Episode #570: Lessons from Three Decades in Fitness-Rick Dennis's Approach to Member Experience and Club Operations

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I am super excited to announce that we now have a formal

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partnership with the Prospect Wizard. And when I say

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wizard, I mean wizard. Obviously you have a website.

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This allows you to convert your website traffic visitors

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it's not AI, but it allows a visitor to call, text or leave a

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voicemail immediately. Goes to you, your sales team or anyone else in the

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club instantly. MIT shows a study that if you contact

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the lead within 10 minutes, chance of them converting goes up nine

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times that of the average. We got the Atlanta clubs

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on it. Vita Fitness, Gold's Gym, Mountainside

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City Fitness, Philly College Park. Become one

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of the next Halo companies to deploy the Wizard.

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get a free 30 day trial. Talk to my boy Dave Gallon. He will get

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you all set up and let the leads flow based on the

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Wizard. Go get him.

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

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bringing to our audience Rick Dennis, straight from

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Bakersfield Body Exchange, good friend of Integrity

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Square and a leader in the industry for probably about as long as

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I've been in the industry. So Rick, give your background and then we're going to

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talk about Body Exchange Bakersfield. Sure.

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Thanks Pete for having me on. I appreciate being here.

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Yeah, I was doing a little digging when we

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started talking and yeah, it's been over three decades. Started

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and got my first personal training certification back in

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the early 1990s, 1992

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to be exact, shortly after that. Started into the industry

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with Family Fitness center way back in

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1993, in the mid-90s. Worked my

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way up through the organization. Went through the

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24 Hour Fitness acquisition in the late 90s,

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early 2000s. Learned a lot through that

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experience. At the time I was still on the fitness side of the

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business. I was part of the, I was a

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VP of the Fitness Department in our region

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and then left 24

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Hour Fitness for a short time, went to Knoxville,

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Tennessee and worked for a startup brand there

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and helped them start from the ground up. Spent a few

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years there and then we had the idea of

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Body Exchange. Didn't start out right at, you

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know, what it is today, but we, we came

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to an idea of what we wanted to try to do in the

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industry and then that brought us back to Bakersfield

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and here we are. So you and John Ovanesian,

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you guys been working together since the 24 hour days?

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Yeah, I was in Las Vegas running the fitness side of

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things. They brought John to Las

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Vegas from Bakersfield at the time. So there's,

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you know, I could see the connection why we're in Bakersfield today.

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And John came up to Bakersfield and he and I

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partnered together there to run all of the 24

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hour fitness clubs. I believe at the time

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John came up, we had four or five locations there. We grew it

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to 1224 Hour

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Fitness locations. It was an area of rapid growth for them. And, and

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we did a lot of the expansion with them there. And yeah,

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we worked together for, for a long time. I'd say, you know,

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many of those 30 years I've been, you know, alongside John.

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And then when you went to, to Knoxville and I used to tour those clubs

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at the Rush back in the day, that was also another 24 hour,

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you know, diaspora of, of executives that went and started up a lot

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of these new concepts. You know, the thing I loved about the Rush

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is that they really leaned into entertainment and they leaned

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into other modalities. Remember, you had a rock climbing wall and you had some other

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interesting things inside of those clubs. You know, so as you kind of like

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moved from the fitness side of the industry to the operations side

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to the experience side, you know, what are some of the things that, that

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you, you'd say like Body Exchange now understands about,

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you know, what you're delivering and you really being on the pulse

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of, you know, members wanting more strength. Maybe not as much Group X after

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Covid, what have you kind of morphed the model because you're running, you

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know, five clubs that are fully entrenched in the market?

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Yeah. You know, we've tried to learn

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all along the way, you know, from the early days of us

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learning from pioneers like Ray Wilson. You know, I mean,

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there's, there's dialogue in our meetings today with

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our staff that we, we still, we talk about, you know, things

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that Ray taught us way, way back in the early 90s. And then

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when we went to Knoxville, yeah, it was,

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it was completely different. You know, it was, it was

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entertaining. You know, there's a wind tunnel and you know,

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being on the fitness side, you know, you walk into that at first and it's

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like, why do we have a wind tunnel and a batting cage in our gym?

