April 15, 2025 • 26 mins
In this episode, we explore the world of health coaching with Kathleen Ferguson, a seasoned HALO industry veteran dedicated to transforming lives through fitness and wellness. Pete and Kathleen chat about her new venture, Coach 360, which aims to revolutionize the career landscape for health and wellness coaches. She shares her career path from trainer to business owner, and how she's addressing the industry's pressing issue of high turnover rates by supporting coaches in building sustainable and impactful careers. Also mentioned is the rise of hybrid fitness professionals, the importance of aligning personal goals with organizational culture, and creating a vibrant ecosystem for coaches to thrive. Whether you're a coach, studio owner, or merely curious about the future of health and wellness, this episode is a must-listen!
"A type of 'hybrid' fitness professional is on the rise," Ferguson states. "What I'm seeing more of is the brick and mortar studio locations are actually encouraging this and saying, listen. . . you're a rock star instructor.' I know that if you're doing, for example, macro-counting coach groups with a community of women in the city, that you're going to bring them in to work out here."
Key themes discussed
- Coach Churn: High turnover among fitness coaches affecting industry.
- Niche Staffing: Demand for specialized platforms in health and wellness.
- Hybrid Coaches: Balancing independent and club-based work.
- Business of Coaching: Supporting coaches' careers and development.
- Holistic Health: Emphasis on a comprehensive approach to coaching.
- Storytelling: Importance of brands conveying their unique narratives.
- Community Building: Creating a supportive ecosystem for coaches.
A few key takeaways:
1. Focus on Empowering Coaches: Kathleen is passionate about creating a platform that supports health, fitness, and wellness coaches in building sustainable and impactful careers. She emphasizes the need for a career path rather than just a temporary role in the industry.
2. Addressing High Turnover: Pete and Kathleen address the significant issue of high turnover rates in fitness studios and gyms, which is currently around 80%. A big part of Coach 360's mission is to try to decrease this by offering coaches the resources and support they need to find the right roles and grow in their careers.
3. Hybrid Coaching Models: There's a growing trend of "hybrid" health professionals who work both independently and within fitness facilities. Coach 360 aims to support these professionals by connecting them to roles and providing them with business guidance to manage their dual careers effectively.
4. Personalized Staffing Solutions: Kathleen also discusses how niche staffing platforms, like Coach 360, provide more personalized and effective solutions for finding the right talent in the health and wellness industry, as opposed to more generic job platforms.
5. Community and Storytelling: Coach 360 not only focuses on job placement but also on creating a community where coaches and studios can share stories. This helps professionals connect better with potential employers, members, and clients by showcasing who they are beyond just their qualifications.
Resources:
- Kathleen Ferguson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathleentaylorferguson
- Coach 360: https://www.coach360news.com
- Prospect Wizard: http://www.theprospectwizard.com
- Promotion Vault: http://www.prom
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I am super excited to announce that we now have a formal partnership
with the prospect wizard. And when I say wizard, I
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(00:22):
mail. Immediately goes to you, your sales team, or anyone else in the club
instantly. MIT shows a study that if you contact the lead
within ten minutes, chance of them converting goes up nine times
that of the average. We got the Atlanta clubs on it, Vida
Fitness, Gold's Gym, Mountainside, City Fitness
Philly, College Park. Become one of the
(00:45):
next halo companies to deploy the wizard. It's easy to
use. Go to the prospectwizard.com. Get a free
thirty day trial. Talk to my boy, Dave Gallon. He will get you all set
up, and let the leads flow based on the
wizard. Go get them.
This is Pete Moore on Halo Talks NYC. I have the the pleasure of having
(01:07):
Kathleen Ferguson with some awesome new
speakerphones that has been joining us from Coach three sixty
news. We're gonna talk about health coaching. We're gonna talk about
how we're gonna make people better and how she is the launching
pad for success. So, Kathleen, welcome to the show.
Oh, thank you so much for having me, Pete. Awesome. So let's
(01:29):
start off. You know, you've been in the industry, doing things on
the business development and on partnerships for fifteen years.
So talk about this new venture, what you got excited about it,
and, you know, how it's going in its early stages.
Yeah. You know, I am really excited about it. I don't know if you know
this, but I started as a fitness coach, fitness
(01:53):
trainer seventeen years ago, ended up leaving my corporate job
and, really wanted to dive into something that, where I
could make a difference and help people on their paths to health and
wellness, and you know from there I ended up, to your point,
working in fitness media sales, doing business development, leading sales
teams, and always just kind of felt in the back of my mind, gosh,
(02:14):
you know, there are a lot of, outlets out there that really
serve kind of the executive, the CEO, of the brands,
but there really isn't any type of platform that,
really kind of takes the hand and guides the health, fitness, and wellness
coach to a career, an actual career as opposed to just a
role within a club and studio, or just, you know, a quick, you
(02:37):
know, jaunt in our industry. So really excited,
to create something to help the health, fitness, and wellness
coach build a sustainable and a meaningful and
impactful career, to do what they love to do, which is to
transform lives, to save lives ultimately, and really be kind of that frontline
individual in our industry that is, you know, helping
(03:00):
at the front lines of the obesity epidemic and chronic disease that's preventable.
So I'm excited to be doing that and, this idea came
about, while I was working over at my last media endeavor at Appletech News,
which I'm sure a lot of your listeners know about, and I thought
about you know, my mind always goes back to these coaches and, you know, how
who's helping the coaches? We've got this massive issue going on right now where,
(03:21):
it's kind of this perfect storm. You know, one of the biggest challenges that
we're hearing about right now from the club and studio perspective
is this incredibly high turnover rate of
employees. And right now, our sources tell us that that
turnover rate is actually a %. So clubs and studios
are replacing their entire staff every single year on average,
(03:43):
which, which is incredible to me to to think about that.
