HALO Talks

"Scenting is something luxury brands have always done, and paid attention to. Sense of smell has always been pivotal in the HALO market--two of the most famous brands that focus on it are Equinox and SoulCycle," states Daniel Zimmon, Founder of NatScent.  He and Pete discuss the strong use case for creating a unique scent, empirical data behind the effectiveness (and very high ROI!) of scenting, the results of a famous NIKE experiment, and some examples of how this is used by companies like Wynn hotels, Aveda, Apple, Mercedes, Rolls Royce and others. This is something that should be strongly considered by any HALO company. Click here for complete transcript. 

Pete McCall is a respected industry veteran with 15+ years in the HALO sector. He recently published his second book with Human Kinetics titled Ageless Intensity: High-Intensity Workouts to Slow the Aging Process. "My definition of fitness is having the ability to do what you want to do, when you want to do it," he states.  He discusses his motives behind the book, provides thoughts on where fitness is going (virtual reality!), chats about the increased importance of technology at the club level--especially for those 25 and younger, building out co-working/remote working facilities in the clubs, reviews recent studies around aging and testosterone, and more. Grab the book, leave a review on Amazon, and "get after it!" Finally, if you're not familiar with that fantastic commercial discussed in the podcast, you can see it here. (But don't say we didn't warn you!)  Click here to download transcript.

As a "typical entrepreneur" who dives head first into everything, Dan did the same with CrossFit, ". . . after doing nothing for 10 years. I  went down the rabbit hole, realized the software in the space was sub-par. Now, here I am 10 years later!" he jokes. He discusses how PushPress differentiates itself in a very crowded field ("We built it on the concept of integrations & expandability like the concept of app store, so you can make it your own") and more. PushPress also tends to focus on the single owner-operated facilities as well--a space where others may have left. As a self-professed "tech nerd," he offers up thoughts on where the market is going (data driven decisions, AI, automations) as well as pricing discussions, sales (top-down or bottom-up shoppers), the importance of failure, and more! Click here to download transcript. 

In this info-packed episode, we're treated to an "insider's look" at the public and private markets from a highly experienced veteran. Sharon chats about what public markets look at and why some companies get valued the way they do. "Any analyst worth their salt is doing their own modeling and trying to figure out where the risks lie, and where the opportunities are," she states. She continues about the importance of playing the long game, (regardless of whether you're public or private,) calibrating market euphoria, ("First mover is advantage is important, but it's only important  so long as you can maintain your flywheel and maintain your innovation gap relative to your competition,") thoughts on inflation, labor, going back to the office, and more! Click here for complete transcript. 

Bob began his career with Healthtrax in 1980. Due to his strong science background, they were one of the first to get into company healthcare. "I was a company intrapreneur," he states. "Starting divisions, selling some off, and keeping others. I forged a lot of relationships with hospitals like John's Hopkins as well."  In this wide ranging discussion, Bob offers his thoughts on the corporate wellness market, ACO's (accountable care organizations)  the continuum of "upstream and "downstream" care, population health management aimed at early interventions, post workout recovery, and more! 

Going from a former insurance agent to a successful entrepreneur with a Shark Tank appearance under his belt (January 2020,) Genius Juice Founder Alex Bayer has quite the story!  Genius Juice makes the purest coconut smoothie on the market, and produces over 20,000 coconuts per day and brings in several containers per month. They use less than 10 ingredients per bottle, their top seller has 2 ingredients and their number 2 seller has only 5 ingredients. "We pride ourselves on simplicity, taste, and benefits of using coconut water and coconut meat in every single bottle produced. I often say there's 'no dumb stuff in our product' he jokes. Despite the Shark Tank deal not working out, the company raised half a million dollars in one month after the episode aired. He chats with Pete about future growth, the beverage market, his two new key hires (Casey Plachek & Gavin Linde) the story behind the company name, behind-the-scenes experiences on Shark Tank, and more!  Contact him at Alex@geniusjuice.com, email 

After a 20+ year background in finance, Pete Moore brought Brent into the industry in 2005. After acquiring Crunch while at Angelo Gordon and then working with New Evolution Ventures, Brent is now firmly on the operating side. Since founding Equity 38, he has since become the new owner of the highly regarded TRX brand. Leffel states, "You can't model people and culture. That's the most important thing in these businesses . . . All my time in private equity, we were focused on the wrong things. We should have been focused on, 'Do you have the right people running the business? Are you supporting them in the right way?'"  He and Pete chat about lessons learned, discussion of TRX and how Equity 38 thought about the purchase, where TRX is going, club hybridization, virtual training, trainer compensation and retention, the three most important words a fitness owner needs to know, and more!  Click here to download transcript. 

