Welcome to the latest episode of L.I.F.T.S. This episode is part of a series of recordings live from the EMEA’s biggest Health, Fitness, Wellness and Sports Festival, Beyond Activ.
In this episode, hosts Matthew Januszek, Co-Founder of Escape Fitness and Mo Iqbal, Founder & CEO of Sweatworks, are joined by industry heavyweight, Chris Clawson, recently appointed Chief Commercial Officer at EGYM and former Life Fitness CEO, to discuss the status of the fitness industry as well as the opportunities and challenges facing the future of fitness.
Topics discussed in this LIFTS episode, include:
• Looking at the fitness industry with a fresh set of eyes.
• The challenge of inbreeding within the fitness industry.
• Different market phases; laggards, leaders and drivers.
• The reasons why Peloton was so successful.
• From content creation to capturing, captivating and keeping the customer.
• Fitness Industry growth in the Middle East.
• AI-powered fitness technology and its impact.
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#fitnessindustry #beyondactiv #saudiarabia
The dinner was awesome we went to alderia which is the Old Fort part of Riad actually wasn’t a part of Riyad now it’s a part of Riad but it’s was very historic we kind of got immersed in Saudi culture enjoyed some really good food actually had two good nights asleep
Which has been great so I think we’re feeling good right now as we are about to head back yeah good good night of sleep last night I have to have to say big thanks to Mr Chris Clon for assisting the Sleep he’s got side business as well as eim now hasn’t he he
He does he’s he’s become the um sleep peld distributor so he I didn’t know he’s getting into the distribution business but that’s been incredibly helpful but also I think on some respects bit like what Chris claron said you got to be careful not to sit back on your laurels and and think you
Know everything when when really you know nothing no that’s true and I I think I’m actually going back after these two and a half days honestly chalk full of information I have to like unpack it digest it but I think it’s going to be really helpful and probably
Change some of the things I’m thinking about business in the region and also out of the region as well well I hope you enjoyed this week’s episode of lifts and if you do then please share it with as many people as you can because the more people that get to listen to this
The more that we’re going to be able to continue to share this great content thanks for Listening we have Chris Clawson Chief commercial officer of eim and Chris you know when I first met you uh you were at Life Fitness in your second go around at Life Fitness um I’m obviously relatively new to the industry I’ve been in the industry for about 12 years which seems
Like a long time but compared to Matthew and you that’s nothing and and I’ve known of you obviously heard of you all the things that you’ve done and now you’re at eim and you’re joining us here on lifts at be on active in Riad so
Thank you for coming on it’s great to be here you and I had breakfast together in San Francisco that’s right remember it well and we talked about where the industry was headed yeah and you were obviously thinking the the business from what I’ll call it an Outsiders perspective which is probably the
Healthiest perspective because you know there’s the the challenge this industry has historically is a lot of in inbreeding is that people just keep hiring the same people and they keep going to new places doing the same things that they used to do and calling it new and when people come from outside
The industry and they have all the learnings that they’ve had from their past life both professionally and as an individual they they are challenged they’re and they’re challenged by the status quo and the easiest way to make people who have new ideas go away is to discourage them or to disparage them and
Maybe it’s a little of both and in my personal view of of the industry and I’ve been in the industry for 40 years in August it’ll be 40 years is that I embrace all ideas now I don’t react the same to all ideas but I embrace all
Ideas and if I have a what I’ll call a personality in the industry is that my personality and I think my history in the industry would say this is that I treat everyone from the inventor who has a concept to the largest Health Club chain in the world exactly the same way
I’m I’m kind them considerate and I give them my time which is the best thing that I can do and I I can’t tell you how many times people have said to me wow I can’t believe you did that I can’t believe you took that much time with me
People coming up to me I don’t you remember this is here at the show I don’t if you remember me but met you in Chicago at a large group outing and I said I remember your face but I don’t remember tell me again what you do he
Said you were so nice to me and spent so much time with me he goes I was having problems with my son in sports he said and I understood that you were a professional athlete and we talked about that he says I’ll never forget that so
