The Fitness Industry Is Broken. We’re Building What Comes Next.

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Fitness Industry Is Broken. We’re Building What Comes Next

Episode Title: The Fitness Industry Is Broken. We’re Building What Comes Next.
Podcast: The Art of the Brand
Host: Camille Moore
Guests: Jenna York & Jeff York
Release Date: July 23, 2025

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Introduction

In this enlightening episode of The Art of the Brand, host Camille Moore welcomes Jenna York and Jeff York, two trailblazers in the fitness and wellness industry. With diverse backgrounds and a shared passion for redefining fitness experiences, Jenna and Jeff delve deep into the current flaws of the fitness industry and unveil their innovative approach to building the next generation of fitness and wellness clubs.

Meet Jenna and Jeff York

Jenna York brings a rich history as a Division 1 swimmer at Purdue University and a Certified Public Accountant (CPA). Her transition from finance to the fitness world was fueled by her love for athleticism and community-centric boutique studios.

Jeff York, a former hockey player at Princeton and a seasoned businessman, served as President of Giant Tiger, where he honed his skills in competing against industry giants like Walmart. Together, Jenna and Jeff leverage their athletic and business expertise to revolutionize the fitness landscape.

Jenna York [01:22]: "I knew how to really get a member that is sticky who loves your product and get them bought in because you deliver on your promise."

Jeff York [15:14]: "It's about the customer. My entire life's been about the customer."

The Broken Fitness Industry

Jenna and Jeff paint a candid picture of the current fitness industry, highlighting its reliance on franchising and big-box gyms that prioritize profit over customer experience. They emphasize the high attrition rates, where up to 50% of members churn annually, signaling a fundamental disconnect between gyms and their customers.

Jeff York [00:04]: "Fitness is absolutely broken right now. The customers lost. Right. Make money selling franchises or make money in a big box and hopefully people don't show up."

Jenna adds personal insights, sharing her struggles with overuse injuries during her swimming career, which underscored the importance of efficient and injury-preventive training methods.

Jenna York [12:53]: "Your training should make your body bulletproof, not break you down."

Vision for Avant: A Fitness Ecosystem

Jenna and Jeff introduce Avant, their ambitious project aiming to blend the personalized touch of boutique studios with the comprehensive amenities of big-box gyms. Their goal is to create a premium fitness and wellness club that offers a holistic approach to health, integrating various fitness disciplines, recovery modalities, and wellness services under one roof.

Jeff York [28:00]: "We're creating a fitness ecosystem that's really high quality, taught by really passionate people with very results-driven science-backed recovery and it's all under one place."

Avant is designed to be more than just a gym—it’s a community where members receive personalized plans, advanced body composition scans, and access to top-tier instructors who tailor workouts to individual needs. The integration of technology ensures that each member’s journey is tracked and optimized for maximum results.

Recovery and Wellness Integration

A significant aspect of Avant's offering is the emphasis on recovery and wellness. Recognizing that fitness isn't just about workouts, Jenna and Jeff incorporate state-of-the-art recovery tools like cold plunges, red light therapy, and spinal alignment beds to ensure members achieve long-term health and longevity.

Jeff York [31:21]: "We spent the money, we're gonna put in proper filtration... launching cold plunge properly."

This focus on recovery addresses a critical gap in the industry, where many gyms offer amenities but fail to educate members on their proper use, leading to underutilization and diminished perceived value.

Personalized Experience and Technology

Personalization is at the core of Avant's strategy. By utilizing advanced software platforms and data from member applications, Avant ensures that every workout session is tailored to individual goals and health conditions. This human-tech synergy allows instructors to provide bespoke guidance, enhancing both safety and effectiveness.

Jenna York [60:02]: "The one word that does describe Avant is personalization."

Furthermore, Avant adopts a no-tipping policy and offers high-quality, handcrafted smoothies included in membership fees, enhancing the overall member experience without nickel-and-diming.

Jenna York [47:04]: "We're going to make it the best for the customer. Different way of thinking."

Challenges and Industry Reception

Jenna and Jeff candidly discuss the challenges of disrupting a stagnant industry. From overcoming high overhead costs to combating entrenched big-box gym models, they emphasize the importance of staying true to their vision of customer-centric service.

Jenna York [35:23]: "If you're doing right by the member you can get buy-in very easily because you're not spewing a bunch of bs."

They also highlight the skepticism they face, especially when presenting their unique model to a market accustomed to traditional gyms. However, early successes, such as their flagship store in Ottawa and rapid sell-outs in Vancouver, signal strong demand for their innovative approach.

Jeff York [43:05]: "We sold out in six months. We have a waitlist."

Future Plans and Growth

Looking forward, Jenna and Jeff plan to expand Avant beyond Toronto, inspired by the success of other Canadian brands like Aritzia and Lululemon. They envision Avant becoming an international brand, offering a replicable model of premium fitness and wellness clubs across major cities worldwide.

Jeff York [67:50]: "It's an extreme value play... just wait till you see it."

Their ambition is not only to grow a billion-dollar brand but also to inspire a shift in how the world perceives and engages with fitness and wellness.

Conclusion

Jenna and Jeff York's journey with Avant exemplifies a profound commitment to transforming the fitness industry. By prioritizing personalization, community, and holistic wellness, they are setting new standards for what a fitness club can be. Listeners are encouraged to follow their journey on Instagram and LinkedIn or apply for membership through their website.

Jenna York [68:44]: "Definitely follow us on Instagram Avant Toronto and our site avant-club.com."

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Notable Quotes:

• Jenna York [01:22]: "I knew how to really get a member that is sticky who loves your product and get them bought in because you deliver on your promise."
• Jeff York [00:04]: "Fitness is absolutely broken right now. The customers lost."
• Jenna York [12:53]: "Your training should make your body bulletproof, not break you down."
• Jeff York [28:00]: "We're creating a fitness ecosystem that's really high quality..."
• Jenna York [60:02]: "The one word that does describe Avant is personalization."

This episode underscores the critical need for innovation in the fitness industry and showcases how Avant is poised to lead this transformation with a member-first approach.

Transcript

[Jenna York]

Boutique studios exist because gyms didn't do what they needed to do to keep the customer.

[Jeff York]

We have franchise people selling franchises, and you have big box delivering an inferior experience. Fitness is absolutely broken right now. The customers lost. Right. Make money selling franchises or make money in a big box and hopeful hope people don't show up. That's how fitness works, right? The more people don't show up, the more money you make. Short term. They're going to walk into this thing and they're going to say, this is the best thing I've ever seen. There's nothing like it. You have to define how you're going to do things differently. So it's going to be great studio, great people. Right. And the personalized service. So we're going to do what's required for you. I think people are going to walk into this thing and they're going to say, where the hell did this thing come from? I want one in my city. What a brand, what a brand, what a brand, what a mighty good brand. Say it again now. What a brand, what a brand, what a brand, what a mighty brand.

[Host]

All right, so I'm joined by Jenna and Jeff York today. Guys, welcome to Art of the Brand.

[Jenna York]

Thanks. It's awesome to be here.

[Host]

I'm actually super pumped to talk to you guys because you guys have such a different background and I don't think the health and fitness industry is ready for what you guys are going to do. So we're going to jump into it today.

[Jeff York]

Awesome.

[Jenna York]

Let's go.

[Host]

So you guys have both very different backgrounds. Who wants to start? Because we need to know your who, what, where, why, how.

[Jenna York]

