This week, on the Fitness + Technology podcast, host Bryan O'Rourke welcomes friend and colleague Sean Maguire, MD and founder of Legend Club Management Systems. As one of the leading technologists in the fitness facility industry, Sean founded Legend in 2002 as a software solution provider for fitness club operators in the UK. Legend now provides leisure management software and outsourced services to hundreds of fitness facility operators in the public, private, and educational sectors. Listeners will appreciate Sean’s advice as he and Bryan discuss the future of technology and consumer trends in the market along with business philosophies and insights.
Legend will be hosting its annual conference October 10th in Birmingham, UK. To learn more, click here. Bryan O’Rourke will keynote the event.
One Powerful Quote:
4:50: “The consumer has somehow overtaken us, but certainly, has stepped off our path, and we’re trying to understand where that consumer is going to be.”
4-10 Bullet Points (w/ timestamps) - Highlighting key topics discussed:
3:58: Sean shares his perspective on the highly competitive marketplace of the UK from the consumer of today to the challenges of continuously developing and innovating Legend.
9:14: Sticking with theme of consumer power, Bryan asks Sean the importance of having a leading, enterprise platform system for servicing the consumer. Sean says owners must align the “how” and “why” of supplying technology for operations without sacrificing the future.
12:54: Sean discusses the differing outcomes in the public and private sector of lifestyle modification in the healthcare system. He and Bryan also discuss the importance of integrating customer support and frictionless service for the user experience.
20:10: Bryan asks Sean about the 2019 Legends Conference and the importance to its customers showcasing latest software, plans for the future, and the opportunity to meet with fellow operators.
23:12: Sean offers some pearls of wisdom for his listeners including the importance of listening to customers and stakeholders.
33:23: Bryan and Sean address the outreach and monetization opportunity for the inactive, mass population as the biggest problem of the public health sector.
Bullet List of Resources:
https://www.facebook.com/LegendWare/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-RWLcqGHnk
Guest Contact information:
https://www.legendware.co.uk/customer-conference-2019
https://www.legendware.co.uk/our-people
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sean-maguire-88b0511/
https://www.bryankorourke.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryankorourke/
http://www.fittechcouncil.org/
https://www.youtube.com/user/bko61163
Podcast:
Host: Welcome to the Fitness Plus Technology Podcast for club owners, operators, and fitness professionals. Each week. Host Bryan O'Rourke brings you an expert interview with a global influencer at the crossroads of fitness and technology. You gain the insights, tools, and inspiration you need to stay connected to the pulse for what matters most for your business in the age of exponential technologies.
Bryan: Hello listeners and welcome to another edition of the Fitness Industry Technology Podcast. Today we've got a terrific guest Sean Maguire from Legend Club Management Systems. And I want to let you know for our friends in the UK and in Europe, the Legend Conference, which I had the privilege of keynoting for the team at legend is on October 10th this year in Birmingham Thursday, October 10th. And we'll be having a great time at that event. Talking about technology trends and the impact on the industry. Legend is a terrific team of folks with hundreds of of commercial and charity and municipal clients in the fitness and industry, both in Canada, UK, et cetera. And Sean is a terrific entrepreneur who is the founder of Legend. So I look forward to our interview today. Before we get to Sean Maguire, I will also want to mention that I'll be keynoting at SIBEC in Miami on September 23rd to 26th. So for those colleagues attending SIBEC, I look forward to seeing you as well as my being in Amsterdam, the third and fourth for FitNation where I'll be keynoting as well. I really enjoy visiting our friends in the Netherlands and in finally Dublin, the IRHSA EU Congress, which is always a terrific event. So I hope to see you there. As I mentioned, Sean Maguire, the managing director and founder of legend is with us. We're going to talk about the UK market technology trends and his philosophies on business and insights, which I really enjoyed. Sean's an exceptional leader and so I hope you really find some interesting tidbits in this episode. So without further ado, let's bring on Sean Maguire. Thanks so much for joining us. I've really enjoyed speaking with you a few times in the last month or so and so happy that you're here to speak with our listeners as the intro outlined as your managing director role with Legend, it's co founder or the founder of the company. Actually, you've really shared a lot of interesting insights coming up and leading up to the big event on October 10th, which is going to be in Birmingham and I'm very, very delighted to be keynoting that. So welcome Sean. Thanks for making time for our listeners.
