New Opportunities For Fitness Professionals To Future Proof Your Business Featuring Richard Beddie

Welcome back to the Marketing Muscle Up podcast show. Really excited for today's episode. In today's episode, I want to talk about what's happening at the moment and A place that I haven't been for maybe 2 years is New Zealand. I remember 2 years ago I was in New Zealand when apparently they were going to shut some border down because there was some virus on its way. I had no idea what they were talking about. And I remember it very clearly because we were in New Zealand. We just finished up a conference in New Zealand. It was a great conference. And all of a sudden, everybody was talking about this virus. And I flew back into Australia. the place was empty like a ghost town, like I've never seen before. And as you know, then as we know what happened after that. And so on today's episode, I've got Richard Beattie joining me. He's the CEO of Exercise New Zealand. Welcome to the call, Richard.

Good morning and welcome. Thank you.

Good to have you here. And it's always good to chat to you. I think we chatted maybe about a year ago and we talked about what was happening. And obviously we're in a different We're a different stage at the moment where, you know, we're 2 years down and there's a lot of things that have happened in Australia and around the world. And I wanted to kind of jam with you today to get an understanding of the New Zealand market and understanding what that looks like. And for those who don't know anything about Exercise New Zealand, Exercise New Zealand is the, the only leading industry board That is focused around fitness professionals in New Zealand. Now, Richard has been in the hot seat here, I'm pretty sure, from around 1999. I'm reading my notes here, Rich. Is that correct?

Yeah, that'd be about right. Yeah. So it's sort of more than 20 years. It's been my entire career has been this industry in some shape or form, from Group X to gym owners to this.

And you've owned a previous gym before in Christchurch, 15 years. Did you get into the aerobic sector, Richard, or were you more into the PT world at that time?

Yeah, so I'm old enough that group exercise was that. Um, in fact, I think when we first started with our first gym, there weren't personal trainers. Um, there were things called gym instructors. And, you know, the idea of a personal trainer, like, what do you want a personal trainer for? You know, I've now had a personal trainer, I think the same personal trainer, for more than 15 years. So things have certainly changed. Um, and, uh, yeah, so, but I got involved through Group X and then eventually club ownership. Owned a couple of clubs, sold them, the last one in 2000 and 7, so, you know, more than 13 years ago, 15 years ago now. Um, but yeah, my heart's always been in the industry in various different capacities, and obviously now I get to kind of play at a different level and to do different things, but it's always about, you know, getting more people physically active.

Love it. And the thing I love about yourself, Richard, and if anybody's met Richard or been to many of the conferences that Richard runs on behalf of Exercise New Zealand, You speak on a lot of different fitness industry trends and you have a massive passion for helping businesses realize their full potential. And we've seen that through the events and the conferences you put on. You've got one coming up in November and you really get in there and you— it's almost like you're one of us, Richard. You get in there and you know, hey, that's not working. Let me fix that. You get rid of all the red tape and you get the job done, which I really admire about yourself. So I'd love to Dig into what's happening in New Zealand and and what is the state of the industry right now from from your seat? I mean, how many fitness professionals are are you looking over at the moment in New Zealand?

So in New Zealand, there's probably around five thousand working exercise professionals, and by that sort of the census data tells us it's probably a little bit higher than that because some people may not report it as their kind of primary job. But we've got on our national register, the register of exercise professionals, just three and a half thousand of those are registered. With us. So it's most but not all. And that includes obviously personal trainers, Group X instructors, but also it includes now kind of like emerging spaces like exercise specialists who have sort of got high-level degrees who are working more with special populations, or yoga, which is far from new, but it's new in terms of its mainstream appeal. And we also, we have an organization that's part of us is Yoga New Zealand. And so supporting all the different elements, but it's sort of around 3,500 individuals and then around 700 facilities. And so that's mainly gyms, but not just gyms. So gyms and yoga studios and PT studios, and then businesses that may not— that might even be facility-less, like, you know, boot camps on the beach. Although the majority still are what you and I might call a gym, but of course it includes anyone that provides exercise to the public.

Yeah, amazing. Richard, you know, you— we've got a lot of New Zealand clients in our program, our Com Marketing Ninjas, and you've been a great supporter of that over the years. And We, you know, it's interesting through, and we are in this episode, we are going to talk a little bit about COVID and what's that done and so forth. So just so you know. And, you know, when we talk to our, you know, our clients, we've got clients from Australia in Perth, we've got some in Canada even. And even in Australia, you've got Sydney, you've got Melbourne, you've got Perth, and even that is separated. And I feel like, you know, now Perth and New Zealand are kind of like towards the end-ish. And so it's interesting to see how different industries and countries take this on and what are the opportunities. So that's what I really wanted to get you on today for, to understand what you're seeing as the opportunities now in the marketplace. So I might sort of just start off with what's happening at the moment in the industry in New Zealand, the fitness industry.

So look, you're quite right. The one thing about COVID while it was the same globally, the way that governments responded and even the way that COVID affected the both people from a health perspective, in other words, death rates and infection rates, and what the government did in response to businesses in terms of lockdowns was very, very different. And you saw that in Australia, even the difference between New South Wales and Victoria. Yeah. But certainly, New Zealand was very unique, certainly in the early stages of almost controlling COVID. And then later on, one could say, certainly based on the numbers, let's just say not everyone agreed with where the direction, where the government was going. So try not to get too political here, but it's very clear that our response was very different to the rest of the world. And now we're probably a little bit behind everyone else in that Australia's gone through Omicron, most of the world's gone through Omicron. Some countries in Europe, literally you go there, there's nothing, no masks, no anything. Other countries are still going through a new outbreak. You know, China right now is going through various different versions of lockdown. So the thing that I characterize, where is New Zealand at, we are a little bit behind Australia. And I say that not to be judgmental, just in terms of the Omicron outbreak. But what is really very clear is that unlike many other countries, we didn't have large-scale closedowns of our industry. And that's not to say it was not painful. It was very painful, particularly for Auckland, because we had our long lockdown. In fact, we had the second largest lockdown in the world, second only to Victoria. Well done, you win the prize. It's not the prize anyone wants to win, right?

