S3 Ep 2: Meet The Founder of Barre Attack: Renee Scott

Welcome to the Marketing Muscle Up Podcast Show. In today's episode, we're talking all around barre, barre attack. We're talking about Pilates, and we're talking about what it takes to run a very successful business. in a very competitive area over the last 20 years. I've got a very special guest today, Renee Scott. Welcome to the program.

Thank you for having me.

Well, for those who don't know Renee or have never heard of Bar Attack, a lot of you have because she's put thousands of students through her program in over 250 locations around Australia, New Zealand. And I want to find out how you actually do that, how you create something And then get others to actually participate, do, and become raving fans of what you actually do. And great to have met Renee about a year ago, really getting to know a lot more about her and her business and how it works, being in our program. And Renee, I want to kind of get straight into it because there's a lot of angles of your story and how you've done what you've done. But I think it first becomes, and there's a word that you used before and you give yourself the title of the Mindful Movement Program Creator. First of all, I'd love to know what that all means.

So I'm really passionate about all types of movement, but in particular mindful movement. So where you're connecting your mind and your body with the breath to the movement patterns that you're doing. So originally, I'm actually from a ballet background. So I used to be a ballet dancer with the Hamburg Ballet. So I moved across to Europe when I was 15 years old, traveled around Europe until I was about 21. So my background has always been dance. And I've loved that movement with music, movement with breath. And it's a very freestyle type of movement, even though you've got the structure of ballet. It's a really beautiful way to kind of start your life, but obviously very disciplined. So that's kind of an interesting start into my journey of mindful movement in the first place. And then I continued my career into Pilates and that became my passion for a long time. So it's truly kind of following what I love to do personally. And I think that's really important when you're going into anything, any type of business really, you know, what do you really love? What are you really passionate about? And if you can find those spots and those little points, then you can definitely drive yourself into that right pathway of where you need to go. So it's kind of been really interesting for me. And then from that kind of Pilates pathway of going really traditional Pilates, learning off the elders of Joseph Pilates, like Romana, who took over Joseph Pilates Studio, that was my original classical qualifications. And that's a kind of really big deal nowadays. Like the elders are dying and passing away, unfortunately. And then using kind of that real passion about how I love this movement. I love how the breathwork and the control and the balance work. It was all kind of connecting to my previous profession. And then just developing it further as I kind of moved into doing more training and more studying in the States and in America, I noticed that barre programs were really, really popular. So, you know, what used to be the main thing in America when I first started in the early kind of 2000s was Pilates studios on every single corner. And what I noticed in my years of study in the States, in LA and in New York, is these bar studios started popping up. And I was like, wow, I really am interested and intrigued about what this means. So again, just kind of following passions, following where I and how I like to move personally, and then kind of progressing into looking at different things in the market and what we're missing here in Australia.

So I liked how you said find out your passion, find out your purpose, follow that. It sounds like you follow that all around the world to find where that, where that took you. And in, in— I remember that time around the 2000s, actually. Um, I actually started, I actually studied Joseph Pilates as well. I was working on cruise ships and you had to do the course. I don't know if I did the whole course, but I did, I did, I did a fair chunk of it. And, um, I never really obviously went to teach it for many years like yourself. I probably taught it for 2 years. But it's interesting when, um, you know, you have creators such as Joseph Pilates who, who creates something and, and has that, and you're sort of saying that it's, uh, you know, right now it's, it's changing, and, and barre was that next thing. Talk about spotting a trend. How do you know when you're in a trend? How do you know when there's something on the horizon? I've always kind of, um, it's a little bit weird. It's like, you know, when you take a photo and then you look at it years later and go, oh my gosh, that was such a good time. But when you're in the moment, sometimes you can't understand if there's a trend or if it's normal. How do you actually know that this is a good thing and it's in the early stages? Because you started, um, your company Bar Attack in those early stages. How do you spot a good trend? How do you know such a thing?

Yeah, it's a really good question. I don't think you know all the time. I don't think it's something that kind of gets highlighted all the time. I think that these opportunities, they pass us every day. Whether we choose to see those opportunities and those gaps in the market as they pass us. I mean, I've had lots of opportunities in my life, as I'm sure everybody has. And I could have taken multiple pathways to, to different avenues. I think it's really important to make sure that you really believe in that product and feel like have a skill in that area that you can give. And if you don't have the skill in that area yet, but you're really passionate about it, go and study it. Study it so much that you're almost sick of it to the point of where you know it inside out, back to front, because it's that study and that growth which will then guide you into possibly being able to find that gap in the market and see that gap to know, you know what, this movement and this movement together, actually, that could be the perfect the perfect avenue. You know, we live in a different world. We used to be able to travel all the time. And so a lot of my inspiration used to come from traveling all the time. So I used to travel to Europe and America at least once a year, have a look at what those marketplaces are doing in the fitness world. And that used to also help to drive my influence of where I wanted to take things and what I wanted to do. So in these times where we don't have those influences quite as much, I think it's just really important to continue to study what we can. Because it's amazing how one little nugget of something somebody might say and you're like, oh, you know what? I really love that. I want to go into more of that. That's what I want to do. So, I think multiple things can flash up at you. You just have to be ready for them. I think that's—

I like that answer. Study, be ready for it. You never know. But yeah, just get stuck into something, right? Stuck into it.

