Welcome back to the Owner's Seat podcast where we talk about what's actually happening in fitness, wellness, recovery and longevity and what it means for growth, margins and survival.

Today's guest is Bob Thomas and this conversation matters because the fitness industry is colliding with medicine in real time.

You got to think about it.

GLP1s peptides, hormone optimization, telehealth and outcome based longevity are no longer future talk.

You know this, they're here, they're here now.

And operators are either building their bridge or getting disrupted by it.

Bob's the CEO and founder of NextGen MD Scientific, a wholesale supplier serving healthcare providers with hormone solutions built around quality control, compliance and trust including a DEA compliant facility and rigorous standards.

You gotta check it out.

He's also behind NextGem ND360, a doctor supervised weight management program coordinating with clinics across the US built around medication, nutrition, education.

You got to think about the whole ecosystem in this world and I love it.

They're doing it.

Bob isn't new to building in hard environments.

He's a 40 plus year fitness operator.

We call him the Vet.

You know him, he's the founder of a west coast club chain in the.

He's a 90s and you've heard of this name.

He's also helped lead lifetime lifetimes growth.

You probably recognize the background lifetimes growth plan from six clubs to over 120 locations in the sales, revenue and operation world as their executive.

So good.

So today we're going direct and operator grade and talking about what's real in GLP1s peptides and HRT and what's going on in that world.

The supply chain behind longevity meds, the quality, compliance, fulfillment.

This isn't easy.

Bob will tell you why gyms are becoming longevity centers and what business models actually work.

My favorite, we're going to tap on that quite a bit.

How to partner with medicine without torching trust, margin or your brand.

And finally the coming wave.

You've seen the injections, the pills are coming, the GLP1 pills, hyper personalization and what that does to acquisition and retention.

Your dues Tap Bob.

I know that was a lot but you're up to some amazing things.

Welcome to the owner seat podcast, sir.

Thanks Albert.

Pleasure.

Thanks for having me on your podcast.

This is great.

Go ahead.

Oh, people are going to love this because we're seeing it everywhere.

We see it on the ads.

I'm looking at one right now.

They just had a pickleball match.

But in between time we're seeing some GLP1s peptides are just all over.

We got a couple of docs that are active on LinkedIn.

You, you've promoted some, like Arvin, amazing.

I love, I love Doc.

He's doing some great work, great education, by the way.

But you're, you're just, you got your hands everywhere and you're really supporting this revolution that's occurring.

And you have over, like I mentioned, over 40 years of experience looking at fitness trends.

What makes this different?

Yeah, you know, great question.

I would say this is going to be the biggest revolution that's happened in the fitness industry because, you know, we've gone through, you know, 40 years of different types of, you know, products that have been introduced to our, to our ecosystem.

Right.

So, you know, in the case, you had group fix coming in, you had, you know, and you had, you know, racquetball in the 70s, you had, you know, in the 90s, you had the gyms coming on.

So you had World Gyms, Gold gyms, Powerhouse gyms.

You had the whole gym thing going.

And then you go into the, you got lifetime fitness with the full service, the whole family system.

And then the 2000s, you had the boutiques come on.

Right, the two.

And going forward, well, now we have actually medicine and fitness that have actually collided, that we can actually have a place with the medical industry.

There was never an opportunity before because we tried really hard to put wellness programs together and support it with wellness, but we could never really get the medical side 100% engaged now with these drugs, with the peptides and the GLP1s, with all the different, you know, outcomes that they have, you know, to help support, you know, pre diabetic, diabetic, you know, heart, you know, overall healthy, you know, rejuvenating your organs with peptides and, you know, and it's all natural.

So that's the beauty of what we're actually now on the forefront.

And it's so new.

I mean, you know, fortunately, I started this four years ago.

Now we're four years into it and we got some exciting stuff.

But I'll let you go take on Albert.

Go ahead.

Well, ahead.

You're ahead of the curve.

And I'm telling you, if, for those listening as a consumer, if you, if you haven't heard about any of this, I'm going to say this respectfully.

You've been living under a rock because it's everywhere and it's actually generating some great results.

A ton of science behind it, right.

And then a lot of education around safety and doing it.

Right.

But from A business owner lens.

That's where I'm finding that there's still a little bit of a disconnect.

Right.

This is the owner seat podcast.

So a lot of owners like to watch this, Bob.

And so before we go into unit economics and how, how do you, how do you build this out?

I'd love to just get into your experience because you've been around the block and I say that in a really good way.

You've been very successful in your career.

I mean, everyone I chat with knows you.

I think I was talking to, you know, Kathleen Ferguson.

So she's like, he's the Godfather.

He's the Godfather.

I'm like, he is.

I know.

I love it.

So when you think back at lifetime six clubs to 120, I mean, you probably learned something, a little something in partnership with BA and that crew on execution.

Then even around scaling, like, do you see any issues going on still in the industry where people are just not moving past that wall around scaling, you know, bigger portfolio maybe?

Yeah.

You know, the one thing we've been really focused on in the last four years, I've really been conservative on how I've scaled the organization.

And you hit some really good points about Lifetime Fitness.

That was one of the beautiful things.

You worked with us at Lifetime, with me at Lifetime Fitness.

So you understand how much we scaled and how it took place.

Well, I've really kind of taken that model the same way.

And prior to that, I scaled my own organization.

But when we got, I got with Bram, you know, that was, that was Bohemia.

Right?

I mean, we had, we were able to, you know, finance a lot of good projects that most organizations couldn't.

And he had so much of foresight and an innovator of seeing what the industry was going to be like and to be able to fill those gaps.

I took, you know, that playbook and that's what life, that's what NextGen is.

I've really built all the verticals.

So we have every vertical.

We have the wholesale license, we have the GPO license, so we can supply.

We own the whole supply chain.

We have the pharmacies, we have the storefronts.

So you can be nimble.

We white label that.

We have the CRM that we built.

It's a multi tenant CRM so I can partner with gyms and we do rev share.

So each gym gets its own CRM and we market all day long to that.

