Stuart Brauer: Navigating Your Brand Through Social Uncertainty

Hey everybody, welcome to the Future of Fitness, a top-rated fitness industry podcast for over two years and running. It is 2021, and I am your host, Eric Malzone. I have the absolute pleasure of talking to entrepreneurs, innovators, and cutting-edge technology experts within the fast-paced industries of fitness, wellness, and health sciences. Stop by futurofitness.co to subscribe and learn more. Do you want to add more years to your life and more life to your years? Of course you do. Which means you need to make a change. And that is what Insight Tracker is all about. Founded by leading scientists in aging, genetics, and biometric data from MIT Tufts and Harvard, Insight Tracker is a personalized health and wellness platform like no other. So what's their secret? First, Insight Tracker uses its patented algorithm to analyze your body's data and offer you a clearer picture than you've ever had before of what's actually going on inside you. Then Insight Tracker provides you with a concrete, science-backed action plan for living a longer, healthier life. And it tracks your progress every day, every step of the way. For a very limited time, Insight Tracker is offering future fitness podcast listeners 25% off store wide. Visit InsightTracker.com slash future to get your offer code and try it Insight Tracker today. Insight Tracker, because change is an inside job. This episode is also brought to you by Morpheus, the world's first and only fitness intelligence platform built by coaches for coaches. Look, there is a ton of fitness and health data being collected on you and your clients, but are you leveraging it? And perhaps more importantly, are you saving yourself time and making more money because of it? Well, I'll answer that question for you. You're not, because you can't until now. Morpheus arms coaches with accessible, intelligent, communicable client insights to save coaches time and ultimately increase your value and earn more money. By collecting lifestyle data from 90% of the current wearable market and combining that data with cutting-edge proprietary technology, Morpheus provides an accurate and reliable recovery score for all of your clients served up on a simple and elegant dashboard. No more guessing, just the real, honest data alongside the insights from Morpheus into what to actually do with it. But wait, it doesn't stop there. The Morpheus platform also provides live heart rate training for your clients that can be tracked and shown anywhere, in the gym, in a home, outdoors, with personalized heart rate zones for each individual client. Combined with custom alerts, in-app messaging, and other amazing features, this is the ultimate coaching machine. Go to trainwithmorpheus.com to learn more. That's trainwithmorpheusmo r-e-us.com. Please go check out our wonderful sponsors. And if you get value out of this show, I ask you to do three things. Please go subscribe, give us a favorable rating, and share this episode on social media or wherever you like to go chat with friends. I am your host, Eric Malzone, and once again, welcome to the future of fitness. We are live. Stuart Brouwer, welcome back to the future of fitness.

Eric, it's good to see you, buddy.

Yeah, it really is. I thoroughly enjoy our conversations. And I was looking back prior to this. I'm like, okay, the last time I had you on the show was uh April 26th, 2018. So that was kind of when I was uh really in the first few months of of starting this show. So in three years, what's new? What's going on, man?

So uh 2018 we spoke. I was maybe a little less than a year into the new brand that we had started Urban Movements after the the tenure uh with a CrossFit gym and the CrossFit brand, sunset that uh started a new one. Um, and at that point, you know, WTF is still and is now and back then my my full-time gig. And we were just you know hammering out the all the kinks in this this new brand, knowing that we wanted the franchise that are replicated at some point. Uh at that point, we were also planning the self-made summit. I had this big, I had a hundred gym owners come in. I had Brandon Cullen from Metabolic and um Steve Pinkerton Vitality, Mike Jones at Alchemy365, all these amazing, you know, what I consider great thought leaders in our space that have created amazing, unique brands. They came in and they spoke to 100 gym owners and gave keynotes as to how they went from CrossFit to the unique brand that they created now, the standalone. And so that was a whirlwind kind of 18-month period. And then obviously COVID and everyone's been, you know, coveted, uh, hanging out during the what I've been calling the pandy. All right, the pandies just sounds more fun, less less hostile to pandy. So um yeah, post-pandy, uh, you know, we've we went into a license model with urban movements. So we've got locations opening up that I won't own. I will just uh for a fee give the licensing rights to and provide business support, marketing support, brand guidance, trademark uh copyright infringement support, all that kind of stuff. And that's pretty unique. It's that's been a lot of fun, but uh, you know, just still going around running around with a camera, having interviews just like you, conversations with cool people and uh and living it up.

Yeah, man. Well, I I want to, I don't think now people talk to me and I'm like, well, I've produced 700 interviews, right, in three or four years. And they're like, wow, that's a lot. I'm like, yeah, is it? I guess. I mean, I've just been doing it for you know almost four years now. It doesn't seem like a lot. But when I look at you, Stuart, I see like I consider, and that's coming from me, I consider you a content machine. Like the video, the cutting, the constantly be going, you're flying out to you know, meet with Pastouch and do an interview there. Like, yeah, man, I stay in Montana, I sit on Zoom, I have great conversations. I'm not too worried about my my growth. I just enjoy the conversations, right? To me, you're like the next level of content creator, like you are making it happen.