Yeah. Honestly, I never knew whether biotech would be successful at all. you know, I was teaching to 1, 2, 6 people during our initial courses.

Right.

And I was doing it because I loved it. And I was doing it because I thought it had potential. But I was never going into it going, oh, this could be a really amazing financial reward for me and my family and a great product long-term. You kind of never think like that. I think it's best to think in baby steps. Let's try this. Let's give it a go. We've got nothing to lose. I mean, I think that that's a really big benefit about starting something creative is that you personally personally don't have anything to lose when it's just low input of, you know, it's only your time. It's only your energy. If you've got the time, if you've got the energy, try it. Because even if it fails, you're going to learn so much from that process of being in that creative space and giving yourself timelines and putting yourself in that space to do that and making yourself do that. So I think discipline, my discipline obviously is helpful. I have discipline to a certain point and then you have to use the other creative part of your brain to establish the rest. So yeah, I think consistency is key. If I wasn't consistent, then it wouldn't work.

Yeah. Not consistent, I would've stopped a long time ago. So let's expand a little bit more on Barre Attack. What does it look like now as a snapshot? How many people have you taken through it? And it's in a lot of locations. I mean, I'm really curious about how do you get it into so many locations? How do you supply when there's no, like, is there a demand or you're creating the demand, then you sell it into a club or a studio? I'd love to understand that.

So we've been going now for 10 years, which is amazing because we had a joke with my family the other day and I thought, oh, it'll last 3. And so I'm so kind of grateful that I'm in this position. I think it's really amazing that it's been so successful. So I think that growth is really important. So that's part of it that I'll kind of come back to. But how do you put it into the marketplace? Well, for me personally, because I'd come from that Pilates background, I had a lot of connections within different associations. So whether it be the PAA or the APMA, initially I started with where I was comfortable, which was the Pilates field. And I advertised through those means because a lot of people in the industry already knew myself. So I had some kind of reputation in those industries. So it was really helpful to start my first kind of advertising and, and foot in the door there. And then as I was doing that, I was kind of Started to get known and seen by a lot of people. So places like Fitness First kind of picked up on our program, and that kind of was our first real boom actually, was Fitness First picking us up and then making us exclusive in all of their clubs. They hadn't had—

That's a good place to get picked up for in the first one, right? I mean, that's— That's—

yeah, it was amazing. And you know, we hadn't actually thought about fitness studios. We hadn't thought about Barre Attack being in fitness studios. We had solely at that point thought about boutique studios that have possibly Pilates or yoga. And we realized quite quickly that the fitness world is so much bigger and so much more diverse. And we were then picked up by, you know, multiple gyms, places like, you know, Virgin Active, BurnWid, Genesis Clubs. So we've got lots of places who can actually take our method and use their method within their clubs. And I think one of the biggest things which we were proactive on initially was that we didn't have licensing fees to use our program.

Yeah.

So to incorporate quick growth, we were like, well, we want quick growth to make sure that we can kind of get out in the marketplace really quickly. We don't want to undersell ourselves by any means. Our product's really amazing. But, you know, how can we get this to work for studios who may not necessarily have huge budgets? So that was kind of our initial plan.

Cool. Get into the marketplace faster. Well done. And at the moment, you're running all these now online and taking students through that. How has that changed? Just a quick sidestep.

We used to do face-to-face and we used to travel everywhere, all around Australia and New Zealand. And it was obviously a lot on myself and having 2 children. It's a lot on the family. So what's really fantastic is now we run things face-to-face live and live via Zoom. So a lot of the feedback which I was getting was, oh, this is amazing. For example, on the weekend we had people, you know, from Perth and somewhere in the country doing it live on Zoom, extremely interactive, lots of, you know, question time where we're doing the face-to-face training and speaking to the people on Zoom at the same time. So they really feel like they're a part of the training even though they're not actually here in the studio. So kind of just adapting the ballet barre to what they need at home, you know, giving them equipment packs, making sure that they're all set up at home to be able to do that. So it's definitely opened up so many more doors for us personally. And then being able to do like this ongoing training where I'm not having to travel all around Australia and do it that way is really exciting. And then our next steps moving forward is being able to do everything online without any touch points if people don't want it. So that's exciting for us. I think that people are more willing to do things online now.

