Thirty Minute Mentors Podcast Transcript: Orangetheory Co-Founder and CEO Dave Long

I recently interviewed Dave Long on my podcast, Thirty Minute Mentors. Here is a transcript of our interview:

Adam: Our guest today is the leader of one of the most successful brands in the world of fitness. Dave Long is the co-founder and CEO of Orangetheory, with more than 1500 studios across 24 countries around the world. Dave, thank you for joining us.

Dave: Thanks for having me on. It's great to be on today.

Adam: Great to have you here. You grew up outside of Tampa and went to the University of Florida before spending almost 20 years in different roles in the franchise space. Can you take listeners back to your early days? What were the key experiences and lessons that shaped your worldview and shaped the trajectory of your success?

Dave: Yeah, so going way back, I got exposed to franchising by accident by working at a general nutrition center back in high school. And I didn't realize it at the time but I was learning about small business owner-owned franchises, how they interacted with the corporate office, saw the kind of processes that we use that were handed down by headquarters. And then I went off and followed some passions and wellness and training and fitness, and then got pulled back to franchising to help really expand the Massage Envy brand that started in Scottsdale back in the early 2000s. And that's a very fast-paced four or five years of learning, being part of a very rapidly growing franchise brand, kind of learning all about the different aspects of franchising and scaling and how to support franchisees and relationship building. And just again, learning a ton of lessons. Everything from real estate selection, to franchise relations, to how to drive the performance of the stores and help owners scale and all the things that go with the unique relationship between a franchisor and franchisee. And I was really fortunate during that period of time. The founder and owner of the company supported me in actually becoming a franchisee simultaneously with a partner. So I ended up becoming a regional developer and franchisee in the state of New York while still having a VP of Operations corporate role. So I had a unique perspective of wearing both hats at the same time for a period of time and then jumped out of the franchisor side to help launch and scale a European wax center that started down in South Florida. And take a lot of those lessons and learnings and immediately put them into action and another brand and a handful of stores that were looking to franchise. And it was around two of taking those experiences those lessons really focusing on relationships and how to support franchisees, how to build a brand and a system, and taking quickly scaling that brand with a tremendous amount of success. And through that period, and not even at the end of kind of the height of that growth, I had just a personal itch to somehow maybe get back into fitness. And so I had this love of franchising and I understood it and had successes and that really a drive to is there a way to get back to fitness and started looking around for what's out there that could provide real value for a consumer, help them with their fitness and wellness and be something that we can potentially scale. That's where I was fortunate to cross paths with Ellen Latham, who was my partner and learn about her one-off Ellen's ultimate workout where she was pioneering a very raw form of what today is Orangetheory. And I was really fortunate to cross paths at a time when I had the experiences of other brands and the passion to combine franchising with fitness and this combination coming together to take a swing at launching a completely new brand. And so Massage Envy European wax center, those were other founders that really helped grow and drive their brands. And this is an opportunity to do it completely from scratch completely as a co-founder.

Adam: How did the idea for Orangetheory emerge and how did you and your partners actualize it? 

