Episode #536: Marco Ferdinandi's Journey-From Asia to America with AQ Strong & Exxentric

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We got the Atlanta clubs on it, Vida Fitness, Gold's Gym,

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Mountainside, City Fitness Philly, College Park.

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This is Pete Moore on Halo Talks NYC. I have the pleasure of bringing

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Marco from Parts Unknown, Space, Hong Kong, and

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Jersey City. We are gonna talk about flywheel training. We're gonna talk

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about AQ Strong, and we're gonna talk about the future of

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fitness. So, Marco, welcome to your first Halo Talks. Be really

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excited to be a guest here today. Awesome. Thanks for growing out the mustache for

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the show. We really appreciate that. We know it probably was a lot of work.

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Every day. Awesome. So, look, you've got a,

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a pretty, storied career here, going back, and

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you've known Ganelon for a long time with, with with kettlebell concepts

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Yeah. Into Velocity Sports, on the, on the Upper East Side back in the

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day. So give everybody a little bit of your background, and then we'll, we'll rift

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to current events. Yeah. I've been involved in, fitness industry,

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athleticism for a long time. Not myself the greatest athlete, but that's

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part of what spurs my passion is that I'm always trying to learn how to

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be better and be a competitor in some way. So I have a background in

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strength and conditioning, graduated from Rutgers, in New

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Jersey and started out as a strength and conditioning coach there, but very quickly

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went into a variety of fields. Worked on a cruise ship for a little while,

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went into commercial fitness, worked in a performance center in

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New York. It's still there, Velocity Sports Performance. Moved

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to Asia in 02/2010 with a company called Pure Fitness and,

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started my own brand in 2019 called AQ Strong, and that's what I've been doing

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the last few years. So so what prompted you to to to

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go to Asia? And, how is the pandemic, starting a

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new business in a foreign country? Well, I don't wanna go through that again. That's

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for sure. I'm sure nobody else does either. I really enjoyed it. I loved

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moving to Hong Kong. I moved there in 02/2010. Pure is a brand

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that's very similar to, I would say, Equinox in The US. It's a a

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premium lifestyle brand. At the time, we had a great leadership

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team, and my role was to basically build a personal training and

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fitness, services and product. And, we were able to do

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some really innovative things. We we grew our client penetration

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from 8% up to above 20% in a matter of four years, so

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we just crushed it. And we were in a in in a great market to

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do it at the time. So we had a lot of fun there. We did

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some really innovative things, Hong Kong, Singapore, Shanghai.

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But at some point, I saw that there was a gap in the market just

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for, you know, athleticism in general. And where the industry was going,

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we wanted to leverage this idea of athletic wellness. So

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we started AQ Strong with that purpose in Hong Kong.

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What is it? What's the AQ stand for? Athletic quotient, which

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is basically our our formula of what people need for

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lifespan, health span, and longevity, which is coordination, mobility,

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strength, power, speed, and, conditioning. Yeah.

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So not necessarily anything magic there. It's how you put those ingredients

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together. So so given that you were out in Hong Kong, kinda

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understood the market by working at Pure, you know, when you started to

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to launch a new business, talk us through as an entrepreneur, you

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know, what what what size location were you looking for? You looking for

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something that was close to that current location because you have loyal members that were

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basically gonna follow you? You know, tell tell us how you kinda put that together

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because sometimes you start a business in a foreign country

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and Yeah. You don't know what the rules are. You're not really sure, like, the

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traffic patterns. So so talk us through how you got confidence to do

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that. Well, for sure, it was helpful that I've been there for

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for already eight, nine years, running the Pure Fitness

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Club because I built a great network of, you know, local partners,

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including, you know, the the vendors and the providers, but also local

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contacts, and importantly, a great local team of coaches

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that we had a great network with. We weren't going after the same customer. We're

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really going more after as opposed to a lifestyle brand, we were more focused on

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the athleticism of it. And so we were going after a different kind of customer,

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people who saw themselves as a little bit more competitive in a different way.

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So our environment and our whole mindset was we wanna open something that looks like

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an NCAA division one training center, that when you walk in there,

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you feel like you're part of a team. And so all of the requirements were

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driven by that. And what what what was the capital formation?

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Did you bring in some some members? Did you bring in some private capital

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that was already in Hong Kong? Or Yep. We had we had an angel no.

