you know a lot of people coming in now for the medical industry and they're saying well
[00:08:13] no this is the biggest opportunity the fitness industry has seen perhaps ever. So let's say you
[00:08:18] Pete like where do you see it on the GLP one conversation maybe some insights from companies
[00:08:23] that you're looking at too. Well look I think the first thing is you can't fight technology and don't
[00:08:28] fight intellectual property like these drug companies have been able to figure out how to modify
[00:08:35] somebody's thoughts right I mean the idea behind GLP is basically an inhibitor for somebody
[00:08:43] to not have a association for eating food right I have a buddy of mine I should have both stock when
[00:08:51] I spoke to him four months ago for Eli Lilly but you know he said to me so I looked at him and I
[00:08:57] looked at his face and I'm like I was kind of figuring out Eric like his eyes got bigger and I'm
[00:09:02] like no his eyes didn't get bigger his face got smaller right so I was trying to figure out what
[00:09:08] happened to his guy I didn't see the while and I'm like bro what's go what are you doing you know
[00:09:13] thinking like he's definitely didn't get his eyes enlarged as you know like uh white Jewish guy from
[00:09:17] Baltimore but what he did do was he's been on ozemp it's ozempic for three months and he's like
[00:09:23] man I lost 50 pounds and I literally have to remind myself to eat now the fact that this came out
[00:09:28] of this guy's mouth can I went to college with him we used to order pizza like 155 a.m. right before
[00:09:35] did delivery ended right you know any of us got coke and not diet coke even you know when we had
[00:09:41] the little Caesars action going at 215 like that's a game changer for people that that have a
[00:09:47] problem with eating or you know you know default to that as an activity so there's really no reason
[00:09:54] to try to convince a guy like that to say I don't want to I don't think you should take this drug
[00:10:00] right because the side effects are not really dramatic versus what you see on TV related to some
[00:10:07] of these other prescriptions that you can take and you know you've got all sorts of you know
[00:10:11] you're gonna have stomach issues and you know you're gonna have the suicidal thoughts like those
[00:10:16] things are not happening with these GLP drugs so the downside of the GLP drug is two things one
[00:10:23] is your face basically you know loses a lot of weight and you start to get you know you know lines
[00:10:29] on your face because your skin basically doesn't have the same amount of you know density than it
[00:10:35] did before right and then the second thing is you have to remind yourself to eat and the third
[00:10:40] thing is you get muscle at your face so you know what we should be doing is basically having GLP
[00:10:45] one workouts that are called GLP workouts and catering to those people that are on these drugs
[00:10:52] potentially even work with the companies directly and I don't know how to get to that right now but
[00:10:57] I do think that if somebody has a 15-minute or 15 mile radius around their club there's no reason
[00:11:04] why somebody who works the front desk or a research analyst that you could get from a college
[00:11:10] or even like a high school senior could go on and find out find everyone in this 15-minute radius
[00:11:16] who prescribes these drugs and let's go have a conversation with them and basically drop off
[00:11:21] guest passes at their doctor's offices or say hey look when you prescribe this give somebody this
[00:11:28] phone number and inside of our company let's say a golds gym in Glenn Bernie as an example
[00:11:34] Maryland because I'm thinking about my buddy who lost 50 pounds and he's actually work out now
[00:11:39] uh and we'll go into the gym because he looks better right so he's not intimidated anymore
[00:11:43] because he's losing weight which is the goal yep so why can't we have somebody go around Glenn
[00:11:49] Bernie you know 15 mile radius find every doctor that prescribes those epic and have a relationship
[00:11:55] with them and then get somebody on RN and call them something that they should be like I'm a
[00:12:00] GOP specialist at gold's gym right the best part of having your own companies you get to make up
[00:12:06] titles like I call myself a dream architect chief dream architect and have on my business card DA
[00:12:12] you know and people think are you a district attorney like no do you know my dream architect why am I
[00:12:17] a dream architect because I say I am right you got a come you got a building you want to build you
[00:12:21] need a blueprint you need to architect right if you want a company you want to build you need
[00:12:25] architect right so I'm a dream architect I'm what your dream is I'm trying to architect it into an
[00:12:30] actual business so I feel like that's the way you get ahead of the GOP instead of saying like oh
[00:12:35] this is bullshit you know there's gonna be all these side effects well let me tell you like
[00:12:39] Eli Lilly and a company called Novodeck believe that's how it's pronounced those two companies are
[00:12:45] part of the top 10 most profitable and most valuable companies in the world and that's not because
[00:12:52] the investment community like took a flyer on it it's because the industry is huge and it's
[00:12:58] gonna be around and they actually have demand issues where they can't produce enough of the drug okay
[00:13:03] if that's not you know like a warning signal to say hey how do I get involved in this and not just
[00:13:09] say like oh I'm like pure fitness what's the point of being pure fitness like we use every other
[00:13:14] technology to make ourselves better you know this is a little different than anything else
