Who is the ceo of planet fitness
Planet Fitness CEO on in-home workouts and reopening gyms
so looking at this phase 1 guidelines
from the federal government it includes
opening gems if they adhere to strict
physical distancing and sanitation
protocols what does that mean for planet
fitness and what does it mean in terms
of your potential timeline in different
states to start to be able to bring
those operations back online yeah sure
so yeah government mandated closure last
March
pretty much nationwide and President
didn't release the three phases and we
are phase one luckily so right now we're
just waiting for the green light
state-by-state to figure out when we are
able to reopen so we're taking this time
now to really work with our franchisees
on the right protocols for cleanliness
for staffing and also remember etiquette
about cleaning before and after use of
the equipment yeah and I want to get
into what some of those protocols are
gonna look like but over the week on
CNBC reporting that another gym chain
24-hour fitness is winning bankruptcy
now I realize there's specifics about
that company and its debt load but it
also in some ways highlights some of the
challenges that I think are facing the
broader fitness industry right now what
a spike in unemployment does to
discretionary spending for potential
customers and spending on things like
gym memberships also how long it's gonna
take for people to actually feel
comfortable to go back into some of
these more socially crowded environments
like for example gyms how are you
thinking about that yeah sure so you
know I really feel that it's situations
like this people really realize how
important Fitness is and cop-tur
wellness and the studies that show up on
it working out does build your immune
system you know I think Planet Fitness
because my economics are a strong
franchise system we're well positioned
to weather the storm and with the
affordable memberships of just 10 bucks
a month we are a great option especially
people are looking to pinch their
budgets um and we saw this in own ion to
Morgan back when when that happened we
have saw that people trading down from
the higher
memberships to Planet Fitness because we
just have about two per month Chris what
do you have to do for people to feel
safe going back into a facility like a
Planet Fitness where I mean if people
are on bikes are on steel climbers
they're breathing hard so you wonder
about the impact of potential particles
in the air that they're touching free
weights do they have to be wiped down
between each person's use what are the
protocols that you're going to have in
place that people are gonna be wondering
about yeah great question
so the cardiovascular part the first one
was that one there as we see is really
very close together
we've seen that the heard from some of
the CEOs overseas Asia in particular
who's already reopened what they did is
on unbuttoned every other piece of
cardio to help that social distancing
there so we're working on protocols like
that if that's what the states recommend
that we do the strength clip is a little
different than it is pretty spacious as
it is our gyms are 20,000 square feet so
there's a lot of room
one thing though I'm very proud of is we
have sanitation in our stations
scattered throughout our facilities for
decades with cleaning solution and paper
towels a lot of the industry doesn't do
practice that and you know part of our
anacott for our gym members as well as
staff is that we clean equipment before
and after use with this cleaning
solution that's available the
disinfectants so it's more or less just
tightening those those protocols and
etiquette UPS and everybody makes sure
they clean before and after use Chris I
want to go back to something you said
you were talking about the price point
for a Planet Fitness membership in the
fact that you saw in the oh nine crisis
more people trade down and then actually
joined Planet Fitness because of it does
that mean that this is actually a market
share opportunity for you once things
start to settle back to normal and the
worst of the outbreak is over I do
believe that strongly I do believe a
couple of things one is what I said
earlier is that I believe people will
pay more attention to their health
coming out of this as we see the
physical fitness does help the review
system and being healthy and being
physically fit so that on top of the
price point people are going to network
out they're gonna work out just be more
conscious of what they're spending so I
think that is definitely an opportunity
to plan it to even widen the moat bigger
than you before you went into this hey
Chris some others like Barry's boot camp
and some well
have tried to start to find ways to
address an at-home audience right
selling bands selling benches and then
and then teaching the classes virtually
I mean is that a misguided strategy I
mean are you why do you have to count on
everyone coming back into the building
yeah that's a great place to take
technology endeavor climb up two years
ago released our app last summer with a
lot of content on it and just since this
appendix started in our gyms closed we
saw a 250% increase in consumption in
the app at our content so people are at
home utilizing the Clanton's content now
so we also launched Facebook live every
night 7:00 p.m. we would go live on air
and show Facebook your workouts for
20-30 minutes and rate traction the area
nude posting to youtube it we had over
six million views of these videos which
full weeks ago didn't exist so I think
this is really fun accelerated digital
content consumption for the industry
probably three or four years finally
taking us to get there I think it
brought it forward I don't think it ever
replaces bricks and mortar but it's a
great supplement if you can't make it to
the gym and also in the gyms I see
people all the time with their phone
propped up against the wall following a
routine in our club so it's a great
opportunity for us to give our members
the content from our system
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