Alloy Personal Training is one of the most exciting brands in fitness. And Nick Garrity is a prime example of why, having launched two successful locations last year and preparing to birth a third.
We discuss the secrets to appealing to the 'older' fitness clientele, the value of communications, and the essential power of providing a first-class, consistent customer experience.
Nick and I really connect on the basics of content marketing. You have to let people know you want their business. It's that simple! And once they agree to try you out, then you have to deliver.
I'm proud to share this conversation with someone who gets it -- and is putting his understanding of this market to good use.
Please note: This is a reposting of the earlier show. The content is the same, but the audio is much improved. Apologies for the previous issues!
Nick Garrity on LinkedIn
Alloy Chastain
My new course to motivate men over 50 to get off the couch and into fitness
Life Priority Supplements -- Affiliate Discount here
Prime Fit Content – Engage the over-50 market
Alloy Personal Training is one of the most exciting brands in fitness. And Nick Garrity is a prime example of why, having launched two successful locations last year and preparing to birth a third.
We discuss the secrets to appealing to the 'older' fitness clientele, the value of communications, and the essential power of providing a first-class, consistent customer experience.
Nick and I really connect on the basics of content marketing. You have to let people know you want their business. It's that simple! And once they agree to try you out, then you have to deliver.
I'm proud to share this conversation with someone who gets it -- and is putting his understanding of this market to good use.
Please note: This is a reposting of the earlier show. The content is the same, but the audio is much improved. Apologies for the previous issues!
Nick Garrity on LinkedIn
Alloy Chastain
My new course to motivate men over 50 to get off the couch and into fitness
Life Priority Supplements -- Affiliate Discount here
Prime Fit Content – Engage the over-50 market
Hi everybody and welcome to Optimal Aging. I'm your host, Jay Croft of Prime Fit Content, with a little secret to start the show this week. If you wanna grow your fitness business with adults of a certain age, then you need to do a couple of things to start with, broadly speaking First, make sure they know that you want them and second, once they check you out, be sure to deliver a great customer experience. Does that sound too basic? I hope it does, but unfortunately it's not for everyone and that's why I'm excited about this week's episode. These are just two of the topics I discussed this week with my guest on Optimal Aging, the show for fitness pros trying to grow their businesses with more people over 50 or 40 or thereabouts. No need to put too fine a point on it.
Jay Croft:Nick Garrity is a veteran fitness pro and franchisee who has planted his flag in the active aging market here in Metro Atlanta with two soon to be three locations of alloy personal training. That's the booming franchise business, also based here in the Atlanta area, the brainchild of CEO and friend of this podcast, Rick Mayo. Nick and I talk about why he's dedicated himself to helping people in this demographic and why we both believe this segment represents the greatest economic opportunity in fitness. We cover content marketing, building relationships and networking in real life, even gasp using printed materials to get your message out there to the folks who need to hear it most, and, ultimately, how you can become a part of their lives they don't wanna do without. Nick has a lot of great wisdom to share and I know you'll enjoy our conversation here. It is, Nick. Thanks for joining me today. It's a pleasure to talk about all of this with you.
Nick Garrity:It's an honor, man. I've been listening to your podcast for a while and I just I love everything that you're preaching on there and you're one of those podcasts now that, as soon as it's up, I'm listening to it right away.
Jay Croft:Oh man.
Nick Garrity:Yeah, you've got a wealth of knowledge that I think is actually very pertinent to what we're doing here and but also to my life and where I want to be Thanks.
Jay Croft:I really appreciate that and I really love, of course, what Ally's doing. I've known Rick for a long time now and have followed Ally since I don't know since the last four or five years, and what you guys are doing here with your studios is really exciting. We're going to talk about that. You have two that are up and running and a third about to come on board. But, briefly, give me the a little more than the 25 words or less version of how you got in your career to be here at.