[00:13:20] yes one on GOP yeah I I think I'm basically in a hundred percent concurrence with what you're saying
[00:13:27] I mean I talked about this before on this podcast and so on else's but I when I own a gym
[00:13:32] you know it's coaching people you know I would coach thousands of people and I had a group of post
[00:13:37] bariatric patient members right and it started with one a guy and his wife right they just need
[00:13:44] education and then it it's slowly actually not even slowly it pretty quickly grew for eventually
[00:13:49] like two weeks later I was invited to go talk to like one of their you know their support group
[00:13:53] but I met the nurse right then I met the doctor who did it next year no I had no problem getting
[00:13:59] people into this program but you know what you had to be very careful of what you're doing
[00:14:03] how to talk to the doctors right make sure that I'm doing the right hand I want to screw this up
[00:14:07] but the opportunities to educate them on you know okay well now you don't eat
[00:14:11] the entire burger you'll eat half the burger right well that's great but let's talk about fruit
[00:14:16] and vegetables right let's talk about some other things talk about string training they've never
[00:14:19] done before so the opportunity is huge and I guess my question for you on this like in you I think
[00:14:25] you touched on it in the beginning here is like to people who are the old school or like now
[00:14:29] you got to do it the hard way there's no shortcuts like what's your advice to them when they talk
[00:14:35] like that you know look it's the same thing of like you get leads from the internet you know I used
[00:14:40] to run software company people like I don't know if I need to pay you all hundred bucks a month
[00:14:44] just to have a website you know what I got a Facebook group you know so I'll get leads through there
[00:14:50] you know so obviously you're using the internet to get to get your leads use all your software
[00:14:54] you know to track your members you're using you know or if I debar codes to check people in
[00:15:00] you're probably using my zone where people are doing their heart rate you got an LED you know
[00:15:05] displays up in the club you got a view technology as just street technology you can't really like
[00:15:11] slice and dice like which parts of technology you want to get behind in which ones you don't from
[00:15:16] a standpoint of mass usage right like you know that GLP is going to be used by every single person
[00:15:24] that has insurance that pays for it that's 50 pounds overweight there's nobody that's 50 pounds
[00:15:29] overweight that I know and I say hey you should lose some weight and you're like bro I'm good
[00:15:33] I like being this weight does anyone ever said that here no no no one never said like I'm not
[00:15:39] interested in losing weight the only thing they say is how far does it going to be for me to do
[00:15:44] it and how much work do I have to put in and the reason why I don't go to a health club to lose
[00:15:49] weight right now is because they set up some bullshit challenge and tell me that in 60 days I'm going
[00:15:55] to get there and I'm going to be at this weight and I failed in the past because I don't have
[00:15:59] the discipline and the motivation to do it right so everybody wants to lose weight nobody wants to
[00:16:05] you know have to put a shirt on that that's black you know and like having oversized shirt and
[00:16:11] you know kind of fit into their jeans and like squeeze into them and then take the button off
[00:16:16] I've actually have this issue back when I was a kid right take the button so like you have you
[00:16:20] know like I can breathe while meeting or like go to this place that's called the ground round
[00:16:24] that used to be able there's a kid you know the ground round I've heard of it yeah ground round
[00:16:29] used to be this place it was kind of like uh I don't know let's call it like a it was like a kids
[00:16:34] applebee basically and they had a lot of peanuts but on a certain day you could you could eat your
[00:16:39] weight okay so they had a scale when you walked in so back in the day I used to weigh like 150
[00:16:47] pounds when all my friends were like 90 as I was a big kid and I used to eat a lot ice cream and
[00:16:53] fun dip point being that I used to dread going to to the ground round and I had to pay a dollar 50
[00:16:59] for the you know the burger and fries while my friends were like I paid you know I am my dad only
[00:17:04] at pay 82 cents you know type of thing so nobody wants to be heavy right everybody and nobody really
[00:17:11] has the discipline to not be heavy because all these portions are and these commercials are designed
[00:17:17] to make you eat more right and they don't tell you how much calories are in the uh you know how
[00:17:21] freedom of sauce at that the olive garden or the basket of bread you know that they fill up two or
[00:17:26] three times before you get there you know to get your meal so going back to your question like okay
[00:17:32] we got technology that's basically gonna help us solve some of the bigger problems we have which
[00:17:37] is motivation then people get into our club that they see results right so if you're a health club
[00:17:43] operator or fitness studio operator and somebody's on ozemic or one of these other GLP drugs that should
[00:17:50] be like that's like the jackpot because you know they're going to see physical change in the mirror
[00:17:55] and you get to say hey I helped you look like that even though maybe the workouts two times a week
[00:18:02] three times a week were not the key driver to that but they were definitely kind of like you know
