Episode #558: Mary Laudati's Playbook for Boosting Health Club Revenue and Member Loyalty

0:00 I am super excited to announce that we now have a formal partnership with the Prospect Wizard. And when I say wizard, I mean wizard. Obviously you have a website. This allows you to convert your website traffic visitors directly into leads. It's not just another chatbot and it's not AI, but it allows a visitor to call, text, or leave a voicemail immediately. Goes to you, your sales team, or anyone else in the club instantly. MIT shows a study that if you contact the league within 10 minutes, chance of them converting goes up nine times. That of the average. We got the Atlanta clubs on it. Vita Fitness, Gold's Gym, Mountainside City Fitness, Philly, College Park. Become one of the next Halo companies. To deploy the Wizard.

0:48 It's easy to use. Go to the prospectwizard.com get a free 30 day trial. Talk to my boy Dave Gallen. He will get you all set up and let the leads flow based on the Wizard. Go get him. This is Pete Moore, Halo Talks nyc. I have a fellow New Yorker who you're going to learn a lot about. Mary Ladotti, who lives on the Upper west side, works out on the Upper east side. It's just right by the Halo epicenter of Integrity Square. So we're going to intercept you on your way back and forth. Welcome to your first Halo Talks. Thank you so much. It's so nice to be here and to finally meet you. Exactly. I feel the same way.

1:29 Ganilin, kind of like he holds these relationships so tight, you know, it takes years and years to like, he's like, oh, yeah, I've known this person. I'm like, why do you hold that back to. We're on podcast number 600. I gotta keep something close to my chest. Keeping it close. Like, yo, you're gonna keep me going here. Cause I got a couple more things up my sleeve. Like, he saves the best for last. So, you know. That's right. There we go. Always says to me the other day, he's like, I got Mary Ladi coming on, like, no way, bro. You gotta be kidding me. You're hiding. We're bringing on the Pasta Fazu. Yeah, I got, I got a pasta FA story about me and my cousin, my nephew, but that's for another time. Okay, so we're going to talk about sales, which everyone says, like, oh, I got a great sales team.

2:13 Oh, this is what I do. And then I realized, like, you don't really have a sales strategy. You don't have a script. You don't. You don't have. You know, actually KPIs so why don't you get your together and like, hire somebody to help you figure it out? So tell us what you've been doing for people. Because I think the actual sales team and the idea of doing things sequentially and in a process to get wins actually is kind of missing. So thanks for coming on. Yeah. Great to be here. I mean, you know, once again, we're in 2025. We're in a whole different place and time. Thank God the health club industry has rebounded and is stronger than ever.

2:53 And thank God we have more people understanding how important it is to be fit and to be strong. So we had a great 2024, a strong 2025. So far, so good. Everybody's doing really well. Obviously a part of work's roundtables. So we have roundtables and work with clubs in the United States, Europe, Australia. So from all of our people that are part of the roundtables, it's been also a really great start to the year. And, you know, what we do is we come together and we share best practices. We have roundtables that are just for owners, and then we have roundtables for department heads like pt, for personal training and for sales and marketing. So we can have that same kind of shared best practices, not only with the owners and the GMs, but also with the department heads. So, so explain to, to, to the audience here and to me that when you say we, you know, what does that entail and what type of team you have in place and are you curating sales strategies and systems and software? You know, it's not like, hey, I'm a software company. Let me show you how to deploy this. Is it kind of like going into the nuances of like, hey, who you are, how you do things, and then, you know, basically build that after you understand, like the DNA. Sure. So I'll talk a little bit more about my tape, my roundtable that I chair. So just first of all, most important thing is I have sales and marketing leaders, CMOs to, to

4:25 CRMs, and you name it, I've got them. So what we do is we come together and we really share what we're doing in regard to. And the biggest topic lately is software. What are you using, how is it working, and are they promising everything that they sold you on? Gotcha. And we know probably one of the biggest challenges in the health club industry is probably the number one important component that we need, which is great CRMs. So we basically, it's a big topic of conversation is what's on the Marketplace. What's working, what's delivering the best KPIs, what's, what's monitoring work production numbers, what is also integrating with other softwares that are actually recording sales calls that you could be a part of, that you can coach on. So what is the technology that allows us to coach, monitor, mentor and at the same time deliver great KPIs? So I've been around the space now for 25 years, started up a software company and tried to use some softwares like, you know, salesforce.com as an example, trying to like create that beast into like something that's actually customizable. We built the software back in the day, pre broadband that, you know, we're trying to tell people this is how you need to do it. So, you know, whether it's on a name basis or, you know, in this industry or outside this industry, like, who's doing a great job with saying, like, look, this is