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You know, but it worked. And you know, what we,

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what we pulled away from that is

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that's, I think the time where the industry moved towards it was

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really about the member experience, you know, what kind of

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experience. And really fitness is about, you

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know, endorphins too. Right? So what's the endorphin

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change that Happens when somebody walks in the door to the

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time they finish their workout, and how do they feel different? And I

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think that's what the rush was really pioneering is,

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hey, it's get them in the building and change their mindset,

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change their endorphin levels, get them excited, and they'll keep

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coming back. And so as we've

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transitioned to what we are today, I think we've pulled pieces of

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all of those things and try to make it work for

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our market and our members and create that kind of

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experience for them from the time they come in to the time they leave.

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The interesting part, I think, about the industry now is that

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there's more strength equipment on the floor. There's less. These

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kids really don't resonate into Jones. And

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to get into a group exercise class, they really want, I want Olympic squat

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machines. I want pec fly machines. I want dumbbells. I want

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kettle bells. And it seems like what you guys did

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from COVID onward is basically said, hey, look, I'm, I'm, I'm

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going to, you know, pot commit to just saying, like, what do people want here?

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How can I repurpose my square footage? You know, you took out your kids club,

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right? You took out your group exercise. You said, look, I'm going to provide you

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as much strength area, equipment and enough, you know, requisite

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cardio to, to, to, you know, placate the members

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that still want to just run on a treadmill or what have you. So, like

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to talk about how that pivot happened, how,

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like, much easier it is to operate the business right now and,

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you know, how you feel about where you guys are positioned. That's a loaded question,

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Rick. Sure.

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Yeah, great question. And, you know,

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we learned a lot about ourselves,

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as I think many people did during, you know, the pandemic and

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Covid. We, we came out of that

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and as many companies did, we had to look

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inward and look at our identity and, you know, who are we?

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You know, what. What can we be? What does

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the community tell us they want? And,

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you know, the. The average age demographic,

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you know, of our members is between the ages of 16 and

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36. And predominantly

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their major focus is strength training,

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free weights. Of course,

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there wasn't Internet and, you know,

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infomercials and podcasts to the levels that they are today,

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back when I started in the early 90s. Right. So they're

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influenced by, hey, I'm gonna do this quick workout.

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I'm gonna show it to you. And most of that's coming into play

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because that's that's meeting where people. Meeting those

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people where they're at, you know. And so what we learned

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was, hey, we are

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the place where everybody trains. And right there

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in 2021, we picked that tagline

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up and we said, hey, we are where everybody

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trains. And we're going to put in more squat racks than

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any other competitor in town. We're going to serve the people

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in the ways that they want to be served. We're going to

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repurpose the square footage of our

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facility, and we'll use, you know, just one group

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exercise room as an example. You know, you might have,

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you know, we were doing really well with group fitness, and in the early

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parts of it, you know, we might have four or five classes a day in

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that room. And in the rest of the time, you got around

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3,000 square foot just sitting there when people go in and stretch

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or whatever they do. But now you can walk into

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any one of our gyms today, and that same square

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footage, that same space, it's got members

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using every square inch of that area to do

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their strength training, their Olympic lifts.

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You know, they're, they're deadlifting their

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everything. You know, anything that they want to do, they're able to.

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And, and that's, that's really who we are where, where

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everybody trains.

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

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this 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 members

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without having to do zero down and one month free or

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giving away shakes or giving away T shirts. What you want to do is

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build a rewards program that lasts, that people value,

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and that doesn't discount your own products and services. So here's the

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deal. There's something called Rewards Vault. The Rewards Vault is going

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to allow a member to set up their own profile. They are going

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to answer questions, you are going to get those answers, you're going to be able

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to target those members, and you're going to reward them inside your club,

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

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spa to get them to become loyal, to get them to pay their

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monthly dues and to be rewarded properly for the

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

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Promotion Vault, your answer, trust me, this is real

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foreign. So from.

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From a standpoint of, of the competition that's been in and out of the market,

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you know, I know you guys backfilled some of the old 24 hour because you

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knew the market. Really? Well, you kind of have the. The market,

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you know, I'd say, quote, unquote, like, you know, surrounded with body

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exchange into. In main areas. Where do you see the growth

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happening in. In Bakersfield? What's going on in Bakersfield? I know you got a.

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A pretty good AAA hockey team that's affiliated with the Oilers, which is

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the Condors. When I traveled through that area that's

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like on the southwest corridor down by Allen.

