Rick Mayo - Alloy Personal Training & A Simple Brand Promise

Hey everyone, welcome to the Future of Fitness, a top-rated fitness industry podcast for over four years and running. I'm your host, Eric Balzone, and I have the absolute pleasure of talking to entrepreneurs, executives, thought leaders, and cutting-edge technology experts within the extremely fast-paced industries of fitness, wellness, and health sciences. Please stop by futurefitness.co to subscribe and get our interviews with summaries delivered straight to your inbox. Thanks for listening and on to the show. Come learn how legendary players and innovative brands are implementing preventative health and longevity-focused initiatives into the businesses. Discover how to successfully tap it into consumers. Stay one step ahead of your competitors. Learn how to take your brand to the next level by leveraging artificial intelligence into your framework. Secure next investment by keeping up to date on web factors of prioritizing their spending and realizing white-based opportunities. Build relationships and share ideas at the women in Connected Fitness and CEO Founders Forward. The Connected Health and Fitness Summit is bringing together the strongest brand in Fitness and beyond for two days of quality networking and curating content to get you ahead of the game. Go to Connected Health and Fitness.com to download the agenda and find out more. Use code FOF10 for an exclusive 10% discount on your event ticket. That's connected health and fitness.com, code FOF10, and do not wait. Seats are very limited. All right, we are live. Rick Mayo, welcome back to the future of fitness, my friend.

Eric, I'm so excited to be back. I can't believe it's been two years. I thought it was just yesterday. And you were like, yeah, last time you were on was uh May of 2021. I'm like, okay, we have a lot to talk about. So we do. Thank you for having me back. First of all, that's always a good sign. And uh yeah, man, love your podcast. I love what you're putting out there. Great value, and I'm honored to be here for real.

I appreciate that. I appreciate all that. And thank you for making the time today. I know you got a ton going on, and it has been a while. I was looking, I think the release date of our last episode was uh May 24th of 2021, in case people want to go back and check it out. And um, we had talked about the how fitness is kind of working its way into the new wellness ecosystem, right? That was the focus of the conversation. And now, you know, so much is is taking place, um pandemic, out of the pandemic, financial situations, investors slowing their their grind, all kinds of stuff has changed over the last two years. So um let's keep it specifically to your world, Rick. Like what has changed over the last two years and two months?

Uh mostly for us, and this is a blessing, of course, is just a lot of growth. So we you know, I think in franchising, there, you know, like we would be considered an emerging franchise, at least we were. Certainly the last time that you and I talked two years ago, which is funny to me because we've been in business at that point for 30 years, so it's like an emerging franchise. But I understand through the lens of a potential franchise investor or partner of ours, we're a new franchise, right? And so the the uh the tipping point for folks wanting to get on board seems to be around 20 open. And so we're at 26 open now. Um, but sales have been very brisk lately. Like we awarded 20 licenses last month, so that's 20 different locations, um, is what that term means. And we're on pace to do something similar this month. So if you extrapolate that over 12 months, it's like 240 licenses sold in a year is obscene, right? That's really fast. So, what we've been busy doing is sales are brisk. So it's our objective to get clubs open in a timely manner, right? From the signing to opening, and that includes a pre-sale and all the construction and real estate and everything, and then make sure that they're operationally efficient so that they can get good return on investment and help more people. So that's really what we've been busy doing. Sales have been brisk. So we're scaling our team and putting infrastructure in place. And we have this framework, Eric, already set. Um, and that's always a concern for a fast-growing franchise. Can you support us, right? And it's like, well, yes, we have a framework and we have triggers and tripwires of when we hire and fill in these positions. And we've just been following the play. And so far it's been well received and uh it's just getting better. Our processes are getting tweaked a little bit as we learn, and uh franchisees are are happy, and yeah, all's great right now. We're certainly capable of screwing it up, but at least thus far, things are going really well. So it's been it's been great. I mean, for Marlins, honestly, like it's been amazing. The last two years have just been a blur of amazing activity, learning opportunities and scaling and giving opportunities to investors and hiring people on our team. It's just been awesome, dude. I'm loving it. It's really hard and I love it for that reason.

Yeah, yeah, that's funny. It's uh don't worry, Rick. There's plenty of time to screw this up.

Like you can I if anybody that knows me, I'm sure they understand I'm fully capable of doing that. So like it's early innings, right? Everything looks great. Brace yourselves, right? I'm teasing though. We we're we're gonna we're gonna keep the this thing on the rails for sure.

Good, good, yeah. And it's um as we were discussing right before recording, the the people that you have coming in. I mean, you got people like Mark Fisher, you got people like Mike Gorsey, right? And we we've talked about this. I've had Mike and Mark on the podcast recently. And um, you know, to get people who really, really know the industry, these aren't just people who have been operators for a little while, like these are people who are considered thought leaders, um, and they they know the numbers, they know the math, they know the opportunities, and they're getting on board with your franchise. I mean, speak to that. Like, what does that a mean to you personally as far as the confidence for the brand? And why do you um attribute their their belief in what you guys are doing at Alway?