Well, runners-up, not bad at all. Not a bad position.

Yeah, exactly. Now, again, in saying that, I mean, it is what it is in COVID, and we can have a whole debate about the past and whether that was good, bad, or otherwise. I mean, it's certainly bad in terms of the outcomes for both people's physical activity But also the businesses. But the good news is, on the whole, that didn't have large-scale closures. Now, there were some clubs that had to close, and that's really sad. But if we're talking about at an industry level, it didn't result in large-scale closures, unlike, say, the US, where we had 25% clubs close as a result of COVID Now, that's massive. Some of those were large gym chains. Some of those were independent clubs. Hundreds of those closed. Now, that's a completely different landscape, and what you need to do to respond to that is different to what we're going to do. But Where we are at is most clubs are open. Most clubs are hurting quite a bit from the past. Certainly the reserves are down, and we're noticing the big thing being hit right now, of course, is visits. Now I say there's three metrics that you can kind of measure where an industry is at. One is visits, and that kind of tells you where you're kind of at right now. You've got you've got members paying you. In other words, your the revenue coming in, and that's going to kind of look for your midterm viability. And then you've got sales, which even lots of sales today don't doesn't fix your cash flow tomorrow. but it looks for your longer-term future. So, you know, visits is the— I call it the leading metric that tells you about longer-term what's going to happen. Because if all of a sudden half your members don't come in today, you still have the same revenue, but you do have like, oh, that's a problem if that carries on for too long. And that's what's happening with Omicron. Basically, lots of people are sick with Omicron. Sometimes it's staff, sometimes it's members. It's going through New Zealand at the moment with a pretty high rate. And that means our visits are down. But unlike many other businesses, we have this buffer between visits and revenue where just because you're down 50%, you don't get 50% drop in revenue. So most clubs now would report somewhere between 20% and 30% down. Certainly, sometimes, certainly their peak time classes are like that, but they're not down 20% or 30% revenue from last month. They're probably down anywhere between 5% and 30% between 2 years ago. So, you know, you look at 2019 as the, as the time, or even the beginning of 2020, when COVID wasn't really a thing in a business sense.

Yeah.

And if you compare to that, many clubs would be down from that. But again, it's variable. Some PTs are saying, oh no, I'm up, I'm busier than that. But that really depends on where they are in the market, whether or not they serve a particular type of market, and whether or not that market is being robust in terms of financial impact. Because if you're in Queenstown, it's going to be very different. It's a tourism town in our country. And again, Auckland got closed down a lot more versus Christchurch, which didn't. And so the way that people respond to COVID and even the risks of COVID are very different.

Yeah, totally. And it's interesting, um, when you say, you know, different, you know, different areas got, um, effectively different. Is there a— is there a— like you said, PTs busier. From your view, are you seeing there's one kind of sector like PTs or Group X or, um, big box gyms who, who kind of came up on the winner and who came up on the loser of that? Is there a way that we can To show us that, Richard?

Yeah, so we, we're very much— we've tried to do various different bits of, I'll say, consumer research and industry research throughout COVID. And we did it sort of mid the first phase of COVID We didn't realize it was the first phase, we thought it was COVID, where we kind of got back to normal when things opened up again. This is before Delta. And we, you know, New Zealand, they actually eradicated it, which was great. And we— what we found there was consumers very quickly returned back to normality. Because there was this financial, I'm not certain, the PTs got hit more. So in a financial, when there's a financial shock, PTs get hit harder than gyms because it's easier to cut your $100 a week than it is to cut your $20 a week, you know, again, whatever your price point is. And so generally speaking, a financial impact will hit the top end more than the mid to lower end. And, you know, a gym membership can be as cheap as $10, but, you know, as expensive as $50, whereas a PT might start at that $50 and could be, you know, depending on how many times you're seeing them a week, a couple of hundred. And so we find the financial impact, and that was just beginning to affect PTs more, not massively, but more so. So PTs had not bounced back as quickly. But now I'd flip it the other way around where people have understood, you know, if you've had a financial impact from COVID it's probably already happened. And if you're an industry that got hammered by COVID in 2 years, you know, the major ones of, you know, tourism, And even accommodation internally have been massively hammered, and they've let many of their staff go. But that's now happened, and therefore, if you had clients who are in that situation, you've lost them, or at least they've dropped down their service level. But the majority of people have a greater awareness of physical activity, and most people at the PT end have a greater dedication to their exercise. So they're less likely to drop off when it's just a oh my habit dropped because I because the gym was closed for a couple of months. We know every gym, if you stop people going for a couple. months, a number of the members are just going to lose their habit. Now, of course, you've got this core group that'll always come. Literally, the place is on fire and all they're doing is sort of dragging the gym equipment out and still working out on it while it's smoking. You know, we joke about that, but it's true. There is a core group that would, whatever it takes, I'll be there. And in fact, you know, they'd probably break in if they're allowed to, um, if the government goes into lockdown for too long. And so that group will exercise, but that is the same group often that would have a personal trainer. more likely to. And so they are less affected by this perception of maybe I shouldn't go to the gym right now stuff. So in a financial sense, if it's a financial restriction, often PTs get hit harder. If it's a perception restriction, like I'm not sure whether I should go to the gym right now, maybe I should sort of tone down my activities that involve other people. Again, everyone's different on where they, where they sit on that level. We know even, you know, in this office we were kind of having a discussion about who we thought would get COVID first. And everyone thought it was going to be me because I was the one living a normal life. I go to the gym, I do kung fu, I just do my normal activities. I'm not silly about it, but I'm not trying to— I'm going to avoid all human beings.