When you look at people coming in from outside the industry it makes people uncomfortable and when I came back to Life Fitness you mentioned this I was there three times right twice as CEO when I came back in 2010 I had been gone for 6 and a half years I joined the
Company in 1994 we were $180 million wow okay we were privately held by a private Equity Group out of New York called man manuso then we were sold to Brunswick in 1997 and we added Hammer Strength and a company called Hightech which became Life Fitness strength and by 2004 when I
Left almost 2005 we were a half a billion dollars so we had gone from 180 to half a billion and let’s call it 10 years in a decade when I came back and a half years later we were half a billion dollars we were half a billion dollars 6
And a half years later and we had a group of people who were oftentimes relegated to doing what I call minions work as opposed to people who are inspired and allowed to do what they’re capable of and I think the most amazing thing I came back and I had an executive team
That was comprised of basically three different people people that I knew well people that I knew a little bit and people that I didn’t know at all the in short order the two most talented people ah Hadad of my team were hired by my predecessor and his predecessor okay one from bter medical
The other from abot spectacular and I told him that after I got in I said listen we were doing succession planning and you’re in my succession plan you’re you you two are my successors if I as Frank V Life Fitness would say if I hit the bus tomorrow instead of the bus
Hitting me if I hit the bus tomorrow you would be my successors and so I I look at this conversation around the industry and I and I look at where I was at because before I came back to Life Fitness I was at Matrix competing with Life Fitness so I
Have this executive team in front of me again which I mentioned three different types of people and I said when I talk about this from a sales perspective so I’m talking to the vpa sales I said there is a fine line between being supremely confident and being cocky being being maybe obnoxious
I think the words I used was overconfident I said you guys are crossing that line too often and you don’t know it I said so I would much rather have somebody who is over the line confident than somebody who is demoralized and has no idea of what
Success feels like because I can we can temper that right it’s hard to elevate somebody to be a sprinter if they’re you know a jogger so we’ll work on that I said but here’s the thing that’s most important and this is what I’m going to tell you and then when we have these
Meetings with the rest of the company some live and some virtually I said you have to be comfortable being uncomfortable or you’ve got to be comfortable losing and I don’t like losing so we’re going to have to start getting uncomfortable so that we can win
Again and so when we talk about when you and I met Muhammad and we talked about what you were talking about is uncomfortable for a traditional manufacturer right it’s uncomfortable yes and yet if you don’t Embrace that discomfort if you don’t imagine that there’s way more than just making cardio
And strength equipment you’re going to fail long term you’re going to fail you’ve addressed this a little bit in what you’ve just said and I was thinking about the question as you as you was talking but but also um I’ll be I’ll be interested in your perspective because
You’ve you’ve been with a number of different companies and my guess is it’s fairly tempting to play The Playbook um you know being through similar situations in terms of product and and expansion and markets and people and you gave the reference to Mo coming outside
Of the industry so how are you in your new role almost having that perspective of someone that’s looking at this with a totally fresh set of eyes without necessarily you know using some of the stuff that you’ve known and learned and and been successful but also not getting
Really caught up in not getting overly caught up in some of the things that you may you know may may make sense to forget about I think it’s natural as as as animals you you there’s two things you fall back to your nature or you fall back to your
Nurture and I think it’s very common for people to look for comfort and for consistency and I’ll tell you one of the challenges that people that have come in to lead companies from outside the industry when I say outside the industry I don’t mean outside Fitness but I I’ll
Call it durables computer control durables is that they have no concept of the complexity of the business so therefore they try to do is they take try to take the things that they’ve learned in consumer package kids and make durables fit they try to take what they’ve learned from soft lines clothing
And fashion and make what they’re trying to achieve in this computer controlled complex environment somehow work right and they almost always to a person across companies they just fail and not just in the fitness industry because they don’t understand how complex product development is they don’t