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We had an angel investor that that contributed the bulk of of what we needed

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to get started. But we started small. We just started with education for

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the first six months. We were doing coaching courses because we had a background in

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it. Then we did a pop up lab for about a year, which was basically

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a short term facility on a month to month lease, bare bones and just

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running athletic stuff, you know, using bare bones equipment. Once we

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had a critical mass of people who were interested, we had a good coaching network,

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then we went and took the leap into a full fledged facility, which was

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10,000 square foot, which is still there to this day. That's great. And

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then did you find that a lot of the trends of,

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you know, weekend warriors or, you know, people are training for a triathlon or

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marathon or, you know, a tough model or a sport race, what have you,

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did you kinda was that proliferating at the time also in Hong

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Kong? Or or is it be ahead or behind the the

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No. I think it was it's a very competitive environment and things like adventure

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racing and and, you know, certainly High Rock's very successful in

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Hong Kong at the moment. I think it's it's tends to be right there

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in the trends with New York or London or LA and how

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people view their health and their wellness and their fitness in their very competitive

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environment. But what we found is that, you know, athletic wellness is kind of

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like following the trends of sports science and bringing

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the sports science to the everyday individual. And that's

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where we really see that there's a lot of convergence even now in what's happening,

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internationally and in The US market. When you think

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about you know, one of the issues I have with this industry in general daily

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since I've been in it for twenty five years. Just one? Yeah. Just

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one. Just one. But I'm still here. The price to value

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is always off. The the the quotient of price to value Mhmm. Is

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always, like, you know, people are paying a monthly fee. Yep.

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And it's probably one of the top three things that they talk about that are

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important to them in their life. You know, if I see, like, a CrossFit charging,

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like, $65 a month, I'm like, they they might wear a

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tattoo that has CrossFit on it. So charge them 300 to 500 a

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month because it's probably the most important thing in their life. So when you're in

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Hong Kong yeah. So when you're in Hong Kong and you take a look at

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where you started with AQ and what you think the price to

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value is, or if you start a new venture in The US or whatever you're

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doing, targeting these athletes that, obviously,

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that extra couple seconds or those extra minutes, that's

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that might be the most important thing to them that they're gonna talk about. So

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how do you think about that, and what do you think the maximum is that

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people are gonna start to spend as they focus more and more on

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their longevity and, you know, just overall, you know, being

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an athlete till 50 or 60? We think of it as

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as well, we have pretty good data on this from our membership base. We have

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about 400 members at the moment in the club. And the and the

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average revenue per member is just around $2.85

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US a month. So but the bulk of that comes from them coming

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to structured classes. We we have our core product. It was what something

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we call semi private coaching. So our core belief is that everybody works with a

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coach. Doesn't have to be all the time. It doesn't have to be $24.07, but

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everybody works with a coach. That's where we see the greatest value. So that

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core spend of $2.85 is just the core of what people are coming in,

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just, you know, the price of admission, but they're getting a lot out of that.

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And then they'll top up. They'll top up for extra, you know, barbell classes

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or one on one sessions or recovery or some kind of

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manual therapy. So they're constantly topping up, and that starts

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to drive the revenue per member closer to $4.50

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per person. And we still think that's probably about yeah.

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Yeah. Go ahead. So there's a group out of New York that,

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picked to call themselves New York Athletic Clubs maybe. Mhmm. And you

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join you join like a squad. You don't actually join a physical

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location. When you're talking about, like, you you you're working with a coach, is

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there a coach that is responsible or, like, has,

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like, 50 or a hundred members kind of, like, underneath them? And then what's

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or how is that set up there? And and the reason why I'm asking the

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question is because I go to these clubs sometimes, and I'm saying,

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like, hey. You know, you lost 3,000 members last month. You know, you you

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that's basically, like, 50%, of your membership that you're

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churning annually. And I said to this crew of managers,

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sales managers, personal trainers, who's responsible for this? And nobody raises

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their hand because they're basically playing like zone defense. Yeah. So when you talk about

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coaches, talk about how that works or how it could work. We

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we follow the division one model, which is basically you have a head strength and

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conditioning coach, in our case, as a performance coach. And

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we have daily huddles in which the coaches talk about the athletes, which is

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everybody that joins. And we're talking about who's coming in for the day, who

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hasn't been in recently, and there's constant communication. But we don't

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assign specific athletes to specific coaches as much

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as we assign specific coaches who have areas of expertise. So

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So someone who might be strength power related is talking about strength power for everybody.

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Gotcha. So from from a standpoint of looking at

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attrition in this type of model, how much lower is it than the average?