Yeah, I mean, look, the the word that comes to mind immediately is I'm just honored. Like, I I really respect those guys and what they've built, and I know that I've learned from them personally. And you know, they like Mark has a coaching group, you know, Mike has a big coaching group. Mike, as an example, works with I think over 65 different franchises. So the fact that he would invest his personal um, you know, funds and invest personally in alloy when he has access to all of those other franchises is, I mean, it's a real honor. And I mean, it's it's a responsibility as well. So I don't take that lightly. Same thing with Mark. I mean, he's a very savvy guy. He's invested in a different types of vehicles, but to invest in the same vertical that he's in, which is fitness, and invest in an alloy, um, I don't know, man. There's probably not a better compliment that that I could have or an honor than that. So we're gonna bust our ass to make sure that we live up to that. But um, yeah, I mean, obviously, dude, that's like, I don't even know what to say. Um, it's a little, I was a little taken aback, but um, honored all the way around for high-level guys, so certainly thought leaders. If you had to ask why, which I think was in that question, I think it's just the simplicity of the model. Um, you know, they've said very complimentary things about us and trust and the fact that they know me. And like, I mean, this is one of those things where like I've been in business for 30 years, and it's probably a cautionary tale for anyone who like just don't burn bridges, like, do what you say and show up as that right person and have some integrity because you just never know where you're gonna be down the road. I didn't think when I met Mark and Mike 10, 12, 15 years ago we were licensing. I didn't think we would end up in a franchise vehicle at that time that wasn't really on the radar. And lo and behold, we have. And because of our relationships that we've held that time, we've got that inherent built-in trust, and you've got these high-level guys that are investing in in our franchise. So again, probably why is they know us and they understand the business model. It's simple. They see they're savvy, so they see the same gap in the market that we do, and there's an opportunity here, and they're jumping into that gap, which is awesome. Um, but yeah, I think just trust and and they like the the uh gap that we're servicing would be the reasons.

What uh what is that gap?

You know, I know it like every founder is like, oh, we're totally different, you know. And I mean, I always get this question like, what's your differentiator? And I'm always leery of being that founder that like just has these blinders on, like nobody does what we do, you know, we're it's all super dope. We do this, we do that. And you've heard those kind of things, and I'm always like, eh. But I will say that it's definitely a different model in the sense that you know there's class-based concepts, which is what most boutique fitness franchising certainly is in. And then there's some one-on-one training franchises, but those, you know, maybe not a scalable business model, a plethora of class-based that makes it hard to differentiate. We sit in this little sweet spot in the middle, you know, meaning we target the personal training avatar, we personal train people in this setting of up to six, which gives us some of the benefits also of the sociability and the thing and the stickiness of like a you know, a group. And our avatars, you know, people 45 to 65 that are a little dinged up. And that's not typically what you see in a class-based concept. It's typically around 30 years old, already fit, female leaning. Come try free class if you can survive it, join us, right? And where we're doing a full-on induction, and we talked about this on our last podcast. Like, we try to sit in that seat of like a healthy advisor, if you will, so we're not threatened by things like you know, a lot of our customers have health club memberships. I think across all of Alloy locations, it's like 80-something percent have a membership somewhere else, and we're totally fine with that. So we sit in the hub of that wheel, and that might be a spoke. Like maybe they want to do a rowing class or cycle every now and then. But what the seat that we're in is they'll come to us and ask, should I do this based on my goals and my health? And that's a defensible position to be in with that customer avatar, right?

Today I'm joined by Curtis Christofferson on my very first micro interview on the future of fitness. Kurt is the owner and founder of Workout and Innovative Fitness. He is a 20-year veteran in the wellness space, and he's got the success to prove it. He's also a long-term friend and colleague. Kurt just recently launched a newsletter called Healthy Ambitions to give back to the industry that's given him so much. His goal to help other entrepreneurs scale their wellness businesses just like he is. All right, Kurt, what is one actionable insight you can provide our listeners that has been incredibly valuable to you in your business career?

Wow, powerful question. And I could have so many answers to that one. But you know, I'd say that, you know, the biggest element of scaling your business is hiring the right people. And without the right people, you can't scale. And, you know, one of my token rules is hire people that you admire. Hire who you admire. When you do that, chances are the people that you admire have some level of experience, education, or impact that you might not be able to provide. And so when you hire people that you admire and the value that they bring to your organization, inevitably they're gonna help you scale your business, no matter how big or small it is. When you hire people that are unlike yourself, that contribute value that you can contribute, that you're winning. And so my biggest rule, hire who you admire, whether it's the things that you admire about them around their education, experience, impact, or even how they lead their personal life. I think when you surround yourself with great people, you're winning the day.

Oh, that's awesome. Kurt, thank you so much for that. And if you guys want to learn more, please check out the Healthy Ambitions newsletter. You can go to Curtis Christofferson.com to subscribe and learn more about it and all the great content he's putting out there. Thank you, Kurt. Awesome. Thanks.

So it's like again, it's trust, right? It's like we've got this trust. We sit in this advisor seat, whether it's supplements, sleep, recovery, all the spokes in that wheel that you can imagine that keep someone healthy, and there's a lot more of them now, mental health, all those things, right? We kind of sit in the middle of that as this sort of health advisor position. It's very defensible. So I think that avatar, especially being underserved, and they have unique needs. If you've 55 and you play college football and you've got a, you've had a knee replacement, you just can't go and run on a treadmill for 30 minutes. You can't. So where do you really go, right? Unless you're gonna do one-on-one training. And we tend to be the default for individuals like that. So it's so far, man, it's been great. It's been well received in all the markets. Um, gyms aren't having trouble getting customers and keeping them. So it's it's been good so far. So that's certainly a unique proposition. And then the low number, like we are healthy at 130, really good at 150 members. That's a relatively low number compared to like a group concept. Um, and as you can imagine, in that number, like you know everyone's name, you know their kids' names, and so it's a bit different. And that also makes it stickier because it's just more intimate, right? So, yeah, I mean, it's customer avatar, they pay a little more, 45 to 65 years old, they have more means, and that that lends itself well to personal training. We got the right machine built to fill that gap. And then because it's a low number and we have these intimate relationships and they're sort of underserved, there's not as many places for them to go and shop against us. Um, it just makes for a good retention model. So all those things put together, I think, is is really what, if we're honest, was what makes us different. Sometimes it's as simple as that. It's the business model, right? And sure, there's tech and slick stuff and all that that makes all this come to life, but at the end of the day, like what makes it irrelevant? It's like there's only 130 people in there and they're 45 to 65 years old and they have money. That's it.

