Episode #609: Building a Fitness Empire-Tony Scrimale Talks Growth, PE Strategy, and the Crunch Brand

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

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bringing a fast friend of mine from the Crunch Network to

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our audience at Halo Talks. Tony Scribali, welcome to the show.

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Thanks, brother. Thanks for having me. So the one thing I just want to start

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with is that, you know, you're a new potential resident to the state of Arizona,

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as am I, so we're going to spend some more time together. The one thing

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I'm asking in 2027, is there a chance that we could rename

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your last name to state it as Scream-A-Lay.

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I mean, it's totally Scream-A-Lay, and you could have like a whole new like

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persona out in, you know, Arizona that it's

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not— I changed the pronunciation of my last name because it just might

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bring even more, you know, charisma to what you've brought to the table

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already. Well, we're coming in hot, so we got to make a name somehow. So

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we're coming in hot. Yeah, yeah. All right, well, listen,

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um, you know, every CEO that I talk to in the, in the Halo Health

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and Fitness and the health club industry Harkens back to some roots where I

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actually know, like, I used to run their website or like, oh, I was in

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that club, you know, 25 years ago. So let's talk about

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your Floridian roots and where you started in this industry so people

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understand, you know, when you're— when you're now running a business, like, it's not like

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you just like did a lateral from like the Starbucks into like

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the health club industry. You actually like— you live this and breathe this for a

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long, long time. Yeah, man. I thought you said we had only 25 minutes, brother.

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This could go on forever. I mean, we'll get to your version.

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Maybe I'll create a paywall. And then I could get people to listen to the

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rest of the interview like after that. You know, it's a typical story, man.

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I'm an upstate New York kid, man, and moved down to

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sunny Florida because I thought, who the heck wants to stay in that New York,

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you know, that weather up there? And I was an aspiring

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baseball player, right? I wanted to play and being a captain of my

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baseball team and everything like that, I thought I could walk on in Florida.

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And I remember trying to walk onto the baseball team. They already had it picked

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out. So I'm like, okay, well this, you know, I wanted to move to Florida.

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What's my game plan? At 18 years old, you're trying to figure out yourself, right?

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And the only other thing I knew is to work out. So I walked

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into the gym and met the gym manager, started working

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out there every day. And after basically living there and

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knowing that I wasn't gonna make a career outta baseball anymore, a lady

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like Maureen, her name was, back in the Bradenton Spa in Bradenton, Florida,

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said, why don't you work here? You're here every single day. And how many, how

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many hours were you actually physically in the gym, just so people have a

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realistic understanding of what was really going on? Oh, 3, 4 hours

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a day. So you're basically like stalking the gym, like, and you're like, dude, this

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guy's weird enough, might as well just have him like oversee the place. Yeah, has

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this guy even got a job? Like, he's 18 years old, what's he doing here

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every day? Like, he's talking to everybody, he's here multiple times a day, right?

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So yeah. And it kind of— you say, would you say walk-on

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of a baseball team? Like, let's tell me about the story of like what you

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actually thought was going Did you like— this was

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like before the internet, right? So it's like, yeah, but you physically like walked

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into the stadium and said like, hey, can I try

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out? A little bit different than that. You know, I'm close, upstate New

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York. I'm throwing 85, 86 my senior year, you know, had a

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lot of colleges looking at me. And up there you're good, but you don't

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realize moving to Florida, which I had never been, they play year-round.

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Like they have their team picked out a year prior. So I'm just thinking like,

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I'm gonna walk onto college there, I'm gonna show up at tryouts. They already have

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their entire team picked out, right? And I'm thinking I'm a big shot throwing

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86. They're worse players throwing 86 miles an hour, right? They're all

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95 plus, you know. Um, so it was a, it was

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a wake-up call for me for sure. So, so you, so you, so you get

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the job at Bradenton solely because like you're like, like a,

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a gym junkie, right? It's like just like squatting in the gym.

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Okay. And then what happened from there? Ladies like, like, okay, what do I do

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now? Like clean some equipment, hand out some guest passes. Right. Typical thing. What's a

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guest pass? Well, get to know the members, and if you get them come in,

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you'll get— back in that day, back in 1997, you're still getting commission,

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right? So there was still commission-based, value-based tours to where—

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and I wasn't even allowed to tour at first. So what ended up happening is,

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you know, I start getting to know, again, stalking the members like I was

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stalking my workouts in the gym initially, you know, and kind of becoming the

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mayor of the workout floor, which later transpired to my success in my career.