5:57 flexible. I prefer to use this because the tech stack I thought was going to get smaller and it got bigger. I will tell you from my background, I was given a great gift when I was the VP of sales for Millennium Partners and I was overseeing the Sports Club LA brand and working for Dr. R. Curtis, he gave me the gift of Salesforce. We were one of the first B2C companies to actually design something with Salesforce. And it absolutely made all the difference in the world. And then as a consultant, really kind of wrapping my arms around everything else that was made for the industry. I keep coming back to we need something customizable like a Salesforce that can give us what we're looking for in reporting.

6:48 So we literally have finally worked with one club in particular that was like, we're doing really well, we don't know why. And we've actually put together a Salesforce edition for a company in Novi, Michigan, who is now kind of spreading the love and putting it out to their franchisees. So we've just launched this in the last couple years and it's really showing that the right software can make all the difference in the world. So I happen to be a huge fan of Salesforce because it is truly customizable. Yeah. From a standpoint of, of training, how much training, you know, is being done before you walk in, how much training is being done after. And I feel like this industry doesn't value, doesn't pay for and doesn't invest in their, in their employees as much as they should. Can you expand or contradict that?

7:47 No, I have revenue dollars behind it. You know, you know, so there are companies that have made the decision to bring in the software, bring in the technology, also include the training that goes along with it. And in, you know, Q1 over Q1, I've seen 25% growth in revenue. So we know it all makes a difference collectively. But the biggest thing is that when a company reaches out and says, you know, we're doing okay, but we could really use a boost this year, just to give you a quick idea, the first thing I'll say is, in order for me to work with you, we need to record your calls inbound and outbound, just to get a flavor and do some due diligence. We're going to shop your salespeople in your sales program. So shush, don't say anything.

8:36 Let us really take it all in. I'll give you an evaluation, then we'll custom design a program that will work for you because everybody's different. Gotcha. But I love ownership or management teams that are able to take the feedback and they're yearning for the feedback so that we can make it better. This is Pete Moore. I want to let you in on a little secret. There's this company called Promotion Vault. And what they do is they give. Out rewards from retailers that allow you to incentivize your members without having to do zero down and one month free or giving away shakes or giving away T shirts. What you want to do is build a rewards program that lasts, that people value, and that doesn't discount your own products and services. So here's the deal. There's something called Rewards Vault. The Rewards Vault is going to allow a member to set up their own profile. They are going to answer questions. You are going to get those answers. You're going to be able to target those members, and you're going to reward them inside your club, inside your spa, and outside of the club and outside of the spa to get them to become loyal, to get them to pay their monthly dues and to be rewarded properly for the actions. A lot of companies are cutting back on rewards. You shouldn't be promotion vaults. Your answer, trust me, this is real.

10:03 So one of the things that David, I have been harping on, and I was at a connected fitness conference a couple of years ago, it was all about technology. And everyone turn around, AI this and AI that. And so I was like, you know what? How do you feel about, you know, the future? And I'm like, kind of leaned in, I said, you know, just so everybody knows here, you can't have artificial intelligence until you have intelligence. Okay, so because you have like my credit card, you know, my birthday, you know, my first name and my address, like that doesn't make you intelligent about me as a member or a prospect or anything. So as you get in there. And we know that a lot of this industry historically has been based off of, you know, referrals or add ons to your, to your membership. And some companies said like an add on could be your friend. It doesn't necessarily have to be somebody, you know, like bay clubs, you know, now I think you'd add a friend. I don't even think they have to be like, you know, related to you or something. I might be wrong about that, but. I'm pretty sure you're, they're actually a client of mine. So it's all about shared, it's all about a shared membership. They're doing it brilliantly and it's here, here's a membership for yourself. Or you can add on five of your best friends, whoever you want. And now you have a shared membership which actually makes the investment better for each person. So the more the merrier now takes on a whole new meaning. Yeah, it's almost like multi level marketing like with inside your own membership plan. It's the best referral program ever because you get people at hello to start really referring their friends now versus a year or two into their membership.

11:35 Right. And then the other thing that we, David, I've been talking about when we get this artificial intelligence, you know, you need intelligence. You know, are you seeing companies either inside of Salesforce or inside of ABC or inside of you know, Dax or Club Automation, whatever that they're actually spending time like filling out like here's everything you should really know about this prospect or this member. Is that we there yet or you're focusing really on. Let me get, let me get people in solve that for you. The bottom line is look at, we're still in the people business. And as long as we're in the people business we just have to understand that we entertain many different types of customers. So everybody's coming from a different walk of life. So the things that really help is in a CRM or in anything else is to have a Google search on, you know, where they are in LinkedIn, what are they doing for business to get a little bit of insight about who they are as a person. Yeah. So you know who you're actually speaking with when you first meet them. But look, at the end of the day it's still a very personal conversation with most people. Knowing that more than half of who we talk to are not physically engaged in anything. Gotcha, gotcha. So what have been some of the, you know, whether you want to name clients or not name clients, what are some of the things you'd be like? You know what I'm so proud of? What? What? That this company actually had the, you know, the guts and

13:06 the foresight and the investment to actually get me in here. And, like, here's what resulted from that. And maybe in certain cases that kept, like, the club alive and that, like, now there's 6,000 people that work out at this club because Ladotti and crew. I'm saying that name. I'm just going to keep saying as much as possible. No one's editing this out, by the way, on the audio side, they'll be like, hey, look. You know, like, I feel, like, really proud of that. I'm like. I'm also like a tear in my eye because every health club is like 6,000 members that, like, either do that or maybe do nothing. Who knows? Sure, sure. No, I mean, like, it all started just taking the Sports Club LA to the next level, given the tools I was given and picking out my team and really putting together a sales culture, which I was extremely proud of and stayed with the company just because I could never leave my people. But I finally did break away to start my consulting business. Gotcha. And, you know, extremely proud of those people and I've taken many of them with me along the ride with some of my clients that need strong leadership. So been passing the torch along the way.

14:14 But, yeah, I mean, you know, Powerhouse Gyms in Novi, Michigan, is a great example of we're doing well, but we don't know why. And really going in there and taking almost two years to build the software out, integrate everything else, the bells and whistles for us to inspect what we expected. Yeah. And then to do all the sales training to see such growth in their revenues and then now starting to open up even more locations than what they planned of. So, you know, there's. There's the Oxford Athletic Club out of Pittsburgh. Yeah, sure. Yep. Another great one who I've been working with for the last couple of years. Not only the sales training, but also from their PCG capital investors saying, we want you to come in and do a total evaluation inside and out of our business and give us recommendations of how to be even better retention, increase membership. What do we need to do? So we went in with a team of people and really evaluated the people, the product, the profit and the Programs to give them recommendations and they're running with it as well. So when you go into a client and, and, and you do this, I like to like doing a mystery shop and they like taping the calls and like, let me, let me understand what's going on here. Don't hire me until I understand like what, what the problems are. And then I'll come in, I'll actually give you like a real pitch instead of like, here's like what I could do for you, like let me

15:47 find out where you're at. Are there like certain just maybe to tease this out with some of our, our audience here that probably need to hire Ladati and basically say, look like there's some low hanging fruit. Like if you start with like one or two things here and then call me like for like phase two. Yeah, I mean we'll just simply, once again we'll just simply shop their existing team from reception even how reception it was amazing. You know, I have another client, LifeBridge, who we shopped and I mean we laugh about it now, but when I actually did shop them and this was recorded on a Sunday asking about membership rates and how it all works and blah blah, blah. And it was, well, we have nobody here that can take your call. Maybe call back tomorrow, then call back actually can talk to you. And then when I shared that with the gm and once again, we've totally changed the structure here, you know, to find out that that was actually their sales leader who was busy multitasking that didn't have the time to actually give me what it was I was looking for. I'm like, where you're losing money, you're losing business because you're not making sure that you have dedicated people to engage and you're too worried about taking care of your members, checking in and checking out. So those are some of the aha moments.

17:15 And look, at the end of the day it could be we have these many leads and we're just not closing at a good percentage. You know, why is that? And then once we dig in, we understand that they're one and done. They're only calling these digital leads once. And we know that it takes eight, ten calls just to make two way contact. Once we teach that and the philosophy of how do you get digital leads to bust a move, then they'll start to understand it's just the work ethic. Gotcha. So let me ask you a question on this. So in our, our main business, besides doing the podcast and we do a Halo Academy, which is kind of Like a business school boot camp, like a Harvard Business school. Five cases at a time, every two weeks, you know, once a quarter. Our day job is I help people sell chains of clubs or franchisors or clusters of area developers.