Right.

I mean, all right, it's like, okay, it's like that simple. Somebody's like, well, why can't I knock that off? I'm like, well, easier said than done. Again, simple, not easy, but it's that simple. It really is.

Yeah, I mean, it's I I have as I put more years on this planet, my uh admiration for simple just keeps getting better and bigger.

It's our fifth core value, and it's so hard. It's so hard to keep things simple. It's so hard.

Yeah, and it's that dunbar number, right? I mean, I remember when I was operating um the uh, you know, a group model, it was like, okay, I was personally happiest and most fulfilled at like that 130 to 150 mark, but I wasn't as profitable as I wanted to be. So I always had a push to 200, 250, right? And then I was miserable. You you lose it.

Well, and I don't even know if you remember this, but when we first launched, we had two models. We had something called a stronger two, which and really like we have this, like it's a very systematic, as franchising should be. So it's like we have a racking system and it stores all the equipment that can one coach can stand in front of this rack system in that space and train six people very effectively. So stronger two would simply be there's two racks, right? So there's two coaches in the room at the same time. But as you can imagine, if if a if our model that we go with long term, which we have, is what we call stronger one, which is just one coach on the floor with six people in the building, if you double that, then instead of 130, now you're at 260 up to 300, maybe as a really good model, but you lose it. Like it's funny how, like, well, that's no big deal. You're just doubling your business, but you've seen it, you just spoke to it, your churn picks up. Um, you you you feel a little bit chaotic because you're not able to have those intimate relationships. And at a price point of like three, four, or five hundred bucks, people want that, right? And to your point, if people don't know what Dunbar's number is, it's based on Robin Dunbar, who's a scientist. I don't even know what his title is, it's a really odd title of what it studies, you know, what he studies, but essentially it's just ancient civilizations, and he was trying to answer the question how many people can you hold a cognitive relationship with outside of close friends and family. Turns out the number's 150, often referred to as Dunbar's number, or the rule of 150. And it's true. And even the company Gore-Tex, I think, is the example I can think of, they took it to heart even internally. So if they had a department that got larger than 150 people, they would split it because they knew if people working together, they didn't have to wear name tags, they didn't say, What's the guy in accounting? I mean, they knew them, they played softball with them on the weekends, whatever those things were. And that led to much greater productivity, productivity, even at the expense of splitting a department like that. So I don't know, interesting, but it's I'm glad that you've heard of it. We may have talked about it before, or something that you learned on your own. But it's uh it's a thing, again, like why does it work? It's 130 people. You know everyone's names, you know their kids' names, you know what they did this weekend, they know the same about you. Our director, as an example, Eric, that owned, that runs our corporate club, his wife is pregnant. So we had they had a like a baby shower for the gym. And I think every single member showed up there at some point throughout the day, right? I mean, just overwhelming support because they know him, they know what what like they know if he's having a boy or a girl, they know the name of the I mean, it's like that's the level of intimacy. And of course, as you can imagine, it's not hard to understand why that would drive greater retention, right? In a model like that. And it just feels good. Like even as you, as the owner or the director running that business, it's like, boy, that's my sweet spot. I can put my arms around this, right? Just north of that, it gets a little hairy, right? It gets a little weird.

Yeah, completely. It's it's so and it's it's so distinct right around that mark, too. It's like every time I push past, and you know, eventually I kind of swole up to 250 as far as members. I was miserable and I had to find ways to scale myself and systems. And then I'm like, you know what? I kind of came back down towards that number, focused on profitability, did more personal training, and things got better. I mean, everything got better. My employees, my clients, uh, the community, everything. It's it's really a magical number. And I learned it, I think, back around circa 2013. It was a big conversation point in CrossFit gyms because people were always shooting for the vanity numbers, right? Like, you know, how many members do you have? How big is your space? Um, all these things, but no one was really talking about profitability. We're like, well, hey, if we can just get to this, this something about this Dunbar number, if we can just get to that and then be highly profitable, right? Like profit, what a what a weird way to look at business, right? Um then uh mature we were as gym owners. Uh, you know, we we could really make it work. One of the things I want to dive into with you because I think it's so fascinating. And I I've you know had um I've seen some brands do it well, I've seen brands do it too early. I've seen some people still holding out as far as like when is franchising a good idea for a brand, right? I'm sure there's a lot of ways to take a look at it. I'm sure there's a lot depends on the model, um, you know, uh all kinds of things. But um, you know, I look at like uh, you know, Brandon and Kirk and Matabolic, they waited uh 10 years, right, to start franchising after a couple corporate owned, they needed the right partner, and um, they finally went for it and everything's going really well there. And obviously you took the leap, you know, just a few years ago from a um licensing model, which was really interesting and I'm sure quite profitable as well. Um, so you've and you've been doing this for a long time, right? You know, you waited a long time to do it. So um, yeah, I'm gonna stop stop rambling on this, but what insights do you have? If somebody's listening, they have a great concept, maybe it's you know, one or two gyms are are doing well. Um, what signs do you look at?