Sean Maguire: Hello Bryan. Thank you very much and a great pleasure to take part today.
Bryan: So what's been great about speaking with you? You know, many things, but one is of course, what you been doing in the industry. Of course the UK market for listeners and other parts of the world that listen in on the podcast is a very, I think, a highly competitive market. I would tout it probably one of the most competitive markets in the world. And I've shared all the stats in the past with other interviews regarding that. And you've been at the forefront of technology for a while. We talked about data, we've talked about public sector. Sean, tell us a little bit about your views from your perspective with the many hundreds of customers you serve in the marketplace. What is your view of the industry right now? What do you see as some of the challenges and opportunities that are lying ahead in the, in the marketplace?
Sean Maguire: Hmm, yeah, with pleasure, Bryan. And I'm going to answer that more or less in reverse because I think the most interesting but is where do I see the industry right now? And I, I'm, I'm, I'm both extremely excited right now because I think we're, that's quite an interesting inflection point and a point in time where there's enormous opportunity, but at the same time, I think that not just me, but if I channel the feedback I'm receiving from other stakeholders in the industry and my customers and technologists in the business, et cetera, I think it's also a time of some frustration because we're bound up in a legacy of, of, of trying to monetize our assets in a particular way with subscriptions focused on membership and possibly swimming and other programs. And yet the consumer has somehow, one might say overtaken us, but certainly has stepped slightly off of our path and with we're running to try and understand where that consumer is going to be in three or five years time and who that consumer is and how they behave, et cetera. So I think therein lies the, a, the interesting and, and very dynamic opportunity. But if I, if I go back then, you know, through some of the other questions you touched on which relate to this. You know, if I look at the UK industry, I, I think it's a very interesting little relatively small place where, where, you know, if I look at there are 7,000 facilities roughly in, in the UK. But what I guess your listeners would be interested to know is just how small the territory is. But those facilities sit in and as a result, the, the level of competition, you know, public sector, private sector, higher education, you name it, there's, there's a, there's a big recreation center or stroke leisure center as we call them here on every street corner. And they are fighting so fiercely for every buck, you know, whether it be, how they can squeeze that, that subscription slightly higher or whether they can improve the frequency of those pay and play visits or those camps, some registrations, et cetera. So it's a wonderful place to try and determine where we're heading because of that competition. Everybody's having to shave the minute of little efficiencies and, and come up with the most creative ways to yeah. To either create new offerings. Yeah. I could cite so many examples where we take something that five years ago was what would be awfully boringly label the midmarket health club when you walk into it today. And I'm telling you what you, there's only one thing to call it. And that is mass boutique because it's, it's transformed as, as we do so well in our industry with, you know, aligning with the trends and with the demands of our consumers. So I feel that, you know, where the industry is going and the, the situation in the UK, it's these are very closely linked and from this competition there's come a lot of creativity. When I look at my peers I look at some of the, the things that we're busy with from a technology point of view, it's all more exciting than ever. And Bryan yeah. We were allowed to come into this industry. We, we launched in 2002 and brought a software as a service solution from day one. But I made a massive mistake when launching the business. I thought we'd be finished the product after a few years.
Bryan: You learned otherwise.
Sean Maguire: I enjoyed that mistake. We've, you know, every year we have to do more work on, on innovation, more investment in R and D than they year before. And actually I don't resent it. It keeps me very excited at what we're doing.
Bryan: And now given this change that you mentioned and as you know, you see the description that you're sharing with the consumer and trying to stay ahead of this consumer, which has garnered so much power because of choice and the marketplace being so competitive. We see that happening in most of the mature markets. I just think that as you pointed out, UK is really a shining example of how really difficult it can be. But when you're thinking about reaching the consumer, doing the things you're describing, no matter what it is, having an enterprise platform of, of technology to operate your business that has just become, since you started the company in 2002, that is just had to become more and more critical. Do you see that increasing its importance because of the ability to change how you service customers, what their expectations are? If you don't have the technology platform to do that, you're really gonna be in trouble, don't you think?
