Episode 1 | Ty Menzies, Global CEO of Lift Brands

Welcome to the Sum of Many podcast. I'm your host, Peter Harris. This podcast is all about franchising and multilocation businesses. Uh we're going to be kidnapping the best minds in franchising for your pleasure. So, please sit back, relax, and enjoy the content.

Mate, thanks for coming popping in. And uh I know you're busy, but while you're in Melbourne, it's always good to catch up. Um what are you doing in town, mate?

I obviously I grew up in Melbourne, so spending a little bit of time with family, friends, doing a few personal items, a little bit of kind of life admin stuff. When you live overseas, things build up. So, getting a bit of that sort of stuff done and then I'll head up to Brisbane this Wednesday and spend a bit of time with the team in the office there. We've got a tremendous team that look after the whole APAC region so spend some time with Chris Caldwell, our regional CEO and the team there which will be really great. I don't get enough of that face-to-face in-person time and it's really important. So, looking forward to that.

Awesome mate. Um mate, this is our inaugural podcast as you know so might be a bit rusty but mate glad to have you on. I think I was talking to guys earlier today and ever since the infamous breakfast we had when we first met each other when you're in your franchise sales role in Richmond.

Why was it infamous though, Pete? Tell me.

Uh I may or may not have stole the last piece on the plate of your breakfast.

Yeah, I mean first time I'm meeting you for a business meeting. You're trying to get our business. We were doing business but you were trying to be more business and you stole my food off the plate. Anyone that knows me knows that that's not a good thing to do.

Yeah, but it's very true. Very true.

It's still very, very funny. But one thing I do talk about is that meeting. I do talk about it a bit, but not just because of the meeting, but what we discussed in the meeting was you gave me a bit of history about yourself and you started really from the entry level. And all respect to the role of the personal trainer, but you got in the door in the health and fitness space and you saw a lot of opportunity to get involved in the business side where you're working and that sort of stuff.

So today I just want to talk about if you look at your career, and I will jump around left and right, if you could just talk about those first early days of when you got involved in it and decided to become a personal trainer. Obviously you're a fit guy so it's a lifestyle choice as well but yeah mate go nuts.

Yeah I mean I was always passionate about health, wellness, outdoor experiences and recreation. Liked spending time outdoors bushwalking and rock climbing and doing different things. So I was always pretty active and then obviously played sport. Growing up here in Melbourne it was AFL, played a bit of golf and other bits and pieces. So always pretty active.

I guess as I came through finishing school I wasn't really sure exactly what career path I wanted to go into. I always knew small business was a thing. My folks were restaurateurs, had multiple restaurants over the years. Grew up and worked in them from a young age. I was fortunate that my first job was working in a very prestigious golf club here in Melbourne and learned a lot doing that.

I just saw lots of people that were in small business and I thought to myself, small business is the place I want to be. But I wanted to do something in the sport recreation space. So I studied outdoor education. Then I went into sports management. While I was doing that I was doing some personal training and pretty quickly after that I got a job working in a gym here in Melbourne as a personal training manager.

Enjoyed that a lot but saw that the next step, I ultimately wanted to own a gym. That was the decision I made pretty early on. I would have been about to turn 21, so pretty young still. I figured if I want to own a gym, being a personal trainer is part of it, but I really need to understand the business side and probably the sales side. So I went into membership sales and stepped through from there. That was really the early stages.

I was fortunate that I got a club manager role, moved to London, got a role with a Gold’s Gym over there. Was given a great opportunity by John Tran, the founder of The Gym Group in the UK. Learned a lot of my financial acumen from him in my early 20s.

When I came back to Australia I had about 20 grand saved. Went to the bank, Westpac gave me another hundred, and I bought my first EFM Health Club franchise at 21.

Awesome. So when we first started out, one of the things we noticed was personal trainers were really good in-session but struggled with the soft skills like financials, marketing, and discipline outside the session. When you got into the business side, what were those things that maybe scared you or surprised you?

I remember distinctly when I got involved with EFM, probably my third year in I won franchisee of the year. At the time there were about 65 clubs. It was a high-performing club.

I actually look back and think I wasn’t that good of a personal trainer, but I was very good on the administrative side. Very good at asking customers to buy a package. Very good at marketing and getting myself out there.

From that perspective, I always looked at my first EFM as: I’m not really providing the service, I’m providing the structure. If I follow the system, then I can put 90% of my attention into marketing and sales, and 10% into training.

Almost identical. And even the Japanese, you know, who are quite different culturally to Australians, but ultimately what we want is exactly the same as one another.

Yeah.

So, we don't actually tweak things too much by region. I always used to laugh when a franchisee said to me, “Oh, but my suburb’s different to the suburb down the road.” No, it’s not. It’s exactly the same. The people there are exactly the same in the other suburb.