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If you correct for people who are leaving Hong Kong, because Hong Kong has been

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especially in the last few years, we've had a lot of exits from Hong Kong,

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our attrition is less than 10%. Yeah. If you put that back in, it's closer

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to 20% annual. So, most of the people that we've

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lost, we've lost because they've left Hong Kong completely.

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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 one month

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free or giving away shakes or giving away t shirts.

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What you wanna do is build a rewards program that lasts,

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

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

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The rewards vault is going to allow a member to set up their own

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profile. They are going to answer questions. You are gonna get those

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answers. You're gonna be able to target those members, and you're gonna reward

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

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the club and outside of the spa to get them to become loyal,

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to get them to pay their monthly dues, and to be

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rewarded properly for the actions. A lot of companies are cutting back on

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rewards. You shouldn't be. Promotion Vault's your answer. Trust me.

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This is real.

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So you decided to come back to The US, hanging out in Jersey City,

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growing out an awesome mustache, by the way, if this was a video podcast.

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Thank you so much. So no problem. Talk about the, you know, why

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you gravitated towards the flywheel training. Talk about eccentric,

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and, eccentric. Sorry. And and where that

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started from, you know, with NASA and, you know, the systems in

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in space and how you brought that down back to Earth. Yeah.

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Wait. Well, I wasn't involved in that phase, but that's for sure. But but, I've

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met the eccentric team when we were in, Pure Fitness in Hong Kong as part

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of we had an innovation lab. We were really testing all the unique things,

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that were happening in the sports science world that we could bring into a fitness

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setting. And I learned about flywheel training. It was around 2014, '20 '15

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when I learned about it. And I was like, wow. This is amazing because it

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focuses on, the eccentric phase of the exercise as

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much as the concentric. And you could do it at high speeds, which is really

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I mean, if you get into the science of it, which I'll leave for another

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talk, it's really valuable, for people to get results

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and to really improve their well-being as well as their performance. So we

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started using it in that setting. And then when we started AQ Strong, it was

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a core partner who became a partner reseller for the region. So it was

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natural for me when I came to The US to work with Accentriq, and

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I found that, really, the fitness industry doesn't know anything about flywheel training.

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It's in the performance realm. You know, every major team in in NBA,

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NFL, you know, NHL, MLB,

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they're all using it. NCAA, they're all using it because it's exceptional results

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for athletes. But the fitness industry doesn't know anything about it.

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So it's an opportunity to educate the industry and really help people get better results,

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and it's a great product, a great series of products. And and is that

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something that is typically, like,

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part of a workout, or is that, like, the core workout? It it

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really is up to the user. I mean, you you can use it. For example,

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in the performance setting, they'll use it for just one purpose. They'll use it for

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to to improve power on a squat or power in in a a deadlift

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or to prevent hamstring injuries because you can train fast in eccentric

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motion and deceleration. But you can also use it for rehab. You know,

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you can also use it as to potentiate something before a game to improve your

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power before you go out and play. So there's so many applications, and you can

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use it as an entire training method. Or you could just sprinkle it in, which

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is basically what I do. I do all types of training, but I sprinkle it

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in on an almost daily basis as part of my routine. Gotcha.

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And how how is this being marketed? Is this a certification for

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trainers to add to their current certification? How how do

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you is it a products, sale, business? You talk talk

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about the business. Yeah. At the moment, it's a product sale business. I mean, most

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of where it's gone into has been on the performance side where the coaches are

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exceptionally knowledgeable, so they know how to apply it pretty quickly. On the fitness

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side, that's where I think maybe there's a gap, and we're really starting to build

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on the education. So I think we need to lead with education and help

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train the entire market the value of not just Flywheel, but the value

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of eccentric and isometric training to our strength program. And as

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people start to understand that, as businesses start to understand that, they're gonna leverage it,

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and they're gonna it's that it's one way they can differentiate. Yeah. Especially with the

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trend in strength training now, it's a real opportunity for businesses.

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Mhmm. So so as you go into the fitness industry, obviously, you've

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been around it for a long time. There are some

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franchisors that you could target, and Yep. They they have

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mandatory purchasing, that their franchisees have to do to

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stay in compliance. You go to to certification companies

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and try and get, like, an NASM or ISSA. You

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could go into, like, you know, different parts of the corporate

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wellness market where maybe they're managing facilities. What what's

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been the best results for you

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in penetrating the market, and what are some of the frustrations

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and and some of the ways maybe you've kind of thought through that?

