The Franchise Risk Revolution: Proven Strategies for Investing in Wellness with Sequel’s Seasoned Leaders
Have you ever heard these franchise myths:
1) You have to choose between a risky new brand with open territory or a sold-out old giant.
2) Investing in health and wellness franchises is just for fitness buffs.
3) Going public is the secret sauce for explosive franchise growth?
Stick around, because I’m about to bust these wide open—and show you what really powers a winning franchise brand in wellness and fitness. Trust me, you’re going to want the real story before you make your next move.
My special guest is Anthony Geisler
Anthony Geisler has established a significant track record in the fitness and franchising industries over the past twenty years. He began his career with LA Boxing, later overseeing its transition to UFC Gym, and went on to acquire and expand Club Pilates from a small group of studios to over 1,300 locations worldwide. Anthony has been instrumental in taking companies public, building experienced teams, and developing operational systems that support large-scale growth. Currently, as the founder of Sequel Brands, he focuses on acquiring and scaling established wellness and fitness concepts. His expertise covers every stage of franchise development, from brand acquisition to national expansion, making him a knowledgeable resource for entrepreneurs and investors interested in lower-risk, high-potential franchise opportunities.
My another special guest is Bob McQuillan
Bob McQuillan brings decades of experience in franchise development, leadership, and strategic growth within the health, wellness, and fitness industries. Over the course of his career, he has served in senior executive roles, including Chief Development Officer at Body20, where he helped expand the brand and strengthen its market presence. Known for his ability to build high-performing teams and foster strong relationships across the franchise community, Bob has guided countless entrepreneurs through the process of evaluating, investing in, and scaling franchise opportunities. Now, as a key member of Sequel Brands, he applies his deep expertise to supporting franchisees, refining operational models, and ensuring sustainable growth for emerging and established concepts alike. His reputation as both a mentor and a results-driven strategist makes him a trusted resource for consultants, candidates, and franchise owners navigating today’s competitive marketplace.
If you want to achieve perfection, you have to do something 10,000 times, but the experience this team brings is beyond anything I’ve seen in the industry—there’s no place on the planet that can hold a candle to what we’re bringing to the table.
In this episode, you will be able to:
- Discover how to build a franchise brand that stands out and attracts loyal customers in the wellness and fitness space.
- Learn how to smoothly transition from a corporate job to owning your own successful business without losing your momentum.
- Explore the unique benefits of launching a home Pilates studio that can boost your income and lifestyle flexibility.
- Uncover smart investment strategies that reduce risk and maximize returns when buying into wellness and fitness franchises.
- Master effective growth and management tactics that public companies use to scale and stay competitive in the wellness industry.
Transitioning From Corporate To Entrepreneurship
Shifting from a corporate role to entrepreneurship demands both strategic vision and hands-on leadership. Entrepreneurs must balance independence with effective management to navigate business challenges and seize opportunities. This transition also involves regaining control over decision-making while embracing the risks and rewards of ownership.
The resources mentioned in this episode are:
- Listen to the Free Agent podcast for inspiring conversations about self-employment, business ownership, franchising, and freedom.
- Explore franchise opportunities with Sequel Brands, including Body 20, Beam, Iflex, and Pilates Addiction.
- Follow the Make America Move Again (MAMA) initiative to support and promote healthy movement and wellness in the U.S.
- Check out the book Younger Next Year for insights on aging gracefully and maintaining health.
- Watch for upcoming video content chronicling the use of all Sequel Brands’ modalities and the health journey results.
- Tune in to the Free Agent Podcast with Meg Schmitz for real stories of self-employment and business ownership. Contact Meg Schmitz to schedule a free, no-obligation call and get insider insights on franchise opportunities. Use the form at the FREE Agent Podcast if you’d like to be considered as a guest on the Show!
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Click to Take the Leap into the full interview transcript of the Free Agent Podcast, Episode 7.16, with Meg Schmitz and her guest, Anthony Geisler and Bob McQuillan
Free Agent Podcast with Meg Schmitz – Guests: Anthony Geisler, Founder & CEO of Sequel Brands, and Bob McQuillan, Chief Development Officer
Meg
Hello, everyone, and welcome to or. Welcome back to my podcast, the Free Agent, where the discussion is all about free agency and taking control over your future. The mission of my show is to share inspiring conversations with real people who took the leap into self employment, business ownership, franchising and freedom. From corporate refugees and executives tired of the desk job, to entrepreneurs and investors looking to share camaraderie and inspiration through their own business journey. My podcast aims a spotlight on real people who stepped into the unknown, took control over their destiny, and became their own boss. Today, I am so pleased and delighted and a little bit overwhelmed to have two titans in the fitness and wellness space, Anthony Geisler and Bob McQuillan of Sequel Brands. Gentlemen, thank you both for joining me today.
Anthony
Thank you for having us.
Bob
Thank you, Meg.
Meg
So Bob McQuillan and I have a pretty long history with body 20. I also historically have done a lot of business with some brands that Anthony, you previously represented and accumulated and did quite well with. So I’m very familiar with the space. I also tangentially have a little bit of experience with the New York Stock Exchange. Companies going public, angel investing, entrepreneurs who show up and then ghost through things that shift with boards and funny events like that. So I will let you direct the conversation with some of that stuff because I think you, Anthony, really came out strong at the franchise conference a couple of weeks ago. And if you’d like to summarize where you’ve been and where you’re going with SQL brands, for my audience, that would be, I think, a tremendous way to kick this off.
Anthony
Absolutely. Thanks for having us, Meg. The. It’s a 20 year career, so I, I won’t start you from birth, but I’ll. I’ll give you highlights. Obviously originally started with LA Boxing, which turned into UFC Gym. Exited those, bought Club Pilates, took it from, you know, a dozen plus or so franchises doing about $250,000 a year in revenue to 1300 open units, doing a million one and still growing 10 years later. And so we built an amazing team there. Club Pilates, which then allowed us to continue on into a second, third, fourth, fifth, tenth brand there at Expo, took that business public on the New York Stock Exchange about a little over four years ago now, ran that up to a multibillion dollar valued company, publicly traded, left about a year ago and a little over a year ago now, and created Sequel. Much like its name, the genesis, the birth of the idea of Sequel is that in franchising, as you know today, you have two real choices. Those choices are you go with Bob’s Burgers because it’s new and it’s hot and it has five locations. And they decided to start franchising, which is a tough choice because that means Bob knows how to operate five burger shops in one city. Bob does not know how to be a franchisor. Bob does not know how to build in other cities, towns, states, things like that. That’s the downside. The upside is Bob’s got a lot of available territory so you can get a franchise, right?
That coupled with the other choice today in the world, which is you can go get a McDonald’s now. Tried and true. You know what the economics are. You know, you have great infrastructure, longevity, history, but you can’t buy McDonald’s because they’re sold out. So where does that leave the entrepreneur? Where does that leave the potential franchisee? Because both are not great choices.