Understand that it’s about a person so a pair of pants either they either fit well or they don’t okay and you might buy your clothing based on fit or performance or both but it’s a lot easier to look at an anthropomorphic model and make clothes fit for whatever
You’re trying to Target than it is to have an elliptical feel really good so you you have to imagine that what you’ve learned if it’s applicable in an industry that you’ve been in for 40 years there’s something there and sometimes it’s not what you should do sometimes it’s what you shouldn’t do
Sometimes it’s not fig how to get over the mountain it’s how to avoid the the pitfall that’s right in front of you where where you’re going to trip and and and hurt yourself but the conversation is really different if you pay attention to the customer and
This is what I always tell people is if you’re inwardly focused and you’re focused on product product development features and subsequent benefits you’re not going to see the opportunity you’re just going to keep doing what you did before and you’re going to do it a little bit better and it might maybe do
It a lot better and you can you can find success right you can make the better widget but if you don’t pay attention to where the industry one is is headed and if you’re a market leader where the market should go then you’re going to stay either where you are or you’re
Going to trip and I i’ like to do this with a visualization I talk about the different phases of being in the market so there are people that are in the market that are laggards they just they sort of they don’t even float along at this the pace of the stram
They’re just sort of there they don’t do anything different and you can be really successful and I’m I’m going to say this and someone’s going to get really mad at me because I’m I’m going to call it out there are categories of business where there’s been no innovation but because
Of where the industry has headed they become crazy successful with this very basic analog product and you go oh my God they’ve been around for 30 years and now they’re like they just tearing it up right well it’s because the market moved there and they’re just super successful
Because of it they were in the right place at the right time not because they were Innovative just the right place at the right time and those people in the realm of the history of the industry are laggards then you have people who I I call them they’re in the market they’re
Moving at the speed of the stream no faster no slower sometimes they go into the into the title pool sometimes they go into sort of a Slowdown you they get caught up on a log but they’re they’re mostly in the Stream moving at the speed of the market then you have people who
Are I’ll call them Market leaders they’re out in front they’re maybe they’re paddling and then you have people who are Market drivers and Market drivers they have a motorboat and they’re actually going at the speed of the motor that’s challenging because that’s when you can figure out oh oh no
There’s T there’s actually a a waterfall ahead or Rapids at the least and I might wreck my boat because I’m out further than everybody else’s and there are people have been very successful doing that I think pelaton did that with their content I think they were Market drivers
They got out in front of uh with an analog product right it’s just a bike technology is the enabler here but what it was is the ability to create content and deliver it effectively and then all the leaderboard and all that so that’s an example of somebody who’s a market
Driver if you look at the industry right now most everybody that’s in in this industry wants to be either be a lagard or they want to just float in the market that’s where they want to be they really do Club operators want to do what they
Used to do and just have lots of members come they’re okay with with the attrition they’re okay with the fact that they’ve got to constantly re-engage with and sell to somebody else that’s just they think that’s the way it is and then at the other end of the spectrum
You have people that say man if I keep doing what I’ve been doing before I’ll have either the same maybe same success but I might go out of business and so if you look at I mean look at your business Matthew you had a business that was invigorated by opportunity with the
Marketplace place has it moved to more and more different than from traditional then you looked at it and said there’s more to that than just barbells and dumbbells and accessories there’s this thing called functional training yeah and you’re again right place right product right time but you said I think
This is going to be this is not going to be a fad this is going to be a trend and you took that and you said I’m going to change the dynamic of my business to go from being a supplier of these things that I’ve been successful with to being
An innovator around something that I think is going to become a trend which is functional training and you change the dynamic within your company there are lots of people that don’t pay attention and to their own Peril but if they do pay attention the bigger challenge is to not chase after fads and
To recognize if there’s this trend there and it’s going to be successful do I really think I can play there because I think the most and this goes back to what you said about bringing what you’ve learned before those who chased after the most targets actually
End up with the least those that know who they are and stay true to who they are and where they’re headed tend to be more successful and I think that’s where I the companies that I’ve been part of what I’ve tried to instill in everyone is let’s be uncomfortable one two is
Let’s be uncomfortable doing something that we think we all should be doing so let’s have consensus and three is when we fail catastrophically we all said that’s the play We’re going to run and when we fail we all fail together so no one’s to blame so nobody feels like
They’re strung out because they were pushing for something that made us uncomfortable and then it failed and we all go see I told you and then everyone says man I’m never sticking my head out because I don’t want to get chopped off well look there’s so much to unpack
There right I don’t even know where to start but couple things that came to mind when you talked about um companies that are good at one thing thinking that the same strategy could apply to something else two examples from our industry lul lemon acquiring mirror try
To apply the same strategy and then even pelaton trying to go commercial and and that that Fai like what work in one does not mean it’s going to work in the other but look we’re here in Riad and I don’t know if this is your first time in the
Region or or if you’ve been here before many times in fact I used to be on the board of Lee Jam so I was I did not know that he was on the board of Lee Jam pre IPO during the IPO and post IPO okay
There we go I did not know that so so you so one question for you you also talked a lot about the importance of being in that leadership position but from a product perspective that’s a very relative term and I’ve learned that in technology right so what it means to
Introduce a new product on the leadership side being at The Cutting Edge in the United States is very different than what it means to do that in the UK Germany and now in the Middle East because what we’re doing and what might work for an equinox or lifetime is
Not going to work for a Lee Jam right here at this time at this time yeah so yeah there’s a couple things there that I want to maybe address and I’m not not not going to turn this into a pitch for eim or anybody else Ian I I’ll describe
The market as I see it you’re right I would tell you that generally speaking health clubs are mostly the same globally they’re mostly the same in fact when we talk about derivation it they’re so close to being the same at at the price point so if you’re a premium
Facility and you’re premium in in Riad you may have more amenities just because you have an audience that’s will to pay for amenities like Turkish baths and and you know billiar tables and all the things that they may have that that a club in say Europe Western Europe Asia
Or United States wouldn’t have but for the most part they’re they’re kind of the same that’s a that’s a trap because if you think that they’re mostly the same and that you can be really successful and have breakout success by doing mostly the same you’re going to struggle unless you
Have a brand like Hammer Strength you have a brand and when somebody says if you could have any plate loaded equipment what would you want say well I want Hammer Strength right if you could have any elliptical what would you want I want the pre-ore EFX I mean you can
You can have breakout products in a category and and and and be really successful there but if you said I want to compete I’m Lululemon remember what I said earlier what are the experts at clothing clothing not just clothing Leisure women’s clothing and then later men’s clothing and they created a category
Right so you know Chuck ran I love when he says as he goes you know thank God for yoga pants you know it’s like because two things one is if you’re Anytime Fitness everybody wants to look good in yoga pants right so everybody
Says I got to work out so so I can look good in my yoga pants but they captivated the market with this it wasn’t Innovative right I mean yoga pants have been around for people who did yoga forever but they made them fashionable people wear them like you go
To a formal and somebody’s like she’s wearing a Lulu Lemon okay this is supposed to be a gown and and you know black I Affair there weren lul lemon total credit I don’t have a clue I don’t have a clue about what they’re doing with durables and there was this belief
And this is one of the what I call the flawed beliefs that if something is true in one sense that’s true everywhere going back to what you just said Muhammad the reason why pelaton was successful is that there was a group of elite exercisers one two there was a
Group of elite exercisers that love group cycling three there was a group of them that really like the ability to do it in their home or in their apartment and the convenience of it all and they love the fact that it was competitive and it was exciting and it was different
