Group Fitness Real Talk EP35: What Makes A Super-Trainer with Beachbody's Jeffrey Sc... Jeffrey: In general, when I'm looking for talent, Will, it is so much about passion and personality than anything else in the world. I can help you, I can tell you what to say, I can tell you what to play, I can tell you what to do. But if you don't have that charisma and that passion for what you're doing, it's a no go for me. Will: Hey, I'm Will Brereton, founder of Sh1ft Fitness. And this is Group Fitness Real Talk, a show about how to survive and even thrive in group fitness in 2021 and beyond. Today, on the podcast, we're talking to the person who runs fitness at one of the biggest fitness companies in the world. I'm super excited to welcome my guest today, Jeffrey Scott. Jeffrey is vice president of fitness, nutrition, and results at Beachbody, which those of you who follow the news will know has just gone public in very spectacular fashion. As you'll hear, Jeffrey has worked for Reebok, Les Mills, 24-Hour Fitness, Equinox, and now Beachbody and he brings with him a wealth of knowledge of what it means to be a fitness presenter, a fitness educator, and someone that manages instructors. Whether you teach for a big gym or in the community, it's important to have a really good perspective of the whole industry. And this is an area where Jeffrey is an expert. Not only does Jeffrey have a really interesting career story, but we also talk a lot about what makes an instructor special and the future of fitness. You're going to also hear some sneak peeks of what Beachbody has in the store with their brand new program BODi coming out very soon. Now, here's the show. Will: Jeffrey Scott, welcome to the podcast. How are you? Jeffrey I'm well, my friend is great to see you. I don't think I've actually seen you since we met in London a couple of years ago. Will: More than a couple of years ago now. A number of years ago, but let's not go there. So tell me... Jeffrey You look fantastic. Will: Thank you. So where are you? Where are you dialing in from today? 1 Jeffrey I am coming to you live from the brand new BODi Studios here in Los Angeles, California. Will: And where in Los Angeles. Are you in Santa Monica, as well, or are you somewhere else? Jeffrey No, our headquarters are in Santa Monica. And we have studios in Van Nuys, the Beachbody studios. This studio is a new one for us. It's down in Playa Vista. So it's a little bit south of Santa Monica. It's very close to LAX and we we took on the space to build the stage for body because we needed a very specific la based I said accommodate to accommodate the size of the body stage, which is spectacular. So this was the location that we hunted for for many, many months. We landed here. And yeah, I've been coming here every single day since we took over the space getting ready to launch this new platform in September. Will: So we're gonna talk a lot more about that, because I'm really curious to know all about it. I just realized that the last time we probably spoke, I probably worked, I would have worked for Beachbody and you were outside of Beachbody. And now we've switched. Jeffrey Yeah, exactly. You You were with Beachbody and Barbara Bradowsky connected us. Will: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Friend of the podcast. Jeffrey So she connected us, we had lunch. And yes, I was working at Equinox at the head of education training for them. And I was in London doing some training we, I think we had pretty much just recently open the the club there and the Kensington club, and you were working for Beachbody, and I was doing some consulting for Beachbody as well, at that time. Will: So you've already touched on this. And you've obviously had got a long history of working in fitness for a lot of different a lot of different companies. Why don't you tell me a little bit about exactly what you're doing now, which you've already alluded to? And then maybe a little bit about sort of your background and what you've done prior to Beachbody? Jeffrey Sure, sure. So currently, I am the Vice President of Fitness, Nutrition and Results for the Beachbody company. And I oversee three large categories we call fnr. And when I just sort of alluded to it, but the fitness category is the category that I oversee, and that is you know, I have a team of people. And what we do on the fitness aspect is we work with the super trainers and creating all the programs that go into Beachbody. And we you know, we meet with Carl to figure out what his vision is we meet with the Super Trainer to figure out what their vision is for the program. And then we try to blend it together and create the best product possible. So that's my fitness team that I oversee. And then I also oversee the 2 nutritional team which helps to keep both portion fixed and up if you know how we integrate those programs into all of our fitness programming. We also have underneath the umbrella of nutrition, a whole culinary department that creates all of the recipes for all of our blocks. And the meal plans and we work with, again, portion fix and to be with their recipe development as well. So that's my nutrition team. And then I oversee the results team, which is, every time you see Beachbody, it's usually seen with a before and after picture, right? That's, we're very much known for our we call them the B&A, the before and after. So what the results team does is that once we have the program developed, we then do a casting for participants for our test groups. And we do you know, the before picture, we take them through the program, we help them with the nutrition so that we can show an after picture, and then use that for marketing to show the public how incredible our programs when they are done correctly with proper nutrition can really help somebody achieve the results that they want to achieve. So those are my three departments that I oversee FNR. Will: That's, that's a lot of stuff. Jeffrey No, it is, but I tell you, Will, I, I honestly, I feel like the luckiest guy in fitness. After 30 years of being in this industry, I felt like it was just prepping me for this position. And I you know, it was it was I can tell you the story a little bit later on how I got into this. But this position specifically. But you know, I love this company I love I believe in everything that we're doing, I couldn't be more excited about what's coming up in our future. And this, this is this is a company that I really stand behind. And they are the real deal. And I am honored to be here. Yep. Will: I have to say when I when I found out that you got this job, I was really excited because being someone who's been in the fitness industry for not as long as you but quite a long time and seeing some of the people that run fitness for some other brands. And I'm not going to speak of any in particular, quite often, it's someone that I am surprised about because I don't feel like they necessarily have that deep knowledge of fitness and instructing and what it takes to deliver classes deliver results, deliver workouts, whereas with you, you're absolutely someone who has kind of lived and breathed that and done it. And now at a point where you can really give that back to everybody who was at a different part of their profession, right? Like they're at the presenter part rather than developer. And I think that's really exciting. Because it's really good to know that the person that is helping these people to create the format to someone that has been there done it, but also has like a lot of knowledge and deep knowledge when it comes to how to deliver a great fitness experience. So on that why don't you tell me about how you very first got into fitness? Those years ago? Jeffrey Yeah, yeah, it's been it's been a long time. Let me let me try to think back that far. So really, it's not that far. And it's it's quite a fun story. But, you know, I went to college for business and psychology. And I just, it wasn't for me. So when I was done with school, I while going through school, I was a disc jockey. And I was a DJ in nightclubs. So I always loved music growing up with play guitar, and piano. And music has always been a passion for mine, of mine. So I was a nightclub disc jockey going through college, and I used to spin records, like vinyl.