Matt McCollum with BODYBAR Pilates

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Lee Kantor: [00:00:32] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Franchise Marketing Radio, and this is going to be a fun one. Today we have with us Matt McCullom with Bodybar Pilates. Welcome, Matt.

Matt McCollum: [00:00:42] Hi Lee, how are you today?

Lee Kantor: [00:00:43] I am doing great, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about Bodybar Pilates, how you serving folks.

Matt McCollum: [00:00:50] Yeah, absolutely so Bodybar Pilates offers a modern take on former pilates in an environment that really is built around building strong communities filled with members that love, respect, encourage and motivate one another to be strong, healthy, happy human beings. And we’re often referred to as your favorite happy hour. It’s that kind of workout where you’re getting a great workout, but you’re also getting to spend time with those people that you enjoy doing life with. And that’s what we’re all about, is just building communities and helping people become the best versions of themselves.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:25] Now, specifically, can you tell us about the bodybar pilates workout? What is that like?

Matt McCollum: [00:01:31] Yeah, so we offer 40 to 50 minute reformer Paladin’s workouts. And if you’ve never been on a reformer, it’s somewhat like a modern day torture device. But it does all the best things. It’s all about building strength, increasing flexibility, improving posture, boosting overall health. Now, what we do, we do high intensity version of plotty. So it’s still very low impact, full body workout. It’s something you can do from age of 13, all the way up to one hundred and thirteen if you want to. And it’s all built around making sure that your body is able to move the way it’s meant to move in, really increasing the longevity of your quality of life.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:11] And then so like like to work at 30 minutes, 45, 60 or a very serious different classes, or is it always the same class and just the kind of the intensity is different?

Matt McCollum: [00:02:22] Yeah, great question. So it’s a 40 to 50 minute workout every time. Most workouts are 50 minutes are express, workouts are 40 minutes. We have various routines. But I can tell you our base model is called the reform class. And if you’ve done a reform class and you did the same reform class the next day, the next day, it’s always different. Our instructors have creativity to always be changing up how we fatigued the muscles so that we can get a different part of the body. That’s really focused on every single exercise. I’ve done dozens and dozens of classes, and I’ve never repeated the same class in. None of our clients do, and that’s what they love about it. They can come and take the same format of class, but it’s always different. It’s always changing, and it’s always improving different parts of their physical health.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:09] And it’s full body.

Matt McCollum: [00:03:12] Full body. Yes, sir. We do have some classes that focus on like we have abs and arms, which is focused on the abs and arms. We have lower body burn that focuses just on lower body. But the majority of our class formats work. The total body

Lee Kantor: [00:03:24] Now is the vibe in the room. Is it like, you know, blasting music? Is it kind of meditative music? What is kind of the vibe in the room?

Matt McCollum: [00:03:34] It’s very contemporary. We have pop music going and we’ll have different playlists. Yesterday we did a Tejano playlist that clients just loved and really got into. We do different types of music. So definitely that definitely helps set the mood. But we’re not blurring it. We’re not blasting. The people need to be able to hear their cues and know what’s going on in class. I would say it’s really kind of like going to your favorite kind of happy hour spot where you’ve kind of got some background noise, but you’re really kind of focusing on yourself and talking to your friends. It’s just a very fun, comfortable environment.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:09] And then how many people can participate in a class?

Matt McCollum: [00:04:12] So we have 14 reformer’s so we can have up to 14 people per class at a time.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:19] And then so what happens, like you said, it becomes a community, so people are taking the class with their friends and they can interact with each other like, oh, this is hard or this is fun or. And then, you know, how are the kids, that kind of a thing?

Matt McCollum: [00:04:33] Yeah, absolutely. There’s always fun when you’ve got a class full of friends that are bantering and, you know, maybe maybe chiding the instructor under their breath a little bit. But, yeah, it’s our whole model is built around building communities, so much so that we even build out a lobby where people are able to gather and visit before class, get to know each other after class. And so then when they enter the class, you know, they are their friends. They’re just working out together. They’re pushing each other. They’re helping each other become better individuals. And, yeah, you’ll hear you’ll hear people chit chatting about how hard the workout is or or saying, hey, you can go a little bit harder. I know you’re trying to to get that bikini body you’re on. You’re trying to get that golf swing in full force. So it’s really fun.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:17] Now, when you’re in this kind of boutique fitness space, are you attracting clients that are people who are familiar with Pilates and are just like, hey, this is a different kind of Pilates that maybe I’ll enjoy? Are you getting the person that doesn’t know anything about Pleitez hadn’t doesn’t know who the guy is, the history of it? None of that. And they’re just like, oh, this is a great workout. Do you get people that have never done fitness and say, hey, let me try this. I know I got to do something like how do you kind of attract people to these kind of specialty boutique fitness?