Nick Garrity:Ally, yeah, yeah, I won't go all the way down to the full bio but athlete growing up, love sports and working out and then got into the exercise science world and sports medicine and just fell in love with helping people and that's not the core of what I've always tried to do and most recently got involved with a bunch of different franchises and saw the back of the house.
Nick Garrity:I helped do the development side of real estate negotiations and that kind of hit my interest on learning more of the business side of the training world, and then when Rick and Ally went to franchising they were licensed model before this and I reached out to them right away.
Nick Garrity:I was like, man, I'd love to be a part of this, and to me, it's the marriage of both the business side of what franchises offer, where you get to just copy and paste what a proven model is done with truly impacting and changing people's lives. And so when I look at how we do this here, how we interact with our clients, how we get people in the door and then literally how we train them, it just for me checks all the boxes. Specific to our demographic, too, we typically have people that are over the age of 40 or so and are oftentimes in a point in their life where some big change is happening or they got some bad result from their doctor. But yeah, I just I love what Ally is doing, and we're my partners and I are- we're not really in this to do just one or two.
Nick Garrity:We'd love to have a bunch of them, because that means that we can help change a lot more lives, and absolutely.
Jay Croft:So you could have gotten into. You were in franchising with other brands. You could have continued in franchising with other brands, maybe more broader markets, the more typical market that fitness goes for. You chose this slightly older demographic. That I'm all about, so I can talk about it all day, but tell me a little bit about why you decided to go all in with this underserved market that a lot of people in the fitness industry are not drawn to.
Nick Garrity:Yeah, couple of really big reasons. One, if you look at the market, the people that are the most consistent whether it's because of their schedule or because they can afford it or what have you. When you look at personal training and what we do is semi private personal training get a few people at a time, but when I was training people for again, do this for 15 years these are the people that were typically coming. It wasn't 15 to 20 year olds that didn't really need it. They're just trying to get a leg up on their sports or what.
Nick Garrity:Having this demographic is a segment of the population that truly needs to do something to get in better. It's not just physical shape, right. A lot of this is mental. We're just getting in here and burn some calories, it's just released a lot of stress and obviously we're at a pretty crazy time in our country and in the world. There's a lot going on and every decade goes through stuff. But I think we just offer something that caters specifically to a population that doesn't want the loud bells and whistles and the shining equipment. We keep it very simple and our whole goal is to try and make these workouts non-negotiable in someone's life.
Nick Garrity:Man, they enjoy it so much here, and they're seeing results. Right, they are literally feeling better, moving better and, ultimately, looking better, but to where they just are. Like man, I'm going to make my schedule work around my workouts, because I just can't miss that. So yeah, it's been great.
Jay Croft:To where there's no reason why they're not going to go, if they're not going to say, I would go, but gosh, there's never anywhere to park. Or I would go, but they're always playing heavy metal music like ear bleeding volumes. Or I would go, but it's always full of 20 year old boys throwing weight around. For me, the thing that really stands out about Alloy and about a lot of other gyms and studios that I know who do really well with this market is they provide a good customer experience. So tell me a little bit about that how much of your attention and your effort goes into providing a positive experience for your people.
Nick Garrity:Yeah, we call it keep the main thing right, so we may be doing table setups with other stretching companies and doing some marketing and then advertising and things that you do really well, but at the end of the day, once that person opens the door, if you don't make sure that you're delivering an amazing experience, you really don't have anything. We have a running joke in here and it's like the heaviest weight in our facility is actually the front door. Right. Once you get something to open, that it's on us. It's on us to deliver. Okay, they know they need this.
Nick Garrity:Somehow our messaging has shown them that we can help them. Specifically and this is a different target demographic right, like you said earlier, it's over the age of 40. It's people that don't want to go to where there's a giant box gym and they don't know what to do and there's a lot of intimidation, people taking selfies and stuff, like our clients just not looking for that. So what we need to make sure of is, to your point about the music yeah, let's have music that it's enjoyable, it's going to motivate, but it's not loud and crazy. And actually, because we want them to hear the coach if we're truly delivering on personal training and every one of our clients has an individualized program in here they got to be able to hear the coaching, because we want to make sure that they're training safely.