So I'm a D1 swimmer, swimming, so I'm at Purdue University. Always loved business, so I figured why not understand the numbers. Became a cpa, realized desk job was not for me. Worked in Chicago, New York, and during that time was doing all the boutique fitness studios. Always an athlete for my whole life. So going to the gym as a social thing was a new thing. It was always, you know, 20 hours of swimming a week, plus weights. Have to do it. Being able to go to Boutique Studio, then brunch, go to Barry's class, then brunch. That really resonated with me. And I was like, this is an awesome way to see friends be healthy. And of course, there's some booziness in the brunch as well, but at least you get your workout in. So took that. Then was approached to run operations for fitness franchise in my hometown of Ottawa. And we were gonna expand it to Toronto kind of came in. It was absolute dumpster fire. Was not scalable at all. So basically built the franchise from scratch. Kind of got in, worked the front desk, did every class, figured out what is actually this model and how are we gonna scale it. Did a lot of research, did my own, you know, learned a bunch of stuff on my own. Obviously Jeff has a lot of franchising experience, so bounced ideas off of him. But yeah, built this franchise, fitness boutique studio concept, up to 15 locations at one point. Covid then hits, we have all in person training. We have 3,000 members to take care of. So we launched a, a virtual studio. So my business partner and I, we put our heads together. We didn't even sleep through most of COVID figuring out how do we keep our trainers, you know, paid. We didn't want them to have to go on government subsidies. They wanted to help people. Let's create an avenue for them to help people. So we kind of launched our V1 platform of Zoom classes and seven, you know, up to seven live classes a day got all of our trainers working seven days a week. So, so we ran that for probably all of COVID Canada was shut down multiple times. So basically the government said, we're shutting you down for on and off for two years. You guys have to. So basically we had to transform our whole model overnight. We were doing 50 people classes, went down to 12, eight with social distancing. At one point, this whole idea of hybrid training came to be like, why? Just because you have to go on freeze or you have to hold your membership. Why can't you get a workout in? What are you doing if you're not with us? So this idea of, you know, we can deliver results, real, really good 3D live interactive experiences with coaching, make it personalized online and in our studio. So we did that and then got approached by Altea who liked what we were doing in the online space. They were building their second fitness and wellness club in downtown Toronto and they wanted us to kind of help them add an online digital component. And so we started doing that and they said, hey, well we actually need help with, you know, adding more personalization, getting, you know, a top tier membership. We said, okay, well we do that, we can help you. We'll bring in our training in house. We'll create an LF3 studio inside of your, your club and we'll create a Diamond membership. Everyone gets a personalized seven day plan. We'll have a Diamond community manager. We'll do real legit strength training. None of this Frou frou stuff that we see with two pound dumbbells. It's like legit strength training. People are gonna get real results, they're gonna move properly. We're gonna get personal trainers who want to coach this. Cause it's quality and kind of we started there and then we started scaling it across all of their clubs. Cause with the franchise knowledge we knew how do you get personal trainers teaching group fitness? We'll get them to buy in and then get them confident and then the rest is history. Have a program that they follow. Make it results driven. Everything just always needs to make sense. And if you're doing right by the member you can get buy in very easily because you're not spewing a bunch of bs. So we're very anti bs that happened. And at the same time we had built a software platform which we were running all of our studios on. We had to use mindbody and all those and none of them really did what we needed. We wanted to simplify it but we also wanted to really get to know our member very well. So to know that you need to know what they do when they come to your facility. So we basically brought that in, paired it with Altea. We run now all the clubs on it and then this idea of okay, well what's the next, you know this diamond membership works so well. People want to be told what to do when they come to the club. They want to use their membership, they want to get results. Why doesn't that exist in a big box space? And when I say big box it's like you know, the good lifes, the equinox, like the lifetimes where you just come and you don't know what to do unless you have a trainer or you go into a random fitness class and you just around. So we said well you know, we have a smaller square footage, we can't have that many members. We want to make it upscale. We're coming to like the hottest market in all of Canada in Yorkville. People are going to demand a lot more. How are we going to make a splash and how are we going to actually do right for that community? We need to bring something they're going to want the idea of, well let's bring our personalized approach, results driven programming and then bring it into a smaller footprint. But then make all the studios talk to one another. So yes LF3 is, you know, no BS but let's make a kick ass Pilates studio. Let's make really good hot yoga and hot map Pilates. Let's have, you know, results driven cycle. Let's have boxing taught by like actual technicians and fighters. Let's just like cut through the frou frou performers. Like, that's a lot of what I saw in New York was like, I'm an actor, I want to be a, you know, I'm a B list celeb. So I want to go teach fitness. They're not even qualified and they're just dancing and maybe they're really good at DJing, but they're not a fitness, they're not a fitness instructor. So there's a lacking of fitness knowledge. But a lot of people who are really good at fitness can't make enough money doing it. So that's why our industry has a lack of really highly qualified people that teach in person. Because you can make more money online or you just get paid pennies by these gym operators who are like, I'll pay you 20 bucks an hour, right? So the idea of if we're going to deliver this amazing personalized experience where everything talks to each other, well, we're going to need the best talent and the best talent needs to be able to make a living so they can fully dedicate all their time to like being the best in their craft. So this idea of like creating full time opportunities. So what we're doing in this new concept of on and we're, it's going to start trickling down to Altea as well. Because we really believe that this is how like the future of fitness is, is you want to create career opportunities for really good fitness professionals and people that are passionate about the industry. They need to be able to, you're not doing that on 20 to 40 bucks a class and then they'll, they'll get bought in, they'll want to help the members and the members will feel that everybody here wants to be here. They are like, you know, proud to be here. They're delivering a really good service because they're like so bought in. So the experience we're bringing to Yorkville now is kind of like a culmination of all of our learnings. A lot of bad failed experiences, learning what not to do. But I feel like now we're very clear on what we need to do to create like a lights out experience. And it's a merriment of the fitness. And then you look at, okay, what do I do for recovery? I have to go buy a $200 membership to go and like sit in a chair with red light or like go sit in a sauna. People don't want to do that because you don't burn calories. People want to pay money to look better. And you're not going to buy a recovery membership, but everybody needs it and it's the least sexy thing to do. You don't want to spend your time on it. So when we brought in the best recovery modalities as well under this one roof, so this whole concept of the best of fitness, the best of wellness, we vetted it all. Cause you also don't have time to vet stuff. Like people are busy, they have jobs, they're not specialists in fitness and wellness. Well we are. So we'll break everything down for the member. We'll tell them exactly how to use our full facility to get their seven day plan out of it. You tell us what you need, we do an advanced body composition scan. Everything is driven by results and you do exactly what we say, you will get shredded, you will look great, you'll feel great, you're going to live longer, you're going to build muscle. So just kind of this whole idea of fitness ecosystem that's really high quality, taught by really passionate people with very results driven science backed recovery and it's all under one place, so you're not going and spending $1,200 for overpriced boutique memberships. Boutique studios exist because gyms didn't do what they needed to do to keep the customer. They only ran one boot camp class when they wanted a boot camp at 7pm so then they said, okay, I'm going to open up a boot camp studio and run that same class seven times a day. That's why a studio exists. They gave more attention to the member, they created a community and they didn't feel lost when they came into the gym. So having worked in boutiques, I know it works, we've tested it. I was obsessed with our product for eight to 10 years. So I know how to really get a member that is sticky who loves your product and get them bought in because you deliver on your promise and you bring that into this broken big box model and you really redefine what people should start to expect from their fitness and wellness club. That's why we say we're not a gym, but we have to say that we're a gym. Cause people don't understand yet what we're bringing to the market. And I feel like that's, it's kind of a battle where it's this amazing thing that we're bringing but it's not understood yet because it doesn't exist. And it doesn't exist because it's very hard to execute. But we're, we're pretty excited. It's going to be a lot of work. It's going to be a lot of overhead, but it's. People need this. So, you know, anyways, that's a long winded approach of where I am now.

[Host]

Where you've been, where you've come from. I think that also needs a bit like before we get into your experience too, Jeff, because you've. You broke down a lot for what makes this business so interesting because it's really going to be a disruptor for the space. I. It's funny, I get so many people that say, like, I'm going to be the next Uber of whatever. And I'm like, no, you're not. But you got. You guys actually are. Because it's. That's what's so complicated about this space is that boutique has been done. Good enough. There was still space for improvement on the boutique front because as things became more expensive, people that entered into boutique, it was more like their third job. No one could make money. It was like a passion thing. You didn't even touch on even your injury, which was like a huge piece too, in this getting injured while being in a high performance sport and how much that impacted your life.

[Jenna York]

Yeah.

[Host]

Do you want to touch on that quickly before we move back?

[Jenna York]

So I had a. I broke my back overuse injury being competitive swimmer in high school, but no one really believed me. My coaches are like, oh, you're fine. Keep swimming, keep swimming. So I swam Olympic trials. Could barely do a flip turn without pain. Yeah. Then my freshman year swam with a broken back. They're like, take pain meds, take this. And I was like, I'm not gonna get addicted to pain meds for the sake of. Of swimming. So ended up getting back and then, you know, made my comeback. Lots of rehab later, but I was still getting pain all the time. And it wasn't until I started working at our. At the studios, after I took on the job running operations, that I started working with my now business partner who was like, yeah, why would you not push overhead? Like, how are you going to strengthen your spine again? Why would you not do this? My surgeon had put all these restrictions on me and he's like, well, how are you ever gonna, you know, get stronger if you never lift overhead? How is your spine gonna, you know, do X, Y and Z? And started like, pushing the envelope. And I was like, you know what? That actually makes a Lot of sense. Okay, let's try it. And I went from, you know, like kind of feeling okay, like having to go to Osteo all the time to now I'm pretty much like bulletproof. And I just, I took that perspective on like, your training should make your body bulletproof, not break you down.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Jenna York]

Like, if you're gonna spin, spend all this time doing things. Like, it's not about the calories, it's not about the sweat. It's like, are you doing something that's going to set you up for success long term? That's at least how I look at it. Because injuries for me are moving wrong for too long. And then your body just says, okay, that's enough. So the idea of you change how you move, you don't get injured, you break the cycle. And so now I have. My BS detector is like so high on all these fitness things. I'm like, that's an injury waiting to happen. Like this whole CrossFit thing with people doing like terrible form, lifting heavy weight, high reps. It's like, that is not going to be good long term. So I'm very of the proponent and because of the experiences I've had and just kind of everything I went through, I like things for efficiency, for longevity. And that makes sense. Yes. I like the esthetics. I want to look good for my workout. I don't want to, you know, not look good. But that's a smaller component as far as that's moving pain free for life. That's kind of what I'm focused on.