Yes.

I mean, I realize I'm not judging anyone who does differently, particularly if you've got elderly parents or relatives that you engage with and you're just trying to not give risk to them. That's all power to you. But just in terms of my personal life, that's what I've done. But what we didn't factor in was actually, yeah, but also because I exercise regularly, I've probably got a stronger immune system than most. So actually, maybe we should be looking at the people in the office who don't exercise a lot and stay at home and have some kids. That's probably the biggest risk. And again, I'm not making that as a judgment, it's just an observation, right? Yeah. And that's— but that's happening. I don't really kind of care about what I do. That's happening to every New Zealander. We're all making our own informed decisions about, do we go to cafes, do we go to gyms, what What do I prioritize in my life? And that times 5 million gives us this thing of what happens to our industry. So back to your question, I think PTs are going surprisingly well. Of course, individual PTs might struggle. I think a PT that started in 2020 might have a tougher job than a PT that started in 2015 or before because they have this longer relationship with clients. I mean, the one thing, you know, my PT, when I stopped going for a couple of months from a lockdown, the question is, when do I return, not if I return. But that's because I've been seeing him 15 years. Why would I not?

Yes.

But if I've been seeing someone for a couple of months, you know, I could sometimes see a chiropractor and then I don't for a couple of months. I just don't see them anymore. I don't— it doesn't, you know, it's like I'm not— it's not more— oh, it's my chiropractor that I see all the time. Why would I need to see them every month? That's not something I do, or at least not my mind. So whereas other people might be different, you know, whether it's your chiropractor, your PT, your, your person that helps you with your wellness and recovery. Everyone has a different relationship, but if you have a long and a stable relationship, you are far more likely to be able to re-engage. And that applies to gyms too. We see some of the studios are going really well because of the fact that they can re-engage quickly with their clients and they do have a genuine connection. I think it's harder for a bigger box. It's not to say they're all doing it hard, but they certainly— it's harder to deal with, you know, 10,000 members and have a meaningful relationship with all of them. But again, what they'll have the strength— their strengths will be things like Group X. Which has its strength and its weaknesses right now. Group X, some people don't want to be in a room with 100 people. Now, some people do, but some people go, right now I'll just stay away. And again, it's probably short-term. I don't think it's a long-term thing, but I think for the next couple of months in New Zealand, there is a percentage of people who would prefer not to hang around larger groups. And I'm not reinforcing this myth that exercise is unsafe, but I'm certainly aware, and it would be remiss not to acknowledge, that some people would prefer not to be around others. And that doesn't just mean gyms, it just means Do you want to go to a dinner party right now? Some people say, not right now, give it a couple of months. Other people say, hell yeah, when's it on? What are you serving? Or maybe I should ask what you're serving before I turn up.

But anyway. Yeah, that's a really good way to look at this. And I haven't heard this from anybody else in this direct way. And we've seen very similar things. And I think you're right, depending on what the problem is, if it's financial or overall in gyms, it really comes down to who's going to be hit. But there's one, the commonality between all this is, and what I've seen as well with our clients, is that it's ensuring that you have— they say to say you have one plan, don't have plan B. But in this situation, having a plan B or having another revenue stream or having a different way you do things has definitely been a savior for a lot of people in these times. Obviously going virtual or online, all these things are adjusting. What are your thoughts on the opportunities that you've seen come out? Do you think they're going to stick around? I mean, I think this industry's been very innovative of what they've had to do, and it proves that we can do more than we actually think we can. What are your thoughts on the whole innovation piece that we've all had to create something different To really just stay in business.

Absolutely. I think, you know, what's the expression? Uh, uh, necessity is the mother of invention. You know, you have to do something. And so when you're locked down and you can't visit a client, well, you better figure out a way. And then everyone kind of discovered Zoom. It wasn't new, but it was this bit. And you can't deliver PT sessions online. Well, actually you can. Now, is it as good? I think we've got to acknowledge, generally speaking, it's not. In terms of, in the same way that education delivered online is fantastic, the ability for us to deliver conferences and education sessions and actually get into a number of people who would otherwise not be able to access them is phenomenal. And even at a price point, let's face it, it's generally lower cost to be able to do it. You know, you don't have to fly presenters and all that kind of stuff. So all that stuff is really good. And let's acknowledge that generally speaking, while there are some advantages of it, it's not as great an experience for the end user. Again, I love doing conferences because I can do it at home and I can, you know, stack the dishwasher while I'm watching a session. You know, all that kind of stuff and not have to— and that's still okay because I'm still engaged with it, but I get to do other stuff around the house if it's on a Saturday morning kind of thing. And so the same idea applies to our products, which we've gone online with, and whether they are virtual one-on-one sessions, which is kind of more like the live version, what we've just put it online, versus the actual let's change our whole model of delivery. And that's where, are we actually just trying to— there's the expression paving the cow paths, which is, you know, imagine a cow path going up a hill. The, you know, the old way was you just, well, that's the cow path, so we'll just pave it. We'll put, you know, cement on that and that's the road. And you go, you don't need to do that. You can just have a road that goes straight up the hill. And the reason that it wound up is because the cows couldn't go straight up the hill, but cars can. So sometimes we don't need to just digitize the existing product. We can actually change the product. Now, if you're doing it temporarily, then actually digitizing is fine. You know, in fact, I always say to particularly to trainers and to small studios, the focus during COVID particularly I'll say lockdowns or heavy restrictions, is not to replace your product with a digital product, but it's to engage with your members. Because the long term for most, most, not all, will be still a return to physical product. And I'm not saying it's the only product, but the vast majority of people say, well, I'll come back and I'll deliver whether it's personal training one-on-one is the main product you do, you'll continue to do that probably as your main product in the future.