Dave: It was super interesting. It has a lot of great products and services and it was founded on a need. And so Ellen had been in the fitness industry for decades. She pioneered group pilates, then she later added a spinning portion to her gym. So she had pilates, she had spinning, and her customers were not seeing the results they really wanted with cardiorespiratory fitness with body composition. There was a big missing piece. And so she was researching HIIT training and using a combination of like functional strength and part in specific cardio intervals and so she created this room where you had the treadmills, you had rowers, you had the TRX style suspension, trainers, dumbbells, and created a workout, which had not been done before combining all these elements But with intervals, and a one-hour workout led by a really dynamic coach, where somebody could get just tremendous results and in a very motivational way be pushed harder than they ever would on their own. And also be accountable to show up for their class and all the things that really make the brand sticky. And help people really retain their regimen of fitness and their routine. And so when we cross paths with her, we saw a really unique scenario, and the story always tells us that I first wanted to go try the product. So I just went took a workout with my partner, Jerome, and in that class, on one side of me was an NFL Pro Bowler in his offseason. And then the other side of me was a woman that was probably 70 years old. And you rarely go to a gym or group class or anything and see that type of different demographic. A person that can be successful and be pushing and be getting results at very different fitness levels, demographics, all those things that were like a big aha lightbulb moment. For me, it was the group. It was very customizable to whoever the person was that was in there. And so the three of us agreed that we would take that portion of her gym and build a standalone studio. We're really within the mind of, can we build a franchise product that can be scalable? Can we give the tools to a franchisee? It wouldn't be about Ellen and her experience of operating for decades. It'd be around, can we start from scratch and build the systems? And would customers come, right? Would it be successful? And so we launched that first studio of Orangetheory. And very serendipitously as we were looking around at technology and ways to make the workout better. We crossed paths where I did with a heart rate monitoring system that can monitor the heart rates of multiple individuals at the same time and display their readout on a screen, give themselves, give the members and the coach the ability to get the feedback and push the right amount of intensity to get the best results. Which is what we ended up basing the concept on. And we launched that into the first studio. And it was extremely successful and differentiated from anything that had ever been done before. And it allowed the coach to provide the right push and the right training, as well as the member to understand that. And then there's just a lot of science behind being in the right interval for at least 20 minutes of a workout and the type of results that you get after it. So that was the first-day technological innovation that set the tone and the standard for how we're going to constantly continue to look at ways to evolve this product, to just provide better results for the member. And that always is our central purpose.

Adam: You have this great innovation that you discover. You bring it to studio number one. How do you grow and scale Orangetheory? And what are your best tips more broadly, on how to grow and scale any business?

Dave: For this specifically, it was a number of different factors. But the focus on really the core fundamental things that differentiated us and that also provided consistency and value. So it was really just a handful of things that were not necessarily easy to do. One was we needed to have the world's best trainers and the world's best coaches that motivated and inspired the members that believed in the product. And then we've had to put them through very rigorous training and keep consistently improving them. So that was something from studio one. And it was something that Ellen believed in. We all believed and aligned with that we were going to stick with. And as an example, if a lot of trainers or coaches want a new certification, they have to go out and pay for it. And we made the commitment that we were going to, actually, if we interviewed and hired you, we would pay you to train you to make you better. And so that was something that even to this day, our coaches, our trainers, they get paid to go through training, which even if they don't end up being an Orangetheory coach, there have a tremendous amount more knowledge in their toolkit. The heart rate monitoring piece was another differentiator that I mentioned. And it was extremely hard to execute operationally in that today we have a proprietary sophisticated system, most of our members by our brand heart rate monitor, it's a system that provides just a really good value. But in the early days, we had to loan out a rechargeable monitor to you take it back from every person in the class, charge it, clean it and repeat that 1000s and 1000s of times, and it was probably a barrier. This is why this type of technology didn't proliferate through a lot of fitness. It was just really challenging. But when we're thinking about what are our core principles of having the best coaching and the best workout and technology behind it, we stuck with that, and as we brought in our early franchisees and onboard them and continue to improve the training and the system's in the marketing, the few core tenants like that we never wavered from. And we made sure that we continue to support that and have franchisees that were aligned with that and were willing to go through the trials and tributes lessons, knowing that they were signing on to a brand that was going to be very innovative for the right reasons. But it was not going to be easy. Through those challenges and through the focus on committing to the few things that were going to make us better and differentiate us, it allowed us to ultimately scale really quickly. And both of us as a franchisor and our franchise partners are able to constantly improve and scale and maintain a commitment focus on getting finding the world's best personnel and making sure that we have great training systems in place. And a lot of times for an early company starting out early brands, it's easy to get overwhelmed with all the things you're trying to accomplish. And if there are 10 priorities on the plate that you're trying to deliver and be excellent at, sometimes I think it can be virtually impossible to hit on all those parts of our keys. In hindsight, it was really just focusing on a couple of things and making sure that we were really the best in the world at it. And making sure that as we scaled, that was always our flow through to every franchisee interaction training, the things that we're doing, we kept really concise, what we're focused on.

