We're seeing a crazy number of new small/independent/boutique studios opening all over the world – which is awesome. I love being part of a growth industry, not to mention how all these new studios need Instructors!
But what's driving all this growth? I know that a whole bunch of studios have opened, who's owners will tell you that their initial motivation came from hearing my first interview with Bill Pryor/Spynergy Consulting; Start Your Own Indoor Cycling Studio from 2010.
But there has been another force at work in our industry; SoulCycle.
Google Trends is an interesting service where you can observe the popularity for a particular subject over time. The data is based on mentions in prominent media and Google searches. You plug in a few search terms and Google displays a trending line to show the popularity of the topic and easily compare with other searches.
So here's a comparison between the search terms; Soul Cycle and Spin Class – with apologies for omitting the ® which isn't normally used in an article or search.
Through the wonders of technology, Google makes it possible for you to see and interact with the results.
Admittedly, I needed to try a few different search terms before I found this one that I feel most accurately reflects the impact SoulCycle has had on the popularity of Indoor Cycling. “Spinning” alone doesn't work as there are too many uses of the word that don't apply. I did try to add Flywheel into the mix, but there are very few mentions of searches.
Google's data only goes back to 2004 – it would make this more interesting if we could see back before then. The graph does show “Spin Class” as relatively flat until the first mention of SoulCycle in the fall of 2005. I'm not sure we can draw a direct correlation (but I'll try anyway) to the noticeable uptick around the time we launched ICI/PRO in the fall of 2009 and then again around the time of Bill's interview in 2010 🙂
Love them or hate them, SoulCycle has had (at least by this method) a hugely positive effect on the visibility of Indoor Cycling and small studios.
John, you absolutely need to interview this new customer of our's in Boston… she's only 25 years old and it sounds like her Indoor Cycling Studio is really doing well!
I was talking with Gina Perrault from MINDBODY Online last month, at their conference in LA. I had asked her if she knew of a studio owner with an interesting story to tell.
A few days later Gina connected me with Jessica Bashelor (now 26 – she had a birthday last week) and her Handle Bar Cycling Studio in South Boston.
Jess is The Handle Bar's owner and manager. She grew up a competitive swimmer and developed a love for fitness at an early age. Attending college at Northeastern University, Jess discovered her love for group exercise, specifically indoor cycling classes. Now, 7 years later, Boston is Jess' home and cycling is her passion. An avid music lover and listener, Jess is motivated by rhythm, calmed by acoustics, and touched by the lyrics of songwriters old and new. She opened The Handle Bar to offer classes with the intensity she craves, set to playlists composed with care. Jess rides to house music, hip hop, and heavy rock… Her classes are crafted to challenge riders physically, and inspire them to achieve greatness both on and off the bike.
If you're running or contemplating opening a new studio, Jessica shares some excellent ideas about understanding your customer demographic and connecting with them. Her studio's blog regularly features participants > a great way to make people feel valued and appreciated – not to mention they share these with all of their friends 🙂
You can listen below or find this episode + over 100 more on your portable device by
Studio owner Paul Harmeling joins me to discuss Full Psycle Indoor Cycling Studio that he owns with his two other partners (Shelly Scott & Kris Pennell) in Orange County, CA.
I observed two classes when I visited and was very impressed by the diversity of the participants in attendance; from a bunch of teenage girls to professional athletes. Fantastic!
Paul Harmeling is a Co-Founder, Instructor and the President of FULL PSYCLE. If the number of fights breaking out at front desks over admission to classes is correlated with popularity, Paul is one of Orange County’s most popular cycling instructors. With a genetic predisposition for group exercise gained from his mom Kathy, a prodigious aerobics and step instructor, and a life-long love of exercise and coaching, Paul made the move from the back of the cycling studio to the front in 2008. The upbeat, motivating music and intense, endless energy in Paul's class most resemble those commonly encountered at a Vegas pool party, with bikes and sports bras supplanting bottle service and bikinis. His class will take you to the brink of collapse and leave you in a state of euphoria. Paul has taught previously at Equinox and 24 Hour Fitness, and in 2012 was one of six instructors in Southern California selected to instruct at the Challenged Athletes Foundation’s Tour de Cove. Paul has a degree in Biology from UCSD and Masters Degrees in Engineering and Business from MIT and UC Irvine, respectively.
Studio details:
FULL PSYCLE 230 E 17th St., #100 Costa Mesa, CA 92627
Phone: (949) 631-2222 Email: info@fullpsycle.com
Indoor Cycles: Spinner® Blade Ion
In class display system of rider performance metrics: Performance IQ
Listen to Paul's interview below (Free or ICI/PRO Registration Required) — Click Here. Opens in a new tab.