[00:18:07] the sizzle or they were the chisel on on that person because if they just took the ozemic they say hey
[00:18:12] my friend's like can't play pickleball anymore or like they feel weak or they feel tired or you
[00:18:18] know they pull the hamstring or whatever because their muscles are not strong enough well if I could
[00:18:22] solve that problem I actually have a guaranteed member right and the other thing I have which I'm
[00:18:28] pretty sure is gonna be the case is that once you get on GLP you kind of can't get off it's kind
[00:18:34] of like heart medication and that's why these stocks of all these companies are flying so high
[00:18:39] right now from a valuation standpoint because once you get on ozemic you don't like go on there and
[00:18:44] then get off like you're on it for life probably right so if I'm on it for life and I've got 50%
[00:18:50] of nutrition in the health club industry I could take everyone that's on ozemic and I could be like
[00:18:55] dude that's personally going to be here for like 10 years if they don't move so it's almost like
[00:18:59] a guaranteed member to me almost like an annuity or perpetuity like why would I not figure out
[00:19:06] how to embrace a perpetuity when I have a retention or a nutrition issue so that's all I think
[00:19:10] about GLP and all the evidence is there there's some there there's a couple of drawbacks but there's
[00:19:17] no way that drugs go in a way 80 times yeah excellent points and I remember I was listening to you talk
[00:19:23] on either one of your podcasts or someone else's about how you used to have to shop in the husky
[00:19:28] section and I might exactly I want I want to reach out to me like be I shopped in the husky section
[00:19:33] too and it sucks yeah yeah yeah yeah all I want to do is go into normal yeah yeah I want to go to
[00:19:38] the normal closed section like that's whatever else is where my mom be like no no that's not for
[00:19:43] you you got to go the elastic waistband route yeah yeah so thank thanks for bringing it up again
[00:19:48] let me show I have a healthy lunch welcome to bring that up connecting with you just connect
[00:19:52] not appreciate that not appreciate you listening to that but look it's a big deal and I think we have
[00:19:57] to identify that the other thing that that's top of mind to me you know when people say what should
[00:20:02] I be doing in 2024 and you just got back from the connected fitness conference and I said this
[00:20:07] last year as well as on the panel there kind of said as a joke but I'm not kidding like you can't
[00:20:13] have artificial intelligence until you have intelligence okay and we don't have enough intelligence
[00:20:19] about a member to basically identify the fact they're like hey mean Eric you still used to
[00:20:24] shop at the husky department and had elastic jeans I never want to get back to that right so my
[00:20:30] point is that when somebody comes in because a member of the club like give me a top 20 list of
[00:20:35] things that you need to really know about me and who I am this episode of the future of fitness is
[00:20:40] brought to you by our friends at Wattify I own James for the better part of a decade there are a lot
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[00:21:42] forward slash future of fitness that's WODify.com forward slash future of fitness now on to the show
[00:21:55] and then that'll be able to frame how you can motivate me or keep me so I say I said on one of
[00:22:03] these podcasts you know if you know that I wore elastic jeans and I come into the club and I look
[00:22:07] a little heavy just come up to me and be like bro you trying to go back to Sears and that'll
[00:22:12] already tricker to me like hey what do I need to sign up for and I gotta recommit myself right
[00:22:16] all you have to say is those two words elastic jeans right well you also need to know as you
[00:22:20] need to know that I used to get yelled at when I was playing basketball back in ninth grade
[00:22:25] and and I liked it and the reason why I liked it is because I went up to the coach Kowalski
[00:22:31] in ninth grade I've been the same size since ninth grade and he used to yell at me all the time
[00:22:34] when I was a captain and he said and I went up to him after four days I said why you keep yelling at me
[00:22:39] man I'm the captain team I'm doing everything you say tell me to do and he's like you're not looking
[00:22:44] at it right he's like you want to come up to me when I don't yell at you and my work what was
[00:22:48] that mean because I think you have potential and I'm gonna yell at you until I think you don't
[00:22:53] have potential right so if you put me in a group exercise class and you have like a boot camp
[00:22:59] instructor that likes to yell at people because that's how they motivate you got to make sure
[00:23:03] you know that I need to be in that class but I'm not looking to go in some yoga class and like
[00:23:08] that tell somebody tell me like how good I'm breathing or like how good I'm stretching I want
[00:23:13] you to yell at me right so if you knew that about a member that would change what kind of programming
[00:23:19] what kind of people you introduce them to so we've got to get information and intelligence on people
[00:23:25] and that's the way that you actually get people to stay with you and you form a relationship
[00:23:30] so that's the second thing I think it's important you got to fill up the database don't go to your
[00:23:34] ABC or DAX go or you know wellness living and say hey can you like slice and dice my data
[00:23:40] it's like you think give me anything to slice you know like you just hired I'll give you another
[00:23:45] example you just hired a division two basketball player who was like the top player in let's say