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Looks like there was a lot of rooftops, which obviously everybody loves from a

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residential health club scenario. And then you've

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got Planet and you've got in shape. But

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I'd say the market isn't really over clubbed to the point of

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some of the other markets that we've seen. How do you feel about

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competition and how do you feel about the growth of Bakersfield?

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Well, we feel good. You know, we love the market. We've been

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here for over 20 years.

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There's a lot of growth here. And, you know, one thing about

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Bakersfield that's stood the test of time is it's

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desirable for the fact that it's a very

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affordable place for people to live. In California,

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you know, there's over 420,000 people here.

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The home prices remain, you know, affordable,

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and it's. It's seeing an increase in

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people moving here. It's. It's second in the Central

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Valley, only second to Fresno, which is a major

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city, I think the third largest city in the state.

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So there's a lot of growth opportunities here. And it's evident

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because in some of those areas that you described,

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you know, there's national and regional, you know, brands coming in

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to support the market. National change, you

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know, big, big target. You know, shopping

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centers are coming in, more Costcos and different things

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like that. And, you know, as the

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residential grows, then the retail side of it grows. And so when you can

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see that retail growth, you know, that the residential

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is. Is supporting it. So, yeah, there, there's definitely, you

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know, some opportunity here in the market.

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You know, in the northeast part of town, there's some major development

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planned out there from a retail perspective. In the central

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area, there's a major retail development, you

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know, scheduled for Rosedale highway and Coffee Road, which

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is right in the heart of town. You just

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already mentioned in the Southwest, there's a lot going on

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there that's probably the most vibrant, you know, area. You know,

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there's the major. One of the new major east,

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west, you know, corridors is on Panama Lane. And

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there's a lot of opportunity And a lot of growth going on out there and,

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and those major retailers that we talked about earlier,

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they're slated to be on that road in a few different

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areas that we're aware of. So, yeah, there's a great opportunity

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and we don't see it slowing down again because it is an

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affordable place for people to come to and live.

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And it also, the demographics support that because

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the average age is between the ages of, you know,

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28 and 32. And there's a lot of the

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population at the, under the age of 18.

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And that's, you know, tells us that, you know, there's a lot

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of about 30% of the population 18 and under.

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There's going to be a lot of people here for a long time. Yeah, it

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seems like you guys are well positioned to, you know, strength, obviously,

241
00:15:08,690 --> 00:15:12,170
is where most of these kids are going to. They're on their,

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their phones and they're doing their own directed workouts. And I think there's like

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a, a new wave of, you know, what people

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like, whether it's like bodybuilding or whether it's elite, you know, being an elite

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athlete. I think high school sports. When I was There, you know,

246
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25, 30 years ago, we knew nothing about nutrition. We knew very

247
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little about, you know, periodization schedules and, and reps. I wish I'd

248
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go back right now and like, train as a, as a high school athlete. I

249
00:15:37,610 --> 00:15:40,880
think you'd have a lot better result. Even though I thought I was pretty good

250
00:15:40,880 --> 00:15:44,440
at the time, but not, not as good as I could have been. You know,

251
00:15:44,440 --> 00:15:48,240
when you take a look at, you know, 24 hour kind of leaving the

252
00:15:48,240 --> 00:15:51,720
market, obviously they had a number of reasons why,

253
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you know, they, they didn't have the capital to reinvest

254
00:15:55,720 --> 00:15:59,360
into their locations. And that was mostly because of their balance

255
00:15:59,360 --> 00:16:02,960
sheet and deals that got done with private equity funds that put a lot of

256
00:16:02,960 --> 00:16:06,690
debt on the business that then had to pay interest instead of putting capital back

257
00:16:06,690 --> 00:16:09,930
into the business. I know you and John have run a very clean

258
00:16:09,930 --> 00:16:13,570
operation. I walked around there, I didn't see any, that there was not like

259
00:16:13,570 --> 00:16:16,490
one piece of equipment. I'm like, hey, Rick, I think you might want to put

260
00:16:16,490 --> 00:16:19,970
some, like, new upholstery on this thing. Like, there was no,

261
00:16:20,210 --> 00:16:23,770
you know, there was no equipment out of order, you know,

262
00:16:23,770 --> 00:16:27,330
so as you kind of look at and say, hey, we've run this