Sure.

In the meantime, I want to engage with you. Now, what does engage look like? It can be a text message. It can be a one-on-one session. It can be a, let's do one-on-three and I'll charge you $15 a time. Again, it's not about the revenue. It's about the opportunity to engage. But that is different from let's develop a digital platform strategy which has an alternative revenue stream. And I think both of those are valid. But it's got to decide, what am I trying to achieve here? Am I trying to keep my customers engaged for the next 4 weeks while they're locked down, or for that matter, while they can't come in because everyone's catching COVID and, you know, you've got to isolate? I mean, in New Zealand, the moment you catch COVID it's 7 days isolation. So it's like, okay, you're off. And whether that be you're off because you're a PT or you're off because all your customers are off, whatever it is, I want to engage with you. Now, do I want their money or do I want their engagement? Or do I want them just to be a member in 3 weeks' time when they come back? Now you probably want maybe sometimes all of those, but what's the priority? So I think digital, we've already said digital was one of the solutions to this, you know, the ability to deliver in some other way. I think it is fantastic and really powerful, but it's got to be what is your intention here? Is this another revenue stream? Very valid. Is this a way of engagement? Very valid. Is this a way of supplementing a delivery model for your customers, very valid. Doing it because everyone's told you you've got to be online, I've said this, in fact, I said at the beginning of COVID everyone said everyone's got to be hybrid and I said, no, you don't. In the same way that not everyone needs to do yoga. I think yoga is awesome. I think high-intensity interval training is awesome. I think someone should do both of those, but not necessarily the same person or same group of people. So someone should do yoga and let's say lots of people should, deliver yoga. Lots of people should deliver high-intensity interval training. Lots of people should do boot camps on the beaches. Lots of people should do large classes indoors in boxes as well. But you don't have to do any of those. You can do your thing in the same way that someone will need to deliver digital products. Some companies will need to be hybrid to do both, but you don't. You've got to decide what's right for you and your business. And it may be that's entirely face-to-face in the future and you'll just take the hits whenever there is, um, an effect for a physical session because it can't happen or it's restricted. And as long as you're okay with that, or you just have a, I'll just text you when I'm sick, and if that works for you, then all power to you and there's nothing wrong with it. Now, that's not to say that's the model for the, for the industry. Yep. Someone has to offer digital products to people that can't access it. How are we going to do it for the rural communities that don't have facilities? Okay, we've got all these other cool services that we can deliver for you. That's great. But there's a big difference between what we have to do as a group and what you have to do individually. And I say it's the same thing with yoga. Someone should offer yoga. It doesn't have to be you. So just because everyone says yoga's the way, or, you know, sleep tracking is the way, you don't have to be the sleep tracking expert. But by the way, it's a really important part of the whole mix. So someone should do it because there's a great opportunity here.

And, and I like that thinking, you know, someone has to do it, not you. And there is new opportunities in the marketplace.

Yeah.

How do you know, Richard, To go, you know, from your viewpoint, there's a lot of people that have been in the game for a long time as fitness professionals. How do you know when to pull the trigger and when not to? Like, how do you, how do you spot an opportunity, basically? And I'm talking, maybe to make it a little bit easier for you, I'm talking to someone who is, is doing okay, but they're still not satisfied yet. Yeah. Is that the person that spots the opportunities, or is the person that wants to keep growing faster. After this wave goes down, what we've seen is that some people decide to go back to what they were doing exactly the same, and some people are thriving. And I guess both ways are okay, but I do believe that we're learning lessons here.

Absolutely. Yeah. Look, I think that question is the right question because it's about, as you say, about learning lessons. And what's the lesson you're trying to learn? So is it, I am looking for alternative revenue streams? Because if that's it, then explore that question. But is that really it or are you wanting security? You know, you might want, I want job security, in which case maybe I want to be an employee of someone. And again, I'm not saying that is the solution, but what is the thing that you are looking for? What's the problem you're trying to solve? And is it your problem? as in the sense of for my business, I've got these challenges, or is the problem the broader problem in society? People are inactive, I'm trying to solve that problem. Okay, great. But which subset of the population are you trying to help the most? And you might say everyone, and that's nice, but probably more useful to say, well, actually I'm particularly passionate about this group, whether it's a demographic or they've got a condition or they're just physically people who are in my town because I'm really passionate about my local people, whatever it might be. But then it's about, so how do I best help them or how do I best help me if that's, if it's my business problem I'm trying to solve?

Yeah.