Totally. And I think, you know, I think we were saying the other day, I think I was talking to you or somebody else, but I mean, it's definitely a season And taking up this opportunity of people are now adapting to be online, it's okay to do it in that way. I think before it was just really hard to get fitness pros to sit on a computer, right? They want to be out and about and moving and connecting with people. But now it's, um, I guess calmed them down a little bit, right?

Well, we had suggested it. Like, we had suggested, hey, why don't we put this online? And people were just so anti it. Like, even the big gyms that we're working with, oh look, this will be easy, we can do this. And you know, now it's Just so many people are so accepting and really enthusiastic about it. And I think that people want to be able to do things from home now or not have to travel so far. And, you know, I think a face-to-face experience is always an experience. So nothing is going to replace an experience because then it's an adventure, it's a journey, it's an experience. But the people who have been doing it online with us have been loving it. So they feel like that's translating to them.

I want to talk about a bit of creativity. You know, every fitness professional has to have some form of creativity if they're a personal trainer or the studio owner or their instructor. Um, you know, you've got obviously some huge creativity of creating a program called Barre Attack. When we run a business, and we'll get— you've got another business as well which I want to get through in a second— but when you're running a business and you're working on the growth side of it versus you've actually got to stay in this creative zone to get your genius out. So we'll call it the genius kind of section where people just love that part. How do you stay creative when there's so many other things going on in a business?

Well, first of all, I'd like to say that you can have everything but not at the same time.

Oh, that's a good one.

So I really think that, you know, as a mother of 2 children and I'm married, You know, you have got to compartmentalize and everything can't be amazing all the time. So I have the 2 businesses. I have Barre Attack and I have Balance Moves, which is a bricks-and-mortar business in the fitness world. And so if I put more energy into Barre Attack, you know, my Balance Moves kind of goes down a little bit as far as what I can do for Balance Moves. So everything is possible as long as you have the time and energy and you're willing, which is really exciting. But I think that creative space is really important and looking after yourself is really important. So the times where I feel like I'm least creative are the times where I'm in the overwhelm kind of pattern. So, you know, I'm doing too much. I'm not identifying actually what I'm really good at and what I'm not good at. So for example, I hate administration. So making sure that I have somebody who is looking after all my administration and looking after everything that I'm really bad at and I I admit that I'm really bad at it, to free up my creative space to create, to create these things that I need to create. And creation can come in multiple forms. So I think that people underestimate how important it is to have space. So sometimes just a simple walk along the beach with no music, no podcasts, just the waves. We nowadays feel like we need to be loaded up with all of these things constantly. But actually, some of the biggest creativity comes when we're bored. So it's almost reaching that point where I'm bored and I've got too much time on my hands that suddenly these sparks of creative amazement can kind of come to you. And I think that comes also with— I love to have quite a strong meditative practice. And when I'm in that zone, I do really find that some of my best ideas can come to me. Yep. And again, it's about being consistent with those things and not letting yourself reach that overwhelm, which is extremely challenging in this day and age. So I just think identify your strengths, identify your weaknesses, and make sure that you're getting your weaknesses taken care of because then you can truly kind of set yourself on the right path for you.

Very true. I like that boredom is where you get creativity. Now, you did mention that you've got another business, Balanced Moves, that's been in Bondi for 20— 21 years, is that correct? Was that what I heard?

Yes, 21 years. It's so crazy.

I call Bondi super competitive. Um, you know, we work with a lot of businesses and studios in Bondi, Bondi Beach, and, um, it's a very transient area for those who haven't been there. But also it's a, it's a great area for, um, you know, some, some people that really want to embrace a Bondi life, look after their health, get some sun, and so forth. I'd love to know your tricks to the, you know, tricks of being there for that long. I think that's a success in anybody's eyes when you've seen, you know, when you've been able to be someone for 21 years and run that. What's, you know, this is a marketing program, so I do love to get a few marketing tips. So first of all, I'd love to know, tell me a little bit about that business, but then how are you able to market it and keep that, you know, such a well-renowned spot for 21 years?