Well, the podcast scene I never really wanted to do. I don't natively listen to podcasts. I just it's just not part of like one of my things. It I like making video, I like running around with a camera and getting a certain shot. I like getting like a raw reaction, and like I like showing the audience, like nobody knows what Sean Pastouch is off. Like, he's never done a full video tour. I want to go show like how awesome or not awesome or whatever. Like he's in the fucking in the hood of Long Beach, or like I want to like show this entire story. But the podcasting thing came out of people. I mean, I'm talking DM after DM after personal conversation. People like, man, I listened to your video the other day, and I just was like, and this is back when I I was in, I was trying to be fancy. I was like, I got some money, I'm gonna hire a full-time videographer and editor. I'm like, you know how much money I'm spending on these videos and you're listening to them? They're like, Well, I'm busy, the kids, or I'm I'm pushing the bulldog scrubber, I can't watch it. And that that hurt for a second. I was like, oh my god, but that's when I went, I'm like, okay, so podcasting is a thing, and then I just I like leverage. If I'm gonna get audio, I typically want the video so that I can make the Instagram world come alive as well, and the YouTube world and and things like that. I just like that storytelling, but yeah, it's that that content thing has been fun. I've never spent a dollar for marketing, and my my consulting company pays for everything and then some, and I've never had to spend a dollar marketing because very much like you, this is the marketing.

Yeah, yeah. Interesting, man. Um, why do you create so much content? I mean, is it the marketing? Is it because you enjoy it? Do you like the conversations? Like, what really drives you? Because even if it's great marketing, there comes to a certain point where you get tired of doing it, right? I don't get tired of what I do.

Yeah, I haven't hit that point dead, but if you would have asked me seven years ago, will you ever get tired of coaching the pull-up? I'd be like, No, are you crazy? Look at me today. I haven't coached the pull-up in a hot minute. Like, and I and I don't want to. So I I do see, I do understand that life is cyclical and I will come in and out of that. Um, at one point when I was growing the consulting, I'm like, okay, I want to get to X amount of revenue or whatever it may be. I was, I was very closely. I uploaded 15 new videos this month. I got three new clients. That's my ratio. And I started looking at that. And then that number would go up and down. And to be honest, there was never a consistency to it. All I knew was if I put out new content and recycled old, so that was just constantly somewhere, whether it be LinkedIn or Facebook or Instagram or podcasts or whatever, people came into my ecosystem, either as a client or as uh what I call like a colleague, somebody that, hey, I heard you on here, I'd like to be on my podcast, or I think what you're doing is really cool. Like, and it just it grew my network, it grew my my business, my consulting stuff, and uh, I just truly enjoy it. So until that time of me running around with a camera and traveling, but even during the pandemic, you know, we all, you know, we all took maybe some of us did uh hobbies during the pandy. I took up street photography. I took online street photography courses and I'd wake up in the morning at 4 a.m., go in uptown Charlotte and take pictures because it was a very unique time with BLM and riots and all that kind of stuff. And I got so I I think for the time being, holding a camera in my hand is probably gonna be something I enjoy doing uh until I don't.

Yeah. That's funny. My wife picked up making uh sourdough French bread during the pandy.

Uh I picked up the too. I've been seeing everyone talk about sourdough. Pastucci was talking. It's he's he makes sourdough pancakes. He doesn't make pancakes anymore unless there's sour cream and all that. Just like this is I I need to get on this.

So here's a question for you. I mean, there's certainly the upsides to creating so much content, right? And uh I have jokes about I think it was with Brandon Cullen where we called you the uh Howard Stern of the CrossFit community, right? Like, yeah, some somewhat controversial. Um, for people I haven't picked up yet, there may be curse words in this podcast. And just whatever, deal with it. The you know, you put yourself out there so much, right? And we understand that, you know, there's general rules, one out of a hundred person, whatever you may believe, is an asshole, right? So you're gonna hear from those people. Um what has been some of the dark sides of putting that much content out?

