August 7, 2025 • 42 mins
In this episode of the Optimal Aging Podcast, Jay Croft sits down with Rick Mayo, founder and CEO of Alloy Personal Training, for an insightful deep dive into franchising, fitness, and the over-50 market. Jay and Rick explore entrepreneurship, messaging, and personal growth—including a fascinating discussion about the book "The Gap and the Gain."
Rick shares how he built Alloy into a franchise with over 300 awarded licenses and more than 100 locations open, all while staying mission-driven and sharply focused. This episode is packed with takeaways for gym owners, personal trainers, and wellness professionals who serve clients in midlife and beyond.
Learn how Rick keeps distractions at bay, how Alloy’s messaging evolved, and why staying focused on franchisee success drives everything he does. If you're building a business to serve people over 50, this one’s for you.
Guest: Rick Mayo
Bio: Rick Mayo is the founder and CEO of Alloy Personal Training, a fast-growing fitness franchise built to serve people over 50. With more than 30 years in the fitness industry, Rick has been a pioneer in small-group personal training and an advocate for purpose-driven business growth.
Links:
- Website: https://alloypersonaltraining.com
https://alloyfranchise.com - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coachrickmayo/
Episode Topics
The Gap and the Gain Mindset
Rick discusses the value of celebrating your wins without losing your edge—and how this mindset shift has changed the way he leads his business.
Franchising Lessons
From 2% success rates to surpassing 100 open locations, hear what Rick learned over five years of building a franchise.
Marketing That Resonates
How Alloy learned to lean into purpose and strength messaging to reach their ideal clients over 50.
Avoiding Distractions
Rick shares how he stays focused on what matters most—and why he says no to almost everything else.
Trends to Watch
Strength, experiential fitness, and AI—all seen through the lens of growing a franchise for people in midlife.
Resources Mentioned
- Selling Longevity by Jay Croft – https://a.co/d/hbtl3p6
🎤 Host: Jay Croft
Jay helps gym owners and health professionals grow with more people over 50 through content, communications, and expert strategy.
🌐 Podcast Website: https://primefitcontent.com
📬 Join the email list: https://primefitcontent.com
📱 Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/primefitcontent
💼 Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/croftjay
Loved this episode? Share it with a friend or tag us on socials using #OptimalAgingPodcast
Timestamps
00:00 - Intro: Rick Mayo & Jay Croft
01:15 - The "Gap and the Gain" mindset
04:10 - Lessons from 5 years of franchising Alloy
08:00 - What motivates the over-50 client
11:00 - Messaging & brand clarity
14:00 - Who your avatar really is
18:00 - Focus, distractions & shiny objects
21:00 - Why Rick says no to most speaking gigs now
24:00 - How to avoid being your own bottleneck
27:00 - Great marketing moments that stuck
32:00 - Trends: strength, experience, & AI
37:00 - What to ignore vs what to lean into
39:00 - Wrap-up
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
An initiative that Domino's Pizza did one time.
That was super clever.
They, you know, one of thebiggest complaints is like the
pizza may show up to someone'shouse and you know if you've
driven over a real bumpy, lumpyroad, you know, maybe you shook
the pizza up and there's somecheese stuck to the top of the
box, or you know, whatever itjust it would be disruptive to
the structure of the pizza tobounce over a pothole filled
(00:23):
road, Right?
And so what they did is they,instead of complaining or
complaining to the city, theyjust started fixing potholes and
they would put like a littleDomino's logo, kind of
transparent, but you could stillsee it like on top of the tar.
And they just started fixingpotholes all over these little
towns, right, that were causingthis disruption in the way the
(00:45):
pizza was delivered.
They got tons of press from that.
Tons.
I mean, they got all kinds ofnational press and press
releases and stories written andlike it's just a really
creative way to look atmarketing.
It's like, well, here's aproblem Bouncing down these
horrible streets trying todeliver these pizzas.
Not good for the pizza, Peopledon't like it, so we could
complain about it and try to getthe city to do something, or
(01:06):
it's not that expensive, we canjust go out and patch some
potholes.
Right, and they did, and sothey got whatever permitted they
need.
They started patching potholesand, lo and behold, it turned
into this massive nationalmarketing campaigns.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
You know, sometimes one good conversation leads to
another and that's how we gothere to this episode of the
Optimal Aging Podcast, the showfor gym owners and other fitness
and well-being and healthprofessionals who want to grow
with more people over 50.
Let me tell you what I mean.
Yesterday I went up to RickMayo's office here in the
(01:49):
northern part of Metro Atlantaand recorded his podcast about
my new book, which is calledSelling Longevity.
It's available on Amazoncom now.
Rick was kind enough to have meon his show to talk about the
book.
He's been a big supporter eversince I started Prime Fit
Content a few years ago and,full disclosure, I do some work
(02:10):
for Alloy Now.
The conversation went on for agood hour.
We had a lot to talk about.
I felt like we could have kepttalking one of those you know
about serving the older quoteunquote older fitness market and
communications and content andmarketing and key messages and
(02:31):
all these things that I geek outon.
Well, he kind of geeks out onthem too.
So we had a good conversationand I wanted to keep it going
and he was kind enough to dothat today and I thought let's
keep it limited, let's keep ittight.
I'm going to give you fivequestions, rick.
We're going to do fivequestions with Rick Mayo, ceo
and founder of Alloy PersonalTraining, and that's what this
(02:52):
conversation is.
I enjoyed it.
Again, I always enjoy talkingwith Rick and I think you will
too.
He's always got a lot of goodinsight to share about what he's
learned and what we can learnfrom him.
I'm not even a gym owner, letalone beginning a franchise
business, but a lot of thelessons that he's sharing here
(03:12):
in this conversation aboutentrepreneurship dovetail
beautifully with what I'mlearning and struggling with in
my own business.
So I think you'll get a lot outof it.
I hope you do.
Here's my conversation withRick Mayo.
Rick Mayo hello, my friend,good to see you again.
Hi, jay, how are you?
I'm excellent today.
How's everything in your world?
Speaker 1 (03:33):
It's good, it's really good.
Yeah, so busy as always, butloving it, loving it, so
appreciate it, and it's good tosee your smiling face again.
With you being a new publishedauthor, I'm sure you're swamped
with book signings and flyingall over the country.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
And yes, you just have to be covered up Right.
It's just, it's just really alot.
It's a lot.
You know, so many pressures onmy time.
Everybody wants a piece of menow.
I can't, can't, help it.
(04:09):
Well, look, hey, thanks formaking the time, the time like
don't forget, don't forget uslittle people now that you're a
published author, anything, well, I appreciate that again, it's
not lost on me.
So, yeah, well, you mentionedthe book.
Thanks very much, and thanksvery much for talking about it
with with me on your podcast.
Yeah, it's gonna air next.
You're gonna release that nextweek, I think.
So we're not going to talk allthis episode about my book,
which is called SellingLongevity and is available now
(04:32):
on amazoncom.
Oh, look at you, nice plug.
Nice plug.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
It is your podcast.
I mean you could just plug thewhole time if you want.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
I'm afraid people might turn it off.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Right, leave it alone .
We heard about the book already.
Enough with the book.
It's a good book, it's worth it, it's worth a little promo, for
sure.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Thank you, thank you.
I'm proud of it.
There's some good stuff in itthat I hope people enjoy.
And you know, I thought wewould open this conversation by
talking about another book thatyou got me to read a few years
ago.
I don't think you and I talkedabout it directly, but you
talked about it on your podcast.
(05:12):
It's called the Gap and theGain and I thought, listening to
your show, I thought thatsounds like a nice point of view
and I needed to get my headwrapped around that.
So I bought this book and itwas just fantastic and basically
I'll just share the premise, oryou share the premise, do you
remember?
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Yeah, I mean, look, the idea is that we'll start
with the, the idea or thepremise that if you celebrate
wins, um, maybe gratuitously,that it will somehow affect your
push or your drive to push formore right, and so I would say
(05:52):
that's something that,historically speaking, I'm not
very good at I think I did thepodcast with Matt he's also not
very good at it Meaning, by thetime you get to a win or a
milestone or a benchmark, jay,it's like the goalpost has
already moved.
I always cite the tweet fromElon Musk, love him or not, when
(06:14):
he became the wealthiest man inthe world and he posted a link
to the article about him beingthe wealthiest man in the world
and he said, well, how aboutthat?
Dot, dot, dot.
Now back to work.
And I appreciated that becauseit's like, well, it doesn't mean
much.
I mean, look, it means a lot,but you know what I mean.
Like in his world, he'sprobably working really hard.
Those aren't.
His objective is not to becomewealthiest man in the world, and
(06:36):
so sometimes when you havelofty goals, you know you set
short term goals that'll lead tothat long-term goal, but when
you're not there yet, it's easyto just, yeah, the goalpost
moves, and so a lot of thebenchmarks that you set early on
become anticlimactic, and thisbook was giving evidence,
(06:57):
essentially, that you can doboth.
You can both look back at whereyou started and be proud of your
accomplishments, and that itwould not be a detriment to your
ability to push forward andpush for bigger and better
things and, if anything, itwould actually be a positive.
You know lens to where on whatyou've done and where you're
(07:18):
headed.
So for me it was a real shiftin paradigm to be like wow,
we've, you know, we've done thisas a company, or I've done this
personally, or personalprofessional development.
Like, look, how far I've comeand I still have a long way to
go.
And so I think you can do both.
And the idea is that if you doboth, you're in a much more
abundance mindset.
You can, you're happier ingeneral, right.
(07:42):
So there's a lot of positivethings that come with looking
back on the achievements thatyou've had, as long as that
doesn't work against you in thesense that like, oh well, you
know, here I am, I've arrived,and I don't think anyone who's
paranoid about reading the bookand losing their edge would feel
that way.