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Yeah. Well, the best is is to focus on a company that really wants to

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improve their personal training program. So any company that really wants to

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add revenue in their personal training, Flywheel is a phenomenal device

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because it immediately creates an opportunity for engagement between the

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coach and the user. And it's something that people

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feel different about. As soon as they use it, they feel a difference. And it

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as if they keep using it, they see a difference over time. So it gets

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great results in a short period of time. They start to feel a difference, and

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it leads to more personal training. So that is a key leverage

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point right there. Same same is true for small group small group training as

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well. And and what's the price point on, I guess,

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having what what do you do you buy a set or you're like for for

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10 or 20 people? What is that? Well, there's a there's a range of products,

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but it it's as little as a home product, which is the active, which is

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around 1,200 US starting in that range. And Black Friday is

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gonna be a great time to grab them because they're gonna be running some discounts.

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To the professional sets, which are much larger, have a wider variety of

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accessories available. I mean, the the power output you could put on these things,

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if you're into cycling, you know what top power is, 3,500 watts.

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It's limitless. I mean, you could do, really intense workouts.

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That range is a couple thousand, and it depends on what accessories you want. And

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and there's a wide variety of them. There's also a a leg extension and leg

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curl machines. So there's some variety of products in there for depending on your

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use case, depending on what you'd like to do with it. Gotcha. And how'd you

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get hooked up with this company originally? Through Pure in in

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Hong Kong. So we brought them in as part of our innovation lab and, got

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to know the team at Accentriq. We have very similar philosophy on strength development, strength

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training, that the idea that people are robust. And if you just challenge them, they'll

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step up to the to the demands and really grow. So we share

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philosophy. We share values, and the products are just exceptionally well

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made and simple, easy to use. Gotcha.

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It from from from a standpoint of what you want to accomplish,

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you know, over the next three three to five years. Talk us through, you know,

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you've you've been successful in international

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markets. You've been successful in The US. You know, how how do you

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kind of view your career path? And for others to kinda

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think about and say, hey. Yeah. I like where Marco is. I like

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his, you know, career experiences, international travel. You know, what

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what what else do you wanna achieve, or where where do you wanna go with

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this? Yeah. There there are two things I would love to see happen in the

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next few years. The first is this concept of athletic wellness. We wanna

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spread the message that, you know, lifestyle is great, but there's but you

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need some purpose. You need some something that that certain periods of your life, you're

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you're competitive at something. Certain periods of your life, you're really looking at your health

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span, and you're always balancing that out. And athletic wellness is really important to

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us. We wanna spread that. Whether it's to AcuStrong internationally or

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other means, that's part of my message. And the other is that

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flywheel devices are gonna be a standard. Just like, you know, you go

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into any club and you see pin loaded machines from Life Fitness or Technogym,

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you're gonna see flywheel devices because the benefits of eccentric

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and isometric training are just so good, and they

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overpower the benefits of just concentric, you know, pushing alone. Yeah?

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So they're just so good that they're gonna become the standard. And and if brands

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can figure out how to leverage that, not only is it great for business,

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but it's great for the end user. Everybody wins. Mhmm. And then

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what are some of the things that you see as potential trends

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going down the road? Obviously, you've got the Ozempic and

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and Mhmm. Wegovy or whatever that's called, which everyone thought, hey.

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This pill is gonna come out, and it's basically gonna eradicate the need for people

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who go to the gym. And now it's actually There's always a pill. To reverse.

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Right? There's always there's always now it's like you have to do strength training Yeah.

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Or else you could end up in, like, assisted living, you know, at an early

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age or you're just gonna, you know, whittle away. So, you know, as you see

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some of these trends and you see, like, the health savings,

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the spending account, and and FSA that you could use towards

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fitness, how optimistic are you that that, you know,

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over the next five to ten years that this obesity and diabetes and

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loneliness that we're actually at the epicenter of solving it? That's basically what we're trying

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to do. I mean, I think The US could

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correct it. So The US is is particularly bad at this, I think, you know,

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in terms of the obesity epidemic. I I think a lot of it is

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systemic, not just within the fitness industry, and maybe beyond the fitness

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industry to solve by itself. But what the fitness industry can

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do is is remove the barriers to entry

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for anybody coming in. And that's, you know, one of the great benefits of this

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HVLP model is that it it just really expands the size of the

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market and gives access to a lot more people. But then it's up to all

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the variety of boutiques and differentiators to really educate that group

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and try and bring them up to the next level and and blur the lines

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between training in a location, training at home, training on the road,

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whatever it may be. Just finding ways to make training not just

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a part of my life, but have some purpose here. What am I working for?