Jay Croft:So let's talk about that personal training and why this is effective with this market in particular. Because you come in and you do get that personal training. It's not 20 people in a room sweating to somebody shouting instructions over a headpiece, right? It's personal training. So tell me how you're able to deliver that in a small space with a small group of people.
Nick Garrity:Yeah, one of the most important components of that is the initial evaluation, and not one of our clients doesn't go through. We call it movement screen body composition analysis. And then, more importantly, a lot of other places do that, but they don't follow up. So how do you know you're achieving your goals if you're not constantly retesting that, and do you have a system in place that will allow you to be accurate every time? Whether it's our coach Danny or coach Wesley or Hannah, like whoever's doing, that test needs to be repeatable.
Nick Garrity:So what that always put in place is, every single month, you reassess the body composition you look at lean tissue, you look at fat mass and are those numbers going in the right direction? And again, there are a lot of places that do the initial testing, and so we build a program based upon what we find there. Our first goal for everybody is how we're going to train you safely sorry, safely, yeah how we're going to make sure that when you come in you might be working on it so many who's 40 and you're 65 or something. We have an 82 year old in here, like she's typically not going to do the same level, but she's in the workout with that other person and to your point, we don't have 20 people, we max as six people. So our coach is able to really look at every single client in every session, make sure that their form is exactly where it needs to be and then that we're pushing them to the appropriate levels. We also give them some advice outside of, if you're only in here three hours a week.
Nick Garrity:There's a lot that you can mess up outside of here so we have some nutrition guidance that we can give in the sessions that they have to camaraderie and accountability.
Jay Croft:The retesting is so important because, as anyone who's worked out and then left it and then come back, we all know that sometimes you feel like I'm not getting anywhere. I'm doing it, I promise. I'm not going home and eating pizza, drinking beer all night. I'm doing what you're telling me and I'm not getting anywhere. When you do the testing every month, you can see oh, I am making progress in these markers. It's actually very validating in a way To that point.
Nick Garrity:I was actually talking to somebody who owns a bunch of fitness centers out in Phoenix and he was like, yeah, man, trying to get the referrals, like in that first month or two, when you see results, I'm like I'm going to be honest with you. Yeah, our clients don't necessarily see those results quite as quickly as somebody who is younger, because the body is not at that thing. So having the true data from that body common analysis at least shows that we're going in the right direction. But it might be four or five months where our clients are really seeing hey, man, that mirror is looking a little bit different and I'm feeling a lot better, and that's. We have to get that message out there, right?
Jay Croft:If somebody's coming in here thinking in a month, oh man, they're entirely changed and now they're going to go hype.
Nick Garrity:Kill them in jarrow probably not going to happen.
Jay Croft:And that's a reality.
Nick Garrity:But that's on us to set that expectation and but to deliver ultimately what we're looking for, and that's, I think, that's why our average chronic lifespan here is 36 months. It's not just a typical industry of six or seven months that you go and try another thing. You go and try another thing. That's we're trying to preach, that this is a life change that we want people to make and that we're going to deliver on our end every time you come in here and then keep helping you make your goals.
Jay Croft:Yeah, you don't bounce back as quickly, and that's okay. I find that there's a lot of judgment that we bring to our bodies and to ourselves and to each other when we get a little older. I'm 60 now and so I know and I talked to people who run gyms and studios for older people all the time, and there's always this tendency to say I can do that, because I did that in college and and I'm just going I got to get back to as strong as I was when I was 20.
Nick Garrity:No, actually you don't.
Jay Croft:Maybe there's a different goal, maybe that's not really realistic. It's a different mindset, but it's not worse. We tend to denigrate being older. It's just different.