[Host]

But you can have both.

[Jenna York]

Yeah, you can have both.

[Host]

It can be a high end experience where you experience boutique fitness. Because boutique fitness has been shitty.

[Jenna York]

Well, that was my biggest problem. It's. You just go and do random crap.

[Host]

Every time you go Pilates and it's like not Pilates. And no one goes and signs up for a good life membership because it's got the best Pilates.

[Jenna York]

No, it's not what you do. No, they go because it's variety, but it's crappy variety because they don't. They just put play a tape or they have everyone run the same thing. It's not. You just show up to get paid. You don't show up to like deliver an experience. Yes. And like the true masters of their craft come in and they want to like light up a room. They like want to leave an impact on the room. They really want to like push people to somewhere they haven't been. And those are the kind of people you want Delivering the experience. Not here for the Instagram, here for the selfies.

[Jeff York]

That's the opportunity, that's the opportunity we can seize right now. Because the industry is absolutely broken, right? It's like our healthcare industry, it's broken. We treat sick people like in the gym industry, what they want to do. You have franchise people selling franchises and you have big box delivering an inferior experience and the customer is forgotten in everything. And my whole life's been about the customer. So like just to tell you a little bit, I started at Jen and I share one thing in common. We're both CPAs and we're both D1 athletes. So I was a hockey player at Princeton. Again, I hurt my back as well.

[Jenna York]

Another thing in common, another thing in.

[Jeff York]

Common which I'm still working on. Back injuries never go away. Then I was a CPA and I was the auditor for Giant Tiger. And then Giant Tiger, the good auditor, not the CRA one. So they hired me to be their controller and I eventually became president at 36, ran that for 10 years, learned how to compete against Walmart. So as every other Canadian discounter was going out of business, Giant Tiger was growing at a double digit rate every year that I was there. And it was simple. It was finding good people, empowering them and treating them with respect as a partner. And then we concentrated on being the lowest price with cheap, cheerful. That was what our clothing was right, or brands at a discount. But do something that others weren't doing because if you're gonna compete against Walmart head on, it's like running into a brick wall. You're going to get bloody. So do something different. So we created a whole direct import business, fashion business and food. We got into food in a big way and Giant Tiger's still thriving today. It's one of the last discounters left competing against Walmart. It's dollarama, Walmart and Giant Tiger. And then while I was with Giant Tiger, we would shop at the store called Farm Boy and it's, it was, we take the kids there and then the monkey would swing and the cow would moo, they'd pull the tail and they all loved it. And I said, I met the, the owners from Farm Boy and I said, why are you only in Ottawa? I said this is the best, best grocery fresh food experience I've ever seen. And I said, he goes, well we just, in Ottawa we tried. We need a leader to help grow it. And I said. So I went home and I remember I was talking to my wife about it and Johnny Tiger was great. Right. I was the second top owner growing across Canada. Very, very well paid. And I loved it because I put the team together as my team. It was kind of like my baby. And I just said, I just, that's enough's enough. Like, I was trying to do change an equity deal with the chairman, and it just wasn't going the way I wanted it to go. And I just said, I got to make a change now. So when I was first, was 46, then I went to the farm boy, three brothers, and said, guys, let's work together and I'll help you grow this thing. I go, I like growing things, and I want to disrupt. Disrupt the industry. So then I said, so we, we went around and studied everything at Farm Boy. We studied Whole Foods, Wegmans. We went over to England. We just Marks and Spencer. We went and we looked at all of the best and we rated everything at Farm Boy. And we said, we're either gonna be the best at it or we're not gonna do it. So then we just went department by department and just figured out how to be the best. And then we, we did this really neat thing. We added salad bars and fresh food into it. I said, let's compete against restaurants, okay. Because it's really hard to compete against Walmart. So then we said, let's get into salad bars, hot bars. And now it's a huge part of Farm Boy. Like, most people, young people don't even think of Farm Boy without the salad bars. But those only exist since. Since when? We started putting them in in 2012, 2013.

[Jenna York]

Salad bars with like, actual protein and like, actually real. Exactly.

[Jeff York]

So and we put it in. So Mondays, Tuesdays were always slow days at Farm Boy. So we. Weekends are really busy and we weren't good at getting males to come into the store. They just didn't want to shop like they were shopping. So it said if we put steak AAA steak in the salad bar and we charge it by the pound, we will get mails into our store. So immediately we. We put out this Subway. Remember Subway used to get the stickers. You get 10 stickers, you'd get a free sub.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Jeff York]

So I said, let's go throwback. Like 10 stickers, you get a free salad. Males like to collect. They put it in their wallet. Right. And we put steak and immediately the sales went crazy and shot up like crazy. And we put salad bars in all the stores than hot bars. And. But again, the way you do business is, I've always believed, do the opposite of what everybody's doing. So if you're doing what everybody's doing, you're probably wrong. So that's what we came in. So fitness is absolutely broken right now. The customer's lost. Right. Make money selling franchises or make money in a big box and hopefully hope people don't show up. That's how fitness works. Right. The more people don't show up, the more. The more money you make short term. But they eventually quit. Right. They'll churn their membership. Half of them will churn out every year. So when I first looked at this business model as an investor, I came in as an investor when for Liberty Village, because we were going to put a Farm boy beneath the. The Altea. It was supposed to be at Highland Farms, the Liberty Village location, but Sobeys bought farm boy in 2018. So we had to take. Sobeys had negotiated to get the Whole Foods location at Front and Bathurst, which is a mile away from. From that location. So we couldn't do it. But I got to know Dave and then. And I introduced Jenna to. Jenna says, I'm not doing Big Box. We're not doing big Box. We're Boutique. They don't know what they're doing. Like, we don't want to be. Because Jenna was during, like, like anti Big Box.

[Host]

And I said, because it sucks at boutique.

[Jeff York]

Yeah. Because it's just a bad experience.

[Host]

It kills the brand. It kills the vibe.

[Jenna York]

Yeah.

[Jeff York]

You go into these crappy places, like Good Life Fitness and stuff. They're awful. Right. And then. And then I said, okay, so let's redefine it. Let's figure out how we're going to make it great and start with the LF3 went in. Right. And then we, as it came in, we put LF3 in the diamond program and the booking and things like that. I said, treat the people that come into the big boxes like a boutique. So that's what we've been. This is the journey we're on right now. And Avant is where we're starting with the customer in absolutely personalized service. And people, they don't even believe us right now. The people in New Yorkville that we're actually going to do this, I. I swear they don't know. They're going to walk into this thing and they're going to say, this is the best thing I've ever seen. There's nothing like it. Nothing like it. Because we've been to all of them. Right. The closest is probably E from Equinox in New York, which is. It's a Hospitality brand. Right. It's not even a fitness brand like we are. Right. And Equinox don't know how to do fitness. They don't like if you go into their Yorkville location, like they're hot. Their hot yoga is a yoga studio where they open the blinds and let the, let the sun in. And that's what they told me. That's what they told me when I was on the tour. I said, where's your hot yoga? Then I went down into the fitness room. Right. And people were dragging their own weights in to do their fitness class. I go, that's not. And they're paying a high price to do this. Right? Yeah. So we, we're going to come into it like premium valet first. Like it's going to be. The rooms will be set up. It's going to be top notch equipment with the best instructors. You have to see our team like the team that we have hired. Like we only hire one way attitude, customer service attitude. Everybody that's joined the brand. High, high customer service attitude. How do we know that that's how Farm boy competed against Loblaws and all the, all the big, big companies, Walmart, that would buy cheaper and do things differently. So you have to define how you're going to do things differently. So it's going to be great studio, great people and the personalized service. So we're going to do what's required for you. And people think like, oh, it's expensive. Okay. How much do you pay to do a cycle, Pilates and a Berries per month if you're into it.

[Host]

It's 50 bucks a class.

[Jenna York]

So a lot of money. It's like at least twelve hundred dollars a month.

[Host]

Yeah, at least.

[Jenna York]

Plus the smoothies.

[Host]

Plus, plus with all the add ons and the smoothies. Because I get everything.