[00:23:51] the Baltimore area as a personal trainer my nephew's trying to make jate varsity basketball right
[00:23:56] how do you not know in the database that if there's a basketball player that's any d1 d2 d3 we got to
[00:24:03] make sure these members know because they have an affinity towards basketball and they got so
[00:24:07] many in their family that's striving to make a higher level like nobody knows that right and then
[00:24:13] the last point I'm gonna make is you gotta know where people work and what they do for a living
[00:24:18] because you probably have if you have three thousand people in your membership there's probably one
[00:24:23] or two of those people that are event planners okay and I asked a uh uh uh uh uh uh
[00:24:28] health club operator the other day how many event planners do you have in your clubs they're like
[00:24:31] why would I know that why would I know that I'm like well I'll tell you that if they do a good job
[00:24:37] they probably know every event that's happening within 15 minutes of this location
[00:24:41] sure everyone who's who's going to that wedding in their in the wedding party have to take pictures
[00:24:47] the day of the wedding right so why not be able to go to those people send them a congratulatory
[00:24:52] hey urgent it's got engaged we've got a 90 day boot camp from the date from 90 days before your
[00:24:57] wedding starts where everyone gets on you pay 199 bucks and we have a nine we have a uh uh a 90 day
[00:25:04] program for everyone in your wedding party how do you not know that right so my point is like you
[00:25:09] gotta fill up the database everyone's like what's your asset in a health club or boutique industry
[00:25:13] it's the membership base right and then a four second is is your lease whether that's a liability
[00:25:20] or an asset there's your only two things so if you don't have a relationship with me you don't really
[00:25:25] have a business right it's gonna become more and more evident because these other companies
[00:25:29] are going to start to do exactly what I'm saying whether that's lifetime fitness whether it's pay clubs
[00:25:34] these large companies that realize that I need to know who my members are for real not bullshit
[00:25:40] you know oh I know where their birthday is and I know what their home addresses and I know a
[00:25:44] company they work for that's not sufficient anymore like you gotta go deep if you want to motivate
[00:25:48] people and keep them you got to find out what makes them tip and how do you suggest acquiring this
[00:25:53] this type of data I mean is it surveying is it going along conversations and intake forms because
[00:25:58] that's like you know sometimes you have to get through a couple layers personally right to connect
[00:26:03] with them and get some of this stuff yeah look I mean it takes work this is like hard work so every time
[00:26:09] I go into a cycling class and the three people the front desk check me in what do they do for the
[00:26:15] next 40 minutes between then and now they're folding towels or could they go onto my LinkedIn can
[00:26:21] they go onto my Instagram can they go on to my halo talks you know could they find out things that
[00:26:26] they could put it to the database that I'll answer those questions and then reward them you
[00:26:32] know for every action that they put in there whether it's promotion vault give them some you
[00:26:37] know stored value cards can put cash in their account for every member you know survey that gets
[00:26:42] filled out do you want to go to a member and say hey when you start when your first your first
[00:26:48] session has a evaluation right you do a PT evaluation that PT evaluation should really be like
[00:26:55] a motivational specialist asking you 20 questions what time do you wake up in the morning okay
[00:27:01] do you have a problem with with snoozing um do you want to get picked up like maybe somebody
[00:27:05] here will pick you up or I'll get another member to pick you up right to come to the to the club
[00:27:10] you just get picked up for school all the time I was a pretty good student but like I probably I
[00:27:15] definitely didn't have like you know perfect attendance right there days when I'm just like
[00:27:20] fucking I'm just trying to convince my mom I'm not going to school today because there's no basketball
[00:27:23] game tonight so you know you have to check in make sure you're there for school if you get to play
[00:27:28] in the game that day yeah my point is that I need to know real things about people and then be able to
[00:27:34] figure out how do I motivate them or how do I pick them up or how do I get them off you know
[00:27:39] out of their house so you can do gift cards you could do surveys you could have somebody sit down
[00:27:45] with someone while somebody's in a club you can come up to with an iPad and be like hey I'm going
[00:27:49] to put 20 bucks into your account right now if you just fill out these 20 things with me right
[00:27:54] after you're done with your workout and let's get real information out of people I've got a list
[00:27:58] that I could send you that we did it some golds gym franchise association seminars but I got to
[00:28:04] know these things like I'm talking about I got to know that you had a weak problem and we went
[00:28:08] to the last of jeans I got to know you know where your kids are what's forced to are playing what
[00:28:12] they're trying to be good at I got to know that sometimes you don't come to the club because you
[00:28:16] have anxiety back in a parking spot you know one of the things that I referenced in a class couple
[00:28:21] a couple weeks ago was you know hurts and national enterprise rental car if they didn't have a