Right, I know.
I don't, and so, if anything,it's harder for me to remember
(08:04):
the ideals and the principles ofthe book, which is like don't
forget to look back every nowand then take stock of what
you've done and then immediatelymove forward.
And what?
What lessons did you learn, orwhat have you taught yourself?
What kind of self-efficacy haveyou built that you can use as a
tool to push you forward,because you're always pushing
forward?
So, essentially, that's thebook is.
It's okay to look back and lookat the gain.
(08:26):
The gap is the gap between whereyou are now and where you want
to be, and that's the easiestthing to focus on, and I think
that's okay.
You know what I mean.
But it's not everything right.
There is a gain, so you havemade some gains to get here, and
, yes, there's always going tobe a gap between where you are
and where you want to be, buthence the title the gap in the
game.
You know, can you do both?
Is it an and thing, not an, orthing right, right, so I that
(08:52):
was a great summation, thank youvery much.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
So tell me how you know you've been.
You've been franchising now fora little more than five years.
You started right before thepandemic and so not sure how we
count those years of lost months, but but you're doing great.
Obviously, alloy is booming.
I think you've.
You've sold more than 300locations, got more than a
hundred open and so plying thegap in the gain.
(09:17):
After five and a half years.
Now look back and look forward.
What do you see?
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Yeah, I think.
Well, I mean to your point,when we started the franchise
and certainly COVID hit.
You know, we we launched at theend of 2019.
So we had a few months underour belt and then that's nothing
, as you know, and then COVIDhit and it really derailed us
until mid 21.
So really, we considered, hey,we really started the process
and got things rolling in mid 21.
(09:45):
So mid 21 to mid 25.
So, really, four solid years, um, you know, to have now 360
licenses awarded or sold isanother term for that, and to
have 102 open, with 17 inpresale, which means we'll have
nearly 120 open here in the nextfew weeks.
It's a big deal.
(10:06):
And I can look back, even fouryears ago, at what I thought
would happen at this stage andwhat I thought the sort of the
mechanisms and the businesssystems and softwares and
everything that we would need toget from here to there.
Yes, some of those are true andsome I've learned a ton and
what I thought was not true atall.
And so, yeah, I can look backand say, wow, you know.
(10:28):
I mean, look, there's stats,jay, that we've talked about.
Only 2% of you know brick andmortar franchises ever get 100
locations open.
So pretty good benchmark right,a pretty good milestone for us.
And so I think what the gap inthe game taught me and what I've
learned is like, if there issomething like that, it's really
more important.
Maybe not even for mepersonally, it is.
(10:50):
It is obviously helpful.
But I think more helpful thatif I celebrate it, then everyone
is, they're just in hereworking away and it just seems
like there's a never endingflurry of of challenges and, and
you know, problems to be solvedand that's just business in
(11:16):
general.
But every now and then it'sokay for the leader to be like
hey, we have a long way to go,we need to keep pushing and look
how well we've done, look wherewe are.
There's very few people who getwhere we are.
And also it kind of realignsthe expectation.
Like why would you expect it tobe anything but difficult If
only 2% of franchises get here,like we're in the 2%?
There is a responsibility thatcomes with that and so be proud
(11:36):
of yourself that you're on theteam and it's going to be really
hard.
It's not going to get anyeasier at 300, 400, 500.
So, um, I think it's beenwildly beneficial for me to look
back and see the things thatwe've accomplished that are not
easy more, so it's been great tothen illuminate those things
for the team so that they canalso feel good about where we
(11:57):
are and know that like it's notgoing to get any easier.
We got a big mountain to climbright.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Yeah, you and I talk a lot about messaging and
communications and what you'reputting out to the world.
Tell me something that you'velearned in the last few years or
that has evolved, perhaps inyour messaging that maybe you
thought things were going to beone way when you started the
licensing, the excuse me thefranchising journey, and
somewhere along the last fewyears you something clicked or
(12:25):
you saw it a.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Yeah, I think it's easy early on to think so
there's a couple of ways to lookat it.
Like, I really think that attimes we're in two businesses.
Right, we're in the franchisebusiness, which is a business in
and of itself, regardless ofwhat the end product or service
is, and then we're in thefitness business.
(12:51):
It's become apparent which Iknew already, but even more so
when you start putting scale onsomething you know a hundred
plus locations open that thewise for our customer avatar
have very little to do with sixpack abs and a lot more to do
with quality of life and I thinkI knew that intuitively.
um, everyone will have asecondary goal of weight loss,
typically right Coming in.
(13:11):
But really, if you read oursuccess stories, it's almost an
afterthought and the weight losswas just a byproduct of getting
to a healthier place.
But getting to a healthierplace allowed them to do what
our brand promise says, which islive life to the fullest.
So we have leaned heavily intothat message.
If you look at our successstory videos that we shoot, it's
(13:32):
like you know.
We've got a great one out therefrom a guy who climbed
Kilimanjaro.
Well, he lost weight and got inreally good shape aesthetically
, but that wasn't what he wastalking about at all.
It was all about this mountainclimb, right.
So we've leaned heavily intothat message, as opposed to the
typical fitness message.
Now, I knew it already, but,boy, at scale, it really has
driven that point home.
So maybe a reinforcement, ifanything, and then, on the
(13:59):
franchise side, developing that.
It's really a lot about purpose.
We get a lot of folks that havebeen working in corporate for
25 years, their burnout.
They want to do something ofmeaning and put some good in the
world and so, again, we'vereally leaned into purpose.
I mean, you have to start withcan you get return on investment
, yes or no?
If you can't do that, itdoesn't matter how much purpose
it has.
But then, beyond that, there'sa lot of ways to make money.
You could buy a franchise thatdoes fencing or gutters or
(14:19):
septic tank cleaning or whateveryou want, but it's really nice
to be able to get return oninvestment and put some good
into the world.
So we've really leaned heavilyin our messaging for our
franchise into purpose right,why we do what we do.
And it's really important notonly for our franchisees to
continue to be reminded of that,but for people that are
considering investing in Alloy,like hey, you can do something
(14:41):
that really puts some good intothe world.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Yeah, yeah, we were talking yesterday, and I think
we were talking about how todecide who you're marketing to,
or how to think about who youraudience is, and we were talking
about how saying you're over 50is not enough to say that's
your defining trait, becausethere are so many different
people in there, and when youstarted this, you told me once a
(15:06):
few years ago that youdiscovered that a lot of the
people that are in your audienceare the movers and the shakers,
the type A, the go-gettersright, I think?
You said yesterday something Iwanted to ask you about, and
that is that there's more thanthat.
It's not just the type A,super-driven people who have
succeeded and made a lot oftheir lives.
(15:28):
Was that something that youlearned throughout this too, or
how has that played into whoyou're serving?
Because, the reason I ask isbecause I get this a lot from
young gym owners not young inage, but who are newer in their
business than you are and theyask me well, who am I talking to
(15:53):
?
Am I talking to little oldladies?
Am I talking to studly Italking to little old ladies?
Am I talking to you knowsteadily 55 year old dudes?
Who am I?
Who's my audience?
And and I always say that's,that's up to you, let's talk
about it, but your messaging hasto align.
So how did how?
I'm just curious how thatevolved for you, if it did at
all.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Yeah, well, I think there's movers and shakers.
If you look at the archetypewheel, you can name characters.
One of the characters is namedmovers shakers.
I mean, you can imagine,smarter than the average bear,
maybe entrepreneurial.
You know, again, financially,that they're at least
well-organized enoughemotionally and financially to
amass enough wealth or to createenough income to be able to
(16:42):
afford an expensive service,right, discretionary income, if
you will.
So I think that mover shakerstill stands.
But I think when you look atthis population, jay, and I
think when you just look atpeople in general, you can have
someone that is a mover shakerfinancially, who's in horrible
physical shape, right.
So I don't think, I don't thinkmover shaker always means that
(17:05):
that person is also really fit.
I think what it means typically, as we're looking at it, is how
does this manifest itselffinancially?
And we all know the folks thatare financially very successful,
but boy, they've done it at theexpense of their health, right.
And so I think we get a lot ofthose.
So we get people that aresmarter than the average bear.
They do well financially, butthey're, again, they've done it
(17:26):
at the expense of their physicalhealth.
So I think, when you look at itthat way, from an exercise
standpoint, we're getting bothpeople that are relatively fit
that already exercise Typicallyif they have a few chinks in
their armor or injuries thatthey can't find a solution to
work around.
There's not a brand that can dothat.
We'll get those folks.
And then we'll get people thatare just fresh, either back to,
(17:47):
or first time ever to, astructured exercise program.
Um, and they just didn't seeanything in market that spoke to
them until, you know, we showedup and we have the right
imaging and messaging.
Obviously, that speaks to ouravatar, which is important.
So I think we we get both.
Both could still be defined asmovers and shakers, though,
because that would be reflectedin their financials, right?
(18:08):
Sure, and they're in that realm.
So that's what we've noticed.
If anything, um, I don't see itas much like a mover shakers,
like a super go getter in everyaspect of their life is hitting
on all cylinders.
I don't think it's that.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Hey, are you a fitness professional trying to
grow your business with peopleover 50?
If you are, then you need toknow how to communicate with
them, how to market to them andhow to get them to trust you
with their fitness, well-beingand money.
We're talking about millions ofpeople who are a little older
than the typical market that thefitness industry usually
pursues.
They have more money, more timeand better motivation to make
(18:50):
the best long-term fitnessconsumers you'll find anywhere.
If you're not focusing on them,you should be.
Prime Fit Content is the onlycontent marketing company
designed specifically to helpyou engage people in this group
and to help you distinguishyourself from competitors in
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It's effective, affordable andsuper easy to use.
(19:11):
Check it out atprimefitcontentcom.
