Find your inner power and financial freedom, with Felicia Alexander of TITLE Boxing Club

Speaker A: This episode of the Global Franchise Podcast is brought to you by Unleashed Brands, the world's first youth enrichment franchise platform, helping kids learn, play and grow. For more information about the platform and franchise opportunities under Unleashed, head over to UnleashedBrands.com. Welcome to the Global Franchise Podcast, bringing you timely conversations with the industry's most accomplished leaders. I'm Victoria Yordanova, staff writer for Global Franchise magazine.

Speaker B: Hitting a bag is unbelievably cathartic. So not only is there this, you know, mental release, but there really is a physical release. And I think, you know, the last thing I'd mention is, um, in addition to having really supportive and motivating, um, coaches, it's the community as well that's really taking what's traditionally an individual sport and creating this group class environment.

Speaker A: It's no secret that the past three years have presented fitness clubs with unseen challenges, requiring immense tenacity to power through. But one brand that has successfully come out the other side even stronger is Taito Boxing. As the leading authentic heavy back boxing club, Taito Boxing offers a workout designed to build your fitness, control your breathing and clear your mind. The brand has more than 145 locations and a proven franchise model that helps franchisees unleash their entrepreneurial spirit with a studio of their own. To find out more about the concept, we we decided to catch up with Felicia Alexander CRO of Box Union and Taito Boxing Club, whose love of fitness started at a very young age. Felicia was only 16 when her father suddenly died of a heart attack. Channeling her pain through training, Felicia put on the gloves, felt her inner power and felt her passion for boxing. Felicia went on to have a successful career as a sales and marketing executive for companies in the likes of some Sun Microsystems, Sony and Leaf Group. Together with her business partner Todd Wadler, they launched Box Union back in 2017. Now having been acquired by Box Union in early 2021, Taito Boxing has been heavily investing in infrastructure and the refinement of operations to support franchisees. Join us on this episode of the Global Franchise Podcast as Felicia talks about exploring a, uh, gap in the market, improving members experience, and most importantly, knocking out the mental health stigma.

Speaker B: My background is that I have been a fitness enthusiast all of my life. I grew up playing competitive soccer. I put on a pair of boxing gloves for the first time when I was 16 years old. My father had died suddenly of a heart attack. And in April of that year, and as soon as summer hit, I opened the yellow pages, I found a boxing studio, a boxing gym Actually that was about 45 minutes away from my home. I drove there and the moment I put on a pair of gloves, it was as if an alter ego had been unlocked. I felt a sense of strength that I didn't know that I had. And I truly felt like my inner badass had been unleashed. Hitting the heavy bag was truly cathartic. But I wasn't able to make fitness my career until much later in life. So I ended up spending the first 20 plus years of my life working in a variety of corporate sales and marketing positions for really large companies. My first employer was a company called Sun Microsystems. I worked for Mattel doing Barbie marketing. I worked for Sony Corporation for eight and a half years. But I knew that I would work in fitness at some point in time and I was really lucky in that. My business partner, Todd Wadler, who was a career investment banker, he was a founding partner of a firm called Mollus and Company, we met through our kids. His wife is one of my closest friends. We uh, went to the same boutique fitness studio, we shared the same personal trainer. He was looking to do something entrepreneurial. Having helped bank and advise so many entrepreneurs in building their businesses. He was being approached by many people asking to invest in different fitness companies. And together based on, you know, my personal connection to boxing, um, his deep analysis of uh, the fitness landscape and market and understanding that there was truly a white space when it came to boxing, that the data and the studies that we looked at showed that participation was skewing predominantly male, it was skewing older and we knew that those weren't the characteristics of the boutique fitness market. Yeah, we decided to open our first location called of uh, a brand we started called Box Union in Santa Monica, California in early 2017. And it really was this goal of making boxing more accessible and introducing people to the sport who would never have considered putting on gloves previously.

Speaker C: And uh, can you tell us what makes your workout so special and essential for clients? Mental and physical fitness.