[00:28:27] shuttle that picked you up as interminal they wouldn't have a business and no one would over
[00:28:33] to the rental car right you'd go to the hotel that you're at and you get a rental car at the hotel
[00:28:37] right but they said look the best thing I could do from an expense standpoint is make sure I actually
[00:28:42] come get you and bring you to my location right why don't health clubs go and say here's my 15
[00:28:50] minute radius here's my scatter chart of where all my members are here's where all the doctor locations
[00:28:56] are that the people are going for a zemperic in that radius and I'm gonna basically start
[00:29:01] up a school bus you know one of the small like sprick their vans and I'm gonna do a loop around town
[00:29:07] and it's gonna have my logo on it and it's gonna say we're going to the gym you know and if you have
[00:29:11] a park code it scans it just like it would scan it as the club and we'll pick up everyone who's a
[00:29:17] member or anyone wants to be a member you know silver sneakers will pay you a certain amount
[00:29:21] of dollars per visit right but you have to get those people to show up at your club so why don't we
[00:29:27] just go pick them up a lot of people that are listening to this podcast I want them to I want
[00:29:31] them to answer this question how many times a week do you pick up your kids from school from sports
[00:29:39] from their friends house from their sleepover okay and all those up and tell me why as a health
[00:29:45] club operator you would go and pick up a member who's going to pay you per visit when you spend all
[00:29:50] your time picking up your kids and also picking this kids for free yeah that's pretty good
[00:29:54] compensate yeah so really it's like you got to take outside the box and really like we're not
[00:29:59] seeing like think outside the box there I'll take it inside the box right I'm not I'm not thinking
[00:30:05] about like this isn't like a wildly s idea of like having a mini van with a logo on it that'll
[00:30:10] cost you like 500 bucks a month to go and pick up $5,000 minimum yeah so that's the other thing
[00:30:16] I'm telling people it's great and I love how you offer tactical applications to concepts and
[00:30:23] strategies right I think that's something that's missing especially I mean the on the podcast
[00:30:27] or get everyone kind of talks to these high level strategies but no one's actually given the
[00:30:30] tactical pieces and you know one of the things that it kind of ties into nicely to what you just
[00:30:34] said about some you know silver sneakers now is like HSA FSA dollars is is a big thing right now I
[00:30:42] work with Eric Derock and Jason Paul at life core insurance they have a solution that they're
[00:30:48] bringing to the market there's true met out there there's you know I've seen a couple headlines on
[00:30:52] your LinkedIn people are doing it but maybe take us to like a 30,000 foot view what you think that
[00:30:58] means and and maybe how some of the savvy operators are pulling this off so far yeah look I mean
[00:31:04] this is extremely new so you know we're really literally in like month two of this being a thing
[00:31:11] but there was a change in the in the IRS language related to usage of HSA and FSA dollars
[00:31:19] to give people kind of like an overview here as part of that it basically allows you
[00:31:26] to prescribe a letter of medical necessity to someone that has any kind of
[00:31:34] preventative you know issue you know you could say you could say let's use me
[00:31:40] Pete Moore you know travels a lot done sleep well has a as a stressful job this guy needs to
[00:31:46] soul cycle classes okay so what do I do so I go on the soul cycle link to a group called Dr. B
[00:31:53] I pay $15 and three hours later I have a letter of medical necessity from a doctor that looked
[00:32:01] at my survey it's a this guy needs to work out you know for him to like not you know
[00:32:06] get an apartment that's too high and jump off cliff or something right like this guy needs physical
[00:32:12] okay that now is approved for my HSA FSA dollars that I have accumulated with my company
[00:32:19] that I can now use to buy my soul cycle classes and on my 10 pack that was originally cost me let's
[00:32:26] say $350 now I can use $350 out of my HSA FSA which really costs me 30% less because it's
[00:32:36] you know pre-tax dollar so I'm really paying 250 now for for that amount soul cycle is still
[00:32:41] collecting save 350 right and I'm getting my 10 pack and I think I just got a discount because
[00:32:47] to me it seems like it's free money even though I'm contributing to it as an as an employee of a
[00:32:53] company assuming I work for a larger company and then as part of the checkout you just have to put
[00:32:58] an HSA FSA card as the processing of payment which is what true med is doing in a couple of
[00:33:04] these other companies so from a standpoint of like the the infrastructure or the architecture
[00:33:11] required to actually affect this all you need to do is do the work call up true med call up
[00:33:17] with next call up uh doctor B and we can list some of the groups out there and make it easy for
[00:33:24] someone to get a letter of medical necessity and quite frankly if you're a health club operator after
[00:33:29] you understand this which will take a day or two of doing research and making phone calls
[00:33:33] everyone of your members should be getting a letter of medical necessity and their
[00:33:38] membership should be getting processed you know potentially through the HSA FSA you know checkout
[00:33:45] I haven't done all the work to figure out the recurring revenue and changing a credit card
[00:33:50] I haven't done that yet however that's going to keep people longer in the club