So with all these different verticals I've built, we are scaling now.

I mean, it's amazing.

We Just had our whole team and you know, in the middle of December and we, you know, we spitballed our, we do have blackboards.

Right.

So we spitballed everything and put everything in our company objectives and it's amazing how we've been able to really just have all our verticals now.

So we're a full service and now we're going to do clinics.

So that's the next step in our journey.

I love it.

I love the ecosystem play.

You're right, that's very familiar.

But, and the thing is, this is not an easy thing.

As you learn at Lifetime and now in the longevity space, in the healthcare space, it's not easy to do because there's a lot of work you have to do, including on the compliance side, but even more importantly, the people.

You got to find the right people.

So I've had an opportunity to meet some of your team members and I was just blown away on how I, I'm telling you, they're walking around with Peptide Bios.

I'm like, you got me hooked.

Like, give me that one, I want that one.

And so Matt and the entire team, they're just doing a tremendous job.

So applause to you, sir, because you can't do it by yourself.

And I think that's probably something you've learned along the way is you got to find the best people.

Yeah.

Casting is so important.

And the beautiful thing about that is all our team members are second and third generation team members that have worked with me over the last 40 years.

So their parents, the grandparents and now them.

Now the team is now that second and third generation.

So it's.

So it's been really great because, you know, you wake up every day and we, you know, we introduce these things to the team and you know, they got the big eyes, they go, oh my God, let's tackle this thing, let's go at it.

So, you know, it's, it's really great to have the great team that we have and be able to scale because they've seen their parents and their grandparents scale over the years.

Whether it was Lifetime Fitness or in my former companies, I've had.

So it's been a blessing for sure.

That's so cool.

You guys are digging in and leaving a legacy.

I love it, especially with this.

This is going to leave a legacy.

Now you've been in other industries actually since Lifetime when you, what really, what popped?

What was that pivot point?

What was the inflection point where you said GLPs?

There's something here right this this, this preventative care.

You saw something.

What was it?

Because you've been successful in other industries and we won't, we don't need to go that route.

Like to look at what you saw and how did you know, hey, this is something I need to spend time in, maybe even spend some capital in.

What was it that.

That attracted you to it?

Yeah, I'll go to the aha moment, right?

So let me go back.

I'll.

I don't want to digress too far, but I'll go back 40 years when I got into the industry.

And, you know, it kind of goes back to that when I would sell memberships, when I got on the front line, you know, I'd sell memberships and, you know, lady or a male would come in.

Men would come in and they would say, oh, this looks great, a two arm.

I'd get them all ready to sign up and they go, I got to go talk to my doctor.

And I was so naive and gullible at the time.

I said, oh, yeah, go talk to your doctor.

That's great.

I'd never see him again.

Then I'd call them up 10 or 15 times, and then they'd finally answer the phone and say, my doctor said, you guys are crazy and it's not good for you and stay away from that place.

And they do is give me prescriptions.

Right.

So from that day on, I always looked at how do we make the.

How do we get the medical industry and the fitness industry together?

So over the 40 years we put together, like I mentioned earlier, is wellness programs and corporate wellness programs and subsidy programs and everything we could, but we could never really get to the, the medical side of it.

And, you know, four years ago, a friend of mine, another gym partner of mine, came to me with the GLP1, and I've told you this story before, introduced me to the GLP1, and I didn't like the weight loss business.

I, you know, I, and I've shared this a lot with other podcasts as well, is that it was a corrupt business.

It was all amphetamine driven and it was counterintuitive.

The way we believe in, right.

You come to our gyms, we build you a great experience.

We, we support you with a lot of support teams, you know, nutritionists, trainers, design programs for you.

We really, and we, you know, in the lifetime fitness, we put cafes in there.

So it was all healthy food.

We had spas.

So we can, you know, get recovery.

You know, we were really the first ones to integrate recovery.

Yeah.

To the fitness industry through Lifetime Fitness.

Now they're full fledged longevity in recovery clinics.

But long story short, when I was introduced to this it kind of was aha mom.

That once I got through the science of it and seeing it didn't affect the cardiac system and it wasn't injury driven and that, you know, it took a lot for me to understand the science because there wasn't a lot out there at the time.

It was a diabetic drug that just got FDA approved.

Like the month that got FDA approved I got introduced to it.

So I really dug in for 90 days, me and my team and we tried to get as much information as possible.

So we developed a full strategy after that and that's how you know, next gen really that was aha moment I seen that this was a place and it was really for the trainers I looked at coming out of COVID you know, we got, you know, we got destroyed in the fitness industry with, with trainers and we lost a whole career, career group.

And that's where Kathleen, you know, where I really enjoy her company is that she fills that gap, you know, with Coach360 and she's been a real good partner of mine.

As we've been going along with the GLP1 and getting trainers really trained in on what does, how can we service our members, how can we integrate this?

Because you know, let's say a year and a half ago they'd have trainers, they wouldn't Even ask about GLP1 and the customer was embarrassed to even talk about it.

Now it's mainstream now they, now we're building programming around it and education around it.

So it's come a long way real fast.

It's so good.

Yeah.

And I'm seeing the, it's, it's kind of like not, not that it's even anywhere, you know how passionate I am about AI.

Not that they're anywhere near each other.

However, it's very similar to that.

It's, it's a new.

Something new.

It's changed.

Right.

And the adoption rate had, it was slow at first.

And now on the consumer side I'm seeing the adoption of GLPs and peptides.

I mean now we're talking about it like which one are you on?

Like I want to, I want to be on that.

You look great, you feel, you're feeling great.

What are you taking?

You know, and so that's exciting.

Where I'm finding still an adoption gap, however, is the operator, the owner and many people listening to this are franchise owners, franchisors, Right.

Studio, fitness, wellness owners.

What are you hearing out there when there seems to be still a lot of emotion when it comes to GLPs?

And it's almost like a 50, 50, 50% because they're reading, you know, they're listening to Tia or Huberman or listening to some of your podcasts that you're on.