And the choice that you would love to have is that you have all the infrastructure, history, longevity, and lower risk of the team and people at McDonald’s, but you can go buy one and have both of those. And that’s why we created Sequel. We took a team that had built a dozen plus brands, and a lot of my team has been with me since brand one. But a team that have built a dozen plus kind of iconic brands, literally sold thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of locations and opened thousands and thousands and thousands of stores in multiple countries.
So, you know, quite an immense amount of data, information, history, talent. And we took all of that and said, hey, let’s go do the sequel, right? Instead of building the plane while it’s in the air, let’s spend some time to sit down and construct that ideal plane. What does the design look like? What are the best materials now that we’re 10 years smarter? I’m 10 years smarter, but we have 70 people today on staff, so call it 700 years smarter. And in everyone’s discipline, with a lot of capital, a lot of extra capital that we didn’t have when we started on day one as Bob’s Burgers, you know, back in the day.
How do we build this plane? How do we construct this plane? Let’s test this plane before we put passengers on it, right? And then once we’re ready, which is what we’ve been doing for the last year, is burning a lot of payroll, buying a lot of great brands, doing a lot of testing and outfitting, you know, and now let’s go take it to market.
Sequel’s really been around for a year. It’s just been around for a year, you know, on the backside of a barn or in a warehouse where people don’t know what’s there. And it’s building and we’re designing and testing, bringing on guys like, you know, Bob or Jen or Jeff, and kind of building our development team, bringing over our real estate team, bringing over the accounting team, bringing over finance. Right? All those things that franchisees might think, like, why do I care about the finance team? Well, it’s like, why do you care about the navigation system in your plane? Because you’d like to get to where you’re going to.
And so there’s a lot of pieces to this puzzle. When Club Pilates started, there was no such thing as a finance team. And so we realized how important that was once you were along the path, right? And so we’re starting at a much different path position. We own 100% of the company. We have no other shareholders, we have no debt, there is no board. It’s a group of seasoned professionals that, you know, this morning sat on this couch behind me and said, hey, we’ve got a list of 10 decisions to make as a company. Where do we want to go? We made the decisions at the couch, 45 minute meeting. And the company looked different when they exited my office than it did when they entered.
And we’re able to make those changes. They’re not waiting 90 days for a board to get together to be able to make a decision. And, oh, guess what, it got moved to a virtual meeting. And our bylaws say that in a virtual meeting, you need unanimous consent, not majority. In person, you need majority. Well, this doesn’t have majority as majority, but not unanimous. So that decision can’t get made until everyone can fly into one location in nine months. Meanwhile, company sits. And these people that get to make the decisions aren’t necessarily people with business experience, entrepreneurial experience, franchise experience, things of that nature.
So today, in the sequel, we’re able to take the same cast and go write something new and something different, but do it with more capital and a lot smarter.
Meg
It’s been fascinating for me and I can speak for many of my colleagues as well. As word got out that this is what you were doing, the people you have picked, you have hired and the people who have followed you. So there are a number of people who have followed you from Exponential Fitness. Now you’ve got Bob McQuillan also joining on the call today. Previously Body20 chief development officer there. How did you get him to retire? How did you get him out of retirement? Bob’s retired three times. How did you do that?
Anthony
Same reason I keep coming out of retirement. Look, we, you know, you’ll see this all the time. You saw it with Kobe Bryant, you see it with other people, right? People played as long as Kobe played and it’s because, hey, look, we’re going to go out, we’re going to win a championship game. And that’s inspiring to people. Kobe could have quit financially, which is typically the number one reason people quit is they say, hey, I’ve, I’ve got enough money, I don’t need to do X anymore. And that’s implying that they don’t like doing what they’re doing, right?
As opposed to, hey, Kobe sat there and said, I’ve got plenty of money. He said that for a decade, right? Maybe more. I think at 18, Kobe could have retired with what he originally signed for, but Kobe only gave up when his body actually gave up. And not when his mind did. And so, you know, even though you might get older, your mind still sticks around much longer than your body does.
And I’m excited to go build something. I’d love to build businesses. I’d love to be a part of winning teams. I don’t think anyone hates to win and loves to lose necessarily. And so, you know, I think Bob saw what I saw, which is a group of seasoned people that are out to win and people like to be a part of championship teams.
Meg
Yeah. Later on this week, I’ve got Verdine Baker coming on. I’ve been talking to more of your other people who’ve been with you for a long time. So it’s been great for me to hear their thoughts about being over there and now coming over here and their primary reasons for wanting to do that in the future that they see, but also the confidence that they have in the leadership team that you’re building now. And Bob, I don’t know if you want to jump in or how you want to do this going forward, but who’s behind the Jen Keynes, Jeff Beans, I know you got your Exponential people coming over, but you’re hand picking some of the best of the best in franchising.
Anthony
We’re not stopping.
Bob
Yeah, I mean, Anthony’s, I mean, very early on, and I really, I would piggyback on Anthony’s comment, the analogy, you know, if you talk about somebody like a Kobe Bryant, Anthony mentioned he didn’t do it for money. Right. It was his body breaking down. But after Kobe had his unbelievable run in multiple facets, whether it be the NBA or the United States Olympic team, after he did retire, he turned toward making people better and he turned toward winning in a different aspect.
Anthony showed me winning in a different aspect for me gave me a different perspective. As we were heading into this venture, one of the major things was — and this was important — when Anthony had purchased Body20, which I was a partner in, we talked about the good he could do for that organization that we couldn’t. And it doesn’t matter the reasons why, but we weren’t making that business function in a winning way and we needed his expertise.
When you see, and you alluded to this, Meg, when you see the expertise that has come along, as you mentioned, followed him, that really says it all. And then to your point, how are you picking these people? There’s an insatiable appetite with the people that we have chosen in this industry. And it’s a very common thread. The fabric is continuous.
And I don’t care if it’s the people that came and followed Anthony or the people that are on the franchise development team. Meg, I don’t have to tell you, you know every one of them and they are rock stars in their own right. And it’s about being part of something that’s going to do great things. And I think everyone’s bought into that. And the greatest part, we don’t. There’s no board to report to. And I’m sure if you asked Anthony if he’d ever go public again, I’d bet my house and my children he would say no.
So for those reasons, it is all hands on deck. And it’s really become a team that you kind of wanted to be on your entire career.
Meg
I’ll just piggyback on something really quickly. I turned to my husband at one point. He’s a Wall Street, LaSalle Street guy who once upon a time had arguments with Bernie Madoff about why his firm was a shell game. So he’s played with the SEC at the highest level in order to bring stability, honesty, integrity to his particular industry. So I turned to him when I heard you were coming back, Anthony, I said, I bet you he will never go public again.
Anthony
Yeah, look, and you know it is. I won’t be doing it. And the reason I won’t be doing it honestly has nothing to do with really the regulation or things of that nature. Because as you, as you sure you’ve seen online, after 18 months, the SEC, you know, kind of uncovered every rock and stone they could and came with no action against Exponential or any of its executives. And so even though the government is a part of the equation of being a public company, if the public company is being run properly, it’s a non issue. Right. There’s police on the street all the time. But if you’re going the speed limit, you’re following the rules and the police aren’t an issue. They’re an issue for the people that they should be an issue for.