That's prime, like prime ofyour life fitcontentcom.
Back to the show.
Okay, yeah, I didn't.
That's good to know.
I guess I just want people outthere who are looking at you and
thinking, how can I emulatethis guy's success a little bit.
I want to help this market, butit's such a big, broad market.
(19:34):
Well, you just have to thinkabout it a little bit.
You did a lot of research.
You didn't just sit down oneday and dream it up and you
built your business around your,your, your research, so um what
affects everything.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
I mean we real estate choices.
Where are you going to put yourlocation?
Well, you needs to be a target,rich environment for our
customer avatar, right, and soobviously, with data you can
that's more of an algorithm youcan find a good place to put it.
We have final approval on that,so it wouldn't behoove any of
us to put it in the wronglocation, right.
But after to your point,clearly define your customer
(20:06):
avatar and there's a cascadingeffect in almost every function
of the business.
From your point, like themessaging you're sending, like
you know, if the business, fromyour point, like the messaging
you're sending, like you know,if you guys engage with Jay and
he's sending out newsletters acouple times a week for your
business, he's going to speakdirectly to this customer avatar
, right, because he knows them.
So even that's affected.
So every bit of communication,images, you know everything has
(20:29):
to speak to that customer and doit well, you know.
So that's I think that's whyit's so important, jay, and what
you're telling those folks thathaven't started yet is have a
clearly defined audience andthen that will affect almost
every other decision in yourbusiness.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Exactly so.
Over these last few years, youhave created a great many
opportunities, and you haveprobably found a few
distractions as well, right, andso I'm wondering how do you
decide what to ignore?
You know what's noise, what'sjust squirrel, and how do you
(21:04):
stay focused on the big pictureof what's really important for
developing the brand?
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Yeah, I think you know going into franchising
because I'm a consummateentrepreneur and I have lots of
squirrels that run through theroom and sometimes right through
my brain, you know, with all ofthese opportunities and extra
things to do, but if you'regoing to do something big and
massive, you need to just reallystay focused.
And it's different, it's verydifficult.
So I would say it's just a gooddiscipline and so the lens that
(21:34):
, at least that I use, jay, islike franchising is very complex
at times it's very litigious,there's lots of stages and steps
and a million other companiesthat are supporting it and it's
a beast, right.
But ultimately, if you cansimplify it down to what is the
real, you know needle mover in afranchise business, and the
answer is franchisee success.
(21:55):
If your franchisees are gettingreturn on investment, being
able to serve that purpose thatyou know was the at least the
secondary goal, right, why theyengaged with alloy then
everything's going to take careof itself.
That that'll fix sales, that'llfix, you know, the financials
of the franchise.
Because if the franchisees aredoing better, you know we're
sharing in their gross revenues,but by taking a royalty which
(22:18):
is a percentage of their topline revenue.
So they do well, we do well.
I love the alignment of thatbusiness it's a fractionalized
partner, if you will and so thatthen sets the perfect lens.
Will this distraction oropportunity would be a better
word Will this opportunity leadto franchisee success?
(22:39):
Right, I'll give you an example.
So I used to speak a lot.
As you know, I would speakmaybe 20 times a year at
different events.
Sometimes it was friends thatwould ask me to come out and
speak at events and, and, orjust ones that are speaking
circuits that I was on for 10years plus, and when we had a
licensing business, which meanswe were serving existing gym
owners, that was a very goodvehicle to get out and talk
(23:01):
about things, and then peoplewould want to hear more from you
and engage with you, and thenperhaps you could license them
right and power them with awhite labeled version of
whatever they needed.
Well, now that I'm intofranchising, those same speaking
opportunities aren't aseffective or maybe relevant for
my business.
So I say no to 99% of those.
(23:22):
And it's weird.
You know, it's a bit of anidentity crisis.
It's like, wow, I used to bethe guy that was up on the stage
and everybody loved what youhad to say but, like, my main
goal is to grow the franchise,so I'll take a speaking
engagement if it moves theneedle on the franchise,
otherwise I'm not doing it Right.
And so that's just one exampleof out of hundreds where I just
don't do things anymore.
(23:43):
I get a lot of folks that reachout and say, hey, do you still
do consulting?
No, and it's like, could I takea one hour phone call and
charge somebody 500 bucks orwhatever I used to charge?
Sure, but I don't do it becauseit's a slippery slope.
And it's like again, it's likea discipline, right.
It's like, okay, if you'retrying to lose weight, you could
eat an apple pie and maybestill lose weight, but you just
don't because it just, you know,it's just not the right thing
(24:04):
to do, and so same here.
So I can think of a millionexamples, but basically that's
the ultimate lens.
Does it help franchisees, helpmore people and, by default,
make more money?
And then, by default, it helpsus make more money?
If it doesn't do that, I'm notgoing to do it, period.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
So I think the lesson , maybe for other entrepreneurs
who have, who are notfranchising, might be to have
some lens.
It's going to be a differentlens than when, the one that you
adopted and referencethroughout your, throughout your
experiences I do that myself.
There's always a new socialmedia channel, there's always a
(24:43):
new app, there's always a newdoodad to help me do my
communications jobs better or tomarket my business better, or
to do something better andfaster, and some of it's pretty
sexy, you know, and it catchesmy eye and I'm like, yeah, I
want that, let's do that.
And, um, I have to think about,well, what's my?
(25:05):
My thing is I want to grow thebusiness.
I want to get my business to acertain number of gyms where I
have a certain ceiling, acertain minimum of clients.
That's what I think about, like, yeah, it would be fun to do
all those things, it would becool to go and learn how to do
(25:25):
all these new tools, but am Ilearning anything?
Am I helping anybody grow theirbusiness?
Am I growing my business?
That has to be it, becausethere's just only so many hours
in the day, right that?
we all have, I think really forentrepreneurs.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
This is the thing I see that may be the number one
mistake that holds them backfrom scaling a large business.
Sometimes you're in the wrongvehicle, I get it, and you're
looking for opportunitiesNothing wrong with that.
But once you land on somethingthat has legs and there's a
runway there, your ability towake up every day and just
(26:03):
incrementally improve on thatjourney whether it's product or
service or message or marketing,all the things right that come
along with building a businessUm, it takes a lot of discipline
to do so, so it may take you aminute to find your heat
signature.
You know we often use the termbullets before cannonballs,
which is from a Jim Collins bookwhere you have a finite amount
(26:25):
of gunpowder and you're an enemyship sailing.
You're sailing towards an enemyship in the old days where you
had cannons and it's like, well,do you pour all your gunpowder
and you only have enough for onebig cannon shot?
Do you pour it in there andhope you get it right, or would
it be more pertinent to put alittle bit of gunpowder and a
few rifles until you ping a fewoff the hull and get your range,
then load up your cannon?
(26:46):
So I think if you use thatprinciple we often say that in
our business, hey man, bulletsbefore cannonballs it's like you
can have some feelers out there.
You can give a little bit ofattention here and there, right,
because you don't want to haveblinders on, so focused on the
one goal that you don't haveanything in your peripheral that
you may miss.
But it's a fine line, right.
So it's a dance, it's a skillthat you can learn over time,
(27:07):
where there will be things thatpop up that are adjacent but do
help you towards that goal.
But if they're wildly differentand that's what we typically
see, and here's what we see butif they're wildly different and
that's what we typically see,and here's what we see If you
can't focus, what I'll see is afranchisee will start an
endeavor.
It might be mildly successful,but, boy, that push to get
through that ceiling that maybeevery business in that category
(27:29):
runs into is really justdiscipline.
And it's about again people sayit to do the boring work.
You know, do the thingsrepetitively until you get so
good at them that you can't bedenied.
That's how you do it, right.
It's not sexy, it's not fun,but what we'll see is
entrepreneurs will run into thatheadwind and, instead of just
buckling down and continuing todo the thing until they get
(27:51):
better at it and figuring it out, they will shift gears and
start something else.
And so, like you know, oh well,that's not where it's at, I'm
going to go here and do this.
And maybe it's like, oh, I'mgoing to go from a like I'm
running a fitness franchise, I'mgonna start a coaching business
now where I coach otherentrepreneurs on how to do stuff
.
It's like that's not the samebusiness at all.
And then guess what?
That thing might scale a littlebit and project, and you're
(28:16):
going to find out that you arethe roadblock.
You know you're the one holdingit back, because as soon as you
run into those headwinds,you're going to tell yourself
it's not the right vehicle, andmaybe I'll do this and maybe
I'll do that.
And then you're going to end upwith, you know, four or five
half-baked businesses that neverreally break through, do
anything significant, becauseyou couldn't stay focused long
enough.
(28:36):
Right, and you thought it wasthe business model you know, or
the opportunity, and it wasreally just you as an individual
.
So I see that a lot.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
Yeah, I see it a lot with with gym owners trying to
get their communications ortheir marketing messaging out.
You know they'll hire me to dotheir um, their content, and
three weeks go by and they don'thave 25 new members and they're
like this isn't working.
Yeah, it's a process.
For sure, it's the process.
(29:05):
Man, you got to give everythingsome time, okay?
So I promised you fivequestions and we've made it
through three, so I want to keepthis.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
All right, I'll keep it succinct.
Let's go.
No, I'm not.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
I'm just saying I'm trying to honor your time here
and stay to the premise fivequestions okay.
question number four is, uh, hasto do with marketing messages
and breaking through the newnoise, because we're all slammed
with so many messagesconstantly, right, um?
And so I want to ask you, justpersonally, to think of
(29:36):
something that has stopped youand got your attention,
naturally, when you weren't eventhinking about it.
Maybe you're scrolling throughyour social media, you're
flipping dials on TV or flipthrough a magazine, anything, I
don't care.