They're, they're catching on.

They say, hey, it's great science and you build, you know, a great program around it.

I love what you're talking about around the trainer side, the fitness professional.

But then there's the other 50% that's still like, we're not touching that thing.

That is not hitting our community.

That's not hitting our gym or our studio.

What do you think it is?

What's, where's the fear?

Is it just the lack of education?

What do you, what do you think it is?

Well, there's a couple of things I would state financially.

It's the first part.

I would say the barrier of entry to get in, to build a clinic, inside a gym, inside a fitness facility is costly.

I mean, it can cost up to a million dollars.

Right now you got to build the infrastructure now you got to build all the verticals that I, that I built over the last four years to be able to service the customer because it is a drug.

I mean, you're dealing in medical.

So I mean, there's called, there's what's called EMRs.

So we built our own EMR, we built our own technology.

So, you know, everything's gotta be HIPAA compliant.

I mean, like you talked earlier about compliance.

We are compliant.

We, we are heavily in the compliance arena.

And we, we have the best legal that that is out there in the medical field.

We have the best technology developers that have built the best emr.

Everything we own is on a HIPAA compliant platform.

And these are things I had to really look at for about a year and a half.

I mean, literally I did.

And we've talked about this.

You know, my journey.

I mean, it took me a year and learn what, you know, all the, you know, medical side of it.

And then to get a doctor that has all 50 state licenses, that's another part.

Where do you find that?

Well, I got blessed.

My chief medical director.

We have all 50 state licenses, so we have that as a plus.

So we're able to operate in every state in the United States.

So if it's a club MSO that has clubs all over, you know, in every market now, you got to have that oversight and then you have to have the clearance and then you have to have the pharmacies and all the different things that take place out that, you know, to build all that, that costs millions of dollars in capital.

So that wall is there, but then the other side of the wall.

Let me go to the other side.

The other side is the train side.

There's still 50% of trainers that are totally against it.

I mean they're just, they, they, they haven't got, been able to get their arms wrapped around it and really settle in and say, all right, wait a minute, I know seven out of my 10 clients are on it anyhow.

I mean it's a fact.

I mean, and I'm not overstating that.

I mean 7 out of 10 people are on some sort of GLP1 whether it, I mean it's brand new, the pill, but they're doing some kind of a shot, whether it be semi glutide or tirzepatide.

They just are.

And people, you know, the consumers are a little bit embarrassed to, they don't want to, you know, come clean as well saying, oh, I'm having this drug and it's, it's helping me.

But you know, but the trainers on the other side have to start uncovering and they have to start building training protocols that are around that as well so they can actually service their customer.

Actually the actual trainers are kind of a little bit 50, 50, like you're saying, 50 are saying I'm not there yet.

50% are, I'd say 25%, I'm all in.

And then the other 25% are saying I'm on the fence.

What I love about what you all do, especially in the vertical of next gen MD360, a big shout outs to your team again is there's a lot of education.

I get the sms, I get the emails and I'm reading them all by the way, including some of those deals which I'm taking advantage of.

So disclaimer.

I am, I am a client.

But it's great.

I mean you all, you have like top of the line.

I've compared, I've done my homework Summer and so that's really cool but the, the part I really enjoy and I remember going through an actual live, you know, well, virtual but live consultation and talking about my workout program, talking about my protein because that's important too.

And I, and I think that's, that truly is how you should do this.

Right when it's there is this weight loss journey but you want to make sure maybe you can chat about that is there's this misconception that regardless of what you do, you're going to just burn muscle.

And I'm talking, you're not, not eating the right things.

You're not moving or lifting the right things.

Can you walk through?

People start to get more inclined to jump into GLPs because they're looking to lose some weight.

And, and sometimes it's not even the weight.

They don't want to drink anymore.

They want to improve some of their other biomarkers and blood labs.

But can you walk through again how, how your organization actually supports on the things that allow for lean muscle as far as keeping it right and just feeling great while you're on this.

Yeah, good points because those are so important.

And we started the journey with myself.

I think, you know, my journey, I mean, I went and gained a bunch of weight and I wanted to make sure that this drug that I was going to get involved in was the right thing for a consumer because it was so new.

So I actually, you know, gained a bunch of weight and then I got on, you know, the semi glutide originally and lost, you know, 30 pounds.

But I seen myself lose a lot of lean muscle tissue.

And there wasn't a lot of information out there because it was a diabetic drug.

It just became right, legal.

So I had actually really started doing a lot more research about lean muscle tissue loss.

And so we started right from the beginning as a whole protein, you know, stack that, you know, and you know, we, we built our own cookbook.

So we have a cookbook and we have our own guide.

I used it.

Yeah, yeah, we have our own 30 day guide that, you know, what you should be eating, you know, breakfast, lunch and dinner, how much protein?

You know, you really need a one to one and a half grams of protein for body weight.

You need to drink at least 100, 100 ounces of water every day.

There are some side effects with semi glut.

Not as much.

Then after about three, four months, after I lost about 30 pounds, I got on tirzepatide, which is just your brand, Manjaro.

And then I started losing less lean muscle tissue.

But that first 30, I, I was scared.

I really become apparent that something's this is going too fast.

I was losing weight, lean muscle tissue.

So that really sparked the whole journey of us saying, all right, no, let's now let's put all these things in place.

We got, we brought on DOT Fit as our, our nutritional partners.

So we, they actually built, you know, they're all in one and their whey protein is part of our system.

So you get that when you get involved with us.

You got your protein, you have your, you know, your diet, your, your, your medication.

But then again you have help along the way because you know we have the manual too.

So you have all.

And the cookbook, so you actually have that reinforcement and those guides that can help you where being in the fitness industry.

You know, we bring you back into the gym too.

So once you sign up and we're partners in a, in one of our partnerships, one of our, with one of our gym partners, we bring you back in and then the trainers take over and they design a training protocol for you so you don't lose the lean muscle tissue.

So Gerald didn't, didn't lose as much.

And that's because it's a 2 hormone, the stable hormone which is the semi glutide.