You know, it's incredibly expensive. It's incredibly time consuming, and I
think what's contributing to this problem is the fact that
health fitness and wellness coaches are churning out on average 80% within two
years. So this comes directly from all the certification organizations.
They know the coaches are leaving because they don't understand how to create a career
(04:06):
in the industry that has sustainability and longevity. So,
I think that this mass trainer and coach churn
is the biggest issue contributing to what what is happening with these clubs and
studios. So I thought to myself, how do we support these people? How do we
bring them together and connect the dots into this immersive ecosystem through
media, through staffing resources, and career resources. Yeah. I
(04:28):
think a lot of it probably, you know, is on the onset of,
of the pandemic. You know, a lot of these people kinda got jettisoned
off of any kind of payroll, and, you know, basically
said, okay. Do I own the member relationship? Does the club
or studio own the member relationship? And, basically, it was like feast or
famine. I felt like even as an individual, where I was
(04:51):
getting, you know, emails and I was getting text messages from places
that I had memberships that I might have froze. And I was supposed to get
reached out to by some of the instructors saying, like, hey. I got this thing
going on on Facebook Live or I've got, you know, something going on
where you can join my Zoom. And I feel like there was, like,
dislocation of where my relationship, you know,
(05:14):
like, was was Mhmm. Who held my relationship. And a lot of
trainers said, hey. Look. I'm just gonna go and kinda create my own brand.
And that's a lot of work in content production. And, also, it's not like they
had, you know, an administrative assistant. They're basically
running their own business. And, you know, post
post, you know, people going back to the club, I feel like a lot of
(05:36):
the group exercise classes never really got back to normal.
And I think a lot of clubs ended up, you know, disbanding
or or greatly reducing the hours that they, were
allocated to their to GroupX calendars. And now going
forward, I feel like there's trainers who maybe have lost their
identity or, you know, not really sure
(05:59):
where they fit the ecosystem, you know, looking at it from from
afar. So what kind of programs and what kind
of support are you looking to give them? You know, there's
obviously a lot of health coaches out there that are supporting, you know,
CEOs and management teams in different industries.
What's the business model, and what's what's the support, layers
(06:21):
that that Coach three sixty, you know, hopes to
to provide? Sure. Yeah. And you just touched on something
that, I think is really important is that today's health
and fitness professional is no longer just a fitness professional or instructor.
Right? We're seeing the rise in health coach, you know, which is one of the
reasons, you know, we're named coach three sixty because today's coach is taking a
(06:44):
holistic view to how they they work with their clients. Their clients
want to address, you know, not just, you know, their their
aesthetics, right, and their strength necessarily. It's like, how do how how do
I wanna feel, throughout my life? Longevity is
great, but I also want to feel great, you know, during, during my life, this
health span concept, that we're all hearing about. So, in
(07:06):
terms of guiding and supporting the entire kind of community of health, fitness,
and wellness coaches, What we started with was our media platform,
and that went live in May. We launched a newsletter that goes out
weekly, and the content in that newsletter is surrounding all things that are relevant
to the business of coaching. We talk about fitness. We talk about
trends in, health, nutrition, and wellness. We talk about trends in
(07:28):
longevity. We talk about tech and innovation, and then the big one
is surrounding the business of coaching. To your point,
coaches are very the business is very much so fragmented, you
know, with, you know, some of these coaches not understanding, you
know, how to potentially launch an independent business venture but they
would really like to or perhaps they want to, you know, have
(07:51):
the hybridization of their profession where they are, you know,
able to kind of experience that community and the energy of training a group
or training one to one within a facility, but also being able to launch the
independent venture. So we like to kind of guide them with, subject
matter experts that we bring in, with content surrounding
the business of coaching. So that's one of the things that we do. That newsletter
(08:13):
drops weekly, on coach three sixty news dot com. We also
have digital reports. We have a pretty vibrant digital
ecosystem. Within these reports, we launch programs.
For example, last year, we did, top 24 most impactful coaches,
and I was I was brand new, and I thought we'd get, like, 30
applications. We had 250 coaches apply to tell us their
(08:35):
why, why they were in the industry, how they're making an impact from 10 different
countries. So they've been waiting for something like this
to come together and share stories and have a place that's kind
of just for them. And then, you know, the other way that we support, of
course, is we connect them to roles within facilities. Right now, we
have about a thousand, club and studio locations that have onboarded
(08:57):
jobs, throughout The United States. So we're we're starting to connect the
dots for these people. I have coaches reaching out to my personal LinkedIn saying, you
know, who's hiring in New Jersey? And, I mean, it's just it's a really,
really neat community that's, that's coming forth, with
Coach three sixty, and, you know, just excited to support, their entire career
growth because I want to see them thrive. That's my passion is how do we
(09:18):
see these coaches thrive and succeed? Well, there's definitely a huge need for,
a a location based hiring platform
because a lot of the, you know, we used to work with a couple of
our theory operators, and they would literally go through a thousand,
Indeed, applicants. And you don't really
(09:38):
know who these people were. You know, you know, you couldn't see what they look
like if they look like they can put an an Orangetheory shirt on. You
know, it it was tough to bring people on. As you look at,
as you look at some of the you know, let's put some in two.
But if I'm a health coach or I'm a
personal trainer, mostly your clients are looking for answers
(10:01):
on everything related to their health and longevity.