263
00:16:27,330 --> 00:16:30,930
business for over 20 years and we've reinvested

264
00:16:30,930 --> 00:16:34,740
into the business where we needed to. What do

265
00:16:34,740 --> 00:16:38,500
people say in the market, you know, about body exchange versus Some of

266
00:16:38,500 --> 00:16:42,180
the, you know, clubs that maybe don't have as much TLC or

267
00:16:42,180 --> 00:16:45,860
local ownership and the fact that you're in the clubs, you know,

268
00:16:46,100 --> 00:16:49,940
every week and live there and you know, have, have that kind of like personal

269
00:16:49,940 --> 00:16:53,740
touch point that other clubs in national change just

270
00:16:53,740 --> 00:16:57,580
don't really have that, that, you know, capability or like

271
00:16:57,580 --> 00:17:00,280
the desire to care as much.

272
00:17:02,040 --> 00:17:05,240
Sure. I'm going to break that into

273
00:17:05,720 --> 00:17:09,480
two answers. I think the first thing is

274
00:17:10,520 --> 00:17:14,160
when we started out to do this, we had a

275
00:17:14,160 --> 00:17:17,400
very clear vision of how we wanted to build the business.

276
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We wanted to build our company without debt. And of course,

277
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as new entrepreneurs and starting out,

278
00:17:26,520 --> 00:17:30,280
we did take on some initial debt. But as

279
00:17:30,280 --> 00:17:33,880
fast as we possibly could, we paid off and

280
00:17:33,960 --> 00:17:37,400
paid down all of our debt. When we

281
00:17:37,480 --> 00:17:40,920
started opening, you know, we opened up roughly 10

282
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locations in a 10 year span, you know,

283
00:17:43,880 --> 00:17:46,280
2003 to 2013.

284
00:17:47,400 --> 00:17:51,120
And when we were doing this, we were funding all of

285
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our own construction, we were paying cash for all of our equipment.

286
00:17:55,330 --> 00:17:58,530
We were building our company. So

287
00:17:58,850 --> 00:18:02,530
that way for the long haul, we were built to

288
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succeed. And now when we need to

289
00:18:06,610 --> 00:18:10,210
have a capital call to put some new equipment in or do something,

290
00:18:10,930 --> 00:18:14,450
it's readily there and available for us to be able to do that.

291
00:18:14,930 --> 00:18:18,570
And so we're definitely not a leveraged company. And I

292
00:18:18,570 --> 00:18:21,810
think that's something that's really important to understand

293
00:18:22,050 --> 00:18:25,840
because as you mentioned, with 24 hour, once you get

294
00:18:25,840 --> 00:18:29,360
leverage, then you're, you know,

295
00:18:29,360 --> 00:18:33,160
there's restrictions to that. We've never had those kinds

296
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of restrictions because of the foundation and how we built it.

297
00:18:37,360 --> 00:18:41,120
So with that said, you know, like, you know, back a few

298
00:18:41,120 --> 00:18:44,760
years ago when we decided, hey, you know, we're going to kind of rebrand ourselves

299
00:18:44,760 --> 00:18:48,440
a little bit, we're going to reinvest into the areas of the

300
00:18:48,440 --> 00:18:52,240
club that the market and the, the demographic is telling

301
00:18:52,240 --> 00:18:55,200
us that they want, which is the strength, the

302
00:18:56,080 --> 00:18:59,360
ability to do, you know,

303
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powerlifting and different things within a commercial gym.

304
00:19:03,600 --> 00:19:06,960
We were able to easily do that, make those decisions and

305
00:19:07,600 --> 00:19:11,280
we stand out for that. You know, we are local.

306
00:19:13,120 --> 00:19:16,640
I'm in our gyms every week, every day.

307
00:19:16,720 --> 00:19:20,250
At some point we see and

308
00:19:20,250 --> 00:19:23,850
hear from our customers. And if it makes business

309
00:19:23,930 --> 00:19:27,690
sense and it creates a win for the customer,

310
00:19:28,570 --> 00:19:31,930
a win for the, you know, company, then, then we make

311
00:19:31,930 --> 00:19:33,610
decisions to make those things happen.

312
00:19:36,650 --> 00:19:40,490
This is Pete Moore. Here's the last tip for you of the podcast.