[Jeff York]

So. So I approach it this way. Like I'm a business guy. Okay. Like, and the math has to work. So we put out a slide in an investor deck. And it was funny because we're raising money and these things aren't inexpensive to open. Right. That's very, very. When people. Yeah. They're going to walk in and our entrance is better than the Four Seasons. I think this one's going to be better. The one in Ottawa is the Four Seasons. When you walk in. Right.

[Host]

I thought it was.

[Jeff York]

You've seen it. Yes. So you walk in and you go, what am I coming into? Right. So nice. Exactly. So. And we want to wow you. Right. When you come in. It's got to be different than anywhere Else, Right. So the first thing you see is the front and you see smiling people that actually like their jobs. Right. A lot of people are in, that are in these, in this industry. Like they don't really like to be in the industry. Our people really like to work.

[Host]

They're paid well actually.

[Jenna York]

They're actually leaving their jobs in other industries because they're passionate about fitness and wellness. They're like, I can actually have a career in this livable wage. Yes, exactly.

[Jeff York]

So this is what so Avant. Like, the beauty of Avant is not just for Yorkville. So if you look at real estate across the world right now, second floor condo towers, rental buildings, ground floor, they can't rent them. Like, what are you going to put in a lot of this? So we can go into a lot of vacant real estate. This was the old Nordstrom rack we're going into. There's a many cities thought people would shop on the second floor. They don't. In Canada specifically, they do not want to shop for groceries on the second floor.

[Host]

It's not easy.

[Jeff York]

It's not easy, Right. So all we need is an escalator to get up from the main floor to the second floor. You go into Liberty Village, like it's three floors, right? Vancouver, we're in three floors. So we're a solution to land for landlords and we'll bring an amenity that they can, they can lease up their building faster with us in it. So that's what we see with Avant. Like we're in the 74 story tower, right. And we've got this whole second floor, 31,000 square feet. But they're going to come in, it's got everything you need. Fitness, wellness, boutique, classes, grab complimentary espresso, get a smoothie, do your recovery after we cold plunges, saunas, we've got it all. And if you add it up, we were just doing the math. Just basic, basic math. It's way over $1,000 when you add in recovery and wellness to the fitness. So that's kind of our angle that, yeah, people say, oh, that's a lot to pay. But add up what you're spending, it's kind of like your Netflix. Your, your people have all these 1499 or 999 subscriptions, right. You add them all up, it's more than your cable now. Right. And I think people that do classes, they never add up what fitness costs them per month. So for us, it's even worse if.

[Jenna York]

You don't use it.

[Jeff York]

Exactly.

[Jenna York]

So you continue making your donation and then you don't use it, like. And we had to add more parking to our latest club because our members come too much. But for us, that's success. Other people are like, that's high overhead. Well, we're like, well, we want people to actually use our membership. That's. That's success if your people actually use your product.

[Jeff York]

And the thing about fitness, you said the key word is community, right? Think of fitness as, like, when I grew up, fitness. You'd go to the gym, right? You'd pump iron, right? You'd get you trained before your sport. Now, fitness is a lifestyle decision, right? Young people, young thinking people, people that care about their body. Fitness is not a discretionary spend. It's in your budget.

[Host]

It's therapy. It's. It's longevity. It's not about burning yourself out. It's keeping yourself going long.

[Jeff York]

I'm a big Peter Attia fan.

[Host]

Totally biohacking longevity. It's the zeitgeist right now. It's everything.

[Jeff York]

And we're gonna be. When you think about it, when you come into Yorkville and you see the Avant, you're gonna see just snippets. We're just getting going in this. Like, we think, like, we're gonna add in this, and we're putting in really neat things. We're putting in an alignment bed that Jen and I, when we're down at the show in. In Vegas, that comes from Korea, and it's. It's a spinal alignment bed. It's super cool lymphatic drainage. Like, people. What would people pay to do that? Lymphatic?

[Jenna York]

You went, well, I was going. It was $120 for an hour. We both went, yeah. And we're like, okay, but 120 bucks? No, but why don't we just include in the membership and then you get it as part of it and it's all in one place.

[Host]

I really want you to talk about the experience you had in Vegas because. And then I want to lead into the US because this is, I think, Avant's the Aritzia of. It's going to be the Aritzia of fitness. Like the US and the rest of the world doesn't know what's coming from Canada.

[Jenna York]

Yeah.

[Jeff York]

So I've done trade shows all over the world for general merchandise, clothing, food, everything. But I'd never been to a fitness show. So I said to Jen and Mike, I said, let's go to the best fitness show where everything's there, all our suppliers are there. I'm going to see everything to do with fitness. Because remember, I've been only doing this for a year as CEO of this company. So I, I, as an investor now, CEO. So we went down to Vegas and we went around and we just, we, we went to see our, one of our equipment suppliers that we're having maintenance issues with. Laid down the lawy down the law of how, like we're the fastest growing brand in Canada. And look, you got to start, you got to start shipping parts faster. Like, we don't have broken equipment, okay? So you got to get, you got to up your gig. So I said, let's talk wellness now. Like, it's not about fitness anymore. Anybody can open a gym. Anybody, right? But who can open a premium fitness wellness club, right? So then we were walking around and we see this big crowd of people around and I go, what is over there? And it's this alignment bed. The inventor's right there, he's from Korea. And we, we get in line and I said to Jen, I got to get on. We both have bad backs. So I said, let's get on this thing. See, see how it goes? So he's got the whole working model. So we go on the bed for like 15 minutes each. And you feel great when you come out.

[Jenna York]

It's like heated, has like pemf, like near infrared heat. And then it's like basically like you have an acupuncturist going down your spine, each vertebrae, but it's like this machine that's heated.

[Jeff York]

Yeah, yeah. So, so we said, okay, so we're going to do something in Avant. Like one thing about business, you have to try things, right? So we said, let's put this. We'll have the only one in Toronto. I said, let's put one in. So we ordered one like once we get back from the show. The other thing we saw at that show was tremendous amount of red light therapy. Tremendous amount.

[Host]

It's the future.

[Jeff York]

So we said, okay, what are we gonna do in Avant with red light therapy? So we said, okay, we've got these, the best massage chair around. It's like a two people massaging. It's unbelievable. And then we have these hyperized pants and stuff. And I said, would be really cool if they're in their hyperized pant and getting a red light therapy at the same time with a portable bio stacking.

[Jenna York]

Biohacking stacking.

[Jeff York]

So again, so what do people pay for this in Toronto? Like it's now one.

[Host]

You can't get that.

[Jeff York]

Exactly.

[Host]

I don't even know what it would Cost.

[Jenna York]

The other thing too, we noticed was like, the red light therapy. It's so new that there's a lot of bs. We'll be like, oh, red light bed. But it's not enough power to actually do anything. So we kind of had the BS detector up a bit looking at some of these because they're like, this is the new shiny object in this and this. And you see people buy them and you're like, okay, is someone actually going to get a benefit from this? So, like, vetting it to make sure it's actually legit, because we don't want to be selling snake oil. Like, and there's a lot of snake oil in the fitness industry, which you don't want to be like that. But yeah, we will have red light. It will not be snake oil.

[Jeff York]

The other good thing is we met. We met the. One of the. I guess not creators of cold plunge.

[Jenna York]

Yeah, no, he actually is. Him and his dad.

[Jeff York]

So him and his dad, they started cold plunge for the Boston Bruins in their training room 20 years ago. Yeah, that's how it started. They had a training room and we met the. So we look up at the. At the sign at the back and we see a guy in the cold plunge as their first ad. It's the owner's son. So then we made contact with cold plunge. Learned a lot about cold plunging. Like, the quality of the water is very important and the cleanliness of the water is very important.

[Jenna York]

Yeah. And it's not really adhered to in a lot of places. So that's why we didn't put cold plunges in right away, because it gets this layer of bacteria on top. As you get a lot of bodies with, like, heating. Heated bodies getting in, you get a layer of bacteria on top that if you don't have the circulation proper and the chemical dosaging like it's a night. It's an absolute health hazard.

[Jeff York]

So we flew up the number one spa operator in the United States up to Toronto and he said, can you please educate me on this? Because there's a lot of health problems that can be really be related to this thing. So he came up and then we did a whole audit. Audit of what we were going to do and then immediately change course on. On what we're going to do. Instead of, like, you look at a lot of the franchise places, they're putting cold plunges into their facility with no circulation. No circulation. You're jumping out of a. You're sweaty. You're getting out of a hot sauna and jumping into A cold plunge with no circulation.

[Host]

It's disgusting.

[Jeff York]

It's not really.

[Jenna York]

And then it's like, next booking, next booking. Yeah.