What was a message or an imageor something that made you stop
(29:57):
and laugh or think or get a tearin your eye, anything like that
yeah, I mean, look, there's abunch of those out there.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
As you were talking, I was thinking about an
initiative that domino's pizzadid one time.
That was super clever.
They um, you know, one of thebiggest complaints is like your,
the pizza may show up tosomeone's house and you know, if
you've driven over a real bumpy, lumpy road, you know, maybe
you shook.
The pizza may show up tosomeone's house and you know, if
you've driven over a real bumpy, lumpy road, you know, maybe
you shook the pizza up andthere's some cheese stuck to the
top of the box or you know,whatever it just it would be
disruptive to the structure ofthe pizza to bounce over a
(30:29):
potholed, pothole filled road,right.
And so what they did is they,instead of, you know,
complaining or complaining tothe city, they just started
fixing potholes and they wouldput like a little uh, domino,
you know domino's logo, you knowkind of transparent but you can
still see it like on top of thetar, and they just started
fixing potholes all over theselittle towns, right, that were
(30:51):
causing this disruption in theway the pizza was delivered.
They got tons of press fromthat.
Tons, I mean they got all kindsof national press and press
releases and stories written andlike it's just a really
creative way to look atmarketing.
It's like, well, here's aproblem bouncing down these
horrible streets trying todeliver these pizzas.
Not good for the pizza, peopledon't like it.
So we could complain about itand try to get the city to do
(31:12):
something.
Or it's not that expensive, wecan just go out and patch some
potholes, right, and they did,and so they got whatever
permitted they need.
They started patching potholesand, uh, lo and behold, it
turned into this massive,massive national marketing
campaign.
So that's one like gaudyexample that I thought was just
really thinking out of the box.
But I saw one today it's funnythat you mentioned that that I
(31:33):
thought was right on the nose.
It was for Amazon's new like um, you know, remote virtual
physicians and pharmacy serviceand it was a family on vacation
and the guys in the bed with hislike man cold you know we're
laughing, cause it's probablynot as bad as he's making it out
to be and there's a woman thereand she's in a bathing suit,
you know, and she's got thesetwo kids the floaties and, you
(31:54):
know, pool toys and she looksout the window and there's like
a wild water park, down belowthe window, and it's just all
kids running around and thedad's, of course, in bed sick,
and she just basically gets onAmazon, dials up the doctors on
the screen and she just reachesbehind her and just hands it to
him Like here, like we're notdoing this right, you're not
laying in this bed all day.
(32:14):
Well, I go hauling these kidsall over the waterpark.
He doesn't even have to say it,you just get it right away.
Because so many people have beenin that situation where it's
like you know, you go onvacation with two little kids.
It's really like it's kind of avacation also, kind of not.
And so this mom is just likeuh-uh, like I'll get you a
doctor, we'll get you some medsand they'll deliver right here
to way to advertise in a veryreal world example that a lot of
(32:37):
us, if you've had kids, havebeen in that situation.
So I just thought, I justlaughed.
I'm like so clever, the guy'sdying because he has his man
cold.
She's like we're not havingthis.
And she dials up a doctor onthe phone, taps him on the
shoulder, hands in the phone andboy right there on the screen
is the is the physician.
He's gonna have to tell him hissymptoms and then a couple
minutes later he's gonna getsome pharmaceuticals delivered
to his room so that he can takealso take the kids out to that
(32:59):
very fun wave pool.
It's flashed around with athousand other kids, right, but
it was just a clever commercial.
It speaks to something that alot of people have been through
and also speaks to theconvenience of like hey, you can
be laid up on vacation, get adoctor on the phone quickly and
have the meds delivered right toyour hotel room.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
So really cool Right.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
That's a good one.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
I like that You've made me want to call Domino's
pizza for the first time inabout what?
Since the dorm room?
At least they're patchingpotholes.
At least they're patchingpotholes, that's right.
Let's talk about small grouppersonal training.
I know something about that, Iknow.
I've heard that you do so.
You know, um, I want to saybefore the pandemic maybe I'm
wrong about this, you cancorrect me, but it was less
widely in use.
(33:46):
Is that fair to say?
Speaker 1 (33:48):
It's hard to say.
You know, we started it in year2000.
So I knew a lot of private gymsthat we had worked with as a
license that were doing it.
Typically just one locationowner operated, you know.
So there were people out theredoing it nobody at scale though.
But yeah, there were peopledoing it, but nobody really,
like I said, at scaling.
And sometimes the word smallgroup training would be used for
(34:09):
what you and I would call aclass, because it was really a
small group of 25 people.
Right so you know.
Then we switched to like, okay,personal training in a small
group, and I know that soundsnuanced and it is, but it's
important.
Small group training is just abastardized term that can be
used for any kind of a classspace concept, which we are not
(34:39):
at least it has in my mind.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
It seems like five or six years ago people weren't
quite sure what that meant.
Does that mean spin class with40 people in the room?
No, and then COVID happened andwe weren't doing that anymore
and we had to sort of refocus onwhat we were talking about,
kind of like with onlinetraining or video training.
So what I'm getting at isthere's often an evolution of
things.
Initially, we might poo-poothem or we might not understand
(35:00):
them, or we might think, oh,that's a ridiculous trend that's
never going to last.
So, given all of that, what'ssomething going on now that some
people aren't seeing or gettingor dismissing as a trend that,
if I'm a gym owner, I need to bepaying attention to?
Speaker 1 (35:16):
Well, I think it depends on the model really I
need to be paying attention to.
Well, I think it depends on themodel really.
I mean, there's other modelsthat are doing well that aren't
in our sector, like the you knowthe high value, low price.
So they're often, you know,hvlp models, which would be like
a planet and a cruncher.
Certainly those kinds of guysthey're doing really well right
now.
They're way up.
So if you look at a lot ofthese displaced folks, they end
up joining a regular old gym andfor nine bucks.
(35:37):
not a bad deal, right?
Some of these gyms offer a lotfor that.
So that's growing pretty well.
And then, in the boutiquesector which we're in, people
have moved away from maybecardio based choices which, as
we know this day and age,certainly in our avatar, our
target age group, it's likestrength is really where it's at
Right, and that's a verywidespread message right now.
(36:00):
So I would say, at least for thenext five years, you're selling
additional, like food tours andbicycle tours and whatever that
(36:20):
may be.
Just you know, tacking onthings like that, experiences
based on the location, right?
So if I rent the house, it'slike hey, would you like to do
this?
How about a food tour?
How about a bike tour?
How about a guided hike?
I mean, all you know, somebodycan come to your house and do
yoga, have a chef come over andmake you dinner, all these
little services that have poppedup that are very popular right
now.
So I think, if you're looking atour industry, think more
(36:44):
experiential, which at times caninvolve AI and at times it can
be at the expense ofexperiential meaning.
There's normally a people topeople connection there, you
know, and so some automation isgood.
But as we all push for fully AIdriven, full automation at
least our lens is that needs tobe just to bring down friction,
(37:08):
to get humans together right,because we still haven't evolved
to the point where we don'tneed other humans in our, in our
circle right, and to be withpeople.
Ai is not quite there yet Now.
Who knows it moves so fast?
I mean, you hear all thereports it's 500 times faster
than we are and who knows what'shappening right?
But right now, that's at leastwhat I see.
What people might be missing onis like you fall in love with
(37:31):
the tools and the stuff, but notnecessarily what the stuff does
right.
And so for us it's about makinghuman to human connections and
just making people again livelife to the fullest.
I don't think AI is going to dothat now, but there are parts
of the business where it willbring down friction to make
those things easier to get to.
You know, it might bring downfriction for our franchisees.
(37:53):
I mean their efficiency tools,yes, all of that, but as far as
the customer experience,efficiency tools, yes, all of
that, but as far as the customerexperience, um, not so much
once you get together.
So, anyway, that's where we seeit, and it's really hard to say
beyond a few years out, jay,just because tech is moving so
fast.
I don't even you know who knowsreally.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
I know it's fascinating and and um and I'm
glad to hear you talk about itwithout any fear, and I'm not
afraid of this either there's somany people afraid that ai is
going to ruin everything.
It's like, I don't know, maybewell, what do I know?
But I'm not worried about it,it's like it's always.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
It's always an ant right like there'll be.
Just like any tool that evercomes out, there'll be a ton of
super positive things andthere'll be governments that are
trying to weaponize it rightand do terrible things with it.
But that's humans.
Anytime you give a tool likethat to humans, you know that's
going to happen.
There's there's good playersand bad players, and that's
always going to be the case.
So I tend to be glass half full, like yourself.
(38:46):
So I look at all the positivethings that AI is going to bring
.
I can't do anything about thenegative things.
Anyway, I'm not running anylarge governments this last time
.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
No, no, no one's asked me to do that.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
I have no effect over whether we're going to build
bots that murder people and dohorrible things.
I don't know If it becomessentient like the Terminator and
kills us all.
Also can't control that, so Ichoose to look at all the
amazing positive things thatit's going to bring to our
business to get people together.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
I like that, and that concludes our five questions.
But I'm not going to let you gojust yet, because you hit on
something this idea of broaderexperiences and bringing people
together and the role thatfitness plays in that.
It goes into a main theme ofwhat I write about, and I know a
main theme of what Alloybelieves in, and that is that
this being fit later in lifegives you, when you have the
(39:35):
strength and endurance andagility to do the things that
you want to do, you have abetter life and a better, longer
health, span, play span,whatever you want to call it.
And I wonder if there are someopportunities coming up.
You know, or maybe they'realready here, where gyms and
fitness businesses cancoordinate or or you know, uh,
(39:58):
market together with other Idon't know travel organizations
or biking organizations orhiking groups, or what have you
to to get to sort of bring downthe walls between going to the
gym and having a fit lifestyle,because you know we really want
people to be healthy and fit,which maybe that's going to the
(40:21):
gym and lifting weights, andmaybe it's doing something else.