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I got to know all the members and my guest passes started to come in

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and everybody would say to the salespeople and the manager, no, I'm here to talk

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to Tony. Right. And everybody knows this is back in the day, it

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was a relationship business. It wasn't even a volume-based business. There was no

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HVLP at that point. It was commission-based tours. So you were spending an

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hour, you were doing full assessments with people, measuring

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them, right? Taking them through the circuit. That was, that was what it was back

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in the day when actually even people re-racked their weights back in the day too.

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Right, right, right, right. Yeah. Yeah. So you started up

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running that club, you started doing personal training also, selling

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personal training as part of that? I wasn't selling training, I was just literally

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selling membership. And it was a unique story. There was a guy named Ben

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Fuhrman that owned Bradenton Spa, and it was a weird transition. I

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saw more in the first 6 months of my career than I ever wanted to

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see in the gym industry. Ben, God bless him, but

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he ended up passing away. He ended up having a— he was Mr.

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Tennessee years prior to that, and he ended up passing away. So what happened

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is overnight the landlord took over the

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actual gym, and it was kind of like in a point to where nobody

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owned the gym, and the manager had been there 30 years, Maureen

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Balzer. And long story

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short, like, it was up in arms. So like, nobody— everybody was

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there, there was nobody that owned it, and the landlord took

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over it. And I was just a sales guy, right? Then all of a sudden,

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one day, man, I'll never forget it. I'd been push mowing my

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grandparents' freaking mobile home, right? My— I had white sneakers on,

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Pete, and they literally— the front of my sneakers— and I'll get to the

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point of why I tell you this in a minute— they had green on them

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because I had been push mowing. And I just come in, I wasn't working that

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day, and all of a sudden this guy Vince Julian walks in,

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right? Vince Julian, my current partner, my mentor. And he walks in and

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they're like, this guy bought the gym today. And I'm like, oh, okay,

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you should meet him. So I go up there and I meet him and I

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said, hello, sir. And I'm, you know, we shake hands or whatever. And he says,

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yeah, I'm the new owner, this and that, this and that. He's like, but if

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you wanna work for me, never wear a ball cap and never don't have

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white shoes and you can have a job and I'll train you. And I'll never

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forget that moment 'cause that's when I met my initial partner, Vince Julian, that became

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my mentor. He took over that gym at that day. Wow. So it was kind

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of a neat experience. I was 19 years old at that point, by the way.

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Yeah. And, and the baseball career at this point was kind of like

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sunsetted, and you decided you were gonna, you're gonna commit to the fitness industry.

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Yeah, I completely committed to the fitness industry. I loved the team aspect of what

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was in the gym. I, I'd given up my hopes on that. Loved Florida, knew

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I wanted to stay. Loved every aspect of the gym, the competitive,

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the, the commission, the top producer report. Throughout my

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career over the next couple years, I, I can't say long— what

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ended up happening, it was within 6 months of Vince having that, I gave

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up my career and said baseball's never gonna happen. Let's make a

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career out of this. And you know, man, there's— I think there's always

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that moment in anybody's life that really triggers them, right? And, and I

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was sitting there and I was thinking about my baseball career. I was the guy

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that was naturally talented in high school. Mm-hmm. I could throw the ball. I threw

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the ball 86 miles an hour my freshman year. I threw the ball 86

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miles an hour my senior year. And I remember having a moment sitting

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there and I was thinking to myself, I was the guy, I was the captain

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of the baseball team, co-captain. But during tryouts, during

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that, I never gave it everything I could. Hmm. I never gave it everything

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I could. So when I looked back and I had that moment, and it really

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led to a lot of my leadership talks later, I always thought to myself, what

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if my freshman year through my senior year, I was actually the hardest worker?

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What if I gave it everything I got? What if I— people have an

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opportunity, people have gifts each and every day. And those gifts, some

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people choose to maximize that and reinvest in themselves or

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give it everything they got. And that moment that I let down myself,

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when I thought about my opportunity, when Vince walked through the doors that day, and

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to make it a decision that my baseball career was over and I was gonna

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move forward with the gym industry as my career at that point, I wasn't a

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college grad and didn't go to college, right? And made that choice after I moved

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to Florida. Yeah. I thought to myself, no matter what it is in my life,

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if I have an opportunity and I'm good at something, I'm going to give it

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everything I got because I don't want to look back and have regrets like I

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did in my baseball career, thinking to myself, what if? That what if will

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eat up anybody, right? So that's kind of what fueled my drive to become the

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top producer. Didn't know how to manage at 19, right,

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at all when I started to get into management. And that was kind of

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part of my story and my drive to why I was so driven to succeed.

