Episode #518: Beyond the Gym-Exploring Cities with Michael Riordan's City Fit Tours

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leads flow based on the wizard. Go get

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them. This is Pete

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Moore on Halo Talks NYC. I have a fellow New Yorker joining

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us today. We're gonna talk about living an active lifestyle in

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the city curated for optimization.

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Mike Reardon, welcome to the show. Thank you so

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much, Pete. Super happy to be here. Awesome. So, you

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know, we, we've been saying that, communities that are based

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on solving loneliness, diabetes, and obesity,

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is the future. Getting people out of the house and also, you know, whether

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on trips, they are actually, you know, doing their their

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routines or finding new routines. So talk about how you kinda stumbled

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across this. Was it a personal frustration that, you went to

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new cities and you kinda, like you know, we're looking for someone to help you

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do that? It's actually kind of a combination of that,

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where I would go away somewhere. One time, I was actually in Hawaii, and I

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went to go to the gym. And there was a line of people

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waiting to run on the treadmill, and I was like, well, what am I doing?

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Right? I'm in Hawaii. Why would I waste my time in the

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actual gym when I can go run on the beach and, you know, up in

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the hills and all that stuff? And I did it, and it was one of

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the greatest runs I've ever taken in my life. Right? And then as I was

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working as a personal trainer, a lot of my clients were

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traveling for business. And whenever they would come back from somewhere really cool, whether

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it's Bermuda or Chicago or whatever, I was always like, oh my god. How was

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it? And answer was always the same. It was that they

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were there for work, and they didn't get to actually see anything

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local or do anything that was really, like, a local experience. Mhmm. And

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so I was like, oh, that's kind of a bummer. And then I'd ask if

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they, you know, if they actually did get to work out and the answer was

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always they would come back with, well, I went down to the fitness

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center and ran on the treadmill for 10 minutes, felt about how

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bad it sucked, and then went and got another croissant and a cup of coffee

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and got ready for my sales meeting. I hear you. I was like, yeah. Okay.

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Well, that that's a bummer. And then I started thinking about how many people were

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actually coming to New York City and having that same exact experience, where they're

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stuck in a trade show booth or in a conference room or whatever.

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And, I did a quick look to see if anybody was doing

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anything that was fitness focused for travelers,

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visitors to the city. And And how long ago yeah. How long

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ago did you start this up? This was, in 2014. So

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we're just coming up on, on 10 years. Congrats.

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Thanks. You know, we we did a, interview with, ABC,

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Financial, and they said that there were a 34 year overnight success.

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So gotta build build value over time. You know, as we look at the space,

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obviously, you know, people are coming here. It's not necessarily

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a recurring revenue business, but I I saw on your site that you've got, you

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know, a run-in Central Park or the Cherry Blossoms tour

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or, Brooklyn Bridge and and run through Chicago. Are you

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actually have employees? Do you have, trainers

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that that you're affiliated with? And then you've got a 40 to $50

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price point. So tell us kinda how that all came about and how your network

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works. Sure. So when it when it first started, I was actually

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leading all the tours myself, and then got to the point where

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an old injury started to really act up, and my ankle was was killing

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me. So it forced me to, you know, go out and

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reach out to some other people, who could be tour guides for

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me. Then the other thing, in in addition to the running tours, we also offer

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what's called the yoga walk. For people who aren't runners, they can actually

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do something healthy and active and get outside to start off the morning.

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And I, you know, went and hired a number of different,

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certified yoga instructors to come on board and do something different than just

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their typical in the studio sort of yoga experience.

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And so I started having this team that sort of came together. They all

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work as independent contractors. And it's been, you know,

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one of the greatest things that I did specifically also

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because, when we have corporate groups that come into

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town, we can handle larger groups of 50 to a 100 people

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because they have a team that we can break that large group up into smaller

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groups. So I've got, you know, tour guides can handle each of those smaller groups.