So if you can incorporate that,if we can incorporate that in
people's minds, that, um, it'syour life.
It's not just a place you go tothree days a week for an hour
and complain about how much youhate it and why, how come I'm
not losing any weight and thissucks.
It's, it's your life, whatever.
(40:42):
Whatever that might be, um, Ithink that that's the
possibility that, uh, you know,I think it's gonna appeal to a
lot of people who who just stilldon't get it about strength
training and going to the gym,and we can keep bringing those
messages and making inroads, butwhen we connect the different
(41:05):
parts of their life, man, that'swhere it happens, I think.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
Yeah, totally agree, totally agree.
I look forward to where we endup with those things.
But yeah, obviously we're onthe same path, so I get it 100%.
Speaker 2 (41:18):
Yeah, okay.
Well, rick promised you fivequestions.
You gave me five and a half, soI appreciate that and look,
they were great questions.
Speaker 1 (41:28):
It's an honor to be on once again.
I think we're multi guests oneach other's podcasts, yes, so
nothing wrong with that.
But yeah, man, thanks forgiving me a chance to to express
some ideas, and the questionswere different than the normal
question, so I appreciate thatwell, good, that was, that was
what I was hoping for, because,uh, yeah, yeah, gotta do
something different.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
Gotta keep it fresh, all right, my friend, good to
see you.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
Good to see you, rick .
Thanks, all right, bye, cheers,cheers.
An initiative that Domino's Pizza did one time.
That was super clever.
They, you know, one of thebiggest complaints is like the
pizza may show up to someone'shouse and you know if you've
driven over a real bumpy, lumpyroad, you know, maybe you shook
the pizza up and there's somecheese stuck to the top of the
box, or you know, whatever itjust it would be disruptive to
the structure of the pizza tobounce over a pothole filled
(00:23):
road, Right?
And so what they did is they,instead of complaining or
complaining to the city, theyjust started fixing potholes and
they would put like a littleDomino's logo, kind of
transparent, but you could stillsee it like on top of the tar.
And they just started fixingpotholes all over these little
towns, right, that were causingthis disruption in the way the
(00:45):
pizza was delivered.
They got tons of press from that.
Tons.
I mean, they got all kinds ofnational press and press
releases and stories written andlike it's just a really
creative way to look atmarketing.
It's like, well, here's aproblem Bouncing down these
horrible streets trying todeliver these pizzas.
Not good for the pizza, Peopledon't like it, so we could
complain about it and try to getthe city to do something, or
(01:06):
it's not that expensive, we canjust go out and patch some
potholes.
Right, and they did, and sothey got whatever permitted they
need.
They started patching potholesand, lo and behold, it turned
into this massive nationalmarketing campaigns.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
You know, sometimes one good conversation leads to
another and that's how we gothere to this episode of the
Optimal Aging Podcast, the showfor gym owners and other fitness
and well-being and healthprofessionals who want to grow
with more people over 50.
Let me tell you what I mean.
Yesterday I went up to RickMayo's office here in the
(01:49):
northern part of Metro Atlantaand recorded his podcast about
my new book, which is calledSelling Longevity.
It's available on Amazoncom now.
Rick was kind enough to have meon his show to talk about the
book.
He's been a big supporter eversince I started Prime Fit
Content a few years ago and,full disclosure, I do some work
(02:10):
for Alloy Now.
The conversation went on for agood hour.
We had a lot to talk about.
I felt like we could have kepttalking one of those you know
about serving the older quoteunquote older fitness market and
communications and content andmarketing and key messages and
(02:31):
all these things that I geek outon.
Well, he kind of geeks out onthem too.
So we had a good conversationand I wanted to keep it going
and he was kind enough to dothat today and I thought let's
keep it limited, let's keep ittight.
I'm going to give you fivequestions, rick.
We're going to do fivequestions with Rick Mayo, ceo
and founder of Alloy PersonalTraining, and that's what this
(02:52):
conversation is.
I enjoyed it.
Again, I always enjoy talkingwith Rick and I think you will
too.
He's always got a lot of goodinsight to share about what he's
learned and what we can learnfrom him.
I'm not even a gym owner, letalone beginning a franchise
business, but a lot of thelessons that he's sharing here
(03:12):
in this conversation aboutentrepreneurship dovetail
beautifully with what I'mlearning and struggling with in
my own business.
So I think you'll get a lot outof it.
I hope you do.
Here's my conversation withRick Mayo.
Rick Mayo hello, my friend,good to see you again.
Hi, jay, how are you?
I'm excellent today.
How's everything in your world?
Speaker 1 (03:33):
It's good, it's really good.
Yeah, so busy as always, butloving it, loving it, so
appreciate it, and it's good tosee your smiling face again.
With you being a new publishedauthor, I'm sure you're swamped
with book signings and flyingall over the country.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
And yes, you just have to be covered up Right.
It's just, it's just really alot.
It's a lot.
You know, so many pressures onmy time.
Everybody wants a piece of menow.
I can't, can't, help it.
(04:09):
Well, look, hey, thanks formaking the time, the time like
don't forget, don't forget uslittle people now that you're a
published author, anything, well, I appreciate that again, it's
not lost on me.
So, yeah, well, you mentionedthe book.
Thanks very much, and thanksvery much for talking about it
with with me on your podcast.
Yeah, it's gonna air next.
You're gonna release that nextweek, I think.
So we're not going to talk allthis episode about my book,
which is called SellingLongevity and is available now
(04:32):
on amazoncom.
Oh, look at you, nice plug.
Nice plug.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
It is your podcast.
I mean you could just plug thewhole time if you want.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
I'm afraid people might turn it off.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Right, leave it alone .
We heard about the book already.
Enough with the book.
It's a good book, it's worth it, it's worth a little promo, for
sure.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Thank you, thank you.
I'm proud of it.
There's some good stuff in itthat I hope people enjoy.
And you know, I thought wewould open this conversation by
talking about another book thatyou got me to read a few years
ago.
I don't think you and I talkedabout it directly, but you
talked about it on your podcast.
(05:12):
It's called the Gap and theGain and I thought, listening to
your show, I thought thatsounds like a nice point of view
and I needed to get my headwrapped around that.
So I bought this book and itwas just fantastic and basically
I'll just share the premise, oryou share the premise, do you
remember?
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Yeah, I mean, look, the idea is that we'll start
with the, the idea or thepremise that if you celebrate
wins, um, maybe gratuitously,that it will somehow affect your
push or your drive to push formore right, and so I would say
(05:52):
that's something that,historically speaking, I'm not
very good at I think I did thepodcast with Matt he's also not
very good at it Meaning, by thetime you get to a win or a
milestone or a benchmark, jay,it's like the goalpost has
already moved.
I always cite the tweet fromElon Musk, love him or not, when
(06:14):
he became the wealthiest man inthe world and he posted a link
to the article about him beingthe wealthiest man in the world
and he said, well, how aboutthat?
Dot, dot, dot.
Now back to work.
And I appreciated that becauseit's like, well, it doesn't mean
much.
I mean, look, it means a lot,but you know what I mean.
Like in his world, he'sprobably working really hard.
Those aren't.
His objective is not to becomewealthiest man in the world, and
(06:36):
so sometimes when you havelofty goals, you know you set
short term goals that'll lead tothat long-term goal, but when
you're not there yet, it's easyto just, yeah, the goalpost
moves, and so a lot of thebenchmarks that you set early on
become anticlimactic, and thisbook was giving evidence,
(06:57):
essentially, that you can doboth.
You can both look back at whereyou started and be proud of your
accomplishments, and that itwould not be a detriment to your
ability to push forward andpush for bigger and better
things and, if anything, itwould actually be a positive.
You know lens to where on whatyou've done and where you're
(07:18):
headed.
So for me it was a real shiftin paradigm to be like wow,
we've, you know, we've done thisas a company, or I've done this
personally, or personalprofessional development.
Like, look, how far I've comeand I still have a long way to
go.
And so I think you can do both.
And the idea is that if you doboth, you're in a much more
abundance mindset.
You can, you're happier ingeneral, right.
(07:42):
So there's a lot of positivethings that come with looking
back on the achievements thatyou've had, as long as that
doesn't work against you in thesense that like, oh well, you
know, here I am, I've arrived,and I don't think anyone who's
paranoid about reading the bookand losing their edge would feel
that way.
Right, I know.
I don't, and so, if anything,it's harder for me to remember
(08:04):
the ideals and the principles ofthe book, which is like don't
forget to look back every nowand then take stock of what
you've done and then immediatelymove forward.
And what?
What lessons did you learn, orwhat have you taught yourself?
What kind of self-efficacy haveyou built that you can use as a
tool to push you forward,because you're always pushing
forward?
So, essentially, that's thebook is.
It's okay to look back and lookat the gain.
(08:26):
The gap is the gap between whereyou are now and where you want
to be, and that's the easiestthing to focus on, and I think
that's okay.
You know what I mean.
But it's not everything right.
There is a gain, so you havemade some gains to get here, and
, yes, there's always going tobe a gap between where you are
and where you want to be, buthence the title the gap in the
game.
You know, can you do both?
Is it an and thing, not an, orthing right, right, so I that
(08:52):
was a great summation, thank youvery much.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
So tell me how you know you've been.
You've been franchising now fora little more than five years.
You started right before thepandemic and so not sure how we
count those years of lost months, but but you're doing great.
Obviously, alloy is booming.
I think you've.
You've sold more than 300locations, got more than a
hundred open and so plying thegap in the gain.
(09:17):
After five and a half years.
Now look back and look forward.
What do you see?
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Yeah, I think.
Well, I mean to your point,when we started the franchise
and certainly COVID hit.
You know, we we launched at theend of 2019.
