TB12 CEO on how Tom Brady’s ‘winning mind set’ drives the fitness brand

TB12 CEO John Burns joins Yahoo Finance Live to discuss how the company has adapted to the at-home fitness trend amid COVID-19.

Video Transcript

MYLES UDLAND: Let us not forget, on Sunday, we will have the Super Bowl. Tampa Bay Buccaneers taking on the Kansas City Chiefs, pitting the greatest of all time, Tom Brady, against the up and comer, Patrick Mahomes with the Chiefs. And Tom Brady, 43 years old, six time Super Bowl champion, still looks like a young chipper kid out there. And of course, a lot of his success and a lot of the conversation around his success comes back to the TB12 Method, which he has really refined in the last couple of years.

Joining us now to discuss is John Burns. He's the CEO at TB12. And John, I just want to start with maybe for some of our viewers who aren't familiar exactly with what the method is, how you describe it when folks say the inevitable question of, how does Tom do it and how does he look so good at this age. It looks like he's aging in reverse from where I sit.

Yeah, it's pretty incredible. And I think it's attributable to many things. First of all, the TB12 Method is really about Tom's lifestyle. And it's an approach to how he takes care of himself that he developed with our co-founder, Alex Guerrero. There's really five key components to how Tom approaches things and what we, as a business, try and bring to consumers

The first is a focus on what we call muscle pliability and keeping your body moving in a healthy way. The second is a unique approach to functional strength and conditioning using resistance bands and body weight and truly functional movements. We also talk a lot about nutrition, hydration, and then, of course, everything that Tom does and what we try to do for our customers, is apply that winning mindset to how Tom approaches things and deliver that promise to our consumers.

BRIAN SOZZI: So, John, you have a quarterback that is not aging. I mean, the guy looks the same as he has the past 15 years. You have one of the most winningest players in all of sports. Talk to us about the growth trajectory of your brand. What do you, where are you planning on taking it from here? What stores it is it in? How's it growing online?

JOHN BURNS: Yeah, so the business, just for context, started in 2013. And it started very modestly with a small facility here in Foxborough, Massachusetts. Since then, we've grown quite substantially. We have three physical performance and recovery centers. One also down in Boston and, now, in Tampa. And we're looking to continue to expand that business. And then we have a content and e-commerce business where we try and bring information and educational tools and products and services to people online who can't come see us in person.

You know, our vision for the business is really twofold. And it ties back to that. The starting point is this body coach, client relationship. So mimicking Tom's relationship with Alex Guerrero. We've got TB12 body coaches who work with consumers one on one. And we'll bring this out additionally in the US, but ultimately, hopefully around the world to consumers everywhere and recreate that with physical experiences and Performance and Recovery Centers.

The next part of our growth plan and where we're spending a lot of time, particularly in the last year, is on our e-commerce business and our products part of our business. So you can find TB12 products at our website, tb12sports.com. But we've also expanded into wholesale. So you can find us in select Whole Foods. And obviously with Tom being in Tampa now, we've got some products available in Publix and Whole Foods in Florida as well.

MYLES UDLAND: And John, how did the pandemic kind of change, if at all, your business this year? It obviously has upset all kinds of businesses. But as we sit here 10 months later, the NFL season got its, they got their year off well. Tom is now once again in the Super Bowl. It would seem to me that save but for that interruption, the plans you guys had laid out for TB12 maybe a year or 18 months ago, are probably still all in place, if not even above plan.

JOHN BURNS: Yeah, we've been very methodical for the last couple years in terms of our growth and really taken the long view. And I think a foundation of it all again, is Tom's deeply held belief that bringing to the world the TB12 body coach experience is in everything we do. So I think, you know, if you go back a year ago this time, we had just come off opening a flagship location in Boston. We had plans, obviously, when he made his announcement to open in Tampa.

And as COVID hit, I think the biggest thing that changed for us is just sort of tempering the pace at which we'd roll out our in-person Performance and Recovery Centers. But we're still very, very focused on that. We took a little bit of a time out from opening new centers, but we're sort of back on the growth path there, looking for new locations. Major metropolitan areas are interest to us. Miami is something that's very interesting to us. The West Coast certainly. San Fran, LA. New York is another market we're interested in. So we're back in a growth mindset on that.

I think the other part of it, our business, is really what happened with e-commerce. And not unlike a lot of companies, you know, we had a mixed experience in 2020. Our centers had to close down for a while. There's different traffic patterns of consumers in urban areas in different markets. So that part of our business changed a bit. But for a period of time, we made up for it in our e-commerce business.