Sean Maguire: Hmm. I really think that well when I look a lot, sort of slightly different way, Bryan, when I, when I look at the state of operations out there and the average operator isn't particularly satisfied, but they have the means, the tools, the capabilities, but they have got a reasonable, reasonable only at going to understanding of what they'd like to do. And the difficulty is that they are not sure what to do about it. That's the thing, difficulty. And to a certain extent, some of that is born out of the how, the why, you know, I always marvel at the alignment between, you know, I don't know the technology business supplying the industry and the operator in the industry. Yeah. Today we're all dependent on more or less the same things, recurring revenue, some sort of certainty over that future engine so that we can build our businesses and serve our customers better. Um and when I look at the how we do stuff sometimes it's really difficult to put your finger on what is the return on that investment. And if I put a new studio in, is it going to work if I try a new program is it gonna work? If I, if I'm, if I've changed channels with how I sell and I use my app and I use a much more flexible self service model, what will it mean? I mean, surely my sales guys aren't indispensable, but can I really afford to not have them? Oh, I'm not sure. And Bryan, I think we're really bad at quantifying gains sometimes. And I think it's in the way, I think it's one of our challenges.
Bryan: Yep. And that's gets down to the root challenge of strategy. It today I think in markets in any industry, right, Sean, where you, you have, when you're describing it to the consumer is their behaviors ahead of what the delivery systems are providing and then people have to start making risk determinations as to how are they going to compete because there's lots of choices. Right. And that is really what you're describing I think is where that rubber hits the road. You know what, yep.
Sean Maguire: Yeah, it is. No, it's not easy. And it, and it requires a certain amount of embracing change and embracing innovation. And I have a particular view on that. I'm, I'm very passionately in favor of it. I, I'll tell you something that might be, seem to be contentious and that is that it's my firm belief that the public sector operators are earlier adapters, adopters that is than a than the private. They are more inclined to seize upon an opportunity and to try something new. And yet you would've thought it was the opposite.
Bryan: Mmm, that's a, that's profound. And would you think that because of the why, so you know, with your Legend outcome product as an example where public sectors, so when, when you look at the commercialized marketplace, traditionally, and I know the UK with NHS, there's lots of dynamics here, right? And funding grant funding that, that go beyond the commercial market, but in particular that connection between lifestyle modification and monetization of that through the health system where the commercial marketplace is really, that's really not been center of the plate for them today. So how does that relate to that? Yeah. What do you think about that?
Sean Maguire: Yeah, that's a really good example. So for, for everyone's benefit, health outcomes is an important new idea. It's not that new of course, but it's, it's a, it's a burgeoning idea that, or in terms of it being put into action and what it is about is providing evidence that the impact our industry is making is real. It's not just a, I have a membership card there from healthier, right? This is, you know, when I started this journey, these were my stats and this is how my health and wellness has improved as I've proceeded down this journey. Now what the health outcomes journey is and therefore I'm software automation is really all about is firstly, it's about tracking particularly groups of people who are most in need of improving their health and their lifestyles. So it was born out of somebody who might be obese or have a health condition or a GP as it's called a general practice practitioner. Doctor's referral for exercise. And the idea was that that patient and perhaps a group of patients or group of particular subgroup needing a particular program would, would, would be closely monitored through a regime that would, that would allow us to evidence the start, the middle various stages, and, and finally the end. Now. Yeah, that's great. Two amazing insights. Remember that we're talking about people who are almost, I would say the first to say that no, I don't have the genes and no I'm too fat. I'm out of condition. I can't possibly go to a health club. Right. That's how we starting with How about stats? That 95% of them at the end of their six or 12 week program buy a subscription. They buy a full fees paying membership.
Bryan: Correct.
Sean Maguire: It's wonderful. Okay, so there's insight one. Insight two, so this is obviously an in a program, very much innovated by the public sector. But how surprising when we found that it was of particular interest to corporates because who else? But corporates want to be able to track what impact we're making and therefore what they can tell their employees they're making on their employees.
Sean Maguire: So we walk in as a private health club into a large corporation. We initiate a program. We hopefully sign a significant number of people up onto the short term program. We show how much we care as an employer. We show how effective we are as a health club. We bring everybody through to a result, which is, it's not anecdotal there's the evidence that's in your field, 95% of those, in fact, it's probably higher join and it's a win win for the employer, the employee and the health club. That's a nice, it's a very nice little piece.