So we had a few months underour belt and then that's nothing
, as you know, and then COVIDhit and it really derailed us
until mid 21.
So really, we considered, hey,we really started the process
and got things rolling in mid 21.
(09:45):
So mid 21 to mid 25.
So, really, four solid years, um, you know, to have now 360
licenses awarded or sold isanother term for that, and to
have 102 open, with 17 inpresale, which means we'll have
nearly 120 open here in the nextfew weeks.
It's a big deal.
(10:06):
And I can look back, even fouryears ago, at what I thought
would happen at this stage andwhat I thought the sort of the
mechanisms and the businesssystems and softwares and
everything that we would need toget from here to there.
Yes, some of those are true andsome I've learned a ton and
what I thought was not true atall.
And so, yeah, I can look backand say, wow, you know.
(10:28):
I mean, look, there's stats,jay, that we've talked about.
Only 2% of you know brick andmortar franchises ever get 100
locations open.
So pretty good benchmark right,a pretty good milestone for us.
And so I think what the gap inthe game taught me and what I've
learned is like, if there issomething like that, it's really
more important.
Maybe not even for mepersonally, it is.
(10:50):
It is obviously helpful.
But I think more helpful thatif I celebrate it, then everyone
is, they're just in hereworking away and it just seems
like there's a never endingflurry of of challenges and, and
you know, problems to be solvedand that's just business in
(11:16):
general.
But every now and then it'sokay for the leader to be like
hey, we have a long way to go,we need to keep pushing and look
how well we've done, look wherewe are.
There's very few people who getwhere we are.
And also it kind of realignsthe expectation.
Like why would you expect it tobe anything but difficult If
only 2% of franchises get here,like we're in the 2%?
There is a responsibility thatcomes with that and so be proud
(11:36):
of yourself that you're on theteam and it's going to be really
hard.
It's not going to get anyeasier at 300, 400, 500.
So, um, I think it's beenwildly beneficial for me to look
back and see the things thatwe've accomplished that are not
easy more, so it's been great tothen illuminate those things
for the team so that they canalso feel good about where we
(11:57):
are and know that like it's notgoing to get any easier.
We got a big mountain to climbright.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Yeah, you and I talk a lot about messaging and
communications and what you'reputting out to the world.
Tell me something that you'velearned in the last few years or
that has evolved, perhaps inyour messaging that maybe you
thought things were going to beone way when you started the
licensing, the excuse me thefranchising journey, and
somewhere along the last fewyears you something clicked or
(12:25):
you saw it a.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Yeah, I think it's easy early on to think so
there's a couple of ways to lookat it.
Like, I really think that attimes we're in two businesses.
Right, we're in the franchisebusiness, which is a business in
and of itself, regardless ofwhat the end product or service
is, and then we're in thefitness business.
(12:51):
It's become apparent which Iknew already, but even more so
when you start putting scale onsomething you know a hundred
plus locations open that thewise for our customer avatar
have very little to do with sixpack abs and a lot more to do
with quality of life and I thinkI knew that intuitively.
um, everyone will have asecondary goal of weight loss,
typically right Coming in.
(13:11):
But really, if you read oursuccess stories, it's almost an
afterthought and the weight losswas just a byproduct of getting
to a healthier place.
But getting to a healthierplace allowed them to do what
our brand promise says, which islive life to the fullest.
So we have leaned heavily intothat message.
If you look at our successstory videos that we shoot, it's
(13:32):
like you know.
We've got a great one out therefrom a guy who climbed
Kilimanjaro.
Well, he lost weight and got inreally good shape aesthetically
, but that wasn't what he wastalking about at all.
It was all about this mountainclimb, right.
So we've leaned heavily intothat message, as opposed to the
typical fitness message.
Now, I knew it already, but,boy, at scale, it really has
driven that point home.
So maybe a reinforcement, ifanything, and then, on the
(13:59):
franchise side, developing that.
It's really a lot about purpose.
We get a lot of folks that havebeen working in corporate for
25 years, their burnout.
They want to do something ofmeaning and put some good in the
world and so, again, we'vereally leaned into purpose.
I mean, you have to start withcan you get return on investment
, yes or no?
If you can't do that, itdoesn't matter how much purpose
it has.
But then, beyond that, there'sa lot of ways to make money.
You could buy a franchise thatdoes fencing or gutters or
(14:19):
septic tank cleaning or whateveryou want, but it's really nice
to be able to get return oninvestment and put some good
into the world.
So we've really leaned heavilyin our messaging for our
franchise into purpose right,why we do what we do.
And it's really important notonly for our franchisees to
continue to be reminded of that,but for people that are
considering investing in Alloy,like hey, you can do something
(14:41):
that really puts some good intothe world.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Yeah, yeah, we were talking yesterday, and I think
we were talking about how todecide who you're marketing to,
or how to think about who youraudience is, and we were talking
about how saying you're over 50is not enough to say that's
your defining trait, becausethere are so many different
people in there, and when youstarted this, you told me once a
(15:06):
few years ago that youdiscovered that a lot of the
people that are in your audienceare the movers and the shakers,
the type A, the go-gettersright, I think?
You said yesterday something Iwanted to ask you about, and
that is that there's more thanthat.
It's not just the type A,super-driven people who have
succeeded and made a lot oftheir lives.
(15:28):
Was that something that youlearned throughout this too, or
how has that played into whoyou're serving?
Because, the reason I ask isbecause I get this a lot from
young gym owners not young inage, but who are newer in their
business than you are and theyask me well, who am I talking to
(15:53):
?
Am I talking to little oldladies?
Am I talking to studly Italking to little old ladies?
Am I talking to you knowsteadily 55 year old dudes?
Who am I?
Who's my audience?
And and I always say that's,that's up to you, let's talk
about it, but your messaging hasto align.
So how did how?
I'm just curious how thatevolved for you, if it did at
all.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Yeah, well, I think there's movers and shakers.
If you look at the archetypewheel, you can name characters.
One of the characters is namedmovers shakers.
I mean, you can imagine,smarter than the average bear,
maybe entrepreneurial.
You know, again, financially,that they're at least
well-organized enoughemotionally and financially to
amass enough wealth or to createenough income to be able to
(16:42):
afford an expensive service,right, discretionary income, if
you will.
So I think that mover shakerstill stands.
But I think when you look atthis population, jay, and I
think when you just look atpeople in general, you can have
someone that is a mover shakerfinancially, who's in horrible
physical shape, right.
So I don't think, I don't thinkmover shaker always means that
(17:05):
that person is also really fit.
I think what it means typically, as we're looking at it, is how
does this manifest itselffinancially?
And we all know the folks thatare financially very successful,
but boy, they've done it at theexpense of their health, right.
And so I think we get a lot ofthose.
So we get people that aresmarter than the average bear.
They do well financially, butthey're, again, they've done it
(17:26):
at the expense of their physicalhealth.
So I think, when you look at itthat way, from an exercise
standpoint, we're getting bothpeople that are relatively fit
that already exercise Typicallyif they have a few chinks in
their armor or injuries thatthey can't find a solution to
work around.
There's not a brand that can dothat.
We'll get those folks.
And then we'll get people thatare just fresh, either back to,
(17:47):
or first time ever to, astructured exercise program.
Um, and they just didn't seeanything in market that spoke to
them until, you know, we showedup and we have the right
imaging and messaging.
Obviously, that speaks to ouravatar, which is important.
So I think we we get both.
Both could still be defined asmovers and shakers, though,
because that would be reflectedin their financials, right?
(18:08):
Sure, and they're in that realm.
So that's what we've noticed.
If anything, um, I don't see itas much like a mover shakers,
like a super go getter in everyaspect of their life is hitting
on all cylinders.
I don't think it's that.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Hey, are you a fitness professional trying to
grow your business with peopleover 50?
If you are, then you need toknow how to communicate with
them, how to market to them andhow to get them to trust you
with their fitness, well-beingand money.
We're talking about millions ofpeople who are a little older
than the typical market that thefitness industry usually
pursues.
They have more money, more timeand better motivation to make
(18:50):
the best long-term fitnessconsumers you'll find anywhere.
If you're not focusing on them,you should be.
Prime Fit Content is the onlycontent marketing company
designed specifically to helpyou engage people in this group
and to help you distinguishyourself from competitors in
your community.
It's effective, affordable andsuper easy to use.
(19:11):
Check it out atprimefitcontentcom.
That's prime, like prime ofyour life fitcontentcom.
Back to the show.
Okay, yeah, I didn't.
That's good to know.
I guess I just want people outthere who are looking at you and
thinking, how can I emulatethis guy's success a little bit.
I want to help this market, butit's such a big, broad market.
(19:34):
Well, you just have to thinkabout it a little bit.
You did a lot of research.
You didn't just sit down oneday and dream it up and you
built your business around your,your, your research, so um what
affects everything.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
I mean we real estate choices.
Where are you going to put yourlocation?
Well, you needs to be a target,rich environment for our
customer avatar, right, and soobviously, with data you can
that's more of an algorithm youcan find a good place to put it.
We have final approval on that,so it wouldn't behoove any of
us to put it in the wronglocation, right.
But after to your point,clearly define your customer
(20:06):
avatar and there's a cascadingeffect in almost every function
of the business.
From your point, like themessaging you're sending, like
you know, if the business, fromyour point, like the messaging
you're sending, like you know,if you guys engage with Jay and
he's sending out newsletters acouple times a week for your
business, he's going to speakdirectly to this customer avatar
, right, because he knows them.
So even that's affected.
So every bit of communication,images, you know everything has
(20:29):
to speak to that customer and doit well, you know.
So that's I think that's whyit's so important, jay, and what
you're telling those folks thathaven't started yet is have a
clearly defined audience andthen that will affect almost
every other decision in yourbusiness.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Exactly so.