And I think it naturally flows therefore more logically, therefore what am I going to do as opposed to everyone should do it. If you've been a PT for less than 3 years, you should go online. If that, you know, everyone wants that flowchart and it's like, well, actually it's not that easy and you need to ask yourself the questions like, what am I trying to achieve here? Because actually if you're doing it as a hobby business and you're okay with a hobby business, Your answer will be quite different to a, I'm a new PT, I've noticed my revenue goes up and it's really, really good, but then it keeps on getting hit really hard every time the government changes the rules. It's really hard to build momentum here. I'm in a town that doesn't have huge amounts of income. So me as a $100 an hour trainer is really sort of struggling to get enough regular clients to get me full. And I can't see myself basically buying a house with this kind of income level because the bank doesn't like lending against that. And this is my problems in my business. But the solution to that might look very different than the PT who's going, I'm actually fine, but I'm just aware that I'm very susceptible to future shocks. And it may, you know, it almost won't be COVID, the next one.

Hmm.

What will that shock be? We've had financial crises that hit us. And as I said earlier, I think they generally hit PTs more than the gyms themselves or facilities themselves. But I don't know what that next shock will be, but there will be a shock. It may not even be health-related. I mean, heaven forbid, it might be you know, an inflamed global— I don't say war, but, you know, battle between countries which affects your ability to deliver exercise to your public. Now, you know, I hope that we're not talking about anything like World War III, but something of that nature that has a global effect to the supply chain and the finance of the world because of a conflict. That could be the next thing. Now, what does that look like? I actually don't know what that flow-on effect to our industry is. However, it will change things if it's large scale enough. And that means there will be effects to our industry and we need to look at, sometimes there'll be positive effects, but quite, they'll definitely be big, whatever the thing is. And it's always about, you know, I always go back to what is the problem you're trying to solve here that helps you to determine whether or not, you know, we're talking about virtual, whether we're talking about hybrids, whether we're talking about offering digital products and whether or not I'm just digitizing my current product or whether I am offering a whole new range of services, I will give you online pro— you know, heaven forbid you might do the thing that you hate with other people doing. I'm going to offer online programs where you can fill out a form, tell us what your goals are, tell us a bit about yourself, and for $19, I'll flip you back a program. Now, a lot of trainers, certainly the ones that have been around a while, are generally horrified by that idea because it's like, well, it's not personalized at all. It's probably personalized to the goal but not the person.

Sure.

So it's not a true personalized program and might go, I hate that. But actually, it's a great revenue stream. Now, I'm not saying it's good or bad to do that. You do you. As long as you're doing it with integrity and you think that that actually offers help to some people, all power to you. But that could— that's an entirely new stream for most trainers, whether or not you even want to be in that space or do you want to make it. I'm actually going to give you a genuine personalized program, but I can't do it for $19. I'm going to have to do it with a little bit more. You have to answer these questions about your life and what you're trying to achieve and what your current stress levels are like. And based on that, I'll give you a program. But still, I'll try to automate that as much as I can so that I can deliver hundreds of these, not dozens of these in a month. And therefore generate thousands of dollars, not hundreds of dollars, which supplements my PT business. And before you know it, if I do this well enough, I don't need to limit myself to New Zealand. I can now go to other markets. And that's true, I think, of most digital products now. We've all learned the client that moves away can still be a client. If that's the only client you train digitally, they will probably ask you before you ask them. So I'll go, well, could we still do those Zoom? I'm sure every trainer who is effectively not online is still asked that now, which is great. I think it's positive. I would certainly probably, for me, if I was even away for 6 months, I would probably far more likely ask my trainer, could we do some online sessions, more than I would say let's find a new trainer in a new city. I think in time I'd probably find a new trainer in a new city if I was there long enough.

And

that's just me. Again, that's me, right? But I think many other clients who have strong relationships with clients— and again, this is the, the strength that a trainer has over often facilities, is the relationship is stronger. And the same reason that When a hairdresser moves studios, most people go with the hairdresser, not with the studio, because actually the relationship is not with the hair salon, it's with the studio. Now everyone's different as to I don't really care who cuts my hair, but certainly someone who has a hairdresser for X number of years, Richard, you've obviously had the same one for a while because you've got the same hairdo. But seriously, you know, it's different for different people, right? Same way we're getting coffee, some people will only go to the same barista, other people don't care.

Totally. Really interesting. I did hear you say you had the same personal trainer for 15 years. Yeah. Dissecting a little bit this conversation, sidestepping I should say, that's a good routine, Richard. And I think this industry, you've been in this seat for over 20 years and this industry, for some people, it's their career industry they spend their whole life in. For others, they come in, they go out, they come in, go out. You're, you're a walking billboard of, um, support in the industry, having a trainer for 15 years. And, um, you know, at the end of the day, I think, you know, doing that— when you said too, like, you know, risk, less risk of COVID I'm healthier, I'm exercising regularly— like, I see that you're consistent. And this industry, and I think what the fitness professionals are for and you know, what the intent is for is to stay sick people being healthy instead of being up and down like yo-yos. And I think this is a massive, uh, opportunity right now saying that, yep, people are now starting to finally realize that, hey, if you do, um, if you have walked and you want to stay healthier, stay healthy. I mean, Richard, you're, you're a master of that. You've been consistent. You're staying with a trainer. our people that we're working with, fitness professionals, they're struggling to keep people for 6 months sometimes, or 3 months, or 1 year. Is it the person, Richard? Or is it, you know, really pitching a different concept, you know, pitching the concept of health? And I, you know, we've got a mission this year to raise the standards in regards to bringing everybody's prices up and make sure that fitness professionals are earning what another industry that is working the same hours earning. So for example, if it's PTs working shift work morning and night, compare that possibly to a nursing industry who might be also doing that, or a shift working, somebody working on the roads that are there late at night. And that's something that I'm really working on with our industry, with our clients specifically, is to raise their prices, make sure they get money, not just, oh, side hobby, but they are actually creating a career out of this. What's the secret, Richard? What's the secret to, to getting your clients so consistent? So, you know, you'd be the best client that I would train 15 years if I was a PT. How do you— how do we produce more clients that really need exercise? Not like, oh, I'll just cancel my membership, or I'll cancel this. You know, how do we put that as our top priority when it comes to marketing, when it comes to sales?

