Why Club 60 Isn’t Just Another Fitness Platform - Olivia McKerrow

An unfiltered first conversation. We talk about why Club 60 almost stayed an idea, what it actually takes to build an online platform from scratch, and the real decisions behind branding, content, and going all in. 

From community and accountability to marketing strategy, creative overwhelm, and betting on yourself before anything exists. 

This episode is messy, honest, and exactly how the early stages really feel.

A podcast about what really goes on behind the scenes of building brands, businesses, and personal platforms. 

We talk marketing, content, branding, community, and the uncomfortable middle between idea and execution.
Built for founders, creators, and business owners who want honest conversations, not recycled advice.


Hosted by Matt and Olivia. Audio-only for now. New episodes regularly.

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@Mattortlieb_
@oliviamckerrow
@ortliebmedia 

Transcript

 Okay. First podcast. I feel like we've been wanting to do this for a while now. We wanted to interview a bunch of other businesses, personal brands, creators in the same space, and just pick their mind. But I thought it'd be cool to do the first one of just us talking about. Club 60 Ortlieb Media, where we're headed and just your vision behind what you're building.

Yeah, I think that's a really good idea.

Okay. I guess to start, let's start with a quick introduction of who you are. That's a loaded question. Live for those who are listening. I what is it that you wanna know who I am as a person? Who I am as a future business owner? What I do with my life? Yeah, everything. So I guess my work pretty much is my life.

So I am a full-time fitness instructor. Who is currently building out a online fitness platform, it's still fresh little baby business, but we are in the process of creating that right now. But yeah, that is pretty much who I am. I'm a fitness and wellness advocate. I am obsessed with moving my body and nutrition and.

Doing all things good for yourselves. Yeah. How did all of this come to be? Did you always know that you wanted to do your own thing or did it slowly just transpire into wanting to be your own boss? You wanted to have your own platform? I think. For the longest time I had the idea of creating something online.

I actually created a Squarespace website like five years ago and I tried to build out a website for myself for an online fitness platform and nothing came out of it 'cause I didn't know what I was doing. And. So I just gave up and then once I became an instructor, I started to realize more and more that this was something that I wanted to do for myself.

And so it sparked it in me again to start to build something of my own and. Because of the community I've created and built and through the spaces that I teach at, I wanted to explore what that looked like in expanding my community. And that's where Club 60 started to become a thing again.

Let's talk about the beginning then. When you became an instructor at Hustle Yes. And when you started getting into the space. Has your vision always stayed the same or has it changed throughout the last couple years? I think as I involved as an instructor, my vision for things did change.

I've always. Not always. I've subscribed to many different online platforms, and not to say they were bad in any way. I think a lot of online platforms do it really well, but I wanted to create something that I was attracted to and what had everything I've always wanted to see in an online platform.

As far as experience and resources and kind of everything in between. So I think as the year and a bit of me teaching has gone by, it's changed and evolved as that timeline has gone on. I think that's important too because I feel like whenever someone tries to do something new. It's because they're either trying to solve a problem that they face.

Or because there might be another, per another thing out there that they use, but it's not at the full capacity, if that makes sense. With Club 60, I kind of wanna touch on what you experienced in the past with other platforms and how maybe Club 60 is different than that. I think right now that's a tough question. 'cause Club 60 is still pretty new and it's still growing and I'm learning what that looks like as far as capabilities and what the whole experience is in that, again, is in the development process, but in the past, I don't know if it was a self-accountability thing or what, but I feel like I.

Only would stay on a platform for a short amount of time. Like I fell off of it. And I think there is a lack of accountability when it comes to an online platform. Not to say each and every one is like that, but you do lose touch with the members. And I think for myself. It was less of an experience than it was me just like taking another class.

Kind of the retention rate of keeping a member. I think that goes along with everything we do. For Club 60, I know.

I have a thought. Yeah. Can I interrupt? Yeah. I think that with Club 60 and just being a, an instructor at a studio in person, I've learned a lot about. Retention and what makes people feel good and what holds people accountable. And I think when you are so community driven and that you care a lot about your people and the people in your space, it holds that accountability and that retention because people are coming back for you.