You either have to become a subject expert. You might have to go get some
kind of certification, or maybe you could kinda go into the field
of Coach three sixty and and partner with someone to help
answer those questions or kind of round out, you know, your
(10:21):
you being the authority on what your member is looking
for. How do you how how do you kind of how's the
network evolving to kinda support each other and maybe
create revenue opportunities? Excuse me. Yeah. So, you
know, just one kind of point of clarification. So we we actually don't have
any advanced education offerings within Coach three sixty. We're working with all of
(10:43):
the organizations. Right. Right. And I would say that's one of, to your point, that's
one of the ways that I've seen our industry really evolve on the education
side is that, you know, they're not, they're not being so
competitive, all of these different organizations, to say, well, I'm not working with you because
so and so is working with you. We're actually all coming together for the greater
purpose of Right. How can we help the coaches within our
(11:04):
network, become more successful? And in helping them become more
successful, we wanna guide them to the resources that Coach three sixty provides,
which includes informational and educational content resources
as well as career and staffing services. So they
understand by guiding them to to us that their coaches will ultimately
become more successful and stay within their educational organization
(11:27):
for their advanced education. They're gonna keep coming back for more because none of
us want the coaches to churn out. And, the more that the longer that we
can keep them in, the more advanced specializations that we can continue to
present to these coaches such as, you know, how do you train someone that's,
on GLP ones? How do you train, you know, for VOT max? I
mean, there's all these different, types of kind of personalization and
(11:49):
customization style coaching, avenues that they
can learn about, and we need to keep these coaches evolving. And the
only way that we can do that is for all of us to come together
and, you know, really kind of support the coaches in their growth no matter what
organization they're working with.
This is Pete Moore. I wanna let you in on a little secret. There's this
(12:09):
company called Promotion Vault, and what they do is they give out rewards
from retailers that allow you to incentivize your
members without having to do zero down and one month
free or giving away shakes or giving away T shirts. What
you wanna do is build a rewards program that lasts, that
people value, and that doesn't discount your own products and services.
(12:32):
So here's the deal. There's something called rewards vault. The rewards
vault is going to allow a member to set up their own profile.
They are going to answer questions. You are gonna get those answers. You're gonna be
able to target those members, and you're gonna reward them inside your
club, inside your spa, and outside of the club and
outside of the spa to get them to become loyal, to get them
(12:54):
to pay their monthly dues, and to be rewarded
properly for the actions. A lot of companies are cutting back on rewards.
You shouldn't be. Promotion Vault's your answer. Trust me. This is
real. And
how does it work to, be onboarded onto Coach three
sixty? Is a monthly subscription that the coach
(13:17):
pays for? Are there other, you know, areas or or bricks and
mortar locations paying to actually pick up, you you know,
team members? Yeah. So, we actually we have
subscription model for the, club and studio. That
is not activated yet. So right now, we're actually
doing everything entirely free for these clubs and studios, and we're giving
(13:38):
them white glove service. So, my cofounder and I are actually
personally onboarding all of their locations for them, and we take it a step
further, Pete, because what I think is really important to avoid this churn that's
happening is that these coaches need to understand what they're getting
into when they're applying for a job. Why should I, as a coach, go
work for Orangetheory Fitness? What are the top three benefits of working with an Orangetheory
(14:00):
Fitness? Does this align with what I desire in my company culture,
my expertise level, and my location, or am I a better
fit for crunch, for example? So we actually enable
them to tell their stories, and because their story is more than just a job
post, and we can push that out through our media channels and effectively,
you know, really kind of connect the dots for everybody to ensure that there's a
(14:24):
proper alignment of expertise and expectations.
So if you kind of were were just to make an analogy
of different platforms that are out there, would you say you are
kind of like a private label, LinkedIn meets
Indeed, meets, like, ZipRecruiter meets,
(14:44):
Wikipedia or or some what what what are kind of like the
best analogies of different companies that you're kind of
pulling together here? Yeah. So I guess I would consider
us kind of the Upwork and Indeed of the
health fitness and wellness industry in the in the sense that we
can invite coaches and there's an
(15:06):
invitation component to it. I'd also say too, if you look at, you
know, some of these other niche staffing platforms, I mean,
niche staffing is blowing up right now in terms of, you know, its
growth. We're seeing companies like Snap Nurse, which
is now SnapCare, and Handshake. People want a
more, kind of niche talent pool to,
(15:28):
find, you know, their next hire. That's just right in line with kind of
what's going on right now when you look at personalization trends in AI.
You know, people want, that more customized experience. They don't wanna just go
fishing in a pond and hope that maybe they'll find a coach. So,
yes. So, I mean, I'd I'd say that maybe we're, you know, we're that Indeed
slash Upwork, but with that niche platform side to
(15:50):
it. Did you are you seeing
examples of people, you know, maybe wanting to sign up
at at a location, but not necessarily, you know, becoming
a full time employee. Yeah. I kinda like in, you know,
hiring, for for instructors. Maybe it should be
almost be like a sports season. You know, like, hey. You're part of my
(16:12):
2025, you know, team, and I got a certain amount
of players. And, you know, we're gonna play this season out. And then if you
wanna stay here, like, we'll it's almost like we'll renegotiate or, like, we're building
Yeah. A professional football team or soccer team.
Are you seeing the desire to say, hey. As a trainer,
you know, I've got I wanna kinda, like, maintain my independence.
(16:34):
I also, at times, wanna toggle between my commitments in
the bricks and water mortar world to, you know, maintaining my
own brand and my own identity. Yeah. I am
seeing, you know, really kind of this hybrid fitness professional,
on the rise. And, you know, ultimately, it's it comes down
to, you know, a lot of them are able to, you know, makes very, very
(16:57):
good they have very good revenue models from their online
businesses. And what I'm seeing more of is that the brick and
mortar studio locations are actually encouraging this and
saying, listen. You're a rock star instructor. I know that if you're doing
macro counting coach groups with, a community of
women, in the city, that you're gonna bring them in to work out here.