Nick Garrity:I can speak actually to that specifically had a really young coach that was working in one of the studios and had gotten away from doing the warmups that we do and we're very scientifically based, right. So we're going to, we're going to get people to do their foam rolling and stretching and some activation drills before they do the core workout. But she was starting to skip those and I was like whoa, I'm 43 and I need to warm up before the workout, let alone somebody who's even older and in a position with maybe more weight gain and so on, like so.
Jay Croft:I had to just reinforce that.
Nick Garrity:No, there's a reason we do what we do. Yeah, because, to your point, we're not bouncing back as quick.
Jay Croft:And so when I wake, up in the morning.
Nick Garrity:It's a little different than I felt when I was 20 years old and able to dunk a basketball like that. Those days are gone.
Jay Croft:I think especially men come in at 60, 65 years old and they say, yeah, I know how to do all that because I played ball in college. And you want to say, yeah, that was in about 1982, wasn't? So I'm not sure that really qualifies you to train yourself right now. Tell me about getting the word out. You've said you've used that expression, getting the word out. You've been, you've had these two locations here in suburban Atlanta for not quite a year, correct? And you're about to open your third one any minutes nearby. They're all pretty pretty close to each other. So how are you doing that? How are you getting the word out and getting people into your new knowledge Again?
Nick Garrity:one of the reasons I like franchising right. They have a lot of that set up for you, so we get to copy and paste. I've just listened to Rick Tuck on a podcast. The other day about our marketing company and there's a button you click and it sends you seven different types of materials from different door hangers and postcards and all that we just we have to execute right. So we got to do the organic marketing.
Nick Garrity:We've got to, like you said, we got a third studio coming up and so we're in the pre-sale phase, which is different than the ongoing kind of life of the studio. The first three months of that pre-sale is so different. You're just trying to make friends, right? You're going next door, We've got we have Club Pilates next door to us and Icebox Cryo Therapy and Stretch Lab, and so we're trying to be friends. And then, hey, set up a table with us. We'll set up a table with you and creating those relationships.
Nick Garrity:A lot of times for me, it's not the staff, like they're not coming in and working out, but they're thinking of someone that maybe somebody's been training with them for six months. These guys are about to open. I think you really need some strength training, sure, and so it's awareness, right. It's just getting more. I call it the eyes on the prize, like it's just getting more people, the visibility into what we do, because you hit on this earlier, like we're such a different segment in fitness and we're in a position where we've got to make people feel comfortable, right. So back to franchising. Alloy's done a lot of research on literally who they have in their videos and in their pictures, and because we don't want a bunch of 20 year olds on our imaging, because I've got clients that are 50, 60 years old with either two or three kids or grandkids now and they're like I'm not going to be comfortable working out around that and then, realizing where is your Democrat?
Nick Garrity:And it's typically two to three miles from our front door and so I'm not advertising all over town. And we made again. I'm not mad, we did this, but we did a bridal show and it was in downtown Atlanta. I don't have a studio within seven miles, I think up there, but there were 5,000 people that went to this bridal show.
Nick Garrity:I said okay we got a benefit from this at some point. I think we got two clients that came in from it, and so it was just like it was a lesson learned and not everything works, and although you would think, hey, we got people that want to get in wedding shape and so on, and it did bring visibility and even some of the other local franchisees, I think, heard about it and had some people come by, which is great.
Nick Garrity:We're down to help everybody out. And then, finally, we have digital marketing, and when those leads come in right now, you have to marry the sales process to the marketing process, and so we have a lot of systems in place that are great Sierra software that automatically responds, and when we call our clients as fast as we possibly can, those people that are making this decision to want to train and work out. It's not something that, yeah, I'm planning for June to start. I want to go tomorrow. Can I come? Can you test me today and start tomorrow, like I'm going to? I got to do something now, and so we have to respond with that urgency of hey, we're ready for you and this will be a great fit for you and let's get you in, let's get your testing done and give you some guidelines.