They're coming back for the experience that you create. So I think. I've learned a lot in instructing in person and how I can bring that into an online space. Yeah. Even through the classes I've witnessed you do through hustle and the events, the intensity and energy you bring to the class is a lot higher than I think what most people see.

Experience, and I think you were telling me how you wanted to bring that same type of intensity to the online platform. Let's talk a bit more about that. Yeah, and I think in the process of Club 60 becoming what it is, I think even you've experienced it with me, that. The first few videos that I shot for myself, the experience was nowhere near what it should be.

And that's something that throughout this creative process and what I'm doing when filming myself is I'm trying to explore what that looks like and how I can bring that to people's homes or wherever they're taking a class. Obviously it's different when you're in a space with a room full of people.

It can be very different when you're just at home in your living room, but it's like how can the elements of a full group fitness class, what can I take from that and bring into an online class? And I think that comes with the language. I use motivation and queuing and interacting with. The camera as uncomfortable and weird as that is doing just by yourself and not having a group of people.

It's something that I think will resonate with a lot of people who love having a group fitness practice, but don't necessarily have the time, money, whatever it may be. And this all starts with the branding of Club 60. Getting as many eyes on the brand as possible up until launch and well after launching the platform.

And you're very, you have a good eye with the branding and the design of everything. Talk me through that. With what specifically, what went into the branding? How did you want it to be portrayed? I think with every, everything, the most important thing is that first impression someone has.

Yeah. And from what I've seen already, it's very clean, structured, professional, but elegant in its own way. And I know a lot of people have been telling us how much they like the branding. And I think that also goes into the content and how you. Portray yourself on camera. While you're filming the classes, but also like down to the colors and logos and website and just how everything looks. Yeah. I think for Club 60, I really wanted it to stand out from most of the traditional online platforms that you do see. A lot of the times it's that. Very like crisp, black and white, very clean.

Not to say Club 60, isn't that, but like you see a lot of those greens and neutral colors and I wanted to hop off that trend and be a little bit different. And that's where the orange came in. Originally, my original idea of five years ago was that green. It was that neutral color.

And as soon as I figured out that I wanted to be different, I was like, what color would embody something that not only stands out but is also like inclusive to everybody? And I think I. I really wanted it to be that masculine, but the elegance of that like feminine side as well. And I wanted the brand to be attracted to not only women, but also men.

So that is why I chose the direction of my branding, even in the lettering I've been choosing. And it's very bold. But still very simple and clean. And even with the imagery that I created and what we created together it has both male and female in it, but even like the female parts of it can have that like masculine side.

And the male parts are also vulnerable, but still like strong. And that's really what I wanted the brand to be. I definitely wanna talk more about the content side of it and what goes on behind the scenes. But have you, there's a lot of thought that has to been put into what it looks like.

Have you always been someone that is very good at branding and just design and coming up with those things? Or is it just you try some things, you hope it works, you hope it looks good, or. I would say that I have an eye for it. I think I've always been pretty good at that stuff. I think it just runs in the family.

We have, my family's pretty creative but I think question branding. Have you always been. In the space. I know, yeah. You've worked with a few other people. Yeah. Helping them build templates and social media. Has that kind of helped you build the look of Club 60 in a way? I think because of what I've created for people in the past, it one gives me an understanding of what works and what doesn't.

And and how create like how content for specific businesses is very specific to those brands. So anytime I was creating for someone else, it had to be very aligned with what they wanted and what their look was. And I think because of what I've done in the past, it really gave me the tools to create and develop the content that I have for Club 60.

And. I do believe that when something is your own, you put a little bit more energy and effort into what that looks like. And there's a lot of care and intention behind Club 60. And I think that does really show, and it is proving itself in how it is all unfolding. I feel like we've had so many conversations around.

How much time and effort needs to be put into Club 60. And even when you were at your full-time job, we were trying to figure out if there was enough time in the day for you to dedicate to Club 60. Has that changed? Has that thought changed for you ever since going all in on this that it requires.

A lot of time. Yeah. And energy. Yeah. That's all I think it every day it's like a, something crosses my mind or I know I have to do these specific things to build out exactly what I want. And I think before when I was still working full-time, my mind was still a little. Distracted and occupied with what I needed to do.