You do lose, you know, rapidly your lean muscle tissue where tirzepatide is a 2 hormone, where retrutite is 3.

So that's a whole different.

And I don't even want to get into that conversation because there's so much science on that.

I don't want to confuse people right now.

But let's stated the two.

But yeah, you get my point.

No, you, you all have a great differentiator, right?

You're building a lifestyle out of this.

This isn't just a medication only type of approach.

This is a lifestyle approach.

And it's funny, you know, as I was experimenting trying to figure out, you know, which one has less side effects.

I love the tirzepatide as well.

And I actually had a.

Because I was really curious about the science, the slowing of the gastric emptying.

I'm like that's cool.

Okay, I like that.

And then also what's going on with insulin and your, in your pancreas and the blood sugar.

So I was like, let me put this to the test.

I had a colleague who sells the, the, the what do you put on your those?

I want to say CRM, but they're not CRMs, the CGS, CGMs.

Right.

So I put a CGM on.

Yeah.

And well actually prior to that.

No, no, I put the CGM on and, and I ate a snow cone.

I'm at a T ball game.

I coach my son.

So like either getting, they're getting snow cones.

I'm like, you know what, let's put this to the test, right?

It's on my phone and I eat the snow cone And I'm.

I kid you not.

I mean, I swear my blood sugar, like that.

Oh, it's.

It's just full of.

It's just all sugar.

Y' all quit eating it.

It's terrible for you.

But it went up to, like, 300.

I'm like, holy smokes, this stuff is powerful.

No wonder my kids are just out of whack when I give it to them.

Okay, so then I get on the tirzepatide.

I'm gonna try this again.

So I throw it back on, go to that same snow cone.

Little.

You know, it's like a little trailer they do on the fields.

Grab it.

It would not pass 99.

I'm like, this stuff is powerful, man, because it's not just the blood sugar.

It's the level of your blood sugar that then's telling you your brain, there's no insulin secretion, right?

And so when you in.

When you secrete this insulin, you're storing in your fat cells, and that's what's causing weight gain.

So for those listening, go do the research and see why this is so powerful, why it has ad after ad, and why this is going to be huge, as we're mentioning revolution and when you couple it with great programming and protein and movement.

And we're not even talking about the.

You know, atia's Four Deadly Horsemen.

He talks about the Four Deadly Horsemen in his book Outlive.

And this is actually preventing or even postponing some of those things because you're not drinking, you're not eating certain foods you don't want to.

That's the thing.

I look at alcohol like it's like oil, man.

I don't know what happened, but I'll keep injecting this because I don't need any of that stuff.

Isn't that crazy about the alcohol?

Because same here.

I can't drink beer no more.

I mean, literally doesn't taste good.

Two or three beers a day and, you know, three days a week.

But now I can't taste it.

I only like the taste.

I don't like alcohol.

I mean, it's just.

It's really.

There's so many things that this really.

Those side effects, let's just say, but they're real.

They're good side effects.

So, you know, and like you said, the glycogen and your glucose, it really manages it extremely well.

And then, yo, like you said, it turns your noise off on your brain for being hungry.

But you do have to eat.

I mean, that's the one thing that Really, I want to really put a, put a asterisk on it.

You know, people really have to watch themselves.

And you got to follow a diet that's actually protein driven and you got to eat the three meals a day and you got to force yourself, but don't overeat.

Just, you know, proportionate to what your grams of protein are.

So you're getting that, that amount of protein as well.

Good.

Well, moving on to peptides, that's another wave that is really exciting.

And there seems to be a lot more variety there depending on, you know, what you're needing.

Whether it's like some type of a collagen hit or feeling more energized or better, sleep, growth hormone.

I mean, you name it.

There's a ton of peptides out there.

What, what do you think's going on there?

It seems like there, the demand for that, the education's there.

Although there seems to also be tension on social media and the Internet around like, what's real, what's not.

Is it truly something that you naturally secret and you're just kind of enhancing that.

Can you share a little bit more about what you learned on the peptide side?

Yeah, you know, it's.

I'll go back also to when I lost the weight too.

I got.

When I went through the semi glutide experiment, you know, series for the three months I told you, I lost a lot of lean muscle juice.

And I ran into a friend of mine that I had seen in years and I told him what was happening and he shared with me, you heard about this MAT C?

I said, I don't know what you're talking about.

He goes, do me a favor, just go back to your pharmacy, tell them to make you matzi, and you're gonna be blown away what it does for you.

So I went back to my pharmacist and he gave me some of the science.

And what it does is it takes the place of the secondary part of this semi glutide or the manjaro terse appetite where it turns your noise off.

You drill down a little bit to turn the noise off, but then you take the MA c as well.

And the MA C, what it does, it speeds up your metabolism, which creates lean muscle tissue.

So I started on that and I'm telling you, it was amazing.

And that was the first introduction to peptides.

I didn't know.

I knew that GLP1 was a peptide, but I didn't know anything after that.

Then once I got in there and said, whoa, wait a minute, this is even crazier.

That got me on the journey of the peptides.

I mean, literally, we went into, I brought on most of the guys or team members.

I have the Doctors and the PhDs that we have at NextGen.

We brought in some great, you know, brilliant, you know, research folks that are brilliant PhDs.

And they really were the original groups that started in the peptide business 25 years ago, but doing all the research for it.

So they really got us up to me up to speed and next gen up to speed.

And so we still, we started really researching the blends and what each individual peptide performs and how it performs and how it really enhances, you know, the experience that you have.

And peptide is a natural.

Your body produces.

It's an amino acid.

So I mean, it's part of your protein amino acid, and your body produces.

But what happens is as you ate, you fall off a cliff, right?

So the whole idea is to really support your journey and to keep the, keep your, you know, your cells, your repair cells, you know, current.

And so you're not losing lean muscle tissue, which, you know, overall, the, the one thing you got to be careful is I want to really focus, you know, put an asterisk on this as well as you don't want to lose so much weight because what happens, you lose too much weight, you go into sarcopenia.