Matt McCollum: [00:05:51] Ali, you know, it’s a mix of all of those things I’ve seen classes where we’ve had a fitness enthusiast that’s done Pleitez for 30 years on a reformer next to somebody that is, you know, a working mom that let their fitness go, that’s trying to regroup to somebody that’s, you know, eight months pregnant, to, you know, a gentleman that’s, you know, midlife that’s just trying to improve its flexibility so that you can get on the floor and play with his grandkids. You know, it’s all across the board. And that’s what’s so great about reformable Ortiz. It is a it’s a low intensity, full body workout that just helps you build the strength and the flexibility you need to live just the best life possible for as long as possible, improves, posture, everything. So we find these folks through, you know, word of mouth. When people come and take a class, they can’t wait to tell their friends. That was the most amazing thing you’ve ever done. You’ve got to come with me. We do it through social media and helping people understand the brand. You know, one thing that I’ll tell you, this has been around for over 100 years, but it’s really only come into focus to the masses in the last decade or so to the scale that it is moving towards. And there’s way more demand for great reformer parties and there is supply. And so that’s part of our mission is to to build body bars all across the country and eventually across the world to increase supply so that individuals can have a great workout, a great experience, do it with their friends and their family, but then just live better quality of life for a longer period of time.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:28] Now, do you find that the fitness consumer is a different kind of person today than maybe 20 years ago? It seems like there are so many kind of choices for the person who wants to get fit. And are they buying one thing and saying this is my solution? Are they saying, you know, I have a portfolio of activities that I enjoy and body bar might be one of them by the spin class, might be another or, you know, some sort of a boot camp might be something else. Like are they kind of have a menu of items that they’re cycling between or are they just kind of go all in in one kind of type of fitness?

Matt McCollum: [00:08:06] And I love that question. You know, we are definitely seeing a different consumer today than we saw 20 years ago, even 10 years ago, no two people are alike. You have some people that they want to have their gym membership or spined membership, their Pleitez membership, and they just figure out where they want to go based on that day. We’re definitely in the generation of one size does not fit all the big boxes, just can’t serve the clients today. People want to work out the way they want to work out when they want to work out. And we’ve really seen that. What’s great about reform applies in the body, more method of bodies. And we hear this all the time. People that love Pleitez or that have never done it, they’ll go and take some Pleitez classes, but they have to have their spin studio or the boot camp because Pleitez is great for building strength and flexibility. But I’m just not getting they’ll tell us I’m just not getting the cardio that I need out of it. So I’m going to do a 50 minute Pilates class and I’ve got to go and spin on a bike for forty five minutes. What we’ve done is we combine strength and cardio in one amazing workout and that’s what bodyboard is all about. We want to get your heart rate up, intensify the workout so that when you’re done, you don’t have to go and spend forty five minutes on a bike or go do a boot camp or play basketball or tennis or whatever else you can. And we have clients that will do that. But for the most part, we’ve had people tell us, hey, you know, I was able to cancel this and cancel that because this just meets all the things that I’m looking for.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:35] So now what is the kind of the back story of the brand? What did it start out as? Just kind of hey, let me I got this idea of way to kind of refresh Pleitez, and then it was started as one location and or was it built to be a franchise from the beginning?

Matt McCollum: [00:09:52] It was not built to be a franchise from the beginning, the founders were Steve and Laurie Gatlin and Laurie had spent her career in fitness cells and they came up with an amazing concept. My wife and I were actually customers. We went and took a class. My wife took a class for her and she called me and she was training for a marathon was an amazing shape. I’ve been a college athlete, you know, and she called me and said, hey, I’ve got to go down some stairs and my legs are shaking so much. If I fall, nobody’s going to know I’m going to die, you know? So we knew the workout was amazing. And we when they started to franchise the business, we were interested and we we decided to become a franchisee of the brand. We were the first franchisee to come into the brand. And we learned really quickly that the founder’s great, great people, but they shouldn’t have gotten in the franchise and they didn’t have the infrastructure. They didn’t really know what a franchise meant and how to run one. My wife and I ran our studio. We grew it. We did it on our own and sort of built the model.