Over these last few years, youhave created a great many
opportunities, and you haveprobably found a few
distractions as well, right, andso I'm wondering how do you
decide what to ignore?
You know what's noise, what'sjust squirrel, and how do you
(21:04):
stay focused on the big pictureof what's really important for
developing the brand?
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Yeah, I think you know going into franchising
because I'm a consummateentrepreneur and I have lots of
squirrels that run through theroom and sometimes right through
my brain, you know, with all ofthese opportunities and extra
things to do, but if you'regoing to do something big and
massive, you need to just reallystay focused.
And it's different, it's verydifficult.
So I would say it's just a gooddiscipline and so the lens that
(21:34):
, at least that I use, jay, islike franchising is very complex
at times it's very litigious,there's lots of stages and steps
and a million other companiesthat are supporting it and it's
a beast, right.
But ultimately, if you cansimplify it down to what is the
real, you know needle mover in afranchise business, and the
answer is franchisee success.
(21:55):
If your franchisees are gettingreturn on investment, being
able to serve that purpose thatyou know was the at least the
secondary goal, right, why theyengaged with alloy then
everything's going to take careof itself.
That that'll fix sales, that'llfix, you know, the financials
of the franchise.
Because if the franchisees aredoing better, you know we're
sharing in their gross revenues,but by taking a royalty which
(22:18):
is a percentage of their topline revenue.
So they do well, we do well.
I love the alignment of thatbusiness it's a fractionalized
partner, if you will and so thatthen sets the perfect lens.
Will this distraction oropportunity would be a better
word Will this opportunity leadto franchisee success?
(22:39):
Right, I'll give you an example.
So I used to speak a lot.
As you know, I would speakmaybe 20 times a year at
different events.
Sometimes it was friends thatwould ask me to come out and
speak at events and, and, orjust ones that are speaking
circuits that I was on for 10years plus, and when we had a
licensing business, which meanswe were serving existing gym
owners, that was a very goodvehicle to get out and talk
(23:01):
about things, and then peoplewould want to hear more from you
and engage with you, and thenperhaps you could license them
right and power them with awhite labeled version of
whatever they needed.
Well, now that I'm intofranchising, those same speaking
opportunities aren't aseffective or maybe relevant for
my business.
So I say no to 99% of those.
(23:22):
And it's weird.
You know, it's a bit of anidentity crisis.
It's like, wow, I used to bethe guy that was up on the stage
and everybody loved what youhad to say but, like, my main
goal is to grow the franchise,so I'll take a speaking
engagement if it moves theneedle on the franchise,
otherwise I'm not doing it Right.
And so that's just one exampleof out of hundreds where I just
don't do things anymore.
(23:43):
I get a lot of folks that reachout and say, hey, do you still
do consulting?
No, and it's like, could I takea one hour phone call and
charge somebody 500 bucks orwhatever I used to charge?
Sure, but I don't do it becauseit's a slippery slope.
And it's like again, it's likea discipline, right.
It's like, okay, if you'retrying to lose weight, you could
eat an apple pie and maybestill lose weight, but you just
don't because it just, you know,it's just not the right thing
(24:04):
to do, and so same here.
So I can think of a millionexamples, but basically that's
the ultimate lens.
Does it help franchisees, helpmore people and, by default,
make more money?
And then, by default, it helpsus make more money?
If it doesn't do that, I'm notgoing to do it, period.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
So I think the lesson , maybe for other entrepreneurs
who have, who are notfranchising, might be to have
some lens.
It's going to be a differentlens than when, the one that you
adopted and referencethroughout your, throughout your
experiences I do that myself.
There's always a new socialmedia channel, there's always a
(24:43):
new app, there's always a newdoodad to help me do my
communications jobs better or tomarket my business better, or
to do something better andfaster, and some of it's pretty
sexy, you know, and it catchesmy eye and I'm like, yeah, I
want that, let's do that.
And, um, I have to think about,well, what's my?
(25:05):
My thing is I want to grow thebusiness.
I want to get my business to acertain number of gyms where I
have a certain ceiling, acertain minimum of clients.
That's what I think about, like, yeah, it would be fun to do
all those things, it would becool to go and learn how to do
(25:25):
all these new tools, but am Ilearning anything?
Am I helping anybody grow theirbusiness?
Am I growing my business?
That has to be it, becausethere's just only so many hours
in the day, right that?
we all have, I think really forentrepreneurs.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
This is the thing I see that may be the number one
mistake that holds them backfrom scaling a large business.
Sometimes you're in the wrongvehicle, I get it, and you're
looking for opportunitiesNothing wrong with that.
But once you land on somethingthat has legs and there's a
runway there, your ability towake up every day and just
(26:03):
incrementally improve on thatjourney whether it's product or
service or message or marketing,all the things right that come
along with building a businessUm, it takes a lot of discipline
to do so, so it may take you aminute to find your heat
signature.
You know we often use the termbullets before cannonballs,
which is from a Jim Collins bookwhere you have a finite amount
(26:25):
of gunpowder and you're an enemyship sailing.
You're sailing towards an enemyship in the old days where you
had cannons and it's like, well,do you pour all your gunpowder
and you only have enough for onebig cannon shot?
Do you pour it in there andhope you get it right, or would
it be more pertinent to put alittle bit of gunpowder and a
few rifles until you ping a fewoff the hull and get your range,
then load up your cannon?
(26:46):
So I think if you use thatprinciple we often say that in
our business, hey man, bulletsbefore cannonballs it's like you
can have some feelers out there.
You can give a little bit ofattention here and there, right,
because you don't want to haveblinders on, so focused on the
one goal that you don't haveanything in your peripheral that
you may miss.
But it's a fine line, right.
So it's a dance, it's a skillthat you can learn over time,
(27:07):
where there will be things thatpop up that are adjacent but do
help you towards that goal.
But if they're wildly differentand that's what we typically
see, and here's what we see butif they're wildly different and
that's what we typically see,and here's what we see If you
can't focus, what I'll see is afranchisee will start an
endeavor.
It might be mildly successful,but, boy, that push to get
through that ceiling that maybeevery business in that category
(27:29):
runs into is really justdiscipline.
And it's about again people sayit to do the boring work.
You know, do the thingsrepetitively until you get so
good at them that you can't bedenied.
That's how you do it, right.
It's not sexy, it's not fun,but what we'll see is
entrepreneurs will run into thatheadwind and, instead of just
buckling down and continuing todo the thing until they get
(27:51):
better at it and figuring it out, they will shift gears and
start something else.
And so, like you know, oh well,that's not where it's at, I'm
going to go here and do this.
And maybe it's like, oh, I'mgoing to go from a like I'm
running a fitness franchise, I'mgonna start a coaching business
now where I coach otherentrepreneurs on how to do stuff
.
It's like that's not the samebusiness at all.
And then guess what?
That thing might scale a littlebit and project, and you're
(28:16):
going to find out that you arethe roadblock.
You know you're the one holdingit back, because as soon as you
run into those headwinds,you're going to tell yourself
it's not the right vehicle, andmaybe I'll do this and maybe
I'll do that.
And then you're going to end upwith, you know, four or five
half-baked businesses that neverreally break through, do
anything significant, becauseyou couldn't stay focused long
enough.
(28:36):
Right, and you thought it wasthe business model you know, or
the opportunity, and it wasreally just you as an individual
.
So I see that a lot.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
Yeah, I see it a lot with with gym owners trying to
get their communications ortheir marketing messaging out.
You know they'll hire me to dotheir um, their content, and
three weeks go by and they don'thave 25 new members and they're
like this isn't working.
Yeah, it's a process.
For sure, it's the process.
(29:05):
Man, you got to give everythingsome time, okay?
So I promised you fivequestions and we've made it
through three, so I want to keepthis.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
All right, I'll keep it succinct.
Let's go.
No, I'm not.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
I'm just saying I'm trying to honor your time here
and stay to the premise fivequestions okay.
question number four is, uh, hasto do with marketing messages
and breaking through the newnoise, because we're all slammed
with so many messagesconstantly, right, um?
And so I want to ask you, justpersonally, to think of
(29:36):
something that has stopped youand got your attention,
naturally, when you weren't eventhinking about it.
Maybe you're scrolling throughyour social media, you're
flipping dials on TV or flipthrough a magazine, anything, I
don't care.
What was a message or an imageor something that made you stop
(29:57):
and laugh or think or get a tearin your eye, anything like that
yeah, I mean, look, there's abunch of those out there.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
As you were talking, I was thinking about an
initiative that domino's pizzadid one time.
That was super clever.
They um, you know, one of thebiggest complaints is like your,
the pizza may show up tosomeone's house and you know, if
you've driven over a real bumpy, lumpy road, you know, maybe
you shook.
The pizza may show up tosomeone's house and you know, if
you've driven over a real bumpy, lumpy road, you know, maybe
you shook the pizza up andthere's some cheese stuck to the
top of the box or you know,whatever it just it would be
disruptive to the structure ofthe pizza to bounce over a
(30:29):
potholed, pothole filled road,right.
And so what they did is they,instead of, you know,
complaining or complaining tothe city, they just started
fixing potholes and they wouldput like a little uh, domino,
you know domino's logo, you knowkind of transparent but you can
still see it like on top of thetar, and they just started
fixing potholes all over theselittle towns, right, that were
(30:51):
causing this disruption in theway the pizza was delivered.
They got tons of press fromthat.
Tons, I mean they got all kindsof national press and press
releases and stories written andlike it's just a really
creative way to look atmarketing.
It's like, well, here's aproblem bouncing down these
horrible streets trying todeliver these pizzas.
Not good for the pizza, peopledon't like it.
So we could complain about itand try to get the city to do
(31:12):
something.
Or it's not that expensive, wecan just go out and patch some
potholes, right, and they did,and so they got whatever
permitted they need.