[00:33:55] in addition to that a number of those people are probably using that HSA FSA for other things
[00:34:01] you know potentially related to you know the the the GLP's and other portions of what they're trying
[00:34:07] to achieve so I think it's definitely something that you need to focus on it's dollars that are less
[00:34:13] scrutinized by the members or prospective members because they view as a discount or they view it as free
[00:34:19] and there's a hundred fifty billion dollars literally a hundred fifty billion that's locked up in
[00:34:25] these accounts now the IRS is making it easier for you to actually spend yeah yeah amazing and
[00:34:31] do you see this as actually there's probably a two-part question paper you know talk about this
[00:34:36] quite a bit like do you ever foresee the integration of health clubs fitness right into healthcare as we
[00:34:44] know it currently and if so or if not do you think like HSA is kind of like the first step
[00:34:50] to do that like how do you how do you see those things or is it completely separate do you think it's
[00:34:54] it's not really I mean I'm gonna wear this like it each is saying FSA can be a standalone product
[00:34:59] by itself it doesn't necessarily have to go venture into actual healthcare reimbursement but could
[00:35:05] it could could could it go to healthcare reimbursement you're saying yeah I haven't looked at what the
[00:35:11] you know the letter of medical necessity is written by an actual doctor and I don't know if
[00:35:16] you know I know that you could use it for workout recovery like we've got a company called higher
[00:35:20] notes that were invested in because you can buy an infrared you know sauna blanket you can buy
[00:35:25] a pulsating electromagnetic field map and use that as part of your HSA FSA dollars there's a
[00:35:33] company called there's a couple websites one's called HSA store another one's called FSA store
[00:35:37] where all the products on those portals are approved for use there I don't know about the medical
[00:35:43] side I mean your health insurance is a completely separate bucket your health insurance is the
[00:35:48] one that there's paying for the GLP drugs if they're approved by your by your you your employer or
[00:35:54] the insurance company so I think those are separate buckets in the HSA FSA it's basically
[00:35:59] controlled by three or four companies that have those accounts that are basically just making
[00:36:04] interest on the flow and don't really have an incentive for people to use it because they want
[00:36:09] to keep the assets there and the employer always pre-pays your HSA FSA at the beginning of the year
[00:36:17] and then an employer e contributes to that on a monthly basis so there's some dynamics that
[00:36:24] psychologically will push people to use that and have that top of mind because they do think it's
[00:36:30] it's either free or subsidized yeah well interesting toxic advantage yeah I guess I didn't
[00:36:37] haven't really recognized yet that you can buy like you're talking about the products like
[00:36:40] the recovery you know workout recovering things like that through HSA FSA I mean I know it's
[00:36:45] I think I don't have one I'm self-employed like you are yes in right I don't have an HSA but my wife
[00:36:50] works for company and she has one and I've been able to use it to pay for dental stuff right
[00:36:55] like things like that which seems so obvious but you could actually get into products right not just
[00:37:00] services or exactly they're like yeah yeah so I think that's it that those you know so I think
[00:37:06] GOP that they actually create like an intelligence and fill out your member database and then looking
[00:37:12] at this HSA FSA are the three top things the two other things I would say is promotion vault
[00:37:17] and looking at employee engagement and rewards I think it's going to be a wave of that coming
[00:37:22] in 2024 there are a lot of large companies that already do this with publicly traded businesses that
[00:37:29] trying to automate awards recognition you know micro payments to employees to keep them
[00:37:36] incentivize and know that you know the employer is recognizing you know overachievement or
[00:37:42] meeting results and I think the fifth thing is probably looking at workout recovery a lot of
[00:37:48] groups out there have kind of done the minimum they've either put in you know hydro massage bed
[00:37:55] they might have put in a tanning booth they might have a sauna but I think the only way for
[00:38:02] health club operators and boutique fitness operators if you have a laundry that service that
[00:38:07] you're doing inside of your studio like an industrial laundry service do you have a method
[00:38:12] figure out if that's really a good use of like 600 square feet because you can you can rent
[00:38:17] towels and get those delivered on a distribution system and you could actually turn that into a
[00:38:22] revenue generating 600 square feet you know if you're a cycling studio there's no reason why you
[00:38:27] don't have norm attack compression boots right because people that do cycling avidly like they
[00:38:33] need lymphatic drainage and once you do that have you done that before no rheumatoids yeah you feel
[00:38:39] like you're floating you know after so think about somebody working out at a soul cycle as an example
[00:38:45] then for another 20 bucks I get to do norm attack for 20 minutes after class or 15 minutes
[00:38:50] and I leave there I feel awesome a salt room is a great use of you know small square footage where
[00:38:56] somebody can go in there you know for 15 minutes you can go and and breathe in him a lane salt
[00:39:01] and you'll come out you'll feel like you know your lungs are like at 200 percent you can do that