Jay Croft:That's so spot on. Because it's an emotional I don't want to say it's an emotional decision because there's good reasons for it. There's often an emotional spark for it, some urgency I think about. My doctor told me I'm pre-diabetic, my granddaughter won't play with me because I'm overweight. My kids want to go skiing this winter but I can't because there's just no way I could go skiing right now if I had to. So I got to do something about it now because I'm feeling that emotional tug of wanting to have the life that I deserve, that I want to have, and you can help me If you don't call me back for a week. I've moved on. I've already said no, this isn't going to happen.
Nick Garrity:It's just funny. I feel like you've read into my mind. We had somebody in the studio yesterday that's going on a ski trip and they just started working out and she's I'm not going skiing, I want to be with my family, I'm so scared I'm going to get hurt. So I was like man, that's exactly what you're saying. We've had the pre-diabetic people come in.
Nick Garrity:We've had people that just they went to their doctor and the doctor's like you got to do something like, and they probably been told this year after year hey, you're not trending in the right direction. However that looks, it's not like people are drastically overweight sometimes it's just hey, man, you got to get your nutrition a little bit tightened up, but you've got to go and work out. The benefits that you get from working out alone will actually counteract your nutrition side, and let's work on all of it. But how important this is, and so when people are reaching out to us, it is emotional, it's scary.
Nick Garrity:It's literally man. I'm 65 and I can't play back to back rounds of golf because I'm winded. I'm walking up 18 or playing tennis. I used to play three hours a day and I'm playing an hour and like I'm done, and if I don't recover, I can't play the next day.
Nick Garrity:And so it definitely is emotional, and so it is honest. If this is what we're preaching and we're saying that we want to change their lives, we have to act with us and say we're ready, like we want to get you in as soon as possible, and then the good problem we have here is that we have scarcity, and it gets people more enthusiastic about signing up because they're like okay, there are other people like me in there.
Nick Garrity:Obviously what you're doing works, because there's a lot of people signed up and we get to open another studio right down the road if we get filled up.
Jay Croft:So how do you go about thinking about when you opened the studios last year compared to getting ready for this new one? What have you learned? What are the challenges moving forward with that? Yeah?
Nick Garrity:Okay, we've got a spreadsheet that literally lists, and I will literally go on Google Maps and start a quarter mile from our studio. Okay, and we're at a really cool new complex coming up in pastry corners. There must be 75 businesses there.
Nick Garrity:Okay we need to meet every single one of those managers figure out, because that means the client's already driving to your location. But first and foremost, you're checking that box off, and so our clients want convenience, they want ease of access, they want familiarity. So they're already coming here, they already know how to get literally like, all right, that problem is already solved. Now are you going to the right demographic? Okay, we got a smoothie place, so we got people that are already trying to improve their health a little bit, so we're working with them. And then the stretching place next door, and, if you know anything about that, I was able to be a part of a stretching company before. Again, it's not a bunch of young kids in there, don't need flexibility, it's our target demographic. So you start there and just go. Okay, start going quarter mile, half mile, mile out, two mile, and then we stop at about three miles because our clients, again, they want that convenience.
Nick Garrity:I want to get there within five to 10 minutes and get right back to my house, because I'm gonna shower there and then go about the rest of my day.
Jay Croft:And those other businesses in that shopping center and in this one here where we are. They serve this market that has the money to do it. I talk to a lot of people who think, oh, older people don't have any money. Or I'm trying to sell gym memberships to little old ladies on a pension and they won't spend a nickel on anything. And I want to just shake them and say you are looking at it all wrong. Turn your head around and see the economic opportunity of people who are a little older, more economically stable, who are ladies spending $150 to get their hair, their tips, done Correct. They're not gonna blanket your prices, right?
Nick Garrity:One of our clients that was a salon right down the road, don't you think? I've given them about 100 postcards.
Jay Croft:That's right.
Nick Garrity:Hey, I'd love for you to put this in every one of their bags, because, to your point, they're going there, they're right down the road, but they're in our target demographic, spending that money, and they understand the value of health too, and you just said postcards and you said something else about door flyers or something else. Door hangers yeah, Door hangers.