So a couple of observations there. First of all, normally I, I talk about, you know, public health messages. I talk about here's the latest research on exercise, and I'm talking about the message to everybody in the same way that, you know, eat more vegetables and brush your teeth kind of message. It's everyone should do this and you've got to take the nuance for you. If we do though talk about, you know, my particular experience and relationship with both personal training and a personal trainer, if I look back what I was doing 15 years ago and what I'm doing now, it's completely different. And if my trainer was still doing the same thing they did 15 years ago, I still— I wouldn't be with them. Not that I would have known that then because I thought I knew what to do. I had to do both strength and cardio. because that's where the answer was. And I also knew the answer to weight loss was to cut out fat. And again, that's— I'm going to say that's wrong, you know, but I knew that back not only 15 years ago, 20 years ago, you know, I owned a gym. I knew the answer to these things. You know, there were 2 forms of exercise, strength and cardio. It's like, again, you could broadly say that still exists, but the nuance of understanding what recovery is and understanding how important sleep is— Now, these are things that I understand in my day job, but also they're things that my trainer has brought to my attention in his relationship with me and his training with me. You know, I've got, I mean, I've got an Oura Ring, which is the, you know, sleep tracking thing that, you know, 7-day battery life, that tells me not only kind of how my recovery index is going. So if I have a bad night's sleep or my temperature is slightly up, or actually I've had a couple of drinks of alcohol, which is not a huge amount, but it's enough to disrupt my sleep, but particularly my Uh, HRV, um, and, and what does that mean for my workout the next day? I have a conversation with my trainer about that. Now, if I can't, to be honest, I need to get a new trainer because I need— that's what I want now. I did not want that 15 years ago. I didn't want that 10 years ago. I need to be able to do that. And the one thing I would say, uh, really good trainers consistently invest a significant amount of their money in their ongoing education. And it's not just for them, it's for their clients. And I can tell, you know, I don't mind, I'm sure PT wouldn't mind sharing, you know, he sent an email out recently, which funny enough was a price increase email. And it talked about not only his ongoing education, but asked, what education do you want me to do to help you?

Wow.

Because most trainers think about, I'm really interested in blah, so I do blah. And there's nothing wrong with that. And particularly when you're new, because it's like, there's so much you don't know. Go experience this, try yoga, try that, try that. Do the kettlebell workshop, do the pH 360 training about epigenetics. All this stuff is really cool. Now find where you want to go, but also what do your clients need? So if you're— are your clients a demographic? Are your clients a type in terms of whether they be, you know, a type of client in terms of the business people working during the day that are really, you know, time poor? Are they a type in terms of a demographic of age or conditions? Or, you know, they're going to be a mix, but where do they sit and what do they need? And sometimes it's actually asking one-on-one, you know, what would I value is going to be different to the other guy in his 50s who's been exercising a long time. Oh, they're quite similar, aren't they? Yeah, actually we're a bit different. And so to me, I've seen this time and time again with really successful trainers, they're spending, you know, $10,000, $15,000 a year on their education. which is probably more than they spent when they originally did the initial training. And that to me, it's not— it's the old story, it's necessary but not sufficient. But to me, it's a sign every trainer who's really successful is doing large amounts of that. They're not going to one conference a year, but they probably do go to the conference in their country. But that's just one of the things they do. They're not looking for CECs. I find it fascinating when people talk about CECs as if I have to get my last CEC because that's the only thing. These guys, you know, if you're trying to do 10 a year, they're doing 50. And they're not doing it because they don't try and get CECs. They're just doing it because they know that's how to be their best version of them for their clients. And here's the thing, as a result, they get really busy. The other day, a friend of mine said, oh, do you know a good PT? Of course I do. And then sort of contact my PT. It's like, sorry, I'm full. I can probably see them for a one-off session, but I'm not taking any new clients. Now, I know there's lots of other PTs in that same category, so I always forget there's a reason why he's full, and it's because he's good. And the same with any, you know, you like that.

There's a reason why it's full, because he's good. And I, and I think this is like seriously the marketing secret right here.

Yeah,

he's good. They keep themselves good, they keep themselves tuned, they keep themselves motivating you the whole time too.

Yeah, and I say this to people in this industry, and people will look at me and go, well, why do you need a personal trainer? I mean, I've owned gyms, I've, you know, I get to, even though I'm not an exercise professional on my day job, I get to hang around people who know an awful lot about this stuff. You know, I know lots about public health messages and what you need to do and how to recover and all those things. And I, you know, I go to conferences where I present on business stuff, but I get to hang out with people like Ian O'Dwyer who knows way more about movement, and I get to learn a little bit from him. Therefore, I know quite a bit.

Yeah.

