The Fit to Grit Cast
Fit to Grit is an audio/video/newsletter hybrid featuring in-depth conversations with leadership within the athletic space. Guests range from top executives within the athletic space to professionals in adjacent industries with a proven track record of success working in the athletic industry.
We explore visionary ideas and practical strategies driving the industry forward, covering areas such as marketing, finance, branding, equipment, product development, biz dev, and more. Join us as we share actionable insights and real-world experiences while embodying the "fit to grit" spirit.
The Fit to Grit Cast
Why Gym Owners Can’t Ignore This AI Shift
What if the key to health was simpler than we've been led to believe? Mohamed, Chief Strategy Officer at ABC Fitness and founder of Sweatworks, challenges the notion that healthy living is unaffordable or inaccessible. "You just have to move for 20 minutes a day, drink water, and make smart choices," he explains, drawing from his personal journey that began in Dubai where fitness was naturally integrated into daily life.
After moving to America at age 11, Mohamed experienced the processed food culture firsthand, gaining weight before discovering the principles that would transform his health and eventually shape his career. With a front-row seat to the mobile revolution while working with Apple on the iPhone launch, he recognized technology's potential to make fitness more accessible by removing the intimidation factor. This vision led him to found Sweatworks in 2012, developing hardware and software solutions that bridge the gap between traditional fitness experiences and digital engagement.
The conversation reveals a powerful perspective shift for studio owners: acquiring customers costs approximately three times more than retaining existing ones. Mohamed advocates for investing in exceptional member experiences through strategic technology implementation that enhances rather than replaces human connection. From using wearable data to personalize workouts to implementing discreet digital solutions for administrative tasks, the future of fitness lies at the intersection of data and human touch. As we move from an era of convenience to one focused on experiences, fitness businesses that find the right balance between technology and genuine community will thrive. Whether you're a studio owner looking to improve retention or simply someone trying to make healthier choices, this episode offers practical wisdom for navigating the evolving fitness landscape.
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being healthy and making healthier choices. A lot of people want to position it as being unaffordable or difficult and inaccessible, but the reality is that it's not. You just have to move for 20 minutes a day. You've got to make smart choices, drink water and make healthy choices at the food court. Just simple stuff, right.
Speaker 2:Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of the Fit to Grit cast. Today I have a special guest. We ran by each other probably a couple times in some of these fitness events over the last year, but never really got to have a face-to-face chat until just about last week. Mohamed, why don't you just start off by really just telling everyone a little bit about yourself? And I want to get deep into your story, because I know you have a very, a very valuable story that I think can help a lot of fitness enthusiasts and owners.
Speaker 1:Well, zach, I really appreciate being on the podcast. Thank you for having me on. I'll have to return the favor and get you on our podcast as well. So, yeah, I think I wear a few hats right now and happy to dig into how I landed here. So currently I have an agency called Swell Ropes where I'm the founder and chairman. We just had our 13th year. We were founded in 2012. We can touch on that a bit later.
Speaker 1:I'm also the chief strategy officer for ABC Fitness, which is the largest technology company in the fitness industry, and they have Athlete, tannerize and Glowbox and Ignite and Power about 40% of the gyms and studios in the country and power about 40% of the gyms and studios in the country. I'm also a co-host on a podcast called Lifts with Matthew Janusik, and I believe we're now number one in the B2B segment for fitness and wellness, with over 100,000 subscribers on YouTube and about 300,000 between Apple and Spotify. So we're excited about that, and I serve as an advisor for a couple of companies, both on the M&A side and also on product and Spotify. So we're excited about that and I serve as an advisor for a couple of companies, both on the M&A side and also on product and strategy. So just wearing multiple hats and trying to keep all the balls afloat.
Speaker 2:And you're a full-time father as well, trying to stay present around your family and do your thing as a father, which I appreciate and love. Why don't you kind of dive in and tell everyone a little bit, Because you know there's a lot of studio owners that watch this cast and I know a lot of them are either in that transition of getting a management software or understanding the importance of really understanding infrastructure and retention, and so why don't? Why don't you tell everyone a little bit about how you started at Sweatworks and how that kind of evolved and how that led into you becoming the chair over at ABC Fitness?