And I think even more so now, more thought and more time and more energy is actually being put into Club 60, which I do think is at this point, at the stages it's at is very important. But yeah. Yeah. I feel like we're going everywhere right now in this podcast. If someone, welcome to all of our conversations.

Literally, if someone was, you're in the space of, you just went full time building out Club 60. If someone was thinking about quitting their job or going full. Full-time or all in on building their company or they're in the early stages of building something. Do you have any sort of advice for them or tips or something that would help them?

I think for me it took a long it took a while for me to cut the cord and be like, okay, it's time for me to go on my own and. My, I don't have any really true words of wisdom right now, but I think as scary as it is and you put yourself in a very vulnerable position doing something full-time, that's not even really out there yet.

As scary as that might seem, the. The time and the energy that you need to build out something of your own. It's almost necessary for you to take a risk and it's either a risk worth taking or it's not for you. And that's really all I can say right now. Yeah. I feel especially for myself, I've had so many conversations with friends who do the same thing as me, talk about.

Just the unknown of not exactly knowing where you're gonna be in six months or a year and five years or whatever. It's scary, but it's also super exciting at the same time. And I think you need to be a little bit crazy to be able to handle that. But I've always come, I guess my way of thinking about it is like you have to be comfortable with the unknown.

And. I've started working backwards. I think we went through this kind of little workshop in a cafe of what if this fails? And in my mind I'm like, don't say that. But I think it's nice to if you're looking at a calendar, like breaking down and working backwards and like putting stuff in the calendar of what you need to get done and doing those things. And if you do those things, I feel like you have a pretty good chance of things working out. For sure. I think if you don't do anything, I think that's when you run into the issue of oh, this might actually be a fail.

When you just assume that things are gonna build on their own. Yeah. Like you have to get your hands dirty. You have to put the fucking work in. Excuse my language. But it's hard I don't know how many times I've. Sat and cried being like, this is all so overwhelming and scary and I don't know what I'm doing here, but in the end I'm like, I'm, I always come back to this is something I've always wanted, so I'm gonna do whatever it takes to make it happen.

Yeah. I love that. And yeah, it's, yeah, it could fail, but then I go back to a nine to five job. I have the skills to go back and do something, but I'm not going to, no, because there's no plan B in this situation. No. Matt always tells me that there's no plan B ever. Just a plan A And you stick with it. Yeah, don't give up.

Okay. So I want to shift this conversation over to two content. Oh. Not myself. Because I think we want this podcast to be around. Content in general, what it takes for each business to create content that actually works. To create better content, but also create smarter content.

And I think that's the goal with this podcast, bringing people on to highlight what they do and how it works. Yeah. Or how it might not work. And this being a tool for other creatives. Yeah. I want other people to listen to this podcast and. If they take one piece of information from it that we're doing our job.

Yeah. So when it comes to the content of Club 60, the Marketing of Club 60, the branding. What is everything that's going on with it? Yeah, so I am working with an external company on branding and like website design because I have no idea what that is and how to even do that. So for me that was like a no-brainer as far as investment, but the branding itself that was created, together with the brand designer. So the brand itself is done and it's been created and launched. So that is done. But the ongoing marketing side and content creation is something that's just never gonna stop 'cause. You have to keep that momentum going. So that's where I'm at now leading up to launch.

That not only includes social media as far as like Instagram, TikTok, whatever else but also that also comes down to newsletters and just hitting many different touch points. Yeah, I think, like you said. Instagram, TikTok, whatever. Whatever else it can be overwhelming with the amount of platforms and type of content that you need to create.

Yeah. Across websites, Instagram, every social platform. Every social platform's also different. Exactly. And newsletters and just like how you can tailor those pieces of content into their own thing and still remains somewhat cohesive. Yeah. So how are you handling that? I don't use TikTok.

Instagram is my main. Social platform. And then I, obviously the creation of the website and the newsletters is what I'm doing right now as far as like marketing. And yeah, for like social media, it's for me I'm all about like staying consistent. And right now I'm posting pretty much every day.

And just trying to really like, educate and create some buzz around what Club 60 is and giving like little sneak peeks to keep people engaged. And I think that's, right now my biggest thing is like, how can I bring people into what Club 60 is and hold them there? Yeah. How do you come up with inspiration?