Yeah, I think um, you know, we had the distinct advantage of having licensed, and that put me on the board for some giant franchises. So I got, you know, an unfair advantage of taking a peek under the covers at how franchising works. So when we decided to move to franchising, um, it you know, again, the opportunity cost of moving away from a very profitable, great licensing business wasn't lost on me. So it was a big deal, right? It was like abandoning something that is doing seemingly really well and will continue to for the foreseeable future. So do we really want to leave that? And the answer was yes, but I think if you're thinking about franchising your concept, I would say do spend some time. I mean, it was 30 years-ish before we even thought about going to franchising. I'm not saying you have to wait that long, but I think if you have a solid concept, if you don't understand like which markets you work best in, if you don't have your customer avatar nailed completely, right? Because that'll affect real estate choices because it needs to be a target-rich environment for your avatar, right? If you don't do that hard work, like and you can't answer questions like do we work better in a city center or in the suburbs? It's like well, you you need to know those questions, right? And so, and then do you have all those processes put in place? And we had we had a lot of that in place already. And a lot of people ask why, and then all and then that's maybe the second part of that question is why don't you do corporate stores, right? Because our model, like AUV, is just a term for average unit value, which means how much a studio makes in a year gross revenue, right? So it's always like, what are your AUVs? And our AUVs are relatively low, top line, but it can be, and I have to say that because it's franchising, very profitable. So it kind of makes a better owner model because they're not too expensive to open. And if you do it right, it's it can have a very profit, you know, high profit percentage. So everyone's like, why don't you do corporate? It's like, well, I love entrepreneurship, I teach it at a local college, I love fitness and my life's work. So it's like, man, I could put these two vehicles together, and it's like I'm really passionate about taking this thing out as a package deal and giving investors the opportunity to either learn to become entrepreneurs or expand their entrepreneurial portfolio. And then we talked about earlier the trickle-down effect of like offering a vehicle for coaches and personal trainers to become, you know, to make a career, if you will, out of fitness. So when I think about that, okay, and that was part of my goal. So it's like, well, what do we put together? Well, we have like an overreaching benefits package. So when we go into these markets and our vendor, you know, goes in and starts looking for viable candidates, we're able to offer a great salary, some profit share if our partners choose to do that, full suite of benefits. I mean, it's a real career move. And so it again, it trickles down from me giving the opportunity to the investor, who gives the opportunity to the manager, and then it trickles down to even the coaches, right? But I will tell you this if you if you have a franchise, and that was a lot, but if you have a franchise and you're or a business that you're thinking about franchising, it's very expensive. And so this is the key. Where you'll run into trouble is if you're underfunded. So if you don't have Funding, and we're fortunate enough to have done well in the other parts of our business. So we don't have any VC money out of the gate or friends and family around or whatever, which is that's unique. I mean, typically you're starting out and you've got some funding partners, and then you're the operations person if you're the expert in the fitness space, right? And there's nothing wrong with that either. That will buy you speed, but you're gonna need money. I would say uh probably conservatively five million bucks before you're to spend through, before you're even gonna make any profit. And so there's a term that's called royalty sufficient, which means all of your expenses are covered not by the franchise fees, but by the royalties that you're collecting from your units, right? And it's it's that's a moving target depending on what your expense model looks like as you scale to support franchisees, what your AUVs are in each location. And you need to know what that number is because that ramp from zero to royalty sufficient is not just sales, it's getting them open, it's getting having a healthy pre-sale, getting them profitable. And so there's a lot that goes into it. And if you can't cover that gap, which is what happens at times, you just sort of run out of steam. And I've seen that, especially in the fitness space, right? Where you have a concept that's pretty cool. Maybe it's not that differentiated. You're like, well, I have a boot camp style, but we do it this way. And it's like, yeah, but the other one, you know, is is owned by an overreaching brand who can market like crazy. It looks similar through the lens of the consumer. You may think it's different, but I'm I'm a Joe Schmo. It's like 20 people getting sweaty. Check, right? Got my workout in today. So I think you need to be well differentiated, you need to understand your market really well, have everything put together, and then you need money. And, you know, like it's not always the best option for most people. Here's some stats, not to scare everyone off, but only 15% of any kind of franchise, food, fitness, roofing, you name it, only 15% ever get more than 50 units open. Only 2% ever get more than 100 units open. So if you weren't a brick and mortar, you would imagine like, okay, that would be like a territory for like a pest control or something. But that's all franchises. So you think, you know, all you hear is like, oh, these franchises have thousands of locations. They are in rare air at that point in time. It's very difficult to get them open, and most people fail in that tranche or that hockey stick. They hit that low curve and they just can't fund that growth to get royalty sufficient. So I I think I hope everybody gets into it. Like, I think the more good franchisees that are out there, the better it makes us look. But you you better have your market nailed. There better be a gap there, right? Where you can differentiate yourself. Think to the investor mainly like, does this speak to these folks? Do they see it and be like, that's different, right? That's what we have done, and it really does help. And then boy, you better have some money. And that's that's all I would say. Like, don't think you're gonna get into it, start making money right away because it's gonna take several years, and you're gonna be losing your ass until that point. So if you can withstand that and you think you can get into that 15 or 2%, go for it. But this 2% for a reason, right? It's a long shot to get there. So be realistic because you could get into it, sink lots of time and money into it, and not be you might be in the 98%. I think that's realistic to think that you could fall into the largest percentage of 98%. And if you do, can you mitigate that, right? Can you live with that? I know it sounds really negative, but that those are the facts.

Yeah, that's just that's just the hard truth. And I mean, you look at uh even just to be a successful single location small business, the numbers, you know, are are stacked against you, right? To make it five years, I can't remember, but you know, everyone's got a different statistic that they throw around with, you know, launching a small business to success. It's low. Um, and I think it's critical for people to understand, too, is like the difference between selling territories and licenses and actually opening successfully, right? There's there's I mean, there's so much that goes in between.

Like if we sell six licenses, there's probably a four-year development schedule for that, right?

Yeah, yeah, it's it's big. And um, there's a lot going on right now. And I want to get your take on the state of, and we're in just people know, we're in Q3 of 2023 as we record, but um heard a lot of numbers about health clubs doing great, right? Um, you know, the the kind of bigger chains and franchises. Uh, I haven't talked a lot about the health of boutique um specifically. So, and we've heard a lot of news this year, um, you know, especially the publicly held companies of you know, F-45 and Exponential Fitness, um, a lot of you know circulating news around those brands, um, some good, mostly not so great. Um, so when you look at overall, we can sort of kind of high-level um how is the state of boutique fitness in 2023 post-pandemic?

Yeah, I think when you look at most of the class-based concepts, they're still a little off, even the well-established ones. So if you look at Orange Theory, from what I understand, they're still about 20% off brandwide from where they were pre-COVID. So you could say, well, is that like a COVID thing? I don't think so. I think what COVID did is, as you you and I have talked about, just accelerated a lot of things, right? And so I think you look at maybe something that's class-based that's based on a modality or a piece of technology, and they just run their course. They just do, right? And so I think perhaps some of those class-based concepts, even in theory, have sort of run their course. And so we're starting to see that now come to fruition. Um, you know, the popular franchises now are more like, again, it's it's experiential and it's personal service, right? And that lends itself to like what we do. You see a lot of recovery franchises now, you know, based on you know, Cold Plunge and Sauna and those type of things are, you know, are becoming really popular as well. So I think the state of boutique fitness is still strong. I just think within boutique fitness at either ends of the spectrum, I think we're seeing some challenges for the brands that are based on single modalities and/or a piece of technology.

Well, why do you think that is? I mean, the the single modality, and maybe you could define that a little bit more in your interpretation of like what would you consider a single modality and why do you think that's challenging right now?

Like if you're a spinning concept and you just do cycling, right? I think, say we've been in business 30 years. I've seen spinning come and go in popularity probably four times, right? In that time period. Um, rowing, like you just rowing, right? And I think those things just have a lifespan. Like they're they're they're hot and popular when they come out, but eventually when they reach the certain maturation rate, it's like I think people have tried it. It's not something that you want to do forever. I don't know a lot of people that are going to row three days a week for three years, right? It's just something that you do for a minute. Um, again, and they're not able to sit in that seat of like that that hub that we talked about earlier, where like you're the health advisor and you can manage all these other spokes in this wheel. You're just one of the spokes, right? And and of you're probably one piece of one of the spokes because you're just the cardio workout, if you will, right? And there's a lot of other people that fit into that. So I think there's just a plethora of them in market. And I think when they go out of style, if you will, or they lose flavor for a minute, um, it puts a hurting on their brand. And so, you know, we often address that with our brand. It's like, well, is this a trend? I'm like, no, we've been doing this since 1992. Now, the way we service it and the technology behind it, and that will continue to evolve, but it's not at the expense of the brand promise, which is simply accountability and specificity. Brand promise isn't uh EMS technology or heart rate or things that can be disproven or fall out of favor, you know, or a piece of machinery that people just don't want to do forever. So you've got to be careful with those things. I think we're seeing a little bit of that just based on the plethora of those. And again, I'm speaking at this through the consumer's lens, they all look kind of the same, right? And you, to your point, you know, large health clubs, like a lot of what we did in licensing was build things for large health club brands inside of their four walls that would compete with those other things. Because if you're if your whole shtick is like we row, we run, and we do some lightweights as an example, it's like I can recreate that in a room in my giant health club. I can probably, I don't know if I can create the same experience as a studio, probably not, but I can charge a lot less, right? So I can create something similar. And if I'm in a $29 a month gym for $75 all in, I can probably offer this thing and have unlimited usage of these classes, right? And that keeps that three or four hundred people in their facility that would normally be leaving to go consume that at, say, an Orange Lee or something. And they're like, well, why would I do that when it's right in the same four walls of my gym? And so I think those guys have gotten more savvy at creating a customer experience, a business within a business, and that chips away at some of those class-based concepts as well. So that could be contributing. And to your point, like everybody that we know that's in the large club space is absolutely crushing, right? Whereas the sort of class-based fitness concepts coming out of COVID have not really picked up. Even in those larger areas, Eric, when I talk to the franchise or the licensee, sorry, that we have worked with in that big space, they'll say that their group training stuff is still not up to par, but their personal training is through the roof, right? So it's a good sign overall, trend wise, that right now, anyway, people are looking for experiential something and they'll pay for it, right? Um, and they want that specificity and accountability that they can't get in a group setting. So even in the health club realm, the group, you know, team training or boot camp stuff is not selling as well as personal training is. So it's just interesting. So that's what we're observing right now.

Rookie mistake, Eric. Yeah, the um that's all interesting. And one of the things I want to touch on and circle back on is that uh the the concept of brand promise. I saw something, uh piece of content, I think it was you and and Mike Garcy did it. Uh, and that's that's believe it or not, it's like the first time I've heard those two words put together in a you know, kind of a package, and then obviously very well thought out uh journey that you took to get to a brand promise. And maybe you can expand for us a little bit like what is a brand promise? What is the brand promise of Alloy? Um, and why is that so darn important?