So uh the dark sides, you know, the the hardest part for me is someone who came from such a love of like CrossFit and from that area. And when I when I transitioned and I left that world, I had a lot of colleagues and well, no longer, I guess, friends and colleagues that just were not okay with that. And my content coming out was very it rebutted a lot of the the things the average CrossFit gym does, not CrossFit, maybe in and of itself like CrossFit HQ, Glassman, Eric Rosa, that world, but the average micro gym CrossFit affiliate. And a lot of it just flies right in the face of that. Um, in 2019, I laid down, I had Signs RX, this really cool company, come out and put down these squares in the same shape as my logo on the floor in my gym because I believe in operational capacity. And I I like looking at my gym like an airline or like a spin studio. I want to know how many people are in there. I know much how revenue I'm making per person, and it's it's very organized. I had, I mean, like gym owner friends be like, dude, you're a fucking idiot. What are you doing when I got rid of the pull-up rig? And I like I made all these changes and then COVID happened, right? And now everyone's got fucking like tape on their square, you know, they're squaring out their space and all this, and it's people are keeping it like that is something that's here to stay. Gym owners sectioning off and having an in-place model like yoga and spin, that is going to stay for a high number of these barbell-biased group fitness classes. Watch, I swear to God. Um, and anyway, so there's that. There's the criticism of trying something new and and all that. And then there's, you know, we were talking off band, you know, making the content. You know, I made a uh, you know, a little um my take on the Noble uh morning chalk-up article that came out that was led by a woman named Athena Perez. Uh her she had some commentary about Noble not make not making inclusive sizes for people, and my thoughts on whether Noble should be responsible to make sizes for what I called an overly fat population, um, which I had to completely defend where that term came from and what that means, and whether they should have to, now that they're a three-year temporary vendor of a sport of the fittest in the world, should they also have to make triple XL size clothing clothing? And I just made an open video about that discussing it. And, you know, the DMs of I hope your mother burns in hell and all that good stuff come in. And I don't take, I take that. I mean, that stuff's funny to me. That stuff, like it doesn't bother me in the least. And I have conversations, like I've invited many people to come on my podcast. I have a segment of my podcast called I May Be Wrong But I Doubt It, where I invite people on to argue with me on topics. It's a Charles Barclay wrote that book back in '92. It's an amazing book if you've never read it. I may be wrong, but I doubt it. And um, because I I believe that differences of opinion are the only reason we have anything in this world. And uh, you and me could have come wildly different views and opinions. We can still be friends, in my opinion.

Yeah. Okay. So let's get into this. I think it's important because I mean, on this show, it's called the Future of Fitness. We talk about tech, we talk about business principles, we talk about how coaching is shifting and consumer demand shifts and all these different things, right? But what we don't talk about is the social aspects. And we have a country here that's built on free speech, right? Now, I'm gonna say this that uh if you're listening, dear listener, your ability to be offended is not a defensible argument. Just gonna let that marinate for a second, right?

I agree. And that it's well well stated.

If you believe that, you know, whatever you said, right? And then like it's it's like did did people try to cancel you in the new term?

And so I've this term I'm familiar with, I'm not ignorant to the term. I haven't experienced it. I've experienced just people just um passionately disagree with whatever it is I have to say. If it could be dogs in the gym or whatever it may be, you know, I I made a comment the other day uh about babies, gym owners or coaches who wear their baby while they're coaching in a barbell bias group strength and conditioning class. And I why I think that's fucking ridiculous. And I had mothers, well, I'm a single mother and I own the gym. And I'm like, then maybe you should work a little bit harder, make some money so you can afford fucking daycare. I don't know. Like, what's it gonna take? A kid catching the snatch off the back of its dome piece, you know, whatever. Like, and so uh to that, I've never been canceled or anything like that, obviously. I've I've just gotten really angry DMs, which is fine. Like, I actually get honestly impressed that someone takes the time. And I'm when I say like anyone who's anyone who's ever got an angry DM, it's not generally one or two words, they're books. I mean, they're fucking books of paragraphs, and the time it takes someone to compose that together, I'm always so impressed. So I always respond with lengthy audio messages, thanking them. Understand I get where you're coming from. I just don't agree. But we're we're cool. Like if I witness this in person, we'd knuck it up, we'd high five, in my opinion. They probably would not high five me, but um yeah, I was in debate club in high school. Like, I think debate is one of the most beautiful art, like beautiful art forms back and forth. As long as you can do it and not get like personally, like my view very similar to this. You said it so poetically. I'm not even gonna try to restate that earlier what you said, but my stance and viewpoint on something does not mean yours is invalid. It's just mine. Like, I'm wearing the blue shirt. Eric could be like, I fucking hate blue. That is the ugliest shirt I've ever seen. Sue, like, yeah, let's go. I get it, man. It's fine. Can we let's move on? Like I say, I just don't understand the need to marinate it and make you align with my thing.