Okay but that’s cream that that’s almost cream on cream if you look at tonal or mirror or Hydro or IID there’s a group of people that totally appreciate that content on demand but the cost to create the content to maintain the content to capture the customer to Captivate the
Customer and have them continue to be keep the customer is to keep the customer is extraordinary and so what you’ve seen and again I think I’m fairly knowledgeable here is that 100% of those people are grossly unprofitable to the point of almost being comical right when you lose a billion and a half
Dollars I I’ve said this before and I’m not taking it away because I I I give them all the credit for what they were they were good at there was a point in time when this is not when pellaton stock was at $160 a share this is way
Before before they were even publicly traded and they were valued at $7.9 billion I remember it perfectly and I’m there with a Brunswick board member and we’re looking out and we’re talking about their valuation and I said just recognize that their valuation that they just been given on this grossly
Unprofitable business which again I don’t see the Spectre of this thing turning profitable is more than everybody in this Hall combin so if you took techn gym Life Fitness preore I don’t care Zumba take them off throw them together and there less value you can own this entire floor for less money
And by the way almost everybody that’s out here is profitable why would you invest in something so grossly unprofitable why because first mover because they saw this as a Tech play not Fitness and they were valued as a Tech play as a Tech play and I can tell you
In my own personal life part of the reason why I separated from Life Fitness in 2017 is because there was this belief that carried on with the Su my successor that we should be a tech company and we should compete that way and I said and as part of this
Conversation which was not a short conversation it happened over years of constant pushing prodding and my boss at Brunswick Dusty McCoy fought with me said how in the world could I as a company who’s by the way exceptionally profitable more profitable than our top two competitors combined because of the
Fact even today no this is what okay having this conversation I don’t know where they are today but at that time we were more profitable than our top two competitors combined how could I possibly lose three times more than I make how would I invest in my business
How would I innovate how would I pay my bills because we are Brunswick was the oldest continuously traded stock on the New York Stock Exchange okay 1912 we are if we are not a brick and mortar traditional company that makes inboard outboard Stern Drive Bowling bards boats fitness equipment we are not
A Tech play now there’s Tech involved clearly but we’re not a Tech play and we’re not going to be valued that way and I kept saying to this particular person who was one of the ones that helped me go away I said I want you to look at the industry
Right now and I want you to tell you I’m going to tell you how I see pelaton pelaton is Tesla and I am Daimler Benz is diimler Benz dropping everything that they’re doing to go after them no is Toyota group is Volkswagen group is for
General I’ll go I can go on and on no because they’ll come a point in time well decide where they want to play and how they want to play in electric cars but they have stakeholders and stockholders that they’re beholden to we’re publicly traded we have stakeholders and stockholders I can’t
Lose more than I make I can’t do it but you kept seeing these stories about the valuations of all these companies and everybody kept saying oh my God imagine if Life Fitness were valued at $162 a share at that time runs stock was at call it $90 a share imagine
If our stock were to double but it wouldn’t because if we introduced 400 800 a million dollar billion dollar a billion five of losses the stock would plummet right yeah so I hope I answered that question long-winded wise yeah as it kind of just to bring it
Back to to the region here so you think that the gyms are essentially the same all over the world and that they priced relatively the same but when you’re thinking about how you work with them and I did not know that you were on the board of Leen which is fantastic but
What differen have you seen or maybe you maybe we’re seeing differences but you’re really seeing it no I’m saying when I say that gyms are mostly the same so you think about what mostly means mostly means exactly that if I were to compare one to the other do they have a
A front test management system do they operate with an MMS right yes do they have is it low touch environment where they sell memberships on a kiosk or on the Internet and they have no staff there’s a whole group of clubs that are like that there are groups groups of
Clubs that are high touch personal training they have all the amenities they have Spas they have you know hairdressing salons they have but what they share mostly in common is if they didn’t have fitness equipment in their clubs nobody would be a member nobody nobody would be a member at Lifetime
Fitness or Equinox if they had no fitness equipment now they might join something else another permutation it might be called Equinox lifestyle and Equinox lifestyle is spas and it’s you know hot and cold plunge baths and its flexibility and it’s all you could have a but when you say what are they mostly
Sharing in common they have strength equipment cardio equipment personal training functional training they’re Mo that’s where they’re mostly the same they differentiate themselves with levels of service and the amenities that they provide as part of that that’s why the price points are different and then you have boutiques and you have Studios
And then you have Studios within within clubs boutiques within clubs like Pilates or yoga or hot yoga but when I say they’re mostly the same that’s what I’m talking about what I what I know to be different about this Market is this Market is in hyper growth
Mode almost more than any Market in my career so you know I was there when England went crazy I was there when Fitness First was going so big in England they had to go to Europe they were going so good in in Europe they had
To go to the Middle East they doing so well in the middle we got to go to Asia right and virgin let’s go everywhere let’s be we’ll go to the us we’ll go to Africa we’ll go everywhere there’s just there’s all this fow ground for us to harvest and Family Fitness moved from
California to Hong Kong and then later mainland China everybody saw the opportunity but in a lot of cases that got wound back in or got splintered if you look at Saudi Arabia if you look at UAE in particular those two countries in the Middle East and and and probably
Israel too is you have a whole group of people that are recognizing it’s really really hot here and I’m stuck in side and if if I said to you and you know this Muhammad where do people go when it’s really hot here there’s two places
They go to the mall or they stay home yeah mall or stay home and the mall is not only to shop just to get out and walk around and be and be seen by people and like we’re alive uh but the health club is now a counter seasonal
Solution they have a tremendous problem with di potentially type 2 diabetes and obesity here because of what’s been introduced into the market to nutrition and the fact that they’re they can be forced to be inactive for long periods of time because of of the weather here but most importantly the biggest
Difference in Saudi is the royal family has said there’s a plan called 2030 and guess what there’s only two things that keep people from doing whatever they want to do creativity and money they have the creativity and they have the money and they have the reasons behind
It so they’re not going to get a lot of fight from people say hey we’re doing this because it’s going to benefit our country so everyone’s look at and go yeah and this is just this is about me it’s not about the it’s not about the
Real family this is about me the the citizen here women can drive and women can go to health clubs changes everything so I was here before most of the exercise that women did was in the home and they might have a personal trainer that came into the
Home that’s you know supervised by the family but it was clearly they were segregated they totally love it they love just like women Love Fitness everywhere and for completely different reasons right part of the the reason why women like to out is just to be with
Other women yeah just to be I’m side to side with another woman here and we’re working out we have a we have a common belief here in the benefit of exercise it’s also just to get away from the house right just get away from your house get away from your kids for a
Little bit get away from your husband get away from your family to do it’s me time and so when you’re exercising whether you’re in a in a club on a treadmill or a piece of strength equipment it’s me time it’s about it’s about me and so if you look at the
Combination of the 20 2030 plan the influence of the royal family the access to the funds the prescription that’s almost a mandate to be more physically active and more successful with exercise and then all the money that’s in this country to make that happen there’s no
Place like it I mean it honestly Matthew you’re you travel the world am I right or am I wrong it’s the first time I’ve been here but yeah I’ve it’s been part of the conversation I’ve it’s it’s a very unique situation here and one that you know we we’ve got a board meeting
Next week and it’s uh certainly going to be high up on the agenda to figure out exactly what to do and and it kind of leads me on to a fitness industry question which you you’re obviously got probably more experience than many of you you’ve seen the growth from number
Of times at Life Fitness Matrix you’ve now moved over to egym which is a from what I understand a new category really at a time where many of the equipment brands are kind of reaching a bit of a plateau really because I’ve known Life Fitness from for a long time before they
