Welcome to Fix Your Gym, a podcast dedicated to bringing you expert knowledge from fitness industry leaders, salespeople, gym owners, tech experts, and other fitness enthusiasts, where you'll learn about the latest industry trends, innovative technologies, new and current products on the market, and health and fitness news from experts across the nation. And now, here's your host, Adam Kniffin.

All right, welcome to the fixture gym podcast. This podcast is brought to you by our new premier sponsor, the field tech fitness solutions and the field tech app. If your fitness business installs or service fitness equipment, you definitely need the field tech app. It's the only complete software application built specifically for those in the fitness equipment service industry. This field tech app eliminates the need for multiple software platforms. You don't have to struggle anymore with software designed for HVAC or plumbing companies or things like that when it comes to your scheduling systems. The app is designed and engineered for those in the fitness equipment service industry. With FieldTech, technicians can view their schedules, manage work orders, add notes regarding work performed on each piece of equipment right from your phone or your laptop, scheduling service calls, installations, or relocations. It's never been easier with this app. FieldTech streamlines service recommendations and bids, manages recurring preventive maintenance agreements, and gives your clients an easy path to submit service requests. And because FieldTech syncs with QuickBooks, your accountant will thank you. We partnered with RubinHand recently. So this show is up to this point been produced completely out of pocket for me. I don't make money on this show or anything like that. I just believe there's a need in our industry for those of us that have a voice, small business owners, there's a lot of really cool experiences, people's stories and things like that. different niche businesses. I just felt like I wanted to do this to provide value. All of it's been out of pocket up to this point. I'm not trying to make money or anything off the show. I just want to add value. But partnering with people like Ruben and FieldTech really helps cover the cost of the show. It brings practical products and services to you guys as small business owners or technicians or whatever the case is that can help you out in the field as you're growing and developing your business. Really excited to partner up with Ruben and appreciate his support and everything like that. Wanted to plug him first and then we have We have a very unique guest on today that I'm excited to interview. Dean Boyle is from the UK. He is the founder of a company called Recopad. Is that correct how you pronounce it, Recopad?

Adam Niffen

That's correct, yes.

Yeah, very, very cool company. So Rico pad is basically a way and I'll let you kind of get into the details of how you started off with fitness equipment upholstery. And then you have an app that kind of helps club owners and things like that. And members in different different unique ways. I'm just another person that is innovating in the fitness service industry world. Very cool stuff from what I've seen. I don't know a whole lot about it. So I got a ton of questions for you and excited to hear your story, but thanks for your time. Thanks for coming on and sharing with us, man.

Thank you, Adam. Thank you very much. Yeah. No, go ahead. Go ahead. Yeah, yeah, no, thank you for the introduction there. I first started the business in 2001. It's actually called Jim Upholstery UK. This business is still operating today, 24 years later. The main reason that we introduced the business to the marketplace is because gymnasiums were struggling with the upholstery repair. Service companies, mechanical service companies have been around for a long time. The pads that are on the machine were replaced by original equipment manufacturers, so Life Fitness, Tech Gym, and they would order the parts direct from these suppliers. uh, and, and fit them. Then, um, obviously things as they normally do get tired with, uh, expenditure or jets. So there was a need to, uh, quote on costs. Uh, then the idea for a onsite mobile upholstery vehicle to turn up to the gymnasium, strip that back down and reupholster it. became something that I was interested in. At the time I was a field technician, servicing running machines, treadmills, bikes. I did this for another company, Fizik in the UK. I did this only for about, it was just under a year when I saw this opportunity because people were struggling in the industry to get this work done. Here I am 24 years later. We have multiple vans on the road now, employees. We're well-known in the industry within the UK, just throughout longevity really. People know our name, it says exactly what it says on the tin, Jim Upholstery. Here we are today.

That's very cool, man. much needed service. You know, a lot of the, you know, if you're ordering straight from manufacturers, especially like Technogym and stuff like that, that's, you know, coming from, from Italy, and it might be a little bit cheaper since you're over there, you know, in Europe, but, but for us to order Technogym pads for customers, I mean, they're really expensive, you know what I mean? And they're, they're, distribution center now is back in the States. So that helps a little bit on shipping and stuff like that. But, but their upholstery, their material, their, their vinyl is, is, you know, Italian made, you know, it's expensive. And a lot of times customers are not, you know, they would, they, they, they really, you know, their equipment's 15 years old or whatever, and they just need the pads replaced, you know what I mean? And, and so definitely a much needed service and can save, save gym owners a lot of, a lot of money to have that, um,

I'm just going to say, Adam, over here, the actual getting the pads shipped over, the original pads, the original equipment for me to sell America become problematic and the gyms were waiting six months for a pad replaced just to supply. So in order for us to just go out to the gym and within 30 minutes, each machine, we've turned the job around. It's been reupholstered. The machines up to 30 minutes, that's it. And the job's complete.