Right. Yeah. Well, it's it's uh it's really important that people can learn to argue. And sometimes I feel, you know, uh and I I I know so here's a great example. Um, prior to this interview, I'll be completing most likely a three-part series for the Fit Tech Summit, you know, talking about the speakers doing the done working with and the tally over there. Um, tell you if you're working or if you're listening, uh just take this with a grain of salt. She's European, she's German, Russian, right? And when we converse, it's different. She's straightforward, right? And you know, when she asked me afterwards when we were having a discussion with some third party, she's like, was I too straightforward? Was I uh, you know, insulting? I'm like, don't change. Like, do not change. If anything, it's our culture over here that made someone feel sensitive to what you said. You didn't say anything, you just said what was honest, which was great for the development of that guest, right? And to me, that's missing, and it's such a detriment to the way we work. Like you disagreeing with me and me not liking your blue t-shirt, at least we have a conversation that's constructive, right? But if you just say, Oh, you're right, I'm sorry, I'm never wearing a blue t-shirt again, just don't cancel me, right?

Yeah, and pander to it, yeah.

Right, and pander to it, right? And then what happens? Then it becomes a silent thing. Now you're gonna you're gonna like be next time you talk to me like that. Malzone guy's a dick. Like he didn't like blue t-shirts, and you know, God, I never want to be on that guy's show again.

Well, you have to take it. We talked about earlier, you know, I was talking about the the shoot the shit segments of doing these live in-person three and a half hour interviews. I mean, there's travel cost and gear and all this stuff. And uh I was joking around, like, man, I'd just love to get a couple sponsors for this. However, and I I'm very open with people I work with on this, is that I've also put myself in a position where that's a you know, I get it. I, you know, I will say things that are, you know, it's gonna take a special individual to not to also be able to align themselves with the thought that we're not gonna allow this cancel culture or people's sensitivity or disagreement with topics. I mean, even like, you know, my God, like right now, um, you know, everything that's going on, the that Minneapolis shooting and again, you know, whatever, and however people feel about this, that, or the other thing, there's always gonna be something hypersensitive. I mean, like to like just a touch, if you even get close to it, it's just gonna set everything off. Um I I but I but I also as a content creator, my just like a news reporter, the the job and the the the goal is to speak about these things, realizing 51% might be down with it and 49% want you dead or flip-flopped. But that's it. That's that's the split. And the minority is always loud, but the minority is generally always the minority in that scenario.

Yeah. So here's here's an interesting thought for us to kind of like, you know, when I was growing up, I'm older than you, um, I'm 44, but brands were things that sold you stuff, right? Coca-Cola just sold you Coca-Cola, right? Uh, whatever. You name a company, they're there to sell you things. Fast for now is that companies and brands are almost like they have to have feelings, like they have to have a stance on political, socioeconomic issues. They have to be sensitive, right? Yeah. So if we circle this back to the industry, is how does one now in your brand, your gym's a brand, right? Your content's a brand, how does the brand have to navigate the waters of when it's like, why can't we just sell fitness? Like, why do we have to sell all the other things that come along with society?

Yeah, I so when I think of a brand, like people don't join gyms, they or they don't join um, they don't buy brands, they join brands, and think of it just like take the word tribe and exchange it for brand and vice versa, right? I like it. So when you're in a tribe, you're in a group, and a thing happens, you kind of want to know what everyone else in my group think about this. And there's definitely there's every brand has a leader, there's seven elements of every good brand, and one of them is the leader. And uh, let's say that brand is Lululebon, and the leader is Chip Wilson at the time, the founder of Lululevin, who was later ousted out of the company because he made a comment about the black yoga pants that women were buying two to three sizes smaller than what they should have actually purchased because they thought it would make them look more slimming. Larger humans purposely buying smaller size pants to make them look slimmer, and then the clothes would pill. And I'm not an I'm not a very educated man in the world of fashion, but I learned what pill means. And that's like when the fabric starts like curling up on itself, and it's it looks bad, you know. So there were these quality control complaints at at high, and people taking photos and you know, posting on Twitter and Lululemon's clothing is shitty, and but and he came out on a I think it was like a CNN thing or something or a board, whatever, and he made a comment. He's like, Well, big chick should probably stop wearing pants that are too small for them, or something to that effect. He wasn't wrong. Like, factually, if you're a size XL and you wear a size medium, the the product isn't meant to carry that. You cannot tow a yacht with a Volvo. I don't know if that's a great analogy, but um that's it's and he was not wrong. But you gotta think delivery. I get people all the time like, hey Stu, I I would watch more of your stuff. I don't like the way you deliver the content. I don't like the F bombs and the C words and all the things you say. That makes sense. Like my message could get completely, you know, overlooked or not even listened to because of my delivery style. However, if it's authentic and you're not just trying to be a Richard Pryor, a Gary Vaynerchuk or something like that, it's an actually authentic element of how you talk. And if someone were to bump into you, you know, at uh at dinner or lunch and they'd hear similar resemblance of conversation, I truly think it's your obligation to be. Authentic as possible, but to go back to your question about the brands, I think it's just uh you know, at at this stage in this stage of the game, people are aware of what a brand before back in the day, Coca-Cola. You just bought a Coca-Cola, it was just you know, enjoy happiness that you just bought it. People are so much more brand aware now. Like people realize that brands exist and they pride themselves on the brand. Like there wasn't P there weren't people in the 50s who are like, I'm Team Sprite, no, I'm Team Coca-Cola or whatever it may be. But now you can 100% be, you know, I'm team uh, you know, let's go ahead, Lululemon or Athleta or Hylee or Noble or Nike, and you belong to a very specific demographic at that point. There's so many brands that's now segmented the population, all these little these little tribes. Yeah. And a tribe is gonna want to know what the fuck we what's everyone think about this within my tribe. What does my tribe stand for? They want to reshare it. It's almost like an obligation to give consumer-generated content uh, you know, amount like a soundbite or a clip so they can share that. And it's, I hope I got it right. I hope the 51% agree with my thing. Yeah, that's I think that's the only hope you could have.