[00:39:06] before and after a workout and what you're seeing right now in the market is that they're all these
[00:39:11] new franchise or concepts I don't think anybody's nailed it yet but you see restore wellness
[00:39:17] you see the covering you see pause you know some of those groups I think are in great locations
[00:39:23] and they'll do well but if you're if you claim to be an authority on workouts you have to be an
[00:39:29] authority on workout recovery it's there's really no way to let to like see that space to someone
[00:39:36] else like if I'm a workout recovery entity and I have no relationships and I'm like a new franchise
[00:39:43] I want to find a location in a strip center that has a health club because I know the day of five
[00:39:48] to nine thousand members and I know that they don't think about workout recovery the way I'm thinking
[00:39:53] about it and they charge 29 or 39 bucks a month for the member I'm going to charge 150 or 200
[00:40:00] to that same member to give them a lot less square footage and I'm going to take the revenue
[00:40:06] from them because they're not doing it inside of their 25,000 square feet so I'm going to get a
[00:40:11] 3,000 square foot studio and I'm going to make five times the amount of what you pay your member
[00:40:15] for their primary workout and I'm just going to be here for the recovery there's no reason
[00:40:19] and I've been preaching this for years where health club operators don't say that's mine right
[00:40:25] that's not yours like I'm that's my member and these are my modalities and I'm not allowing you
[00:40:32] to come into my strip center and take up 200 of my members and get 60 grand of multi-adavil
[00:40:38] those are my 60 you know that brings up an interesting point it sounds like I can hear
[00:40:42] your opinion on this because you know we talk about these wellness concepts you know like pause
[00:40:47] restore serotonin centers you name it and now there's kind of like this bathhouse trend right which
[00:40:54] I call them a bathhouse but they're rebranding them things like other ship and remedy place like
[00:40:59] you know just really interesting cool cool concepts but how likely like what percentage of
[00:41:04] customers are willing to pay for both I'm willing to pay for fitness right and willing to pay
[00:41:09] for wellness well you know I think the HSA have to say might might expand the market but yeah it's
[00:41:15] probably 20% of the people that are that are inside your club that that have the disposable income
[00:41:20] that are curious and know that that's important but look 20 20% a big number when you think about
[00:41:27] you know multiply by the revenue that is you know the perceived amount that someone is willing to
[00:41:34] pay right now for these services so if you go to any of the groups that you listed there you
[00:41:39] know monthly memberships anywhere between you know one nine you know probably on the low end 99
[00:41:43] right and on the high end you know it could be a thousand a month or something for when like
[00:41:47] a remedy place or something for unlimited right so if you took 20% of your health club members
[00:41:54] so let's just say let's say I got six thousand members and I've got 20% that's 1200 people
[00:42:01] right so 1200 people times 199 times 12 you're talking about $2.8 million so potential workout
[00:42:09] recovery right so yeah that's it that if that workout recovery unit in your strip center did
[00:42:16] 2.8 million and had a rent of probably 10 grand a month you know they're probably making over a million
[00:42:23] to a million and a half of cash flow that's basically your money so that's the magnitude of it
[00:42:28] yeah yeah that's that's a well thought out answer I usually ship from the ship from the hip
[00:42:34] okay maybe that but it's really good is there any other as we kind of wrap this up because I know you
[00:42:40] get a million things to do today but any other major trends in halo that you're kind of keeping
[00:42:46] your eye on for 2024 yeah I think what we cover are probably the main ones I think you know
[00:42:51] do you only other thing that I see is is pickleball it is probably the one you know probably the
[00:42:59] the most word most used word from my 2023 you know podcast and seminars and you know thinking
[00:43:07] about repurposing space thinking about the community component to what somebody's pickleball
[00:43:13] you know court growth is causing and I think what a lot of health club operators and fitness
[00:43:19] studios should do and this will be part of my like top five as we kind of go through what we
[00:43:24] just talked about is figure out a way to put a pickleball strength and conditioning workout
[00:43:30] or stretching on your calendar because if you don't have the space to actually put in a pickleball
[00:43:35] court which you can put in everything at least you could say that we have a pickleball
[00:43:41] workout or we have a pickleball strength and conditioning class that'll make you better
[00:43:45] at that so if there are certain things that you can't do you know think about ways that you could
[00:43:50] participate in it and then what you could do the last part of what I'll say is that as we were
[00:43:55] looking at all the different activities that go inside and outside the club an analogy that people
[00:44:00] should think about is what what university did you go to Boston College Boston College okay so I was
[00:44:06] looking I was doing a seminar down in Texas and there's 712 student-run groups that are on campus
[00:44:15] so is there any reason why a health club doesn't have like a pickleball group and say hey we don't
[00:44:19] have pickleball courts here but we got a we got a member that's ahead of our Gold Gym pickleball