But the part that I didn’t like about public was just the lack of control. I really was naive enough to believe that if we sold more, opened more and drove more revenue through our stores, which is what we were doing — I mean, you looked at selling a thousand units a year, which not many people on planet Earth are doing or have ever done, opening 550 locations a year, which isn’t happening, but doing it with AUV growing for 20/4 quarter over quarter, before and after Covid — it’s pretty tough. That is the triple threat that you always hope for.
And even in doing that, the stock price would or wouldn’t reflect whatever it felt. And people think of it as, wow, it’s great, the stock went up or whatever, right? Or the stock went down. But the reality was there were times we would be sitting on an earnings call thinking we did an okay job, right? We did a B job this last quarter. Things didn’t go our way, things that could have gone better, but ultimately it’s an okay quarter. And I remember the stock going up 43% the next day. Right? We didn’t find the cure to cancer. We’re a fitness company that had an okay quarter.
And there were times that we went into the conference, into an earnings call and said, this is literally the best work we have ever done in our careers. This is amazing. And the stock goes down 8%. Right? There were times that Lululemon, even outside of ours, where Lululemon doesn’t hit their numbers and we get downgraded and our stock goes down because if women aren’t buying more leggings, then they’re going to stop working out. FedEx doesn’t hit their numbers. UPS doesn’t hit their numbers.. My all time favorite, a European shoe company didn’t hit their numbers and our stock got downgraded. And so there were so many things.
Then we got a part of the Russell 2000, which just means if these hedge funds, these funds want to buy and sell in and out of the S and P or in and out of the Russell, your stock goes up and down. Baby, with the Bathwater, you were one of the 2,000 people that got sold off that day because of whatever unemployment, jobs, reports, the Fed, all these things. And so it was not about, are we selling to good people, are we opening in great locations and are we taking those locations and driving revenue for franchisees and then being good stewards of that cash as a public company.
It wasn’t about that. It was about a lot of other things. And so maybe we had 20% control. You know, I used to look at all these different things where people, when they talked about keeping material information quiet, which we always did, but you know, the effects of what that material information would be like. I said we’d have a good quarter and the stock would go up 43%, we’d have an amazing quarter go down 8% because you don’t know which shareholders already thought you were going to do above or below that.
And so it was a lot. And I’m very happy to not know what my share price is at Sequel and be able to just focus on the business. And we don’t really care how many leggings Lululemon sold or how many packages FedEx shipped last quarter.
Meg
Yeah, it’s very mercurial and people who are not sophisticated about it really don’t understand the whole thing that happened with Exponential. Bob, now that you’re on this side of the fence and benefiting from all the experience that Anthony has amassed over the last 10 years directly for you, what are the benefits that you immediately recognize and what are some of the changes that are being implemented that you see, say, for Body20 owners who you and I have worked with, some of them, what did you see and now what is going into effect?
Bob
So the benefits, you know, if you look at any profession, I don’t care if you’re a major league baseball player, if you’re a CEO, if you want to achieve perfection, which is what we all want to do, you have to do something 10,000 times, right. You have to perfect it. And you do that only by experience. And I don’t care what books you read, they will tell you experience is the major benefactor of anything that you’ll be able to experience in your career.
So when you look at that, if you look at 10,000 times being perfect, it pales in comparison to what this team has gone through from an experience level. To take the brands had from an Exponential standpoint and then bring them to where they were and then follow Anthony to his, you know, to the sequel. That says a lot in itself for me.
What I’ve benefited from are the experiences that team has had. I’ve also benefited from a Body20 standpoint to see the changes that have been made with the organization in such a short amount of time. I mean, we’re talking from April to now, and we’re doing things from an equipment perspective, marketing and advertising, the resources we’ve never had. We can leverage the size of the organization, the unlimited capital, the unlimited experience, and the stories that these people can tell to people that are new prospective franchisees. There’s no place on the planet that I’ve seen that can hold a candle to what we’re bringing to the table as far as Mr. Or Mrs. Investor.
When you bring a candidate or a prospect of yours, Meg, to someone that has gotten an investment offering that we have. How do you duplicate that? I just, I haven’t seen it in the industry, which I think is a big reason, you know, alluding to your point earlier, why everybody wants to be part of this team.
Meg
Well, you were telling me before we started recording, Bob, that you have taken it upon yourself to visit each of the brands and experience each location, but have that experience with each of the modalities. I wish I were there. I’ve got a meniscus tear. I wish I could do the Beam red light. I would love to be somewhere where I could take advantage of that. But you’re physically feeling the impact of these different modalities right now. So just repeat that story that you were telling me earlier, please.
Bob
Yeah, so I mean, the health and wellness journey for us and, you know, it’s important for us to tell the story, but it’s important also, you know, when we’ve got relationships obviously with Franchoice and networks across the country, it’s important that, you know, we’re kind of singing from the same hymnal, so to speak.
So, you know, Anthony, I have to thank Anthony for this because, you know, when I took a look at myself and I’m yeah, this guy’s 49 years old and he looks like he’s 26, you know, and I know he’s my boss and this is not me trying to get good with Anthony. It’s me taking a look at myself saying, you can do better. So I thought, you know what, if I’m going to do better, let’s do it with the brands that we have under the Sequel name.
So I decided in at least for a four to six week journey to utilize all the brands that we have under Sequel. So, you know, today I was at Beam and then this afternoon, this evening I’m going to be working out at Body20 and then I’ll be at Iflex. And this is all being videotaped so we’ll have all this on record. I better do a good job because it wouldn’t look good for the brands.
But since the 23rd of July, when I started this quest, I’ve lost 10 pounds, chronicling every step of the way. And if you just keep moving, as Anthony will tell you, Make America Move Again is his thing, man. And we just got to keep moving. And that’s what I’m showing with the brands and that’s what I’m going to chronicle and the narrative is going to be loud and clear to the people that we do business with that this system works well.
Meg
You’re segueing exactly where I wanted to go. You and I are a little bit older than Anthony is. I’m 62 and I don’t mind saying it, but let’s make America healthy again. What I like about some of these modalities is that they’re not age related. They’re not hit. You don’t have to worry about breaking your knees or whatever, not breaking your knees, but wearing them out. So they really are effective for people of any age. But this initiative now and going to Washington, Anthony, or both of you talk about that and what’s going on, because I think that’s really exciting for the future of Americans. I live in Wisconsin. We’re not the healthiest state. So let’s talk about getting healthy.
Anthony
I mean, look, it started with the inauguration. I went back for the inauguration in January to meet with the Bobby Kennedy, Dr. Otto guys that were working on the Maha movement. And you know, my wife was a big advocate for Make America Healthy Again and Bobby Kennedy. And I’m not a political person. I’m still not a political person. I’m a health person. I want to see people healthy. And my wife and I went to the Maha brunch and I noticed there are a lot of amazing people, but zero people from the fitness industry or that really had an impact. I think Jillian Michaels was there, if you remember her from The Biggest Loser, but no real operators from the fitness industry.