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00:19:40,730 --> 00:19:43,690
We are partnered up with a company called higher dose

314
00:19:43,850 --> 00:19:47,200
higherdose.com they are the leader in

315
00:19:47,440 --> 00:19:50,400
workout recovery products, infrared technology,

316
00:19:51,120 --> 00:19:54,640
LED light masks, neck enhancers and

317
00:19:54,880 --> 00:19:58,520
other products such as PEMF mats and sauna

318
00:19:58,520 --> 00:20:01,800
blankets. If you have not gotten on the workout

319
00:20:01,800 --> 00:20:05,200
recovery train yet, your time and your stop

320
00:20:05,360 --> 00:20:08,920
is now. You got to get these products in there before these workout

321
00:20:08,920 --> 00:20:12,170
recovery and spas end up saturating your market.

322
00:20:12,490 --> 00:20:16,090
Having your members walk out of the club and going into one of their locations

323
00:20:16,090 --> 00:20:19,730
for 200 bucks per month where they're paying 39 to

324
00:20:19,730 --> 00:20:23,570
you. Let's become an expert in workout recovery. If we

325
00:20:23,570 --> 00:20:26,890
are already an authority in workouts, higher dose,

326
00:20:27,290 --> 00:20:30,970
Check it Out is a wholesale code and we look

327
00:20:30,970 --> 00:20:34,250
forward to helping you augment your products and services

328
00:20:34,730 --> 00:20:38,480
to meet the demands of your members. And hey, let's get people

329
00:20:38,480 --> 00:20:42,320
happy, healthy and sweating and the recovery should be

330
00:20:42,320 --> 00:20:43,560
just as good as the workout.

331
00:20:47,240 --> 00:20:50,760
There's a two, two points that, you know, came out to me

332
00:20:50,760 --> 00:20:54,520
as, as I was touring with you guys on my last trip out to California.

333
00:20:55,000 --> 00:20:58,800
One, you guys are on ABC Fitness, right? So a lot of the industry benefits

334
00:20:58,800 --> 00:21:01,560
from other clubs being on the, on the same software.

335
00:21:02,600 --> 00:21:05,880
One of the things that, that was interesting that you guys made as a strategic

336
00:21:06,660 --> 00:21:10,100
move was to say, you know, we did personal training before, but we're not doing

337
00:21:10,100 --> 00:21:13,820
it now. Obviously your clubs could potentially do personal training if you

338
00:21:13,820 --> 00:21:17,620
wanted to. What's been the, what's been the

339
00:21:17,620 --> 00:21:21,020
shift there and thinking and then, you know, if you decided to

340
00:21:21,020 --> 00:21:24,780
greenlight that again, you know, what, what kind of success did you have in the

341
00:21:24,780 --> 00:21:28,460
past from a number of sessions or you know, revenue per

342
00:21:28,460 --> 00:21:32,260
club that, that you could look at if you wanted to kind

343
00:21:32,260 --> 00:21:34,880
of plug that back in? Sure.

344
00:21:35,840 --> 00:21:39,560
Well, you know, as you mentioned, you know, post Covid, there

345
00:21:39,560 --> 00:21:43,200
was, you know, a bit of a shift, you know, and

346
00:21:44,800 --> 00:21:48,480
we believe that that shift is a

347
00:21:48,480 --> 00:21:51,920
lot of people learned how to use technology

348
00:21:52,720 --> 00:21:56,080
to do self guided workouts, self guided

349
00:21:56,080 --> 00:21:59,880
programming. I won't get too far into it

350
00:21:59,880 --> 00:22:03,700
but you know, you talk about today's time and you talk about AI, you

351
00:22:03,700 --> 00:22:07,420
know, getting involved in, you know, in workouts and

352
00:22:07,420 --> 00:22:09,500
things like that. So

353
00:22:11,500 --> 00:22:14,860
what we've decided is that if

354
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we're, if we're in a market

355
00:22:18,700 --> 00:22:22,420
that a lot of people are using our strength, they're

356
00:22:22,420 --> 00:22:26,060
doing self guided workouts. It's not to say that they

357
00:22:26,060 --> 00:22:29,750
don't need help with inside the gym and we

358
00:22:29,830 --> 00:22:32,310
have our staff go through a

359
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training of sorts to understand how to onboard a new

360
00:22:38,230 --> 00:22:41,990
member, take them through proper workouts, get

361
00:22:41,990 --> 00:22:45,030
them integrated into the facility and

362
00:22:45,670 --> 00:22:49,030
always be there as a resource for our members

363
00:22:49,750 --> 00:22:53,350
to be able to succeed

364
00:22:53,670 --> 00:22:57,130
within Their program. So that's the current.