Yeah, that's very interesting. So you have what, like vans, like cargo vans or something that you have sewing machines and stuff in, like a little workshop set in the back of?

Yeah, that's absolutely correct. Yeah, we over here we use long wheelbase Mercedes sprinters with a compressor, sewing machine, workbench, materials, everything needed to actually carry out the work. So we literally just turn up to the job with the correct material colour and reupholster. This has been going on since 2001. However, things have changed. Since COVID, certainly. Yeah, for sure. Carrying on reupholstering the equipment can only last so long. I mean, there is internal form, wood, fixings, you know, these do deteriorate. Now, there is some element of reforming that you can do whilst you're on site, but a lot of it really still let anybody in the upholstery industry, gem upholstery industry, we'll back them up on this. It is just a re-upholstery service, so stripping of the vinyls and re-sewing a cover to replace.

Yeah, like replacing boards and stuff like that, you guys are cutting, you're probably not doing that on site, I guess, with Solve, yeah.

No, no, very labor intensive. Obviously, time consuming that obviously you're in the gymnasium, you don't want to disrupt the workouts. The service needs to be quicker, it needs to be better. Certainly, when if you look around the gym, any gym, I mean, you can literally walk into any gym and find a bit of upholstery. Absolutely. It's right, just walk into your nearest gym. Yeah, I mean, look, since COVID, I know I mentioned it a few times there, the health benefits, the risks involved in just reupholstering, when the upholstery is cracked and split, the sweat gets into the form, formed like a split, and it holds the bacterias, and it's not great. ideally replace hurts yeah and it can sometimes yeah yeah absolutely um so sorry sorry i have a quick question how did you learn the tray so did you were you doing you said you were a technician before this but did you how'd you like how'd you learn how to sew and stuff like that yeah well initially um i started the company with an upholsterer So there's two of us, uh, this only lasted for around about eight, eight months. Um, so I was, uh, if you will, I was the engineer on site, taking the pads off, replacing the pads and the upholsterer was a qualified upholsterer experienced a lot older than me. Um, I was young and literally from there, uh, just picked up the, you know, how to. and developed it from there over time. That determination, once I was sort of left, the upholstery went back to the original company and I wasn't one to give in. So, glad I carried on.

The entrepreneurial spirit.

Yeah, absolutely. Since then, we trained our guys through an apprenticeship program. very good rapport with the college, so they're fed through the colleges to do the work. A little bit different in the fitness industry from furniture upholstery. Colleges, universities, they won't teach you how to reupholster the gym, but they will tell you and teach you how to reupholster the sofa. A little bit different. when the guys come to us, even though they're learning the basic skills to upholster, they need then to get in the field, in the gymnasium, learn how to take the pads off, the bolts, the casings, et cetera, to strip that down. And then obviously then it's simple, draw, saw, and put the cover back on.

Yeah, absolutely. Very cool. Over time, I'm just curious. You're in England, right? How big of an area are you guys covering? UK.

UK, sorry. Yes, we cover all the UK. We actually have Scotland, London, three miles radius.

OK, I got you. So you got a pretty big crew out there running around or is it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, with fans all over every day. Yeah, on site service.

Very cool. So and then over time, you guys, so so COVID, COVID, I think, put everybody in this, or at least all entrepreneurs in this mode where we had time to sit and think and re strategize, maybe even completely rebuild. And we knew we were going to come out on the other side of that and kind of a different world. And so it sounds to me like you started developing this new app. Can you go into a little bit about that process and what led to that and what kind of solutions that app is providing for gym owners and such?