I found that very suspect that the three kind of pillars of what we’re looking at in these blue zones where people live longer and live better, some of the big pillars are sleep, a whole food diet, movement. And where’s the movement piece? So we had a lot of great people on the nutrition, diet, supplementation, longevity piece, but didn’t really see anybody from the movement side.
And that was when I decided to get involved in seeing how much politics are around stuff like the Maha movement, things they have to deal with, whether it’s vaccinations, abortion. You think about what Bobby Kennedy has had to take over or is taking over there. It really is crazy and complicated. That was the thing I realized when I was back at the White House, is that I don’t care who’s sitting in that seat. Whether you’re Republican, Democrat, you like Trump, you don’t like Trump, you love Biden, it doesn’t matter. That seat’s a big seat to sit in.
It is a complicated seat to sit in, and I don’t care which way that person who sits in the seat wants to move the country. It’s like using an oar on the Titanic. It’s a lot of work. And we went and created MAMA, which is Make America Move Again. Because I wanted to be clearly focused on getting Americans moving and healthy through movement and through what we were doing. I didn’t want to get held down around politics and the complexity as best as we possibly could.
Tell me that taking the stairs is worse than the elevator. Argue with me that taking a walk to the mailbox on Monday, your neighbor’s mailbox on Tuesday, is bad for you. So I want to stay away from stuff. Bobby’s got to deal with Medicare, Medicaid, the CDC, the FDA, NIH. I make the joke all the time and say the only two things he could have taken on would be the DMV and the Postal Service to really kind of round out inefficiency in government, the poor guy.
So it’s just those are complicated seats or polarizing seats. And for us, we just want to focus on getting the fitness industry behind Making America Move Again. I had Callie Means with me on stage, who’s helping run HHS for Bobby in New York a couple months ago. And we have the full support of the administration and the people that are there, and we’re going to continue to be advocates to get Americans moving any which way we can.
Meg
So much of that probably takes you back to the experience with having a board of directors and going public, and it’s complicated, and it gets very burdensome and takes your attention away from what you’re really trying to accomplish. Is it too new or is it getting spelled out as to what your role, specifically your visibility, your messaging is going to be towards the MAHA movement?
Anthony
No, look, it’s going to be a bunch of us. A good friend of mine, Gary Brecka, the MAHA Action Pack, we’re all trying to find ways that we can create our own space and then push that. That agenda, that distribution. And so we’re working through all that now, getting things, you know, packs set up, trademark set up, 501Cs that Gary’s gotten done. And so we’re all kind of finding ways to, I don’t want to say sidestep the political system, but just not be hindered by the bus in front of us.
We can move as private citizens, as advocates, in connection with government, as we continue to do that. But we absolutely have a seat at the table. I’m working with Dr. Oz and his innovation department, working on how can fitness help the $5 trillion budget we’re currently spending right now on chronic disease. And as we spend more, it gets worse. So we’re obviously not fighting it very well.
And so it’s, how do we start to slow that up? But you start to think of whole food diets. You got to start thinking of farmers. And how do farmers stay in business when you’re not using pesticides? I’ve taken some people down each of these rabbit holes, and you just see them get exhausted after four or five minutes. And to your point, it makes them want to give up.
And so what we want to do is still continue to be advocates, still help and support this administration, this movement the best we can. But we’re all connected together. We all want the same thing. And that’s making Americans healthy again and ridding ourselves of chronic disease. And that’s a 10, 15 year plan. It’s not a 10, 15 month plan.
Meg
Fortunately, I’d rather see Bob McQuillan exhausted from a workout than—
Bob
People today. You’ll see it later.
Meg
Yeah. People exhausted from policy. That’s really necessary. And I’d mentioned it before, I live in a state that’s not the healthiest state. And we’re going to the state fair on Friday. I said to my husband, before we get there, can we stop somewhere? I could get a salad because I don’t think we’re getting anything more than like corn dogs and beer and, you know, kind of Wisconsin type of food. So let’s not. Well, you both know me. I’m all in favor of healthy movement and aging gracefully. One of the things that my husband and I talk about is a book called Younger Next Year.
Anthony
Good title.
Bob
I like it. That’s what I want to be.
Meg
Yeah, they wrote one version originally. It was more male driven. Then they came out with another version that’s more female driven. And I’m going to live to be 120. So my brain, my body, it all needs to work together. And that’s what I enjoy about the brands that you’re bringing together. Which leads me to another question, back to Sequel. Are you guys going to try to rebuild with the breadth and scope of modalities what you previously had done? Do you want to get that big again?
Anthony
We’ll see. It’s a possibility. Never say never. Where we are today, we’re at four. We do have a fifth brand in escrow today. Term sheet signed and kind of going forward, we’ll see if it closes. Some stuff does, some stuff doesn’t in life. But I can tell you it’s not going to be four. I just don’t know if it’s going to be ten.
Meg
And is there a shift from fitness into more wellness modalities or anything else that you’re going to add?
Anthony
Just finding great brands that inspire us. You know at Expo we did Stretch Lab, which wasn’t fitness, did very well with that. We did Lindoro, did very well with that. You know I ended up leaving and I don’t know what’s really happening with that at this point but, but it started off very strong with great unit economics and great franchise sales. So the interest was there.
Well, you know today we’re at what I’ll call two wellness brands inside of Beam and Flex and two fitness brands inside of Body20 and Pilates Addiction. And the one we have in escrow is a fitness one, I can tell you that. And the one I’m working on outside of that is a longevity brand that’ll be on the wellness side.
So yeah we may find ourselves at 50/50 up to 10, I don’t know. But we’re just really looking for great brands, great teams, leadership that we know we can put into place that’ll do well. And that will dictate what brands and how many brands more than me going to put a square peg in a round hole to meet a pro forma because those days are over.
Meg
Yeah, I appreciate that. I was visiting with a candidate recently who said I really don’t like the anti aging terminology. Could we find a way to age gracefully and sell it that way? Which I thought was really granular but an interesting point of view. It’s a woman who used to be an anorexic so she was very… It’s interesting how people will pick and choose their brands based on their either personal experience or their preferences but keep going because I’ll be a frequenter when I do continue to have an apartment back in the Chicago area. So I do get back to civilization every now and then.
Anthony
Good. Well I’d love to have you back.
Meg
Can work it out. Bob, is there going forward, are you just never going to retire again?
Bob
I’m never going to retire anytime in the next five years, I can tell you that.
Meg
Oh good.
Bob
Well look, you know we just started and I can’t tell you — and I really, I kind of reached out. I told Anthony this not long ago. I thought I’d be a really good retired person. And I just. When you retire and you kind of start to figure out your life, there’s only so many rounds of golf you can play, so many dinners you can have. It’s just not that fulfilling.
But what I was excited about when I got back to where Anthony’s introducing me to the team, and the more I got to know the people and then the things that I saw that we could do, not just for Body20, but for Iflex and for Pilates Addiction and for Beam. And then as Anthony mentioned, there’s more out there that we can do. And we’re seeing these people come to these discovery days, and it is exhilarating to see what we’re doing because I know the brand around it, I know the team around it, I know the experience level.