Adam: Focus is essential. Focus on your areas of differentiation and focus on your core drivers of success. I love the fact that you shared that every entrepreneur has 10 different things that they could do every day. They have 10 different initiatives that they could push on. But you can't actually do 10 things every day. And if you try to do 10 things every day, you're not going to be able to do any of them effectively. But if you try to do one thing or two things, you're going to be able to hit them out of the park. And in your case, one of the things you focused on was investing in your people, investing in your partners, equipping your franchisees with the right systems, the right training, with the right marketing, and iterating with them, making sure that they had whatever they needed to be successful along with you. Having the right people on your team, whether they're your employees, your coaches, or your partners, they are essential to attaining meaningful success.

Dave: It gets back to this principle of what's your core purpose? What's the product? What are you really trying to do? We had a lot of pressure. We had a lot of input early on that this type of brand, that type of pricing structure that we had, just doing one product was not going to be successful. There were very few people that thought it was going to work because you can look in the landscape and see a lot of other things that are already out there. And there was a lot of pressure to add a lot of different services. We needed to add yoga or kids programs or a lot of other things versus just focusing on the world's best one-hour workout that we would do a new version of each day. So when I think back to that, and as people were looking to what their focus is going to be with something. Obviously, there are times when you do need to add ancillary services products, you need to do something to diversify. But a lot of times simplicity becomes the biggest strength and making sure you really know what you're focused on and what you can be really good at. And building on that and making that in the beam. Even though it's simple, one or two things end up being a bigger differentiator than potentially watering down something by trying to add on too much too fast.

Adam: Great leaders have the ability to simplify, have the ability to take complex concepts and make them understandable, make them easy, make them actionable. And if something is too challenging to act on, you're not going to act on it. But if you can take a complex problem and make it something that anyone can tackle, you're going to tackle it.

Dave: We just came off the tail end of our annual franchise conference, which is a huge training and just camaraderie and relationship milestone for the global Orangetheory networks franchisees, their key staff, and things like that. And it was every year and that gets bigger and bigger. Because of the pandemic, we delayed it for two years. So it was a huge rejoining of our global network and the theme was momentum. And as you mentioned, a lot of the focus was chunking things down and taking it one step at a time. And many businesses are recovering or looking for ways to get through growth in a world that's changed. And so much of what we're doing is taking these smaller steps that over time, it's a big result, and this theme of prioritization and making sure that you're taking intention behind looking at prioritization often enough to understand if the most impactful things on a business are focused on at the right times. And that you're not sharpened spring so many things but you're making meaningful movement and the things that are going to grow the business support the business, and add value the most.

Adam: One step at a time, one day at a time. Rome wasn't built in a day. Consistency. I love your lines, small steps lead to big results. And that's true in business and that's true in fitness.

Adam: You've created this incredibly successful brand that's stood out in the world of fitness. How have you done that? What have been the keys to building the Orangetheory brand? And what are your best tips on the topic of branding?