Yeah, I think look, we left the name personal training in the title for a reason. And I there's not a lot of people, certainly, that you'll run into in the avatar and the areas that we're going into that haven't heard of a personal trainer or don't know what they do, right? It used to not be that way in '92. It's like, what is it? What do you even do? But now everyone's heard of what a personal trainer does, right? Well, with that though, comes anchors for both pricing, and that helps us because we're able to offer a good value there because we train people in a small group setting, andor service, right? So, like pricing and service anchors go with that. Well, just in the simplest form, alloy personal training. Okay, so what happens behind that brand? It better be personal training, right? It better be very specific to the individual. And believe me, the branding starts with the marketing that you put out and it ends four years later or three years is our average day of a customer, right? When they move or whatever that is, you have to meet that brand promise all the way through. So branding is this really comprehensive, sort of overreaching dome of things, if you will. And it starts with like, who are we speaking to? And real estate choice. Okay, what's our marketing look like? What's the experience of the customer getting through that marketing funnel to become a member? What does the induction look like? Is it come try free workout? Because that's maybe more class-based, or you do a real sit-down with someone and show them tools that look smart and scientific and specific to them, right? All of that. And then do you back it up? Like if you make these brand promises about what you're going to do and you've got personal training on the door, do you are you really personal training people? Or do people get homework for things to do on their own outside of the gym? Are they being held accountable to those things, right? Do you know their name? Do you know what to ask them from an accountability standpoint? You know, when they're coming in. Are you looking after them? If they don't show up, are you reaching out to them and saying, hey, where were you today? That may not be happening in the class-based concepts, right? So I think brand, you can explain it. You can be Starbucks and have a brand that means nothing about coffee until it does, right? Or you can put whatever you do right on the front door, and then you have to meet that brand promise. And we're just thankful that like personal training is very easy to understand. It's again the elevator pitch, Eric, what do you do? You know, well, I own a, you wouldn't say this, but like I own a studio concept. Oh, really? You mean like you know, Bill's boot camp? No, they do classes, we do personal training. And people go, oh, okay. Again, what comes with that though? Pricing and service anchors that they're going to have an expectation around. You better meet that expectation, right? So to me, branding is everything, but if you're going to go forth with a brand that promises something, you better think about it from the very first customer interaction until, again, our average days three years later.

So maybe I missed it in there, Rick, but specifically, like, what is the brand promise of Alloy Personal Training? Like, I'm gonna like how do you how do you present that?

Yeah, so again, it makes it easy because it says personal training and people have uh, again, pricing and service anchor that goes with that. But literally, like as it's written, our brand promise to our customer is looking good, which is a relative term. But I think most people at least have a secondary goal. When you peel the onion, you get down to more wise with people, and that's where you're really cooking with oil. But when it starts out, it's like, I need to lose weight. Okay, good. Like you want to look good. Like, who doesn't want to look good? Got it. But it's looking good on yeah, and it's like that's a that's on purpose, that's probably the least important thing. And I say that because like it becomes being fit is about so much more, right? So looking good, and if you're 300 pounds and you get down to 250, are you looking good? Yeah, you're looking good, right? You're not ready for a bikini contest, but who cares? It's in your mind, you look good. Check. Next one, feeling great, and great's important there. It's not looking great, but you could argue that if you feel good or you look good, then you feel great. But also like the way you move. Like when you're looking at an avatar of 45 to 65, these are people with means. They they feel like they're young at heart, they still want to get out and do the things that they enjoy, whether it's go to Scotland and engulf 36 holes with their buddies or back-to-back days hiking in the Alps with their family or whatever those things are, right? And they need to be able to do that somewhat pain-free and be able to do it. So it's like, okay, good. So feeling great. So we have like ways to measure how people move and tangibly over time, and and that's a big part of it because people come to us and we're not fixing pain, you know, we're not physical therapists, but we will be able to work around it and get you to a better place for sure, right? And then so looking good, feeling great, and lastly is living life to the fullest. And if you read any of our success stories, Eric, it starts out with like almost an afterthought, like, yeah, I lost 25 pounds, blah, blah, blah. But, and they just go on to write these long, you know, well-thought out descriptions of how their life is better. And it's that's the coolest thing to me, is like, what is the things we're doing in the gym? How does it cross over? And it could be as simple as like, I'm 70 years old, and my husband and I painted our deck this weekend and we weren't even tired or sore, or I got up off the floor by myself, which I've never been able to do. Or it could be on the younger, fitter end of that. Like, we have a guy who his son is like some really, you know, fit bow hunter, right? And he like goes to these backcountry and I've never bow hunted elk, but from what I understand, you're hiking 12, 15 miles in the backcountry. You know, it's really hard. And he'd never been able to do it. And he wanted to do these trips with his son, who's this is his passion, and he finally got in shape. So he's like, Yeah, I lost 40 pounds, but and then it just goes on about how he felt to be out there with his son, and he never could have done it before. And that's the living life to the fullest. How long can you continue to do the things that you're passionate about in your life that keep you active, right? So I think that's the brand promise. Like, I think everyone understands a personal trainer can help you lose weight. Check. Can they make you feel better? Yes. You know, you're gonna be able to move better. You can tie your shoes without grunting, maybe like all those things. Check. And then are you gonna be a better mom, spouse, father, child, whatever you are to the people in your life, boss, coworker, you know, whatever that is. You're gonna be a better version of that if fitness is part of your lifestyle, period. Your brain's gonna work better, your body's gonna work better, you're just a supercharging your entire system, right? So that's our brand promise at the end of the day. And I feel like, honestly, that personal training encompasses that. I think people would, if I explain that to them again, they'd be like, oh yeah, like I believe that you can do that for me, right? That's it. And you're just making happier, healthier people with better self-esteem, and they can just approach the world as a completely different individual, like a better version of themselves. That's it. That's all we're trying to do at the end of the day. And I think, I think personal training alone does that. I really do.