That is a great question. So I'm always evolving. I think that's extremely important. So for example, every 6 to 12 months, we'll put in a new piece of equipment, whether that be a small piece of equipment, big piece of equipment. We'll always put in a new training program, even if that training program doesn't stay on the schedule long term. You want to keep your members constantly guessing and constantly getting more for their money. So that's something which obviously with my background, it's easy for me to be able to drive that type of thing. Another thing is that ensuring customer service is on point. So we are a higher-end studio. And so ensuring that we're having conversations with our customers, making sure that we're presenting well, that we're also, you know, getting in touch with how they're feeling, what they're doing, hands-on corrections. personal assistance, all of that is what is going to drive people to continue to come back to your studio. So education, results, hands-on corrections, they're essentials. There's no way that you can survive in this type of marketplace at the moment if your staff are not living up to that every single day. And I think what's really fantastic too is we have amazing staff at the studio and all of us lift each other up. You know, I think that's really important. You've got any bad eggs in the studio that are pulling everybody else down, get rid of them as soon as you can because you need to all lift each other and you all need to help each other to be, you know, the perfect team that you can be. As far as marketing, we've always run personally because we've been here for so long. We've run off word of mouth for a long time. And obviously that isn't always cutting it within the industry now. And, and Com has been teaching me all the other ways which we can market, but having a good intro deal and then having a follow-up chat or follow-up from the intro deal is, is super important to ensure that they're coming on that membership. But ensuring the experience, you know, you want your experience to be unique. You want your experience to be so mind-blowing that they're like, there is no other studio in this area that cares about me as much as this studio cares about me. And not in a creepy way, but in a way that you're educating them so much about their bodies and how they should be moving and how they should be placed that they're like, you know what, I can't not come to you because you've taught me so much in the past 2 weeks. I haven't learned that about my body in 6 months or a year when I've been going elsewhere. So I think that that's important. That's how I would drive my staff anyway, and that's how

I can't not come to you because you have that care factor that just shines above everybody else. I think that's, um, you know, when it comes to marketing, I mean, your product's got to be great It's like a great restaurant, a great coffee shop. It's because their product is just, it tastes good. It's amazing. People keep coming back. You can't fool an audience. You can't fool consumers. I think people know and they know really fast. And it's also interesting too, going off word of mouth, it's also the double-edged sword. If your product is not good, word of mouth gets out really, really fast. So That's yeah, that's a really good lesson to learn. And balancing the Balance Move Studio with running a a training organization for the fitness industry, how does that work? Is it work as is it working together or is it two different businesses? And I guess I'm asking this question for anybody who's got a side business or a side hobby or two businesses or three businesses. You know, in the fitness industry, always about. Sometimes more. We want multiple studios, multiple locations, we want franchises. But you've got 2 very different businesses. I'm just really curious of how you've been able to run them at the same time.

I actually had more bricks-and-mortar studios. So I've had 2 or 3 at other points. For myself personally, it was too much. Although I think that you can leverage that off, you know, administration, for example, and the running of the business in general when you've got multiple studios. But I found personally that quality Oh. When I was in, in those scenarios, unless I was having enough time to train them. So I think training and education is just so supremely important. And also there was lack of instructors. So our industry is really quite specialized, and so trying to find the right fit in the right location at the right times was always the struggle with that. But as far as barre attack and balance moves, As I said before, I think that realistically, you know, where you put your energy, where you put your passion, that's what grows. So whether my seeds and my thoughts are in bar attack or whether they're in balance moves, the growth is significant when I'm putting my time, my energy, my passion into where they're going next. So to do both, it is definitely a challenge. I have to keep different mindset bubbles For both, so when I'm shifting between one and the other, I have to change what I'm talking to because with Baratak, I'm talking to instructors and fitness studios and Pilates studios. I'm talking to that marketplace, whereas when I'm in the studio, I'm talking about you know people and everyday community. And so who I'm talking to and how that presents is extremely different. I just have to keep changing my mindset with that. So just being mindful about. Who you're talking to.

Awesome. Well, this has been really interesting, and I think in the fitness industry, it's just that we're very heart-centered. We very, you know, we put the heart first for everybody else. And, and, and sometimes I think we, you know, there's a lot of people that are running too many things, or they've got a job and they're doing this part-time, which I think, you know, they started off with this industry. But I'm on a mission at Calm. We're on a mission to really double businesses, and I always find that You're right. When you put the focus on something, it grows. The grass isn't greener on the other side; it's where you water it. And it sounds like it's it's the same concept with how you're running two businesses: one to consumers and one to industry. I've got a probably a final question for you. You talked about the 2000 Pilates and bar attack, and I just remember those years so much because I heard the same concepts. You know, Joseph Pilates and teaching Pilates. And, um, it was, it was really around the time, and I didn't really know that that was a trend because I didn't really study it. I just got to say, hey, if you want to work on this cruise ship, this is what we're going to teach you. And it's like, I've never heard of, like, really heard about it before, but I just thought, okay, I'm just naive and I don't know anything about it. But when you, when you, as you say, when you're deep, when you study something, you know when there's a trend, you know when something's happening. And I think you've got to be smart enough to take that leap. My question to you, if someone's been in this industry for 20 years in the In the wellness space, what do you think the future is now, you know, post-COVID? And, you know, wellness is definitely, you know, definitely not what it was 20 years ago. It's just, it's— I'm seeing much more of it. Where do you think the next 5 years is moving towards when we talk about wellness and that space?