[Jeff York]

So we said, so again, we're not gonna do this. Okay. So we're gonna, we're gonna put in, we're gonna spend the money, we're gonna put in proper filtration. We're gonna do it. And now we're gonna launch cold plunge properly, like. And, and when you, when you get into Avant, you're gonna see the. A proper cycle where you do hot shower, cold breathing, relaxing. So it'll be a guided half hour of the Properly. The proper way of doing.

[Jenna York]

Capacity controlled as well. Because like a lot of these places. Yeah. If you want to go for a party in the sauna, that's a different type of vibe. But not a lot of people like that vibe long term. And it's.

[Host]

I really don't love being packed into a tight space.

[Jenna York]

Hot, sweaty, soggy towels, 82 people.

[Host]

Like, this is my. This is a rare form of torture for me.

[Jenna York]

Yeah. So taking the opposite approach of more space, you know, lower capacities, more personalized.

[Jeff York]

Approach to things, but because we're personally limiting the capacity.

[Jenna York]

Yeah.

[Jeff York]

Like most, most of our competitors oversell knowing that they're going to lose half them anyways.

[Jenna York]

Because they're not going to come.

[Jeff York]

They're not going to come. They're not going to come. They're going to get bored or whatever.

[Host]

It's also the model.

[Jeff York]

The model that's been the model. The model's been that way. So let's sell, sell, sell. So one of the things they said, let's just open a proper club. Make people apply. What a novel concept. Make people apply for membership. Well, any, any great club you're going to join, you have to apply. Right. But that's not the fitness model. So we just open up in Yorkville. I guess in Yorkville, they're not used to signing up for fitness because you can go to Equinox and show up and pay or berries or whatever. So we've, we put out an application and we got great information from our members just as they filled up the application. Like we, it was almost like a customer survey before we opened.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Jeff York]

So we, we compiled all the data, knew that they wanted this. We found out that we, we needed parking. More parking than, than we need because 25% of the people that filled out the application said they might have to park. So what did we do? We just went out and got parking. Right. More park. We had parking into the building, but it was inadequate. So we went out and got parking across the street specifically for us to save issues later.

[Host]

Yeah, it allows you guys to understand what your community wants. It's such a fascinating concept though because to a lot of the listeners and I think people in our circles, we've understood the importance of the recovery aspect. But it's so fascinating that the larger gym concepts, they haven't changed. Like it's such an old model of.

[Jeff York]

Like change is hard.

[Host]

There's a pool, you know, like it's.

[Jenna York]

Well, they usually just put amenities in, right. And they say go have at it with a new amenity. But people don't know how to use the amenity and when you don't use the amenity you don't see value in it and you're going to quit anyways. So you need to show people how to use it, how to incorporate it into their routine, how to use it in their personal plan. That's the missing link is like how do you actually use it? It's like a fancy thing but no one uses it because they don't know how. And then they're like, okay, I don't see any value in this. Thanks but no thanks.

[Jeff York]

But just merge the. Just think of this as the merger of the best of boutiques. Right. And the best of big box. Even though there's very little of the best of big box.

[Jenna York]

The open gym concept.

[Jeff York]

So we've taken the open gym concept and put in curated pieces of machinery that we know they're going to use and it can be part of a balanced workout. Not just filling up a machine, a warehouse full of equipment and say hey, go use it. So it's going to be great for our pts personal trainers going through and helping the take the customers, our clients through their fitness journey. Not having a bunch of equipment. Right.

[Host]

So yeah, well we should touch on that because really what I've on is going to be is like a merge of like, of a, of an anatomy, you know, like in Miami, like a high end, high end personal training. But with Soho House, with Remedy House, with. It's this intersection of all of these like brands that people know all in one place. Because you guys are even offering personal training like every single day if you get the highest membership.

[Jenna York]

Yeah. So once a week our top tier members can get and they can add on like we had a member buy our top tour nor membership and then add on personal training because he's like, yeah, this is all I like to do.

[Jeff York]

But think about Avant the reason why we pick Yorkville especially One Bloor. It's the number one address in Canada, I think, like, or top five, let's say in Canada. So I think people are going to walk into this thing and they're going to say, where the hell did this thing come from? I want one in my city. Oh yeah. And it's. And then I've said this to my friends, I said, I think this is our international play. Just like, like you think about Aritzia clothing. Like everyone says, oh, Canadian brands can't work in the United States. Yes, they can. When they do something better and different.

[Host]

Aritzia, Lululemon, there's tons of, there's tons of.

[Jeff York]

But we always talk about the failures of Canadians going south. Like Jean Cout, Canadian Tire, Loblaws. They all tried going south and they never were successful. These are big Canadian brands, but they didn't change what they were.

[Host]

Disruptors.

[Jeff York]

They weren't disruptors. Like when you go to Avant, like you could say, I want one of these in Scottsdale in London, England. Scottsdale, London.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Jeff York]

We get some inspiration in London. Like I get. There's a lot going on in London.

[Jenna York]

Yeah.

[Jeff York]

From a food point of view. Right.

[Jenna York]

Like the third space clubs.

[Jeff York]

Third space clubs, very well done. But they're not, they don't do fitness like we do.

[Jenna York]

Yeah. I think that's the missing piece. It's like, this is a beautiful club. Even the lifetimes in the U.S. it's like, this is awesome. I could bring my kid here, kids, club, pickleball, everything. What am I doing for fitness?

[Host]

Yeah.

[Jenna York]

Like, it's just so counterintuitive because you're like, hey, I have a gym membership. But like, what do I do for fitness?

[Host]

It's good, but it's not good enough.

[Jenna York]

Yes. That's why boutique still exists.

[Host]

Yeah. But even it's for me, Scottsdale's is such a perfect market to talk about. I'm blown away by the lack of options in a city with so much like a high net worth city.

[Jenna York]

So terrible.

[Host]

It's so odd. Like even la, when I go to la, like Carrie's Pilates isn't dynamic anymore anymore. You know, like Soul Cycle isn't dying. Like this is. This is a mer. They emerged 10 years ago and there's been no evolution to it.

[Jeff York]

Well, the problem is they, they pigeonhole themselves as well. Like I remember it was 2018. Jen and I are sitting down. We were putting in, let's franchise this, let's go. And I said, you know, it'd be a cool idea if we had A bigger space, one central reception area, and then three boutiques. Because this is when the cycle studios were getting. Getting really popular. And then when I go down to New York, Jenna said, let's go to Bears boot camp. Let's go to Orange Theory. Let's go do Rumble. Because I love rumble boxing.

[Host]

Same.

[Jeff York]

Yeah.

[Jenna York]

Yeah. So well done.

[Jeff York]

So. So when I came to Altay, I said, what are we doing for boxing? I said, boxing's awesome. It's a great workout. You're punching, you can think like it's a lawyer you're punching into or someone. You just had a bag.

[Host]

There's always someone on the bags.

[Jeff York]

Their face. Yeah, exactly. And It's a great 45 minutes of punching. So. So this is when you come to Yorkville, you're gonna. Our instructor isn't going to be up on a. Up on a little platform, dancing around, throwing punches. They're going to be down with you, showing you how to punch.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Jeff York]

And this is what we want. We want our instructors with the people. Right. They want and show them how to do it. And nobody does that. And this is again, I. What did I learn from farm boy? Do stuff that other people don't want to do, don't know how to do, or too lazy to do it.

[Jenna York]

Most businesses too lazy to do it.

[Jeff York]

Too lazy to do it. I hate to say it. It's not physically lazy, it's mentally lazy. Change is hard, right? And doing things.

[Host]

And why do things that haven't been proven right? Like, it's hard to have that disruptor mindset.

[Jeff York]

And disrupting is fun. At the end of the day, it's fun to disrupt. People when they think they got the best business right, and you open across the street from them and you take away their business by doing it better. That's fun. It's a fun thing to do. And I like creating teams of passionate people that want to disrupt. They want to work together. They want to enjoy their job, work hard, play hard. And fitness is kind of ticks all the boxes when you think about it. Like the way we're gonna look at it. Fitness, wellness and club. So that's pretty much what people want right now and a place to connect. I'll tell you a story. So in our Ottawa club three weeks ago, I'm walking out of the club and I always go in the morning, do a workout, talk to the staff and just see how things are going. Go to the sauna, listen to people they don't know I'm the owner, right. One of the CEOs so I'm listening to them talk about the club. So I'm getting. So I'm walking. And the very first day that I joined the ALTEA CEO, I was doing a workout in Winnipeg, and I did the interview with the Ottawa Business Journal in my sweaty gym clothes after finishing an LF3. I said, because you got to live the brand. So I have to share the story. I'm walking out of the club, and this lady I don't even know and being from Ottawa, some people know I'm from Ottawa. And she never met her. She goes, are you Jeff York? I go, yeah. She goes, I just want to thank you for changing my life. I said, this is the best thing Ottawa's seen.