Jay Croft:So we're talking. These are great examples of in real life. You've got another one coming up tonight. You've got a social coming up. They're really important examples of getting out there in real life, in the community, not just doing digital marketing and hoping that works. You gotta be present in your community, right? Tell me why you do that.
Nick Garrity:That's the other half of the battle right so the first half is get the studio open, get pre-sale, get people in there working out. The second half is what Alec calls the 20 mile march. I said now you got 110, 120 clients. Like why are you gonna keep them? Like, how do you truly invest in the community and show that you're not just here to check a box? And I got a cool new fitness place. It's we really do wanna impact people's lives. Let's have fun together and let's do the social tonight.
Nick Garrity:And so we actually know the restaurant owner. We've known them for years and we're like, hey, we wanna bring some business to you. It's a win and that's right now. But it's the stage of the game. I'm just looking for win-wins. I'm not trying to get a leg up on somebody else. And even I got another buddy who's got a personal training studio down the road that every now and then I'm like, hey, man, this is a better fit for you, I love it. And now he's referred people over to. One of our first success stories was somebody here referred to us and so we just had a woman come in today. Her friend was standing next to her, I think in the grocery line, had just finished her workout, and she's like where did you work out? Oh, I'm over at Alec. Tell me about that.
Jay Croft:Next thing you know, three days later, she was working out right next to her and because we built that rapport.
Jay Croft:This is one of the reasons why you and I have hit it off so well and I've always liked Alway's, because it's almost like we're singing from the same hymnal page, right? I talked to a lot of gym and studio owners. This never has occurred to them, and when I suggested they do it, they look at me with deer in the headlights that they don't know how and they're shy and nobody would want them to come by and do this with them. And I can talk till I'm blue in the face. But you're in their position. So give them some peer to peer advice to get out of the house, so to speak, and go out and really do this in real life. Tell me about that.
Nick Garrity:My philosophy is nobody ever wants it as bad as you do, and I truly want all these studios to have success and that means literally doing those things. I've walked around the park it's in our backyard hundreds of people a day, kids playing sports. But our demographic is literally walking around the park, Right there, so they're active, they're in the areas so we go over there. We've got a coach every week over there just walking around, just getting to meet people and then the other phrase that comes to mind is you gotta make money to sorry.
Nick Garrity:You gotta spend money to make money, and that means if I gotta go to this restaurant today and buy, all the appetizers for our clients that come out there.
Nick Garrity:Great, okay, because the return on that investment goes so much farther and so we have a really cool thing that the Allo does too that if we hear a client and hear that they just mentioned something that's struggling with, or we actually had somebody whose husband passed away, and the first thing we did was we got together card flowers, sent her immediately just saying, hey, man, we're thinking of you. What is there anything we can do? We maxed 150 people because we wanna know every single client. We had a client that just had to leave to go take care of her family. We sent her workouts, virtual workouts, for a month, a whole month.
Nick Garrity:We said we will design every single day and she's so fired up and she's interacting with us and showing that she's doing it. And then she saw a video of our on ourselves media of the workout of the day and she said, hey, I just did those in my workout. I'm so happy you guys sent out it. So those little things, yes, it takes extra energy and effort, but for me it's the payoff and it's the big picture of I want people here for years and not just a few months trying out the next new fad, right.
Jay Croft:Yeah, when I started writing about fitness and this market, I noticed pretty quickly that there were some key motivators for what would get people to come in here, and we've dropped names on a couple of them in the last few minutes, but I should some 50 or 60 year old person want to come in here and do this.
Nick Garrity:Yeah.
Jay Croft:And how? More importantly for my mission here is how can you communicate that to them? Yeah, yeah it's funny, I was thinking about this yesterday because I was like I think 99% of the reason. I work out so I can eat whatever I want.