Regarded as one of the top body transformation studios in NYC and very well known for the fantastic community they foster, this podcast was conducted right from UpFit Academy! Junior high school classmates, Wes Chow and Paul Park have co-owned UpFit for the past 4 years. "We treat members as if they're extended family. I don't want someone paying for something that they're not getting tremendous value out of . . . if they're coming here, they know they're going to get results," states Chow. They continue on to discuss how to determine roles & responsibilities, what their definition of success is, their carefully considered plans for expansion, how they're seeing revenues now that are better than pre-pandemic levels, and more!  Click here for transcript. 

Bobby founded Active Entities after a successful college and professional basketball and tennis coaching career. "Health clubs don't matter to people these days. Health matters to people!" he states firmly. "People will pay for quality and results. Out of this pandemic, we learned a lot about ourselves as an industry--a lot of our shortcomings. When you get grouped with casinos, it really tells you where you're at." He shares his in-the-trenches experiences with independent "big box" operators, chats about why it's important to consider increasing prices, provides some tips for independent clubs who may feel they're "on an island," what clubs are doing now to get people in the door, and more!  Click here for transcript. 

Kevin is a 28 year veteran of the beautiful, 44 acre Atlantic Club.  33% of its business comes from the health club, and 67% from ancillary revenue. They have one of the biggest day spas and tennis programs in the country and most managers have been with the organization for over 20 years. "During COVID we had to ask ourselves what would we need to be in the future . . . Pretty much everything has changed. We are a completely different company . . . also we also learned our competition can be our friends, they don't have to be enemies."  Pete and Kevin chat about how they survived (and in some ways thrived) during COVID, the conversion of their 22,000 square foot  fieldhouse into one of the largest training areas in the industry, what they did with their cycling studio to maximize revenue, their use of shipping containers (!) why the future looks especially bright for the larger facilities, and more thoughts on marketing, medical fitness, new pricing strategy, and more! Click here to download transcript.

In business for 12 years, Anthony started in the industry at 16 and worked his way up. Now 41, he's the owner of five Push Fitness locations in the tri-state area. "I always wanted to do a luxury gym at an affordable price . . . a lot of people think running health clubs is an easy business, but it's really not, especially if you run them the right way," he states. Tony reviews some tips anyone opening a new facility should consider, the right (and wrong) reasons to expand, how he competes (and wins) against cheaper clubs, how they survived COVID, advice for people just entering the field, and more! Click here to download transcript. 

Founder & CEO of 305 Fitness, Sadie Kurzban opened her first studio in 2014. Currently with 7 locations across Boston, DC, and NY, over 1,000 trainers trained (with plans for 25,000+ in the next three years) 305 is perfectly positioned for massive growth!  "The new woman isn't sold on an aspiration of exclusivity, thin-at-all-costs, performance and leaderboards. She's sold on the aspiration of inclusivity, self-confidence, owning her truth and feeling like there's a place to love her body," states Kurzban. She and Pete chat about how she created the special culture she has while finding (and retaining) the best talent (over 90% of her staff is returning,) how she found angel investors and strategic partners, their pivot into the digital side for COVID ("we built our amazing YouTube community almost by accident!") and more!  Click here to download transcript.

At 19, Coss Marte was making over $2 million a year selling drugs. Imprisoned at 23, he quickly realized he had "all sorts of health issues." He lost 70lbs in 6 months and started CONBODY  after his release 8 years ago. He states, "I knew it was going to work. Just show up everyday, deliver a great product, and trust the process. . .  95% of the people in Rikers Island are Black or Hispanic. I've hired over 50 people with a zero recidivism rate. Nobody has gone back into the system." And people are paying attention! They've trained over 50,000 people and during COVID, one of his classes had 800 attending! Coss discusses his plans for opening post-COVID, an instructor training program, non-profit work, apparel, their current capital raise, and more! Click here to download transcript. 

As the Founder of Crossrope, (which he bootstrapped from the beginning) Dave has jumping in his blood! He spent 12 years as a Naval pilot and, while in the Academy, also competed in both long jumping and high jumping. He says, "I've always had this indescribable, innate, passion for the freeing feeling . . .  for the challenge and enjoyment of jumping!" Crossrope has a hugely dedicated following with an incredibly enthusiastic online community. He and Pete discuss how the company went about setting themselves apart in a highly commoditized market, the product lifecycle, intellectual property protection, how they've dealt with people's concerns around "I haven't done this since elementary school!" and more. Dave goes on to chat about his 'contrarian' views on entrepreneurship, hiring, the EOS management system, where the company is going in the next 5 years and more!