[Host]

It is.

[Jeff York]

And you've seen it. Right. And nobody's doing it. And wait till people in Yorkville see what Avant is. Ottawa's great. Ottawa's the best big box facility in Canada. I'd say top five in North America. Top five. Like, we've been to one lifetime. We think's a little bit better because we don't have a rooftop pool.

[Jenna York]

Yeah. That's our limited.

[Jeff York]

Okay. We don't have a rooftop pool.

[Jenna York]

We're also in Canada two months a year for.

[Jeff York]

But the delivery of fitness and changing people's lives. You want to talk about brand connection, changing someone's life, and somebody tells you that that's how brands get viral. Right. Why is Farm Cult like status? Like I always say? People always said, like, how do you get people to buy farm boy stuff? And he said, we don't. They want it. There's a need in the marketplace that's not being met by businesses and the fitness world right now, Again, like I say, they sell memberships. Right. Or they sell franchises.

[Jenna York]

Yeah.

[Jeff York]

Right. And the customer is lost in the whole. In the whole thing. So we think of that whole intersection. You come in and actually deliver something the customer wants. It's almost beyond their expectation.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Jeff York]

And they'll become your best ambassador. They'll advertise for you. They'll tell their friends. Right. And so, like, we haven't been splashing all around Toronto telling everybody on radio, TV or whatever that we're coming to Toronto. Like, we're not coming to Toronto. We're coming to Yorkville with unique experience for a limited amount of people to join our club.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Jeff York]

And you better join, like, if, like, you're gonna say, I wish I would have joined this club because we're gonna cut memberships. We don't want it to be overrun because it's Gonna be special.

[Jenna York]

We're gonna capture. There's gonna be a wait list.

[Jeff York]

We open in Vancouver. Okay. Equinox, it's only competitor close to us in Vancouver. We sold out in six months. We went to wait list in six months. And I've never seen a brand go from east coast to west coast and sell out in six.

[Jenna York]

No one even knew our.

[Jeff York]

No, no, no.

[Host]

Brand awareness, it doesn't exist.

[Jeff York]

Zero brand. Yeah.

[Host]

And it doesn't really make sense especially I mean the timing is so right for you guys with the whole pendulum swing with Maha.

[Jenna York]

Right.

[Host]

Like people are like, the gen pop is going healthier. Like families are going to be needing to join these kinds of concepts because the wool has been pulled from like we don't want to eat Twinkies anymore. We don't like people want to live healthier lives, they want to live longer lives. And it's now it's being communicated from the the bottom up. Like the top always knew it. But that's also what's so smart about even on the Altea side, you guys are like, Lowe's are going out of business. Ronas are going out of business. Home deposit space for this. Even for a real estate play, we.

[Jeff York]

Can be the solution for customers and for landlords at the same time, which is great space to.

[Host]

And not replaceable by AI.

[Jenna York]

Exactly. That's a good thing with our business is it relies on humans, passionate humans to deliver and we're okay with that. And plus like having AI in other.

[Jeff York]

Ways, having a fitness, wellness, amenity in your. In your office building, pretty cool way to get people back to the office.

[Host]

Totally.

[Jeff York]

Because they'll want to get back to the office because they can go, go down and get the best workout in. Right?

[Host]

So especially when you what I for me, boutique fitness, like when I was younger I could go and do a workout and like I did now at a point in my life, I need to have money on the line and it booked in my calendar with a specific time slot so that I can go in and out in 45 minutes on days when I'm not where I love the range because like I love some days to do like a weights and some days to do like a pilates and some days to do a boxing. But what I love most about this concept is imagine on the days where I just had some really annoying meetings and I can just go and do a recovery session, like just go do the hot pledge or like even in the morning, like going to work early to be able to finish on a cold plunge. Before you start the day like that is a massive differentiator for allowing me to pick that employer.

[Jeff York]

But think about. It's your club, and you're deciding what you want to do at the club.

[Jenna York]

And the people that you want to be around. Like, that's why we have an application, because we want to make sure that it's all motivated people. Like, they have shared values. It's not to be pretentious and all that. It's because we want to curate, like, an intentional community of people. You feel motivated, you want to show up, you want to meet, you want to talk to. When you're on a mat beside them or at a weight rack, it's human connection.

[Host]

And there's a lot of people that don't want to golf. But being a part of a country club is attractive. Right. Like what that community represents. Same with the Granite Club. I mean, like, that's kind of. But it's like, this is a better version of it. It's less stale.

[Jeff York]

And another thing, too, is, like, we're not going to do the things that others do better. We're not running a restaurant.

[Host]

No, but you don't even have a restaurant.

[Jeff York]

Exactly. So we're gonna have great smoothies and great coffee.

[Host]

Great smoothies.

[Jeff York]

Yeah.

[Host]

I love your smoothies at the Ottawa location. They're like Aragon quality.

[Jeff York]

Yeah.

[Jenna York]

So those are going to be. And Avant. Yeah, they're fantastic.

[Jeff York]

Well, just think, right? So Booster Juice. Ten bucks. Right. Anywhere to get a smoothie.

[Host]

Oh, yeah. Touch on this. How you guys went in with this, with pricing. I love that you guys did this.

[Jeff York]

I learned this in. In the. In. In the. In the clothing business. What is the one thing when you buy an expensive coat that you get mad at the person that sold it to you? What is the one thing that really pisses you off?

[Host]

They upsell you on something else.

[Jeff York]

No. When you pay for alterations.

[Host]

Yeah, but they upsell you on something.

[Jenna York]

Else which should be included if you've already.

[Jeff York]

Should be included when you're buying a great outfit. So when we look at fitness, if someone's paying us a good price to come every month. Right. Bi weekly. Why would we try and make money off of all the ancillary things in our club off of them when they're already part of our club? So the first thing I did when I came in, I said, our smoothies are 10 bucks, and they're going to be great because booster juice is 10 bucks. And they're. They're. I'm not. I'm not slagging Their smoothies are better than having a Coke or a.

[Host]

But they're not fantastic.

[Jeff York]

They're not. They're not fantastic. So we put in handcrafted smoothies at $10 air on quality.

[Host]

20 US minimum. $25 US minimum smoothies for 10 bucks.

[Jenna York]

Yeah, yeah.

[Host]

To not gouge them.

[Jeff York]

And we're not. Like, a lot of restaurants will go, if it's $2 food cost, I've got to sell it for 10. That's not what we're doing. I said we're not making money on our food and on our smoothies. We're going to make it the best for the customer. Different way of thinking. Right. So as opposed to try and make money on everything you do off your member. No, like, give them. Give them something that. Something unexpected, something better.

[Jenna York]

The same with tipping, too. Like, we took away tipping from all the clubs because nothing more annoying than, oh, 35% tipping tip, like automatically on the register. It's like, why you just made me a smoothie like this? Should. We just said, let's just pay our people more so we don't need to be asking members for tips. And. Yeah. Is that more expensive for us? Yes. Better experience for the member. So we're. We're about the member. So that's. We. We rolled that out a couple months ago and yeah, we got a better. A bit of pushback on that. Yes. It's different, but it's. It's annoying to be asked for a tip when you're already paying enough. Totally.

[Host]

It's also annoying, too, for so much of what you're saying is actually, it echoes so many of the best branding books that I've read. And one that keeps coming up is like the Unreasonable Hospitality. Have you guys read that by Will Guidera?

[Jeff York]

No. Yeah, that's a good one. I'm a big fan of Danny Meyer.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Jeff York]

Setting the table. Yeah. It's a classic one. Right.

[Host]

But they're. They're partners.

[Jeff York]

Yeah.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Jeff York]

So it also comes from making the customer's journey the best. The best.

[Host]

The best.

[Jeff York]

There's nothing like your napkin is cloth and it's folded a certain way. Your silverware's polished, your glasses never go on the table unless somebody is. Has given it that once over. Right. They do all the little things. Right. The bread arrives two minutes after you sit down. The appetizer comes 12 minutes. Right. The main course has to come between 38 and 40 minutes. Like, these are the best standards. And we want to do this in fitness. Like, think of setting the table. Like, we want to do that in fitness and wellness.

[Jenna York]

We actually did do like for the Avant Club. We sat down with our construction team and our operations team. We said, okay, let's actually go through how someone's going to use the space. So we properly set up the right equipment in there, the right storage for the equipment. How are we going to lay out the mat, what's going to be on it, what equipment's going to be at the station, how is the member going to experience the space? And then what's the standard we're going to set so that our team follows it? So it's a repeatable, amazing experience every time. Because most times, like, leave it up to the instructor. They're rushing and they come. It's not set up properly and it's just like, okay, people are going to expect more from us and we're going to deliver, but we need to have planning, we need to understand how people are going to use the space and we need to just put that into our training from day one.