(17:18):
Right. So a lot of people are recognizing that actually these rock star
coaches are a big draw to bringing in additional client,
clients to the organization. So we're definitely seeing, more of that,
whereas you still definitely have that old school mind, that old
school thinking of, well, I don't want them to do anything outside of this
job. I want them to only do this job. And I think that that
(17:41):
mindset is changing. We're seeing a shift. But, yeah, I I'd say to
your point, we're seeing more of that hybrid professional. Absolutely. I feel
like, if you look at, like, the music industry, you know, where someone
has, I don't know. I've never been to a Mariah Carey concert.
But I do know that, you know, she had, like, a, you know,
residency there for a period of time, as well as, like, some
(18:03):
DJs where they're like, yo, I you know, I'm at the, you know, at
the, at the MGM or something. They're, like, there for a year or two, and
they kinda move on and, you know, go back on tour. I feel like the
the best instructors, you know, can either kinda bounce around as
musicians could do on tour if they're properly marketed
prior? Right. And then and then the studio, you
(18:24):
know, maybe the studio is kinda need to think about themselves as
almost like an arena or like a venue, like Madison Square
Garden. You know, what do you have going on there? I got, like, 30 things
going on here. You know? I might have, like, a a rodeo. I got a
hockey team. I got a, a basketball team. I got
indoor soccer. I got musicians coming through here. And maybe the studio
(18:45):
should start to think of themselves as, like, we bring the best talent from
around the world or around The US as instructors to kinda hook in
to to coach three sixty to almost, like, fill their talent
calendar. Yes. Yeah. No. I love that.
But from from a standpoint of the early days here, you said you've got hundreds
of of studios that that are being onboarded.
(19:09):
Are you replacing them going on these these job sites and
trying to figure out, like, hey. Can I actually get somebody to to come work
here, or, you know, can I stop asking my instructors if they have
friends, to, to to get a job?
You know, I think, eventually, we would love to be, you know, their
solution for finding top talent in the industry. Right
(19:31):
now, we're extremely new. This marketplace
staffing piece just went live. Marketplace by Coach three sixty went live
October. Okay. So we are, brand new
in launching it. So right now, we're in kind of that proof of concept phase,
and, you know, just trying to onboard as many users as possible to
understand, what the experience is like. We're starting to see some
(19:54):
matches, which, I mean, I I'm such a nerd. I get so excited
when somebody finds a job and applies for a job. It's unreal. It's like one
person. You know, anywhere in the country. I get so excited. It
makes my whole day. Yeah. So just to see it work, you
know, is really incredible. So, yeah, eventually, we would love to be
that solution for people, and we would love to, you know, make sure
(20:15):
that this solution, really decreases the turnover
for of of employees in these clubs and studios while also helping them to increase
their profit margins because they need to keep these coaches and
instructors working. I mean, because aside from the turnover, you have
the whole issue of what happens when you don't have people on the floor
selling sessions and being able to service these sessions. That's also
(20:38):
an issue.
This is Pete Moore. Here's the last tip for you of the podcast.
We are partnered up with a company called Higher Dose, higher dose
dot com. They are the leader in workout
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light masks, neck enhancers, and other
(21:01):
products such as PEMF mats and sauna blankets.
If you have not gotten on the workout recovery train
yet, your time and your stop is now. You
gotta get these products in there before these workout recovery and spas
end up saturating your market, having your members walk out of the club
and going into one of their locations for $200 per
(21:23):
month where they're paying 39 to you. Let's become an
expert in workout recovery if we are already an authority in
workouts. Higher dose, check it out. There's a
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you augment your products and services to meet the demands of
your members. And, hey, let's get people happy, healthy,
(21:45):
and sweating, and the recovery should be just as good as the workout.
You know, as as you started up this business, you see you have one
cofounder, with you right now, Al? Al
Mendoza. Yes. Yeah. He was he actually was a client of mine. That's how we
met. Gotcha. You know, as you look and kinda say,
(22:07):
like, here's, like, you know, our our division of, like,
power or division of, like, here's the things I need to do. Here's the things
you need to do. Obviously, in an early stage company, you know,
everyone's doing everything. But but how do you how do you think about,
you know, the roles that you both have taken and how you
kinda think about, you know, where your strengths are and weaknesses
(22:28):
and, you know, how you build out the team? Because I think a lot of
people see a finished product, but they don't necessarily understand, you know, how
that's being done. And also, you know, with two people and outsourcing
development, you know, you look much bigger than you actually are.
And and, you know, just, like, maybe take the top off of the
entrepreneurial, you know, jar and tell us how how that's
(22:51):
going and and how you keep success.
Yeah. So, I mean, I think, we balance each other really
well. I tend to be an idea person. I'm a
visionary. So I I just I have thousands of ideas.
They're not all good, and he helps to temper those ideas. He
always calls himself the the chief of making shit happen in the company,
(23:14):
so that's his and he does. He gets it all done. So I would
say from, you know, kind of a division of labor, I do come up with
a lot of the ideas. I do a lot of the business development because, my
expertise in my past has been, in brand development and
connecting brands to these various, personas that they're looking to
reach within the industry. And Al has a ton of operational background,
(23:36):
and also, he was the chief of, development and growth for
Metabolic, for so many years. So he, you know, has that
expertise on the franchise side, which has been invaluable in,
you know, kind of onboarding, these multiunit franchisees and
trying to understand what's really going to benefit them. And it also helps us to
understand what are some of the costs that these people are spending on, you know,
(23:57):
finding top talent, and they are spending a lot of money. Yeah. I know. It
is extremely expensive. So I would say, you know, the division of labor
is, like, he is very much so operational, and I am a visionary. And
we come together, and we just, we make it happen. Yeah. Well,
I got a thousand ideas a day, so, you know, you're not alone. So
I'm with you. Don't don't turn that off even if you could. Right?