Honestly, I think that The world continues to get quicker and quicker and quicker, and more and more demanding. So I think that the wellness and the mindful kind of fitness space is becoming going to become bigger and bigger because I think that people need it more than what they ever have before. So I do think that this kind of hybrid model of the fitness industry and gyms, I think every fitness studio will have a wellness. Mindful kind of section, whether that be yoga, Pilates, meditation, barre, barre attack. It will have to have that component associated with them because we're all kind of going into this adrenal fatigue because we're constantly going, going, going, going, and we're not stopping. So I can only foresee that we're going to continue to push into that arena, and it's being shown right now anyway with how many reformer studios are popping up in fitness studios and gyms around the world and around Australia. So I can only foresee us stretching more into that direction. And whether that be this continuation of the hybrid version, I still don't believe that in a community-based setting, you're not going to be able to beat that face-to-face experience because people want community, they want connection, they want to be with other people. We need that as a community. So to stay well, I think that all of us need a little bit more of that. So, you know, clearing the mind and connecting with what we really want. And I think those questions are really important. Is this what I really want anymore? Is this where I'm going right now? Is there something better? Am I searching for more? Am I not? Am I really content? And that's amazing. You can also be quite content just staying, doing exactly what you're doing right now. And I think that's important to know is just sometimes we don't need to search. Sometimes it's just being with ourselves and having a little bit more space.

Very wise words. Love that. I think evolution is great and I think tapping into where the next progression is really important. But I think also too, when people are in the space and they've been doing it for years, they don't really have to worry about what's the latest trend. They just got to worry about what their latest trend is and what that specific industry or community is doing because then you can be leaders of that fast. You can move relatively fast when we're just kind of in our own space. But when you try to find what's the latest trend that you don't know anything about, that's going to take you on a path that sometimes takes years and years to even discover.

Yeah, I think do what you love. Especially as a small business owner, you know, business, small business owner-operator, do what you love. Seek out what you love because that is really your kind of like representing your brand. Your business is representing your brand. If you don't love what you have inside your studio, that's worrying to me because it means that you can't sell it. You don't really believe in it. So I'm not saying don't jump outside the box occasionally. Of course, I'll go and do, you know, classes myself that are not really in my genre to open up my creativity and discover new ways of doing things. But I think you need to keep jumping back into what do I love doing? What is it now? And that might evolve and that's okay.

Yeah, I love it. Well, Renee, thank you so much. It's been very insightful and it's good to have you on. Marking Muscle Up show and understanding how you've been able to take Bar Attack to the masses and, um, you know, push into that wellness space. But it's just, it's, it's so cool to see it now where, um, before you said before it was a few people, but, um, people are just expecting the norm now, which is great. So well done.

Thank you so much, and thanks so much to Com. It's It's been very enlightening for me doing the course. I've loved it.

Thank you, Renee. So good to have you in the course too. Guys, if you've enjoyed this episode— oh, Renee, so we need to give a bit of a plug. Where's the best place to go and do a Bar Attack course?

Oh, fantastic. Yes, go to our Bar Attack website and you can see all of the dates that we've got available on our website. We usually do one Training at least per term, but we do do private training. So if you've got a fitness studio and you would like to do private Barre Attack or Pilates reformer training or Pilates mat training, I am your person to go to. I can happily arrange something that would suit your studio, your space that you're working in.

Love it. Check it out, guys. barreattack.com. That's spelled B-A-R-R-E-A-T-T-A-C-K.com. Double T-A-C-K dot com. I'll put the link there, but just Google it, you'll find it. Hope you enjoyed this episode of the Marketing Muscle Up Show. Renee's sharing some great strategies there to staying in business, being creative in things that you love, and finding the gaps in the marketplace when you're in that zone. So guys, if you have enjoyed this, go back and check out our earlier episodes. You can do that as well. And if you want to find more information about what we do, jump into our free marketing group. So if you want to know more about how to generate leads, jump into our free marketing group on Facebook called Crush Your Fitness Marketing Simple Lead Generation Strategies for You. And I'll see you around on the next episode of the show. Bye for now.