But when you go into sarcopenia, you're really going to, you're going to be sicker than you are when you were obese.

Because now you're losing lean muscle tissue, which means you're losing bone density, which means now you're opening yourself up to infection.

And all kinds of different things that can happen aren't good for you as well.

But the peptides, back to the peptides.

These peptides are amazing because in your journey, instead of being on a program for three to four to six months, now you have a lifestyle now you can have cell regenerative regeneration.

And that's the whole idea is what's your lifespan look like?

What is, what does your lifespan look like?

And how are you, you know, and I, you know, I went through a health scare this year.

And I can say that fortunately, I would say if I wasn't on the peptides, I can't prove it, but if I wasn't on it, I think it would have been more catastrophic.

And I was able to rebound.

I was supposed to, I was supposed to be in the hospital for four to six days.

I was out in 36 hours.

I was supposed to be in recovery for four to six weeks.

I was on the Katy Trail.

I live downtown Dallas.

I was on the Katy Trail in three days, walking three miles.

I got colon cancer.

Oh my goodness, Bob, you had no clue.

Yeah.

And so I had.

They get six inches of my colon cut out.

Wow.

Yeah.

It was right after the hs, the Ursa Convention went in.

They did the procedure.

I was supposed to be in the hospital, like I said, for four to six days.

I was out in 36 hours.

The doctors never had seen nothing like it.

When the pathology report came back, they had cut six inches out of my colon and got the mass out and they actually pathology and it was stage zero.

So, I mean, I didn't have to have any chemo, I didn't have to have any radiation.

But I can tell you believe that if I wasn't on the peptides for two years, that it.

That it would not have happened on the recovery side of it.

So that's Peptides and Warrior blood, man.

Yeah.

Right.

Thank God you're okay.

I had no idea.

I mean, you're.

You seem like I just saw you the other day.

Everything's normal.

And yeah, there's a show when you're trying to take care of yourself.

It's great.

Yeah.

And I think coming from the background we come from too, you know, we've been in the health space for so long and we made sure that we weren't, you know, that.

That we've taken care of ourselves too.

But.

Yeah, but I can tell you stuff.

I can't prove it, like I said, but full disclosure, I can tell you this.

The doctors were amazed, the nurses were amazed, and they were blown away.

So fortunately, I've been on these peptides and even today, I mean, I do stem cells now as well because we're involved in the stem cell space as well.

I can't wait till that becomes a little bit more, I would say, more mainstream and affordable.

But I've actually read a couple books here recently and it's just.

It's amazing what's already available out there.

Yeah.

And I'm on the.

I'm on the balls of my feet now.

I mean, literally, I had a little sciatic too, that I was dealing with, you know, for a few years.

And I got on the stem cells and gone.

I mean completely.

I need that in my neck.

Too many football.

Too many football hits.

I'm just constantly.

Yeah.

Crying.

I was on the.

I was in a.

On a flight.

I was telling you earlier, coming from California, and I'm just on the fly.

I'm just in massive pain like because I just can't get my neck right and I'm like, I just need, can someone just go in there and just like carve it all out?

But it's.

I need stem cells.

Yeah, I need something.

Too many.

Too many folks.

It's my mind.

Yeah, it blows my mind.

What we have at our disposal now that we, and that's the one thing with NextGen what we've really been doing is really focusing on what is those next things, what's that journey look like?

Instead of a six month program, we really are building out a lifestyle of 54 to 60 months that we can manage.

You know, we can manage your path.

I mean we're not doctors, we're really a marketing company.

But our team, you know, my chief medical director, you know, he writes all the protocols and we have an, we have Dr. Ian Ellis as well as.

He's part of our team now.

He's a brilliant, you know, physician as well.

He's, he's part of, he's, he's really defining the dosing scheduling on how you actually.

The protocols for all the different drugs.

And we, we actually are working on a, and this is all technology stuff we built too of dosing.

So we have actually a platform that we, we're gonna launch here in the next two months.

It'll be live where you'll actually track you every day and you'll be able to see a dose and it's all, and he built it so it's all physician built.

It's all, you know, signed off by a physician.

So you're actually getting something from, you know, that's what we need crazy stuff on.

Like you said on the Internet you get all this stuff going on where we really don't focus, we don't do research only by the way, I don't, I don't, I didn't, I've never played in that space.

Research only is, you know, you don't know where it's coming from.

The one thing we did early on is we got our, our wholesale license.

So we actually know where all the API, which is the active pharmaceutical ingredients is coming from.

We have the chain of custody.

It goes to our pharmacies, our pharmacies.

Compounded, it's all tested, it's all coded.

Everything we, that we are involved in.

Is all this is where operators get in trouble.

And I'd love to, I can't wait to get into the supply chain because that is so important and I think supply chain and compliance and Bob you mentioned you've been doing this for four years.

In the first couple years, this was a lot of just learning, learning and talking and traveling.

You've told me.

Right.

And so I think sometimes people think, oh, we're just gonna, we're just gonna expand.

Long longevity.

Longevity.

What I love about and I don't think you're giving yourself enough credit because you aren't just a marketing company.

Like I mentioned earlier.

I was on some consultation calls and I'm an extreme personality.

Matt will tell you, I wanted glp, I wanted all the peptides, I wanted trt.

And he's like, no, we're gonna start with the fundamental.

What's your goal and what you should be doing right now based on your blood labs.

And I, I, and I, I, I went back and I thought about that.

I'm like, you know what a sales only transactional and maybe even marketing only company would have said yes to all of the things I wanted.

Man, that would have been, you know, a couple grand type of ticket right then and there, right?

What I love and don't kill Matt for this, right?

But, but Matt and team were like, no, no, we're going to do the right way and we're going to build a program and get the cookbook involved, get your movement involved.

That is a differentiator, right?

It's not.

And there's so much hype on using the term longevity, which has been around for, you know, the beginning of time.

I like about NextGen MD is you all are outcome based and you're with us every step of the way.

And I can't wait for the rollout because now it's gonna be in real time, which I think is huge too.