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Well, I think, I think the best operators in, in our industry

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are people that have started where you started. So you

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understand and you appreciate like how all the different

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cogs to the wheel come together and how important, you know, it is

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when, when I walk around a club with someone like you and they're picking up,

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you know, like, you know, garbage or like they're picking up a cup in the

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parking lot or they're, you know, they see something and they start calling like their

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facilities guy right away and They go into the locker room and they're like the

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one tidying things up. That hands-on

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approach shows that you own it and you also used to

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do that. So you've trained yourself that I work here, even though I

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might be running the place, I actually work here. There's no— doesn't matter what my

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title is, right? I mean, I think there's a big something to be said about

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that. Yeah, it's ownership mentality, right? Everybody wakes up, 9 outta

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10 interviews interview with me and they say, man, I just, I got into the

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gym industry because I wanna be an owner someday. But they're not willing to take

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the steps as they walk through a gym to pick up those pieces of paper,

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to notice every aspect of it and not actually live and condition

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themselves to have that ownership mentality. And I try to teach that too. I'm like,

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if you don't start having that ownership mentality from the get-go, even if it

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is your dream someday, all you're doing is setting yourself up to not

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succeed down the road because you're not conditioning the habit and the skillset that

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you need if you were an owner. So there's 2 ways to look at that,

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right? And there's a lot of people want that. Like, I want to get here,

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but I'm not willing to do all this stuff in between that will get me

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there. Well, I think— and I think the more

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accelerated— I would say this is probably the right word— like

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accelerated business has become where someone's like, oh, I want to get into

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private equity. Well, look, you might want to get into private equity, or, oh, I

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want to go into like, you know, senior management at a big franchisor or

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like an area developer. It's like, You know, like, it'd probably serve you

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best if you actually understood how the business works from the ground level.

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Take a little bit of, like, pride and, you know, like, uh, you know,

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arrogance off of, like, your, your, your resume and go

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start from down there. Because if you actually understand how this business works and

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what it takes to actually, like, generate sales and have, like, a sales engine,

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then you can help me later on because now you understand

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what— how the— how the pieces work on the ground. Like, you can't just come

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up with strategies if you don't think that you can be— they can be

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implemented, you know, inside or outside the club. People can try to

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dissect this business, you know, many different ways. You can, you can

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sit up there in that ivory tower. Talk to my partner Jeff Dyer. Like, where

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the rubber meets the road is in the clubs, right? People are all— the

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absentee ownership that I see across the industry of when people are,

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are literally like making decisions for the business

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that aren't relative because they haven't been through the process or they're not a thoroughbred

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gym guy. Right? Right, exactly. You want to know what's going on in your clubs?

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Get behind that front desk. You want to go spend some extra hours? Don't,

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don't be a desk jockey sitting there at a desk trying to make a decision

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that's not relative to the, to the field. Yeah. And I'm not, I'm not, I'm

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not targeting anyone specifically, but if you used to work at

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a let's say just the equivalent of,

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let's be nice here. If you used to work at TGI Fridays

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and you ran like you're a district manager, okay? The gym

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industry's not something you just like do a lateral into and think that like we're

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selling food and put people in seats. Like, this is a much

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different sales process. This is a much different set

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of leaders and actors. Yeah.

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achievers. Well, it's evolved too, right? Like

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HVLP that we're currently on, you know, it makes it look really easy, right? Because

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the customer is driven by price. But the days and the practice of

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actually building rapport with your members, servicing your members, serving your

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members, and a lot of the HVLP gyms nowadays, Pete, there's such a

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product offering. There's so much that you have. I think one of

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our big struggles in our industry is showing the member on how to

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utilize things that they never were introduced to before. Like, we have recovery areas,

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we have all these, we have hot yogas now, we have Pilates studios. I mean,

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there's a lot more than just pushing weights, right? Yeah. Well,

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the interesting thing, like somebody like you coming from

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starting in this club where you basically like knew everybody's name,

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right? And you're like, you're doing relationship sales and people are coming in and be

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like, hey, I got results and talk to Tony, like you said before.

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And then you get into a brand like Crunch, which, you you know, is on

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the HVLP, you know, 2.0 or 3.0. And

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it's almost like I would love to provide that

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one-to-one service in that relationship, but that's kind of not

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really my business model. But Crunch kind of is all about

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getting results. And I used to go to Crunch back in

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1995, the first one. I did the Crunch deal

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where it got bought out of Bally's by— Yeah. You know, Angelo Gordon

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and then Mastroff got involved. And now it's obviously evolved to

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where you know, it's basically the number 2 to Planet in the market.