Well said. And I think that's it. I mean, now we can easily talk about you look at like you you coach a lot of gym owners, right? A lot of facility owners, and you work on that, and we talk about metrics, right? What's your retention? What's this? But we have this metric in play that we can't judge, and that's how people feel. And that becomes it's becoming more and more of a player within any business, not just the fitness industry, right? Like you mentioned, like how does someone feel about a brand, right? Like, how does that work?

Um I think um, yeah, I I mean I how do you measure that? I mean, like, you know, there's guys that have tried hacking NPS net promoter scores for years and try to get like these this really good raw data and things like that. Um that's a lot of qualitative stuff, though. I mean, that's but they I mean, like you look at guys like um oh, who am I thinking of right now? The books over there, I can't think of it. But there are guys that talk about that the actual brand power of a brand is actually more valuable than it maybe it's its inventory or its actual physical assets. It's like the brand power of a brand and how quickly it can turn. Look at like look what like is it Ryan Phillip? Who's the funny uh who's the the guy from the red suit? He was in the action movies, uh Ryan Reynolds.

Oh, Ryan Reynolds, yeah.

Fucking that guy has absolute amazing brand power to take a brand and make it relevant. Mint.com or that gin company he bought. Um uh he did match.com's commercial where it was 2020 and the devil having a first date, and it was just this amazing viral commercial. Like, but that's a guy who understands brand power and making people feel a certain way about a certain thing. Um, but yeah, how to actually measure that? It's you know, do you go by the comments? Do you go by the by the sales? At the end of the day, do you think, you know, do you really think uh as Donald Trump tweets something or uh Deshaun Watson gets in trouble, or you know, whatever the fuck it may be, does the Texans or whatever football team do they end up selling less tickets because of that? No, like these micro little transactions where like, oh my God, everyone's reacting negatively to it. I'm like, yeah, for like 10 days, and then it's done and over with. Like for like, you know, it's got a 10-day window, and then we're on to the next thing.

Yeah. So when you're when you're talking to somebody who's maybe, you know, a fitness professional, gym owner, business owner, entrepreneur in the space, and maybe they're reluctant to start creating content in any form of scale or consistency because they're worried they may say the wrong thing.

Yeah.

What do you how how do you get into that? How do you tackle that?

So there's you make content, and the goal is to have two things. So you want to be entertaining and or educational. And you could be just one, um, but if you do both, that's that's really the sweet spot. I tell new content creators in the fitness industry, start with educational things that already exist. Like you're not gonna make content about the the four energy systems if we're including lactate, uh, and and be wrong. Like, you might have someone want to argue you, but like it's there, like there's nothing really to interpret that. So start with the easy stuff just to get you comfortable on camera and talking. Because there's like we're talking hours and hours and hours before you even get comfortable doing the camera thing, right? Like in and putting it out there now. When you get into opinion, subjective stuff, that's when you know you in the very beginning, you probably want to start with something where compliment sandwich is kind of a strategy I'll typically do with someone when they want to, hey, I'm doing a podcast on BLM or I'm doing a podcast on COVID vaxxes or wearing a gym a mask in a gym. Like, cool. You want to lead with empathy, lead with empathy, understand both sides, and then you want to go ahead and talk about why you're having a hard time understanding it from this perspective. And this podcast or piece of content is hopefully your own opportunity to learn or express your confusion or whatever, and then end and on the high note with I'm looking to have more conversations like this, open conversations and dialogue. It's not like, unless you want, I mean, if you want to get up there and be like, all right, guys, I think masks are fucking dumb and my gym's not gonna do them. And if you wear a mask in here, I'm kicking you. Like, if you want to make a hard line in the sand, like Ian Smith out the Attillus gym up in New Jersey, like those guys. Um, he's giving away free gym memberships to anyone who doesn't get the vaccine. Uh like he did it in response to when Krispy Kreme gave free donuts for if you brought your vax card. And so he made an announcement uh that he's giving away free gym memberships if you don't get the vaccine. Um anyway, uh incredibly interesting, dude. Um but yeah, no, I like if you're so going back to the yeah, I think you start off in realms where you're not gonna draw that, and then as a content creator becomes more established, then you kind of get into these subjective op-eds type of scenario where you your thing could be interpreted different ways, and you just have to accept if you want to create content, this is what comes with it. There is no creating content that everybody is going to like, especially now. Like those are the people I see get ripped down the most, people who just put out the pandering, everyone's gonna like it, just washes over people and uh and it's not engaging. And it's not that you have to create clickbait. I believe you just at people just like someone who stands for something.