Dave: It's been a continuum, I think, that the through line is, it's always been about taking care of the member and getting them results. So that's been a through line that has really helped to be our North Star. And with that, as I've talked about the coaches to key people that are motivating and inspiring, then to provide the best results need the best coaches in need. All the staff of the locations in general, franchisees are ultra-focused on that. But when we think about just branding, in general, we were intentional around a name that was a little unique, that would maybe stand out more, really going with the orange color that is in line with the orange zone of our heart rate, a more vibrant color coming into a fitness studio, broadly accessible. And the brand started very grassroots. So we have right at this cusp of now the world is so dominant with digital marketing, performance marketing, but we're right at just before the big take-off of that. And some of our very early tactics which still stand to this day are very community driven. So if you can imagine 5k charity races and community events, we really wanted to win, being in the community and educating people as to the Orangetheory difference. And using everything from orange bikes to all types of even stunt marketing in the early days to just start to get the name out and have people talk about it. And as the years have gone on, we've gotten away from some of that and leveled up some of the typical digital footprints. But all just making sure we're very concise and sharp for telling the message of my Orangetheory is different. And what the value is, which quite frankly, in the fitness category, especially as challenging, because there's a lot has come and gone. And the standout and really holding somebody's attention for long enough to explain what we do and why it's different, has often been a challenge. And specifically for us in fitness. It's also very intimidating for somebody to go try something new. It's probably the number one barrier to people coming in and trying Orangetheory or something new in fitness. So we're looking at ways to always break down that barrier. How do we tell the story better through branding and through digital marketing? And as you can imagine, a referral is still our number one source that people try orange areas. One person loves it and they tell everybody about it. So it's a complete cycle right back to our core purpose of providing members the best results and amazing experience. If they're getting that that's when they're talking about it more and more. And then as we've looked over the years, I just our calendar every year, we have different types of challenges and events, and milestone months and things that are sprinkled throughout the year, their biggest one, which is during the week of Halloween. And I believe we have over 250,000 people participating in this challenge to do Orangetheory workouts in eight days that are all very themed and the theme of the workout is in the name. There's a huge production before in the run-up to it. And then each day the next day's workouts are released members track it in the mobile app, and they share it. There are literally 10s of millions of impressions just this week around this challenge in this workout and also galvanizes a community of people experiencing a challenge together talking about it. So starting with we get into the marketplace into the communities and each studio itself becomes a community that's part of this greater Orangetheory landscape. And that's where we very organically built up something really special where people want to be part of it, want to talk about it, and they want to share in their challenges and the things that they overcome by coming taking these workouts and suddenly suffering through it together and this big community

Adam: Clear concise messaging, consistency, creating happy customers, and turning them into brand ambassadors. You mentioned the challenge of people trying something new, particularly in the world of fitness. How can those who are hesitant to try something new get out of their comfort zone?

Dave: We talked about this one-step-at-a-time mentality. Taking that first step is the hardest. As I mentioned, trying the Orangetheory workout, just trying it for the first time, is the hardest step. And then most people, when they try it, end up wanting to be part of it and are part of it for a long period of time. And everybody breaks the routine, at some point they leave, but then a good percentage of our folks end up coming back the second or third time. So the way that relates is whatever it is, if it's wanting to do a new business venture, get a new fitness routine, he's taking that first step. And it's making sure that step is a very small step and achievable. It's breaking it down even something smaller, as we talked about. Not everybody is going to be an Orangetheory member, but everybody should exercise. And people immediately think, well, I need to go out and run five miles, or I need to go out and do something big, I need to run a half marathon. But how about somebody just goes out and walks a half mile? And then the next day they walk a mile. It's those small steps that build up over time and make big impacts. And we see in the fitness world, people overdoing it in the beginning and not feeling great after because they just go too hard too soon. And that's a lot of how we approach when people enter the orange ecosystem, even though the workout is high intensity, and there are moments in the workout we want you to push or go all out. When people first come in and try and take the first class, we want people to dial it way back, learn how to use the equipment, learn how to understand what's going on, and take it much slower than they probably will a month later. That applies to anything that you're going to start. It is making that step as small as possible achieving it and then taking the next step.

Adam: That is really good advice. Take the first step. We often think about the value of going in headfirst and diving into the deep end. And that's great if you can, but the shallow end is there for a reason. And most people don't learn how to swim by diving into the deep end, most of us start by going to the shallow end and going from there, take that first step. 

Dave: Exactly. 

Adam: Dave, in your experience, what are the key characteristics of a great leader? And what can anyone do to become a better leader?