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You know, I went on your side. I was pleasantly surprised how many dates you

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have events going on. I mean, it's basically a daily,

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event business is is is what you're running. When you take a look over the

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last 10 years of, you know, ClassPass, Gympass, some of these other

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groups that are basically providing access to to bricks and

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mortar. Have you delved into that as part of the business? Are you kinda

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focused on, hey. This is outdoor experiential. I want you to be

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outside. I'm not I'm not trying to create a curated, you know,

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fitness studio experience or like a, you know, a bar crawl if you will, if

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you wanna go back to, you know, the negativity of of alcohol. But

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to talk about why you decided to just kinda stick to this component of

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the business and maybe as part of the the experience and, like, what you get

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out of it. Well, it really is what it is. It's it's it's an

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immersive experience for visitors to New York City that's focused on wellness.

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Mhmm. And for us to go ahead and become another fitness studio, that

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really wasn't our business model or idea

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at all. This was specifically for people who wanted to get

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to see the city, when they were here for whatever. Whether whether it

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was, you know, a leisure travel trip to come into town and explore as much

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as you possibly could in a short amount of time. Or if you were here

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on business and you had very little bit amount of time to do, you know,

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anything that was a a local flavored experience.

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So and and you kinda touch on

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something with that. Right? As if we were to open a studio had just

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pictures of New York City all around it, it it it's still a studio. And

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that makes us sorry. It it it's one of the things that I

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I learned early on was that the identity of

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the the Fit Tours business is that we are actually

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a tour company with a fitness twist as opposed to a fitness

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company with a tour twist. Got it. And and when when that clicked,

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that sort of like the path kinda opened up for how we got business.

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Gotcha. I guess the the the second part of the question is, do do

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people request and say, hey. I wanna do an outdoor tour, but I also wanna

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do a can you can you curate a solid core class? Can you can you

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get get us into Barry's boot camp? Does that ever become part of the

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conversation where you're basically giving them, like, a fitness, you know, 3 or

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4 days, you know, test out other types of indoor and outdoor?

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Sure. So we we do have people who are in town, whether it be specifically

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to run a half marathon or the marathon. Right? And they're looking

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for stuff in addition to just the touristy part. They wanna

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have, like, a curated fitness and wellness,

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schedule. And we've been able to, you know, deal with

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whether they be massage therapists or stretch labs

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or, you know, any different type of thing there. They certainly ask us

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that.

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This is Pete Moore. I wanna let you in on a little secret. There's this

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company called Promotion Vault, and what they do is they give out rewards

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from retailers that allow you to incentivize your

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members without having to do zero down and 1 month

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free or giving away shakes or giving away t shirts. What

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you want to do is build a rewards program that lasts, that

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people value, and that doesn't discount your own products and services.

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So here's the deal. There's something called rewards vault. The rewards

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vault is going to allow a member to set up their own profile.

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They are going to answer questions. You are gonna get those answers. You're gonna be

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able to target those members, and you're gonna reward them inside your

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club, inside your spa, and outside of the club, and outside

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of the spa to get them to become loyal, to get them to

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pay their monthly dues, and to be rewarded properly

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for the actions. A lot of companies are cutting back on rewards. You shouldn't

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be. Promotion Vault's your answer. Trust me. This is real.

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So when you take a look at over the last 10 years, you know, obviously,

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you could go to you started with a a a whiteboard. You say, okay.

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I can partner with hotels. I can partner with travel agents. I can

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partner with go go direct. I can find instructors that

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have a lot of people coming in from out of town. How did you think

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about and, you know, without giving away the special sauce of how you you

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fill up these classes outside, and I can see on a schedule, you got a

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lot of classes and a lot of people, you know, attending. You know, for

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for an entrepreneur who's starting out and saying, hey. I'm I'm kinda starting from

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the bottom. And, you know, a lot of this is guerilla marketing

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and relationship building. So what what are some of the things you could say, hey.