Do you think if you are creating content and you're not getting some sort of pushback from the ethos, right? Are you not doing it well? If everybody loves what you do, you're agreeable with everybody, is that a problem?

Yeah, so the one of the seven elements of any successful brand is having pagans. You have to have people who dislike what it is you do. You have to, and not for a bad reason. It can literally be like, I like Athleta over Lululemon because it's less expensive. So Lululemon, I am a pagan of your brand. You're too expensive. Clothes are great, you're just maybe too expensive. You you need someone who doesn't like your thing. Like the worst thing you can be is in my opinion, is like the one-stop shop brand where you have something for everybody here. I think that's one of the worst things you could potentially be. Um, but yeah, no, you you have to because it means you're actually saying something. You're drawing a line in the sand. And those lines in the sand are are not meant to be polarizing for the for the purpose of being polarizing. They're meant to be there so that your tribal members can stand very like firmly be like, this is what we do, this is why we do it, and this is why I wear this apparel, or why buy beats over, you know, bows' headphones, right? Like, what does the brand make me, you know, Bose is something like your dad might have in his really expensive study. Beats is what LeBron wears before he goes to a game. Like, so I mean, like, there's two different vibes and brands feelings there. So, yeah, 100%. You need pagans for your brand.

So you keep so you keep alluding to these seven qualities, right? From brandlets, can we dive into that? Because I'm I'm I'm curious.

There's an amazing book by Patrick Hanlon called Primal Branding. Every successful brand has seven elements. There is the creation story, there are creed, icon, rituals, um, lexicon. So, like, think the sacred words that a brand might use, the jargon, right? Um, there's pagans, and then there's the creator. So if these seven brands. So, for example, um, if you're in New York City, you could be a Yankee fan or you could be a Mets fan, right? And if you're a Yankee fan, pinstripes are your thing. And if you're a Mets fan, that subway color, that orange, that blue, that's your thing. You could be a Trekkie or a Star Wars person, right? Like these these, you know, it's what brands are. Um, Vegas is a brand. What happens if Vegas stays a that's a there's a cot, something comes into your head. And when I talk to people about brands, a brand is not a product, service, or um or or any, it's not a thing. It is somebody's gut instinct about your organization or company when they hear it. Whatever that is, that's a brand. And you can't control brand. You can only influence your brand and do everything in your power to position it in a certain way, but you cannot control brand because someone might hear the Yankees and be like, oh my god, Giombi, yeah, Giombi, fuck yeah, and be super all about the Yankees. And then someone else hears the Yankees and they're like, I fucking hope they die in the next plane to the next home away game, right? Like, hates the Yankees, fucking hates them. That that's still brand. It just is polarizing for two different it's interpreted by two different people. And you're hoping that the people that interpret it interpret it positively, buy your thing, subscribe to your thing, um, they all feel similar things, so they feel tribal.

It's fascinating, man, because I I love hearing you talk about brand because I know you've you've done the research, you put in the time, right? But it's funny because uh, you know, in the world of LinkedIn, which is becoming the cesspool of direct marketing, it's you know, you all the time you get I sometimes I I mess with people to be like, hey, you know, I I I I'm an online brand builder. I'm like, cool, define brand.

Yeah.

And they're like, usually it goes dark, right?

Yep.

But no one really knows, right? It just becomes this ethereal thing, they're like, Well, you have to have a brand. What does that mean? Just I I think I just means you post on social.

Yeah.

No, I don't I don't think that's really it.