Speaker 1:For sure. So I think not to go way back, but I'll start with somewhat of the origin story a little bit. I think some people might be interested in that. First and foremost, I'm an immigrant into this country, so I still view myself as being a guest and a visitor, even though I'm a US citizen. So I was born in Dubai in 1980. My parents migrated there, so I guess my parents are immigrants two times over. They migrated from Sri Lanka, which is a small island, I guess not that small, but south of India in the mid-70s, and both my sister and I were born in the UAE and in Dubai, which is still an international kind of popular city, but it only had about 500,000 people at the time and now it's over three and a half billion people and has completely transformed In 91,. We then migrated again to the US and set our roots and I grew up in New Jersey. So I moved when I was 11. And in a lot of ways that kind of set me down the path of what I'll call intentional fitness and wellness.
Speaker 1:So when I grew up in Dubai we were naturally active. I played soccer, what we call football every day. I walked to school and I often talk about this, but meals were, was a community thing. You know, I know, zach, you're a family man and that that's important to you, like it is for me. But you know, in in holidays we would call Eids. You know there's two Eid holidays in the Muslim culture. We actually had this massive plate of delicious food that would come in, would eat with our hands, which sounds kind of weird but we would sit around this big plate, would eat outside this big metal plate, there under the stars together, and I think partly it's because the Middle East is a very nomadic culture before the current advancement, but they try to keep a lot of those roots and traditions alive. And then we would just be active. I'd walk to school, I'd play outside. So, when I think about it, right, I was drinking a lot of water. I didn't know what soda was until I came to New Jersey. I was eating.
Speaker 1:I didn't think about food. My mom and dad, would you know, would cook. But they would go to the farm, they would get fresh vegetables and crops and meats and like this, things of like, you know, pesticides. This stuff didn't like phase us because we were just, you know, we would get natural foods. So everything was natural, and then our relationship with food was a lot more intimate. So, like packaged foods weren't a thing for me. So we would like touch our food and cook our food and and just have this relationship with food that was so healthy. And then movement was just part of what we did. Like, my dad was a big squash player. He still plays a ton of squash. My mom still walks five miles a day. They're both. They both live 70s, but that's what, like, I grew up with that, right, and and they would make us run sprints around for fun and have my sister and I race each other, which I guess now would be seen as as two, two competitors.
Speaker 1:But, dude, we loved it. You know, um, we'll be chasing the kids around the um, the parks and stuff. So we came here and then I, I went to a grocery store, a local store called ShopRite in New Jersey, if you're familiar with northern New Jersey. So, yes, I came to New Jersey and just had this plethora of food options right, you know, soda, processed food in boxes, and I kind of went all American, I went all in on that and I ballooned up and now I'm 13. I'm not overweight, but I also don't feel good about myself. So I picked up a book in 93 called Optimum Sports Nutrition which really kind of taught me the foundation and I still have it Taught me the foundations and fundamentals of understanding macro and micronutrients. And I implemented that.
Speaker 1:And then I got into running because my mom was a runner. So I just got into it and I started playing sports and I joined rugby and things like that. And then I got into running because my mom was a runner, so I just got into it and I started playing sports and I joined rugby and things like that. So again I went back to my roots and I started having a better relationship with food. And guess what? From 13 to 17, I became an athlete. I just became fast, I became strong, I did great in school. So just the fitness side of my life kind of laid the groundwork and foundation for me, even though I'm an immigrant, because something I can always relate to, where I was struggling to relate to this new country. I went to college, did the same thing, played tennis, ran track, then started working and all throughout I felt like if my fitness, which was like rooted in my foundation for life, is what was the key to my success and everything else in life. That kind of laid the groundwork, whether it's family, whether it is lifestyle choices or whatever.
Speaker 1:And I started in consumer electronics. I worked in northern New Jersey at a company called Sharp Earlier they were really known for the Ackles TV, but I was a hardware engineer by trade. I spent a good 10 years there, had a great time, had a great career. But what became very obvious to me is that the kind of secret that I've unlocked and a lot of us in the industry knew the rest of the company there's this growing gap. And it wasn't because of accessibility, it wasn't because of affordability Just make healthy, being healthy and making healthier choices.