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This is what I've learned. I I always use this term experience is what you

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get when you don't get what you want. So what is some avenues you said,

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hey. This might be a great idea, but actually, it doesn't work that way. Maybe

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it's a health club saying, like, hey. When people come in for day pass, you

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know, also offer an outdoor, you know, experience with us. Well, what's worth it? What

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hasn't? If you could give us a little bit of wisdom. Sure. And

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and listen, if there was, you know, at the very beginning, it is

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throwing out as wide a net as possible because everybody wants to come join us.

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Right? If I build it, they'll come. They'll Right. You know, people still

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think feel the dreams. And it really has been you

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know, for example, I thought walking into hotels and speaking

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hotel concierges was gonna be my path to buying a yacht. Was

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that it just made so much sense. Right? But the thing

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that was was

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a real hard lesson to learn real quick was that

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what we do is very different, and it never really existed

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before. So when I would meet the hotel concierge, they would always say to me,

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what a great concept. We love this idea. We'll call you when somebody asks for

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it. And that was really hard to hear every time

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because I know that not nobody knows that we existed. So nobody

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knew to ask for it. And that the

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big thing that I had to do then was find out where we were gonna

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get people who were going to be able to actually embrace it,

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and then be a billboard for it. To, like, talk it up.

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And that was that was hard. That that's the real learning curve

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in this whole entire thing was finding the people who could bring us

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business. And, you know, that was a few hotels. It was

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more about corporate groups and that sort of

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thing. Interesting. Lesson we

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talked about was the price point. So, on your

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website, Mike, I see it's somewhere between 41 to 49,

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you know, per event, which is, you know, probably a little bit higher than a

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studio, but, you know, lower than a, you know, ticket,

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a a a cruise, or a tour around on a sunset, to

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Statue of Liberty. It's, you know, at an interesting price

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to maybe not give it away, but also to say, hey. There's a lot of

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value here, and you're gonna pay for that value and that experience and that curation.

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So how did you stumble upon that, and were there iterations to

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that? So my initial thought was

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to put it at a similar price point to, any of the fitness

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studios. And quite honestly, when we, you

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know, we're getting going, it ended up costing me money because I would

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pay you know, I like to pay my tour guides a decent amount of

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money for doing, you know, the the tours because it is not like

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working at a studio where also you just got, like, clients back to back or

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classes back to back. We do it, you know, once or twice in the morning,

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and then you're on your own, you know, you know, off to do whatever you

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do. So we needed to make it where it was

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going to be sustainable, where we could actually, you know, keep

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it at a fairly, inexpensive cost

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to our guests, but also make it so that we weren't just bleeding out

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money every time we got someone. And, you know, and then hoping that we, you

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know, would get more than 1 or 2 people at a time. And so that

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that's really the main reason that we came upon that.

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And when you have people that are basically representing your

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brand but not full time employees, how much training

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or, you know, callouts are you are you are you forcing? You

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know, there's there's there's groups out there that, you know, as an analogy, you

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know, a studio wants to present a certain, you know, experience with their

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brand. They also have instructors that wanna have their own personality and vibe to

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it. So how do you kinda manage that? You know, obviously, people are

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outside. So is there headphones that they're talking or are they

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shouting or, you know, what what are some of the things that are, like, nuances

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to this? So one of the things that probably the

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smartest move I ever did, in my hiring practice

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was to go to find actors and performers.

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And one of the main reasons was that was when I first started the business,

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I, you know, hired a bunch of my friends who were trainers, who I

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knew were, like, total badasses in the studio. But then when they get out to

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Central Park and they're, you know, meeting people that they've never met before, all of

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a sudden, they would kind of freeze up. And I'm feeling like, who are you?

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Like, what happened? And I just realized it's a completely different setting. It's a

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completely different, you know, situation. And so I needed to

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find people who were performers. And, there's a, you

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know, a website called Backstage, which used to be just a

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newspaper for actors and now it's just a Yeah. I remember that. Big website.