Nick Garrity:Yeah, sure, but the other 1% is because I'm scared and I think for most people that percentage is a lot higher and I don't say scared in a really bad way, but scared in a way that I've got to do something that I know I can consistently do, because I've tried the and most of our clients have tried something else.
Jay Croft:Yeah, sure.
Nick Garrity:They've done a class, set up somewhere, they've done personal training, they have their own gym membership. Most of our clients still have a membership somewhere, just because they're like, yeah, if I wanted to do the treadmill or whatever. But yeah, I was talking to somebody in here about two hours ago and she said I work out all the time, I had never know how to switch it up and do the right thing and I'm just stuck. And so again, for us it's they're scared that they're not going to be able to maintain what they're trying to do. So we have the accountability, we have the professional experience right. So we scientifically design our work out so that there's periodization and every time they work out it's different.
Nick Garrity:And that's part of our marketing is when we tell our clients hey, we only work with over, not around, 100 people or so, because we want to make sure that we're constantly touching base. We have things in our systems that let us know if somebody's not coming in Right, so we have alerts that come up. If somebody didn't come in last week, we're going to call them right away, because that's our mission is to make sure they're coming in as often as possible.
Jay Croft:We don't get results if they don't come in Right.
Nick Garrity:But we know that their goal is to feel better, move better, like getting better health, and if they literally aren't coming in the door, that's not going to happen. So it's just to your point about the marketing it's like we have a lot of systems in place that make sure we create an experience they really enjoy. We motivate them to hit their goals and they come consistently.
Jay Croft:Yeah, it seems we're working, the first two here doing well, right, yeah, I'm loving it. I'm loving it.
Nick Garrity:We are our word for January is momentum and different from what the traditional January kind of resolution thing is. Everybody thinks, oh, january 2nd, like you got 10 people signing up. No, it's, there are more people signing up, for sure, and that's why I think we have that momentum for what 2024 looks like. But it's still. It's still. How do we continue that growth? And how do we continue that when you have the referrals from the other members? Because that's what we want, like we want people telling other people, hey, they're going to bring their friends, which also motivates them, but B, that's how you build that community. So you've got the two. When's the third one?
Jay Croft:opening yeah, Lord willing. End of.
Nick Garrity:February and we're actually doing some outdoor workouts. The landlord's been great there. It's great, oh, it's awesome. It's a really cool turf space. We we bring some mats and a couple of kettlebells and some some boxes and I've been wanting to come.
Jay Croft:It's been so cold here, it's been cold everywhere, so I guess we can't complain here in Atlanta, but for Atlanta it's been cold. It's been below freezing for a couple of weeks in the morning, and I'm just going to wait until it's a little warmer before I do your outdoor work.
Nick Garrity:Unfortunately, that's what a lot of people have said. So we haven't had a ton of people out there, but we know when the weather changes. And, but most importantly, we're only a few weeks away from actually getting in the studio, yeah, having our flooring down, the equipment up, and that we actually start with part of the that founding membership is free VIP workouts until we we get to a certain number to actually formally open the business. So, yeah, we're about to start our free workouts in the next few weeks.
Jay Croft:That's awesome. You have a great story going on here with your three clubs and it's part of the bigger picture for Alloy which is, as I said, one of my favorite stories and fitness. So it's been a pleasure talking to you, nick, and I look forward to seeing you again.
Nick Garrity:It's been an honor as well. I reached out to you because I was like man we are the living, the brick and mortar of what you're preaching, and to me it was a no brainer to get in touch, talk about this and then like how do we, how can you and I help each other? Because I know you want to grow, we want to grow, but ultimately, we're both trying to change people's lives and I think that's what we're doing.
Jay Croft:You did, you called me a couple of months ago and, hey, I like your podcast and I like your stuff, let's talk about it. So what was it about what I'm saying, what I'm producing that made you go? Yeah, you get it right.