If I have a candidate, if I’m Meg Schmitz and I have a candidate, I’m working with a number of clients. I think the greatest favor I can do for them is to provide a backdrop and an infrastructure that we have at Sequel. So that’s what moves me. And will I ever retire again? I don’t know. Maybe not.
Meg
Well, as an observation from the franchise conference, just me personally, to have Anthony, you come and be there in person to talk about this trajectory and your plan going forward. Bob, you’ve been missed at the conferences. When you guys… When, I don’t know if it’s you, Bob, who’s the brainchild behind your mix and match sessions and the energy that you bring to your—
Bob
It’s a team effort.
Anthony
Bob’s fault. So Bob’s fault. He got me in a robe. Never again.
Meg
That was great. And Bob, you made a great emcee. We were just watching the Rocky movies over the weekend and you could have been there. But it’s great to have both of you there. Really genuinely appreciated. Appreciated from the whole consultant base that you took the time to bring your team and have them present for as long as they were there and they were engaged with us. I don’t know what it’s like at any of the other groups, but we try to stand out as being a better business partner with you than some of the others. And so I can just tell you how people were going.
Anthony
Anthony.
Meg
You’re just a regular dude like the rest of us. And so it’s been a real pleasure today to have both of you spend the time with me reviewing what’s been going on, where you’re going next. And thank you for—
Bob
We appreciate the hospitality in Cincinnati. It was very well received. You guys are an amazing group with an amazing culture. You know, Anthony enjoyed it. Don’t let him fool you. I think he really enjoyed putting that robe on and throwing the knockout punch.
Meg
Yeah, I think so. I saw a smile out there a couple of times. All right, guys, I will let you go. I will let you know when this is going to be launching again. Thank you both for your time today. Appreciate it.
Anthony
Thanks, Meg. I appreciate it. Good to see you.
Bob
Thank you, Meg.
Free Agent Podcast with Meg Schmitz – Guests: Anthony Geisler, Founder & CEO of Sequel Brands, and Bob McQuillan, Chief Development Officer
Meg
Hello, everyone, and welcome to or. Welcome back to my podcast, the Free Agent, where the discussion is all about free agency and taking control over your future. The mission of my show is to share inspiring conversations with real people who took the leap into self employment, business ownership, franchising and freedom. From corporate refugees and executives tired of the desk job, to entrepreneurs and investors looking to share camaraderie and inspiration through their own business journey. My podcast aims a spotlight on real people who stepped into the unknown, took control over their destiny, and became their own boss. Today, I am so pleased and delighted and a little bit overwhelmed to have two titans in the fitness and wellness space, Anthony Geisler and Bob McQuillan of Sequel Brands. Gentlemen, thank you both for joining me today.
Anthony
Thank you for having us.
Bob
Thank you, Meg.
Meg
So Bob McQuillan and I have a pretty long history with body 20. I also historically have done a lot of business with some brands that Anthony, you previously represented and accumulated and did quite well with. So I’m very familiar with the space. I also tangentially have a little bit of experience with the New York Stock Exchange. Companies going public, angel investing, entrepreneurs who show up and then ghost through things that shift with boards and funny events like that. So I will let you direct the conversation with some of that stuff because I think you, Anthony, really came out strong at the franchise conference a couple of weeks ago. And if you’d like to summarize where you’ve been and where you’re going with SQL brands, for my audience, that would be, I think, a tremendous way to kick this off.
Anthony
Absolutely. Thanks for having us, Meg. The. It’s a 20 year career, so I, I won’t start you from birth, but I’ll. I’ll give you highlights. Obviously originally started with LA Boxing, which turned into UFC Gym. Exited those, bought Club Pilates, took it from, you know, a dozen plus or so franchises doing about $250,000 a year in revenue to 1300 open units, doing a million one and still growing 10 years later. And so we built an amazing team there. Club Pilates, which then allowed us to continue on into a second, third, fourth, fifth, tenth brand there at Expo, took that business public on the New York Stock Exchange about a little over four years ago now, ran that up to a multibillion dollar valued company, publicly traded, left about a year ago and a little over a year ago now, and created Sequel. Much like its name, the genesis, the birth of the idea of Sequel is that in franchising, as you know today, you have two real choices. Those choices are you go with Bob’s Burgers because it’s new and it’s hot and it has five locations. And they decided to start franchising, which is a tough choice because that means Bob knows how to operate five burger shops in one city. Bob does not know how to be a franchisor. Bob does not know how to build in other cities, towns, states, things like that. That’s the downside. The upside is Bob’s got a lot of available territory so you can get a franchise, right?
That coupled with the other choice today in the world, which is you can go get a McDonald’s now. Tried and true. You know what the economics are. You know, you have great infrastructure, longevity, history, but you can’t buy McDonald’s because they’re sold out. So where does that leave the entrepreneur? Where does that leave the potential franchisee? Because both are not great choices.
And the choice that you would love to have is that you have all the infrastructure, history, longevity, and lower risk of the team and people at McDonald’s, but you can go buy one and have both of those. And that’s why we created Sequel. We took a team that had built a dozen plus brands, and a lot of my team has been with me since brand one. But a team that have built a dozen plus kind of iconic brands, literally sold thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of locations and opened thousands and thousands and thousands of stores in multiple countries.
So, you know, quite an immense amount of data, information, history, talent. And we took all of that and said, hey, let’s go do the sequel, right? Instead of building the plane while it’s in the air, let’s spend some time to sit down and construct that ideal plane. What does the design look like? What are the best materials now that we’re 10 years smarter? I’m 10 years smarter, but we have 70 people today on staff, so call it 700 years smarter. And in everyone’s discipline, with a lot of capital, a lot of extra capital that we didn’t have when we started on day one as Bob’s Burgers, you know, back in the day.
How do we build this plane? How do we construct this plane? Let’s test this plane before we put passengers on it, right? And then once we’re ready, which is what we’ve been doing for the last year, is burning a lot of payroll, buying a lot of great brands, doing a lot of testing and outfitting, you know, and now let’s go take it to market.
Sequel’s really been around for a year. It’s just been around for a year, you know, on the backside of a barn or in a warehouse where people don’t know what’s there. And it’s building and we’re designing and testing, bringing on guys like, you know, Bob or Jen or Jeff, and kind of building our development team, bringing over our real estate team, bringing over the accounting team, bringing over finance. Right? All those things that franchisees might think, like, why do I care about the finance team? Well, it’s like, why do you care about the navigation system in your plane? Because you’d like to get to where you’re going to.
And so there’s a lot of pieces to this puzzle. When Club Pilates started, there was no such thing as a finance team. And so we realized how important that was once you were along the path, right? And so we’re starting at a much different path position. We own 100% of the company. We have no other shareholders, we have no debt, there is no board. It’s a group of seasoned professionals that, you know, this morning sat on this couch behind me and said, hey, we’ve got a list of 10 decisions to make as a company. Where do we want to go? We made the decisions at the couch, 45 minute meeting. And the company looked different when they exited my office than it did when they entered.