And you know, as someone who just recently uh entered your target demographic, like that speaks to me. Like it truly does. I'm like, yeah, I'm like that, that gets me motivated, inspired, right? Like, yeah, that's what I want. That's exactly what I want. And I could tell, you know, it's been probably 30 years for you to come down to that simple brand promise, but it speaks very directly to what I want is I do. I want to look good, man. I want to feel good. And I definitely want to live life to the fullest because I think you get to a certain point, um, you know, you're like, oh wow, like I'm over the halfway point statistically. Like I better get a move on and get all those things done that I want to do. And you finally have the means, right? That maybe you didn't have in your 20s. Um, and you get you got to get to it. So it's it's uh I could tell a lot of thought went into that, as simple as it may sound. You know, those, you know, simple is complicated at times.

Um I want to talk to you about the personal training industry. It's a it's a loaded, it's a loaded question. You could go any way, but I think again, to keep it simple, like that's it. It's that simple at the end of the day. And then everything you do has to back that brand promise up, if that makes sense.

Yeah. Um, personal training, obviously that's that's your uh that's the world you live in, right? And I'm gonna set a table for this because the conversations come up a couple of times, either personally or on this podcast about like, what is the state of the personal training industry? Is it slipping into the gig economy, right? Where it's like, you know, you have some people want to just, well, I just want to get my certification, do personal training this summer, or um, I'm also gonna do personal training at the teleclub, but then I want to have my Instagram following and I want to sell affiliates and I want to do some online, I want to do, you know, all these things. And um, you know, I was at Idea this summer, and the turnout was, you know, um not quite to expectations, put it that way. And I think there was, you know, some some chatter, like, well, what does that mean? Right? What does that mean for education? What does that mean for the career? So when you look at the personal training industry, like, is it a career path? Is it slipping into the gig economy? Is it evolving to something new? Like, what's your what's your take on that profession?

I think so. I think you know, the the few verticals that you just rattled off are all viable options, right? If you look amazing and you have a great knack for posting compelling and engaging social media, you could probably be a really good online coach, right? You can work in different health clubs, you know, you could bounce around, you could do both. I think I don't think it's changed in the sense that there's still opportunities for individuals, and there's different verticals now with obviously social media and all the technology that we have to be very successful. Um also, like if you have brands like ours, like again, the thing I'm one of the things I'm really proud of is giving a vehicle for individuals to make a career out of this, where you can make a six-figure income, you can get your arms around 130 people, right? Um, I'm talking about as like a manager, not even as an investor. Um, and and you get to do fitness, right? Like you're not just a uh typically the ascension for a personal trainer is you become a personal training manager, which Eric, you and I know that means you're just selling personal training, you're just sales all day, every day, right? So it's like, okay, no, you're like our churn is relatively low. So you get to just do fitness. So can you get your arms around 130 people and you know, benefits and all the great things that come with a career in fitness? And I think it's a little bit like um being a teacher or maybe a high school coach where yes, there is somewhat of a ceiling, right? But if you're really passionate about it and you think you could get to a six-figure income, you know, and not kill yourself getting there and you have balance in your life and you can tangibly put your hands on the lives of the people that you're touching, that's a pretty compelling offer. So I think there's still opportunities like that out there for coaches. Um, I would just caution you against maybe what things look like from the outside for maybe again influencers and you're pumping, you know, pimping protein powders and all that. I think all that's great. I'm not sure that that's as viable as a career as it looks. And if you attempt it and it's not, it's not an indictment on you, there's probably a little more smoke and mirrors around that than you think. So I would say a strong base of a brick and mortar concept to back you and then dabble in the other things is probably the way to go. But it's still there. There's still careers to be had. And if you love it, man, there's nothing better in the world that you can go home and put your pillow on the night at night and say, I'm changing lives and tangibly see it day over day. It's not hard to understand how that's working, right? And that's really powerful.

It's funny to me, and I I never fact check this and I can't remember the statistic, but basically to summarize it was like in 2022 when the fastest growing um job or career uh in people under the age of 30 was influencer. And I was like, what? Is that a job? WTF is going on. Like, what is that, what does that even mean?

Uh well, I think a lot of people want to do that, but is that like a real job? I mean, uh look, I'm saying real money, but I mean, if you're making a couple grand a month, right, uh, that's great as long as you're living with your parents. But I think if you want to like make a career out of this, you could do a little bit of both. You can do some brick and mortar work. And I think it brings you some legitimacy if you work with like real tangible people that are in front of you that you can touch and talk to. Um, And you know, people will train uh stars, famous people. That's a career path. I mean, I did that early on. You know, went on tour with Madonna, trained Usher. It's like, sure, you could do that. Um, if if you're into it and you like the, you know, the persona of that, you could train. There's a lot of older people with money. You could go work at a country club and train there and train golfers. I mean, there's so many cool career paths that you could take and still be a coach. You just have to understand that at some point, if you say, I want to make a million dollars a year, you're not gonna be able to do that, trading your time for money, right? And that's absolutely okay. You know, not everyone's built to be entrepreneurs and take all this risk and you know, certainly financial risk. And if you're not, great. If you love coaching, own it, right? And go find the best environment for you to change lives, that you get what you deserve and pay and that you can actually make a living doing it. And there are opportunities out there. So I think in these disruptions like COVID, you know, coming out of COVID, I know that I'm I speak on the Perform Better Circuit as well, and they were off a little bit this year as well, but I think it's just it just disrupt everything, you know. So some people like left that career. You may see more of an influx coming in in the next few years, but I think it's a natural disruption. I don't know that it's I think it's a bit too early to look at like the first live summit for idea as an example being a little bit off. It's like, well, of course, there's just been massive disruption. People left, maybe not enough people have come on board on board. So I I think we'll we're still gonna see that as a viable career choice in the future.