Had the strength and then they they got into the Hammer Strength and a number of other Evolutions but it kind of seems as say well what’s next you know where are you going to get your growth and and um interesting to to be sitting at the top
Of a company like a Life Fitness or a pre-or matrix at the moment and and and try to see what what they’re thinking particularly in relation to your fish swimming example and and and and the fact that you think many many people are just sort of staying in the screen in
The in the Stream so what what do you think is next you know and and I’m not just talking about EG but what what do you think needs to happen to to to Spur that you know that side of the business to grow well I’m gonna I’m
Gonna actually do my Egen pitch here because I think that is the future it really what and I I’ll tell a brief story here so the chairman of eim is George Buckley George Buckley is the retired CEO of 3M before he was a c CEO of 3M he was a CEO of Brunswick
Corporation right so George was in 1997 when they bought us he was the president of mercury marine and then soon thereafter he became CEO of Brunswick so my boss reported into George Buckley I’ve known George Buckley for 27 years when George Buckley joined 3M from Brunswick he went from a $7 billion
Company to a $30 billion company huge stretch a lot of board members said this is insane this is too much when he was forced to retire at 65 cuz they mandatory retirement they were 150 billion wow 150 this is a very old very much sty thought process potentially I
Don’t want to I don’t want to necessarily paint them with that brush but yeah he took what was old and made it new so when Philip said to the board last year in the fourth quarter I really would like to get somebody who can help us to see the future and have it
Resonate with the customers that’s what I’m looking for and the board said if you could have anybody who would you want he said well Chris Clawson but he’s not going to come to eim and George Buckley said so Clawson won’t come to egy but George Buckley will and and
George Buckley was on the board of PepsiCo and Hitachi and but he did he came over because Philip had read a story he told about how much he enjoys invigorating and companies and growing companies even in situations where the the view isn’t already there but the
View is already there with egy Philip is brilliant I mean I’m just going to say that right now what makes eim in my my past experience so unique is that their executive team has no agenda and I can I mean I can honestly that one person has
An agenda they are literally and lock step they’re nice people they they walk the halls and they interact with people you go in the into the the cafeteria and everyone’s full of joy 400 employees in Germany they’re they’re they’re they’re so excited about the future so one two
You ask about where the future’s headed and I this is my analogy if you had iTunes and all they offered was rock and roll if you’re a rock and roll devote and they have the deepest Library you’re going to go sh iTunes is awesome I mean
I don’t anything I want going back to the very beginning to the early 1950s to present day anything from Acid Rock to you know pure rock and roll they’ve got it you can have some great success but that’s not what iTunes is I see egy as being iTunes egy has
Smart strength equipment which is where it started it’s called gym Tech 19 piece is soon to be 19 we’re introducing a hip thrust product at feo on Ursa 19 pieces of smart strength amazing product it started as being a really nice product as a circuit piece for beginners through intermediate guided
You everything was biometrically set up you have a biometric screening through the fitness hub which is another element I’ll talk about very briefly but your seat adjustments were automatic your resistance was automatic it captured that and as you progress it automatically changed your resistance profile so let’s just call that eim
Where their iTunes is they integrate right now fully integrate with Life Fitness with preor with Matrix with core with true and 196 others including Garmin and straa and others so what they’re doing is saying and I can tell you this and look you in the eye and say
We don’t want to be in a cardio business we don’t want to make free weights we don’t make benches and racks we don’t do the selector eyes we’re not going to do functional training what we’re going to do is we’re going to be iTunes and so what we’re introducing hot off the press
Here what we’re introducing at Ur and feibo is what we call genius today right now in our portfolio of exercises we have seven billion exercises seven billion in our Ai Se 7 billion with the beat we have 340 million onboarding encounters so today when you walk if you
Go down the trade show and you walk into the Matrix booth and you swipe today it’s a band tomorrow will be RFID it comes up on our console and all that progression that would come as part of cardio is in their console when we do our V2 max testing as part of our