And we’re able to make those changes. They’re not waiting 90 days for a board to get together to be able to make a decision. And, oh, guess what, it got moved to a virtual meeting. And our bylaws say that in a virtual meeting, you need unanimous consent, not majority. In person, you need majority. Well, this doesn’t have majority as majority, but not unanimous. So that decision can’t get made until everyone can fly into one location in nine months. Meanwhile, company sits. And these people that get to make the decisions aren’t necessarily people with business experience, entrepreneurial experience, franchise experience, things of that nature.
So today, in the sequel, we’re able to take the same cast and go write something new and something different, but do it with more capital and a lot smarter.
Meg
It’s been fascinating for me and I can speak for many of my colleagues as well. As word got out that this is what you were doing, the people you have picked, you have hired and the people who have followed you. So there are a number of people who have followed you from Exponential Fitness. Now you’ve got Bob McQuillan also joining on the call today. Previously Body20 chief development officer there. How did you get him to retire? How did you get him out of retirement? Bob’s retired three times. How did you do that?
Anthony
Same reason I keep coming out of retirement. Look, we, you know, you’ll see this all the time. You saw it with Kobe Bryant, you see it with other people, right? People played as long as Kobe played and it’s because, hey, look, we’re going to go out, we’re going to win a championship game. And that’s inspiring to people. Kobe could have quit financially, which is typically the number one reason people quit is they say, hey, I’ve, I’ve got enough money, I don’t need to do X anymore. And that’s implying that they don’t like doing what they’re doing, right?
As opposed to, hey, Kobe sat there and said, I’ve got plenty of money. He said that for a decade, right? Maybe more. I think at 18, Kobe could have retired with what he originally signed for, but Kobe only gave up when his body actually gave up. And not when his mind did. And so, you know, even though you might get older, your mind still sticks around much longer than your body does.
And I’m excited to go build something. I’d love to build businesses. I’d love to be a part of winning teams. I don’t think anyone hates to win and loves to lose necessarily. And so, you know, I think Bob saw what I saw, which is a group of seasoned people that are out to win and people like to be a part of championship teams.
Meg
Yeah. Later on this week, I’ve got Verdine Baker coming on. I’ve been talking to more of your other people who’ve been with you for a long time. So it’s been great for me to hear their thoughts about being over there and now coming over here and their primary reasons for wanting to do that in the future that they see, but also the confidence that they have in the leadership team that you’re building now. And Bob, I don’t know if you want to jump in or how you want to do this going forward, but who’s behind the Jen Keynes, Jeff Beans, I know you got your Exponential people coming over, but you’re hand picking some of the best of the best in franchising.
Anthony
We’re not stopping.
Bob
Yeah, I mean, Anthony’s, I mean, very early on, and I really, I would piggyback on Anthony’s comment, the analogy, you know, if you talk about somebody like a Kobe Bryant, Anthony mentioned he didn’t do it for money. Right. It was his body breaking down. But after Kobe had his unbelievable run in multiple facets, whether it be the NBA or the United States Olympic team, after he did retire, he turned toward making people better and he turned toward winning in a different aspect.
Anthony showed me winning in a different aspect for me gave me a different perspective. As we were heading into this venture, one of the major things was — and this was important — when Anthony had purchased Body20, which I was a partner in, we talked about the good he could do for that organization that we couldn’t. And it doesn’t matter the reasons why, but we weren’t making that business function in a winning way and we needed his expertise.
When you see, and you alluded to this, Meg, when you see the expertise that has come along, as you mentioned, followed him, that really says it all. And then to your point, how are you picking these people? There’s an insatiable appetite with the people that we have chosen in this industry. And it’s a very common thread. The fabric is continuous.
And I don’t care if it’s the people that came and followed Anthony or the people that are on the franchise development team. Meg, I don’t have to tell you, you know every one of them and they are rock stars in their own right. And it’s about being part of something that’s going to do great things. And I think everyone’s bought into that. And the greatest part, we don’t. There’s no board to report to. And I’m sure if you asked Anthony if he’d ever go public again, I’d bet my house and my children he would say no.
So for those reasons, it is all hands on deck. And it’s really become a team that you kind of wanted to be on your entire career.
Meg
I’ll just piggyback on something really quickly. I turned to my husband at one point. He’s a Wall Street, LaSalle Street guy who once upon a time had arguments with Bernie Madoff about why his firm was a shell game. So he’s played with the SEC at the highest level in order to bring stability, honesty, integrity to his particular industry. So I turned to him when I heard you were coming back, Anthony, I said, I bet you he will never go public again.
Anthony
Yeah, look, and you know it is. I won’t be doing it. And the reason I won’t be doing it honestly has nothing to do with really the regulation or things of that nature. Because as you, as you sure you’ve seen online, after 18 months, the SEC, you know, kind of uncovered every rock and stone they could and came with no action against Exponential or any of its executives. And so even though the government is a part of the equation of being a public company, if the public company is being run properly, it’s a non issue. Right. There’s police on the street all the time. But if you’re going the speed limit, you’re following the rules and the police aren’t an issue. They’re an issue for the people that they should be an issue for.
But the part that I didn’t like about public was just the lack of control. I really was naive enough to believe that if we sold more, opened more and drove more revenue through our stores, which is what we were doing — I mean, you looked at selling a thousand units a year, which not many people on planet Earth are doing or have ever done, opening 550 locations a year, which isn’t happening, but doing it with AUV growing for 20/4 quarter over quarter, before and after Covid — it’s pretty tough. That is the triple threat that you always hope for.
And even in doing that, the stock price would or wouldn’t reflect whatever it felt. And people think of it as, wow, it’s great, the stock went up or whatever, right? Or the stock went down. But the reality was there were times we would be sitting on an earnings call thinking we did an okay job, right? We did a B job this last quarter. Things didn’t go our way, things that could have gone better, but ultimately it’s an okay quarter. And I remember the stock going up 43% the next day. Right? We didn’t find the cure to cancer. We’re a fitness company that had an okay quarter.
And there were times that we went into the conference, into an earnings call and said, this is literally the best work we have ever done in our careers. This is amazing. And the stock goes down 8%. Right? There were times that Lululemon, even outside of ours, where Lululemon doesn’t hit their numbers and we get downgraded and our stock goes down because if women aren’t buying more leggings, then they’re going to stop working out. FedEx doesn’t hit their numbers. UPS doesn’t hit their numbers.. My all time favorite, a European shoe company didn’t hit their numbers and our stock got downgraded. And so there were so many things.
Then we got a part of the Russell 2000, which just means if these hedge funds, these funds want to buy and sell in and out of the S and P or in and out of the Russell, your stock goes up and down. Baby, with the Bathwater, you were one of the 2,000 people that got sold off that day because of whatever unemployment, jobs, reports, the Fed, all these things. And so it was not about, are we selling to good people, are we opening in great locations and are we taking those locations and driving revenue for franchisees and then being good stewards of that cash as a public company.