Matt McCollum: [00:11:00] And when we went to the Gatland and said, hey, you know, I think it’s best if we just break away and do our own thing. They asked us if we wanted to come in and take over the franchising business. And so I’ve run start ups. I was a master franchisee for another brand. So we did a year long case study, business development, business plan review and met all the players that we could understood everything we could about the market. And what we really realized is that reformer plotty, there’s just like I said earlier, there’s so much more demand and supply. There’s definitely room for a number to mover in the space. And so we jumped at it. And since we came on and took over running the brand in twenty nineteen, even through the pandemic, we’ve grown from three locations to twenty three sold. We’ll have seven eight open by the end of next month. And really our focus now is to empower entrepreneurs to bring the your favorite happy hour to your local community and just build those micro communities where people just love coming to class, they love seeing their friends and they love getting a great workout.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:11] So now what is that kind of ideal franchisee look like in your mind? Is is it that person that’s adding to their portfolio of fitness, fitness, you know, concepts that they already run or maybe they have complementary businesses that they’re just adding this to the mix because they’re already serving a similar client?

Matt McCollum: [00:12:32] Yeah. So we we do have an owner operator and an absentee model. It can go both ways. We have a strong support team. We we really look for somebody that’s got more of a pioneer mindset with an interest in fitness. You know, we are a micro emerging brand with the sky’s the limit. So, you know, folks that want to come in and see this as an investment opportunity, they’re going to recognize with a smaller footprint that we’ve got today means they’re going to able to carve out a larger piece of the market. We hear a lot of a lot of our candidates that come to our discovery days that, you know, they looked at brand X, Y, Z with the territory they wanted wasn’t available. You know, we’re we’re wide open across the US. And, you know, we’re seeing great presell activities with our with our current franchisees where they’re opening their studios at or very near cash flow from the day one. And so our support is going to come in. And if you’re an owner operator or your ability, many of our franchisees, they have other jobs. And so we help them with with hiring their studio manager, their sales associates, make sure they’ve got the right people in place. Because you and I both know this league people are everything. You know, you’ve got to have the right people on the team to really bring bring your dream to fruition. And, you know, that’s that’s kind of what we’re seeing right now.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:52] But especially when you’re talking about people, especially if one of your brand promises is community.

Matt McCollum: [00:13:59] One hundred percent, yes, you’ve got to have the right people that are empathetic, that are going to want to build community, you really got to have the desire to go out and and get to know your people by name. And I always think back, you know, body bar, we really play on the bar theme a lot. You know, your favorite happy hour, I think about the TV show Cheers, which I love watching when I was growing up. Like, this is a place where everybody should know your name. And that’s that’s what our our mantra is for our team members.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:23] So now when you’re working with somebody and they’re going about the hiring, how do you kind of coach them up to choose wisely when it comes to their personal?

Matt McCollum: [00:14:33] Yes, so we look we look for poor people when we’re hiring, we’re coaching our franchise partners to hire. We’re looking for people that have a background in the fitness industry. Ideally, they’ve opened a location. They’ve gone through a presell activity before, but then they have that extra quality of patheticness. They’re able to be empathetic to understanding the concerns of their their clients and make good decisions regarding how they interact with those clients. We actually Camil, our CFO, will actually do final interviews with our future partners if they’d like her to, just so that we can make sure that we’re helping them plan on the right type of individual to really lead their lead, their studio.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:18] And then. So right now, the pedals to the ground and you’re looking for those pioneers because like you said, there’s an opportunity for them to really kind of take over a territory at this stage because the country is wide open, 110 percent.

Matt McCollum: [00:15:33] Yeah, we we are so so far we’re open or we have locations sold in six states. Our first out-of-state location to open was Georgia in Alpharetta, Georgia. But even in our Leanna’s in Atlanta suburb markets, we have open territories. So, yeah, we are we’re growing everywhere. We’ve got interests, heavy interests all over the US, registered in most states. And yeah, we are we’re open for business and excited about just the the coming out of covid the trend. We’re seeing a lot of interest in investing in the fitness space, in folks ready to get back out and get back into the community and get get healthy again.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:15] Right. I agree. I think there’s pent up demand for people who want to interact with other human beings face to face that they had not been able to do for quite some time. Yes, sir. Now, if somebody wants to learn more, what’s the website?

Matt McCollum: [00:16:30] They can a body bar, Pleitez Dotcom, and that’s body wide are Latisse dotcom, and there’s a plethora of information on there. They can also email me directly at bodybuilding.com if they’d like to learn more good stuff.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:46] Well, Matt, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you, Leigh.

Matt McCollum: [00:16:51] I thank you very much and appreciate what you guys are doing as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:54] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see next time on Franchise Marketing Radio.