Speaker 1:A lot of people want to position it as being unaffordable or difficult and inaccessible, but the reality is that it's not. You just have to move for 20 minutes a day. You've got to make smart choices drink water instead of, you know, either a sugary or even a diet drink, and make healthy choices at the food court, you know. And even if you're going to the grocery store, simple, just shop on the outside perimeter, just simple stuff, right, don't you know? Avoid the aisles, just go on the outside. And I said well, how do I help more people with that, because at every stage of my life, when I went to college, people said you're going to gain the freshman 15. When I went to college, people said you're going to gain the freshman 15. Maybe it's not the freshman 20 now, when you start working, when you have kids, everyone said it's going to change your life. You're not going to be able to maintain yourself in health. Well, here I am Fast forward. Now I'm going to be 45. I've got two executive roles I'm an advisor, I'm a father, I'm a husband and I'm still able to do all the things and I'm able to keep my fitness.
Speaker 1:So in 2000, the late 2000s, I was actually involved with Apple and the launch of the iPhone. So I had a front row seat to really the transformation of mobile computing and I was there when the apps came out. I was there when the iPhone 4 came out and I saw the exponential growth of Instagram and WhatsApp and Uber and I said this device is the future, this is going to be in the hands of everybody. Yet you know, fitness isn't really leveraging. This we still are thinking about. Fitness is happening within the four walls.
Speaker 1:They were unsure of how to leverage the digital which is on this new kind of device and we're missing an opportunity. But I felt like the phone could be a great way to take a lot of what we knew and to make it more accessible, largely because it removed the intimidation factor. People were very comfortable interfacing with the phone, maybe not so comfortable walking into a gym, and so how can we do that? So, 2012, when I took two years off, how can I do? Do I come out with my own app? Do I you know, I don't know become a personal trainer?
Speaker 1:I wasn't really sure and I decided to create an agency because when I was at Sharp, I had a lot of success in working with subject matter experts and agencies. Of course, there are good agencies and bad agencies as well. So I said, well, let me make a good one, because I had worked with agencies and I kind of knew what it would take. So I created Sweatworks and we are a hardware and software agency so we could develop wearable sensors. We've created sweat sensors, bike parameters and so on.
Speaker 1:We have also built some of the most prolific mobile and digital applications that you use today in fitness, and I really looked at digital and mobile as a way, not just to acquire, like it's not just going to be a store for you. You need to have a mobile website, which in 2012, a lot of people did not even have a mobile website. So, not as an acquisition tool, but also as a retention tool and as a tool to engage people and really ultimately lead people towards healthier outcomes. Fast forward to today. It's been about 13 years that I've really been privileged to be in this industry. I have an incredible group of leaders and mentors who were like OGs in our category. I'm now involved in advocacy with HFA and, as an example which knock on wood, we just got the FitApp through the House this morning and hopefully we'll get it passed through the Senate. I sit on several councils and I more recently joined ABC Fitness as their chief strategy officer, leading up M&A partnerships, innovation and services for a fantastic organization.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. That's awesome. I want to kind of touch on something that you kind of brought up just a little bit up front, because I think that for every business owner, even if you're a studio or not own a studio, if you own a software company, whatever it may be your two year, your two year gap period how did you feel about what? How hard was it for you to to take that gap period and how do you feel like it helped launch you to really get the mindset and the visionary stuff aligned to really push the software company?
Speaker 1:Well, one that's a really good point and a question that not a lot of people ask, but it was transformative. So a couple of things happened and I'll get a bit personal here, First, you kind of you know.
Speaker 1:I guess the first thing I would say is that I was incredibly privileged to be able to afford taking it to your gap period, and I know that that is not something that is available to everyone, but I had a really good run in my twenties, a combination of both skill, luck and hard work that afforded me that. Second, it was a time for me to rethink about my life. It was a little bit of like an early midlife crisis which I had, where I got married young. I was contemplating a divorce. I had a young child. I wasn't necessarily fulfilled at my job. I was incredibly grateful for my years at Sharp, so that was really important one, to almost just reflect and it was a bit of a sabbatical, but I knew I wanted to do something in something that I was passionate about, which is so. There were two things that I was passionate about. One was astronomy and the second was fitness, and I knew that doing a career in astronomy might not be the most fulfilling, and so that's that's still a very you know side passion of mine that I that I love. But the other one was fitness, and you know, I felt like with most technology I can make an impact, but I didn't know what that was.