Yeah, no problem. Yeah, absolutely. COVID did disrupt a lot of people and did give us time to think. And I think people that was in business for a long time Certainly, I've seen peaks and cross, I've been through difficult periods. This is different. This was different. I think everyone took a back step, obviously, not knowing the future, realistically, and what can you do to change to maybe avoid something that that we do not know is coming around the corner. Nothing lasts forever. That is what I am constantly saying to myself. It does not. Businesses change. Everybody's businesses change. The world changes. Economic climate changes and all sorts. It is basically putting all that into a bucket and trying to come up with some new ideas or some new direction to be better. And because you don't want to get left behind, you need to stay in front all the time. Now, initially, the app that I built, which is, I named it ReCorePad, which is actually pad recognition, a little flip on that, because when gymnasiums submitted a request, say, for their upholstery repair. They would send an image via email, then they would list the image in some context, you know, in text below, and obviously the images were attached above. These would all be scrambled in different ways around, so you'd have to try and assemble it. You'd get 13 images and only 11 descriptions, and it would take It would, if you ask anybody in the gym that's tried this, it is literally very common. So firstly, we wanted to make it a lot easier. So for our administrative team, certainly, because it was just taking a lot of time. And it could literally take, and there's no like four to five days, maybe longer, to actually just assess what the customer needs. It's just ridiculous. I just didn't get it. And throughout that four to five days, you change correspondence. You'd be talking to somebody else. And then you'd have to go right back to the beginning and start all over again. It was just crazy. The thing that came into my head at the time was, picture says, the picture says a thousand words. And so I thought, I can see the machine. And obviously we've been in the industry for a long time. If you were in the industry for a long time, you'd sort of recognize a lot of the machines. So we didn't really need a lot of description, just an image. And which pad do you want? Because going out to site and reupholstering, the product, if you will, and from that machine that was made in 1990 or 2018, it doesn't matter to us. Once you're on site, you will template that product and recover it on site. It aided for a very quick and fast service. The app, the development of the app was literally just to link an image and an actual, not a description, but to actually identify which pad on that machine. So if I took a picture of a machine, you can see there were four pads. Which one do you want? So actually, the app is a touchscreen app. So it's actually touchscreen technology. So once you take an image on your mobile phone in the gym, When the image comes up, you can tap the screen and it will come up with a little yellow indicator dot with a number, a corresponding number, starts from one. And you would just touch the pad which you want. There you go. Then you'd save that and move on to the next machine. You might want two pads on that. It would be two, three. You move on to the next machine, take a picture and touch the screen. It literally is take a picture, touch the screen, send the information.

Very cool. Real quick, guys listening to Fix Your Gym, we appreciate everybody listening, and we really appreciate our new sponsor, the FieldTech Fitness app. If you're ready to streamline your operations, check out the FieldTech Fitness app. Follow Ruben on social media and get ahold of him and help streamline your processes. And like and subscribe, follow the podcast, the more support the better. We're starting to get a pretty decent following, so appreciate everybody listening. And so Dean, So people send you, they log into your app, they take pictures of the bench or whatever the case is, and then they can highlight certain pads, right? And then what happens from there? Do you send out the pads now or are you still going on site? Is that basically just kind of like a quoting process or tell me a little bit more about that.

So the app is simply a request, a quoting process. It is literally connecting the operator, gym operator, to the supplier. We actually built an online app initially that works direct with our clients. So we do have an online app ourselves, just direct one-to-one. This is obviously what we developed to make our services a lot easier to administrate. After COVID, the app once went down on the internet. We was without the app for maybe three weeks. We realized then how much we relied on the app. At that point, it was going back to the original working process. which is obviously the images via email, et cetera, and the descriptions. So we quickly fixed the app, online app. And then obviously at this point in time, I'm thinking, this app, it needs to be developed further because we needed it. We could develop it more and get better with it. So started to develop it. which is now on the app store. So you can actually, if you go into the app stores and type Recopad, you can download it onto your phone. This is a global app. So I developed, I sort of turned away from, a little bit from my gym upholstery business and developed the global app for everybody to use. It will help the industry massively. We was getting messages on LinkedIn from one side of the America to the other side of America, and for health and fitness, you know, we needed, they needed our services in the USA, which is the gym upholster, and how do you do it? What's this, what's that? And so the actual app is there to help and connect, like I said, gym operators to suppliers. we need suppliers to jump on board the app. The app is a global, local, it's geographically located for Google services. So any supplier that actually wants to jump on board on the app and obviously their services can be found with a gym, any gym owner that downloads the app, opens it up, it knows where they are and within a service area that the supplier to their area, you will call.

You're talking about like, sorry to cut you off. So you're talking about, so a gym owner, they log into the app and it will show different, you say suppliers, are you talking about just like Core Health and Fitness? So it'll connect them so they can order the pads now directly from the manufacturer? Or are you saying that it connects them with like local upholstery services and things like that, or both?