It wasn’t about that. It was about a lot of other things. And so maybe we had 20% control. You know, I used to look at all these different things where people, when they talked about keeping material information quiet, which we always did, but you know, the effects of what that material information would be like. I said we’d have a good quarter and the stock would go up 43%, we’d have an amazing quarter go down 8% because you don’t know which shareholders already thought you were going to do above or below that.
And so it was a lot. And I’m very happy to not know what my share price is at Sequel and be able to just focus on the business. And we don’t really care how many leggings Lululemon sold or how many packages FedEx shipped last quarter.
Meg
Yeah, it’s very mercurial and people who are not sophisticated about it really don’t understand the whole thing that happened with Exponential. Bob, now that you’re on this side of the fence and benefiting from all the experience that Anthony has amassed over the last 10 years directly for you, what are the benefits that you immediately recognize and what are some of the changes that are being implemented that you see, say, for Body20 owners who you and I have worked with, some of them, what did you see and now what is going into effect?
Bob
So the benefits, you know, if you look at any profession, I don’t care if you’re a major league baseball player, if you’re a CEO, if you want to achieve perfection, which is what we all want to do, you have to do something 10,000 times, right. You have to perfect it. And you do that only by experience. And I don’t care what books you read, they will tell you experience is the major benefactor of anything that you’ll be able to experience in your career.
So when you look at that, if you look at 10,000 times being perfect, it pales in comparison to what this team has gone through from an experience level. To take the brands had from an Exponential standpoint and then bring them to where they were and then follow Anthony to his, you know, to the sequel. That says a lot in itself for me.
What I’ve benefited from are the experiences that team has had. I’ve also benefited from a Body20 standpoint to see the changes that have been made with the organization in such a short amount of time. I mean, we’re talking from April to now, and we’re doing things from an equipment perspective, marketing and advertising, the resources we’ve never had. We can leverage the size of the organization, the unlimited capital, the unlimited experience, and the stories that these people can tell to people that are new prospective franchisees. There’s no place on the planet that I’ve seen that can hold a candle to what we’re bringing to the table as far as Mr. Or Mrs. Investor.
When you bring a candidate or a prospect of yours, Meg, to someone that has gotten an investment offering that we have. How do you duplicate that? I just, I haven’t seen it in the industry, which I think is a big reason, you know, alluding to your point earlier, why everybody wants to be part of this team.
Meg
Well, you were telling me before we started recording, Bob, that you have taken it upon yourself to visit each of the brands and experience each location, but have that experience with each of the modalities. I wish I were there. I’ve got a meniscus tear. I wish I could do the Beam red light. I would love to be somewhere where I could take advantage of that. But you’re physically feeling the impact of these different modalities right now. So just repeat that story that you were telling me earlier, please.
Bob
Yeah, so I mean, the health and wellness journey for us and, you know, it’s important for us to tell the story, but it’s important also, you know, when we’ve got relationships obviously with Franchoice and networks across the country, it’s important that, you know, we’re kind of singing from the same hymnal, so to speak.
So, you know, Anthony, I have to thank Anthony for this because, you know, when I took a look at myself and I’m yeah, this guy’s 49 years old and he looks like he’s 26, you know, and I know he’s my boss and this is not me trying to get good with Anthony. It’s me taking a look at myself saying, you can do better. So I thought, you know what, if I’m going to do better, let’s do it with the brands that we have under the Sequel name.
So I decided in at least for a four to six week journey to utilize all the brands that we have under Sequel. So, you know, today I was at Beam and then this afternoon, this evening I’m going to be working out at Body20 and then I’ll be at Iflex. And this is all being videotaped so we’ll have all this on record. I better do a good job because it wouldn’t look good for the brands.
But since the 23rd of July, when I started this quest, I’ve lost 10 pounds, chronicling every step of the way. And if you just keep moving, as Anthony will tell you, Make America Move Again is his thing, man. And we just got to keep moving. And that’s what I’m showing with the brands and that’s what I’m going to chronicle and the narrative is going to be loud and clear to the people that we do business with that this system works well.
Meg
You’re segueing exactly where I wanted to go. You and I are a little bit older than Anthony is. I’m 62 and I don’t mind saying it, but let’s make America healthy again. What I like about some of these modalities is that they’re not age related. They’re not hit. You don’t have to worry about breaking your knees or whatever, not breaking your knees, but wearing them out. So they really are effective for people of any age. But this initiative now and going to Washington, Anthony, or both of you talk about that and what’s going on, because I think that’s really exciting for the future of Americans. I live in Wisconsin. We’re not the healthiest state. So let’s talk about getting healthy.
Anthony
I mean, look, it started with the inauguration. I went back for the inauguration in January to meet with the Bobby Kennedy, Dr. Otto guys that were working on the Maha movement. And you know, my wife was a big advocate for Make America Healthy Again and Bobby Kennedy. And I’m not a political person. I’m still not a political person. I’m a health person. I want to see people healthy. And my wife and I went to the Maha brunch and I noticed there are a lot of amazing people, but zero people from the fitness industry or that really had an impact. I think Jillian Michaels was there, if you remember her from The Biggest Loser, but no real operators from the fitness industry.
I found that very suspect that the three kind of pillars of what we’re looking at in these blue zones where people live longer and live better, some of the big pillars are sleep, a whole food diet, movement. And where’s the movement piece? So we had a lot of great people on the nutrition, diet, supplementation, longevity piece, but didn’t really see anybody from the movement side.
And that was when I decided to get involved in seeing how much politics are around stuff like the Maha movement, things they have to deal with, whether it’s vaccinations, abortion. You think about what Bobby Kennedy has had to take over or is taking over there. It really is crazy and complicated. That was the thing I realized when I was back at the White House, is that I don’t care who’s sitting in that seat. Whether you’re Republican, Democrat, you like Trump, you don’t like Trump, you love Biden, it doesn’t matter. That seat’s a big seat to sit in.
It is a complicated seat to sit in, and I don’t care which way that person who sits in the seat wants to move the country. It’s like using an oar on the Titanic. It’s a lot of work. And we went and created MAMA, which is Make America Move Again. Because I wanted to be clearly focused on getting Americans moving and healthy through movement and through what we were doing. I didn’t want to get held down around politics and the complexity as best as we possibly could.
Tell me that taking the stairs is worse than the elevator. Argue with me that taking a walk to the mailbox on Monday, your neighbor’s mailbox on Tuesday, is bad for you. So I want to stay away from stuff. Bobby’s got to deal with Medicare, Medicaid, the CDC, the FDA, NIH. I make the joke all the time and say the only two things he could have taken on would be the DMV and the Postal Service to really kind of round out inefficiency in government, the poor guy.
So it’s just those are complicated seats or polarizing seats. And for us, we just want to focus on getting the fitness industry behind Making America Move Again. I had Callie Means with me on stage, who’s helping run HHS for Bobby in New York a couple months ago. And we have the full support of the administration and the people that are there, and we’re going to continue to be advocates to get Americans moving any which way we can.