They started patching potholesand, uh, lo and behold, it
turned into this massive,massive national marketing
campaign.
So that's one like gaudyexample that I thought was just
really thinking out of the box.
But I saw one today it's funnythat you mentioned that that I
(31:33):
thought was right on the nose.
It was for Amazon's new like um, you know, remote virtual
physicians and pharmacy serviceand it was a family on vacation
and the guys in the bed with hislike man cold you know we're
laughing, cause it's probablynot as bad as he's making it out
to be and there's a woman thereand she's in a bathing suit,
you know, and she's got thesetwo kids the floaties and, you
(31:54):
know, pool toys and she looksout the window and there's like
a wild water park, down belowthe window, and it's just all
kids running around and thedad's, of course, in bed sick,
and she just basically gets onAmazon, dials up the doctors on
the screen and she just reachesbehind her and just hands it to
him Like here, like we're notdoing this right, you're not
laying in this bed all day.
(32:14):
Well, I go hauling these kidsall over the waterpark.
He doesn't even have to say it,you just get it right away.
Because so many people have beenin that situation where it's
like you know, you go onvacation with two little kids.
It's really like it's kind of avacation also, kind of not.
And so this mom is just likeuh-uh, like I'll get you a
doctor, we'll get you some medsand they'll deliver right here
to way to advertise in a veryreal world example that a lot of
(32:37):
us, if you've had kids, havebeen in that situation.
So I just thought, I justlaughed.
I'm like so clever, the guy'sdying because he has his man
cold.
She's like we're not havingthis.
And she dials up a doctor onthe phone, taps him on the
shoulder, hands in the phone andboy right there on the screen
is the is the physician.
He's gonna have to tell him hissymptoms and then a couple
minutes later he's gonna getsome pharmaceuticals delivered
to his room so that he can takealso take the kids out to that
(32:59):
very fun wave pool.
It's flashed around with athousand other kids, right, but
it was just a clever commercial.
It speaks to something that alot of people have been through
and also speaks to theconvenience of like hey, you can
be laid up on vacation, get adoctor on the phone quickly and
have the meds delivered right toyour hotel room.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
So really cool Right.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
That's a good one.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
I like that You've made me want to call Domino's
pizza for the first time inabout what?
Since the dorm room?
At least they're patchingpotholes.
At least they're patchingpotholes, that's right.
Let's talk about small grouppersonal training.
I know something about that, Iknow.
I've heard that you do so.
You know, um, I want to saybefore the pandemic maybe I'm
wrong about this, you cancorrect me, but it was less
widely in use.
(33:46):
Is that fair to say?
Speaker 1 (33:48):
It's hard to say.
You know, we started it in year2000.
So I knew a lot of private gymsthat we had worked with as a
license that were doing it.
Typically just one locationowner operated, you know.
So there were people out theredoing it nobody at scale though.
But yeah, there were peopledoing it, but nobody really,
like I said, at scaling.
And sometimes the word smallgroup training would be used for
(34:09):
what you and I would call aclass, because it was really a
small group of 25 people.
Right so you know.
Then we switched to like, okay,personal training in a small
group, and I know that soundsnuanced and it is, but it's
important.
Small group training is just abastardized term that can be
used for any kind of a classspace concept, which we are not
(34:39):
at least it has in my mind.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
It seems like five or six years ago people weren't
quite sure what that meant.
Does that mean spin class with40 people in the room?
No, and then COVID happened andwe weren't doing that anymore
and we had to sort of refocus onwhat we were talking about,
kind of like with onlinetraining or video training.
So what I'm getting at isthere's often an evolution of
things.
Initially, we might poo-poothem or we might not understand
(35:00):
them, or we might think, oh,that's a ridiculous trend that's
never going to last.
So, given all of that, what'ssomething going on now that some
people aren't seeing or gettingor dismissing as a trend that,
if I'm a gym owner, I need to bepaying attention to?
Speaker 1 (35:16):
Well, I think it depends on the model really I
need to be paying attention to.
Well, I think it depends on themodel really.
I mean, there's other modelsthat are doing well that aren't
in our sector, like the you knowthe high value, low price.
So they're often, you know,hvlp models, which would be like
a planet and a cruncher.
Certainly those kinds of guysthey're doing really well right
now.
They're way up.
So if you look at a lot ofthese displaced folks, they end
up joining a regular old gym andfor nine bucks.
(35:37):
not a bad deal, right?
Some of these gyms offer a lotfor that.
So that's growing pretty well.
And then, in the boutiquesector which we're in, people
have moved away from maybecardio based choices which, as
we know this day and age,certainly in our avatar, our
target age group, it's likestrength is really where it's at
Right, and that's a verywidespread message right now.
(36:00):
So I would say, at least for thenext five years, you're selling
additional, like food tours andbicycle tours and whatever that
(36:20):
may be.
Just you know, tacking onthings like that, experiences
based on the location, right?
So if I rent the house, it'slike hey, would you like to do
this?
How about a food tour?
How about a bike tour?
How about a guided hike?
I mean, all you know, somebodycan come to your house and do
yoga, have a chef come over andmake you dinner, all these
little services that have poppedup that are very popular right
now.
So I think, if you're looking atour industry, think more
(36:44):
experiential, which at times caninvolve AI and at times it can
be at the expense ofexperiential meaning.
There's normally a people topeople connection there, you
know, and so some automation isgood.
But as we all push for fully AIdriven, full automation at
least our lens is that needs tobe just to bring down friction,
(37:08):
to get humans together right,because we still haven't evolved
to the point where we don'tneed other humans in our, in our
circle right, and to be withpeople.
Ai is not quite there yet Now.
Who knows it moves so fast?
I mean, you hear all thereports it's 500 times faster
than we are and who knows what'shappening right?
But right now, that's at leastwhat I see.
What people might be missing onis like you fall in love with
(37:31):
the tools and the stuff, but notnecessarily what the stuff does
right.
And so for us it's about makinghuman to human connections and
just making people again livelife to the fullest.
I don't think AI is going to dothat now, but there are parts
of the business where it willbring down friction to make
those things easier to get to.
You know, it might bring downfriction for our franchisees.
(37:53):
I mean their efficiency tools,yes, all of that, but as far as
the customer experience,efficiency tools, yes, all of
that, but as far as the customerexperience, um, not so much
once you get together.
So, anyway, that's where we seeit, and it's really hard to say
beyond a few years out, jay,just because tech is moving so
fast.
I don't even you know who knowsreally.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
I know it's fascinating and and um and I'm
glad to hear you talk about itwithout any fear, and I'm not
afraid of this either there's somany people afraid that ai is
going to ruin everything.
It's like, I don't know, maybewell, what do I know?
But I'm not worried about it,it's like it's always.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
It's always an ant right like there'll be.
Just like any tool that evercomes out, there'll be a ton of
super positive things andthere'll be governments that are
trying to weaponize it rightand do terrible things with it.
But that's humans.
Anytime you give a tool likethat to humans, you know that's
going to happen.
There's there's good playersand bad players, and that's
always going to be the case.
So I tend to be glass half full, like yourself.
(38:46):
So I look at all the positivethings that AI is going to bring
.
I can't do anything about thenegative things.
Anyway, I'm not running anylarge governments this last time
.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
No, no, no one's asked me to do that.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
I have no effect over whether we're going to build
bots that murder people and dohorrible things.
I don't know If it becomessentient like the Terminator and
kills us all.
Also can't control that, so Ichoose to look at all the
amazing positive things thatit's going to bring to our
business to get people together.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
I like that, and that concludes our five questions.
But I'm not going to let you gojust yet, because you hit on
something this idea of broaderexperiences and bringing people
together and the role thatfitness plays in that.
It goes into a main theme ofwhat I write about, and I know a
main theme of what Alloybelieves in, and that is that
this being fit later in lifegives you, when you have the
(39:35):
strength and endurance andagility to do the things that
you want to do, you have abetter life and a better, longer
health, span, play span,whatever you want to call it.
And I wonder if there are someopportunities coming up.
You know, or maybe they'realready here, where gyms and
fitness businesses cancoordinate or or you know, uh,
(39:58):
market together with other Idon't know travel organizations
or biking organizations orhiking groups, or what have you
to to get to sort of bring downthe walls between going to the
gym and having a fit lifestyle,because you know we really want
people to be healthy and fit,which maybe that's going to the
(40:21):
gym and lifting weights, andmaybe it's doing something else.
So if you can incorporate that,if we can incorporate that in
people's minds, that, um, it'syour life.
It's not just a place you go tothree days a week for an hour
and complain about how much youhate it and why, how come I'm
not losing any weight and thissucks.
It's, it's your life, whatever.
(40:42):
Whatever that might be, um, Ithink that that's the
possibility that, uh, you know,I think it's gonna appeal to a
lot of people who who just stilldon't get it about strength
training and going to the gym,and we can keep bringing those
messages and making inroads, butwhen we connect the different
(41:05):
parts of their life, man, that'swhere it happens, I think.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
Yeah, totally agree, totally agree.
I look forward to where we endup with those things.
But yeah, obviously we're onthe same path, so I get it 100%.
Speaker 2 (41:18):
Yeah, okay.
Well, rick promised you fivequestions.
You gave me five and a half, soI appreciate that and look,
they were great questions.
Speaker 1 (41:28):
It's an honor to be on once again.
I think we're multi guests oneach other's podcasts, yes, so
nothing wrong with that.
But yeah, man, thanks forgiving me a chance to to express
some ideas, and the questionswere different than the normal
question, so I appreciate thatwell, good, that was, that was
what I was hoping for, because,uh, yeah, yeah, gotta do
something different.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
Gotta keep it fresh, all right, my friend, good to
see you.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
Good to see you, rick .
Thanks, all right, bye, cheers,cheers.
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