(24:19):
Right. They're not all great. And and in closing here,
obviously, we'll have all the information online about how,
you know, independent professionals could get on board with, with Coach three sixty.
Do you have any quotes or sayings or, you know,
Catholicism's that, that people know at your, your words?
(24:41):
Yes. So we've been saying a lot, your story is more
than your job listing. And I talked about that a little bit earlier,
but Yep. I think every brand has a story that they wanna connect to the
audience, and there's not a lot of of opportunity to do that in our
industry. And we wanna provide that platform to be able to do that,
and hear everyone's story, whether it's a coach, a club and studio.
(25:03):
You know, we just we wanna provide that area and platform for sharing.
Awesome. Well, thanks for sharing the Coach three sixty story to you
and Al. Wish you, success. We clearly know that there's a void
in the industry for this. We've been hoping someone was gonna solve it. We
tried to invest in something that was similar, that did turn out the way we
thought it would. So, you've got our full raving
(25:26):
fan support. And as you grow, please let us, know
how we could help. Thank you so much. I really appreciate that.
You got it.
I am super excited to announce that we now have a formal partnership
with the prospect wizard. And when I say wizard, I
mean wizard. Obviously, you have a website. This
allows you to convert your website traffic visitors directly
into leads. It's not just another chatbot, and it's not AI,
but it allows a visitor to call, text, or leave a voice
(00:22):
mail. Immediately goes to you, your sales team, or anyone else in the club
instantly. MIT shows a study that if you contact the lead
within ten minutes, chance of them converting goes up nine times
that of the average. We got the Atlanta clubs on it, Vida
Fitness, Gold's Gym, Mountainside, City Fitness
Philly, College Park. Become one of the
(00:45):
next halo companies to deploy the wizard. It's easy to
use. Go to the prospectwizard.com. Get a free
thirty day trial. Talk to my boy, Dave Gallon. He will get you all set
up, and let the leads flow based on the
wizard. Go get them.
This is Pete Moore on Halo Talks NYC. I have the the pleasure of having
(01:07):
Kathleen Ferguson with some awesome new
speakerphones that has been joining us from Coach three sixty
news. We're gonna talk about health coaching. We're gonna talk about
how we're gonna make people better and how she is the launching
pad for success. So, Kathleen, welcome to the show.
Oh, thank you so much for having me, Pete. Awesome. So let's
(01:29):
start off. You know, you've been in the industry, doing things on
the business development and on partnerships for fifteen years.
So talk about this new venture, what you got excited about it,
and, you know, how it's going in its early stages.
Yeah. You know, I am really excited about it. I don't know if you know
this, but I started as a fitness coach, fitness
(01:53):
trainer seventeen years ago, ended up leaving my corporate job
and, really wanted to dive into something that, where I
could make a difference and help people on their paths to health and
wellness, and you know from there I ended up, to your point,
working in fitness media sales, doing business development, leading sales
teams, and always just kind of felt in the back of my mind, gosh,
(02:14):
you know, there are a lot of, outlets out there that really
serve kind of the executive, the CEO, of the brands,
but there really isn't any type of platform that,
really kind of takes the hand and guides the health, fitness, and wellness
coach to a career, an actual career as opposed to just a
role within a club and studio, or just, you know, a quick, you
(02:37):
know, jaunt in our industry. So really excited,
to create something to help the health, fitness, and wellness
coach build a sustainable and a meaningful and
impactful career, to do what they love to do, which is to
transform lives, to save lives ultimately, and really be kind of that frontline
individual in our industry that is, you know, helping
(03:00):
at the front lines of the obesity epidemic and chronic disease that's preventable.
So I'm excited to be doing that and, this idea came
about, while I was working over at my last media endeavor at Appletech News,
which I'm sure a lot of your listeners know about, and I thought
about you know, my mind always goes back to these coaches and, you know, how
who's helping the coaches? We've got this massive issue going on right now where,
(03:21):
it's kind of this perfect storm. You know, one of the biggest challenges that
we're hearing about right now from the club and studio perspective
is this incredibly high turnover rate of
employees. And right now, our sources tell us that that
turnover rate is actually a %. So clubs and studios
are replacing their entire staff every single year on average,
(03:43):
which, which is incredible to me to to think about that.
You know, it's incredibly expensive. It's incredibly time consuming, and I
think what's contributing to this problem is the fact that
health fitness and wellness coaches are churning out on average 80% within two
years. So this comes directly from all the certification organizations.
They know the coaches are leaving because they don't understand how to create a career
(04:06):
in the industry that has sustainability and longevity. So,
I think that this mass trainer and coach churn
is the biggest issue contributing to what what is happening with these clubs and
studios. So I thought to myself, how do we support these people? How do we
bring them together and connect the dots into this immersive ecosystem through
media, through staffing resources, and career resources. Yeah. I
(04:28):
think a lot of it probably, you know, is on the onset of,
of the pandemic. You know, a lot of these people kinda got jettisoned
off of any kind of payroll, and, you know, basically
said, okay. Do I own the member relationship? Does the club
or studio own the member relationship? And, basically, it was like feast or
famine. I felt like even as an individual, where I was
(04:51):
getting, you know, emails and I was getting text messages from places
that I had memberships that I might have froze. And I was supposed to get
reached out to by some of the instructors saying, like, hey. I got this thing
going on on Facebook Live or I've got, you know, something going on
where you can join my Zoom. And I feel like there was, like,
dislocation of where my relationship, you know,
(05:14):
like, was was Mhmm. Who held my relationship. And a lot of
trainers said, hey. Look. I'm just gonna go and kinda create my own brand.