Onboarding so the onboarding is flexibility there’s a flexibility test there’s a metabolic test so we partner with tanita and sea and with in body so we do body mass index and and weight and then we have the photography capabilities scanning capabilities within our in our Hub to know your
Height so we know your height your weight and your met metabolism when I say metabolism everything not only BMI but everything about your body the hydration levels then we do flexibility which is head and neck shoulders and core four and a half side to side lower
Body I put you on a strength test I do three reps to Max on four pieces of equipment and automatically set up your strength profile but with genius now can I only not only do all the things I just said I can prescribe to Life Fitness selectorized Hammer Strength free
Weights dumbbells functional training small group exercise recovery and all that’s done through AI so that 7 billion will become 14 billion in a blink of an eye and it’s not exercise for the sake of exercise it’s Muhammad who’s an excellent condition his goal is cardiovascular capacity and and he wants
To become stronger and you’re the opposite direction you Pure Performance all you want to do is get stronger faster just you want to just be the best the best you can be the progression that’s being created from the training app the trainer has that they can onboard you or it can be self-service
But I’m now taking you through this and I know all about you what your goals are and I can suggest training and adjust training for you or I can let the AI do the training for you based on what’s in the facility so the facility only shows what they have available it’s not
Prescribing things they don’t have that’s great so if they don’t have a rower it’s not going to tell you to go use a rower but if they have a rower it’s going to tell you it’s going to show you a picture of the concept too and it’s going to tell you what
Resistance level you should be set at it’s going to tell you the seat setting for the Life Fitness piece or the hammer piece or the preore piece the bike so that when you walk over and all you have to do on the cardio is exercise and it’s
Going to set up the program for you and on the strength equipment you have to basically agree I did what it says to do it says says to do 20 lbs on an incline press with dumbbells and it says to do 10 reps and you hit did it it’s done
That’s incredible yeah can’t wait to see it that is the that’s the what what I call the iTunes final question then Chris because I think it’s going to be an episode on its own actually lot lot of value here but F final question in this new role brand new company many
People have still not really heard of them even myself i’ I’ve heard of them but not really known what they do until now what going to be what is what is one of the biggest challenges you can see in your position of of realizing that that Vision yeah you actually brought this
Back full circle so we talked about how people are very content with being laggards and staying in let’s call it just not even the flow um making people uncomfortable and doing things they’re not used to doing is challenging so if you look at ‘s historic history for 12
Years it’s taking this smart strength and mainstreaming it with people were saying I don’t need to make change because what I have right now works just fine I have free weights I have selectorized equipment I have some functional training I don’t need anything else but where we’ve seen the
Success is when we install this into facilities and people are part of the program it’s telling them their bio age right how old am I how old am I doing strength how old what’s my bio AG for strength what’s my bio AG for metabolism what’s my bio AG for flexibility what’s
My bio AG for cardiovascular capacity I have a number now I know where I’m at they’re attrition rate is less than half of what it is for the members that aren’t integrated and that is very telling and not only is it telling but in some cases where members are
Memberships are striated when people experience this and know that it’s the next level membership up the conversion rate can be north of 60% where they move up just because of egy just because of Fitness Hub and just because of the the the Branded member app it’s pretty
Powerful well Chris thank you so much for being on I appreciate you having that breakfast with me and like I said you know I’ve known of you for a long time so I had the same reaction wow he’s going to sit down with me and listen to
Me and pay attention to me and and really kind of you know and we’ve kind of chatted quite a few times in the S stat I appreciate it and also uh you just talked about I think it adds accountability right so you think about the different levers that a gym could
Could could use personal training adding to the calendar but this what you’re talking about with genius and looking at your bio age all of those touch points adds accountability and accountability adds to retention so again it’s it’s really going to help save the member so
Thank you so much for being on and this this has been great no I really appreciate it thank you Chris thank you Matt