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Teach to a full house of 50 riders and expect to receive $500.00 for your efforts.This isn't a typo – this outfit is planning to compensate Indoor Cycling Instructors up to $500.00 a class. Teach a regular schedule of 13 packed classes a week and you'll be interviewing stock brokers for ideas where you should invest your $300,000 annual compensation.
Want to work for Peloton Cycling? Check to see if they're hiring here.
To that end, Peloton has borrowed a lot from boutique studios and what riders are addicted to, starting with the charismatic instructor. “Instructors who can command an audience and have great fitness knowledge are arguably like actors, they should be paid as such. We’re tripling what the going rate is to work at a studio,” says Foley, adding that with this platform, Peloton teachers will become “global celebrities, capable of reaching thousands of riders at a time, instead of 50.” (We’re expecting defections any second now.) – I'm assuming they're referring to defections from SoulCycle & Flywheel – John
Peloton's goal here, as I see it, is to recruit the very best 10 Instructors… not just the 10 best Instructors in New York, but the 10 best Instructors from anywhere on the planet. $300k should be enough of an incentive to motivate just about anyone to pack their bags, move to a new gig and start teaching in the Big Apple.
How can they afford to pay Instructors so much?
The financial “Holy Grail” for Peloton is delivering on-demand classes to home users riding their new Peloton Indoor Cycles. This bike looks very cool/well designed and they recently raised over $300,000 using Kick Starter to fund the design and early production.
Created by John Foley, the former president of Barnes & Noble eCommerce, Peloton has built a sexy at-home bike that won’t look out of place in your high-design living room. It comes with a 22-inch tablet-like, touch-screen monitor that allows you to ride along with live classes at Peloton’s 50-bike studio in New York City (opening in Chelsea in the fall), or stream one on-demand.
So your potential class size is limited only by the number of those new cycles they sell.
I'm dying to learn more about all of this; the new Indoor Cycle, the technology, their plans for the Peloton Studio… everything. I'm working on getting a representative on the Podcast ASAP.
SoulCycle founders Elizabeth Cutler and Julie Rice
I'm really curious how you would respond; would you teach for SoulCycle?
But before you answer, imagine you had the following conversation at the end of your last class…
A women approaches while you're collecting your stuff.
“Hi [wlm_firstname].” “My name is Elizabeth Cutler and I really enjoyed your class tonight.”
You respond; “you're welcome Elizabeth.” “I enjoyed seeing your smile there in the back.”
Then she looks you square in the eye and asks a question that could change your life…
“I'm one of the founders of SoulCycle Indoor Cycling and we are opening a new studio near by, later this Spring.”
“Would you consider being one of our Instructors?”
Flabbergasted by her offer, you open your mouth to respond. But before any sounds come out she continues…
“I realize that you have a devoted following here [wlm_firstname] and I'll understand if you say no.
“Before you decide, I'd like to explain that our Instructors earn on average $50,000 per year, many considerably more, teaching 8 classes a week. We really want to keep you once we have you, so we offer a full benefit package that includes excellent health insurance.
Do you have any participants like this person, who sounds like she's traded one unhealthy addiction for another?
“I would do anything that I could to afford these rides,” says 27-year-old Jaime, who often takes thirteen classes a week (estimated cost: $21,632 per year). She’s arranged her schedule to have Mondays off work so that she can always be at her computer the moment classes are released. She counts her instructors among her closest friends. Her social life revolves around people she’s met at SoulCycle. On the anniversary of her father’s death, her instructor had the class ride to “Nessun Dorma” from Turandot, one of Jaime’s father’s favorite operas. “I’m seven years sober. You don’t really get love and acceptance and encouragement and self-gratification from a cocktail,” Jaime says. “I mean, I … this is what I need in my life, and it just so happened it’s an exercise class.”
Interesting how the founders of SoulCycle split along the lines of Indoor Cycling 2.0 – entertainment based vs. results driven classes.
But as much as the performative aspects keep riders coming back, they have also driven more serious athletes away, often into the open arms of Flywheel, where a metrics-based workout is coupled with more self-restraint. Though Ruth Zukerman declines to discuss her exit from SoulCycle, some chalk it up to a difference in instructor style. “It’s a slippery slope, because sometimes when you build these superstars, it kind of goes to their head and they become divas,” she says. “Yes, be entertaining, be inspiring, but at the end of the day, it’s about the rider. It’s not about you.”
Now I realize that there are many who would recoil in horror at the thought of being affiliated with SoulCycle…
But why?
They're clearly offering people a form of exercise they enjoy and are willing to pay big money to attend. Spend a few minutes looking at the Instructor bios and you'll see most have the same (if not better) credentials than many of the Instructors that I know personally.
John, you absolutely need to interview this new customer of our's in Boston… she's only 25 years old and it sounds like her Indoor Cycling Studio is really doing well!