OK, yeah, the app has been developed. So if basically if I'm a supplier and I'm in the USA, I'm a small supplier. I want to get involved in doing fitness equipment, upholstery for gymnasiums. If you go on to the website, RecoPad.com, scroll down there. There's a supplier link and you can register your company and you will literally go on to the app. It's something that is new. We're promoting it, obviously. Globally now, in the UK, the global app is still new for the UK. But our online app, personally, for Jima Postware, when it was developed in 2018, this is a web link. So that's just a one-to-one web link, which we use every single day in the UK for our services. A global app, download app, is literally to help the industry. We can get suppliers on board. and it literally gym owners can actually find suppliers in their area, but they can also add their own. So the app actually is, if you will, a free tool to use. So if you have a gymnasium and you use Bob around the corner, who does upholstery repair, you send Bob some emails, I need these, You don't need to do that anymore. Download the app. And once you're going through the app, it said, add your own supplier. So you can add Bob yourself if that's who you use. And use Bob. Bob will get an email with the image and the identifier of which pads he requires. And it's all free to use.

And then does Bob get listed as a supplier now in that area on the app? Or does he still have to go through a process of getting set up as a supplier?

Bob can set up as a supplier. However, because the gymnasium has actually added Bob on their device as their supplier, Bob will stay in the app on their device for their supplier. It's free. If Bob If Bob wants to become a sponsored supplier so that anybody that opened the app in the area that he requests, Bob will come up because they don't know who Bob is.

Yeah, that's very interesting, man. I like that a lot. I think that is very, very unique and could be really, really helpful. for gym owners. It is probably because there's, to be honest with you, there's not a lot of, and I don't know why this is, but I've seen it more in the UK. There's another fairly big company. It might've been new. Actually, I've been seeing that does mobile upholstery repair. There's not a lot of that in the, in the, in the U S it's a lot of smaller upholstery shops and stuff like that. But yeah, But yeah, that could be very helpful. I think a lot of times it's hard for gem owners to find people that will do that.

It's a difficult task to, if you're a small independent upholstery company in the US, it's a difficult task to get into the chains of magnesium. It really is. And I've seen it, and I've spoke to people that do find it difficult. get on the app, because the app is the easiest solution for the gym operator to use. If you're in there, you will come up, you will pop up and your services will become available. It was hard. Our first 10 years of gym upholstery in the UK were very, very difficult. We didn't have the same LinkedIn, Instagram, et cetera, back then. However, even now, I mean, you can social media post every single day, but if you've not got the traffic or you've not got the followers and they don't see your post, then you're not going to get any traction there. However, we've had talks with JD James over here. We've talked about the app. We are pushing the app and I'm actually developing the app further. I'm already moved on from even this new involvement in the app and trying to help gymnasiums globally. I'm further developing it because I know it helps. There is a new company. I don't mind saying that because actually, they're local and we speak to them all the time. There's a company called Orbit 4 in the industry at the moment, new, opening up an app for servicing requests, et cetera, which is great. I'm glad they're doing it. The upholstery side of servicing has always been a little bit of a niche area, something that major service companies don't even get involved in, is subcontract out to smaller independents. This is a perfect opportunity for them, smaller independents, to get on board and actually get this out, which is obviously being promoted by ourselves.

Yeah, no, that that makes a lot of sense. I mean, so we started up a little upholstery business, um, I thought, so I was like, okay, well, I, there's a huge need for it. I have some customers that, you know, I could, I started, so I went out and bought a sewing machine, right. I had no idea how to do any of this shit. And so like, yeah, I'm going to do it. And I bought a sewing machine and, and all this stuff and all this stuff you need. And, you know, um, and, uh, We hired somebody who was experienced like you did, experienced upholsterer, and she came on for a while. My dad's retired, and so he started learning the trade a little bit and stuff like that. It's difficult. it's a full, it's a full, it's really, there's such a need, it could be a full time thing. And we weren't necessarily expecting, expecting it to be that. And so, you know, it just kind of, and when you, when you have so many, you know, irons in the fire, or whatever, you get distracted, it might be easier for us to, you know, if we hopped on your app and say, Hey, Bob's next door, he's an experienced upholstery guy, we'll just contract this out to him. where the case is. And we've done that before with another upholstery company in the Kansas City area. So yeah, I like that idea, whether it's your service provider that's looking in, like us that is trying to get involved in that. First of all, I thought it was very interesting trade to learn. Learning to sew and stuff like that, I think it's a very interesting skill to add or to have. That's another reason why I got into it, although I haven't learned yet. I more learned about the business side of it.

The demand is definitely out there. It's still out there. Who would you go to? Who's your go-to now?

Yeah, absolutely. And there's a there's a need specifically for mobile, though, gym owners are it's different than other polls, you know, I don't know, like boats and stuff like that might be some mobile upholstery out there. But, you know, like gym owners in particular, they're not trying to have their equipment down for very long, like, They really need that on site or somebody who's real close who can turn it around in a day or two, you know what I mean? But no, I love it. There's definitely a need and I love talking with people who are innovating and creative and coming up with solutions to problems in our industry. I definitely need to talk to you more about how we can work together. I think we can work together on some things too.

