Power Moves: Tim Green - TeamUp's Custom Branded Apps and AI-Powered Lead Management

This is Eric Malzone and welcome to this special Power Moves edition of the Future of Fitness. In these brief segments, we spotlight breaking news and advancements across the industries of fitness, health, and wellness. From partnerships and acquisitions to product launches and investment rounds, we bring you exclusive direct insights from top industry voices. Power Moves are brought to you by the Podcast Collective. Learn more at podcastcollective.io. Are we live? Tim Green, welcome to this very special Power Moves episode of the Future of Fitness, man. It's always great to see you. How are you doing?

Yeah, doing great.

It's always always good to come and join you here, Eric. Yeah. Yeah, it's always a pleasure, man. I enjoy our conversations thoroughly. And so for people who are unfamiliar with these short segments, we we we announce major partnerships, product announcements, fundraising announcements, things like that. They're short to the point, but something, you know, it's a power move, man. That's why it's called that. So team up so far this year, man. Everyone's talking about you. You guys are having a stellar year. Um it's very impressive. I mean, I know you've been doing this for a long time, but it seems like everything's really converging for you guys, and and you've become a very popular joyce for gym owners across the globe. So congratulations on that. And you have two new uh products and pieces of technology that that we're gonna dive into here. One is the custom branded app that seems to be a big fan favorite so far, and also lead management tools uh on the software. So let's start with a custom branded app, Tim. Like maybe give us uh an idea of like why did you guys decide to do this? I mean, a product roadmap is a very difficult thing to manage and you have to prioritize. So, what what made you guys uh focus on this?

Well, first of all, I just want to say overnight success, 13 years in the making. Yeah, it's the wrapster riches story, isn't it, that we all love.

Yeah.

A lot a lot of paddling underwater. You know, like our thing is always um serve our customers in the best way we can. Increasingly, people want to present a fully customized, branded front for these amazing businesses that they've invested their heart and soul into. And the custom branded app is all about making that come true. So we have a service where we listen to your branding and we can then customize an app and it goes out fully on the app store in your brands. People just love it, they absolutely love it and they love the experience. Customers love being able to message you two-way messaging, and um, you know, really is getting ready for reviews. And you know, I think it's taking some time to get the experience right, and it's not something we wanted to jump into until we were ready. But you know, we've got the infrastructure and the technology. So really excited to see the experiences that the businesses all over the world uh you know created with it.

Yeah, so just so it's it's clear. So if I have Eric's gym here in Whitefish, Montana, right, and I'm using TeamUp as my my gym management software, I can now just go through your portal, create my own application, my own app with my branding, my coloring, and then the features within it. Like how does that work exactly?

Well, it's well really as simple as that. And the complexity comes to publishing unique apps on the app stores because they don't want cloned or just kind of white-labeled apps. So it is a fully customized experience where you get to choose the features, you calibrate them. But it's a really I mean it sounds complicated, it's a really simple process. You kind of walk through one of our onboarding team and they they help you select the options that that fit your business the best. And then apply branding and make sure we pick unique names for the app stores and then we get it all published for you. It usually usually takes usually up and running within about a week. So really as simple as that. Welcome to the new world.

Wow. Yeah, it's uh I remember how much it I'm gonna date myself, but like I remember looking at one like six or seven years ago, like a custom app, and it was very, very expensive. And I mean, to make you to make things simple for the user, it's actually quite complicated for the company. So imagine this is taking a little bit of time for you guys to build, right?

Yeah, it's a it's there's a lot of nuance in it. And um, it's uh, you know, we've been testing out over the last year, you know, just with with a few customers, a few early adopters, and we're really, really confident now it's ready for the prime time. So uh we're really hitting the uh the trig running now.

Yeah. And remind us too, Tim, like who tends to be uh the biggest users of of team up technologies? Is it boutiques, chains, health clubs, all the above?

With you know, our routes are, as you know, firmly entrenched in single location, boutique gyms, you know, from CrossFit upwards and and around. And so that's still the majority of our customers, and that's who we we really serve well. Where we work with chains, we tend to work with chains who are a collection of those businesses. So they're linked together and we've got tools to help them manage the whole of their complex operation. But but at our heart, you know, we're still working once one with the with the gym owner or the franchisee or you know, whoever pulling the late nights to make that thing really, really sick.

Yeah. And and you and I were talking, this is kind of an interesting conversation, and it echoes a lot of the things that I've heard this year at events or you know, recording podcasts. Is that our our category is very resilient. Like the gyms seem to be doing well. I mean, you guys are showing I'm curious where you guys are seeing the most growth, like what categories, what countries. But yeah, give us some insights. Like how we're doing as an industry. You you get very uh unique insights into how gyms are doing.

It's a really it's a really good question. I mean, it it seems to be on all fronts. Group fitness as a whole is thriving. You know, there seems to have just been a consistent, I would say over the last 12 to 18 months, people are back in the facilities, they want to try new things, and you know, these businesses are doing really well and and we're really kind of really clicking at the moment. So overall, yeah, doesn't seem to have been any impact from other headwinds that maybe other industries are facing. And I think it comes down to affordable luxury. It's an easy mobile phone level type payment, sorry, cell phone. Uh I'll translate for our friends over the Atlantic, and it's it's it just become an essential part of people's lives. It's linked to their happiness, their health, and it's just an easy, an easy win. So it's it's it's a fantastic moment for the industry, I think.

Yeah. Affordable luxury. I like that.

Affordable luxury.

Yeah, yeah, that's really good. That's really good.

Yeah, people usually need Rolex, but yeah, we're gonna keep our Jib membership.