Yeah, yeah, interesting. Um, I know we're butting up on time here, but one of the things I want to talk about, because you mentioned tech, you had mentioned innovation, but where do you see um innovation currently taking place within the personal training space?

Yeah, I think you mentioned it earlier. Like a lot of the online engagement is getting much more compelling. You know, you've got a little bit of AI baked in there, but like there's there's a real viable option for training people remotely. It's just whether or not the people you're training want that, right? I think it's just a subset of the population. Most people want to be held accountable, they want to show up, put their keys down, and there's a warm body, there's Eric's waiting for me, and he's like, hey man, how was your weekend? That feels more visceral. And and I think the technology that we're seeing for personal training, the ones that are doing it well, it's enhancing the human-to-human experience, not replacing it. I still think we're there yet, right? I think people still crave people-to-people contact. And we talked about like fitness being experiential and that be where the trends are going, but that means human experiential, right? And so any kind of AI or tech, just try to look at it through the lens of like, is this increasing our connectivity to other people? Because that's what people crave, or is it again, is it replacing it? Because we're just not there yet. And I mean, maybe AI gets that good. I'm sure that it will at some point, but at least for the foreseeable future, the all the tech that I see, it's really good. And most of the better tech pieces are they're bringing down friction to get to the thing, whatever it is, easier, right? Simpler, um, again, simple. And then it's also enhancing that human-to-human contact by any means necessary, whatever that is.

We're uh I think we're gonna look back on this five years from now in this specific time that we're in, Rick, and be like, wow, like everything is happening so fast right now. The rate of innovation and all spaces is just crazy fast, and it's only gonna get faster. And I think our lives are gonna be completely different in five years. I have no idea whether that's good or bad. I tend to be optimistic. Um, but uh sometimes you you have to concern yourself a little bit. Can we handle all this change? You know?

Um, I think we're gonna crave a like, you know, you're craving a pullback to that human-to-human experience, right? I don't think we're ready for full AI and like uh we still have these lizard bunky brains. It's like we're you know, it's like and we're scared of all this tech. It's like, well, you get the horse is out of the bar now, we're not gonna get it back. But I think the the plasticity of the way that we think, um, you know, it's different. Like it's not like, oh, this AI piece can replace these coaches, and this is the business model. And I talked to a good friend of mine, Brian O'Rourke, who was on my podcast last week, and he's like, that's the framework we use coming out of World War II, right? And we still got those people around. It's like you do this, you go with efficiency, you should, you know, it's like, and that like that's not the same linear approach that you're gonna need moving forward. You're gonna need to think a little bit differently than that, right? And if you think experiential, and what is how does tech, how does it fit into that paradigm? It's completely different than like tech replaces truck drivers, which you know saves us money and shaves 4% off of like, okay, but we're not gonna, that's not gonna do it. That type of thinking is not gonna work in this environment. I think right now we're in this weird stage where you've got that type of thinking, but you've got this new technology that's gonna take a completely different mindset and brain power to really understand how to use it right in a relevant way. And to your point, I think like right now we're just sort of in this like, oh, you know, we're freaking out and then we're also excited. It's like, I don't know where it's headed, but I don't think we're to the point yet where it can replace everything. And the fatalistic approach of like, you know, again, Terminator, right, where machines become sentient and shut us down and kill us, maybe, but I don't think so, man. I think I still have full faith in human beings and mankind, and I think that we will build technology in a way that will just enhance the human human experience. That's what I'm that's what I'm hoping for anyway.

Yeah, well, I like that. I'll I'll jump on that bandwagon. Um Rick, last question for you. And I uh, you know, always uh always like to finish up with this one, but uh, how can we help you as a community, as an industry? What do you need help with right now? Um what uh what should people reach out to you for?

Thanks. I mean, yeah, just support. Like I'm all in on franchising. I'm singularly focused right now. It's very powerful to do so. Having all we talked pre-podcasts, haven't always done that. So it's really nice to just have all my eggs and one and energy in one basket. So look, if you need any help with anything, um just allowayfranchise.com, reach out, even if you just want to kick around ideas. I love the industry overall. And while I don't do consulting or things like that any longer, I'm still happy to answer questions and help any way that I can. But just uh yeah, just support us. If you like what we're doing, follow our stuff, give us a like, give us a shout out. If you know somebody who's interested in fitness franchising, send them our way and we'll take care of them. Other than that, man, just just keep doing what you do, Eric. We appreciate you, man.

Yeah, likewise, Rick. I've uh I've always admired the the work and the content and the consistency that you know I've known of you since my time um having talked to you and uh it's always a pleasure, man. Your insights are awesome. Uh, really enjoy our conversations. And you know, more than anything, I really enjoy our conversations uh when we're not recording. I always glean some value from it uh in my career. So um uh thank you for all that. And ladies and gentlemen, Rick Mayo. Thanks, guys. Hey, wait, don't leave yet. This was your host, Eric Malzone, and I hope you enjoyed this episode of Future of Minutes. If you did, I'm gonna ask you to do three simple things. It takes under five minutes and it goes such a long way. We really appreciate it. Number one, please subscribe to our show wherever you listen to it, iTunes, Spotify, Castbox, whatever it may be. Number two, please leave us a favorable review. Number three, share. Put it on social media, talk about it to your friends, send it in a text message, whatever it may be. Please share this episode because we put a lot of work into it. We want to make sure that as many people are getting value out of it as possible. Lastly, if you'd like to learn more, get in touch with me, simply go to the futureoffitness.co. You can subscribe to our newsletter there, or you can simply get in touch with me as I love to hear from our listeners. So thank you so much. This is Eric Malzone, and this is the Future of Fitness. Have a great day.