It's your reputation. Yeah. Like it's yeah, I like it. It's your reputation. So if uh I got, let's say I'm meeting a buddy at the bar here later this afternoon and he's bringing a friend from work and they get there before I do. And my buddy turns to his coworkers, man, you're you're gonna love Stu. Listen, he's kind of a little like you're gonna first maybe think he's a bit of an asshole, but once you get to know him, he's a great guy. That is a brand for me. That's how that's someone's again, the definition for everyone listening. A brand is a person's gut instinct about a product service organization. That's it. It's not the product service organization, it is someone's gut instinct and feeling about it. And human beings are incredibly emotional creatures, so that's why every little thing you do is a microscopic touch point. It's like if you're in a relationship, if I'm dating somebody and every single day I write my significant other a love note before I leave the house, every fucking day I do that. That becomes part of my brand, my reputation. She feels a certain way about me. I'm romantic, I'm with this, I'm whatever. If you're someone who, you know, is never around, but then you take them on badass vacations every quarter, and like that's your time together. That's part of your thing. Like it's just your reputation, and it's in every aspect of your life you're building brand. Brand is being built whether you want it to or not, in your actions, in everything you do.

Oh, that's beautiful, man. That is beautiful. And it's powerful, you know, and it kind of circles back to, I think brand means something different now than it did when I was a youth, right? Like we talk about Coca-Cola back in the day. It was a brand, but now Coca-Cola or whatever brand, insert brand here, right, has to be has to have an opinion on whatever's going on socially, right? Economically. Uh now, you know, pandy, right? Yeah. Like everyone has to have an opinion on all these things, right? And they have to have a stance on all of it. So it just becomes very complicated to be a brand now if you let it, right?

Yes. 100%. It not only becomes complicated, but you also got it, like you mentioned it earlier, what are the responsibilities of a brand and how far do those responsibilities go? Like where, you know, to comment on social stuff, which uh the one thing the pandy taught us was crisis communication. If you are a small business owner, you got a front row seat and tickets to how to crisis communicate. Everything from the COVID and the 16 emails gym owners had to send about okay, well, we hear it's coming, so we're wiping things down more and we bought more wipes, and then oh shit, it's here. We got closed down. Well, we're gonna start doing park workouts. Oh fuck, we can't do park. Like you were constantly doing crisis communication. BLM, George Floyd, um, you know, the continued thing, like, you know, gym owners who had to like, I know gym owners who literally had to shut down their private Facebook groups because they have 400 members in there, and when it went Trump, Biden, I mean it became it was hot and messy in there, and they're having to cut they're having to like separate the two sides. Like, so crisis communication is something that brands now have to handle. I here's the one thing though, I I don't think they need to comment on everything. Like, I don't I think if you start commenting on everything, um, yeah, I don't know what that's like. Like, is there gonna be a department in your gym now or your your business that's like, all right, well, here's all the latest trending things. A boy got shot in Des Moines, Iowa. Who shot him? Uh white guy shot a black guy. All right, fuck. Do we got to talk about this? Like, I don't know, maybe we should talk about this. Like it now, like what what no, but you have to comment on fucking every single thing? So, you know, what's what's big enough to comment on? But if you're a brand and it actually hits home for you, uh Alchemy 365, a brand I'm a huge fan of, uh, I have Minneapolis. The the George Floyd shooting was literally blocks from one of their locations. It makes a hundred percent sense for them to go above and beyond in their communication because of the riots and the burning of the cities and all the things that happen in like within like 200 yards. For a gym in whatever in North California, Oregon kind of area, like, should they maybe commit as much communication to it? Maybe they should make a statement or make a commentary if they feel they need to. You know, did any gyms that did do gyms and brands vote? Do brands show up at the ballots and place a vote for a president? You know, does the gym change its colors to red or blue during an election? No. So, like, why do you always have to comment on a on a social event? You know, people making comments on climate change. Like, I yeah, I uh I I think if it's important to you as a brand and as the whoever the organizers and the leadership team is, and they want to comment on it, like we are upset or we're happy about this and we want to make it known, great. But don't fucking tell me or any other brand that I have to comment on it. And if a customer wants to hear your word on it, I think that's a very individual, one-off kind of conversation. It doesn't need to be megaphone. It can be sit, it can be, you know, not not an actual text, but a one-the-one conversation.

Yeah, I agree. And I think overall, I mean, what we've noticed um, you know, in recent years is it gets exhausting to keep up with everything, to have an opinion on all the things and to have a defensible position on everything that comes out. It's just exhausting. I mean, one of the reasons, to be truth be told, I live in Montana, in this corner of the earth, right? Is because I don't deal with a lot of that anymore. And I was a gym owner in California, right? On the coast of California.

And it was just how glad you're not a gym owner in California right now.

Oh man. Yeah. I mean, I want to be sensitive to that for our listeners. But yeah, I mean, I'm happy I sold those gyms in 2017.

Umer in that state, my heart goes out to you. You in New York, it's just it's uh ridiculous.