Bryan: Yes. No, and we see this dynamic. It's been talked about for years. Right. and particularly with chronic illness, both as you pointed out, managing conditions and helping people avoid the consequences of certain conditions by preemptively doing something about it, which, you know, it was a big difference than the commercial marketplace historically has been, which is a lot more time spent on the, on ahead of the funnel and selling and marketing and much less time on the direct customer support dynamic. And as we see in most industries, that shift has been happening for a while with really successful brands and businesses because ultimately retention and word of mouth is about the user experience that they, they feel good about. And that's going to start to trump any amount of advertising you're going to spend money on, right?
Sean Maguire: Yep. Absolutely. I mean, yeah, it's all about evidence again, because if you, you know, you're focused on member acquisition. And you could have great campaign together and you know, you have a bit of a spike, that's great, but that's like a hit of sugar. Yep. What's much more substantial and um important is, is, is what your situation is 12 months later. And yeah, we, this is, I think it's something that we're slow to, to, to change, and, and move away from. But certainly one thing I'm seeing is that we're now starting to look at membership scription as a much more flexible dynamic member controlled thing, which I would like to say it's more like a, a entertainment package where in the UK we have something similar to cable called Sky and you can bolt a little extra subscription on and you can take it off again and then you can add another added value. And actually we think that customers are increasing yield through letting go of contract and you know, as long as they deliver the goods that is then that's probably going to be better for business.
Bryan: Yes. And you have to have the software and technology tools to make that very frictionless for the user in a world where the consumer is now increasingly use to things like you just pointed out the sky package or how they bank or whatever services that they're, that they're choosing to subscribe to. And having that, you know, how can you really execute that without those tools today? It's very hard without those tools. Right.
Sean Maguire: I agree. And I, I know related thing is that, you know, that does help to tell the customer how well you're doing. Yeah. And you know, so this idea of firing and then forgetting, you know, membership done contract sealed 12 month commitment, see you in 12 months. Now I, I, you know, I want you to be in a dialogue with me as you know, from an operator point of view to consumer point of view. I want to give you an update, I want to invite you back in more frequently and I want to push notifications to you on your smart phone app. I want you to feel that it's personal and that way you know, you, in some ways it's, it's reverting to the original idea of, of what it means to belong, you know, to a club, not just be a number. And we're, we're using virtual means to create that identity today.
Bryan: Yes, I've been saying that that kind of thinking is going to be an absolute table stakes for most brands now. And if you don't have that in your technology, roadmap in the near term, you're going to suffer potentially, you know, quite a bit. Is this, so the big event in October that's coming up October 10th, which you've been doing, how, how many, how many times have you done this now? Cause then maybe you had it for a number of years.
Sean Maguire: Yeah, no, no, we've, I think this would be about our ninth. So it's an annual conference and it's grown, it's grown and grown and grown and it's open to customers. And then what we do is we, we make it worth our customer's while to come along. So we always provide insights into roadmap and new product launches and and an opportunity to influence the direction for the next 12 months. But it's also, you know, by coincidence, fantastic opportunity to rub shoulders with all of your industry peers. And that's in itself extremely powerful. But just to make an extra fun, we always invite some additional partners to showcase their latest technology. Last two years we've, or three years we've been very involved with what in the UK has been a series of incubator programs, which has been loosely tied in some cases to the initiative underway through the open data Institute, which is called OpenActive, which is about opening up opportunity data and booking data to make it much easier for innovators in the industry. But you know, that's of interest to our customers to see what new apps and new innovations and largely they have been really positively received. But it's not for us to judge, it's for our customers to judge. And then Bryan, we always wrap up with a good industry dinner and some entertainment. And the entertainment's always shrouded in secrecy, but there's always something going on as you will see with your own eyes. But if, let's just say it culminates in a, not a lot of sleeping had that evening and on a big typical English fry up breakfast the next morning at this lovely Hilton hotel, the national exhibition center.
Bryan: So Sean, are you telling me you'll be doing your rendition of Puccini for the crowd?
Sean Maguire: Me or possibly a stumped double.