Speaker 1:I think being able to just have the, the mental space and the mind share which is so hard to come by today and even though now I try to make like small intentional pop, it's of 30 minutes an hour of just where you just think, like you just go for a walk, and not like have anything in your mind, right, Like you know we, I know we think or talk about that before we go to bed, but it's important to have that intentionally programmed throughout your day.
Speaker 1:But imagine if you had like a year, two years, you know, of where you could just think and reflect. And and I and I had a lot of thoughts. You know I was trying to think about okay, I'm resetting my life. I just got divorced, I've got a young kid, who's who's one, who's my entire world, so one in that young age. I was just there. I wanted to be with him, right, I wanted to be with him. I have these incredible moments with him, um, as he says, because I knew I may never get this chance again, like this may not come up, and I mean I'm grateful now to have two beautiful girls, but you never know.
Speaker 1:So, I really was present and so to me that was number one. Number two we'll see what I want to do with my life. I had a great decade which to me felt like a lifetime, but now I want to do something that I can wake up every morning and just jump out of bed and be excited to get to work and be excited to work on something. And I knew that that had to be around fitness, but I wasn't sure what that was going to be. And then I just started having a lot of conversations because I quote unquote wasn't actually working on a nine to five. I could go to Boston, I can go to New York. So I met with people at Equinox. I met with Jody Sena at Spartan before Spartan was a thing, and they were all so grateful to just give me some time and I just understood them. I went up to his farm in Pittsfield, vermont he just moved CrossFit and just had conversations with him.
Speaker 1:Now, granted, I went to Columbia for my MBA and to make some of these connections and get warm interest. So again, I understand that I'm speaking from a position of privilege a bit, and I also knew what I did on the iPhone side. So there's probably that as well. But you just start talking to people, you start understanding their needs, their problem, because one of the big issues that I learned with entrepreneurs is you may believe something so dearly to you and it's the most important thing to you that you have kind of silos right. It's really important to get perspective and make sure that your own voice doesn't drown out everyone else's voice in it. And you've got to understand you may have a good idea, but is there really a need? So those two years were important to me to have the conversation, to have the thought, and where I landed was initially, I started by saying that I'm going to develop a personalized coaching app. That was mine.
Speaker 1:I look back on my old business class. It's kind of funny to see you know what that was and it was a horrible idea, like, but I was so bought in. I'm like this is awesome. I'm like sharing prototypes, you know, to Joe and Greg and all these people, and they were like, yeah, I don't know how we would use this, like I wasn't sure.
Speaker 1:So then I kind of went back to the drawing board and I said you know well, what they really need is they need someone strategic to come in and help them kind of cross the bridge, and to build a bridge between where they were today to where they need to go in the digital era. And that kind of like formulated my idea, for instead of creating a digital app that I was going to put on the subscription model, I'm going to create a service that's going to help these companies cross the bridge from where they are to where they need to go today. So in the beginning, that was primarily around just developing mobile websites, mobile applications, registration, things like that. Today, most of my work is around AI and how do we get someone from where they are today to where they need to go, leveraging AI.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think, especially in this industry we've talked about this a little bit before AI is a little bit of a finicky idea right now. There's just so much going on with it. It's so new. But trying to be able to keep that advocacy and communication going with prospects and clients and members without necessarily just having everything be 100% automated, I think is something that's something that needs to be looked on and worked on and carefully thought of as AI continues to evolve in this environment.
Speaker 1:I would agree. I think it's like anything else right. So, even going digital, I mean, when I go back to 2012, when we launched some of our first projects, that was a moment for a lot of people right and saying, hey, you don't need someone to walk through your doors to sign up a membership. For a lot of people, that was like what. That was like what? Because when you look at gym sales in general, gym sales was and the whole sales cycle was created by Mark Mastrov back in the 24-hour fitness days and he was like the OG in that and it worked for decades.
Speaker 1:Fast forward to 2012, and especially today, a lot of people are making decisions just online, like they might visit the gym and tour the gym, but they're not signing up with a sales rep online. And I think the same is true for students. They may come, stop by a studio and take a class, but they're not making that decision at the studio, right, very rarely. They're typically going back to home and doing it. So that was a big kind of trust that people had to make. I think we're at that moment now as well when it comes to AI, and I feel like every 10 years there's something transformative that happens, it could take 10 to 12 years. So if I go back to today, we're in AI. 10 years ago, we're talking about apps and wearables. 10 years before that, it was about the internet and the mobile. You need to have a website, right, and so on. So I think every 10 years is that there's a shift, and those companies that don't make the shift as painful as it is and don't embrace it, 10 years from now you're not going to be here, and I'm not just saying that to be negative or be a pessimist. That's just the reality and it affects, you know, a single studio owner to companies like Blockbuster and BlackBerry and Netflix, right, don't, you know, avoid the changes because you've had success.
Speaker 1:So I think, with AI, the general number we've seen and look, I get to work with some studios that just have a couple of locations to companies at ABC like that have Anytime Fitness and Planet Fitness and some, you know, really really big companies any kind of fitness and planet fitness and some really, really big companies. Ai generally and this is a broad number it has about a 30% effective rate when it comes to productivity 30%. So if you think about it and that's general, in some applications will be more, some might be a little bit less, but if you think about that and if you could overall make your business 30% more effective, how much better do you think you're going to be to your competitor? And or consider, if you don't do it, and competitors do it, whether it is for acquisition, retention or just back office tasks and so on. That's the gap you're talking about. So 30% could mean one full person, right, and that could mean the difference between making, you know $30,000 or making $70,000 a year from a profit perspective.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I see what the growth of AI is. Just what you said we're really focused on hey, how can this help from a productivity standpoint, internally, help possibly do some of those little tasks? But kind of also back to what you were saying when you took your two-year gap allow yourself to still realize that AI is not necessarily there to come up with and solve large problems for you. It's it's it's not strategy that still needs the human touch and the creativity and you as a visionary to kind of go through and and be able to work with the team to solve some of these problems. Can AI be a part of that? Yes, and help with productivity, but use it for really get, try to get effective around what it's, what it's good for, which is, you know, productivity and that 30% that you were talking about.
Speaker 1:I really get that. That's a really good point, like, okay, well, I now have a mobile app on digital, I'm done. That's not true, that's the start of you already, but it really it's almost like saying everyone has a iPhone or everyone has an Android phone, sure, but what are you going to do with that real estate and a lot of people? Because AI it's very hard for it to be tangible. Like, you can touch a phone, you can interface with an app. Not so true with AI. But the same kind of principles matter is how you execute it, and I think a lot of people are missing that. They're like well, I'm kind of using AI, I know, but it comes down to strategy and everyone's using the same tools, but it's how you use the tools that's really going to be impactful for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I love that you have this development background, because I have a very similar technical mindset background when it comes to development, and I feel like branding is a very similar situation. When we development, and I feel like you know, branding is a very similar situation. You know, when we develop websites, we develop branding, we work on, you know, seo tactics, all that fun stuff. It's not a tangible, tangible object you hold in your hand and understanding that, yeah, now, with all these AI tools coming out that you can you know, pre sale or post sale start to integrate AI into it. It's really about that execution and coming up with a strategy around what makes that unique. Because now here's a great example.
Speaker 2:You know, nowadays you can use AI to just create 100, 100 shorts for you, for instance. Go online, do 100 shorts, but in my perspective, all I see is all right. Well then, now we're going to have the real estate's going to just be taken up faster. So now you're going to need a hundred thousand, then you're going to need 200,000 and 300,000. And so you have to understand the best way to separate yourself is to utilize those technologies and execute in a way that separates you from your competition, your competitors and or even um your friendly allies. Yeah, a hundred percent.
Speaker 1:I would. I would agree with that. Yeah, yeah, 100%.
