training break & Peloton instructor recruitment 2013
Wednesday May 15, 2024
Firstly, before we get to Peloton: this week is our training break for the new cycling studio project in Mumbai. We ALL needed a pause in feedback, giving & receiving both! Trainees are absolutely keeping to a group training schedule this week with benchmarks to attempt to hit & time to collate questions for me as they stumble-through teaching their first class + the hospitality chats which come before the lights are lowered and class begins.
Do you/did you build-in an intentional training break at your studio? I highly recommend building one into any class-format immersive instructor training. If everyone is on-task, it is a valuable use of time & provides opportunity for trainees to bond as team-mates as they teach-back their classes, together. Do feel free to reply to this email if you have any specific questions!
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My own Peloton story reverts back to the boutique fitness experience we deliver in boutique studios, rather than virtually. (Of course, hybrid training virtual & in-person, both, we know is here to stay & it was never an “either” or an “or” but an “and”) Peloton is back in the news seeking a new CEO & amidst more staff-cuts, but rather than focus on that negative for the folks at the company…it prompted me to share & offer you insight.
Back in 2013, the NYC Well+Good newsletter mentioned that virtual video indoor cycling classes were to launch on a new platform called Peloton.
I immediately sent a resume & an invitation to take my cycling class at Crunch gym to whomever was in charge of scouting talent.
That September, I was asked by their then-consultant if she could come take my class, which turned into “actually, come to 227 west 29th St. Suite 9F on Friday September 13th, 11-1 & here’s the door access code” for a demo & conversation.
We approached both SoulCycle & Flywheel, separately, to collaborate with us on this & they both decided to continue to pursue the studio experience and not in-home exercise is what founder & former CEO, John Foley, shared that day.
He was very clear that he didn't care how much money their studio would lose; they would give away classes at a flash-sale rate on ClassPass if they had to…because he was building a television production studio, essentially, which would be their flagship cycling studio. They knew they had to have riders in the room for energy; the instructors couldn't cater to an at-home ridership without feeding-off human interaction on bikes in front of them, live from Chelsea NYC.
I remember suggesting to look at country clubs & hotels as his target user travels for work & to second homes.
It was all about selling the bike. And building enough of a subscription model that people would keep…even if their subscription wasn't utilized daily, same as Netflix.
And to sell the bike…they had to sell the content. (Even though they couldn't be bothered to license music properly in the early days if you remember when this hit back in 2019)
And to sell the bike…and the content…they had to craft & mold new fitness celebrities to deliver the class product. Emphasis on celebrity. The Peloton instructor TV-hosting a red-carpet, becoming best-selling authors & boasting large social media followings…was by design from even before these early meetings in 2013.
I left the demo & conversation very grateful I had connected IRL with Carol, their consultant (who would 3 years later, refer me to a cycling studio client in Mexico City), because I thought she was so real & so cool.
And I knew working with Peloton as an instructor was absolutely not for me. Happy for other colleagues for sure; a USD six figure instructor salary is nothing to sneeze at; but I knew that being camera-ready all the time, and coaching hundreds of thousands, (if not millions) of people I couldn’t see was not where I saw my fitness career progressing; it simply was not my dream.
[Frankly, I also was underwhelmed by the bike prototype I rode during the demo; it felt cheap & flimsy to me, who had taught on virtually every bike on the market at that point.]
But the reason for my sharing this with you…is that while I firmly believe the brand has cultivated engaged members across screens across the world, the Peloton experience is not the same class experience as what we do in-person, in-studios, whether its on bikes, treads, mats, apparatuses, whatever.
I love being a part of a group of people, delivering service to clients on a daily basis.
I love getting to know people both in class and in the organic chit-chat before & after.
I believe in these interactions wholeheartedly. Do you?
Having human interaction and connection in a third-space delivered to me is why I continued to attend classes after I was “dragged against my will” by a friend to my first boutique cycling class back in 2008. So many of you fell in love with boutique fitness concepts while living and working abroad & wanted to re-create magic when you moved back home.
If there were ever a time to double-down on hospitality & tightening-up service to your clients….it is from the moment the C**vid quarantines were lifted…to right now.
I have a few ways to work together, irrespective of the format(s) you offer, in the pipeline & look forward to sharing them with you, first here, over the next few weeks.
In the meantime, I hope we may all continue to lean-into what make our community spaces special.
Until next Wednesday,
Noël