I've seen your. Pinterest mood boards. Does it start there or do you pull from different areas? So for me, like Pinterest is like my main source of inspiration. And what I do with that, 'cause I never wanna be a carbon copy of someone else, so I take pieces of multiple different. Images or templates and put it all into like my own template.

And that's where that creation kind of starts, where that inspiration comes from. And. It's a lot of playing around and figuring out what looks good, what doesn't. And I'm all about looking very clean and not overwhelming people by what I'm posting. And I think when there's like too much text on a page or things just look busy, people are get lost in it.

And I think for me. Personally and how I want the brand to look. It's all about that simple look and that's where I pull inspiration by seeing and visualizing and looking up things that are very like aligned with that. Yeah, I get that. I can relate too, because even across all of the content sessions I've been a part of in photo shoots, as much as.

The photo and video content is important. It's also super important that the design and the way it's distributed out is very important. It's huge. Yeah. You can, the thing is like your job of taking photo and video is so important, but it's also important for the people who are using that content to understand that.

Anything down to font, size of font bold, whatever design that is going onto a photo can easily ruin the quality of what you've created. And I think that's really important for any brand or business to understand is that you can easily mess up. Oh, 100%. I think that's what we're starting to realize now.

And. I think in the future, that's something that we start to offer. Help with distribution and just the full package. Yeah. For Club 60, when it comes to creating the content, and I know you're very big on looking at your analytics and the numbers, what's been working very well for you lately?

On social media in general, like Instagram specifically, 'cause that's really all I use. Photos are huge. Mainly like carousels. It's nice that carousels now you can have videos in them 'cause those do really well. Matthew doesn't agree with me on this, but timing of posting is huge for me. It might not be for everybody, but for me, I like to stay consistent with when I am posting and I do refer back to my analytics quite often to understand when an appropriate time to post.

'cause on off hours. You can tell people are just not on their phones and not engaging. And especially when building a brand and building out Club 60 specifically, I really wanted to like hone in on. The analytics and what? And understand what works and what doesn't. Yeah. It's not that I don't agree. I think it also comes down to just consistency.

Because consistency for you is different than consistency for me. And you also like to put content out there that is like relevant. And you don't want to like. Lose the window of opportunity to post that certain thing. And that's where your consistency is different than mine. Yeah.

Yeah. I think I've heard one in 10 posts typically do very well for you, and if you're only posting once a day you're only learning more about your content once or twice every two weeks. So if consistency is posting three times a day for you, maybe it's just you have to be more structured with timing.

Yeah. Whether that's morning, afternoon, and evening. If you're only posting once a day, then I would say look at what times are the best times for you and then start posting. So for you then, when you're posting multiple times a day? Yeah. I wouldn't say I'm super consistent right now though.

I think I'm just though, yeah, I think that there's just so much variety. From what I'm posting every day is different. I think I, I forget who told me this, but they said something like, if I didn't po, if I didn't post this, someone else who does the exact same thing I'm doing is posting it, and they might get the opportunity to work with a client or.

They might have someone to reach out to them rather than me because they posted and I didn't. And so I'm trying to stay as relevant as possible with what's currently happening. Behind the scenes. Yeah. But I also got have to be mindful of waiting on projects being finished and not rushing things either.

Yeah. But I also just think that comes with what you do, right? Like me and you do very different things. Yes. So what I'm posting. Might not necessarily be the same. Totally reason why you are. Yeah, I think a lot of content's tricky because there's so many people telling you what to do, when to do it, how to do it, when to post it.

It's very overwhelming and misleading sometimes, and it, I think it all comes down to just. Learning what works best for you. I think there's there's a few different buckets I think people land in when they start creating content. There's like corporate side and there's different levels of getting things approved.

Which is fine. And then there's more like personal branding where I think a lot of people are just creating. As they create and they post it as they finish it. And then obviously I think a third bucket would be a mix between those two. Yeah. I think being structured intentional, but also giving you the flexibility to create stuff on the whim and post UGC content and that kind of stuff.

But there's so many people telling you, you can only post this type of thing, or you can only post this photo. What are your thoughts on that? I like, I agree, and as you were saying that, I was like thinking about like the content that I post, and I even mentioned this to you the other day when I was talking about how right now I'm trying to figure out how to differentiate my content.