365
00:22:57,290 --> 00:23:00,970
That's what we, you know, what we've adopted as of, as of now

366
00:23:00,970 --> 00:23:03,210
post Covid prior,

367
00:23:04,970 --> 00:23:08,770
we had the full gamut of, you know, personal training

368
00:23:08,770 --> 00:23:12,090
going. We had fitness managers within each facility

369
00:23:13,050 --> 00:23:16,650
running the department, doing a majority of the,

370
00:23:16,810 --> 00:23:20,330
you know, personal training package sales.

371
00:23:21,130 --> 00:23:24,980
We had a district fitness manager that was overseeing, you

372
00:23:24,980 --> 00:23:28,340
know, the multitude of clubs that we had at whatever time that was.

373
00:23:28,980 --> 00:23:32,540
So if we were to be able

374
00:23:32,540 --> 00:23:35,780
to find the right mix of

375
00:23:36,660 --> 00:23:40,500
talent in terms of, you know, a district fitness

376
00:23:40,500 --> 00:23:43,740
manager type person, you know, fitness

377
00:23:43,740 --> 00:23:47,060
managers that can hire, recruit and train

378
00:23:47,870 --> 00:23:51,630
personal trainers on a regular basis, and we could

379
00:23:51,630 --> 00:23:54,910
do it. Well, there's no doubt that I feel like we could

380
00:23:55,550 --> 00:23:59,230
go back to, you know, the years before when we were

381
00:23:59,550 --> 00:24:03,150
generating about $100,000 a month in personal training

382
00:24:03,150 --> 00:24:06,750
revenue and we evaluated our

383
00:24:06,750 --> 00:24:09,550
personal training revenue based on

384
00:24:10,270 --> 00:24:13,870
actual cash. We didn't do contract value

385
00:24:13,870 --> 00:24:17,550
or anything like that. So, you know, there are some companies out there

386
00:24:17,550 --> 00:24:21,220
that say, hey, you know, we do X dollars in, in personal

387
00:24:21,220 --> 00:24:24,820
training revenue, but they're doing contract value, which, you know,

388
00:24:24,820 --> 00:24:27,780
sometimes skews the number just a little bit.

389
00:24:28,660 --> 00:24:32,420
Yeah, yeah, you just writing, you should just writing packages for the future that

390
00:24:32,740 --> 00:24:36,180
hopefully you collect. And hopefully they did the sessions. Actually.

391
00:24:38,180 --> 00:24:41,860
It was always, yeah, yeah. And then John

392
00:24:41,860 --> 00:24:44,740
owns for the five pieces of the real estate. So you, you got a lot

393
00:24:44,740 --> 00:24:48,020
of flexibility in what you could do inside of the locations as well, which is,

394
00:24:48,470 --> 00:24:52,230
you know, not common in this, in this space where

395
00:24:52,230 --> 00:24:55,990
you're, you're kicking up against a landlord or demolition

396
00:24:56,070 --> 00:24:59,910
clause or something. You know, if somebody's going in. I just had a situation

397
00:24:59,910 --> 00:25:03,430
where a competitor came into a shopping center

398
00:25:03,430 --> 00:25:07,190
and they like, notified the tenant after

399
00:25:07,430 --> 00:25:10,710
construction started. Like, hold on a second. I got an exclusive on this

400
00:25:10,790 --> 00:25:14,310
property. Like, what do you, what are you doing putting this other fitness guy in

401
00:25:14,310 --> 00:25:18,110
there? Like, it's not allowed as part of lease. Oh, like, what will you

402
00:25:18,110 --> 00:25:21,890
pay us to let us do that? So how having. Having the ability to

403
00:25:21,890 --> 00:25:25,410
have this, like, affiliated real estate entity,

404
00:25:26,130 --> 00:25:29,490
you know, I think has been highly beneficial. It looks like you got some room

405
00:25:29,490 --> 00:25:33,330
to expand if you want to do some things in the outdoor area as

406
00:25:33,330 --> 00:25:36,850
well. I saw some expansion and parking, obviously, is not an issue at all.

