Ross Stewart Campbell - Beyond Activ & Global Industry Perspectives

[00:00:02] Hey everybody, welcome to the Future of Fitness, a top-rated fitness industry podcast for over four years and running. I am your host, Eric Malzone, and I have the absolute pleasure of talking to entrepreneurs, executives, thought leaders, and cutting edge technology experts within the extremely

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[00:02:03] network of content creators that we are for you to go to podcast collective.io to learn more that is podcast collective.io. Now onto the show. All right, Ross Stewart Campbell, welcome to the future of fitness, my friend. Thank you so much, Eric.

[00:02:22] Good to be here, my friend. Yeah, yeah, I've been doing this for almost seven years, man. And I don't think I've had you on the podcast, which is remarkable to me and quite I'm a little ashamed to be honest with you. So thanks.

[00:02:33] Let's I'm so glad we finally made this happen. You and I have had multiple conversations over the years and yeah, man, you're doing great work. So it's it's gonna there's a there's a lot to talk about with you. Appreciate it.

[00:02:44] Look, I've been a big fan from afar from the future of fitness podcast. You have done some incredible interviews. We listened to them, not just myself for the team as well. So the shame cuts both girls. Cuts both bees, but I'm very glad we're here.

[00:02:57] Yeah, I appreciate it. Well, let's start with this. I think there's always a good place to start, Ross, is just like, I don't know actually a lot about your backstory. So I'm curious about it. Like how did you get to, you know, where you're at with Beyond Active?

[00:03:08] And then I think that's really good launching point for us to our conversation. Yeah, looking for those that don't know, I think I spent my early part of my career in investment events. We used to run a number of large scale CEO level investment events for

[00:03:20] oil and gas and commodities. So we connected the bankers and the brokers, new oil and gas executives with investors and analysts and financiers. And you run a very successful business network across five continents. We held 10 and 11 events a year, Calgary to New York, to China, to

[00:03:37] Singapore, to Lagos, to South Africa. And in founding that company, we kind of grew to, I think what we were, I thought was going to be this critical mass. We then stole my interest in that company once I moved to Asia

[00:03:48] and to try and escape the rat race, Eric, and ended up buying a gym. And so that was my first foray into the business of fitness. I quickly realized that was a bit of a naive passion project. And so I love fitness, but I am not an operator.

[00:04:03] And I think through the conversations I had, through my trials and tribulations of being an operator sparked the idea that actually we need a network in Asia that represented the health and fitness market. And so we tried to adopt the same business model of content,

[00:04:18] community, top leadership, business development. And we aimed at not through oil and gas, but through fitness and health and wellness. And so that was the right start to fit summit back in 2018. And that kind of evolved and morphed into beyond active last year. And here we are today.

[00:04:35] Yeah. So a couple of things I want to circle back on and unpack a little bit. Why a gym? Why did you decide to open a gym? I've been a fitness fanatic all my life, Eric. I really have. I mean, I absolutely love working out workouts.

[00:04:49] I love the culture of gyms. I've been in sports and performance, not at a professional level, just as a pure play enthusiast since I was 14 years old. And so for me, it's a passion of mine. It's a hobby. It's an interest.

[00:05:04] And I thought I could do something with it that I wanted to do. So I think when people always tell you when you leave the corporate life, make sure you do something you love for me, the natural gravity was towards fitness.

[00:05:12] And so I've tried my hand at the business of fitness, but not so much in the B to C world. I need to remain in the B to B world. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, it is a, I find a lot of people who are corporate refugees, right?

[00:05:26] They kind of come out of the world and they always do have a natural passion for fitness and health and they get into it. You know, same thing as looking at a franchise or they're starting around gym and then the operations thing comes to this. Right.

[00:05:39] And frankly, the same story happens with somebody who's a great coach, who's been in the industry for a long time and then they start owning a gym and they realize like the operating thing is consuming, all consuming at times.

[00:05:49] So when you realize, you know, to your quote that you're not an operator, like what was it? Well, what brought that decision to life? Question. I think it was more the day-to-day conversations. And then I think where I wanted to try and do was create a job

[00:06:06] that I really had a passion for. When I thought I fell down being an operator from a gym is I started to miss the conversations I used to have working at such a high level in the oil and gas market.

[00:06:18] And we were talking with CEOs or C-suite executives all day, every day with bankers and financiers and the conversations around economics and growth technology investment, deal flow. I mean, there was some really interesting conversations

[00:06:33] and I was very privileged to be a part of that industry for so long. When I moved into the world of being an operator, those conversations changed very differently into personal journeys of members, more logistical challenges of running a business, everything from cash

[00:06:48] flow down to proletries, to washing towels, etc. And so it was a very, very different conversation. In addition, I love the idea of helping people like that's really what our job is to be on active as they try and serve the world to be happier and healthier.