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And I could, you know, post a job and I would always put on the

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front, like, this is not an acting gig, but we're looking for fitness

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focused tour guides. And, you know, I would get

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a ton of people back and I'd sit through and all of a sudden I

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would find these absolute superstars who were

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full of life and energy and could take the

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not the script that we would give them, but the information. Right? The basic

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information, the history about Central Park, for example. They could take it,

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make it their own, and make it an entertaining

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discussion, right, to to talk with people. And and the biggest

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part is that they'd be welcoming and friendly people. And in that

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situation, you know, it it's just it becomes a very

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interactive and social situation, where they're

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talking and they're loud. They can project because they're actors and all that stuff. And

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it's just it's a it's a pretty cool thing to see when that

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happened. I was like, oh, right. There you go. Of course. Actors who

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wanna look good, so they're they're very fitness focused, and they just

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naturally are outgoing people. So that really worked well for us.

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This is Pete Moore. Here's the last tip for you of the podcast.

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You know, a lot of groups, when they're in one city, they say, okay. I'm

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gonna go to the next city. I'm not sure which one it's gonna be. You

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know? In New York, maybe you're going to, you know, Philly or Boston and

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just kind of, you know, go into adjacent larger, urban

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areas. You know, I see you went to Chicago. How much of that

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is, you know, your comfort and knowledge of a

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city versus, hey. I did a lot of research. This is what the research

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tells me, and this is where I'm gonna go. Yeah. Great question.

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So one of the the things and the reasons that we started with Chicago,

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which is a city that I absolutely love,

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was that during the

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pandemic, when when, you know, travel was shut down, the world was shut

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down, on a Facebook group of international,

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running tour operators, there was a guy who posted that he was

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looking to sell his business. And I was like, well,

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right. Well, here's a opportunity to take over a a

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Chicago based running tour company. Gave him a call. We had really similar

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philosophies, and he was just getting really busy with, another

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side business, a tour company that he was doing. And,

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he just basically gave it to me. And so that was, you know,

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super exciting. One of my best friends lives in Chicago. He's in

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the hotel, meeting planning world. And

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so I reached out to him. So what do you think of this? He's like,

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I'm all in. Let's do it. So that was sort of

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an easy fit. Went out there a couple times and fell in love

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with the city more, got to know the city better, and

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just started to create, you know, running routes and the yoga

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walk courses that I thought would would be great. And then

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started hiring, you know, locals and started getting their feedback,

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and it went from there. It's funny. My next

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question was gonna be, how do you value a business like that,

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and what would you pay for it? So getting the keys is always a a

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a a great option. So it sounded like this guy just wanna make

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sure that his baby did not did not stop breathing,

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and and someone had basically taken over. I think that might be a lesson

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for some of the entrepreneurs that are out there that get into the sector. Maybe

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things aren't working out as as planned. And if someone's willing to take over your

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lease and some of your obligations, you know, that might be considered a

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win. So so that's really interesting. You

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know? And one thing Sorry to interrupt. But one one thing that

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really facilitated that whole opening in Chicago was

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something that happened last year that I'm I'm super excited about. And this, I

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think, could be a good lesson for people as well who might be struggling and

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and looking for creative, you know, out of the box kind of ideas.

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Right before the pandemic, my only competitor,

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in New York City was a company called City Running Tours.

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And the owner, guy by the name of Michael Gazzella, reached out to

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me and, you know, just introduced himself, said he he saw that,

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you know, what I was doing, thought it was great, and suggested we get, you

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know, meet up for a coffee and just discuss, you know, the the state of

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the industry kind of thing. And so once I got past

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my, you know, leave the gun, take the cannoli kind of moment, like, why does

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this guy wanna meet me? We just hit

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it off really well. Had very similar philosophies of what we

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wanted our business to be. And we ended up working on

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a couple of projects together. Got to the point where we would lend each other

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running tour guides and stuff. And, after

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when the pandemic hit, we continued to work on some projects.

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And when everything started to come back, we were just, you

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know, found ourselves working, on the same thing, butting our

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heads. And then, you know, finally, it just came up.