407
00:25:37,250 --> 00:25:40,210
So just the last question for you, you know, if you were to say,

408
00:25:40,850 --> 00:25:44,370
hey, Pete, I'm going to go build another five locations over the next five years,

409
00:25:44,530 --> 00:25:47,330
you know, if that was a desire for you and your management team,

410
00:25:48,410 --> 00:25:52,250
you know, we talked about probably filling in a couple locations in,

411
00:25:52,250 --> 00:25:55,970
in Bakersfield where, you know, you can follow the work of a, of a

412
00:25:55,970 --> 00:25:59,170
Target in Costco. I used to say that back in the day. I'm like, do

413
00:25:59,170 --> 00:26:01,930
we really need to do a research report here and pay like a lot of

414
00:26:01,930 --> 00:26:04,450
money to figure out where the real estate development is or can we just go

415
00:26:04,450 --> 00:26:07,850
like across street or next door to the Target? Like they obviously did the work

416
00:26:07,850 --> 00:26:11,290
and figured out like, hey, I could do $100 million, you know, merchandising

417
00:26:11,450 --> 00:26:14,990
store here, maybe my health club might work if I can get a, you know,

418
00:26:14,990 --> 00:26:18,790
if I get an out parcel next to them. And then when we met, you

419
00:26:18,790 --> 00:26:22,510
talked to us about at some point you were in Ventura. But what are some

420
00:26:22,510 --> 00:26:25,790
of the cities if you want to just like tag for us here as

421
00:26:26,430 --> 00:26:30,230
you know, potentially where body exchange could and should go within

422
00:26:30,230 --> 00:26:33,990
like a 90 mile radius of like maintaining the culture and maintaining the

423
00:26:33,990 --> 00:26:34,990
DNA of the business.

424
00:26:38,990 --> 00:26:42,540
Sure. So outside of our immediate area,

425
00:26:42,860 --> 00:26:46,540
like you alluded to there, there are some, some key

426
00:26:46,940 --> 00:26:50,220
positional pieces that you could look at here locally for,

427
00:26:50,540 --> 00:26:53,820
you know, you know, maybe two or three, you know,

428
00:26:53,820 --> 00:26:56,860
opportunities outside of

429
00:26:57,260 --> 00:26:59,660
Bakersfield. There's, there's areas

430
00:27:01,180 --> 00:27:04,860
south of here, you know, Palmdale, Lancaster area

431
00:27:04,940 --> 00:27:08,350
is a very similar type

432
00:27:08,430 --> 00:27:10,750
area, similar type demographic

433
00:27:11,550 --> 00:27:14,910
landscape to Bakersfield in terms of

434
00:27:14,990 --> 00:27:18,670
affordability, in demographics and things of that

435
00:27:18,670 --> 00:27:22,030
nature. So there's definitely opportunity there.

436
00:27:23,230 --> 00:27:26,190
If you look north of us,

437
00:27:26,670 --> 00:27:30,470
there's a lot of little

438
00:27:30,470 --> 00:27:34,300
areas, key, you know, mid sized cities,

439
00:27:34,620 --> 00:27:37,500
opportunities between here and Fresno.

440
00:27:38,700 --> 00:27:41,860
And then, you know, you could also look, you know, to the west as you

441
00:27:41,860 --> 00:27:45,100
start going to what they call out here the central coast.

442
00:27:45,740 --> 00:27:47,740
Again, there's, there's

443
00:27:49,260 --> 00:27:51,340
cities that would support,

444
00:27:53,180 --> 00:27:56,940
you know, a mid sized gym,

445
00:27:57,580 --> 00:28:01,190
you know, the 15,000 to 25,000

446
00:28:01,190 --> 00:28:03,830
square foot type, you know, facility.