Again, ahead of the curve, which I'm really excited about.

And speaking of trt and I feel like as a man it's been available, right?

And there's been more, more releases and more science.

What I'm really excited about what you all are doing is there's this boom because of the availability and education of women's hormones and women's health.

And so can you talk to us about that and what you're seeing in that space around women, women health and women hormone replacement.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, one of the things that we did that we're, we built too is, you know, we built all the technology.

One of the technology stacks we built verticals is what's called a digital storefront.

And with the digital storefront, I'm able to be more, we're able to now offer more because now we can do, it's called Synchronicity or Async.

So Synchronicity.

So Bob, so sorry to interrupt you.

For those listening, this is one of the things where it just maybe sneak away to the bathroom, take your phone with you and lock the door.

This is the moment where you start to truly visualize what is happening in the fitness and wellness space.

What Bob has done here, what he's set up, this is why you don't need to necessarily worry about the million dollar knock down four walls and build a clinic.

You don't have to do that.

Here's how you expand.

Here's how you expand wellness and make more money for your family, for your business and you get better share of wallet.

Everyone's tuning in now, Bob.

This is huge.

So if you don't mind just going through that again and then.

And walking us through.

Yeah, and it kind of backs up a little bit too.

We actually have built our own EMR and it's electronic medical records platform.

So it's all HIPAA compliant.

Everything we built is all on a HIPAA compliant platform.

So the technology side is that we have an emr.

The EMR now gives us the FL as.

Now we can engage in a clinic.

We're actually, it's built on a clinic platform so we're able to take it into the gyms.

But what's, what's really unique about it, we have what's called a digital storefront.

On that digital storefront we can offer both inside the gym or outside the gym, but through our, our digital storefront.

With that being said, there's some states that don't let you do synchronicity, but, but we can do async or synchronicity.

Async, meaning we can actually sync you up and you fill out a survey and you can go through all the questionnaire.

And then we built our own practitioner platform.

So we have MPs and we have our chief medical director and doctors that actually review the survey and then they sign off on it.

Now if you don't qualify, then you get denied.

Right.

And then if you don't, if you want to do a zoom call, then we do synchronicity, which means you get to do a zoom call and you get with a practitioner where you do one on ones and it's all your choice.

So that gives us the flexibility.

We would do both of them with the trt.

We're able to do that too as well with our system as well.

Now we had to get all the licenses to be able to do that as well.

And we do have all of it and goes back to compliance.

And we've, you know, we have our chief, you know, consul actually was the chief consul for two of the biggest pharmacies in the space, in the peptide space and the GLP1 space.

Matt is our chief counsel, so we've gone through.

And Ben our.

He's our chief counsel compliance officer.

We've.

We've done extremely a lot of work on making sure that everything's under compliance.

And that's why I say we're a marketing company, because there's certain things that the marketing company can only say.

There's a big wall there, right?

So when you're talking what you were saying, how you're describing how Matt was talking to you, he.

There's some, you know, we've spent a lot of time and investment in making sure that all our language is specific and how we.

Yeah, that makes sense.

How we engage with you now when you jump over to the practitioner, once we secure you as a client, because we can't say patient, because we're not.

We're not in the medical side.

So now once you become one of our clients, now you move over into our practitioner platform.

Now our practitioner platform.

We're able to get you in front of a practitioner or through async right away.

And that's where we're different than anybody else.

We're able to do it and get you in front.

Now you.

Now you go through your console and now they'll guide you on what you should be taking and how you should be dosing and all that.

What I love about what you're all doing is that I think there's just been such this tension point.

And again, the large portion of it being lack of capital.

I can't go build this out within my four walls.

I don't have the square footage, I don't have the capital.

I can't disrupt my members because they're going to leave.

Now.

You're providing not a physical experience, but a digital experience.

Right?

And if you think about, I mean, look at the kids nowadays, they got the Oculuses on, they got their meta glasses on.

Someone was taking a picture of some somewhere.

I was at the other.

I'm like, are those metals?

And I just couldn't believe it.

But we're able to extend your four walls.

You are able to extend the gym, the studio's four walls with the digital storefront.

And what I love about that from the finance side is we're always Wondering, for instance, I think of hvlp, the big ones out there, some of them, you'll see them on the New Year's Eve parties, right?

Yeah.

And what's something that they've been really good at is driving membership.

The other areas that they've stayed away from, although I'm hearing some piloting of personal training, recovery, wellness, they stay away from it because it's, it's historically been a cost center.

Let's just focus on signing up memberships.

However, when you don't have to worry about the space.

Right.

Because that's been the issue is where, where do they train?

Where can we build recovery when it's digital, they don't need to worry about it anymore.

It's a complete different world.

It's boundless.

And so that's where next gen, Maryland Scientific just completely changes the landscape.

And you truly are the pioneer.

This new frontier.

It's very scary to think about because I just think of all the possibilities.

But the new I, I just see this like I'm at home with my virtual space, talking to one of your docs and having a.

At home, amazing medical experience.

Preventative, proactive medical experience.

I no longer need to go walk in and do all of that, you know, the jazz and the song and dance, you know, it's far more convenient.

So you're way ahead of the curve and it's, it's amazing to hear about.

So going into the supply chain, this is where, this is where it gets difficult.

More so on your end.

Right.

For those that want to play in your space, it's very difficult.

And I see what you're doing because Lifetime did something, you build the moat.

Very hard to replicate.

Because Bob, I don't think a lot of people want to do what you had to do to get to this point four years later.

So kudos to you.

Supply chain.

Yeah, no, for sure.

It's real, it's, it's earned.

So, you know, I was talking about it at the top of it.

DEA compliance, quality control, you know, thinking about fulfillment, consistency, sourcing.

You talked about pharmacy.

I mean, I know there's a lot there, but why did you go that wholesaling?

Yeah.

What did, what did you see?

Was it owning every aspect of the journey?

Was it more cost effective?

Was it almost.

Was it forced?

Or was it.

You saw the opportunity.