And that's a lot of work in content production. And, also, it's not like they
had, you know, an administrative assistant. They're basically
running their own business. And, you know, post
post, you know, people going back to the club, I feel like a lot of
(05:36):
the group exercise classes never really got back to normal.
And I think a lot of clubs ended up, you know, disbanding
or or greatly reducing the hours that they, were
allocated to their to GroupX calendars. And now going
forward, I feel like there's trainers who maybe have lost their
identity or, you know, not really sure
(05:59):
where they fit the ecosystem, you know, looking at it from from
afar. So what kind of programs and what kind
of support are you looking to give them? You know, there's
obviously a lot of health coaches out there that are supporting, you know,
CEOs and management teams in different industries.
What's the business model, and what's what's the support, layers
(06:21):
that that Coach three sixty, you know, hopes to
to provide? Sure. Yeah. And you just touched on something
that, I think is really important is that today's health
and fitness professional is no longer just a fitness professional or instructor.
Right? We're seeing the rise in health coach, you know, which is one of the
reasons, you know, we're named coach three sixty because today's coach is taking a
(06:44):
holistic view to how they they work with their clients. Their clients
want to address, you know, not just, you know, their their
aesthetics, right, and their strength necessarily. It's like, how do how how do
I wanna feel, throughout my life? Longevity is
great, but I also want to feel great, you know, during, during my life, this
health span concept, that we're all hearing about. So, in
(07:06):
terms of guiding and supporting the entire kind of community of health, fitness,
and wellness coaches, What we started with was our media platform,
and that went live in May. We launched a newsletter that goes out
weekly, and the content in that newsletter is surrounding all things that are relevant
to the business of coaching. We talk about fitness. We talk about
trends in, health, nutrition, and wellness. We talk about trends in
(07:28):
longevity. We talk about tech and innovation, and then the big one
is surrounding the business of coaching. To your point,
coaches are very the business is very much so fragmented, you
know, with, you know, some of these coaches not understanding, you
know, how to potentially launch an independent business venture but they
would really like to or perhaps they want to, you know, have
(07:51):
the hybridization of their profession where they are, you know,
able to kind of experience that community and the energy of training a group
or training one to one within a facility, but also being able to launch the
independent venture. So we like to kind of guide them with, subject
matter experts that we bring in, with content surrounding
the business of coaching. So that's one of the things that we do. That newsletter
(08:13):
drops weekly, on coach three sixty news dot com. We also
have digital reports. We have a pretty vibrant digital
ecosystem. Within these reports, we launch programs.
For example, last year, we did, top 24 most impactful coaches,
and I was I was brand new, and I thought we'd get, like, 30
applications. We had 250 coaches apply to tell us their
(08:35):
why, why they were in the industry, how they're making an impact from 10 different
countries. So they've been waiting for something like this
to come together and share stories and have a place that's kind
of just for them. And then, you know, the other way that we support, of
course, is we connect them to roles within facilities. Right now, we
have about a thousand, club and studio locations that have onboarded
(08:57):
jobs, throughout The United States. So we're we're starting to connect the
dots for these people. I have coaches reaching out to my personal LinkedIn saying, you
know, who's hiring in New Jersey? And, I mean, it's just it's a really,
really neat community that's, that's coming forth, with
Coach three sixty, and, you know, just excited to support, their entire career
growth because I want to see them thrive. That's my passion is how do we
(09:18):
see these coaches thrive and succeed? Well, there's definitely a huge need for,
a a location based hiring platform
because a lot of the, you know, we used to work with a couple of
our theory operators, and they would literally go through a thousand,
Indeed, applicants. And you don't really
(09:38):
know who these people were. You know, you know, you couldn't see what they look
like if they look like they can put an an Orangetheory shirt on. You
know, it it was tough to bring people on. As you look at,
as you look at some of the you know, let's put some in two.
But if I'm a health coach or I'm a
personal trainer, mostly your clients are looking for answers
(10:01):
on everything related to their health and longevity.
You either have to become a subject expert. You might have to go get some
kind of certification, or maybe you could kinda go into the field
of Coach three sixty and and partner with someone to help
answer those questions or kind of round out, you know, your
(10:21):
you being the authority on what your member is looking
for. How do you how how do you kind of how's the
network evolving to kinda support each other and maybe
create revenue opportunities? Excuse me. Yeah. So, you
know, just one kind of point of clarification. So we we actually don't have
any advanced education offerings within Coach three sixty. We're working with all of
(10:43):
the organizations. Right. Right. And I would say that's one of, to your point, that's
one of the ways that I've seen our industry really evolve on the education
side is that, you know, they're not, they're not being so
competitive, all of these different organizations, to say, well, I'm not working with you because
so and so is working with you. We're actually all coming together for the greater
purpose of Right. How can we help the coaches within our
(11:04):
network, become more successful? And in helping them become more
successful, we wanna guide them to the resources that Coach three sixty provides,
which includes informational and educational content resources
as well as career and staffing services. So they
understand by guiding them to to us that their coaches will ultimately
become more successful and stay within their educational organization
(11:27):
for their advanced education. They're gonna keep coming back for more because none of
us want the coaches to churn out. And, the more that the longer that we
can keep them in, the more advanced specializations that we can continue to
present to these coaches such as, you know, how do you train someone that's,
on GLP ones? How do you train, you know, for VOT max? I
mean, there's all these different, types of kind of personalization and
(11:49):
customization style coaching, avenues that they
can learn about, and we need to keep these coaches evolving. And the
only way that we can do that is for all of us to come together
and, you know, really kind of support the coaches in their growth no matter what
organization they're working with.