Meg
So much of that probably takes you back to the experience with having a board of directors and going public, and it’s complicated, and it gets very burdensome and takes your attention away from what you’re really trying to accomplish. Is it too new or is it getting spelled out as to what your role, specifically your visibility, your messaging is going to be towards the MAHA movement?
Anthony
No, look, it’s going to be a bunch of us. A good friend of mine, Gary Brecka, the MAHA Action Pack, we’re all trying to find ways that we can create our own space and then push that. That agenda, that distribution. And so we’re working through all that now, getting things, you know, packs set up, trademark set up, 501Cs that Gary’s gotten done. And so we’re all kind of finding ways to, I don’t want to say sidestep the political system, but just not be hindered by the bus in front of us.
We can move as private citizens, as advocates, in connection with government, as we continue to do that. But we absolutely have a seat at the table. I’m working with Dr. Oz and his innovation department, working on how can fitness help the $5 trillion budget we’re currently spending right now on chronic disease. And as we spend more, it gets worse. So we’re obviously not fighting it very well.
And so it’s, how do we start to slow that up? But you start to think of whole food diets. You got to start thinking of farmers. And how do farmers stay in business when you’re not using pesticides? I’ve taken some people down each of these rabbit holes, and you just see them get exhausted after four or five minutes. And to your point, it makes them want to give up.
And so what we want to do is still continue to be advocates, still help and support this administration, this movement the best we can. But we’re all connected together. We all want the same thing. And that’s making Americans healthy again and ridding ourselves of chronic disease. And that’s a 10, 15 year plan. It’s not a 10, 15 month plan.
Meg
Fortunately, I’d rather see Bob McQuillan exhausted from a workout than—
Bob
People today. You’ll see it later.
Meg
Yeah. People exhausted from policy. That’s really necessary. And I’d mentioned it before, I live in a state that’s not the healthiest state. And we’re going to the state fair on Friday. I said to my husband, before we get there, can we stop somewhere? I could get a salad because I don’t think we’re getting anything more than like corn dogs and beer and, you know, kind of Wisconsin type of food. So let’s not. Well, you both know me. I’m all in favor of healthy movement and aging gracefully. One of the things that my husband and I talk about is a book called Younger Next Year.
Anthony
Good title.
Bob
I like it. That’s what I want to be.
Meg
Yeah, they wrote one version originally. It was more male driven. Then they came out with another version that’s more female driven. And I’m going to live to be 120. So my brain, my body, it all needs to work together. And that’s what I enjoy about the brands that you’re bringing together. Which leads me to another question, back to Sequel. Are you guys going to try to rebuild with the breadth and scope of modalities what you previously had done? Do you want to get that big again?
Anthony
We’ll see. It’s a possibility. Never say never. Where we are today, we’re at four. We do have a fifth brand in escrow today. Term sheet signed and kind of going forward, we’ll see if it closes. Some stuff does, some stuff doesn’t in life. But I can tell you it’s not going to be four. I just don’t know if it’s going to be ten.
Meg
And is there a shift from fitness into more wellness modalities or anything else that you’re going to add?
Anthony
Just finding great brands that inspire us. You know at Expo we did Stretch Lab, which wasn’t fitness, did very well with that. We did Lindoro, did very well with that. You know I ended up leaving and I don’t know what’s really happening with that at this point but, but it started off very strong with great unit economics and great franchise sales. So the interest was there.
Well, you know today we’re at what I’ll call two wellness brands inside of Beam and Flex and two fitness brands inside of Body20 and Pilates Addiction. And the one we have in escrow is a fitness one, I can tell you that. And the one I’m working on outside of that is a longevity brand that’ll be on the wellness side.
So yeah we may find ourselves at 50/50 up to 10, I don’t know. But we’re just really looking for great brands, great teams, leadership that we know we can put into place that’ll do well. And that will dictate what brands and how many brands more than me going to put a square peg in a round hole to meet a pro forma because those days are over.
Meg
Yeah, I appreciate that. I was visiting with a candidate recently who said I really don’t like the anti aging terminology. Could we find a way to age gracefully and sell it that way? Which I thought was really granular but an interesting point of view. It’s a woman who used to be an anorexic so she was very… It’s interesting how people will pick and choose their brands based on their either personal experience or their preferences but keep going because I’ll be a frequenter when I do continue to have an apartment back in the Chicago area. So I do get back to civilization every now and then.
Anthony
Good. Well I’d love to have you back.
Meg
Can work it out. Bob, is there going forward, are you just never going to retire again?
Bob
I’m never going to retire anytime in the next five years, I can tell you that.
Meg
Oh good.
Bob
Well look, you know we just started and I can’t tell you — and I really, I kind of reached out. I told Anthony this not long ago. I thought I’d be a really good retired person. And I just. When you retire and you kind of start to figure out your life, there’s only so many rounds of golf you can play, so many dinners you can have. It’s just not that fulfilling.
But what I was excited about when I got back to where Anthony’s introducing me to the team, and the more I got to know the people and then the things that I saw that we could do, not just for Body20, but for Iflex and for Pilates Addiction and for Beam. And then as Anthony mentioned, there’s more out there that we can do. And we’re seeing these people come to these discovery days, and it is exhilarating to see what we’re doing because I know the brand around it, I know the team around it, I know the experience level.
If I have a candidate, if I’m Meg Schmitz and I have a candidate, I’m working with a number of clients. I think the greatest favor I can do for them is to provide a backdrop and an infrastructure that we have at Sequel. So that’s what moves me. And will I ever retire again? I don’t know. Maybe not.
Meg
Well, as an observation from the franchise conference, just me personally, to have Anthony, you come and be there in person to talk about this trajectory and your plan going forward. Bob, you’ve been missed at the conferences. When you guys… When, I don’t know if it’s you, Bob, who’s the brainchild behind your mix and match sessions and the energy that you bring to your—
Bob
It’s a team effort.
Anthony
Bob’s fault. So Bob’s fault. He got me in a robe. Never again.
Meg
That was great. And Bob, you made a great emcee. We were just watching the Rocky movies over the weekend and you could have been there. But it’s great to have both of you there. Really genuinely appreciated. Appreciated from the whole consultant base that you took the time to bring your team and have them present for as long as they were there and they were engaged with us. I don’t know what it’s like at any of the other groups, but we try to stand out as being a better business partner with you than some of the others. And so I can just tell you how people were going.
Anthony
Anthony.
Meg
You’re just a regular dude like the rest of us. And so it’s been a real pleasure today to have both of you spend the time with me reviewing what’s been going on, where you’re going next. And thank you for—
Bob
We appreciate the hospitality in Cincinnati. It was very well received. You guys are an amazing group with an amazing culture. You know, Anthony enjoyed it. Don’t let him fool you. I think he really enjoyed putting that robe on and throwing the knockout punch.
Meg
Yeah, I think so. I saw a smile out there a couple of times. All right, guys, I will let you go. I will let you know when this is going to be launching again. Thank you both for your time today. Appreciate it.
Anthony
Thanks, Meg. I appreciate it. Good to see you.
Bob
Thank you, Meg.
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