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What am I working towards? And how does it enhance my life and my

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well-being and, eventually, my health span? I I would say I'm

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generally an optimistic person. So, yeah, I think it's achievable, but definitely there

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are headwinds.

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

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344
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350
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351
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00:22:07,795 --> 00:22:11,575
and sweaty, and the recovery should be just as good as the workout.

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From a standpoint of what you're doing, you know, locally,

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are you currently, you know, training for anything in particular?

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At the moment, myself for training, no. I love to get outdoors. I'm I'm always

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about learning the skill. And right now, I'm putting a lot of time and effort

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into, Indian clubs, mace, and gada, which is a, you know,

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a skill I've been working on for the last few years. I guess you could

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call it a new well, I would say I guess you could call it a

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new training style, but it's been around a couple hundred years. But but it's very

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Middle Eastern style, originated from martial

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arts by using small clubs, wooden gutter, like, kinda like a

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heavy club, and a mace, which is basically a a long

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stick with a ball, a heavy ball at the end of it. And just learning

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how to train with those styles is it's been a lot of fun. You know,

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there's a lot of flow. It's not very different from a training style like kettlebells,

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to be honest. It it involves some level of skill, technique, as well

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as using your strength and your power. Got it. And and the last question

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is that you've, you know, been around the world, and you've

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been successful on the management side and the sales side. You got any

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quotes or, you know, things that, you know, Marco says I

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that that's always coming out of his mouth or anything? Little little

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wisdom nuggets for us? Well, my favorite, to be honest, is what we

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well, our tagline at AQ Strong, which is strong as a choice. And and that's

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you know, comes a bit from my stoic philosophy that I've adopted over the

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years, And it's it has a lot of levels and meanings to it. You know,

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it's just yeah. Your your wellness and your fitness is within your control,

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but your emotional well-being is within your control that you choose every

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day what you're gonna set out to do and achieve it. So for me, strong

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as a choice is something, you know, I got a sticker on my phone with

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it. It's on my laptops. It's everywhere I go, I see it. So for us,

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that's that's a big philosophy that we all share in in our

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company and just as individuals. So about a month ago, I started,

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I saw a, I think it was Seinfeld,

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that was talking about stoicism and Marcus Aurelius.

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And, so I got on the yeah. I I got on the,

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on the daily stoic, and I've been watching a lot of It's brilliant. A lot

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of videos and try and take everything and kinda turn it into a positive or

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just realize that you're in control of what you're in control of. It don't

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let other things, you know, knock you down. So

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it's actually been very,

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it it put me at ease Yeah. More more than,

399
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than than I was before. So I, if anyone wants to check out

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stoicism, it's definitely a

401
00:24:48,490 --> 00:24:52,175
philosophy that that will empower you. It's been tremendous through

402
00:24:52,175 --> 00:24:55,935
COVID. That's for sure. I mean, it's it's kept me grounded, you

403
00:24:55,935 --> 00:24:58,755
know, in particular, when when we were in Hong Kong,

404
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zero COVID, which was very intense, but it also the timing of it was intense

405
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because it was right when the rest of the world was opening. So as we

406
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see everybody else starting to live their lives again, we were just going into

407
00:25:09,940 --> 00:25:13,620
lockdowns. And Yeah. Honestly, so stoicism was a

408
00:25:13,620 --> 00:25:17,139
big help in that period because seeing the business, you know,

409
00:25:17,139 --> 00:25:20,795
basically sitting there doing nothing was was a challenge. Yeah. No. It's a guy

410
00:25:20,795 --> 00:25:23,935
named Ryan, Holiday. Yep. He's That's filed,

411
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virtues of, stoicism. Alright. Well, we'll leave everybody with that.

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Marco, thanks for coming on. Great work My pleasure. On on many fronts.

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It sounds like you affected thousands of people. Thank you so much for the

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time today. So if I build a successful business, you know, to solve these

415
00:25:40,020 --> 00:25:43,700
problems, we're not we're not in the nonprofit industry. So to

416
00:25:43,700 --> 00:25:46,980
find out that your location's still humming in,

417
00:25:47,540 --> 00:25:51,115
in in in Hong Kong's great, athlete quotient,

418
00:25:51,174 --> 00:25:54,855
and, let's keep making everybody stronger. Thanks for

419
00:25:54,855 --> 00:25:56,794
coming. Appreciate it, Pete. Thank you. Awesome.