447
00:28:05,350 --> 00:28:09,070
And yeah, there's, there's definitely some opportunity as you go to

448
00:28:09,070 --> 00:28:12,390
the central coast, some smaller areas as you go up towards

449
00:28:12,390 --> 00:28:16,150
Fresno and within that 90 mile range,

450
00:28:16,150 --> 00:28:19,590
for sure, Palmdale, Lancaster, which is south of us,

451
00:28:20,390 --> 00:28:24,150
that's great. So I see all the baseballs behind you. So the people

452
00:28:24,150 --> 00:28:26,950
on the, who are listening to the audio here and not on the video, there's

453
00:28:26,950 --> 00:28:30,740
a, there's a nice baseball collage behind Rick and some

454
00:28:31,220 --> 00:28:34,900
glass casing. I went to the Giant game last night against the

455
00:28:34,900 --> 00:28:38,260
Eagles and Doc Gooden, Dwight Gooden sat in front of me

456
00:28:38,500 --> 00:28:42,300
who is an all time Mets pitcher back in the day, Cy

457
00:28:42,300 --> 00:28:45,980
Young award winner and I had the pleasure

458
00:28:45,980 --> 00:28:49,540
of like high fiving him on every Giants touchdown

459
00:28:49,540 --> 00:28:53,180
and score and big hit interception.

460
00:28:53,180 --> 00:28:57,020
So it was a pretty wild, like, bucket list event. One to beat the

461
00:28:57,020 --> 00:29:00,260
Eagles after five years, but also to have Doc good. And I felt like I

462
00:29:00,260 --> 00:29:03,640
was like, I like, invited him to come, like, hang out and watch the game

463
00:29:03,640 --> 00:29:07,040
together. So it seems like. I know you're a big baseball fan,

464
00:29:07,520 --> 00:29:11,320
so this is probably a good time of year for you. Yeah,

465
00:29:11,320 --> 00:29:13,840
it's exciting that, you know, playoffs are here and

466
00:29:14,880 --> 00:29:18,640
it's a fun time to watch the game. And, you know, it's

467
00:29:18,640 --> 00:29:21,920
funny, you alluded to, you know, the athletes that we thought we were

468
00:29:22,480 --> 00:29:26,120
back when we were young and working out and all of that, and

469
00:29:26,120 --> 00:29:29,950
then you look at the common day athlete and, you

470
00:29:29,950 --> 00:29:33,510
know, they just have all these advantages because there's a lot more

471
00:29:33,510 --> 00:29:37,270
research going into the type of training they

472
00:29:37,270 --> 00:29:40,870
need to do, the periodization of the

473
00:29:40,870 --> 00:29:44,350
training that they do, the nutritional side of what they do,

474
00:29:45,470 --> 00:29:48,910
and, you know, all the methods that they have today

475
00:29:49,630 --> 00:29:53,230
to. To access, you know, the

476
00:29:53,310 --> 00:29:56,790
best of the best type of training. And then you watch and perform on the

477
00:29:56,790 --> 00:30:00,350
field and it's. It's obvious that

478
00:30:00,350 --> 00:30:04,070
they're. They're just. They're built different than. Than

479
00:30:04,630 --> 00:30:08,430
in, you know, many, many years ago. So, yeah, I

480
00:30:08,430 --> 00:30:11,310
mean, I think the. The athlete of today gets to be like an iPhone, like,

481
00:30:11,310 --> 00:30:14,950
17 and yeah, we're playing with like a iPhone 3, you know,

482
00:30:15,110 --> 00:30:18,550
skeletal structure right now that has its wounds from. From not

483
00:30:18,550 --> 00:30:21,750
recovering properly so. Well, look, man, it was great to have you on the show.

484
00:30:21,750 --> 00:30:25,580
Thanks again for all your contributions to the. To the HALO sector at large.

485
00:30:26,220 --> 00:30:29,860
Look forward to seeing how you guys progress, and congrats to you and

486
00:30:29,860 --> 00:30:33,580
John and Laurie and crew for what you guys have built. It's a. It's a

487
00:30:33,580 --> 00:30:37,420
great story, and it's also bringing a lot of value to, you know,

488
00:30:37,420 --> 00:30:40,740
thousands of people in Bakersfield that if you guys weren't there, you know, they might

489
00:30:40,740 --> 00:30:44,140
not be. They might not be doing what they're doing, you know, get results. So

490
00:30:44,460 --> 00:30:48,220
that starts at the city level and it kind of grows up from

491
00:30:48,220 --> 00:30:51,610
there. So thanks for coming on and good to see you again and go

492
00:30:51,610 --> 00:30:53,770
Halo. I appreciate it. Thank you, Pete.

493
00:31:15,300 --> 00:31:27,460
Sam,

494
00:31:40,910 --> 00:31:41,150
sa.