Speaker 2:I would agree with that, yeah yeah, so tell me a little bit about let's dive into a little bit about where you're at now. You're focusing a lot on AI. You're working with ABC Fitness. How are you seeing software itself play Well? How do you feel like it's evolved now? And how do you feel like it's evolved now and how do you feel like it's going to evolve to help studio owners in the future?
Speaker 1:I think it's really going to be paramount. So first, understand that, from a data perspective and we've been talking about data for the last 20 years, where they were collecting data, where, ever since Google, I would say, added a pixel or a marketing layer into websites, data has been a key tool and traffic technology with AI, that's all been transformed and you're going to have more data. You have more data now than you did six months ago, and six months from now we're going to have more data than that. I think for studio owners, the challenge has really been is how do you one get to the right person, Because acquisition has become one of the hardest things to do right to the right person, because acquisition has become one of the hardest things to do right. So before you used to be able to do a paid ad campaign. Now you've got to do a combination of paid, organic maybe some micro influencers and some other things traditional signage and you've got to do all of it. So that's been a challenge. But again, data is going to help drive those decisions into saying who are you going to target? Who do you want to come in? How many people do you need for pre-sale to be successful in your market. What does retention look like? Because you might have 50% of your people churning. That's actually the industry standards. You may think that that's not a good thing, but 50% of gym members churn a year. So data is going to really help drive decisions on who to target.
Speaker 1:The other thing I want to add is when it comes from a targeting perspective. Acquiring a customer is actually about three times more than keeping a customer. So when you think about data and technology, what I like to advise studio owners of is to say what are you doing to focus on retention? And some of these things are non-tech related. They could be community related, right? Just calling someone on their birthday, implementing referral programs, having themed events, like all of the things that people can really relate to to bring people into student. Keep them there, Invest in that. Yes, you're spending some money, but it's a lot less than acquiring it. Again, it comes to how you feel it. Well, when you pay for someone, you pay for acquisition. You could see the money going out, but you also see them coming in like great, I've got a new member, they're buying a five-pack or they're buying an unlimited. You get to see that what's them? And if you understood that it costs you three times less to keep that person, then you should invest, you know, I would say more in retention than you might even in acquisition, but that's a hard thing and concept to cross, but I think that's the one that I would say where data could really play an integral role.
Speaker 1:The other one is really in wearables. You have a wearable on. I've got a couple of wearables and have an Ourura ring and a smartwatch. Well, how is that going to be used for you? In other words, can you benefit from wearables, Can you become a part of that journey? Because the reality is most people, if they have an Aura or an Apple Watch or a Gromit or Whoop, I would argue that they're spending more time in that app on a per day basis than they are in your studios app. So if that's the case and if that's kind of where the center of their health journey is, you need to be a part of that. Don't try to replace it, but be a part of it, Right? So an example does it mean that you come into a studio and all of a sudden you have an integration with Aura and it says hey, you know, Zach, you didn't sleep well last night, so your coach comes to you and says, hey, your readiness is a little bit low today. We're going to scale this for you a bit, right? So, just so you don't want to injure yourself. I mean, how many times, Zach, you know, have you tried to do a workout? You try to do what's prescribed. But your body yourself that's happened to me probably three or four times in the last 10 years and I'm like, oh, you know what. I shouldn't have done that because I wasn't hydrated, or I just traveled, you know, or I'm overtrained.
Speaker 1:Now, in fact, today was that day for me. Today was that day where I woke up and I had this interval. I had a 45-minute interval workout, kind of planned so, and then I was going to do some strength, so I did some mobility, the foam roller. I woke up, I wasn't feeling great because I went to bed late last night and I know I didn't eat well yesterday. My aura is telling me, you've got a low sleep score and your readiness is not great. I'm like, whatever, I'm just going to go, I'm still going to do my training because that's what I had planned for the morning. So I get down there, right, and I'm starting to form more. I'm feeling tight, I'm not feeling great. And then I was like, okay, but you know, mentally I'm right, I'm going to go do this thing. But then I told myself this and I said I have a hard workout planned. I'm going to be pushing myself today. If my body's fatigued because I had a heavy lifting session yesterday, maybe today's the time for a day off.