Speaker B: Just kind of going back, we um, had our box union clubs. We still have three box unions and we were really lucky and excited about the opportunity to purchase Title Boxing Club in January of 2021. So across, you know, our 130 plus clubs, um, what makes our workouts special and essential for clients? Mental and physical health is one, it's a skill based workout.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: And we're taking people on a journey. We've built this 52 week curriculum, um, where there is a progression. So every week there's a different focus of the week where we're teaching a skill, and that skill is being reinforced. Each day that a boxer comes to class, there's also a different combination of the day. So there's a North Star in each class that allows the boxer to feel a sense of accomplishment. Because of the fact that we're building up and breaking down a combination throughout the class, we're able to get people into a flow state where truly there's nothing else that one can be thinking about during that moment. Hitting a bag is unbelievably cathartic. So not only is there this, you know, mental release, but there really is a physical release. And I think, you know, the last thing I'd mention, um, in addition to having really supportive and motivating, um, coaches, it's the community as well that's really taking what's traditionally an individual sport and creating this group class environment.

Speaker C: You mentioned this yourself. Um, you know firsthand what the positive impact of physical activity is on, uh, positive mental health. And the link is undeniable. And Taito Boxing recognizes this through its annual, uh, Knockout Stigma campaign. Uh, so can you tell us more about this initiative and what difference have you made so far?

Speaker B: Absolutely. So mental health has always been important to us. It's something that I deal with personally. Many of our coaches and members do, too.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: Anxiety and depression are a lot more common today, and people are a lot more open about their struggles. We've partnered with a organization called Bring Change to Mind that helps raise awareness and encourage the dialogue around mental health on high school campuses throughout the world. And really, their mission and goal is to help eliminate the stigma around mental health.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: So for the past two years, we have, within the title boxing club system, hosted, um, what we call Knockout Stigma Day. And really, although the day culminates, um, in May, mental health and talking about the benefits that boxing has on anxiety and stress relief is something that we preach, you know, every day of the year. But with Knockout Stigma Day, we're really able to bring and spotlight mental health, get our community involved by sharing their stories and, and give our clubs the opportunity to help raise money for an organization that is definitely having a big impact on how the next generation thinks, feels, and speaks about mental health. So it's been wildly received. Um, the vast majority of our system is already talking about their plans for this year's Knockout Stigma Day and what they're going to do to top their fundraising goals from last year and the amazing partners that they're going to bring to make that day even more special.

Speaker C: And, uh, it's Just great to see how much uh, awareness title boxing, uh, brings around mental health.

Speaker A: But the past two years have also

Speaker C: been extremely difficult because of the pandemic and the stress the pandemic put on so many clubs. And what is the biggest transformation Taito boxing had to go through to survive?

Speaker B: Well, I think there was a lot of transformation. I mean, first of all, our franchise partners had to transition to a new ownership group and that really required a level of trust. One of our core values is to stay true to your word as well as challenge the status quo. And those are two things that we did with when we took over ownership of the company. We've made unbelievable strides within the system. They have seen um us put our investment dollars into enhancing their internal systems and ultimately, um, enabling them to deliver an even better experience within their four walls. In terms of the other, you know, pressures, there were a lot of financial pressures and depending upon negotiation with landlords, um, that really dictated the, you know, struggles that franchise partners face. You know, people who had landlords that were more accommodating tended to fare a lot better than those who were forced to continue to pay rent or a large portion of rent.

Speaker C: And uh, as you mentioned, you've been heavily investing in infrastructure and the refinement of operations, uh, to support franchisees. So uh, how have you improved franchise profitability, but also how have you improved member experience?