Bryan: Well, I look forward to that. I really look forward to that. And so one of the things that we always like to do on, on the show for our listeners and we get a lot of feedback on this, it's very helpful. You, you've launched your own company and you've been in the software business, software as a service now for a while, since 2002. I mean, not that long, but it's a long time in the age of technology. A lot continues to change. What are some of the things that you're, that you've learned in your journey being a major company now providing technology services to your clients? What are your, do you have a few pieces of wisdom you'd be willing to share?
Sean Maguire: Yeah, I do. That'd be a pleasure. So some of them might be contentious, but I'll, I'll just blunder on. So firstly, I were not, when I was launching, I met some wonderful people and, and some helped us along the way. And, but one of the things that I noticed is that a lot of vendors had the view that their customers were, we're dumb. Yeah, our customers are dumb. We need this. So we need that. And I don't know, we'll do this, you know, we know what we're doing. We'll, we'll just, we'll build it. And they shall come. Bryan, your customers, our customers are so far ahead of us that, that genius and the secret is to be able to listen to them. And appreciate that because they will tell you exactly what they need. And I, I think we've built our business on that basis. We've listened to what they've needed and we've built it accordingly. And we spend a lot of money building. We never saw a building. Probably about a third of all of our revenues goes towards product development every year.
Bryan: And how do you listen to your customers effectively? Cause it's, I hear a lot of executives and founders say those kinds of things. I know you're right by the way, that is wisdom. But often times, you know, I witnessed a, the words being used, but when it comes to actually doing that, it's a problem.
Sean Maguire: I do think it's the how that's far more important really. Um So one thing is to is to make sure you've actually got some capacity to, to throw at that problem because if you've not got people that are actually out in the market that have that mandate to engage customers and not be selling, but to be serving and listening and recording and coming back and championing the customer when you're planning your development and your roadmapping and your prioritization of work. Um and that's something we've done well. Personally I think it's also down to a bit of your interest and your passion. If I do think sometimes, depending on your company structure, it can be difficult to make space for this if all you're interested in is the next profit in the next quarter and some three year disposal cycle. So I think we, we being independent and passionate about what we do has been a great advantage. But when I look at other aspects, I think one thing we've been very low on is selling. We've not had a big sales team and I think sales sometimes can crowd out the customer's voice. And from our point of view I think it's been a bit of a USP and we do have lots of, where lots is probably not fair, but we have regular complaints about our lack of selling and I've taken it to as high flattery, high praise.
Bryan: I love it.
Sean Maguire: Well, let me explain because this industry is wonderfully enlightened. Everybody talks, everybody shares, and if you do a good job, let your customers promote you. That's your reputation proceed you. So, yeah, I think that's the route that's worked for us. And it's worked, you know, with, I consider our success in Canada. It's been phenomenal. And I look at our success in the UK displacing well established incumbents. It's, it's, it's through reputation, not through selling. So that does help us listen. Well, you know these events that we run, we run lots of forum events where we're workshopping a new technology or a change to a technology. If I think about some of the events we've run recently, you know, how to improve some of the member acquisition portals online, how to prove reporting out of that was born, this idea of for the industry what we call a monitoring and targeting piece, which allows you to sort of declutter this incredible amount of data that you swim in all the time when you're in this industry. So what actions can we drive? Well, let's, let's drive action. Let's get away from reporting completely.
Bryan: Right.
Sean Maguire: Tell us what the trigger is and drive the action. But that, let's look at spreadsheets. That's a waste of time. You know, and the, these are the sorts of things of customers steer us towards, so I think having formal forums is important. Having structure is important and then having an interest in it. There's important. And you know, I'm personally interested in, in fact I think I've taken it to another level and I, I consider not only our customers, but I'm interested in the stakeholders that they are interacting with and what they have to say. And I've had a part to play in helping them I think because we've got some really important institutions like Sport England, like London Sport, like the Open Data Institute, like Public Health England and others, many others. And uhearing what they have to say and bearing in mind that our customers are often either depending on grants from or are serving them in some way or providing data for them. And if I think about Sport England evidence, you know that dying to fund good initiatives, but they want them to be certain that there good initiatives so we can then go back to our customers and say, we heard you have a requirement for more evidence so we're going to help you with that. Then they went, Oh yes we do because Sport England that they do. And that's another way.