But actually, that doesn't make me either a personal trainer, nor does that make me someone who doesn't need external, I'll say, stimulus in some capacity, whether it's information, whether it's validation, whether it's motivation at various different phases, because I don't need to be told how to do bench press anymore. You know, funnily enough, I don't even do bench press anymore, heaven forbid. You know, like, it's not what I do now. I did until about 3 or 4 years ago, until I did some epigenetic stuff, and it's like, actually, that's not the best way for me to do stuff. So my version of that will be, you know, we'll be doing lots and lots of push-ups and then explosive push-ups and all that kind of crazy shit. And I'm not saying everyone should do that, I'm just saying that's what works for me and I enjoy it, and that keeps me coming back both to the gym, which matters for me, and to the trainer, which matters for him and then his income. But I'm happy to continue to use him because he continues to deliver what I need. But that's all about them changing as well as me changing, because I'm different in terms of my age, but also I'm different in terms of my knowledge and what I need.

Yeah, I like that. You know, at the end of the day, it is about re-educating yourself and Giving that to your clients, which is really, really a great reminder, by the way, a great reminder. And while we're on the ring conversation, Richard, I have been looking at the Oura Rings for too long now.

Yeah.

Going in and out, getting served ads. Are they good, Richard? Should I get one?

Look, the short version is probably, but get it for the right reason. So it is not a heart rate tracker, although it does track heart rate. It's not the primary tool. You can get a better I have an Apple Watch as well, or maybe you have a Fitbit or a Garmin that can do better heart rate tracking. This will track heart rate, you know, every 5 minutes. So for when I'm doing, for example, I take the watch off to do kung fu, it tracks the heart rate during kung fu. Fantastic. But I don't really need to know my heart rate through kung fu. That's not the purpose of it, but I can still record it as a workout. What it does do though is it's a, it takes a whole bunch of stuff together and gives me information about it. And then I can make an informed decision. The one thing I'd say is if you just like data and you don't do anything with it, then don't get it because it's gonna— so many people I see on the forums, they complain about their HRV is too low and they want to know the hack that makes it higher. It's like, we improve your lifestyle, you know, it's like, that's kind of hard, isn't it? What they want to know is if I just do one thing, like if I just have magnesium 2 hours before I go to bed, my HRV goes up. And you're going, no, it doesn't work that way. Even though you might be able to hack it that way, that's actually not the thing you need. In the same way of, you know, how do I lose weight? Well, like, you know, I can tell you, but it won't be what you want. You want to know if I just eat chicken, right? That's it. Just don't eat chicken past 8 PM, and then that's the answer. It's like, it doesn't work that way. Even though you make it, you know, I can tell you, eat raw chicken, you'll lose weight. It's not a particularly good mechanism, but it's that whole idea of what do you really want here? And so I think, you know, Oura Ring, and again, it's not an ad about them, not a paid sponsorship, by the way, but it's that it's a really useful tool to add. And particularly I find for people who exercise a lot, This is the recovery tool. This is the thing that says, hey, on Thursday, this is your 4th workout of the week. You got 7 hours of sleep last night, which by the way is okay, but not great. On top of, you had 2 glasses of wine with a friend and therefore your sleep wasn't optimum. You had a hard workout yesterday, which you haven't fully recovered from. So today it says, take it easy. And that doesn't mean don't work out. It means don't go full out hard on that workout. And that's an amazing tool for a regular exerciser. For a non-exerciser, the message always is, Do more. If you're doing— if you've only been to the gym once a week, just go again, you know, like,

do more.

Do more. But for someone who is exercising regularly, and most trainers are in that category, sometimes you need to do less, and you need to have recovery days, and you need to have recovery periods through your week. You need to have periodization and variation of your intensity through the week. And again, this is not a new concept, but this helps you measure it and then have a response to it. Now, I love tech, so that's my world, and so it's cool. And also, of course, I love exercise, so it kind of links them two together. It's so fantastic. But if you're not into it, just don't buy one.

I've just got to decide, am I going to get silver or am I going to get black, Richard?

Yeah, so my first one was silver and my second one was black. I decided to just go something different. Um, it totally preference of what you think it looks like. Really robust though, because this I do wear when I'm weight training, so it has a piece of metal grinding against it. Chin-ups against it, all that stuff. And it did—

Oh, good.

There's no scars that I can see on mine.