Okay, your suburb may not have as much money or this one may have more or whatever, but ultimately the consumer is exactly the same. It’s just a matter of what they can spend. Tweaking communication, the way you talk to them might be a little bit different, but yeah, the need and the human interaction is the same.

When you look ahead, I heard a good analogy the other day: you look five years ahead, plan for one. I mean, just be aware of what’s coming. You representing a global brand, how do you set the team up for success in terms of planning? How do you prepare yourself for that five-year mark and make sure the team’s running now and hitting all the targets in the current year?

It’s good. We do a global town hall with all of our employees every quarter. One of the questions was, “What does the long-term strategy look like?”

I hate giving a five-year plan because I don’t know if anyone’s ever actually hit one. I heard someone say the only company that ever did was Google.

Yeah. Well, only one I’ve ever seen.

I tend to look about two years ahead with a view of: are we doing the right things that will sustain in five or even ten years? That’s more of a macro view.

But when it comes to getting into the weeds, we focus heavily on the next 18 months. Because beyond that, it becomes very difficult, even with private equity backing. They might think in five-to-seven-year horizons, and we do model out to 2030 or 2031, but the actual strategy doesn’t change much.

It’s about continual improvement—refining CRM, improving education and support structures, ensuring clubs are reinvesting and staying modern. That’s been a challenge in the past, particularly in the US, where reinvestment didn’t happen consistently. If you stay on top of that, your product remains relevant and you avoid big capital hits later.

I like that—continual improvement. Small tweaks, not massive changes.

Even with AI, for example, we’re embracing it, but not rushing in. We’re testing, piloting. Some things work, some don’t.

Before we get to AI, though—ownership structure. There’s been talk for years about big equity firms consolidating the fitness industry. What changes when you’ve got private equity involved?

It’s interesting. Consolidation might happen, but it’s not easy to manage multiple brands. We’ve seen groups try it with mixed results.

If you don’t have private equity, you’re probably dealing with founders. With private equity, in our case, it’s given me a lot of autonomy. There’s minimal oversight because we’ve delivered consistently on our plan.

At the end of the day, performance is everything. If you perform, you get freedom. If you don’t, they’ll be all over you.

Makes sense.

On AI—there’s a lot of fear out there. People worry about losing jobs. What are you seeing globally?

If I go back 12–18 months, AI was the only thing people talked about. No one really knew what they were doing.

For us, a big shift was moving away from in-house tech to third-party platforms. It didn’t make sense for us to be a tech company—we’re a fitness franchisor.

Now we focus on what our partners are doing in AI and how that integrates with us. Some areas we’re exploring include program prescription, usage prediction, automated communication—things that already existed but are now enhanced with AI.

We’ve also tested AI sales agents. Some success, but not quite there yet. Plus, there are major GDPR and consent challenges, especially at scale.

So we’re taking a measured approach—pilot, test, refine.

Makes sense. Privacy is massive globally. Do you aim for the highest standard or adapt per country?

We look at the trend—privacy is only getting stricter. So we plan ahead.

For example, if communication via calls and emails becomes harder, we shift to app-based engagement. That’s why we’ve focused heavily on keeping members inside our app—so we maintain direct, consent-based communication.

If you don’t adapt, the fines can be business-breaking.

Absolutely.

Let’s lighten it up a bit. One thing I find fascinating—you’re big into cars. Japanese cars, Skylines, even bought a Formula 1 car. Where did that come from?

Funny enough, I wasn’t really into cars growing up. Everyone was Holden or Ford—I wasn’t either. I liked Japanese cars, but it wasn’t a big passion early on.

My first car was just practical. Then I bought a BMW and loved it. That sparked something.

I got into importing cars from Japan, learned the auction system, and it became a side hobby. I’ve been buying and selling cars for 20–25 years now. Built a collection along the way.

The latest purchase was a 1985 March Formula race car. One of only five. Bit of a silly purchase—but a fun one.

That’s insane.

It’s funded from a separate “car fund” I’ve always maintained. I never spend beyond it. It’s just my thing.

And that ties back to your career—being able to fund passions outside work. You’re big on goal setting. Talk about that.

I’ve always been quietly competitive. I don’t talk it up, but I do the work behind the scenes.

Success hasn’t come from luck—it’s come from planning and having the right people around me.

Same personally. A lot of people don’t spend enough time figuring out what they actually want.

For me, I plan long-term. For example, I’ve got cars sitting in Australia because I plan to be back here in five or six years.

I track everything—assets, liabilities, income, goals—all in one simple spreadsheet. Nothing fancy. Just one page.

And it works.

The business is the same. Our global strategy? One page.

Love it.

Alright, mate, we’ll wrap it there. First podcast—might call it a pilot.

Nothing pilot about this—this was smooth.

Always good having a chat.

Appreciate you, mate.

Thank you so much.

This transcript was generated using AI and may contain minor errors or inaccuracies.