Yeah, it's great. I love it. So the other thing you have going now is you have the lead management tools and have gotten a big upgrade on teamups. Maybe talk about that. I presume there's some AI involved in that, probably a little sprinkled in, right?

Are we even real at this point? You know? I'm not sure. You know, we'll have to we'll we'll find out. But it's a it's a fun, you know, this has been in the works a long time, and we're really committed to helping businesses manage their operations end to end. And our pre, you know, we this is a huge upgrade to our lead management, lead management tools, but it's actually just step one out of an infinite number of steps to come. And we've got exciting updates in this area planned, weekly, monthly, it's it's just going to keep rolling out. And the lead management overall just it takes anybody who acquires from you around your business, whether they're coming from a marketing campaign, they're visiting your website, or you know, they they're just calling in face to face and ensures that they get the personal attention and help that they need through their journey with with your business. So whether that's going on to a trial membership and you know, testing out services, whether it's going through and becoming a member and then managing them through their life cycle. You know, we've really that that personal relationship is just at the heart of what Team Up does and what the best businesses really place at the top of their priority list.

Yeah. And there's uh I mean there's a lot of external services like third party that do this type of work, but it's smart that you guys are bringing it in. I mean, it seems it makes a ton of sense because that the conversations I've had, Tim, with with people or GMs and health clubs that are looking to integrate AI, they're all kind of confused of where to start. Right? Like there's so much, they feel a lot of pressure to do something, but they just don't know where to go. And it seems like the lead management and sales automations are probably the most logical place to start as well as retention. And so that you guys are bringing that in under your umbrella as a part of your core offering. I think that's really smart.

Yeah, and so so much to go. And if I if I had any recommendations for people struggling with this right now, just being overwhelmed by the sheer number of new tools and you know other options available now, is that overview AI as a helpful assistant and first look at ways that you can make yourself more efficient or your existing processes more efficient. So if you can delegate something to a person, you can probably delegate it to AI. But if you can't delegate it to a person, like you can't describe the task that you need them to do, then you're not gonna be able to use AI for it. It's not a magic pill, but it it's it's obviously if it can make you 50% more efficient, that will free up time for you to be able to continue working on your business and improving. And I really do think it's gonna be revolutionary for small business owners because it completely levels the playing field. You don't need to be limited by cash flow in terms of hiring new staff. You can push yourself forward and get over the line and then build your business without without facing kind of these barriers. So it's a very exciting time. And maybe the industry is also benefiting from that efficiency boost. And the the boom we're seeing is is partly due to that.

Yeah, it is uh it is interesting. I I keep asking my AIs how it can make money for me while I sleep, and it hasn't come up with a good answer yet. But uh, I'm just gonna keep asking and maybe it'll figure it out pretty soon. What else you got? What are some of the other big stuff that you guys have going on? I know those are the two big ones that we had focused on for this conversation, but I know you guys are keep keep continuing to push out more features and more products under the team up banner.

Yeah, we've we've got some really, really great stuff coming up. I mean, something that's going into the Tibeta at the moment, like an early preview, is we're gonna be doing a lot more around resource management and helping people to maximize the yield from their you know from their fixed costs. So spare rooms, external rented, rented areas, you know, and that type of area. And I I think that's gonna be a really exciting it really we've got this amazing feature coming through which enables you to automate maximizing that yield from from everything you do, just to keep throwing in the you know business school uh terminology.

Yeah. Can you maybe uh can you give us a high-level example of what that would look like for a gym?

Yeah, I mean it's there's there's several different ways. So one is there's there's a big trend in people needing places to film or to run events, and you know, previously the process for that would be very static and very you know, very cumbersome. Like someone reaches out via email, you have to spend ages kind of negotiating when it might work, when it might work. And what our new feature is going to be able to do is enable you to list those resources available as available and allow people to go through and and and to book them and to uh you know to to make the most of those the dead zones in your gym schedule.

Smart. So stuff like birthday parties, corporate events, absolutely, special team training, Hollywood filming if you've got a great location. Yeah. Yeah, there's there's a lot of demands. Yeah, yeah. It's really cool to see that you know, when I back in the day when I was a gym operator, a software like team up was just something that you needed, and it was kind of a cost. You just needed to bill your clients, right? And manage your your membership. Now it's like legitimate money-making tool for gym owners. Like you can really like you know, speed delete on sales, like getting to those leads management quickly and nurturing them. You know, the custom branded app brings brings a whole new feature that brings a lot of, I'm sure, retention and connectivity to the to the membership. And what you're talking about here is like maximizing the space for profit. Like that's incredible tools that uh I didn't see coming down the pipe. So well done.

Yeah, but it's it's uh you know, thank you to our customers who continue to drive us forward with their great ideas and things they need. I I I think it's uh you you know, just with reference to the AI conversation, it's it's a moment where business a small business can be run like a large business, and those limiters which previously existed, you know, whether it's like reporting on your space use, you know, things that we we previously agonized over, you know, are now now becoming a level playing field. So yeah, I think it will just continue to push in that direction.

Yeah, awesome. Well, Tim, thank you for for joining me and uh letting us know about all the cool stuff you got going on here. And people can go to, of course, go teamup.com if they want to connect with you personally. Is there a specific place you'd like them to go?

Always come say hi on LinkedIn. You know, I check it at least once a week. It's pretty good. So but uh no, definitely definitely reach out. And um, if you're if you're interested in the software, yeah, come and check out the website. But you can always reach out to our team and walk through your specific business use case and they'd be uh very happy to help. So yeah, thanks very much for uh for having me.

Always a pleasure. Always a pleasure. Ladies and gentlemen, Tim Green.