I mean, obviously, I'm just probably repeating myself for anybody, gym owners or certainly suppliers out there, just check out, just go to recorpard.com and check out the app. Like I say, use it for free on your local supplier right now at the moment. see how easy it is to open up and get a request and send a request. If you want to add more, you can do yourselves. And if you want to send five at the same time to all the different five suppliers, all in one go, it will do that. And obviously, they'll respond via your email that's sent in to the app. And your correspondence is just you and the supplier. Literally, we are just connecting to players and operators.

Love it. Good stuff, man. Obviously, your website, you just mentioned, we connected on LinkedIn, so people can find you on LinkedIn. I saw you had a YouTube channel. I didn't look at it yet, but do you put much effort into that?

No, no, not really. It's just a video, like an instructional video on the app when we first launched it. So it just gives you a little bit of indication as to what it does.

Cool. And then Instagram and other social media platforms people connect with you at.

I don't know. Obviously, my experience in the 24 years of the actual upholstery and the gym upholstery side, you know, I am here. I do want to give out as much information as I can to help anybody. If any tips and tricks, I suppose, that anybody's needed, if they email me from the site there, you can ask me anything, and I'll try and help them. Because if I help, obviously, then they go on to the app, and they help the app, and help the operators, help the members. And it's just all around here to help.

Yeah, absolutely. That's and that's the way that we grow as an industry. And the more people that can, can kind of streamline these processes in their business. And it's kind of like our deal with with Ruben and his app that he's created to help us out in the field. And different, you know, innovations like you basically, you know, if we can help business owners become more efficient and not get, you know, obviously make more money and things like that, grow their business, scale their business, and make it easier for them and ultimately make the customer happy in the process. That's a win-win situation. The more that we can do that, the more it's going to help us in the long run. A lot of people may get caught up in like, oh, it's like these guys are competition or they're sharing trade secrets or whatever the case is like. No, we just share the information and help each other. You know what I mean?

We will grow. Hmm. Yeah. Well, we have, we have obviously over the 24 years, we've got competition now. I mean, I were the first onsite upholstery company in the UK. Um, now there is quite a few, uh, there's only a couple of major, um, bigger ones. And, uh, even now we, we, we do some work together, you know, exactly. It's like, we have a close relationship, um, don't mind giving him a mention, uh, Jim wizard. So I think that's the one I saw.

I think that's one of the ones that I saw in the UK. That was, uh, I was, when I was getting into upholstery, I think I, I ran into them.

Um, yeah, so between, between myself and Chris is Chris Medley. Uh, we, we support, we supported the UK for myself, 24, this 22, I think, uh, we just slightly on site after me. We've not tread on each other's toes. We've just cracked on a bit and we've got to this stage and now obviously more gymnasium, more demand, more work. You know, there is enough to go around and if we can help each other. He, to be honest, we're specializing a lot in Technogym. relationship with Technogym, ourselves more, if you will, my fitness, because that's too many times fitness that we obviously supply to. But we both do other manufacturers, you know, it's upholstery with Preco, Matrix, Exigo, and so forth. But like I say, I'm happy to If anybody wants any information, if I can help them get set up, and I do know that obviously the US is difficult to find them suppliers. If you find them, it's going to benefit the business, come out of the upholstery trade in furniture and get yourself into the gymnasium business because it is a big demand and certainly give a good living. It does here. I'm sure it will there.

Yeah, absolutely, man. I really appreciate your time and coming on and sharing with us. And I'm definitely gonna take you up on that. We'll have a connect with you and talk about that because I could use some help in my little upholstery journey as well. But so but yeah, man, I love what you got going on. Once again, I appreciate your time and everything like that. And yeah,

Very welcome. Very welcome. Thank you for inviting me on to the podcast. I'll keep an eye out. I've been watching some of your previous posts. Good. We're getting better. We're getting better. I think, am I the second one outside of the US? Yeah.

Yeah, that's the second one. We had one from Australia. Yeah, that definitely helps. Helps get the name out there. and everything like that. We do have a few European listeners and things like that, but having you all will definitely help. But yeah, man, thanks again for your time and we'll talk to you soon.

Yeah, no problem. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Thanks so much for tuning into this episode. We sure do appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show wherever you consume podcasts. This way you'll get updates as new episodes become available. And if you feel so inclined, please leave us a review. Until next time, friends.