Bryan: Yeah, I'd love the way because you're managing director, of course, founder of the company because there's so many of your philosophies that I believe in. I think you're so right because today with any constituency, with any community, in any vendor relationship today, you look at the customer and the Edelman Barometer says it all. The level of trust is just a roaded so much. So buyers, if you approach people from a standpoint of selling their BS barometer, pardon the pun, is very high. And if you're not playing longterm listening and understanding and demonstrating value by doing and listening and being patient to serve, I think that's a tremendous brand advantage. Because you're not doing what we talked about before. You're not spending as much time in that advertising front of the funnel, you're spending a lot more time with the actual delivery of customer experience and post-sale. That's where the investment smart brands I think are shifting their investment that way. And I think it's brilliant strategy.
Sean Maguire: Yeah. And I, you know, I mentioned earlier how how comfortingly aligned we are with customers or that we should be with customers. And you know, perhaps this is the same challenge for customers too. Is there, how do they look at with serving of that member or that a parent or all that young swimmer, how, how do they make that experience that much more sticky and memorable and you know, some of it is telling them what you've done. So how good is your, you know, your evidence, how many statistics can I, can I show you that this new infrastructure that I've put in is this much faster? Because yes, you feel it's faster, but boy, wouldn't you be impressed if I can show you it's four times faster.
Bryan: Right. Yep. That's absolutely true. Absolutely.
Sean Maguire: It's worth doing. You know, I've just put this new program or this new circuit in at my health club, you know, let me show you how its helped you. I think sometimes we do need a bit of help because otherwise there's just so much information coming in. You know, we're, we're looking at all the social platforms, the social media platforms you're looking at constantly on nature of our lives. Sometimes we need to be helped.
Bryan: Right. And as you described earlier, the challenge with the operator between where they are, where they know they need to go. But the question is how are they going to get there? And with that risk return dynamic you described initially by seeing the real data, the real information that helps them make a better decision. But unfortunately, there's so much noise today and that's why I think that brand, is so important when you use the term brand, people use that loosely. But basically it's the culture of how the company's service is their DNA essentially because it's who you can trust. And if you're approaching the market in that way, I think there's a lot of value in that. In the long run and people, I think they understand that they all get that. And when you do the full, yeah, it helps them.
Sean Maguire: It takes time, Bryan, which is fine because we got the time. But for me it is frustrating sometimes where you see an operator languishing with limitations imposed upon them by their incumbent systems. Often, you know, lots of systems which could easily be merged into one and you think, you know, how do I get you from the fence that you're clinging to, to, you know, to, to something that's going to help you. How do I get you there? Because I don't want to jump on my soapbox, but you know, maybe I can coax you into going and seeing a proper operation run down the road. That's generally how we do it.
Bryan: Yeah, that's smart. That's really smart. It's very helpful, I'm sure to your customers. Can you describe a little bit, and this is a big question so I don't wanna, you know, make it too complicated, but since you've been working with all these groups, particularly with public health and that whole dynamic of outcomes, what do you see as the biggest challenge right now with that? Obviously measuring the outcome, demonstrating it, what other things are in your view, the challenge of getting that to be more widely accepted?
Sean Maguire: Bryan, that's a mega question, but you know, I think it's not got such a mega answer. So I think that the first biggest problem that we have, and it's, it's just across the whole piece, is how to engage the most in need of our services. How do we engage them? Because for years, and in fact, increasingly now our health club operators, recreation center managers, et cetera, have been absolutely fantastic to preaching to the choir. How do we get the guys that are stuck on their couch with the fast food and often or of a socioeconomic subgroup struggling. And you know, the last thing that they feel like is, is a, is mostly any sort of exercise. And secondly, there's often a big gap in information and that they don't appreciate the difference it can make. So how do we do that? So we can't even get them onto the journey, Bryan. So there's, it's a great challenge for public health generally. How do we outreach, how do we, and so, by the way, there's some answers to that. One of the ways is that the trust, the local trust, possibly the health trust or it could be the recreation stroke, pleasure management trust, puts a caravan on site at one of the budget supermarkets and signs people up physically. Doesn't charge them, puts them on a program. The program might start by meeting in that same car park the next week and going on a little walk and slowly but surely a community is a small community is formed, which makes a difference for those people. So you go to the next car park or whatever you do, it's not easy. And but the good news is that the results are very positive. So, you know, and I, I do think our industry is really interesting, so it pulls people in. It holds them there, but you have to isn't the highest paying in terms of people's salaries and remuneration packages. It's not the easiest in terms of working hours. It's not got the most fantastic career progression like it used to when it was growing fast. So how, well, it's fun. It does something good. We're not selling cigarettes. And the other thing is that sometimes you can make a massive difference. You can really make a difference to, to the public too, to an individual, to a family, et cetera. There's something magical that's happening there, which draws us in and holds us there. And then this, this public health thing is, is big and in that regard.