[Jeff York]

Is it hard to do?

[Jenna York]

Extremely. And it's not cheap either, but we're gonna do it great.

[Host]

Brand, like having systems and that's most people, they skimp on the systems, but that's where you can't have it be repeatable every single time. You don't have consistency.

[Jenna York]

You and you literally have nothing.

[Host]

You have nothing.

[Jenna York]

You are not going to be able to scale that at all. And it's like reinventing the wheel every time.

[Host]

Totally.

[Jenna York]

Yeah.

[Host]

What has been some of the feedback that you've been receiving either on the negative side or positive, like, what are your competitors, like, what are you sensing from. From the industry? Are they ready for this? Are they fearing this?

[Jeff York]

Well, Equinox, they don't want to.

[Jenna York]

Yeah, they don't talking trash about us.

[Jeff York]

Well, they knew because we, we in Vancouver, our biggest source of member was from Equinox because they weren't living up to their brand promise.

[Jenna York]

Yeah, they oversold the gym, they couldn't get parking. And now we started with saying, not really advertising that we're going to have parking. And then we found out 25% plus people plan to drive. And we're like, okay, we need to go and find more parking. And then we find out that they're going and telling everyone on the tour, oh, yeah, they don't have parking, they're not even gonna open. So we, we know that they see us, you know, we're doing our thing and just gotta level up.

[Jeff York]

A marketing company.

[Jenna York]

Yeah, exactly. They're great marketing, amazing marketers.

[Jeff York]

They're like, if you go on their website, like, it's awesome, it's sexy, mysterious. But again, like the results come to our facility. You will see results and you won't leave. And this is the thing. We're going to change the, the math of the industry. We like of turning over half your membership. That's just not going to happen. It doesn't happen. People want to stay and they want to stay and be and stay as a member of our club. And that's. And Avant, I think it's even going to be higher because we've got all these other wellness amenities we're adding as well. So.

[Jenna York]

Well, that was the biggest thing that I just was like red flag immediately when we came in as investors and we're learning more about big boxes. I was so laser focused on boutique, where our attrition is like, we try and keep, you know, if 3 to 5% of people cancel, like anything more, we are PO'd because it's like way harder for us to get a member. Like, we really want to preserve them. And they're like, oh yeah. Our industry average for fitness is like 35 to 50% of members quit a year. I'm like, what? You're constantly changing. Sorry, what? This is crazy. And that's why you just see everyone's always marketing with these discount promotions, trying to fill people in instead of focusing on how do I retain the member. And then I like thinking of it now as like, what's our retention percentage versus oh, we're okay with our members quitting. 35% of our members quitting every year. Like that to me is you failed as a business. If that many people are quitting, like, I would be embarrassed if I'm running a company. And that's the, the metric. Like that to me is just unacceptable. People are not using your product. Your product's crappy and you need to like reevaluate.

[Host]

But, well, that makes it so fascinating because you guys would understand like the way that they structure it better. But it's like they almost like they have to like, almost run outdated in order to make up for the money. But like, because it. The way that they do the depreciation, right, like, of the, the typical concept.

[Jenna York]

Well, it's like just so expensive to even just like start a gym.

[Host]

But then that's why they're not updating it. Like, all these gyms are so outdated, these concepts. That's why your model makes more sense. Because what makes boutique difficult is you're more dating a boutique concept. You're not married to a, like to use that terminology. But I'd rather have six boutiques under one roof and pay a marriage fee than like just be dating all these different places. Like it actually makes more sense.

[Jenna York]

Yeah. Doing random workouts at all them. What if all of them merged together to create an ideal seven day plan for you?

[Host]

But they were all good. They were all as good as, or better than the individual ones.

[Jeff York]

Well, I think everybody, everybody's looking at, at their, their monthly spend now. I don't care how much money you make, everybody's noticing what they pay for their subscriptions and they're going, why am I wasting this money? So I, I still come back to. If you're a fitness enthusiast, you, you go to multiple locations to get what you, what, what you cycle Pilates berries or whatever you need to get. We are an extreme value play. Yeah. We're a value play for somebody that's maybe only doing one of them. Right. Because we're going to give them everything else that they're not getting. Yeah. Like a Pilates place. Generally the Pilates place is more expensive than us just for their Pilates. And you're getting five other boutiques.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Jeff York]

And I'm not going to say our, our Pilates experience is going to be better than theirs, but it's going to be just as good and we're going to better instructors. Okay. So like some, you never keep up to people's bougie ness of their amenities. Right. But we're going to have a great space with great instruction.

[Host]

So like, I don't know how much more dynamic. Like what are you really looking for? Like they're not going to have like a Ninja Creamy stand at the front where you can't like froyo on your way out. Like it's, you have smoothies, you've got. To me it really is the recovery aspect. Like if you, you can have a recovery session after you do Pilates, that's a better experience. Like that's really what you're looking for. Because we now understand that everything that you're activating, you need to do on the back end to make sure that you're recovering properly. Because I did many, many years of working out and not stretching and I'm paying the price now. And when I go to do a yoga class, I'm like the 60 year old man in the back because like I, because I'm like now needing to like stretch out. So like I see the importance of recovery and you need to have that as part of the regime. I go, I did a berries class two days ago and like they did no stretching at the end of it. And I just like ran a marathon and did crazy weights and I'm like at midway through the day, I'm like stiff. I'm like hobbling out and like, you need to have these pieces.

[Jenna York]

Just being able to like make that reservation, dedicating that time for your own self care, that's meaningful and we need that. So even if it's not stretching, etc. It's like just to zone out in a massage chair, an acupressure bed, or get some lymphatic drainage, like creating that space, like one of the spaces we're calling the Haven. It truly is an escape from the busyness, from your crazy lifestyle to just focus on you.

[Jeff York]

And the other thing that it's controversial to some people, but not to us. You're checking your phone. There's no phones, there's no selfies, there's no videos.

[Jenna York]

Yeah. We have a strict no photo policy to protect the privacy of members of the members and just be present.

[Jeff York]

The gyms have turned into like film studios. Right. When you go into them now. And it's to me like, exactly. And leave your phone for your workout. You shouldn't be on your phone during your workout. Plus, they're hard workouts. You shouldn't even have your phone near you.

[Host]

Honestly, I hate it when I go to F45. They're constantly like filming me while I'm doing the workout. And I'm like, can you not like, yeah, I don't really want to be like, you're marketing on your Instagram stories that I'm, that I'm here. Like, it's. And I understand it from a business perspective because, like, I know, I know how hard it is for businesses to market, but also as the customer, I do find it annoying. So, you know, I can't see it from both sides. But I think it's brilliant that you guys are creating a space where it's like, unplug, be present. If this isn't for you, no problem.

[Jeff York]

There's other options. There's 7 million people in the market.

[Host]

Go where you need to go.

[Jeff York]

We don't. We're not telling everybody. We're the place for, for you.

[Jenna York]

Well, we're not going to be able to fit everyone.

[Jeff York]

We'll fit them in anyway. But we want to be the place for people that take fitness, wellness and their health and longevity seriously.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Jeff York]

And we're the place for them.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Jeff York]

There'll be no competition really when you think about it, that, from that, that lens. Sure. There's like, we don't have racket sports. We don't have any space. So you're going to go do your racket sports somewhere else, but pretty much do everything else.

[Host]

Well, I mean in Yorkville it's pretty, it's a hard ask to be like.

[Jenna York]

We also have space for rooftop pickleball. Pickleball.

[Host]

Although the pickleball in Ottawa is a moment though.

[Jenna York]

Like, yeah, the six pickleball.

[Host]

It was crazy how, how it looked like a, like a tournament style every day.

[Jenna York]

But that's like a whole other subset of people that would never sign up for a gym membership. But now they're coming and getting more fit. Like we have a learn to run program geared towards our pickleballers because playing four pickleball games a day, like you need to still bulletproof your body. You're getting into weird positions. So.

[Jeff York]

And the yoga.

[Jenna York]

Yeah, like yoga. We're doing mobility for pickleballers. So it's, that's. But it's kind of getting people drinking the Kool Aid subtly of. Okay, you got, you came here for the pickleball. You're going to come also do the recovery lounge and the other fitness stuff. So to level up your pickleball. Exactly. So you kind of like sneak, sneak it in. This whole like longevity, you know, full 360 approach to like your fitness, you're recovering everything by. You have different amenities that appeal to different people. And then they're like, oh, I'll try boxing. Oh, I really like that. Now I'm gonna incorporate into my routine. And you get people to start becoming more well rounded versus like I only do Pilates five days a week. Okay, that's great. But it's not gonna build muscle. Like as you age, you need more lean muscle. So let's incorporate XYZ in and then kind of blending it in. That's why we kind of refer to it as like a fitness ecosystem. Everything works together and we can kind of get people exposed by like personalizing the approach. And then you get the advanced body composition scan and we can actually see what you need. Okay, you want to lose weight. We don't even have enough muscle right now to, to be able to lose weight. So first we got to build muscle, then we can, you know, tweak your diet, tweak your nutrition, your workouts and stuff.