With a 40 year background in the industry, Sara started in group exercise, eventually owned her own studio, became the #1 distributor for Les Mills for years, and then founded SCW Fitness Education. She was at the inception of the boutique fitness world, before it was even called that! In this wide ranging discussion, she and Pete chat about everything from the future of the industry post-COVID ("We're going to have a shortage of . . . group exercise instructors and personal trainers,") to why it's important to not restrict instructors as we bring them back in the clubs (and how to implement that exactly.) She continues on about the critical need to learn lessons from outside our industry (with specific examples from Apple, Lululemon, Kate Spade, boutique hotels), and more!  Click here to download transcript. 

Ian Mullane is the Founder of keepme.ai. With a strong background in finance, predictive analytics, and the fitness industry (he owned Vanda.fit in Singapore) Ian related, "I asked myself if I could possibly utilize the data within my organization to predict whether or not a member will stay or go? That's how Keepme came about . . . if you're going to build a platform of substance, it helps to have had the problem yourself."    He and Pete chat about the importance of retention in the industry, how the thinking around it really hasn't changed in the past decade, what can be done about it, why technology should be an 'enabler' to building relationships, and more! Download Ian's Future of Fitness whitepaper here. 

As Founder of The Wellness Agency ("TWA") Jay describes it as, "Kind of a Y-Combinator meets William Morris or UTA for wellness." Prior to TWA, Jay founded Mammoth Records and was Head of A&R at Atlantic Records before selling to the Walt Disney Company. His extensive experience helping artists grow carried over perfectly to his business ventures. TWA has a vision to being a material part of creating 10 unicorns in the next decade. They provide startup accelerator services, access to an investor network, DTC strategy and implementation, and market entry to China. He and Pete chat about upcoming trends and products, the increasing importance of "microinfluencers," experience with "celebrity investors," and how those deals come together, and more.  Click here to download transcript. 

With a challenging history of severe autoimmune disease, Shauna Reiter's journey to eventually founding Alaya Naturals has been a long, but rewarding one. Alaya's annual revenue is $6 million with over 100,000+ customers and a team size of 5! On evaluating other products, she states, "You have to ask whose agenda is it? What's their Mission and purpose? Who are they associated with? If there's a big profit to be gained, then sometimes quality can be overlooked, and there's plenty of marketing gimmicks that . . can mean nothing. You have to do a deeper level of research." In a wide-ranging chat with Pete, she discusses the role politics and law play in the nutrition and supplement industry, (e.g., the use of the term "organic"), the need to let go from time to time when it comes to diet and nutritional choices, the importance of slowing down and not rushing a product to market, challenges in keeping a company small and personal versus scaling too fast and (possibly) losing credibility, and more! Click here for

Erika Flint is an award-winning hypnotist, best-selling author, speaker, co-host of the popular podcast series Hypnosis, Etc., and co-host of the radio program Reprogram Your Health. She is the founder of Cascade Hypnosis Center and the creator of the Reprogram Your Weight System.  Before becoming a hypnotist, Erika designed software for the high-tech industry. She was working in that field for over a decade when she realized how interested she was in the most powerful computing device available – the human mind. Now she combines her analytical expertise along with powerful hypnosis techniques and her compassion for people to help clients utilize their most powerful asset – their mind. "Hypnosis allows us to be the CEO of our own operating system. . .it helps business owners make very clear decisions and feel good about them--and that's paramount," she says. In this chat, she and Pete discuss why hypnosis is becoming more popular, the hurdles the pharmaceutical industry poses, differences between meditation a

The Joy of Mom's Mission is, "To unite and empower women everywhere to be unapologetic warriors and sisters while navigating the ever-evolving life cycle of motherhood." To say they've succeeded would be an understatement! Founder Vicki Reece has, from the ground up, built a "natural, organic, beautiful community of over 5 million Mom's!" "They have a 60 million reach average monthly," which is, according to COO Dush Ramachandran, "Completely organic. Not one like or share has been paid for. Every post gets 1.5 billion annual impressions. Videos get 334 million annual views. 80 million annual engagements." This incredible community not only continues to grow, but engagement grows with it (which is usually not the case.) Dush and Vicki discuss how to know when to "let the business go" to allow it to grow, fundraising, the importance of providing "trust based value" (the right company valuation will follow!), where the community is going, and much more!  Click here to download transcript.