Bryan: Yeah, we see it in the U.S. As well and outreach is a big part of that, you know, getting programs that are targeting those populations and then creating new ways of monetization. You know, I think that's another thing we see, you know, reimbursement, grants, or whatever. It's necessary for funding programs, right?
Sean Maguire: Yeah. Oh no, that's, that's a part of it. And you know, we've seen some interesting programs, you know, Public Health England's big program is called Change For Life and it's far reaching. It's got an education component. It's got big retailers that are involved in and incentivizing good behavior. And then they've got their own programs which we support through our open data initiative whereby they can steer people who show interest. Now Change For Life has gotten millions of people visiting it to learn. So if you look at what's happening there, and I, I'm speaking slightly out of turn because I haven't actually gone into it in great detail, but I understand that it's a trusted brand that is used by consumers and probably particularly in the demographics we're targeting to learn, well, what is a healthy meal for my child? What, what is a healthy activity for my child? Can, can someone who's never played explore to go and take part in a Change For Life funding event. And in fact, they make the their events particularly fun so that somebody who's good at sport isn't humiliating somebody who's not good at sport. Yeah. We can all sort of keep a balloon up in the air by bouncing it from hand-to-hand. And these are the sorts of things that they start with. So yeah, in that regard the Change For Life program is really interesting. And then when you look at something a bit more focused like Sport England's big brand around this girl can. Which is just a great big statement of an exclamation mark on the end of it. But, but what is it really? What it really is, is it's kind of releasing the inner hero. That's what it is. You know, it's the, it's the mom who's going to Zumba hero. It's not the the 100 meter champion hero and a that that touches something and everybody. So that's been a great success. And you know, one of my questions I asked last time, we were speaking about this is also another program that that is enabled through open data is a, so when are we going to have this child camp, this husband camp, this family camp because this kind of camp as being fantastic.
Bryan: Yeah, I think those kinds of public outreach programs and integration of those things is really going to be a very, very important aspect globally to the industry reaching those populations that need it most. I think your observations are spot on. Sean, I want to tell you, I really enjoyed our time together. What I'm going to enjoy more is being there at your conference on October 10th, and I think we'll have an event on the 9th. I think I'll see you the that morning and I can't wait to participate and it's just been a privilege to chat. I know our listeners will read in the show notes and in my introduction your background as one of the leading technologist in the space in the last decade or more. And it's a great honor to have you as a guest and I look forward to spending time with you in your backyard here in a matter of weeks.
Sean Maguire: Thank you. I'm blushing. Bryan, the honor has been mine and I'm thank you for your time and I hope that that is of interest to everybody, but yes, we look forward to hosting you. Yeah.
Bryan: Well, thank you for your time. I know our listeners will enjoy listening to this and, and we'll be sharing some notes while I'm out there at a subsequent podcast and there'll be a few video posts. So keep your eyes out, listeners. Thanks again, Sean.
Sean Maguire: Thank you, Bryan.
Bryan: Hello listeners, this is Bryan O'Rourke and thanks so much for listening to the Fitness Plus Technology Podcast. The podcast is made possible by the Fitness Industry Technology Council, a consortium of global brands working together to enhance the adoption of technologies in the fitness space. Our company Vedure Ventures, which is invested in VertiMax, Motosumo, Gold's Gym Houston, Texas, and Fitness 24 Seven Thailand also underwrites the podcast along with our service companies, Integerus Advisors, Moon Mission Media and others. Please feel free to share this podcast with your colleagues and if I can be of any assistance to you, don't hesitate to reach out bryankorourkegmail.com or find me on any of the major social networks. Have a great day and thanks for listening.