This is Pete Moore. I wanna let you in on a little secret. There's this
(12:09):
company called Promotion Vault, and what they do is they give out rewards
from retailers that allow you to incentivize your
members without having to do zero down and one month
free or giving away shakes or giving away T shirts. What
you wanna do is build a rewards program that lasts, that
people value, and that doesn't discount your own products and services.
(12:32):
So here's the deal. There's something called rewards vault. The rewards
vault is going to allow a member to set up their own profile.
They are going to answer questions. You are gonna get those answers. You're gonna be
able to target those members, and you're gonna reward them inside your
club, inside your spa, and outside of the club and
outside of the spa to get them to become loyal, to get them
(12:54):
to pay their monthly dues, and to be rewarded
properly for the actions. A lot of companies are cutting back on rewards.
You shouldn't be. Promotion Vault's your answer. Trust me. This is
real. And
how does it work to, be onboarded onto Coach three
sixty? Is a monthly subscription that the coach
(13:17):
pays for? Are there other, you know, areas or or bricks and
mortar locations paying to actually pick up, you you know,
team members? Yeah. So, we actually we have
subscription model for the, club and studio. That
is not activated yet. So right now, we're actually
doing everything entirely free for these clubs and studios, and we're giving
(13:38):
them white glove service. So, my cofounder and I are actually
personally onboarding all of their locations for them, and we take it a step
further, Pete, because what I think is really important to avoid this churn that's
happening is that these coaches need to understand what they're getting
into when they're applying for a job. Why should I, as a coach, go
work for Orangetheory Fitness? What are the top three benefits of working with an Orangetheory
(14:00):
Fitness? Does this align with what I desire in my company culture,
my expertise level, and my location, or am I a better
fit for crunch, for example? So we actually enable
them to tell their stories, and because their story is more than just a job
post, and we can push that out through our media channels and effectively,
you know, really kind of connect the dots for everybody to ensure that there's a
(14:24):
proper alignment of expertise and expectations.
So if you kind of were were just to make an analogy
of different platforms that are out there, would you say you are
kind of like a private label, LinkedIn meets
Indeed, meets, like, ZipRecruiter meets,
(14:44):
Wikipedia or or some what what what are kind of like the
best analogies of different companies that you're kind of
pulling together here? Yeah. So I guess I would consider
us kind of the Upwork and Indeed of the
health fitness and wellness industry in the in the sense that we
can invite coaches and there's an
(15:06):
invitation component to it. I'd also say too, if you look at, you
know, some of these other niche staffing platforms, I mean,
niche staffing is blowing up right now in terms of, you know, its
growth. We're seeing companies like Snap Nurse, which
is now SnapCare, and Handshake. People want a
more, kind of niche talent pool to,
(15:28):
find, you know, their next hire. That's just right in line with kind of
what's going on right now when you look at personalization trends in AI.
You know, people want, that more customized experience. They don't wanna just go
fishing in a pond and hope that maybe they'll find a coach. So,
yes. So, I mean, I'd I'd say that maybe we're, you know, we're that Indeed
slash Upwork, but with that niche platform side to
(15:50):
it. Did you are you seeing
examples of people, you know, maybe wanting to sign up
at at a location, but not necessarily, you know, becoming
a full time employee. Yeah. I kinda like in, you know,
hiring, for for instructors. Maybe it should be
almost be like a sports season. You know, like, hey. You're part of my
(16:12):
2025, you know, team, and I got a certain amount
of players. And, you know, we're gonna play this season out. And then if you
wanna stay here, like, we'll it's almost like we'll renegotiate or, like, we're building
Yeah. A professional football team or soccer team.
Are you seeing the desire to say, hey. As a trainer,
you know, I've got I wanna kinda, like, maintain my independence.
(16:34):
I also, at times, wanna toggle between my commitments in
the bricks and water mortar world to, you know, maintaining my
own brand and my own identity. Yeah. I am
seeing, you know, really kind of this hybrid fitness professional,
on the rise. And, you know, ultimately, it's it comes down
to, you know, a lot of them are able to, you know, makes very, very
(16:57):
good they have very good revenue models from their online
businesses. And what I'm seeing more of is that the brick and
mortar studio locations are actually encouraging this and
saying, listen. You're a rock star instructor. I know that if you're doing
macro counting coach groups with, a community of
women, in the city, that you're gonna bring them in to work out here.
(17:18):
Right. So a lot of people are recognizing that actually these rock star
coaches are a big draw to bringing in additional client,
clients to the organization. So we're definitely seeing, more of that,
whereas you still definitely have that old school mind, that old
school thinking of, well, I don't want them to do anything outside of this
job. I want them to only do this job. And I think that that
(17:41):
mindset is changing. We're seeing a shift. But, yeah, I I'd say to
your point, we're seeing more of that hybrid professional. Absolutely. I feel
like, if you look at, like, the music industry, you know, where someone
has, I don't know. I've never been to a Mariah Carey concert.
But I do know that, you know, she had, like, a, you know,
residency there for a period of time, as well as, like, some
(18:03):
DJs where they're like, yo, I you know, I'm at the, you know, at
the, at the MGM or something. They're, like, there for a year or two, and
they kinda move on and, you know, go back on tour. I feel like the
the best instructors, you know, can either kinda bounce around as
musicians could do on tour if they're properly marketed
prior? Right. And then and then the studio, you
(18:24):
know, maybe the studio is kinda need to think about themselves as
almost like an arena or like a venue, like Madison Square
Garden. You know, what do you have going on there? I got, like, 30 things
going on here. You know? I might have, like, a a rodeo. I got a
hockey team. I got a, a basketball team. I got
indoor soccer. I got musicians coming through here. And maybe the studio
(18:45):
should start to think of themselves as, like, we bring the best talent from
around the world or around The US as instructors to kinda hook in
to to coach three sixty to almost, like, fill their talent
calendar. Yes. Yeah. No. I love that.