Nick Garrity:Hey, you're not a 20 year old that has no experience in what it's like to wake up every morning like man. I got to get to work out. But, b, you've been around the industry for a while. You're passionate about helping change people's lives that are in a demographic that typically aren't very underserved, and so when I started listening to just what the messaging was in the podcast, I'm like, holy crap, man, we're like, we're doing this and we're doing that. We're doing this with alloy and how we not only market to our clients, and you and I talked the other day about these newsletters that we're trying to do because our clients actually read newsletters.
Nick Garrity:Yes, they do. Our clients are not Snapchat or even TikTok, they're most for Facebook and maybe the percentage on Instagram, but they're actually reading newsletters, and so back to you, I think you just understand a messaging and then B to how. And that's like, here's how we should send things out. We got thousands of leads in here and the statistic that we keep preaching in here is 15% of people sign up within the first 30 days, but 50% sign up. 50% sign up within 18 months.
Nick Garrity:So that means it's on us and my studio here we're nine months old, like we're halfway there, yeah, like we still have clients that are leads from last March, that still might sign up. So how do we interact with them? And so you're helping us do this newsletter that's very simple, but it's very pertinent information that somebody can read. You go, man, that I just I keep seeing it and they're preaching exactly what I know I need to do, and so you just wait for that right moment for them to take that step and to finally go.
Jay Croft:Okay, I need job, and so that's what we're trying to do and you've got to keep it up. And I'm really glad that you said that, because occasionally I'll talk and I think most gym and studio owners know this but occasionally I'll talk to someone who will say something like I sent an email, I didn't do any good, or I bought your material and I used it on Facebook once and nobody liked it. And then when I say, are you kidding me? You've got to tell your story and make your case over and over again through email newsletters, through Facebook posts, through maybe some website material and also through that in real life marketing and connecting, that you're doing so.
Nick Garrity:Well, the two things that just came to mind for me was it's still a numbers game, right? And to your point, you can't just do one and hope. Oh yeah, I did that post.
Jay Croft:I listened to Alex from Ozzy a lot and he was talking about he went to one of his mentors.
Nick Garrity:He said man, I only got 50 people signed up, like I need 500. He goes how many did you call? I call a thousand people. He goes okay, we'll call 10,000. Yeah, what do you mean?
Jay Croft:It's a numbers game, numbers game.
Nick Garrity:So you just have to keep doing it. And you have again from us the word momentum. You have momentum, just keep on doing it. And so so many people want to reinvent the wheel or, honestly, they get bored right. And that's I keep telling my staff like you're oftentimes the one getting bored the client that comes in every session. It's brand new today, like it's just remember that, like this. I know you're doing this day after day, but for the client it's a brand new experience.
Jay Croft:And then the other part of this is, I'm not a creative.
Nick Garrity:I writing a newsletter. It would take me three weeks to write the one that you probably didn't in the three hours, and that's why I like franchising. I don't want to come up with the brand and the website and all that. That is not for me, so I'd rather hire somebody that knows how to do. It, is the professional and it's going to deliver a way better product than I ever would, and I've talked to other franchise systems and it just doesn't click.
Jay Croft:But something about Alloy and what I'm doing with Pymfick content just is where we're in sync. So I really like it and I'm glad you called. I'm glad we're working together. Anybody out there give me a call.
Nick Garrity:Rise and Tide Lipslaw Boats. Yep, I'm looking forward to it Great.
Jay Croft:All right, Nick, thank you.
Nick Garrity:Thanks, Jay. Yeah, I appreciate you coming out here today.
Jay Croft:Thank you for listening to the optimal aging podcast. I'm your host, Jay Croft, and I hope you enjoyed it and if you did, I hope you'll subscribe, tell a friend and write a review. All of that helps us grow our audience. I also hope you'll share any comments you have with me in an email or on social media, including suggestions for people I should interview or topics I should cover. You can learn more about me and my content business at primfickcontentcom. You can send me an email at Jay at primfickcontentcom. That's JJAY at primfickcontentcom. I'm also on Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram, so find me anywhere you like and be in touch. And again, thanks for listening. Join us next time.