If I can, if I really want to scale this, I need to be at every aspect.

Was it more of a. I want to make sure it's quality too.

What was it for you?

Yeah, everything you Just said, is everything what I face?

But early on, because it was such a, it still is a wild wild west, the supply chain was the biggest Achilles.

How can you know, getting the right, you know, because at the beginning a lot of pharmacies converted to be a GLP1 pharmacy.

They weren't, they weren't a, you know, they were just a mom pop over the counter, you know, walk in and we compounding, right.

And this GLP one came, and that's what we've been fighting all along too, is making sure that the quality that we work with and vetting the right great pharmacies to work with and you know, and going on site and making sure they have all the FDA approvals and that they're, and that they have all the certifications on the state level.

There's, I don't want to go too deep into all the, you know, governmental stuff, but making sure that you have all the boxes checked.

But what I did from the beginning too, Albert, is I brought on a consulting group from day one.

I didn't have the background in this space, but I knew enough as a consultant and you know, I've been consulting a lot in my life and I thought, well, let me bring in the right partner.

So I brought in, yeah, I brought in, I brought in Sphinx Strategy, which is the number one consulting group in the pharmacy space, in the medical space.

So I brought them on day one and they've actually guided me all along and really were coaching me along the way on the supply chain because they, they build pharmacies and they know, they knew exactly where I should be focusing my attention to.

And that was from day one as that whole supply chain without it.

And along the way, supply chain has put 50% of the people out of the business because of the fact that they over promised and under delivered and they couldn't get the product out.

Now you destroyed your whole reputation.

Even the quality was bad.

Right.

I remember reading some stories, it's where they were sourcing it from and it was embedded, you know, and, and then you're getting some bad stuff even from overseas as you think, oh, but it's cost effective.

I'm like, that is such a short term strategy.

Yeah, yeah, we do.

Yeah.

All of our stuff is tested, coded, you know, third party tested, you know, everything's coded.

So we make sure all the batches are coded.

You know, we have coas on everything that we, that we work with.

All our pharmacies that we work with have all the credentials and you know, you know, Spinx you know, they go in and they, if we vet a new one or we're gonna onboard with a new pharmacy, they go into it, do you know, a full 360 walkthrough and make sure that we're, that everything's compliant as well.

So they're our partner.

They've stayed my partner.

They're, you know, I, you know they've been along the journey all the way along.

But definitely the supply chain is the most important part of this journey because the fact that like you said the research only and there's a lot of it's up in the air right now.

You know, I don't want to go deep into that conversation.

I'll let everybody do their own research on that.

It's not my space.

Don't want to be in that space.

We stay on the other side.

Yeah, Smart.

We will never leverage our company against anything that's not compliance driven as well.

It's smart.

It's the long game, right.

The long term play.

So I'm curious from a, you know I've been really thinking about this from, and we've had some chats.

Right.

But from a finance land business model, unit economics.

I'm thinking about it from the operator point of view.

Right.

So they're hearing this and like wow, I can expand my wellness vision and idea in partnership with next gen scientific.

But how does it like what's the best model?

Is that a referral?

Is that a rev share?

Is that a membership bundle?

Is that.

You know we already scrapped the in house physical clinic.

Although it's possible if you have the capital and it makes sense, the space and all of that.

Is it a hybrid of the digital and physical like where have you found to be the most lucrative and also providing a great experience and outcome for the client base, the member base.

Yeah.

You know from the beginning, you know I, I looked at this from the beginning as being a, a personal training product.

Right.

I looked at it from that standpoint.

Cause we did lose 50% of our trainers during COVID and we were just coming out, we were in Covid when this got introduced to me.

So I really looked at this coming, bringing it back in the gym and so I started with this with the technology.

First is building a multi tenant CRM and you've seen rcm, you've seen it behind the scenes and you behind the curtain.

And so we started with building a multi tenant CRM and, and doing a rev share with the gyms and that was the first generation, right.

That was 1.0 of next gen MD360 and we've done extremely well with that.

We do a rev share with the gyms but now we're at 4.0 where we actually built everything out so we have all the verticals, technology wise.

Now we build the storefront.

Now the storefront, I white label that, I take that and we, you know, whether you have a website for your gym, we just let you API.

It looks like your brand, it's you absolutely your brand.

Do it all.

We API on it, we get your database, we start targeting your database with.

We do, we do about 50,000 SMS.

You know, you get them every day.

I get them.

But we don't, we don't over inundate our, you know, the gyms members either.

We're very conservative on how we drip our campaigns and how we outreach our campaigns.

But we do that, we, we can use that, we do that if you'd like or you can do your own.

Because now the way I've built all the technology, you can tell me what you want A, B, C or D. You pick which one you want to do and how deep you want to get.

But we're actually, you know, we're actually doing clinics inside the clubs now.

So I mean without having to do heavy capital, we can convert your recovery centers into longevity clinics.

Because now I have.

And you know, we just built it, we're launching it right now where we have our own emr.

So we're able to take it into the gyms now and have a, you know, a practitioner, a nurse inside the center and everything's virtual or on all through technology.

So the investment isn't as great to a million dollars anymore.

I can convert it, whatever you have.

If you have like a recovery center for like example, you know, a lot of the gyms have recovery centers where they have, you know, your, you know, they don't have iv, but we can do that now.

We can do the IV drips, we can bring in the GLP one, we can do trt, we can do, you know, the GLP one inside the gyms.

You don't need as much space anymore.

You know, a few, you know, they already have their recovery chairs and they have their, you know, their, you know, all the different, you know, cryo chambers and red light there.

We just bolt right into that, bring in a, you know, a practitioner that's full time and, and now with our technology we can deploy it in the capital is real light now.

It's, it's called capital light now.

Amazing.

Bob.

I got to Say it.

He's going to be on the show and I'm going to give him a hard time.

And I'm only doing this because you guys are great gents, I respect you both.

But Jay Z, if you're watching, I don't know why it's not in this building already.

This is outstanding.

He's going to kill me for that one.