18:09 We were actually the group that we were hired by Millennium to, to sell Sports Club LA on 61st Street. Vertical Club a long time ago when I was, when I started Integrity Square. So you spent a lot of time in that location, which was an awesome club. So are you working out of this? Yeah, that was one of my clubs. Yeah. I was hoping that we could do a deal with somebody. We had an investor who was going to buy it. I was going to move my office in there. That's like kind of my, was my dream idea at, as an aside to. To that. So we're helping people buy and sell companies and they have these attrition rates that are so high and they don't hit their sales targets. And you know, a lot of people use this term like LTV this LT like lifetime value of member. I'm like one. You have no idea how high that number is. Like if you actually forget about like doing your math. Let's do my math. Okay. You got a hundred dollars a month on a client times 12 months.

19:02 And I saw your company for six times cash flow, six times EBITDA. That's, that's, that's worth seven, $200. Okay. So how much would you be willing to put behind a $7200 exit value EBITDA calculation that that member might have. You might want to have a little more touch point with that. You might want to use that as a sales lead and view. If that member breaks, if that member leaves because you haven't delivered, then that is. They broke up with you is basically what they did. It's not like they treated or like attention retention like I want. They broke up with you. Like stop using these big words to make it seem like something bigger happens. Sure.

19:47 So ltv, like how do people. Does that even like rig. Does that like ring true to anyone or. It's like let me just get the sales in and let me just run this business where people don't break up with me. Yeah, no, I will. Sorry about my rant. Yeah, no, no, no, no, no. You know, and my biggest thing is always being a vice president of sales. I always got these huge sales numbers and these goals and I'd be like, well wait a second. You know, we're always pushing for 3 to 5% growth year after year after year. I know, we're so focused on the front door. Can we focus a little bit about the back door? Thank you. Thank you. Exactly. Because at the end of the day, I will always say that leaders and companies should be based on net growth. Yes. Okay. So that's everything. Sales minus cancels is what you're ending up with. Yep. So what does that net growth look like in order for you to be successful?

20:41 And that's what we focus on. So in some cases, the salespeople are also considered membership service. So there's more of a ownership of onboarding, making sure they've met with the other departments, making sure they've made love connections in a department that will now take them to that next level of showing up two to three times a week. So it really is looking at both. But more than anything, when I do listen to calls and I also listen to member calls, club's gotta be clean. Yeah, of course. Club has got to be clean. And group exercise, it's gotta be all that and a bag of chips. Because those are your two prominent things that could either make you or break you. Because of the majority of people that focus on just those two aspects and also knowing what the trends of the industry are, you know, are you giving people that are coming into your cities that are new what they're looking for in a new health club?

21:48 This is Pete Moore. Here's the last tip for you of the podcast. We are partnered up with a company called higher dose higherdose.com they are the leader in workout recovery products, infrared technology, LED light masks, neck enhancers, and other products such as PEMF mats and sauna blankets. If you have not gotten on the workout recovery train yet, your time and your stop is now. You got to get these products in there before these workout recovery and spas end up saturating your market. Having your members walk out of the club and going into one of their locations for 200 bucks per month where they're paying 39 to you. Let's become an expert in workout recovery. If we are already an authority in workouts, higher dose, check it out. There's a wholesale code and we look forward to helping you augment your products and services to meet the demands of your members. And hey, let's get people happy, healthy and sweating. And the recovery should be just as. Good as the workout.

22:59 So. So a couple things. One, I, I don't know if you have a copy of our book that, that Dave and I wrote, but over Covid wrote a book called Time to Win Again and we Basically, talk about 52 takeaways from Team sports to ensure your business success. I don't think we had. Oh, no, I haven't seen it. I'm sorry. We're gonna. So we'll get it. No, no, no. Not. Not something you needed to do. Send it to me already. Sorry. Because me and Ladati just became friends, and we're like, cut. Yo, Ganolin, we're not checking with you if we want to chat or text now you're not on text. I'll make sure to get our mini copies. Okay? Okay. King Friday. So I'm doing this whole thing where I'm Mr. Rogers now. It's like Mr. Rogers neighborhood on my show. And he's like, King Friday the 8th. Anyway, so we wrote this book, and it was during COVID so I was like, chief restructuring officer for New York sports clubs, which was like, don't wish that on your worst enemy. But I'm trying to think about, as I watch the Last Dance with Michael Jordan, like, there's so many things that professional teams do with their athletes, with their fans to engage in. The whole system works. You kind of have to think about, like, if I was running a sports team, how would I operate? And one of the chapters that we have in the book is Play man versus Zone. So if you.