You know, if you go back to March, April, May of last year, we were growing many multiples year over year. 200%, 300%, 400% year over year for a brief period of time, as everyone embarked upon outfitting their home gyms and whatnot. So that was a good period for us. We've come back down a little bit more to projections and plan.

But I'd say that the best thing that's happened to the extent you can make some positives out of the COVID experience, is it's allowed us to be even more focused. But also I think from a consumer standpoint, there's a real emphasis, as you know now, on health and wellness. And this trend's been around for a while, but it's real serious business now. And I think people appreciate it as a life and death matter, taking care of yourself. And for us as a purveyor of health and wellness and this lifestyle. I think that bodes well for the future.

BRIAN SOZZI: So John, when Tom eventually does retire, what will his role be in the company? Does he join you as co-CEO? Does he take on an operational role?

JOHN BURNS: Yeah, you know, it's a great question. And I always like to tell people that Tom is actually pretty involved. And I think it surprises many folks, because he's very, very committed to the sport of football, as everyone knows. But Tom and I talk almost daily. I will tell you the last couple weeks, not quite daily. He's been very focused on the playoffs here. But very much look forward to at some point when his playing years are done, getting him more involved and more active in the business day to day.

You know, all the competitiveness and all the intensity, the focus, the clarity of purpose that he brings to football is what he brings to our business. And you know, in my experience, you can never have enough of those types of things. And his energy, his positive attitude, and his ideas. Tom's a very creative person. And I think any business that's consumer facing can benefit from someone with that skill set.

So I don't know exactly what it'll look like. Co-CEO, some other title, but he will be active as he is today. I suspect a little more active, but we're all excited for it here. And I know the team gets super excited here at TB12 when Tom gets engaged and works more closely with us.

MYLES UDLAND: You know, John, just thinking about some of those trends you were discussing about how COVID has really heightened the sense that health is something we all need to maybe be more cognizant of. Just in the last segment, Brian Sozzi was talking to William Lynch over at Peloton.

And I'm curious how you see the rise of at-home gym equipment, and the way that a product like that seems to have really engaged its consumers and shows that, you know, yeah, fitness has a lot of trends through its history, but maybe there's something different with the way a brand like yours, a brand like Peloton, can connect with its consumers to keep them engaged beyond that initial rush of adrenaline when someone gets on a new program.

JOHN BURNS: Yeah, it's a very, very interesting dynamic. And having been around the health and wellness industry for a while, have an extraordinary amount of respect for what the team at Peloton has done and really, this transition to people thinking about being in home more for their fitness experience. I come up a level to answer that question. The way I think about it is, it's very much about consumer behavior.

And in all the consumer brands I've been a part of and helped build, one of things I've learned, it's very hard to change consumer behavior. So one of the ways to be successful is to lock onto a particular consumer behavior and build your business along with those, the decisions and the things that consumers do. The issue I think that COVID presented for a lot of people, and the opportunity is, consumer behavior changed radically overnight.

We were all forced into a cocoon at some level to go home. And so I think at-home transition in fitness is very real. I think consumer behavior has changed. I think people will continue to focus on doing exercise and wellness-related activities in their home. But also on the other hand, believe very strongly that a big part of fitness in my experience, is community. And so I think there, Peloton has nailed it digitally.

But I do believe there will always be a need for some semblance of in-person fitness and health experience. I think we're social creatures as humans, and I think we crave that sense of community and that sense of connection. So I think what you'll find, it's one of the reasons we're so excited at TB12 about what the future will hold for us is, we try and deliver to the consumers both. We try and deliver that sort of pinnacle experience at our TB12 Performance and Recovery Centers.

But we're continuing to grow our online presence and providing consumers the tools information and access to be able to participate in the TB12 method and lifestyle at home. So we see the world and the future as being one where consumers will if nothing more, out of convenience, spend more time working out at home. But they'll get back to wanting to have the in-person experiences.

And for us, we're not a traditional fitness company when you come to see us in person. We're focused very heavily on getting you pain-free and pain-free movement. And we're sort of at that intersection of health care, delivery and fitness. So particularly as it relates to our business, we feel very strongly that for many years to come, that in-person experience will be critical to really driving value to the consumers. And importantly, I know for Tom and Alex and myself, changing people's lives. Like truly changing people's lives. And that's a big part of the TB12 story.

MYLES UDLAND: Yeah, I think it's some really interesting trends. And boy, it's, I mean, Tom's been playing basically my whole life, and it's crazy to see that evolution from shaggy haired kid back in '01 to what he is now. I would get your pic, John, but I think we know where we're going with that one. Enjoy the game this weekend. Really appreciate you spending some time with us, and I hope we'll be in touch. John Burns, CEO at TB12.