Dave: Speaking from my personal journey of what I've gone through, of having to continually learn and reinvent myself. And when you think I get the trap you fall into is thinking you've got so much experience or you know it all, or there's nothing left, there's always so much more than just seeing. And I guess being really fortunate to be around a lot of great leaders, both within our organization and outside of it. I think of a number of things, there has to be a real belief and confidence in what you're doing and what you're leading. People feel that and understand that more than ever. It doesn't have to come through and being the biggest talker or being the most aggressive or assertive. There's something about being able to have full belief in the purpose and what you're doing. And leading in that manner. Being an ever-learning student is super important. There's so much to learn. And I've gone through learning how to build management teams. Subject matter experts have been going through a company that has gotten a lot larger. It is about taking a step back and saying where are the resources? Where are the best in class people that I can talk to, to learn more and get better at something that is just not my natural, strong suit, and use that over the years to continue to round out? Personally, I had very little confidence in my ability to public speak very effectively. And I went and I found one of the best public speaking coaches out there that has a very unique approach to it. And I took a course and then later hired him to you know, I wanted to go from being the teleprompter reader or using a lot of notes during keynotes and big 3000-person speaking engagements to having it locked in my mind and being able to connect with the audience. And that was probably the most uncomfortable thing for me. And instead of going away from it, I, fortunately, went towards it and made it my mission to become not the best but become proficient, become good at it, and be proud of it. To know I had given my all. And I also had this parallel running that my leadership team, our franchisees, our whole network at large, they saw this change that happened for me, that the way I needed to lead was to show the type of progress I can make in something that I didn't feel was my natural thing to do and put a tremendous amount of time into it. Back in 2019, for our annual keynote just a month ago at the convention I mentioned, leadership for people a lot of times is about showing vulnerability. But also showing that you're gonna go after something that maybe you're not good at, and improve it and try to inspire people through that.

Adam: Lifelong learning of vulnerability. You don't need to be the loudest person in the room. In fact, you shouldn't be the loudest person in the room. But you do need to believe in yourself and have the desire to push your comfort zone. In your case, it was a desire to become a better public speaker. And for listeners, it might be a desire to improve upon another area that you're not great at and make that a strength. Whatever it is, don't be afraid. Get out there and push yourself to that next level.

Dave: It's all about commitment. I want to share a quick story I thought was fascinating. The speaking coach that I have, went on the same journey and he became a magician first. And then he wanted to find one of these world-class speaking acting coaches. This individual that he sought out had gone through a journey of mentoring a lot of fairly famous actors. And they ended up having drug problems, alcohol problems, and being hyper-talented, but couldn't keep their life together. And this mentor told him that he would mentor him, but he couldn't have a drop of alcohol for the rest of his life. This guy said, let me take a week and think about it. And he went back. And he made that commitment that he would not have a drop of alcohol for the rest of his life in exchange for having this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be mentored by the best of the best. It is all about the commitment that people make and the small steps we're talking about here. Is this an extreme example of somebody that wanted it so badly? They made that commitment, and now, decades later, have just stuck to it, which to me is just incredible.

Adam: Yeah, so much of it comes down to, how much do you want it? How important is this to you? Setting a goal and having that goal really means something to you. And you've been extremely successful in reaching so many of the goals you've set for yourself. What is the greatest failure in your career? And what did you learn from it?

Dave: A big low point for me was when the pandemic hit. And our first notion was how to retain every staff member at the head office. And there were a lot of functions that were just attached to rapid loop growth. Before that we were opening 20-25 locations in a month, sometimes 30. And we had to make the toughest decision in my business career which we had to let some people go from the brand. And certainly, the toughest day in my professional career and I remember crisply to this moment, was that we had to make a tough decision in order to make sure we could preserve capital and preserve the teams that we needed. In hindsight, it was what we had to do. That was really difficult. At that point, that was the best path that we could choose. It disappointed in the fact that we just had to do what we had to do and focus on what we could control to keep the brand moving forward. At the end of the day, we needed to keep the brand solvent and keep moving forward, for us, for the franchisees, and for the members. So on the other side of it, we did be in a position of strength. You hear about failing fast, there weren't other massive failures in the history of the brand. But there were a lot of innovations and things that we launched, that just didn't work in a lot of ways. And we had a relationship with the franchisees that they realized, was going to be very innovative, not everything would work, and our ability to launch things. And a lot of them just do not work. But I still learn a lot from it and continue innovating. And that is a big part of the success of the brand. So it was with being uncomfortable and having the team be brave enough to be doing that. And of course, as the brand scales and matures, we continue to put systems around particular areas where we can afford those things that happened. I think, especially early days, we had to really be fast cycle innovating.