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And Crunch, I think, is moving fast to kind of

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bridge that gap from number of locations as well as like service offering and

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brand equity. So I guess my question is, how do you run the

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Crunch business model when you also are like, want to run a

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relationship model, but know that it's a volume

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play, but it's a relationship play? And how do you kind of meet those things

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in like a, you To get those things in some kind of balance that you're

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comfortable with? If that's a question that— several questions

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kind of tied up in one, I think. It goes back to the whole thing,

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like, people might come in for multiple different reasons, usually driven in by

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price a lot of times, or like it's a deal, right? And so they might

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buy, but they're not sold. And I teach that every day to my team. Like,

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you— like, it's one thing. So like, anybody, anybody could sign up the membership

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that's walking through the door, right? 9 out of 10 times, they're

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already joining no matter what on an HVLP. So the ability to

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kind of slow down and break down that. And as I always say, the

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elevator speech, to captivate that member

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and to capture their attention within that first 2 minutes and

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duplicate that business so that you get their 5 friends and that you

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get them loyal as a customer. Where it used to take an hour, you got

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2 minutes and then you got a value-based tour, right? So what makes you

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different than everybody else that has the same recovery, that has the same, you know,

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4 walls, that has the same exact equipment manufacturers, right?

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And so you got to teach that person to serve that person in front of

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you. Everybody nowadays on their supercomputer. If we can get the kids to put down

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their supercomputer and stop identifying themselves with the amount of Instagram

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friends that they have on their phone and actually serve the person

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that's going behind there, then, then you win.

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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

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members without having to do zero down and one month free,

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or giving away shakes or giving away t-shirts. What you want to do

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is 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 deal.

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There's something called Rewards Vault. The Rewards Vault is going to allow

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

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questions. You are gonna get those answers. You're gonna be able to target those

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members and you're gonna reward them inside your club,

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

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to get them to become loyal, to get them to pay their monthly dues,

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and to be rewarded properly for the actions. A lot of

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companies are cutting back on rewards. You shouldn't be. Promotion Vault's your

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answer. Trust me, this is real.

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So as you've gotten into this and now you've got

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over 100 locations, you got basically 3 subsidiaries

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and you've got private equity, maybe for the listeners here

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that maybe haven't taken in private equity or

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say, hey, I aspire to do that one day, maybe they've been listening to our

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podcast and I say, if you're with private equity, you get to kind of play

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chess. While mom-and-pop operator has to play checkers because

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you don't have to sign personally as a CEO on a lease

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agreement anymore. Sure. You don't have to sign on the debt. You don't have to

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sign on the franchise agreement. So you got less

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liability that could be like your downside risk is

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capped and your private equity partner, for people listening here,

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you validated this obviously, is that you get to use other people's capital

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that's non-recourse. And that's how you could grow much quicker.

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So talk about how that pivot happened and how that's

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kind of changed what you do every day and how you appreciate maybe the business

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or the capital markets that you get to play in now. Yeah,

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I think like it's, there's human capital, right? So you always gotta make

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sure that your growth trajectory meets that. You know, I'm never

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worried about the capital side of the business because we were always self-funded as we

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were growing it. And it became more, and of course, like private

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equity does it speed up, Yeah, absolutely. But you wanna make sure that your

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infrastructure's set up for the amount of clubs that you're gonna build, right?

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Right. I think a lot of people could get very reckless.

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And of course, like there's other, you know, if you're driven to grow

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just to grow, then you could start acquiring people that are bad acquisitions and

302
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you could start making a B location that maybe

303
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isn't gonna, like we look for AAA sites, we look for same-store

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sales, we've looked for the ability to prove out our model

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whether we acquire a customer Or sorry, a

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competitor, or whether we have acquired another

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franchisee. Those are key things that we were looking for when we brought on

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private equity to speed up growth. We're like, okay, we gotta have same-store

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sales consistency. We gotta continue to show that upward trajectory of

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same-store sales. We gotta show that we can acquire a competitor

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and turn their numbers around. And we gotta— Yeah. We gotta show that number 3,

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we gotta show that we can acquire another franchisee. And accelerate

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through the brand, through our people and our processes that CR Fitness has,

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that we can maximize the growth potential there too. And we checked the box in

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all 3 of those things. When that started happening, we started to

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say, okay, if we did 10 clubs next year, what is the human

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capital behind our organization? What is the infrastructure that can maybe do

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15? We don't look at it, you know, and then, then all of a sudden

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last year you throw a 9-club acquisition, 24 Hour Fitness, we acquire

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them and we say, can we handle it? Can we afford it? In Florida, you

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know, and we navigated it through uncharted waters that we had

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never been through before. 9 all at once. And we said— and that

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wasn't even in the pro forma or the goal for that year. And we handled

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it on a scale of 1 to 10, I would say at a 9.5, you

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know, 10 being the best. So that kind of shows the

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capacity of your team. Yeah. So how often

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do you have to say no to either more

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acquisitions, new growth? How are you as, as the CEO, you're

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kind of managing the growth. Uh, and I did a

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podcast once with a guy at private equity at TSG Consumer who's,

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um, you know, is involved in Planetz and now is part of EOS, uh,

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ownership group. Um, he said to me, I gotta say no all the

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time because the more I say yes, the more complexity

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could potentially be like pushed into a business. Or like, I don't have to do

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everything, you know, all at once. So how do you kind of put like

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a psychological governor on? Like, this is what we're doing in

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2026. Yeah, I'll be opportunistic, but I'm not gonna let

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this— a wheel come off this train that's

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already going pretty fucking fast. Yeah, I think it comes— you got

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to put your ego aside, number one. And I, and I would say this, that

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Pete, you know me, I'm all gas, right? So I'm the guy, I'm

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the guy that's going, bring it on. I like, I like having my back against

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the wall when somebody says that you can't do it. I would say, no, we

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can. Right? And so I would say that the pumping of the brakes comes from

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more my mentors, Jeff Dyer in the business, former

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CEO, Todd Bright, former CEO that's been with Vince Julian.

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The greatest thing about my position is I'm surrounded around not just even

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the board, North Castle Partners, but like 3 former CEOs.

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To me, I'm always wanting to go all in and I'm like, let's prove it

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out that we can do it. I feel like our infrastructure and I'm confident in

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our infrastructure, but there is some choices. Like you start to look more

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at like, B markets, right? Like with half the dem— half the

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population counts, and maybe on Knoxville, Tennessee, and you say,

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am I going to get my same return in a market that has half the

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population? And you got to make a decision. And if it's in the pro forma,

356
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then you might go forward anyways. But it's all risk.

357
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The thing I think where people get way off track is when whatever they're

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good at, whether it be us or a competitor, LA Fitness,

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or if it's You know, anybody, Planet Fitness, we just saw their recent earnings,

360
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right? And then all of a sudden they try to go down a

361
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road and they try to change their product to be something that they're not,

362
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right? Rather than sticking what they were already good at, right?

363
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And then I think that's the no. Just because everybody else has something

364
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doesn't mean that we have to have it too. Like, what does Crunch identify

365
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themselves at? We don't have to have everything, but the stuff that we do have,

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I wanna be great at, okay? I wanna have the best group fitness

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programs, right? I wanna have the best, you know, customer

368
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service, the things that we control. When you start going outside of it and try

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to do things that just other people have just because to be more competitive than

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them, I think you might lose the focus or the identity of what your brand

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is. And that's when I say no, right? Yeah. And those ideas might

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come from your partners, they might come from the field, they might come from your

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equity guys. They could come from a lot of different places. And it's a

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distraction. So as an analogy, and I mentioned to you, I'm down in,

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down in Myrtle Beach and got involved in the Dunkin' network,

376
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you know, 18 years ago. The way that brand has evolved, you know,

377
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it's called Dunkin' Donuts now, it's called Dunkin'. I think the marketing is

378
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like super slick and right on point. I think they spend their marketing dollars

379
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well. I think the product and the service that,

380
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that has been ingrained in that business is actually you know, probably

381
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enhanced dramatically from the consumer's eyes. When you look at

382
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Crunch, you know, it used to be 19 locations when people thought it was like

383
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300 locations because their marketing and the, you know, some of the buzz that they

384
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had and maybe some unconventional, you know, ways, ways to do

385
00:23:23,659 --> 00:23:27,363
guerrilla marketing where New York and LA, like everyone knew Crunch except there was like

386
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a handful of locations. How excited are you or were

387
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you when you said, hey, we get this Crunch brand and it looks like it's

388
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going in the direction that I think the market is going,

389
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you know. And it's not like you, um, let's just use a

390
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bad analogy, but let's say like if Tony Schiavone was running like Snap

391
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Fitness, like I don't know if like you would— that would work for you

392
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because I don't know if that Snap brand like is who you are and what

393
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you want to provide and the results. And maybe like the, the, um,

394
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the A-type personality I think that like the Crunch brand

395
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exhibits in the market, like that's kind of your personality. Yeah, it's not like you're

396
00:24:04,160 --> 00:24:07,860
trying to jerry-rig yourself into a brand because of like, oh, the AUVs in here

397
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are really good. It's like, no, dude, I actually like this Crunch thing. Actually works

398
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for me. Like, if I put a Crunch shirt on and I'm Tony Scrimale or

399
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Tony Scrimale, whichever one you want to be today, right? Like, I'm cool

400
00:24:18,300 --> 00:24:21,160
with— like, that's kind of who I am, right? Yeah. So how does that— how

401
00:24:21,160 --> 00:24:24,880
does that work for you? Or is there something else behind that to think about

402
00:24:24,880 --> 00:24:28,580
when you're like aligning with a brand or like committing? Yeah, yeah. I

403
00:24:28,580 --> 00:24:32,120
mean, if that, you know, if Crunch wasn't Right, edgy and sexy and

404
00:24:32,120 --> 00:24:35,620
clever, right? Yeah. It was cheesy and corny. Or

405
00:24:35,620 --> 00:24:39,160
like, Pete, look, if there was a boutique that was

406
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sexy and edgy that I really thought would be, you know, cool to work

407
00:24:42,880 --> 00:24:46,220
for, you know, I can't say that I wouldn't do it. I'd like to have

408
00:24:46,220 --> 00:24:50,060
less rent expectations, right? Yeah, sure, sure, sure. A little bit more

409
00:24:50,060 --> 00:24:53,880
exposure in a smaller box, 2,000 square feet compared to 40,000 square feet.

410
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I'd be all in if I got excited to go to work every day.

411
00:24:57,840 --> 00:25:01,660
Right. I think the industry, you know, I've said this before, like it's changing. Like

412
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everybody, everybody's attracted to like these high-end lights and these features.

413
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And there's a lot about the industry to where like Crunch is going more

414
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modern industrial, right? Like we're actually, 3.0 is being looked

415
00:25:12,900 --> 00:25:15,660
at. There's select clubs that are gonna be rolled out here shortly. I'm kind of

416
00:25:15,660 --> 00:25:19,440
letting the cat out of the bag, but we're even rebranding some of the

417
00:25:19,440 --> 00:25:23,160
looks of our 3.0 model. It's evolving and it's never gonna

418
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stop. And I'm excited about Crunch because they don't have

419
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a lot of the handcuffs and they work with the franchisees

420
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to evolve the brand. Like, I love that about the new leadership. And I think

421
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a lot of times if I had the handcuffs of some of these franchisees

422
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that are out there to where like that, you know, that wall has to be

423
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this certain color or, you know, that you got to buy only this equipment and

424
00:25:46,134 --> 00:25:49,293
the layout's got to be exactly what this is, I can't say that I would

425
00:25:49,341 --> 00:25:52,740
be excited as an entrepreneur. To have that kind of, you know,

426
00:25:53,926 --> 00:25:57,660
same stores, like lookalike and everything like that. The flexibility with Crunch

427
00:25:58,077 --> 00:26:01,715
and the edginess of Crunch and the evolution of Crunch. Everybody wants to

428
00:26:01,763 --> 00:26:05,529
say like, oh, Crunch 1.0, 2.0, 3.0. But there's not a lot

429
00:26:05,529 --> 00:26:09,167
of brands over the last 10 or I think 15 years since they've

430
00:26:09,167 --> 00:26:12,532
started franchises that has had 3 evolutions of

431
00:26:12,661 --> 00:26:16,491
looks of the brand. That's, that's a lot of work for the master franchisee, for

432
00:26:16,507 --> 00:26:20,065
the corporately owned stores. And I think they've done a phenomenal job. So that

433
00:26:20,065 --> 00:26:23,735
excites me. It excites me. I was in Manhattan yesterday and I went to,

434
00:26:23,895 --> 00:26:27,628
you know, David Barton Gym. And Pete, I, I travel. There's nobody

435
00:26:27,644 --> 00:26:31,026
that you'll ever meet that's in and out of more gyms than me. Um, I

436
00:26:31,090 --> 00:26:34,727
challenge that. I like going in, I like experiencing the product. I pay a

437
00:26:34,775 --> 00:26:38,317
day fee, I go in, I check out the product. And not because— not

438
00:26:38,317 --> 00:26:42,002
because I always— I want to know what the competition is doing, right? But they're

439
00:26:42,018 --> 00:26:44,822
not even competitors. I want to know what the industry is doing. I want to

440
00:26:44,822 --> 00:26:48,027
see these, you know, little tactics. And I went into our Chelsea

441
00:26:48,332 --> 00:26:51,811
club corporately owned in New York City. I tried to sign in as a guest.

442
00:26:51,859 --> 00:26:55,626
They saw me, you know, the manager says, I know who you are, the

443
00:26:55,626 --> 00:26:59,393
whole deal. But they just did a renovation there and

444
00:26:59,393 --> 00:27:02,487
they're starting to reinvest in the corporately owned stores in Manhattan.

445
00:27:03,064 --> 00:27:06,367
And the brand is phenomenal. They put in recovery, which they hadn't had in the

446
00:27:06,367 --> 00:27:10,086
corporate stores before, infrared zones. Um, and to me,

447
00:27:10,198 --> 00:27:13,982
that's what's exciting to me. It's exciting to me when a brand continues

448
00:27:18,074 --> 00:27:21,749
This is Pete Moore. Here's the last tip for you of the podcast.

449
00:27:22,231 --> 00:27:24,927
We are partnered up with a company called HigherDOSE,

450
00:27:25,360 --> 00:27:28,554
higherdose.com. They are the leader in

451
00:27:28,971 --> 00:27:32,004
workout recovery products, infrared technology,

452
00:27:32,598 --> 00:27:36,144
LED light masks, neck enhancers, and

453
00:27:36,353 --> 00:27:39,803
other products such as PEMF mats and sauna

454
00:27:39,803 --> 00:27:43,641
blankets. If you have not gotten on the workout recovery

455
00:27:43,898 --> 00:27:47,159
train yet, your time and your stop is now.

456
00:27:47,929 --> 00:27:51,350
You gotta get these products in there before these workout recovery and spas

457
00:27:51,704 --> 00:27:55,542
end up saturating your market, having your members walk outta the club

458
00:27:55,542 --> 00:27:59,380
and going into one of their locations for $200 per month

459
00:27:59,814 --> 00:28:03,620
where they're paying $39 to you. Let's become an expert in workout

460
00:28:03,669 --> 00:28:06,816
recovery if we are already an authority in workouts.

461
00:28:08,478 --> 00:28:12,202
HigherDOSE, check it out. There's a wholesale code and we look

462
00:28:12,202 --> 00:28:15,636
forward to helping you augment your products and services

463
00:28:16,216 --> 00:28:19,758
to meet the demands of your members. And hey, let's get people

464
00:28:19,774 --> 00:28:23,555
happy, healthy, and sweating, and the recovery should be

465
00:28:23,619 --> 00:28:24,633
just as good as the workout.

466
00:28:29,650 --> 00:28:32,700
So just talk here in closing, because we got, we can obviously go on for

467
00:28:32,700 --> 00:28:36,417
hours, But talk about the transaction with North Castle and

468
00:28:36,417 --> 00:28:39,500
Sixth Street from what you're allowed to talk about, and then this new

469
00:28:39,644 --> 00:28:43,418
frontier going into Arizona. Yeah, the

470
00:28:43,418 --> 00:28:46,902
transaction was phenomenal. Partners choose you as you choose

471
00:28:46,950 --> 00:28:50,643
partners, right? And when you think about equity behind a business, did

472
00:28:50,643 --> 00:28:54,304
anything really change? No, we have more minds

473
00:28:54,416 --> 00:28:57,788
behind the movement and the direction and the vision of the company. So

474
00:28:58,832 --> 00:29:02,013
I think a lot of times, like, if you got in, there's always the bad

475
00:29:02,029 --> 00:29:05,741
stories of private equity and the unfortunate, you know, and that's out

476
00:29:05,741 --> 00:29:09,539
there. I've seen it. We all heard about it. You don't come into CR

477
00:29:09,669 --> 00:29:13,383
Fitness, which is a top-performing brand for Crunch franchisee, and

478
00:29:13,400 --> 00:29:16,917
try to change anything. What you're investing in is they invested in our

479
00:29:17,449 --> 00:29:20,589
equity teams. And there's 2 types of equity groups that they could possibly come in

480
00:29:20,589 --> 00:29:23,713
and say, hey, we gotta make a bunch of changes. It's not about that. It's

481
00:29:23,713 --> 00:29:26,896
like, Let's keep this train going. Let's keep doing what we're doing

482
00:29:27,490 --> 00:29:30,987
with one of the best C-suite teams that's currently in place.

483
00:29:31,420 --> 00:29:34,115
And that's, if anything, let's speed up our growth a little bit, 'cause they always

484
00:29:34,227 --> 00:29:37,467
want that. But the partnership has been phenomenal. Our

485
00:29:37,499 --> 00:29:41,124
boardroom meetings, just had one last week. I

486
00:29:41,365 --> 00:29:44,974
gotta say, I love it, right? It always says surround yourself with the

487
00:29:44,974 --> 00:29:47,974
smartest people in the room. Well, there's more smart people in that room right now,

488
00:29:48,343 --> 00:29:51,551
which is great. That's great. So I'm more bullish on the future than ever.

489
00:29:52,176 --> 00:29:55,877
Um, as far as Phoenix, Pete, Phoenix was something that we know that

490
00:29:55,877 --> 00:29:59,609
Phoenix is one of the most competitive markets, Arizona, and, you know, in,

491
00:30:00,282 --> 00:30:04,031
in the industry. I mean, there's more gyms per square mile than the

492
00:30:04,031 --> 00:30:07,812
majority of any states across the country. Yeah. And, you know,

493
00:30:07,876 --> 00:30:11,641
there's a lot of hesitation to go into that market, but to me, the

494
00:30:11,641 --> 00:30:15,229
population counts are right. The, the players that have been there— Mountainside,

495
00:30:15,405 --> 00:30:19,170
EOS's home territory— they've been there for a very long time. And the

496
00:30:19,170 --> 00:30:22,855
consumer at the end of the day likes options, whether it's HVLP or not.

497
00:30:23,095 --> 00:30:26,784
And You know, when you compete against anybody, all that they do is they make

498
00:30:26,784 --> 00:30:29,768
you better at your game. So if I have a competitor, and people like new

499
00:30:30,009 --> 00:30:33,762
too, so, you know, there's CapEx that you got to put in your old

500
00:30:33,778 --> 00:30:37,548
clubs, like, you know, so it's friendly competition. I know the majority of

501
00:30:37,548 --> 00:30:41,318
people that work at our competitors, and when I saw Phoenix, I thought it was

502
00:30:41,318 --> 00:30:44,816
a wide open market, and I'm very bullish. I'm buying a second home there, as

503
00:30:44,832 --> 00:30:48,345
you know. That was my commitment to the board, is I wanted to be kind

504
00:30:48,345 --> 00:30:51,427
of boots on the ground, first one in. Not gonna move out of Tampa Bay.

505
00:30:51,989 --> 00:30:55,683
Love Tampa Bay, you know, but, uh, I'll be

506
00:30:55,683 --> 00:30:59,217
there more side by side with you, buddy. Awesome. All right, well,

507
00:30:59,377 --> 00:31:02,975
you've heard it here from directly the CEO of

508
00:31:02,975 --> 00:31:06,782
CR Fitness. Big things to come. Thanks for, uh, waving the flag

509
00:31:06,782 --> 00:31:10,460
and probably getting hundreds of thousands of people in several states to

510
00:31:10,781 --> 00:31:14,556
achieve their results over the years. You know, it'd been a crazy entrepreneurial

511
00:31:14,556 --> 00:31:17,848
journey as well. We haven't even like touch the surface really on, on

512
00:31:18,043 --> 00:31:21,843
some of the other stories, but we'll keep that, we'll keep that stuff from

513
00:31:21,876 --> 00:31:25,686
behind the paywall when we get our Kajabi system set

514
00:31:26,393 --> 00:31:29,430
up. There you go. There you go. All right, cool. All right, man, thanks for

515
00:31:29,430 --> 00:31:32,113
coming on. Go Halo, bro. Thanks, Pete. Appreciate it. Thanks.

516
00:31:39,630 --> 00:31:43,257
This is Pete Moore on Halo Talk. Your captain speaking. I am the

517
00:31:43,257 --> 00:31:46,870
founder and managing partner at Integrity Square. We've been around

518
00:31:46,870 --> 00:31:50,611
now for 15 and a half years. We have been helping

519
00:31:50,724 --> 00:31:54,079
people like yourselves get capital, do mergers and

520
00:31:54,079 --> 00:31:57,756
acquisitions, consulting, strategic advice in the health,

521
00:31:57,933 --> 00:32:01,738
active lifestyle, and outdoor halo sector, trying to help as

522
00:32:01,883 --> 00:32:05,672
many entrepreneurs as possible get to the next level, take

523
00:32:05,720 --> 00:32:08,756
that inflection point. And be the force behind your growth.

524
00:32:09,511 --> 00:32:12,966
We are helping companies that have at least $3 million of

525
00:32:12,966 --> 00:32:16,500
EBITDA, around $10 million of revenue, and

526
00:32:16,661 --> 00:32:20,089
we are positioned to help you get institutional growth capital

527
00:32:20,849 --> 00:32:24,149
or to negotiate deals with strategic partners. If you go to

528
00:32:24,327 --> 00:32:25,087
integritysq.com/ISQ,

529
00:32:28,403 --> 00:32:32,166
you can see our capabilities deck. Happy to set up a consultation at any time.

530
00:32:32,539 --> 00:32:35,732
That is It's free of charge, and we look forward to helping

531
00:32:36,040 --> 00:32:39,877
solve obesity, loneliness, and diabetes. Go Halo!