Greg Maurer is the vice president of fitness and education for Workout Anytime, a national fitness chain with 180 locations across the U.S. Here, Maurer shares his thoughts on industry trends and leadership learning lessons, his favorite podcasts and more.
Below is a partial transcript, edited for clarity:
Rachel Zabonick-Chonko: I want to get your feedback on a few things. But let’s start by just recapping 2023. What do you feel were the biggest fitness business trends over these last 12 months?
Greg Maurer: It’s been a big 12 months. I think the elephant in the room that everyone does see is recovery and wellness. That’s a huge category, we’re all grappling with it. We’re all doing things moving towards it. But we’ve still got a lot of work to do.
Another one, kind of more tactical — let’s call it the year of glutes. That has exploded due to influencers, right? So glute machines, booty builders circuit, all these, it’s a must have. I think there’s two big challenges that operators, including us, are struggling with. One is recruiting and keeping talent. It’s just really challenging. We are running leaner than we’ve ever run, I think most brands are. There’s pros to that. And the corollary to that is we’re all trying to automate the things we can automate, without reducing service and perceived value. That’s a major trend.
Also, higher cost of capital and leases and real estate. So if you’re in growth mode as we are — and a lot of folks are — you need a lot more money up front because of higher interest rates. Landlords are not giving you that tenant improvement. I think that’s a trend throughout the industry.
RZ: What trends are on your radar for the next year?
GM: I think there’s going to be a continued emphasis on recovering wellness, but we’ve got to learn, how do I position that within my offerings? How do I market it? And then how do I optimize the delivery? I know even in our model there’s still labor involved with that. So what is what does that look like? How do I price it? How do I get my ROI?
Also, the continued focus on using AI and automation — that’s just gonna get bigger and bigger to reduce labor costs. What can we do? Can I take mundane tasks and speed up the process with AI and technology? When that’s done properly, it doesn’t decrease the member experience and warm, fuzzy feelings. So that’s something we’re going to continue to work on.
RZ: What was a personal leadership lesson for you this year?
GM: There was a couple of them for me. Really, the top one would be how important trust is for leaders. If you don’t build that, nothing else works. You can try all sorts of techniques, but if they don’t trust you, the whole thing breaks down.
Another one is just why team members are more important than customers. It’s a big belief of mine. It’s really been reinforced. It’s not that our members are not important. Of course, they’re important. It’s not that our franchise partners are not important. They’re incredibly important. But at the end of the day, we can’t do anything for a franchise partners or our members without our team.
RZ: What advice would you give to other operators for leaving in the upcoming year?
GM: Start with trust. What are you doing to build trust. And trust is something you can kind of measure indirectly and build.
Watch the video to hear the full Q&A with Maurer on industry trends and leadership.