But even Eos, right?

I was in a EOS the other day and I saw some, I mean they're great with utilizing space but this is something they need to have and it sounds like it's cost effective and it's easy.

So exciting.

On the unit economic side, are you seeing this impact more member acquisition or is this a retention and frequency play?

When you do this either in house, you know, an in house clinic or even the digital storefront, do you have enough data to say hey, when, when you're thinking about your deuce tap the, not only the share of wallet because your members are paying for this stuff already, they're just not paying you, right?

So that, that's a solve.

Now your, your average revenue per member is going up, but from an actual dues tap.

Is this impacting the, the top end or is this that impacting the attrition side?

It, it's actually three parts so it's actually doing the re.

It's revenue to start, right and then the retention but then again it's bringing back two.

So I actually take their, take their current members and then their ex members for the last 24 months and that's where that multi tenant CRM is.

So I build each club their own CRM and so it's got dashboards, it's got back of the house, the operators get to see all the transactions, they get to see all the, all the, all the messaging that goes out every day.

And then so it's really a top line revenue that they get on the share.

But then it's retention because now we're bringing it back into the gym and we're taking them into the personal training side.

Now the personal trainers now get revenue.

Now they can start getting revenue for personal training.

Now we, and then now I take the last 24 months of their ex members and now I bring them back as well.

So I'm hitting those members and now we're actually able to tap into their MMS system too as well.

API into that and all the new members that are onboarding now, now it's an orientation.

Now it's bringing it back into the, for the trainers now to actually Have.

So, like, for a gym chain, I don't want to use the gym chain name, but we have one that.

No, they have 300 clubs.

We're in their corporate clubs now.

We have into their new members now.

Every new member now gets tapped now.

Let's get you back in.

Let's get you into the, you know, an onboarding with the trainer.

Let's get you your orientation onboarding.

And it's all part of the system now.

Amazing.

Yeah, you know, it's.

It's interesting.

I never, I never thought about next gen and I've been loving everything that I've seen.

But.

But now that I hear, I'm hearing you talk about this and I'm thinking about the finance side of it and just the experience you truly are gluing.

Because there's a lot of members out there right now that are just so overwhelmed that you gotta use nine different brands.

Right.

Whether it's peptides or GLPs over here, sleep or nutrition movement.

Right.

And it sounds like you found a moat where you're.

You're gluing this all together with these gym partners, with these studio partners.

So that's really exciting.

Wow, this has been awesome.

I have one more question.

Cause I wanna respect your time and you just gave us a ton.

I can't wa to go through this again.

If you had, you know, as you're.

As we're finishing this out, if you could to say anything or mentor any of the operators, business owners that are listening right now.

It's 20, 26, year of the horse, right.

There's a lot going on.

Economic potential, uncertainty, but also some good signs, some good signaling.

We're hearing a lot of the.

This is the year of the retention.

As a lot of these franchisees are starting to scale down on square footage, yet many want to expand wellness.

They're trying to figure it out.

What's your.

What's your advice to the operator and business owner for this year in 2026?

Yeah, you know, I would say we started with a 1.0 four years ago, but we're at a 4.0 right now.

Take advantage of it now because now the opportunity is there.

I would.

You know, I got blessed because I've been in the industry.

Some operators really invested in me as a person on what I offered to them, and they got on board and they been great partners.

We've been able to involve now and really have a complete package.

Real science.

It's not voodoo, it's not Myers oil or anything like that.

This is real this is not going anywhere.

You know, back, you know, boutiques started with 1.0, got the 2.0 and the, you know, from 2006-20, let's say 18, 19, before COVID happened.

You know, this is.

Now we're at 4.0.

Take advantage of it.

Don't run from it.

Like I told you earlier, there's 7 out of 10 people are taking some kind of a peptide or a GLP1 inside your club.

They're buying it from somewhere.

Partner with, you know, if it's not me, partner with someone.

I mean, there's other groups in the.

In the.

In the space, too.

What I'm trying to make sure is that the bad actors don't get into our space and we stay away from.

But there are some people that are involved, other groups that I respect that are out there.

Vet them.

Vet me.

Don't.

You know, if I'm not the right.

Partner with you, vet them as well.

And just make sure you do the homework on their compliance as well.

So.

Yeah, good for you.

That's amazing.

And you've always been the rising tide, looks all boast kind of guy right there.

Wouldn't have to go around for everyone, but you are truly paving the way.

I'm telling you, I've had a lot of conversations.

You're paving the way, so thank you.

This is where I cue the Godfather music.

Bob, this has been awesome.

You always keep it real raw and authentic, so I really appreciate you.

Thanks, Albert.

And thank you, by the way, for.

For letting us in a little bit more on the personal side.

There's a lot of people that care about you that I'm sure will listen to this and probably shoot you a text or call because I had no idea.

I. I would have called you.

I would have been theirs.

Thank you, first, brother.

So thank God you're okay.

We need you around, brother.

So don't, Don't.

Don't be scaring us.

I'm not going nowhere, baby.

All right, so if people want to learn more about Next Gen MD Scientific and 360, how do they get a hold of you?

How do they learn more?

Is it the website or can they reach out directly?

Yeah, you know, reach out directly.

They can call me.

They can call our office.

We have Lindsay, we have Matt, we have everybody available that can answer questions.

So please just reach out either through the website or you can give everybody my email address as well.

We'll do.

Yeah.

I'll put it in the show notes.

Amazing.

And as I always say, if you're a fitness or wellness operator who wants better cash visibility, utilization modeling, pricing structure, capital planning.

And yes, if you're looking to expand wellness.

After you get with Bob and you need a finance model, hit me up at.

Yeah.

Stratego Int.

This has been another episode of the Owner Seat.

I'm your host, Albert Ramos.

And as I always mention, episodes are now dropping every Monday and Friday at 8:00am Central.

Bob, such a pleasure.

Can't wait to see you again when I'm up there in Dallas soon.

Thanks, brother.

Appreciate you.

Thank you.

Thanks everybody.