[00:07:04] It's just that I think when we were doing this operatorship, I think I found a bigger purpose and that bigger purpose was always like a weaker moment where it said, actually, if you move back into the B2B world and had these same conversations with the CEOs

[00:07:17] of health, fitness and wellness businesses, you can make a bigger impact in the world by doing that. And that was the trigger switch from you jumping back from being an operator and a fitness world to becoming more of a city,

[00:07:28] a business network, an event company, a media group within health, fitness and wellness. Yeah, it's pretty cool how you got to merge your previous experience with your passion for fitness and what you learned as an operator.

[00:07:40] It is being a gym operator is not always that full of glory, I guess you could say. You know, a lot of those dealing with issues in the parking lot or one of the toilets is clogged or one of your coaches is dating one of the clients.

[00:07:57] Like it's not it's not what you the image that you think when you're getting into it, there's an always turn out that way. I think it's a great part of the career pathway, right? I think you become a club general manager or a club owner.

[00:08:12] And then I think over time, you know, like many people that we know now in the marketplace have done, you become a business owner, a brand owner of franchise or a multi site owner. And so your job gravitates away from the day to day consumer talk.

[00:08:27] And naturally more into the kind of business conversations about running an operational and management team rather than running programming and membership rates. So I look, I was incredibly grateful for the three years that I spent being an operator. It taught me a lot.

[00:08:40] And the friendships have made the connections have made their insights of being an operator are absolutely invaluable. I would never take that back and that pathway is giving me this new light. So forever grateful, but I am forever in admiration of those that do that job.

[00:08:56] But it's not easy. Yeah, yeah. Right on. Well, tell us about the evolution of Beyond Active. Like what was the first iteration of the FIT Summit? What was that like? When was it? And then how I mean, it's evolved quite a bit.

[00:09:10] I mean, just looking at, you know, I followed you guys over the years and even just the three brand beyond active and the extensive kind of amount of content and how the events have evolved and the number of them. And you're a global industry.

[00:09:23] You're a global enterprise now, man. You're all over the place. So, yeah, give us some insight. How does that thing started and how did it? How is it evolved? Yeah, I suppose from small e-conds, might be old school, we're not quite there yet.

[00:09:34] But I think we're trying to get on that way. Look initially, it was a very independent networking exception to happen in Singapore. And it was the gym owners that they could find meeting with distributors and suppliers and technology companies.

[00:09:46] And the goal was to try and stress test the market and having an annual event. An annual event in Singapore, that was a business to business conference that bring in investors and we could have those deep meaningful conversations

[00:09:56] across the value chain and to try to add value to everyone's business. And the goal was always to try and grow the marketplace, grow the size of the industry by attracting new investment, by bettering thought each other, by encouraging leadership,

[00:10:09] by improving standards, by educating those that are coming into the marketplace and making better decisions around equipment and technology purposes. And so it started off very much like in a one summit and look fit was fitness, investment technology. And the summit obviously started in Singapore.

[00:10:25] Initially, then we grew into Indonesia and the Thailand and the Hong Kong. We had events there. And then I think the content that we had to try and naturally form around that community starting to be newsletters, podcasts, webinars, small scale magazines.

[00:10:40] And so the goal was always connectivity, thought leadership and business development. And if you have those three parts of the triangle, to some part they serve everyone every single day. So you're developing business for them, you're providing thought leadership where you're making sure that all the decks

[00:10:56] is connected. And I think we obviously built the business up very well. We had a great reputation in Asia and Asia Pacific marketplace. And then of course, COVID hit and I will bog you down in the story about how we were smashed, but we were absolutely hammered.

[00:11:09] We went from a, you know, I would say a significant but a growing revenue company into essentially a negative revenue company, not zero revenue, negative revenue. People were wanting refunds on future purchases. And so we went into credit or place in 2020.

[00:11:26] We had to evolve very quickly into digital events and to making sure we had these virtual events online for thousands of people. And we tried to monitorize those over the next couple of years. And that basically blended into a new augmentation of a digital offering.

[00:11:41] And so we basically became a kind of agency, like a PR company, part email activations, part marketing, email connections, marketing support, business development support, email connections. And then all these things started to augment together and took a digital offering that we then started to interact year round.

[00:12:01] And through the back of the pandemic, without having to bore you too much, we evolved from essentially a revenue company that was an events company into a digital marketing agency within events offering. And then that kind of blended its way to not just event specific revenue,

[00:12:15] but also essentially subscribe revenue or annual subscriptions to retain clients. So the pandemic was actually one of the most brutal business experiences I've ever been through. I mean, literally on the line like everyone else.

[00:12:28] But if it wasn't for that, our company would never be where it is today. So for that, I am grateful. Yeah. And you guys have events now. Is it five places globally? Like, where are you against them? All your events. We're doing four, one in every major continent.

[00:12:43] So we run one in Sydney for the Australasian marketplace, one in Singapore for the Asian marketplace, one in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia for the Middle East and Africa market. And of course, one in New York for the Americas market. So four events, four continents, one per quarter.