Speaker B: Yeah, no, I'd love to talk about that. And just going back to your last question, one other thing I wanted to mention is though depending upon the market and how long clubs were closed, it also felt um, in some markets as if you were starting from scratch. And that could have meant hiring an entirely new team as well as having to build a membership base from scratch or close to scratch because people's behaviors changed, people moved, life circumstances changed, people had babies, et cetera. In terms of your question regarding the infrastructure, we have made a tremendous amount of investments in refining the operations to support the um strong unit economics for our franchise partners. We've done everything from bring in a learning management system to reinforce the culture of learning and development that we believe wholeheartedly in. We have introduced a UM profitability tracker to provide more transparencies between our franchise business consultants and our franchise partners to be able to provide um, better strategic recommendations. As I mentioned, we've revamped the product experience inside the clubs. We've developed this 52 week curriculum. We, we're really focused on um, this boxer journey. So our clubs, every month they receive the programming for the month. They understand what the focuses are each week they receive the combos of each day. They receive videos on how to talk and teach these skills within their clubs. And we also, on our member Facing app, have the focus of the week highlighted with videos. So when you're going to book a class, you can see what the focus of the week is. You can watch one of our master coaches explain and demonstrate it. We have introduced new class types to, um, diversify the offering. While keeping boxing fitness core to our offering, um, we've also introduced better data and analytics tools so that we can diagnose and assist our franchise partners with, um, where in the lead process there might be opportunities for more coaching. So instead of simply being able to see the number of leads generated and the number of memberships sold, um, we're enabling them to see what the industry calls laser. So how many leads they're getting, how many of those leads are booking into a class, how many of those people that book into a class show up, how many of those people who show up enroll and the retention, in terms of the success, it's been wonderful in that we've seen a number of our franchise partners raise their hand and let us know that they want to grow with us. You know, some is in the form of taking over existing clubs to consolidate ownership in the market and some in the signing of, you know, new agreements that they hadn't originally intended to sign. We've also hosted our first brand conference for our franchise partners and, um, we do work with external parties like Franchise Business Review to measure franchise partner satisfaction with. We surveyed the system right when we came in as the new owners and then again, um, this past winter and we saw the score almost double. So we're really confident that what we're doing is being incredibly well received and having the impact that we would hope.

Speaker C: And it just sounds like you're going from strength to strength. And what's even more exciting is that last year you even signed your first international deal, uh, which will see your presence in nine countries. So can you tell us how is this going at the moment and what priorities do you have currently for 2023?

Speaker B: Yeah, it's going incredibly well. We're super excited about our partnership with Hearst. We are going to continue to unlock international opportunities, um, support our partners in Asia, um, work with our existing franchise partners to continue to increase AUVs and also work on growing brand awareness and ultimately, um, lead generation to our clubs

Speaker C: and, uh, Asia specifically has seen a significant growth of the health and fitness market.

Speaker A: So can you tell us what makes

Speaker C: the Title boxing concept so appealing to the Asian market.

Speaker B: I mean, boxing and related combat sports are part of the culture in many international markets. So, you know, we always felt that executing on an international strategy would be critical to our growth aspirations. You know, the opportunity is these markets aren't yet as sophisticated as the US market when it comes to the, uh, offerings for boutique studios. And there really is an appetite for class based workouts in these markets. So we feel that, um, with the power of the title brand, the role that martial arts, um, and combat sports plays in these markets that it was ripe for us to enter.

Speaker C: And uh, this kind of leads me to my final question. Uh, what advice do you have, uh, for anyone who is considering joining the title boxing family?

Speaker B: First of all, my advice would be that it's probably one of the best decisions somebody could make because, um, this is an incredibly rewarding business in ways that I've never experienced in my other corporate endeavors. And that is really the opportunity to create a passionate community and transform people's lives. To this day, I could well up thinking about the, uh, you know, direct messages I receive or the emails from people talking about the impact that, um, their experience at our clubs has had on their personal life. I would say that anyone considering joining our franchise, um, really needs to be, you know, passionate about the what and the why. This isn't a complex business. You know, there's very few levers to this business. But I would say, you know, it's not an easy business. You know, this is something where we're open for the most part 365 days a year. There's early morning classes, there's late evening classes. Um, I think it's important to assess, you know, your skill set and experience and understand that while fitness is, you know, our product, this is also a membership business. So having sales and marketing prowess is incredibly important. I would encourage people to, you know, do their homework, um, understand the costs and really have a plan for how they would bring our operating system and the tools and the brand that we provide to life, you know, given their skills and their specific market. But again, I can't highlight enough what a tremendous pleasure and privilege it is to be able to impact people the way that we do.

Speaker C: Thank you, Felicia for the insightful conversation and thank you for joining us on the global franchise podcast. And we just look forward to what's next for title boxing.

Speaker B: Well, thank, thank you very much for having me. And if anyone wants to learn more information, they can find me. Alisha Alexander on LinkedIn.

Speaker A: It looks like Taito Boxing is showing no signs of slowing down and is continuing to unlock its international growth potential. But the brand is doing so much more than empowering people on their fitness journey. It's helping them unleash their inner power while becoming the strongest version of themselves both mentally and physically. It was really empowering to hear Felicia's personal story and how she found a sense of strength through boxing that she never knew she had. Now we'd be interested to hear more about your own company mission and how your brand is helping knock out the mental health stigma. Make sure to let us know.

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