Well, they've got a self color and a black color. So I'm assuming the self, maybe a bit of a matte black, I would say. Yeah. Well, that's interesting. You're the 3rd person I've spoken to, so it's definitely a sign I'm going to be on the Euro train. Richard, this has been very interesting as usual. My takeaways, team, those who are listening, I think we've talked about alternate revenue streams to grow your business. Should use them or shouldn't you? But but my real takeaway here, Richard, is is probably the indirect marketing question I asked you, which is you know what's the best way to market? And I think you nailed it where trainers have got to keep reeducating themselves. I think we've been through two years, three years, and maybe we've been in a slump or trying to save our clients or do what we need to do to survive. But I'm seeing right now at the moment to continue out of this and to find the next period of your career, I think education is one big part of that. And also re-motivating your clients, getting there and say, hey, this is what I've learned. Let's get into this. I mean, that is a great retention tool, isn't it, Richard? I mean, wow. People want new stuff.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think, I mean, there's probably a whole topic in this, but if I was to summarize it into kind of a huge opportunity we're at, there is an absolute, the one positive, well, there's probably lots of positives from COVID But I'm going to say one positive from COVID is for our industry, there is an absolutely sea change awareness of the benefits of exercise. I was interviewed actually just last night on TV. And the first thing they said to me, I'm normally kind of convincing them of the benefits of exercise. They said, well, of course exercise is good for your cardiovascular health. And of course exercise is good for mental health. What's this new research about both of them? And it's like, they're telling me before I, you know, they've introduced it as, well, of course everyone knows that, right? And now they're the interviewers. That is so powerful. And that is known by the public. We did some research and in 2020, where we asked people about the reasons to exercise, the number one reason to exercise was mental health. This is the consumer telling us, not us asking. Well done. Well, us asking the question, but we're not telling them all the benefits and then getting them to rank them. They told us mental health. That is fantastic. And therefore we have this massive opportunity to leverage off that awareness to get more people active. And it's not about COVID although by the way, there are benefits of exercise as they relate to COVID, both in terms of immune function and, you know, if you are vaccinated, boosting your vaccination effectiveness, all that stuff, which is so cool. And if you're not vaccinated, if you sit on that side of the fence and you exercise, it gives you boosted response to COVID as well. So it doesn't matter where you sit on that spectrum, and that's so powerful. And so I do think there's a really cool opportunity, which is actually, again, a whole different conversation of what we're going to do in New Zealand about this, is we want to do a large-scale I'll say join a gym campaign, and it won't be called a gym because it doesn't have to be a gym, but get into exercise campaign in 2022. Because we know that we've had some drop-off from people, but we know also there's a big awareness. So let's leverage off that awareness, knowing there's less people, but people want to do something. We'll give them something. And by the way, that's through the hundreds of facilities and the thousands of exercise professionals in New Zealand that can do it. So that's a— I'll say that's a pitch to hear, not because the people here need to go and exercise, it's because that's the pitch to say We get it. We want to help the clubs and the trainers to return to that high level of engagement that they did in 2019. I'd say

yeah, love it. Well, glad you're leading the charge there in New Zealand, and I think you've got the whole industry behind you on you know getting people back and getting more people back into their facilities, which is really important. Richard, talk about education for a second. You're always running education, and I'm really excited because. before, you said you're running your November event. I know it's a little bit away. However, it's a good excuse to, uh, to come to New Zealand and to see our clients down there and meet some new fitness professionals down there. Tell me about some new things coming up for you, um, in education. What's the next thing on the plate?

Yeah, so look, um, we are doing our next mini event virtually in a couple of months. Um, we're mindful that while in a couple of months we're very likely to be able to do face-to-face very easily, But right now, if we're selling tickets and telling people to come to a thing where lots of people together, there'll be people that, you know, just like the gyms, some people will be reluctant to do that. So we made the call to make our mid-year event effectively virtual, which means we can, you know, taking the positives, means we can bring in people from overseas who we normally wouldn't be able to fly to New Zealand and take them around the country for 2 weeks. But for our end-of-year event, we are making that announcement now. It is going to be face-to-face. In fact, there won't be a virtual offering. Of course, we're agile, right? We know things could change.

Yeah.

But right now, what's it going to look like? It is a face-to-face event. It's going to be multi-day. It's going to have, you know, 100 sessions. It's going to have 50+ presenters from all around the globe, some of which might be, by the way, digitally brought in, but a very small number of them. Most of them will be face-to-face. We'll fly you over from Australia. Why? Because we know the value that that has. We all know it, whether it's— I like, I mean, I like going to my class, by the way, at the gym, which I only do one a week, but it's like that class I love. And the reason I do that as opposed to doing that virtual thing on TV at home, I could do that. It's just not as good. I like the interaction and I just like smiling at the person I don't even know whose name it is. And she's in the corner and she says hello sometimes and I smile and then we leave. You know, that, but that to me is a, you know, it's a human experience, right? And the same thing we get from conferences and it's not actually just the great content you get, it's the interaction of individuals. And again, I'm telling people stuff they already know. If you've been to a conference, you know this.

Totally.

But to remind people in the same way why people will come back to gyms, why people will come back to the studio, is that they value not only your interaction with them, but the interaction of other people in the class, in the gym, in the studio, whatever it is. And that is good because we offer that, we give that to people. We're going to give it in our events through a conference. You get to give it through your studio, through your classes, through your whatever that you sell.

Love it. Well, we just finished our immersive face-to-face event. Yes, we did have it hybrid, different experience, but, you know, we'll sort of see how, you know, see the opportunity there and if we want to keep that or not. But definitely the face-to-face is, it's a good change, even if, you know, you love the Zoom and you love teaching your participants in your pajamas, that's totally fine, but it is a good change either way. Richard, it's been great having you on the Marketing Muscle Up Podcast Show. Always good to talk to you and sort of understand, you know, what's happening. And the reason why I love these kind of conversations, for those who are listening, we've got short, you know, marketing tactics you can listen to. We have, you know, just me talking for 10 minutes on a subject, but conversations like this, team, if you're listening to this, you want to walk away and think, okay, that's interesting, but just let it mull over a little bit. because that's where real innovative ideas come. You might be half-baked on an idea. Should I do this? Shouldn't I do this? And then all of a sudden, something clicks. So I want to thank you for your time, Richard, as always. And the things you're doing in New Zealand, I think they're amazing. And I love hearing you push the country forward.

I got the best job in the world because I get to tell people to be physically active and all the benefits that comes with it, you know, kind of, you know, and I think actually the people who work in this industry, the reason I do it is because I know that people are really passionate about doing that one-on-one or one-on-many with other people, and that's awesome. So collectively we can make an absolute real difference, and that's what excites me about what I do and what we do collectively.

Love it. Thanks so much, Richard. Team If— good name, by the way. Sorry, I forgot to mention at the start, um, the Richard B and the Richard T.

Yeah.

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