[00:13:00] That is enough, my friend. Absolutely no more. Absolutely no more apart from that. But yeah, we have kind of morphed ourselves into essentially a global event series. And I think it's as far as I know, it's the only one in the world that covers four continents.

[00:13:15] And so we've got a great opportunity in front of us. We've got some fantastic partners, but there's still a long way to go. And you know, we've got to prove ourselves in new markets that we're coming into and one of those is the

[00:13:27] Americas and we have big plans, but we've got to set a flag down. We've got to fly high. Yeah. So when you say you need to prove yourself in a new market, like what are the standards that you are proving yourself on?

[00:13:40] Like are you creating value for your invest like your advertisers? Like, OK, let me let me rephrase this question. I if I'm I'm a fitness brand and I want to engage with beyond active, what is the value that you guys are offering?

[00:13:53] What do you propose to me and how is that executed upon? Yeah, great question. Because I think we're not going to rewrite the wheel entirely. You know, it's not as if the wheel is there's some people that have gone before us in terms of creating some fantastic events.

[00:14:08] Our job, I suppose, is to slightly move events forward and how they're conceptualized and how they execute. And what I mean by that is, you know, we've been for a long time crisscrossing and transversing various articles, health care, wellness, hospitality, fitness, employee well being.

[00:14:26] And so we have those individuals and brand and executives represented across our network, across our content and obviously across our physical event portfolio. When it comes to traditional events in the US, they tend to be in one of those verticals.

[00:14:42] There isn't much in terms of blending over of that audience does great fitness events, great hospitality events, a couple of emerging health and wellness events out there. To my knowledge, there's very, very few that cover all of those

[00:14:55] verticals in one where I think there's also been a lack of, shall I say, opportunity created for the event space in the Americas is the inclusion of the capital markets and investors. Now, having come from a background where we're used to engaging those investors

[00:15:09] with a private equity venture capital, high net worth individuals, funds analysts, the bankers and financiers, whether that's equity or debt. There hasn't really been an event for health, fitness and wellness in the US that actually combines thought leadership from the sector

[00:15:25] in addition to investment potential in the sector. The only people that actually do that are some of the incredible investment banks out there, you know, Hoolian Loki, for example, HL, Greatfirm, JP Morgan, do their own investment events. These are fantastic banks with fantastic investment conferences.

[00:15:43] But for us, our job is always to try and grow the wider marketplace. And so in terms of what your maybe a long way of answering the question is our job is to connect the wider marketplace, health, fitness, wellness, hospitality, sports, leisure, recreation

[00:15:58] in addition to pulling a number of investors into the marketplace. So when you come to our event, you're not just meeting the same people. You're actually meeting a huge selection of buyers, a huge selection of facility operators and a really interesting mix

[00:16:11] of investors and analysts and suppliers that perhaps you don't meet every single day. Then you mix in entertainment, of course, lots of fun. Yes, there will be alcohol served and we make sure there's plenty of that as well to kind of stir the gears.

[00:16:26] But it has to be fun, have to be purposeful. You have to have peer to peer connectivity with real thought leaders and you have to have investors in the room. And with that offering, I think we do something quite unique. Yeah, interesting.

[00:16:37] So it sounds like it's fairly curated. Is that right? It has to be curated. Look at me, we deal with a C suite. Why does a C suite leave their office? Whether it's from Minneapolis, whether it's from Sao Paulo, whether it's from London or Singapore.

[00:16:51] Why don't they get on a plane and want to come to the event and spend two or three days there? There has to be a curation of content. There has to be a curation of individuals in the audience. There has to be a curation of entertainment.

[00:17:02] There has to be a curation of meeting and experience. All of it has to be treated to the highest possible level. So we're good at this. We've had some quite a lot of experience in doing it. We never underestimate this importance.

[00:17:15] Yeah, well, let's talk about the event in September in New York. What's the dates again? I think it's the middle of September, right? Yeah, 17th to 18th September are the main dates of the Marriott Marquis. So walk me through that.

[00:17:29] If I signed up for that, well, I am signed up for that. What can I expect from that event? Like what's what's the experience like and what's the desired outcome for me? Yeah, so we've got two days of main content over the 17th and 18th of September.

[00:17:43] Both of those days are inside the Marriott Marquis. We have large leadership stage who got two breakout rooms. You've got a pop-up exhibition in the networking area. You've got content that crisscrosses everything from CEO leadership panels to the emergence of AI

[00:17:58] to the growing trends of longevity and health span. Looking at founders, financial trends, capital markets trends the future of the boutique space and of course other in a really pressing trends. We try and create a shall I say an agenda of content

[00:18:14] that's topical to any executive in the market place looking to try and understand how to grow their business. So if you're an executive coming to that conference, you're looking for again, one of those three things. Ideas and thought leadership and how to grow your business.