Speaker 1:Now, how many studio people will tell you hey, Zach, we know you have a class booked today, but if you're not feeling great, right, just do makeup tomorrow, no charge on us. That's a transformative concept that nobody does today. Not one studio does that today. But what would it mean if you came in and you got injured? What does it mean if you came in and you weren't feeling great and you really struggled through that workout that you thought should have been easy? So that's the way to use data that at ABC, we're working through, and at Swatworks, when we build digital apps for our customers, we're thinking about all of the things there.
Speaker 1:The other thing is using digital to almost remove the intimidation factor. So I talked about earlier where walking into a gym is really intimidating, right. So if you could maybe onboard someone digitally, let's do that. We're working on things like, for instance, if you come to the parking lot of a Planet Fitness, as an example, and if your card was declined or you're behind in the monthly dues, it's much better for you to get a pop-up notification before you check in and to put a new card in there, Rather than you walk up to the front desk and you have a red.
Speaker 1:You know the front desk person sees a red bar and they're saying hey, Zach, the card didn't go through. Like that's not a very you know comfortable situation for you or the front desk person. But today, with digital, we know that your payment didn't go through and we could surface that as a push notification because of using geolocation and say, hey, why don't you update your payment right here, Discreetly, right? So thinking about like being empathetic, I think, for your member and really putting yourself in their shoes and say if you were them, what would make you, especially if you're uncomfortable, how can you remove the friction and make this experience the best experience possible? So these are all ways where data and digital and wearables are going to be transforming our industry, not over the next 10 years, but over the next three to five years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that makes a lot of sense and it's that personalization. What I hear out of all this funny enough, going backwards and saying, hey, what can we take from the past experiences to make sure AI goes forward is experience communication. How can we provide an experience to the members? Uh, pre-sale or post-sale, um, how can we provide these types of experiences? And if you just look at the retail market, for instance, you know, you know, 10 years ago everyone was like, oh, amazon's going to take over retail.
Speaker 2:Small retail spots are over, but now you're starting to see these. These retail locations um, provide larger experiences, right, be able to charge more for them, be able to have little restaurants, be able to have all the sportswear that you possibly need. People are spending whole days there, and so it's the experience that they can provide their family and that's what people are somewhat craving. So if you can bring this AI technology into your retention play, I think it helps just alleviate that experience that people are having inside the studio and being able to kind of experience that somewhat outside the studio without necessarily feeling like the owners are feeling like, oh, we have to send them another email over their card.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, zach, you bring up a really good point right, which is that we are moving and I love that you're talking about this, that we're moving from convenient to experience. So, if you think about what mobile did for us, mobile was all about being quick, being always on. You can get email, even from you know when, when the blackberry was a thing, right, you get the emails right away, you can text right away. It's all about being quick and being responsive. And then you had Uber Eats, right, uber and DoorDash and getting your meals here, getting your meals quickly. Wow, that was great, because I can get you know a meal in 30 minutes from wherever I want.
Speaker 1:But think about where the customers evolved to today. It's more about home cooking. It's more about kind of creating a curated experience when you go to that local restaurant. It's about value, right, it's no longer about paying $80 for a burger. That's not what it's about.
Speaker 1:It's about having a burger and a great experience in a comfortable environment that's high quality, that doesn't have processed ingredients, all the things. That's the people value, right, people will pay $20 for that burger. People aren't. They're no longer chasing the $80 or $100 burger, nor do they want the $2 burger as well. So people are willing to invest in good experiences and I think that what brands understand that the era of Amazon it's here, right, and that's going to be here for your stuff that you view as a commodity and that's convenient for your stuff that you view as a commodity and that's convenient. But I think when you look at your health and wellness, it's such an intimate part of yourself that having a relationship, building the experience, having a community, those things matter. It's not like ordering your toothpaste, right. So I think you know we have to think about that where not everything needs to be super convenient, because sometimes, when it's especially when it comes to the intimate stuff that we're involved in, the experience matters.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, 100%, and I I know it always comes down to the ideal members of of what each studio prefers with age range, uh, with gender, all that fun stuff, with what they're kind of doing with their marketing and, um, how they're branding themselves. But I think that you know, at the end of the day we're looking at, these studios have to kind of separate themselves from, you know, the online side of things but embrace it at the same time. How do we embrace these, these, these online training apps where people are working out at home, it's more so. Embrace them. How do we embrace them? How do we utilize them to our advantage? And then, how do we provide an in-studio experience that makes people want to come?