[Jeff York]

Think about what the whole world's moving towards. Personalization.

[Jenna York]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jeff York]

Fitness hasn't moved to personalization.

[Jenna York]

It's extremely difficult. We're trying to do AI now personalization, it's like, okay, and AI, like, and.

[Jeff York]

Fitness, it's, it's, it's a way to not have staff. AI is like, we don't need staff. We want to get our cost down. We're the opposite. We want you to work with the trainer. We want you to, we want to have small classes so that you'll get the attention you need.

[Host]

You need someone to put their hand, your hand on your back to just like help you get into that better angle angle for a deadlift. Like, that's, that's how you get injured. Right? Like, AI can say, like, I don't want to be learning how to do a deadlift through a YouTube video or through an AI robot.

[Jenna York]

And like, I, I love AI, don't get me wrong. But every time I'm seeing, yeah, I refer to as my assistant. I love it. But for specific things. And you could totally tell when people use AI in the wrong way. And it's going to be the same thing for fitness. Like, you know, oh, AI told me to do this. And you just go tweak your back doing something that you shouldn't be be doing. Like, and I'm seeing all these like, AI fitness apps and I just look at them. To Jeff's point, you're just trying to get rid of labor and run a cheap operation. Like, yes, AI cuts costs, but like, the human element is so important, especially in like motivating form corrections, certain things like that community, like an actual person getting you to show up and feel accountable.

[Host]

Totally.

[Jenna York]

You don't, you don't replace that with technology can supplement it.

[Jeff York]

But the one word that does describe avant is personalization. And the industry is so afraid of personalization because it's expensive, not scalable. It's not scalable. But when you shop, when you go to your boutique and you get great service, you're going back to that place because they, they just. And that's what we. In fitness, nobody does that.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Jeff York]

And our people, if you meet our team, you're going to want to go to their class because we have the best person teaching Pilates, the best person in hot yoga. Plus the studios are fantastic as well. So you feel special when you come in. And again, we are not a gym. We're a premium fitness wellness facility club. Right. And that's what people need to see and join the club or get on the wait list. And in Vancouver, we have people sitting on wait lists for six months. Their number comes up we call, they get in. That's where we're at. And we did no advertising in Vancouver either. It was all word of mouth, all word of mouth.

[Host]

Because people are sick of the current industry. They want change.

[Jeff York]

Exactly.

[Jenna York]

They're frustrated.

[Jeff York]

I was just out there two weeks ago and it was fantastic. Like, it was like, the club was amazing. Vancouver is a special place as well. You can be outside, inside, and the just. It was sunny that day as well. But it was, it was just a fantastic experience. The staff were all up, the members loved it. And. And again, like, I don't think that's out in the industry having.

[Jenna York]

And also having a nice place, like, usually the gym, it's like, gotta go to the gym. But what if you had a space that inspires you and, like, makes you excited to go? Like, bright, light, greenery, you know, friendly faces, stuff that you actually want to do. You have a reservation so you don't need to think about what you're doing for a workout. You don't have to go. Like, I remember being like, not going to the gym. I would talk myself out of it because I didn't know what to do when I got there. And I'd be like, well, I don't know what I want to do. And this is. As a D1 athlete, I don't know how to train myself. And now I don't ever think that way because I'm like, well, I can go do a class. One of our eight studios. I can book something in there. And I think a lot of people struggle getting off the couch and motivated because they're like, I don't know what to do when I'm there. I'm super insecure. I'm not confident. I don't know my way around the weight room. And I think they think that's. That's their only option. Right. And the ability, having the opportunity to offer all these ways that people can get fit, move empowered when they leave. That's really awesome. Because the reason people don't join these places is because they don't know where to start. They feel like they don't know what to do when they show up.

[Jeff York]

And I think the big thing we're going to do better is like, we have women fitness leaders.

[Jenna York]

Oh, yeah.

[Jeff York]

In our business. Business, right. Because women need to lift. Okay. You're gonna age better, right. You're gonna keep your muscle mass. Right? And it's, it's. And you go through we over cardio, right? We get. When you look at the runners build, right? They don't age well. And this is the thing we're trying to do is like especially when you do proper boutique fitness, right? Because right away you're, you're giving a guided way to get muscle on. But it's the right muscle. You don't get bulky. This is this whole thing I'm not going to lift because I'm going to get bulky. That's not. It is. You're going to get fit at the same time, right. And grow muscle mass and age.

[Host]

It's so hard to get bulky. You have to like, you have to work very hard to bulk up for it. But I actually think it's what's interesting about what you guys are doing is it's more, it's more complicated than easy. You guys are leveraging technology and by creating a membership experience, the instructors know who's coming into their classes. So it's like going to a better than a berries or better than a soul cycle and the instructor knowing that you have a shoulder injury or them knowing your body scan and what you're working towards in order to ensure that this program makes sense for you. Like imagine when you go to your boutique class, the instructor knows you're going to be in the class today already has a profile because your guys's app technology and the way that the ecosystem works is it's better than it just being human powered. Like it's human and tech powered.

[Jeff York]

And plus the instructor gives you options. Like in each LF3 class you go into, they'll say there's three different ways to do this lift with three different weights. And you can do it with dumbbells, barbells or body weight. It's not about going in and lifting big weight. It's about lifting properly and putting on proper muscle mass.

[Host]

So well done. I mean like that studio in Ottawa is world class. It's gangbuster.

[Jeff York]

There's nothing like it.

[Host]

Nothing like it.

[Jeff York]

Yeah.

[Jenna York]

But it's like we made strength training for them. Like results driven strength training for the masses. That's like a workout that you don't know has happened because as soon as 45 minutes is done, you're like, wait, I just did all that? Just. But we were obsessed about the product for eight years. Like we did like the flow down to the breathing, down to the timing, down to how long the warm up is. Like what exercises. Like how we program the whole classes. Like we were maniacs about it. But I think that's what's allowed us to have this lens of okay, we know how to make boutique really great. Bring it into Big Box. We've been doing that for eight years. So bringing it in. You have these amazing amenities. Way better than a 4,000 square foot studio where you have no budget to do anything. Now you have way bigger budget, way better amenities. You can attract way better talent because they actually want to come work at these amazing, beautiful clubs. And I just feel like the merriment of both is just where it's at. And I know people are not going to do it because the industry is lazy. It's very hard to do. And if you haven't had a lot of bad experiences to learn from and you don't understand what makes people want to do boutique and why the industry still like we would fight against Big Box like that. I spent that whole time trying to take members from Big Box, which is like a third of our price and offered way more than us. So when you know how to win against Big Box, you bring the best of both worlds inside. I don't know how you, you know, you don't win taking those two concepts together. I don't know. And that's. We just feel really excited to be bringing this because I don't know, this is my favorite place. I'm creating like we're creating what I want in a facility. This is what my dream fitness and wellness club has. And it's, it's cool because they're going to continue adding more to it. It's like, oh, that looks cool. Let's put it in our next club.

[Jeff York]

So here's something that's interesting. So it's just a personal goal of mine is to have a third billion dollar brand out of Ottawa. So we have Giant Tiger, billion dollar brand, farm boy, billion dollar brand. And the reason I'm so passionate about this industry first working with my daughter is extra special as well, is making this into a billion dollar brand because I believe that's the opportunity. So people say, yeah, the gym industry, whatever. It's again, it's not the gym industry. We're going to disrupt it. Just like Giant Tiger. Nobody took Giant Tiger seriously, right? We took it across Canada. Farm boy. Oh, you can't compete against these guys. Yes we can. Right? Alteo Avant, we're doing the same thing and build the team and just wait till you see it.

[Host]

I'm super pumped. Well, you guys are like anti social people so I guess we should call out Avant and where people can apply. So where can people apply and where can they follow along with Avant if they want to learn more?

[Jenna York]

Yeah, so definitely follow us on Instagram Avant Toronto. We also are very active on LinkedIn because we know a lot of our business community is following our journey and our site. They can apply avant-club.com cool. Yeah, thanks for calling out that we are anti social media.

[Host]

This is your guys first podcast but this is going to go in the TikTok and the Instagram. So thanks for listening guys and thanks for coming in.

[Jenna York]

I'm so excited for having great.

[Jeff York]

Thanks.

[Jenna York]

We're pumped.