Yeah, it's tough. It's tough out there. So, you know, I'm gonna kind of start to wrap this up and I want to ask you a couple more questions and um ones that I I think are important because I I want to hear your opinion. But number one, uh, you like whiskey, scotch or bourbon? What is your bourbon? Yeah, and what are your what are one of your favorites right now?

Uh I'm on a really big Jefferson's ocean kick, um, which is a really cool, you know, uh that's they at least the story, at least the marketing lines they use is they put the whiskey in the barrels, they should put a ship out there, and then the waves go back and forth, it goes up and down the O casks, and then however long it's been at sea, it's on the bottle. So I always think that's super fucking cool to see which voyage it was and how many days at sea it was. Um Japanese whiskies, actually. I had a client send me a bottle of Japanese whiskey, and I've gotten really into some Japanese whiskies too.

Yeah, very good. Uh I like Eagle Rare because it's delicious.

And I I drink Jameson like Jameson Coldbird, like drink like the cheap Jameson on a on the regular or like whatever, whatever Con McGregor's really shitty whiskey is, I'll drink his too.

Yeah.

Um, but yeah, I'm not I'm not a huge snob. I like the good stuff, but I'll, you know, you'll also find me drink the well stuff as well.

Awesome. So three years from now, because I know you have a lot of things cooking, you're a very purpose-driven guy. If you and I are having a glass of Jameson in three years, right? And I'm like, Stu, how's it going? And you're like, man, I'm so happy with every the way things have gone personally and professionally. What does that conversation look like?

I'd like to still be consulting as my my full-time thing. And then simultaneously with that is uh the content creation. I I really hope that at that point um my commercial real estate investments have continued. I really like that. Uh that's the one thing I think when I think about a legacy for my daughter, something that I could leave her, I'm not leaving her a camera and a gym. That'd be a shitty gift from dad. You know, I got hit on my motorcycle and I get, you know, killed. And my daughter's like, oh, well, dad left me a gym and he he makes videos that maybe I can start now. I mean, like, so I my commercial real estate stuff, I want to continue doing my gym, providing me the funds to be able to even step into that world. And I and I hope to continue that. I think that's uh gonna be my ticket to uh retiring and long-term wealth. That's that's the long-term plan. Because I'll be honest, long-term wealth inside of the fitness gig at a like an individual level is tough. It's totally doable. I mean, every day I see it's doable. It is a tough gig. Um, so I and at that point, I hope I have you know a handful of licenses in different cities. You know, I think it would be cool to take my daughter shopping in Chicago and be like, hey, while we're here, let's go drop into the urban movement in Chicago. You know, that daddy came up with that idea. I think thing like if I could say I have that, I have this the commercial real estate arm, I'm still getting able to make content, I'm still being able to be plugged in deep into the fitness industry and still know what's going on and who the players are and what the things are what's happening and how gyms can continue to make a living. Um, I think that'd be left fun. I don't see myself ever leaving the fitness industry. I just, it's the I don't know a lot of things. I know a lot of things about a very few topics. Fitness industry is one of those few topics. I'm 35 years into my knowledge base on that. I don't see myself not continuing to educate myself on the different brands that are doing well, the the the strategies and the the business techniques that are dominating versus you know falling out. And um, yeah, so I never see that part going anywhere.

Awesome. Thanks for sharing that, man. I think you know, I uh I talk to a lot of people, um, I get a lot of ideas, and I really you're one of a handful of people who I really respect and love to see what you're doing. I feel like you're always kind of okay, what's next? Right. You're always looking with forward and you're helping people get there. And I think you really do truly, honestly give many shits about the fitness industry. So thanks for coming on, man. Keep up the great work, and it's uh it's always uh it's always an honor.

Eric, thank you so much for having me on, brother. I'm excited to to get you over on mine and to jam. And um, I I just by the way, I just want to let you know your your roster of what you've done. Like, I I only subscribe, I think, to five podcasts on Apple, and one of them is yours, but it's always at the top. Like when I hit the refresh of what's new, you've constantly like it's just it's incredible. Um, and when I started doing the long form thing, I listed you to my business coach. Uh, I told him I was gonna do a long form podcast. He's like, okay, you don't do those. Who who are you to get learn interview tips from? And you were one of the podcasts I listened to, uh, just to kind of get an idea of like back and forth. Because I've never thought of myself as an interviewer. I think of you as an interviewer, though. And I think you do a great job, man. So I thank you for keep keep making these. Please do.

I will. Well, I will. It's a habit now. I can't get rid of it. Yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, Stuart Brower.

Thank you.

Hey, wait, don't leave yet. This is your host, Eric Malzone. And I hope you enjoyed this episode of Future of Minute. 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 or get in touch with me, simply go to the futurofitness.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.