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It's like, why are we doing this? Going after the same people and and

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all that. Why don't we just merge our businesses? And, you

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know, once we both kind of sat there, we're like, yeah. It just

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makes sense. So my original company was Fit

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Tours NYC. His was City Running Tours. And we have recently

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become City Fit Tours. And that has been a

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really really great thing because when you are an entrepreneur

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and, you know, the owner of a small business, you are doing everything.

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Absolutely everything. And that's that's hard. You

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know? All the different hats that you wear. And if you can bring in someone

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and and I was incredibly lucky to do that, to meet with someone who wanna

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get along with really well, had similar philosophies.

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And we are you know, we were doing basically the same

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thing, but we're different enough where it was an opportunity for

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both of us to grow our business and merging our businesses

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together was a great idea, and it's it's moving really

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well. And and falling on to that,

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have you guys given yourselves different titles? Are

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titles important in your business? We call

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ourselves cofounders. Okay. And, you know, it just

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organically sort of fell into what our roles were

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gonna be. Right? So he's more of an operations guy, and I'm

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way more of a business development guy. And that has obviously

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been great. So he's handling more of the, you know, the day to

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day stuff with our tour guides and scheduling and things like that.

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And then I'm getting out there able to meet with,

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you know, or or, you know, spend time on LinkedIn, for example. This

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Sunday, I'm going out to a a travel industry,

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expo in Chicago. So I'll be out there for a few days just meeting

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people and and doing all that stuff. And knowing that he can manage all this

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stuff here while I'm gone is fantastic. And so it's just, you

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know, sharing the workload has been a really, really great thing for us

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together. That's great. And the last question is, you

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know, as you see a lot of convergence of, you

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know, health care, health insurance companies trying to get people outside, you got

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pickleball, you've got people training for specific events,

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how do you kinda look at that and say, you know, I'm sitting on a

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database that has all these people that are, you

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know, active lifestyle enthusiasts, but I'm not

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really actually trying to mine them for something else. You know? I'm providing experience.

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I'm holding true to my brand. And if you come in from business school and

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tell me what to do, that sounds great on paper, but I'm running my business

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the way I wanna run it. And I'm making money profitably, and this is

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what I wanna do. Do you get sometimes people come to you and say, oh,

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I would do this with the business or, you know, I would go to 50

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states and 50 cities, go raise some venture capital money. I'm assuming you and your

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partner would just say, hey. Thanks. You know, appreciate the idea, but, like, we're not

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working for anybody but ourselves. So if you give the the argument to say, hey.

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Look. You could do that and get on your own treadmill, which is gonna be

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a disaster at some point, or we're gonna do it our way. We're gonna do

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it outside. We're gonna provide experiences that's gonna lead to, you

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know, repeat business or additional business.

383
00:23:41,900 --> 00:23:45,260
Right. Yeah. So it's it it is we we get that

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call at least 3 times a week, right, where people are saying, hey. You know,

385
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we could help you grow the business if you just did it this way. And,

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you know, we're pretty thick headed. And, we

387
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see all the 5 star reviews, that we get. Everybody, you

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00:24:00,100 --> 00:24:03,460
know, calls us and and when we, you know, get out there and are on

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the actual tours, having people say to our

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faces, this has been the highlight of my trip to New York City or the

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highlight of my trip to Chicago. We know we're doing it right. Right? Yep. And

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the fact that it's it has been growing steadily organically,

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we're we're you know, we can be patient. Don't get me

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wrong. We certainly get frustrated often. But we

395
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know that we're on the right path. And it's just a matter of a little

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bit of, little bit more hard work and sticking with

397
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it, being patient, and going from there.

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Sounds great. Well, since we're up by you, we'll, we'll get together,

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break some bread, give you some ideas of who we can introduce you to, and

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you can say yes or no, and we'll go from there. Awesome. Thanks for coming

401
00:24:46,865 --> 00:24:49,845
on. Appreciate it when you don't. You got it. Let's go, Rangers.