[00:44:25] team and you know if you're interested in pickleball they coordinate everything and they'll do
[00:44:30] that just like they do in all these like senior communities around the country you know they
[00:44:35] have team leaders it doesn't have to be an employee but find out who your most avid pickleball
[00:44:40] players are and basically give them t-shirts that have a gold ship logo on it just to use Gold
[00:44:46] Gym as an example and say hey man like we were on the pickleball team here right is there any reason
[00:44:51] why somebody who's not a member of a health club should have to look anywhere outside the health
[00:44:55] club to do outdoor activities there's probably a cycling team within there there's probably
[00:45:00] you know a walking group there's a running group like create your own groups inside of your inside
[00:45:05] your membership population and then you'll keep them low as well so that's the other thing I would
[00:45:11] say so pickleball is going to be a big deal but I don't think you necessarily need to get into the
[00:45:15] physical pickleball industry to benefit from make people better very smart all right Pete last
[00:45:20] question man as an industry you know people are listening how can we help you with what you're doing
[00:45:24] what would you like to hear from people about and how do you want me to hold you yeah we'd say
[00:45:30] that we're hiring people into the industry we're not educated them enough on the history of the
[00:45:34] industry we're not educated on things that we just talked about here so we set up some called
[00:45:39] Halo Academy which we run which I was assuming you know 80 to 100 people would show up in each one
[00:45:46] of these classes given that we've done it for several years and there's not as much of a focus
[00:45:53] on executives in training their teams as it should be and I think a lot of other industries have
[00:45:58] figured that out a long time ago because I go into hotels and I see training sessions going on all
[00:46:03] the time so I really think that if you want to keep your employees and you want to make them better
[00:46:08] then you got to put them through some kind of online education you got to put them through seminars
[00:46:12] you got to invite people like us to show up or to get on a zoom it just just let some people
[00:46:18] like understand hey here's what's going on at my club you know at the ground level but here's
[00:46:22] what's going on in the industry and then let those people think about ideas somebody listens
[00:46:27] to just this podcast maybe that's maybe that would be the best first step have a lunch meeting
[00:46:32] play this podcast to all your employees over like you know Jersey mites you know Danny DeVito
[00:46:39] you know lunch it and see what happens ask people you know what they think and how we can take
[00:46:44] these five or seven things that we talked about in turn of interaction items and include everyone
[00:46:50] because you know this caters to all different age groups and then all different people
[00:46:54] in your club and I feel like that that's missing right now where we're not educating our teams
[00:46:59] better uh what they need to know and you know the only way you can block and tackle and you know
[00:47:05] is to watch other people block and tackle where to find out you know who's that who's got a better
[00:47:09] playbook and the last thing is we've got the book time to win again which basically turns your
[00:47:14] whole company into like a sports analogy which I think is uh is the way to think about your team
[00:47:18] so I'm bullish on the industry but I will tell you that you know 12 months from now if we're talking
[00:47:24] about the same things and they haven't been executed on at the ground level it's missed opportunity
[00:47:30] to launch revenue and that is going to affect the deal business because I can't sell a company
[00:47:37] that isn't executing on growth opportunities and increasing the revenue and profitability of
[00:47:42] their four walls unit economics so the reason why besides I want this world to be healthier and
[00:47:49] I want to have a part in doing that and convincing people to do it is I want to see awesome results
[00:47:55] and I want private equity firms and growth equity firms to come to us and say hey what do you got
[00:48:00] and I can say well I have this health club operator that was doing 500,000 of club level EBITDA
[00:48:05] now they're doing 850 and they're going to say what they do and I'm going to say they just follow
[00:48:09] the playbook of what's going on in the world and they execute it on that's the well done
[00:48:14] well other than LinkedIn which I encourage people to find you there website is integrity sq.com
[00:48:20] is there any other places online p it's going to halo talks dot com for the for the podcast or
[00:48:25] anywhere you listen to your podcast and appreciate what you're doing thanks for getting me back on
[00:48:30] and look forward to seeing your person this big opportunity here but you know uh
[00:48:34] that pressures of privilege is what people should realize so doing all that we're talking about
[00:48:38] is adding to your plate a lot more work but the results are evident and they're going to be there
[00:48:44] so you know follow the old brick road right on right on please don't see it people are awesome you too
[00:48:50] take care buddy hey wait don't leave yet this was your host Eric Malzone and I hope you enjoyed
[00:48:57] this episode of future of minutes if you did I'm gonna ask you to do three simple things it takes
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[00:49:41] from our listeners so thank you so much this is Eric Malzone and this is the future of fitness have a great day