[00:18:27] Connectivity to other people in the marketplace for their inspiration and motivation. And then of course business development, whether that's prospects or leads or customers, members, guests, partners or even potential investors. So again, it's coming to that whole day and understanding that across there

[00:18:43] is a curation of content, a creation of meetings, a creation of exhibition, a creation of food and beverage and experience. So that's going to be the whole first day. The night time we have a big networking reception. You know, day two, we repeat that process again.

[00:18:57] On day three, which is the 19th of September, we do something more fun, a little bit more social, right? We take people around New York. We have a networking walk planned across the Central Park in the morning for those that are coming into New York

[00:19:07] for the day off of the week, sorry. And then during the afternoon, we'll host a couple of club tours. One of them is going to be at the new Flatiron Club. The new Chelsea Piers one in the afternoon.

[00:19:16] So again, we have people coming in from all over the world. We've got speakers coming in from Argentina, from London, from Asia, from Dubai, from Brazil, from Colombia, from Ecuador, from Chile. They're coming up to New York for a reason.

[00:19:29] You know, they're coming up to have a really good time with some great people. They're there to make sure they have a brilliant business experience, but also brilliant personal experience. Yeah, awesome. I'm very excited. And it sounds very unique going on to a decent amount of industry events,

[00:19:44] but not anything it's quite so. Yeah, global, worldly, I guess for lack of a better term. Look, and that's what we have to do. We've got again, speakers coming from Sydney to come and talk to the marketplace. There was speakers coming from India.

[00:19:57] You know, one of the companies we have is called Coltfit. Coltfit is a shipping giant. It's a unicorn in India. It's called 600 Clubs. It's by far the biggest operator in India by an absolute country, Mayo. They're going to come over to New York

[00:20:10] and give their thoughts in the marketplace. And so our goal is not to rehash what's been done before. There have been some brilliant events. There are some brilliant companies in the American marketplace, but we have to cover all of the Americas and we have to have an interest

[00:20:23] in all of those that want to visit and invest in the Americas. So whether you are coming from New York, whether you're coming from New Jersey or Massachusetts or where you're coming from Singapore or Australia, you could welcome at the event.

[00:20:36] If you've got business interests inside the Americas, we're looking to try and connect you to other people with some living. Yeah, awesome. When you look outside of the industry, is there any companies in other verticals that you look at, you're like they're doing exceptionally well?

[00:20:53] That's something we can use as a guide or as a framework for what we do? Yeah, I think when it comes to content, look at some fantastic companies that do content. Looking at this from a kind of perspective

[00:21:05] from Oil and Gas is a huge company called IHS Market, an absolutely brilliant company. I think they're taking over by standard and poor recently. There are some brilliant content developers out there that are punching out of thought leadership on the highest level, market analysis, annual reports.

[00:21:20] They're also doing kind of worldwide events. So there are really great content contributors. Our job in content is never to produce what I would say is daily or weekly content. We can obviously amplify and promote the content that's happening in the marketplace,

[00:21:34] but our job is never to invest in editorial. Our job is always to take content from events, to mathematics, podcasts and try and make sure we have more private discussions offline rather than online. They're representing the people that do it online

[00:21:46] and this podcast is a great example of that area. So our job is never to repeat the wheel, our job is to try and value into it. When it comes to the event space, look at me there are great events out there.

[00:21:56] The CES one in Vegas is obviously an absolutely fantastic event, but again, it's maybe more towards a line towards trade show and we're not a trade show company. It's not the position we want to try and be in. Trade shows are very sell side centric.

[00:22:11] We're very buy side centric. So I've got a lot of love for trade shows, but it's not where we want to be. In terms of probably one of the best events in the world, it's probably something like Web Summit and Web Summit is based out of Portugal, Lisbon

[00:22:23] and they have absolutely dominated the technology space in the last few years. I think last year's Tech Summit had something like 60,000 people come to Lisbon for it. It's got a tremendous offering worldwide, it has spin-off events. It is known as the absolute epicenter of venture capital and investment

[00:22:39] inside the technology marketplace. So there are definitely inspirations, shall I say, every third in the marketplace. I appreciate that fitness and health and wellness is maybe more of a smaller market, certainly more underappreciated, certainly not as high market capitalization, certainly not as loved by the bankers and analysts

[00:22:58] and maybe mainstream media, but as an industry, we absolutely love what we do. We love being here. Yeah, well, sometimes our industry doesn't do itself any favors. I mean, we're sitting right now after some breaking news on exponential and Geisler and it just seems like another black guy

[00:23:15] as far as what Wall Street sees within our industry. So it's unfortunate, but time washes away all things. So hopefully it'll be forgotten soon, just like every other media site where we are. Well, the public market is not trying to fit this. I don't think the investment community

[00:23:33] really understands them. But there's a very few companies that have tried to obviously get into that market and they've done well. But yeah, Anthony and the team have obviously built a very incredible company. There's obviously some holes in that company

[00:23:45] at some places and that has been noticed by the number of people that have left the company in the last couple of years. And obviously there's been a groundswell of negativity around the company, but exponential fitness have paved the way for boutique fitness across multiple modalities,

[00:23:58] across multiple continents for years. And they have done an incredibly good job. And so although the news in the past week does taint what's happened with Anthony, I think overall, I think he's paved a way for millions of people to enjoy fitness.

[00:24:15] And I hope that his legacy will remember more favorably. Yeah, well said. I want to talk about the business of running events. From the outside looking in, I'm not a super detailed warrior in person, so it scares me. Like it just seems like a lot of details,

[00:24:30] a lot of work, man. So give me some ideas like what is it like running major events like this and being in the business of events as opposed to other industries? I mean, do you wake up some morning and be like, I'm crazy for doing this?

[00:24:43] Do you love it? I mean, it also seems exhilarating, right? Like the day of an event when it's popping off and everything lines up and everything goes away, it should, it just seems like it must be a hell of a thrill.

[00:24:54] Like give us some insight into the business of what you guys do. Yeah, so like any event you have to... owning up the money upfront, you just have to, you know, you're gambling on venue, gambling on AV. And then of course, over time,

[00:25:09] you're trying to claw back the necessary money from delegate sales, exhibition sales and sponsorship sales. With any good event, of course, that gamble becomes less and less. But at the end of the day, running an event company or being involved in events is actually quite a stressful marketplace.

[00:25:24] You know, especially when you're dealing with timelines and deadlines, you're in a constant cycle depending upon how quickly that cycle, that production cycle turns around. So, you know, we try and work in our events at the very least six months to nine months to 12 months in advance.

[00:25:38] So we're already plotting our, you know, our February event and we add next year when we have to do that. So that sales cycle and production cycle is quite quick. You know, there's a survey done maybe about a few years ago

[00:25:52] that was about the most stressful jobs in the world and being an event executive. Certainly an operational and parent executive was one of the top five most stressful jobs in the world. And having seen what operational teams go through, I can fully understand why.

[00:26:05] It is juggling balls, running 100 miles an hour, running into very changing budgets with very lack, very so, often with a lack of visibility in terms of total overall revenue and sales into the last moment. So it's chicken and egg. It is putting your cahoonies on the line

[00:26:25] most of the time and you really have to back your team and look at stuff out, backing the product, backing the team, backing the process. And if you get all that right, then it's just about can you get market penetration to the right people?

[00:26:38] Because of the right product and the right market at the right price, it should sell. I mean, it feels like to me, once again, outside are looking in that expectations of the attendees and consumers are very high and a lot of the things that make these things hum

[00:26:52] are very underappreciated, right? Like little details. So would you agree? It is a look at only just by the success of your last event. You know, that's the harsh reality of it. You know, we could pull off 10 good events in a row.

[00:27:07] You can have a bullet, perhaps, right? There's something gone wrong. I could be aware that for seeing problem could be a logistic problem. Anything could happen and that can throw up your reputation for quite some time. I think for any type of business,

[00:27:21] especially when it comes to events and community level events, I think it depends on the level of what I call good world capital. You know, how much good world capital do you amass from your network before the event? And then how much do you trade across the event

[00:27:35] and how much do you lose if things go wrong at the event? You know, and I think there's a certain amount of levers that you can pull as an event organizer to make sure that you're always topping up that level of good world capital,

[00:27:47] whether it is, you know, introduction discount prices to new sponsors, whether it is adding in free tickets to some of the colleagues, whether it is guesting people that are honestly a little bit up the creek in terms of where they should be, whether it's giving startups more benefits

[00:28:02] than you should do, whether it's actually offering guest tickets to all the investment community. There's plenty of levers you can have to actually utilize and top up your good world capital. But at some point, you're gonna have to call that back, right?

[00:28:15] Because, you know, stop hits the fan. And so there's moments where, you know, there are things happening that you can never understand. Things happen that you plan for, but the skit will just get worse. But reality is you just have to keep on trying

[00:28:29] to deliver the absolute best experience for those that are involved. And if you mess up in any way, it's about how quickly you resolve that and how much value can you add back quicker than you can. Yeah, very interesting. I mean, I always think about

[00:28:42] the hardest thing about any kind of business is people, they're the most unpredictable thing. And I always imagine like circumstance where, you know, maybe you have a panel of people on all of a sudden two weeks before, like there's a beef between two of the panelists

[00:28:56] due to, you know, whatever some business or your personal issue, right? And then you're like, ah, shit. Like, it's just, you know, they're sitting up there, they're not talking to each other. You know, I've physically seen some of this stuff like play out, right? Or whatever.

[00:29:09] I mean, people are the hardest thing. So, you know, when you're trying to gauge that, you know, within an industry, especially I think fitness is small. I think it is very well, like there's networks and clicks within the industry that I'm sure you know about.

[00:29:24] Like, you know, tell me about the people part of it. Like how do you manage that? Or how do you handle it when problems arise? Yeah, I mean, to that point, Lucas, you can create the best schedule. You can create the best content.

[00:29:38] You can have the best moderators and the best panelists. The reality is unless they're willing to be vulnerable and try and give the audience something, statistics, information, insight, authenticity, that perhaps they might not have alluded to before, the conversation can seem like, okay, I know this,

[00:29:55] Eric's told me this before, it's okay. And while I appreciate that does happen, the reality of any event, especially at a higher level, the C-suite, especially when it comes to investment and especially when it comes to political events, the real action happens in the sidelines.

[00:30:11] And so, sometimes if people say, should I be there? Absolutely. Not just for the content of the stage, it's the interactions on the sidelines that really actually determine the success of the event. And if you're not there, you will never ever part of that. As for managing people,

[00:30:26] look, we deal with people and they are leaders. They are pioneers. They are visionaries. Some have very large egos. Some are incredibly humble and some are inspirational and some are maybe a mix of all three at some level. It is the speaker management.

[00:30:45] There's relationship management at all times, but I think it does come down to why are they in the room and are you serving them as best you can? And if they're there to get a message across and try to help the industry grow.

[00:30:56] And I think this is a really interesting point where, I think people in today's marketplace really want the marketplace to grow. And so they're willing to actually share more information that you think they're gonna share because they actually want the marketplace to grow, the industry to do better

[00:31:11] and more investment to be funneled in. By holding the cards close to their chest, that really happens. And so I think at some of these events, there is a level of very candid conversation that may not happen on stage, but absolutely happens offstage,

[00:31:26] but you need to be there. Yeah, yeah, well said. I mean, every event I've attended over the last three or four years, it's the conversations I do, I have in the hallway, right? Or you get pulled aside or someone's like, hey, hey, you're gonna meet this person

[00:31:42] where I say, hey, you're gonna meet this person next. So you know there's a business development, there's a partnership, there's a relationship. You can't get it online. We've tried, right? We've been through that over the pandemic, we tried. It just doesn't happen

[00:31:57] the way that it does an in-person event. And I'm saying this as a person who actually, I didn't go to a lot of in-person events. I didn't see the point really for many, many years. I went to, when I was at Jim Opera Euro,

[00:32:09] go to ones that were educational, right? I would go, send my education. I would do coaching conferences, the actual stuff that I was really, really excited about that time was like human performance and program design and all that. And then after I sold, I'm like,

[00:32:22] I don't really need to go to these, there's a network event, that's stupid. What do you have to wear a name tag? And like, but I stand here corrected in saying that I really enjoy the events. I never, I go into such an open mind

[00:32:34] when I go to things like this because, I try to keep my schedule actually fairly open because I find that you wanna be spontaneous many points during the, and that's exciting, right? I actually come back with kind of a, probably a adrenaline low,

[00:32:47] like a dopamine low after these events because they really do fire me up and it's really engaging. So you're 100% correct, man. It's hard to explain. Yeah, and we have extended networking breaks. You've got an hour of content, hour of break, hour of content, hour of break

[00:33:03] because you have to try and foster that environment where you are colliding people, together as often as possible. We will, we've got a team there on site. They will throw people that are standing on their own and will throw them into groups of people

[00:33:18] because what people, I think we have to realize that some people are great conversations to our first and some people are great conversationists once you get them started in conversation. And I think like anything, people get a little bit rusty over the course of the pandemic.

[00:33:32] You're not used to walking up to random people. What is your normal non-business development pitch? You know, what are the questions you ask someone about their family? Honestly, like it's great to, okay, you told me all about your business. Thanks so much, right?

[00:33:47] But who is the person behind the business? And so I think that kind of deeper relationship development only happens when you have these kind of conversations face to face and maybe you have them over the drink. Maybe you have them over a coffee bake

[00:33:59] in a dark corner of a room. But we do try and foster relationships that are long-term, you know, not just for business development, but you know, for personal and social and professional development, inspiration and motivation and aspiration. These are all great reasons to attend an event

[00:34:16] not just to make more money. Yeah, awesome man. Maybe pay me a picture. Put a little bit of the timeline on this. We're in what 2024 now. So let's say, you know, 2029 five years from now. What's the vision for Beyond Actively? Where do you want to be?

[00:34:30] What do you want this look like? Yeah, great question. Has evolved in the last couple of years, I think, of the digital offering. Look, I think we will continue to grow our number of annually-retained clients and even project-retained clients in terms of helping them with their sales

[00:34:44] and marketing and business development efforts. We love that. I mean, we love nothing better. The events are great, but you know, working on someone's product launch, working on someone's new management team launch, helping someone access a new geography or coming into a new market segment,

[00:34:58] we love working on those types of launches and certain expansions. We'll do that a lot more. We definitely will not do more events. I think the events will grow in scale. America significantly, Saudi Arabia significantly, Singapore to a degree, and Sydney is quite a small event in itself.

[00:35:14] So I think that will probably max out to a thousand people. But over time, we've got other ideas. Would we, we're big fans of someone like the Fit Insider? You know what Joe and Anthony do? Will we ever become a fund?

[00:35:26] No, that's not what we want to try and do. Will we ever become consultants and advisors? I'm not quite sure. Will we maybe develop more of a kind of individual PR agency offering? I think that's highly likely in the next couple of years

[00:35:40] that we'll start to augment that into PR and into IR and offer those services both to our retaining clients on a one-off basis. Another one we looked at potentially is maybe becoming more of a kind of global executive search in terms of headhunting.

[00:35:57] That's maybe got another couple of years to try and finesse its way through. So there are avenues for growth, but in all honesty, I think our main mission and we can't deviate too much from it is how to make the world happier and healthier. That's our driving mission.

[00:36:10] You know, and I think for that to happen, you've got to make sure we reach more people with better content, but the events are better populated by more startups. The events are populated by government and the events are populated by the absolute maximum of investors

[00:36:24] that we can possibly get to come to any event. And so I think with that mission in mind, it's about broadening our events scope to make sure we have more decision makers and more capital in the room, to make sure you have more government participation

[00:36:36] and then to make sure the content distributes globally across all of our regions. In terms of other markets of interest, look Middle East and Africa are certainly newly developing markets for health fitness and wellness. And we believe we can play a really exciting role

[00:36:50] in trying to catalyze that growth to try and give them a spotlight, to try and give them a knowledge base and a connection point for them to meet other thought leaders in the marketplace. Those, I don't think there is any physical business event

[00:37:02] in Africa that focus on the African marketplace. It's not quite there yet, but I absolutely guarantee by 2029 it will. Awesome, awesome. You know, one of the things I wanted to get your opinion on and you alluded to it earlier in this conversation

[00:37:16] was like these major trends in the US, right? Longevity, GLP1, you know, the health span, you know, there's a number of them. In the US, we tend to be a little US centric, kind of look at ourselves and don't pay a lot of attention

[00:37:29] to what's going on outside in these major regions. Like you just blew my mind that there's, you know, 600 unit gym chain in India like that I had never heard of, right? There's typical example that we just don't really pay attention. When you look at these major trends

[00:37:45] that we're always talking about here, you know, AI and longevity, health span, GLP1, like these things in the US, is that something that globally you're seeing as major trends as well? Or is it just us? I think from the GLP1, hand-of-the-hand, it's just you.

[00:38:00] I think at the moment in time with David, with the Exembeck, I think when it comes to, you know, premium luxury end clubs like Lifetime and Equinox, there's a few models like those across, you know, maybe there's David Lloyd, maybe there's Pure Group in Asia,

[00:38:15] photo fusion in Australia, but there's not a huge proliferation of those types of clubs outside of North America just yet. I think what we are seeing is maybe some similar trends in the world that perhaps are not maybe healthcare related.

[00:38:29] So for example, one of them has been the absolute meteoric rise of franchise growth, especially across Asia Pacific and the Middle East. And that has been led in a large way by boutiques across the marketplace. And so the F-45s, of course,

[00:38:44] the fit stops, the body fit trainings, the care to pilates, the studio pilates, I mean, these are all businesses that got 100 plus clubs in it, 100 plus clubs in Australia and then have naturally gravitated to different marketplaces. However, I think in the last maybe six months,

[00:39:01] I think the tables have turned somewhat and instead of the boutique franchise growth being a major driver in the marketplace, I think what we're actually seeing now is the 24-7 established brands, anytime fitness, basic fit, snap fitness, will take a hold in some marketplace and push through.

[00:39:20] And so the major engine, especially outside of North America, as we see it in Asia Pacific, is actually no longer the big box club. It's actually the 24-7 gyms, the larger big box franchise clubs and to a lesser degree now, they can independent boutique franchise clubs

[00:39:36] that are really making a big play now. The other kind of larger owned and operated club chains across Asia Pacific have had a real time through COVID. You know, they really struggled. The Chinese markets collapsed, the Japan market really consolidated down.

[00:39:49] A couple of the major players in Asia really had their wings clipped in terms of growth potential and had to consolidate some of their footprints. And so I think going forward, they're no longer the major driver of growth in this marketplace.

[00:40:02] It is done with these other market participants. So I think that's definitely one of the kind of growth areas we're definitely seeing. When it comes to technology, I think we're only just starting to scratch the surface, especially when it comes to the Asia pack marketplace.

[00:40:13] When it comes to everything from CRM adoption to full stack tech adoption to AI adoption, I think there's been a few players that have dabbled but most players are on the start of that journey. And so I think for us technology adoption, especially AI adoption,

[00:40:27] I don't think we're any further forward than anywhere else in the world. But it'll be interesting to see how fast we catch up. Yeah, interesting. When you look at the global market, like what particular market gets you the most excited? Like where do you see the most action?

[00:40:41] Where do you see the most opportunity? Look, I mean, let's just look at Saudi Arabia. For me, I'm actually traveling there next week. I recommend we've got some great business that we do an event there. Again, another sleeping giant that people don't know about

[00:40:52] is one called Lee Jam Sports Company. They run a club chain called Fitness Time. Now Lee Jam Sports last count brought to about 195 clubs across Saudi Arabia. Now, I mean, they say that might not seem like much, but their market capitalization company

[00:41:07] in the Saudi Slop Exchange is $2.1 billion US dollars. And so it actually puts them in the top five fitness businesses globally, alongside lifetime basic fit, obviously, planet of fitness has been one of the biggest club chains in the entire world. It comes to market capitalization.

[00:41:26] And so for me, Saudi Arabia, the scale of growth, the speed of growth, number of companies coming into that marketplace, the excitement of the local community, the education of the local consumer and the growing success of local brands versus international brands is fascinating, absolutely fascinating.

[00:41:45] And the ambition and the capital and the speed of deployment is second to them. So for me, Saudi is an absolutely phenomenal market. We're very proud to be in there with our partners. And then next maybe two to three years, watch out now. Awesome. Awesome.

[00:42:01] Last question for you, Ed. How can we help you as an industry? Like what's one of the biggest challenges that you're facing right now of people are going to reach out to you and connect with you outside of course, joining the events?

[00:42:13] What would you like to hear from them about? Yeah. So like obviously we'd love to see them at the events and for anyone that's joining us, you can get information online. I think what would also, we have a responsibility to the marketplace is to share fellowship.

[00:42:24] And so for example, on a weekly basis, we release a free op-ed to the marketplace. It's a 400 word op-ed that we give out to entire distribution that's 65,000 people. We send that to every single Thursday. We then augment that with some social media and business media blasting as well.

[00:42:40] So if people want to contribute some free thoughts about a pressing topic in the business world, we would highly appreciate hearing from them and adding that content in. The content is more about, again, it's more driven towards the challenges that are affecting business owners and operators.

[00:42:58] So perhaps there's not going to be an explanation on what a GLP ones are. We would actually be a conversation around how to successfully integrate GLP ones into your membership base. That's the kind of full leadership article that we would actually do a lot to cover.

[00:43:14] In addition, we host a monthly, say what a monthly Zoom call with our leadership group. We normally interview some world leaders across that. And so again, people are welcome to join that call and or perhaps if there's something really pressing we could actually get them on that call

[00:43:28] to make sure they share some market wisdom with them or say share some wisdom with our market. So various ways in terms of content and thought leadership, subscribe to the newsletter, join us on one of our events Eric. And again, we're open to suggestion and conversation

[00:43:42] how to make our offering better. So I look forward to talking to anyone that has a question and looking forward to seeing you somewhere in the Gopson. Yeah man. And where would you like people to go? Do you want to get around? Email, contact. Look beyond active.

[00:43:56] The active is no at the end of it, beyondactive.com. My email is simply rossrosse, beyondactive.com. I appreciate the conversation as always Eric. I'm seven years into making this, make sure we don't take so long again. But again, really, we are incredibly grateful,

[00:44:15] sincerely grateful to those that are enabling us to try and do this mission. At the same time, we're sincerely great for people like you Eric for really flying a flag. Running a podcast is not easy. Like we know this, running any digital content business is not easy.

[00:44:31] And you persist in delivering content week after week, month after month, year after year. And so I'm sure it's been said a million things before, but if it hasn't, my friend from all of us, thank you. Oh man, I appreciate it.

[00:44:42] And Ross, I'm glad we made this happen. It's really always a pleasure talking to you and we'll we in touch quite a bit, but definitely you'll see me in September. So yeah, I really appreciate it. Ladies and gentlemen, Ross Stewart Campbell. Hey, wait, don't leave yet.

[00:44:57] This is your host Eric Malzone. And I hope you enjoyed this episode of Future of Feminist. If you did, I'm going to ask you to do three simple things. It takes under five minutes and it goes such a long way. We really appreciate it.

[00:45:10] Number one, please subscribe to our show wherever you listen to it. iTunes, Spotify, Cast Fox, whatever it may be. Number two, please leave us a favorable review. Number three, share. Put on social media, talk about it to your friends,

[00:45:24] 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.

[00:45:34] Lastly, if you'd like to learn more, get in touch with me, simply go to the future of fitness.co. You can subscribe to our newsletter there or you can simply get in touch with me as I love to hear from our listeners. So thank you so much.

[00:45:48] This is Eric Malzone and this is the Future of Fitness. Have a great day.