24:10 If you're watching a basketball game and it's like a two, three zone, I don't know if you're familiar with. You play back in the day. Yep. Yeah. So, like, if I'm. If I'm playing a 2, 3 zone, and somebody just shoots between, like, you know, from the corner, between the corner and. And. And in the. In the. In the elbow. It's like, yeah, it could have been my guy. Could have been yours. Like, no one's responsible for that, you know? Cause it played its own. Where I've been telling health clubs, look, if you have 3,000 members and you have 30 employees, give everyone 100 members to say, like, let's see how many of them don't break up with us out of your 100. And, like, just, like, set it up where I'm playing mad. Yeah. I mean, the whole thing is, yeah. Setting yourself up for success. And that has everything to do. And what we learned is that those first three months of a new member is going to make or break their relationship with you.

25:00 And. And we. And we also know that if we get them in the hands of a private trainer, well, that just took their longevity to, you know, three months, to at least two to three, maybe five years. Yeah. So integrating them in an area, whether it be Pilates or training or group acts, something or a sport. You know, the biggest thing going on right now with a lot of the clubs is just introducing things that are new, like pickleball, engagement, fun. So just making sure that you're creating those relationships so that they're engaged and not walking around lost. Yeah, exactly. Those three months are crucial. So now you have the salesperson reaching out. So for those clubs that don't have salespeople, it's like, not only do you want to embrace the incoming, they've got to follow up and make a lot of phone calls, but they also have to check on their new members and look at their attendance to make sure that they're coming in. If not all bells and whistles are going off and we're calling them to check in on them and to make an appointment with somebody that's going to engage with them. Those three months are crucial. And then after that, having reports that show you people that haven't been in in a month, that's another round of phone calls. Yes.

26:21 Emails, we miss you campaigns. Where have you been? Remember how you felt the last time you left our club? You know, so once again, focusing on that population to make sure they're engaged and they're using the club is key because when you have a rate increase and if they're not using it, boom, they're the. One of the things I rant about. We could talk for hours, but we'll meet you at the hot yoga place and I'll. Okay, I'll shut up. I won't talk during the class. I mean, I've been known to talk a lot. I won't talk during the class. I'll talk after. But one of the things that kind of drives me crazy about health clubs is I went to summer camp back, you know, when I was a teenager. Did you go to summer camp at all sports camps? With sports camps, okay, within four days of being there, you know 500 people's names. And you probably actually know a little bit about them.

27:11 Right. So it's shocking to me when, like, somebody walks into a club, they that all the trainers, all the salespeople, like, I've been to Soul Cycle. Not. Not bragging, but I've been in a lot. Okay. I've been there, like, to one studio before I went to. But I went there like 300 times. How does not everyone know my name? And how do I not know theirs? And how are we not on, like, a friend basis? Yeah, it's kind of it really, you. Got to irked me. Right. You have to have that mentality. And I always kind of go back to the opening theme of that good old show called Cheers. Yeah. Where everybody knows your name and. Exactly, that's what I'm saying. The Sports Club LA had a very dedicated, committed resolve with all the employees, that it was a huge welcome and a fond farewell when people came in and out the door. And to the best of our. I mean, Reebok Sports Club alone had 8, 000 members in its prime. Yeah, yeah. Upper east side, we had 61. Well, it's 60, 61st street, but we also had 6,000 members in our prime. That's a lot of people. But you know what, when they check in and their name shows up, it's okay, use their names, say hello.

28:20 But it was just those little things, you know, and just to see people leave and you didn't even know to need to know their name. You just had a wave and say, come back soon, I miss you already. You know, just to have fun with the members was always such a big thing. But to the best of your ability, knowing your name was crucial. Just simple things like that. Simple stuff. Yeah. Well, listen, it was a pleasure speaking with you. I'm kind of pissed at Gallon. He introduced us like, I don't know, 10 years later, he's probably got like. He's got probably like three or four, but daddies out there. He's like three or four next year, you know, like, hey, don't talk to this woman. Restricted list. It's kind of like he's on like restricted list King Friday. Well, listen, I'm gonna have you come upstairs and take a hot yoga class. I'll do it, I'll do it. I'll definitely do it. And let's get you a copy of the book, Dave. You can fast track that, you'll love it. And then I'm glad we met. And we're, we're big advocates of this. We want to try and solve loneliness, obesity and diabetes. And the only way to do that is make sure there are operations that are profitable, that are able to get people to stay and to actually get results. And you're a linchpin in that. So on a serious note, great, great to meet you and love me or thank you. The pleasure's all mine. All right, take care.

29:38 Bye, guys. See you. Ladotti. Sam.