Adam:  Be comfortable with failure, be comfortable with making mistakes, and the importance of failing fast. You are going to fail. If you're going to try to innovate, you're not going to be able to reach any kind of meaningful success if you're not willing to take risks. And with risks, comes risks that don't work, comes failure. And in your case, many of the risks have worked, but some of the risks haven't worked. But when you do make a mistake, when you try something that doesn't work, learn from it, acknowledge it, and move on. And that's been essential to Orangetheory success, that's essential to the success of anyone trying to get to that next level.

Dave: Yeah, certainly. This business more than any is so much about people. And we've been fortunate we have been able to bring on a lot of fantastic purpose-driven folks that lead the brand and jump do everything they do. But within that, I've made some big misses on really critical hires. I spent a lot of time and effort to bring somebody on and it just doesn't work out. I always take that on myself as much as the person that came in. We both put time and effort into trying to make something work. And I think always continually learning and refining this process of identifying the right people for the right role, making sure they have the tools or resources to be successful, and just being really painstakingly detailed upfront before you make these critical hires. Because it's obviously so much more cost lead to after continually replacing people. But also it's your costing somebody their time and effort of getting into a role that maybe they just aren't well suited for us. As I think about where I am today, as we continue to build out this world-class team, that's always a top one or two priority for me. It is about putting a tremendous amount of time into recruiting and the selection of key people.

Adam: What are the most critical characteristics that you look for in the people you hire?

Dave: There are the fundamentals of the core skill sets, whatever the functional leader is that, of course, skill sets that come along with that, and making sure that that foundational knowledge is there. For a lot of these roles, having previous experience is just really important. There's so much around the intangible of their ability, their ways of working with the existing team, that we really pressure test on, and try to delve into problem-solving and how things will actually play out when the person that hits the ground is trying to lead a team and build their team. And just as importantly, collaborates, cross-functionally. And with a franchise brand, the franchisor sits with a relatively small amount of people. So our ability to be efficient and execute cross-functionally very well is really the key to the whole brand working. We have to continually iterate, marketing plans, training plans, operational things, and growth strategies. It's a small number of people putting out a lot of really important content for a global brand. And so for us, it's equally as important to the skill sets is this ability to identify these ways of working, the cultural fit, and the ability to work cross-functionally with other team leaders, as well as obviously influence and build out and lead teams.

Adam: Dave, what can anyone listening to this conversation do to become more successful personally and professionally?

Dave: Well, I've got to say that making regular fitness doesn't matter if it's taking a walk in the morning, going to an Orangetheory, class, whatever it is. One of the biggest impacts somebody can make on feeling better, being more productive and be more successful is including whatever fitness regimen works for them. It's critically important. And then I believe that finding some ways of continued learning, whether that's through books or podcasts, it doesn't matter the forum. But we talked about the steam of taking these small steps like consuming 10 minutes, 20 minutes of continued learning every day adds up to a tremendous amount. Being a continued learner is a huge part of success and keeping your mind sharp, having good movement, good fitness level, all go hand in hand. Virtually everybody should have that as a part of their lives.

Adam: You could have a 30-minute workout while listening to this Thirty Minute Mentors conversation with Dave Long. Dave, thank you for all the great advice, and thank you for being a part of Thirty Minute Mentors. 

Dave: Thanks, Adam. Thanks for having me. It's been great. Appreciate it.


Adam Mendler is an entrepreneur, writer, speaker, educator, and nationally-recognized authority on leadership. Adam is the creator and host of the business and leadership podcast Thirty Minute Mentors, where he goes one on one with America's most successful people - Fortune 500 CEOs, founders of household name companies, Hall of Fame and Olympic gold medal-winning athletes, political and military leaders - for intimate half-hour conversations each week. A top leadership speaker, Adam draws upon his insights building and leading businesses and interviewing hundreds of America's top leaders as a top keynote speaker to businesses, universities, and non-profit organizations. Adam has written extensively on leadership and related topics, having authored over 70 articles published in major media outlets including Forbes, Inc. and HuffPost, and has conducted more than 500 one on one interviews with America’s top leaders through his collective media projects. Adam teaches graduate-level courses on leadership at UCLA and is an advisor to numerous companies and leaders. A Los Angeles native, Adam is a lifelong Angels fan and an avid backgammon player.

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