Speaker 2:I mean, I'm a great example, right, I have three young kids. I don't go to the gym for convenience to work out for 30 minutes anymore. I go for two hours a day and use the studio as a place for my kids to hang out with their friends while I take in my experience and my mental and physical needs of working out and running and all that fun stuff, especially here in Arizona, because it's usually 110, so I can't run outside. But yeah, and I love how you're saying that, and so I think we just have to. Anyone who's listening to this podcast just needs to kind of have an understanding that hey, like community and digital are digital itself, and AI are always going to play a part. But how do we, how do we synchronize that with the experience in the community enough, where your customers are still feeling like they're part of that community?
Speaker 1:That's right. I would totally agree with that and I think built around that. So all of these things like AI, they're meant to be tools and some people say, well, ai, you talk about being personal, doing community, but AI seems to be not that and that's not really true. It's the right balance of doing things like, hey, your credit card better to update on a mobile app than being there. But wishing them happy birthday, do it when they check in, right, so it's. I mean, do it on the app too, if you'd like. But also wish them and celebrate that moment in class and when they check in. So I think it's. You've got to understand. It's really an art, not a science, I would say, in terms of how you implement technology.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I see a hundred percent what you're saying. I, if I went into a class and someone told me because we are, we're getting to that point where you said convenience right, I think so many, not just studios but just companies in general are going to the common template Like we'll just wish everyone a happy birthday over their email, and everyone's used to that, everyone's used to those types of transactional type communications, and so you have to find a way to bring in that personality back into it. And so just by thinking, oh, hey, I'll go to a class and I'll have the trainer get an alert themselves to say, hey, it's Eddie's birthday today in class, give him a happy birthday To me. That's customer service at its finest. Oh, you're, they're thinking about me, they, they know me. Um, unlike an email where I'm like oh, they probably just put that in a notification and over and that's the boutique and boutique fitness.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's having that personal relationship. Or even in boutique hotels where you look at hotels, the premium and, like rosewood I mean, they follow your families on instagram, they know your kids birthdays, they're sending you messages when you come in. They're there to greet you, they know where you came from. It's it's next level of hospitality and I think, um, there's a lot that we could learn from, like hospitality focused industries, especially as it relates to to boutique studios. I think big box gyms may not need to to look at that yet because it's a different expectation, but when you're paying almost like per experience right and you're paying a premium for that, I think you've got to really take a hospitality focus mindset yeah, yeah, exactly, customer service, and I think that, back to what we talked about with the retail industry and experiences, I think customer service plays a huge part.
Speaker 2:It's 90% customer service, you know. So, yeah, really understanding, really understanding that that customer service people are, especially with the evolution of AI and everything going so digitally, that how much bringing back customer service is actually going to build retention more than it's going to lower your retention and that productivity Right, and so, uh, that's uh, I love this topic. We could probably talk about this all day, yeah, uh no for sure, but yeah, um, we're getting close to the end here.
Speaker 2:I don't want to keep you. Why don't you tell everyone a little bit about where they can find you personally? And any last words to our guests.
Speaker 1:One. If you are a podcast listener, go and check out Lyft's podcast with myself, my co-host, matthew Janusek. A great way to find me is on LinkedIn. I think, zach, you and I connected on LinkedIn. It might have been how I initially met you, so feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. And then I'm always active, you know, at conferences and events, and I'm speaking at several conferences as well, so you know, happy to connect with you and learn more, but I would say your LinkedIn and the podcast are probably the best ways to stay current in what I'm doing and also connecting with me.
Speaker 2:Beautiful. I'll throw those out in the show notes as well for anyone who wants to find this on the YouTube channel and or the podcast itself. Again, I'm your host, zach Coleman. This is the 50 Great Cast, and thanks everyone for joining us today.
Speaker 1:Thanks for having me on, Zach.
Speaker 2:Welcome.