But from from a standpoint of the early days here, you said you've got hundreds
of of studios that that are being onboarded.
(19:09):
Are you replacing them going on these these job sites and
trying to figure out, like, hey. Can I actually get somebody to to come work
here, or, you know, can I stop asking my instructors if they have
friends, to, to to get a job?
You know, I think, eventually, we would love to be, you know, their
solution for finding top talent in the industry. Right
(19:31):
now, we're extremely new. This marketplace
staffing piece just went live. Marketplace by Coach three sixty went live
October. Okay. So we are, brand new
in launching it. So right now, we're in kind of that proof of concept phase,
and, you know, just trying to onboard as many users as possible to
understand, what the experience is like. We're starting to see some
(19:54):
matches, which, I mean, I I'm such a nerd. I get so excited
when somebody finds a job and applies for a job. It's unreal. It's like one
person. You know, anywhere in the country. I get so excited. It
makes my whole day. Yeah. So just to see it work, you
know, is really incredible. So, yeah, eventually, we would love to be
that solution for people, and we would love to, you know, make sure
(20:15):
that this solution, really decreases the turnover
for of of employees in these clubs and studios while also helping them to increase
their profit margins because they need to keep these coaches and
instructors working. I mean, because aside from the turnover, you have
the whole issue of what happens when you don't have people on the floor
selling sessions and being able to service these sessions. That's also
(20:38):
an issue.
This is Pete Moore. Here's the last tip for you of the podcast.
We are partnered up with a company called Higher Dose, higher dose
dot com. They are the leader in workout
recovery products, infrared technology, LED
light masks, neck enhancers, and other
(21:01):
products such as PEMF mats and sauna blankets.
If you have not gotten on the workout recovery train
yet, your time and your stop is now. You
gotta get these products in there before these workout recovery and spas
end up saturating your market, having your members walk out of the club
and going into one of their locations for $200 per
(21:23):
month where they're paying 39 to you. Let's become an
expert in workout recovery if we are already an authority in
workouts. Higher dose, check it out. There's a
wholesale code, and we look forward to helping
you augment your products and services to meet the demands of
your members. And, hey, let's get people happy, healthy,
(21:45):
and sweating, and the recovery should be just as good as the workout.
You know, as as you started up this business, you see you have one
cofounder, with you right now, Al? Al
Mendoza. Yes. Yeah. He was he actually was a client of mine. That's how we
met. Gotcha. You know, as you look and kinda say,
(22:07):
like, here's, like, you know, our our division of, like,
power or division of, like, here's the things I need to do. Here's the things
you need to do. Obviously, in an early stage company, you know,
everyone's doing everything. But but how do you how do you think about,
you know, the roles that you both have taken and how you
kinda think about, you know, where your strengths are and weaknesses
(22:28):
and, you know, how you build out the team? Because I think a lot of
people see a finished product, but they don't necessarily understand, you know, how
that's being done. And also, you know, with two people and outsourcing
development, you know, you look much bigger than you actually are.
And and, you know, just, like, maybe take the top off of the
entrepreneurial, you know, jar and tell us how how that's
(22:51):
going and and how you keep success.
Yeah. So, I mean, I think, we balance each other really
well. I tend to be an idea person. I'm a
visionary. So I I just I have thousands of ideas.
They're not all good, and he helps to temper those ideas. He
always calls himself the the chief of making shit happen in the company,
(23:14):
so that's his and he does. He gets it all done. So I would
say from, you know, kind of a division of labor, I do come up with
a lot of the ideas. I do a lot of the business development because, my
expertise in my past has been, in brand development and
connecting brands to these various, personas that they're looking to
reach within the industry. And Al has a ton of operational background,
(23:36):
and also, he was the chief of, development and growth for
Metabolic, for so many years. So he, you know, has that
expertise on the franchise side, which has been invaluable in,
you know, kind of onboarding, these multiunit franchisees and
trying to understand what's really going to benefit them. And it also helps us to
understand what are some of the costs that these people are spending on, you know,
(23:57):
finding top talent, and they are spending a lot of money. Yeah. I know. It
is extremely expensive. So I would say, you know, the division of labor
is, like, he is very much so operational, and I am a visionary. And
we come together, and we just, we make it happen. Yeah. Well,
I got a thousand ideas a day, so, you know, you're not alone. So
I'm with you. Don't don't turn that off even if you could. Right?
(24:19):
Right. They're not all great. And and in closing here,
obviously, we'll have all the information online about how,
you know, independent professionals could get on board with, with Coach three sixty.
Do you have any quotes or sayings or, you know,
Catholicism's that, that people know at your, your words?
(24:41):
Yes. So we've been saying a lot, your story is more
than your job listing. And I talked about that a little bit earlier,
but Yep. I think every brand has a story that they wanna connect to the
audience, and there's not a lot of of opportunity to do that in our
industry. And we wanna provide that platform to be able to do that,
and hear everyone's story, whether it's a coach, a club and studio.
(25:03):
You know, we just we wanna provide that area and platform for sharing.
Awesome. Well, thanks for sharing the Coach three sixty story to you
and Al. Wish you, success. We clearly know that there's a void
in the industry for this. We've been hoping someone was gonna solve it. We
tried to invest in something that was similar, that did turn out the way we
thought it would. So, you've got our full raving
(25:26):
fan support. And as you grow, please let us, know
how we could help. Thank you so much. I really appreciate that.
You got it.
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