Club Sixty's content. 'Cause Club 60 is now a business. Yep. Whereas my personal page was what was developing into that. Yeah. But now I'm like, now I can post personal stuff on my personal page. And so it's a weird like transition where I'm like trying to figure out, okay, now I'm that mixed bucket of personal and business.

Yeah. I think. It's funny because everyone goes through this. I went through this when I first started launching my business and opening up an Instagram account. Yeah. I didn't know if I wanted to create a separate account or keep it under my, the one I had my personal account at the time.

And I think so many people, I think I got this question like almost every single day. When people were building their own thing. Yeah. What. Are you leaning towards? How are you changing that up? How are you approaching it? I think on my personal page, I've developed my own personal brand and what that looks like, and it's still very like fitness focused.

You also do a lot of UGC work too. Yeah. And you get products sent to you and it's very lucrative. So yeah, it's finding that balance between creating that UGC content and also like continuing to move up like that little ladder that I'm creating for my personal branding. And I don't think I wanna lose sight of the fact that it's fitness related.

I think a lot of people are still drawn to that, and I think that's still very specific to who I am. But Club 60 has a different vibe. It's a business now, and it's also, yeah. It might be under the same umbrella of content, but it needs to look different. Yeah. It comes down to just having three core pillars for you.

You have your business promoting Club 60, what it is. Yeah. And fitness and wellness and everything in that space. And then you have your personal brand where. You're doing collaborations and product videos and UGC content for these brands. Yeah. And then you also have your personal life too, where you just highlight photo dumps and just you as a person.

Yeah. And I feel like for the past year I've lost sight of that in like my personal page because I was trying to build something. Yeah. And like it, there's really not that much personal on there. A lot of it is fitness related. Food. Yeah. But I think now more so than ever, it's been sprinkled in.

Personal stuff. Do you schedule this stuff out or how do you plan out when's what is being posted and when it's being posted? I think if anybody had any sort of. Insight into how I plan things, they would stress them out. Why? Because none of it's planned. Okay. Club 60 is more structured now.

Just because I'm again, trying to make it very cohesive. The only thing I care about, and I would advise no one to do this to themselves, but I've put myself in a box of how my. Page looks. So content is based on how the page is flowing as far as feed, so again, don't advise people to do that because you'll get yourself locked into that.

It's funny that you say that because I feel like I'm more mindful of what my feed looks like now as well because of. Because of you. Oh God. But there's a pro and con to it too. Yeah. And I like the way it looks, but I'm also not stressing about every single photo that might shouldn't be there.

Whereas like I'm still, I stress about that stuff. Yeah. I think for a business it's not a bad thing to structure things that way. Because. I think it legitimizes a brand. Yeah. And makes it look one, I think it's more trustworthy. Yeah. I think you build a faster first. Imp impress, like a good first impression.

There's more credibility behind it, but a hundred percent this all comes back to just the design and the way it's distributed. Yeah. I think you can have a lot of things like that look at a place, but if it's all coming down to the why. And who you're talking to. It's fine.

A hundred percent. And I agree. But yeah, it's Is there anything else you want to talk about for Club 60, when it's launching, everything going into it, anything that you haven't really shared yet before for,

Sign up. There we go. Sign up sometime in February. Website will be launched in February. On demand classes will be sprinkled in there as well. I'm so excited to share this with the world. Like I said, a lot of care and intention has gone into what it is and I'm just ready for it to be out there.

Yeah. I'm excited. I think everyone who I've seen it is excited. I think you're getting a lot of feedback, which is good. Yeah. How do you feel? I feel good. First podcast for PO Talking for too long. Yeah. First podcast, I think we had this podcast. Was all over the place. I know we talked a lot about marketing, branding, content, personal branding.

So hopefully whoever's listening to this is able to pull something from it. I'm really looking forward to sitting down with more business owners and brands and just picking their brain about content, what they do, and how they went, how they go about it. Whether that's hiring a creative team or having someone in house or just the umbrella of creating content and the marketing behind everything.

So I'm sure it's gonna be a combination of both me and Liv on here. Sometimes just Liv, sometimes just me. But I know this is audio only. I think it'd be nice to do video as well. But I really liked the conversation we had today. Me too. Cheers. Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening.