We made it to Episode 89 of the Behind the Golf Brand Podcast. In this week's episode, I interview my good friend Jeremy James Founder of GolfForever.
Jeremy James, DC, CSCS spent a decade helping professional and Olympic athletes, Fortune 500 CEOs, and men and women from all walks of life overcome pain and get back to the sports, activities and daily life they love.
Now Dr. James has teamed up with two experts in golf and sports performance, Justin Leonard and Bill Fabrocini, to build the most effective golf training program anywhere. Combining their expertise in the three important areas of golf technique, sports performance, and joint and spine health, this program will have you playing and feeling your best ever.
In a process as precise as golf itself, Dr. James continued to optimize, study and hone his method into a full body mind and movement series that transformed lives along with scorecards.
In a series of digestible, daily videos, GOLFFOREVER brings these techniques to players everywhere. All you need is an internet connection and the desire to play. Living better is just a side effect. Dr. James is also the co-author of the best-selling Younger Next Year Back Book and former Director of the Aspen Club Back Institute.
We made it to Episode 89 of the Behind the Golf Brand Podcast. In this week's episode, I interview my good friend Jeremy James Founder of GolfForever.
Jeremy James, DC, CSCS spent a decade helping professional and Olympic athletes, Fortune 500 CEOs, and men and women from all walks of life overcome pain and get back to the sports, activities and daily life they love.
Now Dr. James has teamed up with two experts in golf and sports performance, Justin Leonard and Bill Fabrocini, to build the most effective golf training program anywhere. Combining their expertise in the three important areas of golf technique, sports performance, and joint and spine health, this program will have you playing and feeling your best ever.
In a process as precise as golf itself, Dr. James continued to optimize, study and hone his method into a full body mind and movement series that transformed lives along with scorecards.
In a series of digestible, daily videos, GOLFFOREVER brings these techniques to players everywhere. All you need is an internet connection and the desire to play. Living better is just a side effect. Dr. James is also the co-author of the best-selling Younger Next Year Back Book and former Director of the Aspen Club Back Institute.
Today we play golf.
Speaker 2:Let me show you how we do it in the pros.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Welcome to behind the golf brand podcast. I never missed with the seven nine a conversation with some of the most interesting innovators and entrepreneurs behind the biggest names in golf. My
Speaker 4:Friends were the golf clubs. I lived on the golf course. I lived on the driving
Speaker 3:Range from pro talk. You should learn something from each and every single round you play to fun from on and off the green.
Speaker 5:Why would you play golf? You don't play it for money.
Speaker 3:Just let me put the ball in a hole. This is behind the golf brand podcast with Paul liberatory.
Speaker 6:What's up guys, Paul from golfer's authority. Welcome to the behind the golf brand podcast this week. We're on episode 89. Holy crap. Can't believe we're getting this high up there. And I have my good friend, Dr. Jeremy James from golf forever. He is the founder and CEO. You guys have seen this a lot. I know I have. And I'm super excited cuz I'm actually really interested in this product. Um, I have not tested it yet and I've not tried it, but it looks really cool. And I like like the story behind it and the why. And so I'm really like excited to talk to him about this cuz I don't know, understand. So welcome to the show,
Speaker 7:Paul, thank you very much and glad to be here. And you know, we'll have to change that. I wanna get you trying this thing out as soon as possible.
Speaker 6:So are you a professional golfer
Speaker 7:Far from it?
Speaker 6:Um, are you a hack like me
Speaker 7:Pretty much. You know what, what I do know, what I am very good at is understanding the, the biomechanics of the golf swing, what your body needs to do to produce it. Uh, the damage it can cause if you're not proactive and how to, how to improve it through improving your body.
Speaker 6:So where did you grow up?
Speaker 7:I grew up in rural Tennessee actually, um, went to college at the university of Tennessee and moved out west, lived in Portland, Oregon for a while. San Diego and ended up here in Colorado going on 12, 13 years ago.
Speaker 6:Did you go to Tennessee when Peyton Manning was there?
Speaker 7:I did.
Speaker 6:I knew it cause I was like, okay, I know old you are. And I'm like doing the math in my head and I'm like, I bet he was there when Peyton was there,
Speaker 7:By the way I, I, uh, I bartended in college and he frequented our bar. The whole football team did and he was just a gentleman and just an outstanding guy, uh, always polite, friendly, humble, you know, which wasn't always the case with the football team. I couldn't say enough good things about him. He was just great.
Speaker 6:He's awesome. I love him, dude. He's great. When did he grad, when did, when did Tennessee, like when that, what was that? 95
Speaker 7:When Martin, uh, which was some like 95, 96.
Speaker 6:Yeah. Cause I was still in high. Like I was like, I graduated in 96 high school. Right. So like I was at, I went to Purdue and I was at Purdue when drew breeze was at Purdue and it, like I met drew and drew was like the coolest guy in the world. Like he was like the most chill, nice guy. Like all, I dunno if it's a quarterback thing either or just certain people, but like, I feel like the quarterbacks have so much like stress on their shoulders that they have to like lead the team that like they're just held to a higher standard. Right? Yeah. I don't know. I might be wrong, but it was just, I think you're right. He never went out.
Speaker 7:Yeah. I mean you have to, you know, think you have to have some humility to be a leader and maybe that's part of it.
Speaker 6:Yeah. I just remember like he never went out to the bars like ever. I mean I just go the bars a lot and like I knew a lot of football players and they were always at the bars, but I'd be like, where's drew. And they were like, oh, he's at this girlfriend in his apartment. I was like, oh,
Speaker 7:Okay. That makes sense.
Speaker 6:But so you went to Tennessee and what did you major in at Tennessee?
Speaker 7:So I did a dual, um, I had a, a, a environmental science is what I started in. I switched, um, and ended up with biology and political science and then went on to chiropractic school out in Oregon. Um, my, my entire family is, is, is in the medical profession one way or the other father and grandfather, both Gay's mom, nurse, aunts, uncles, you name it. And, um, we can get into later why I went a different way, but, um, I'm glad I did. Why, why? Well, I had some, I had some issues myself when I was, when I was young and, and funny enough, uh, this may be the first time anybody in your podcast has said this, but I had aspirations when I was a, a teenager of being a professional skateboarder and that's RA and I was, I was pretty good at it. And I, I was, you know, getting better and I, I had a lot of injuries, developed some significant back pain and went through kind of the whole, um, traditional route of Western medicine. And I'm not slamming Western medicine. It's, it's amazing at doing a lot of things, but at that time it was not great at treating back pain. And it did the, you know, the, uh, the procedures, the, the MRI, the ultrasound, the cat scan,
Speaker 6:Objections, the nerve a,
Speaker 7:The depression, importantly, because that's a big part of, of why this program has been successful. Cause there's a big psychological component to it. Long story short, none of that was successful. And it wasn't until I saw a chiropractor, which he didn't give me permanent relief, but he did give me some short term relief, which was the first time I'd ever had that. And it made, it gave me an idea or I guess it planted the seed of looking at the body in a different way, uh, of like a machine, you know, like you would look at a car or any other piece of mechanical equipment and there's moving parts and they all have to work well together in coordination. And it balance and chiropractic school made the most sense, um, as a starting point for that approach to the relief of chronic pain, which is where I ended up and what, what, what I had a clinic, uh, that excelled in. And so, um, that's how I got to, to where I am today. I never really practiced as a chiropractor. Most of my patients would've thought of me more as a coach when we were in the gym, you know, most of the time, but you know, the vast majority of these aches and pains that, that golfers and really everybody experience are a function of your lifestyle, how you live, how you move, how you exercise, how you don't etcetera. And so that is how, uh, I got into this profession. And that's how ultimately, uh, golf forever came about, uh, based on, uh, my clinic.
Speaker 6:Did you go, so you went to chiropractor school in Oregon, but then you, did you really practice chiropractor or chiropractor? How do I say that? Uh, I can said close. So did you practice that or you just started like training and like you understood the biomechanics of like the way the body works.
Speaker 7:I lobbied hard to get a, a job at a clinic that was here in Aspen, which is why I moved here. Originally. I had read about this clinic and national geographic rock report, et cetera. And it was really a pioneering clinic in this way of looking at the human body, which was more looking at all aspects of a person with, with chronic pain, ended up getting the job. And, you know, if, if you define chiropractic as manipulating people, that sort of thing, not, I never really did that. I did a lot of, uh, basically a lot of time in the gym, a lot of time evaluating someone's lifestyle, how they spend their day, uh, making tweaks to that, and importantly assessing deficiencies in their body as far as strength, flexibility, and mobility and rebuilding those areas so that their body was, was a healthy functioning unit. Whereas when they would come in, you could think of it as bringing a car in. Somebody had been driving on a flat tire for, you know, a year it's gonna move up and start to bend the axle. It's gonna start to cause problems all throughout the car. It's the same way in the human body. If you've had say an injury in the past and specific muscle groups shut down, you're gonna start to compensate in other areas. And before long, your body doesn't function the way it was intended to, and you start to put stress and strain on certain areas. And so with the, with the right approach and the right program, the vast majority of that stuff can be fixed permanently. And, um, what we saw in my clinic was that we had a lot of golfers. You can imagine why golf is a, is a repetitive asymmetrical movement, you know, and
Speaker 6:If you don't, you're a natural movement too, right?
Speaker 7:It's not a natural movement. No. And, uh, I I'm gonna blame my being a hack on that. Cause it is, it is a really difficult movement. Um, and if you don't balance that out and if you're not proactive, uh, it can, it can hurt you. It can wear you down, especially your lumbar spine, which is your back.
Speaker 6:Yeah. I mean, I think as you get older too, when you're younger, you could have an unnatural, I mean, you could be, I look a tiger, right? Like his made back issues means a phenomenal player, but I mean, it's just, that just shows you, it doesn't matter. Like how much of an athlete you really are. You're doing an unnatural movement over and over and over and over again, you're gonna have injury. Right. And then especially like if you're, you know, a normal player mid to high handicap or, you know, who does the place once a month, like, that's the last thing you should be doing is swinging your body in that direction when you don't do that. But once a month, I would assume that's right, right.
Speaker 7:Yeah. Genetics plays a little role in it. Um, genetics will predispose you to either being more susceptible to getting injured or not. But if you look at a bell curve, most of the people in the middle of that bell curve, if they don't do something, uh, proactively, they won't get injured at some point, some people can get away with it most can't.
Speaker 6:Yeah. Like I got in a car accident like four years ago. And then ever since then, like, I couldn't even swim a golf club. Like it was like my, my upper lumbar, right. Like freaked the hell out. Like, it was always like this, you know? And it matter. And I took me like years of like stretching and chiropractory and like heat and whatever, like make it just chill out, essentially. Mm-hmm<affirmative>. But then I noticed too, like I had golf clubs that were too short for me, so I had to be even further down and then do that lower, that swing, which is aggravated the hell out of my back because it's like, so now it's like, you don't realize those things. They don't, you don't think about it. You're just, you just think, oh, okay. I can do that. No problem. And then really you can't, I mean, you can just, you're paying for it for the next three days. Um, that's
Speaker 7:Right. You know, you just gave a perfect example of what I talked about a few minutes ago, which is you have, this is really an important point. Uh, so I hope, let me know if it doesn't make sense, an injury, some kind of traumatic injury, like a car accident, you're gonna injure joints, muscles, whatever it is. And your body's gonna learn new ways to move, to compensate for that while you're injured, but even
Speaker 6:After protect it, right. Try to protect it.
Speaker 7:And after that tissue heals, unless you embark upon a kind of like a, a focused, uh, proactive rehabilitation program to retrain the muscles, you can stay in that pattern for years, even though there's nothing physically wrong with the tissues that we're talking about, say
Speaker 6:It's all healed. Everything's cool. It just doesn't know how to work. Right.
Speaker 7:Exactly. And that can cause 10 out of 10 pain. I mean, a lot of people think, well, that doesn't sound so bad, nothing, Sarah, but actually that can drop you to the ground. Muscle spasms are incredibly painful and you get muscle spasms when muscles are overloaded because the system isn't balanced and working properly. That I hope that makes sense.
Speaker 6:I think it's so cool because like, it's so true. Like my problem now is that like, I can't get the full rotation over. Right. Like my body, like literally just like fights it. Like, I can't go, I mean, I can go, but it's not, I can't go into full whatever you call it position. Right. Like my back, my butt, my back are like, eh, it's like, oh, we're not gonna go that far. And it's like, why? You know, I'll stretch it or whatever. And it helps a little bit, but not I've lost that rotation. It feels like, you know, I feel like I'm very rigid and I think I didn't have that problem before the car accident. So it's almost like it's funny because I didn't, there's repercussions of what happened even years later because I, I don't know. I think as the body, my chiropractor told me essentially it's cuz your body's trying to protect something. It thinks it's still not. Right. You know? So your brain's telling you, no, we're not doing that even though you could possibly do. It's no problem. It just, so what do you do in those situations? Like how do you, how does one fix those problems?
Speaker 7:It's it's funny. It's almost like the scripted. I mean, this is, this is what a big part, part of golf forever is you,
Speaker 6:You, you transition, right? Like a
Speaker 7:Transition sports listeners out there. We didn't plan this. Um,
Speaker 6:We did. So we wrote it down. No, I'm kidding. We did. We totally did not.
Speaker 7:So in our assessment we use a couple of what seems, what will seems to be user very simple exercises, but it actually tells us a ton about the stability of your shoulder, the range of motion of your shoulder, your upper back, your core strength and endurance, your hips, et cetera. And we pinpoint deficiencies in those areas for your, for your case. For example, you can't get all the way in your back swing. If you lack, uh, whether it's flexibility in your PS, you lack range of motion in your shoulders or in your case, maybe your thoracic spine and the muscles around it are locked up. When you go into that back swing, you're gonna put too much force through your lumbar spine and your low back, trying to get into that position. And your brain can go Uhuh, that is way too much torque on your low back, shut it down. That can be part of what's going on. And so we assess those things in the program and then you're fed content every day. When you log in to address those deficiencies and also get a good golf fitness workout at the same time. And it progresses over time. Once we've addressed those deficiencies, you can you continue going? Then it gets more about golf performance. Once we've built like a solid foundation and corrected any problems you may have when you join,
Speaker 6:Essentially, it's like figuring out what your problem is, right? Like what's happening and then a method to fix that problem. And then once it starts to be better, then it's like a more of a daily routine of how to keep yourself fit in a way, right? Not like exercise fit, like I'm gonna get strong and buff, but like your body's doing what it's supposed to be doing.
Speaker 7:That's correct. And you, I mean, you do get much stronger. So we, we have various levels of difficulty. So the other thing we assess during that, that self assessment is your strength. Uh, your ability to move with agility, like your coordination, your balance. So the program is constructed such that whether you use it back to back days or two days a week, we're focusing on something different. Every time you log in and click today's workout one day, maybe rotational power the next day, maybe golf specific balance the next day after body strength, the next day, lower, et cetera, all within customized, you know, content specifically for you,
Speaker 6:How did you come up with golf forever? Like what made you go into golf? Like, were you just like, what made you go in this way?
Speaker 7:Sure. So as I mentioned earlier, so I, I directed a clinic out here for over a decade and we really did become known as the, kind of the last resort people with chronic pain and nine times outta 10, these were people that had issues like with your history. They aren't people that have some, you know, debilitating spinal lesion. That's, you know, their spine is anatomically destroyed in any way. And so, as I said, we had a lot of golfers and one thing I noticed in my clinic and then I'll get to the program is that golfers were super motivated. Um, yes, they wanted to get out of pain, but they also noticed because the, the strategies overlap dramatically when you're trying to relieve pain and improve golf, there's a ton of overlap. So what they noticed was not only their pain go away, but their, their game was really improving. They were hitting it further and more consistent. They could play more rounds without suffering. The next day. Their endurance was better. The original idea after doing my clinic for a long time, it was very expensive. Uh, insurance didn't cover what we did because as I mentioned, I didn't really practice chiropractic. It was basically a, a medically informed personal training. If you wanna think about it that way. And it was expensive to come out here. Most of our patients were from outside of the state or the country. And so I just was trying to think of ways to, uh, to scale this, to make it cheaper and to get it out to the general public. So I actually created a, a Nongo back pain relief program first, which was called back forever. And funny enough, what we saw with that was the same with my clinic. We got inundated with golfers, they were highly engaged. They were always wanting more stuff. They, they wanted more and more, they loved it. And so that gave me the idea of just, I already, by that point, knew so much about golf. Knew a lot of golfers had worked on hundreds of golfers and thought, well, let's just see if, if this thing makes sense just for golf and we still do the other programs, but this one has been, has generated the most enthusiasm and excitement. And, uh, we have users that are on, you know, their 500 workout day at this point, uh, using it regularly. So in general, that was the idea. And originally this was very much like a golf related pain relief program, but it's sensed morphed into far more golf performance. And we're about 25% right now of our users are there for pain relief.
Speaker 6:When did you start golf? Like when did it go live?
Speaker 7:A very, very, very basic version of which I would, I would laugh right now about, and I'm glad that you don't have it here to display was launched in, uh, late 2018. We launched what I would consider the very basic version of what we have now just over two years ago. And, uh, we launched the swing trainer, which was our first physical piece of equipment, uh, in January of this year.
Speaker 6:So the original version did not have physical piece of equipment. No,
Speaker 7:We didn't have a physical piece of equipment until this year originally. And, and still, um, this is still part of it. When you join the program, we ask you what exercise equipment you have access to, whether it's exercise bands, dumbbells, Swiss ball C, and that part of that customization is only providing you with content for which you have the equipment. The swing trainer has really, uh, allowed us to take it quite a bit further in that I don't know. Do you know what the swing drainer is?
Speaker 6:Yeah, I've seen it. I mean, I've seen like pictures of it, like
Speaker 7:It's, it's BA I have one to hear, it's basically a bar, um, with, you know, it has both a, uh, weighted head for warmups, but importantly, within the program, it has, um, you know, each other, a resistance cord to it. And it's, it's a shaft now. And so this really lets us recreate. If you can imagine a cord right here, that's anchored to something and you're, and you're moving with it. It really allows us to recreate the forces and movements, uh, that you get with the golf swing, because now you have the resistance at the end of a shaft. Whereas if you you're holding resistance band, you lose that. And that really impacts the field, the torque, the forces and places on your body, et cetera. So it's, it's generated so much enthusiasm and it's, it's really taken our company to a whole nother level to share. It's been, it's been really exciting.
Speaker 6:So you had the website and the exercises, right. And stuff like that, but you had no physical equipment, right? Initially.
Speaker 7:Correct. We just had the application,
Speaker 6:You had the application and then once you incorporated the shaft and the equipment to be part of that, is that when, like, it just kind of took off like crazy, cause you guys blown up through the last couple months. I know that for a fact.
Speaker 7:Well, thank you. Yeah, it is, you know, with Scotty, Scheffler had been, had been using this, the swing trainer with, uh, his trainer, Dr. Troy MBS and who is also one of our golfer instructors that you see on the app and Scotty loved it. He trained with it starting in November of last year. And so that helped us get him on board as an ambassador. And it was a great fit cause he'd actually been using the thing a lot and
Speaker 6:Loved. Yeah. It's not like, oh yeah, I'll use it, whatever. It's like, he's already using it. And he is like, oh, hell yeah, I'll promote you guys. Like, it's awesome.
Speaker 7:Yeah. And so obviously having him come on board was, was huge. And, and just all that mixed together has, has been the right formula. And we're, we're developing, we've got new stuff to come. And you know, the idea of a physical product with streaming content is like resonates with people. It, it requires less explanation. Whereas I think where we had the challenge before with just the application was explaining it. And once we got people in our retention is excellent. It's, it's getting them to, was the challenge. Now with the device you're looking at content, it just makes sense to people on it and you know, offers love to swing things. And this looks like something you wanna swing at.
Speaker 6:Yeah. I look at all like the swing aids, man, those things blow up like crazy, like super sub speed and orange whip. And like all those guys, like, let me kinda imagine my units, they sell. Um, so Scotty started using it last November, just like, as part of his training routine and getting ready for the next season. Probably apparently how like, like how do you even like approach that? Or they're like, Hey, do you guys wanna, like, I don't even know how to ask a player. You know what I'm saying? Like, or is he already so excited about it? He's like, oh yeah, I need to talk to these guys. This is cool.
Speaker 7:Well, you know, Troy, Troy's been working with him since he was in high school, so, and Troy's been, oh,
Speaker 6:Wow. Yeah.
Speaker 7:Troy's been with us for just over two years now. So that, that was how we started the conversation. Uh, Scotty was just wonderful. Like what you see, Scotty's
Speaker 6:Cool as hell
Speaker 7:When you see on media is really what you get with him. There's no, there's no ego, there's no diva kind of, you know, attitude. He's, he's great. I mean, he is, he's, uh, he's probably one of the more mature 20 something I've ever been around. Uh, and to our, to the point of our earlier conversation, pretty humble. Um, so, you know, it was great. His agent was great to work with. Um, his agent actually knew Justin Leonard who was already part of our program. So it
Speaker 6:Was just, how did Justin be a part of your program?
Speaker 7:So Justin, uh, up until last month was a local here in Aspen. He's lived here. He just moved to Jupiter, Florida, but, um, really well, it's a small community out here really well known. Uh, he and I knew a lot of the same people. He, and, uh, he knew a lot of my former patients. And when, um, when I started kicking around the idea of this, we were introduced and we hit it off immediately. And Justin, I don't know how much you know about him lately, but you know, the last 10 years or so, he has been really hard into physical fitness health. Uh, you know, he, he really got into the mountain lifestyle out here. And so it was a no brainer when he heard about the idea, he was excited to be a part of it. And I'm very thankful for him to take a chance on me when it was just an idea. And, uh, he was a, he huge part of our successful launch of giving us, you know, a face in the golf world, credibility and you know, the talent,
Speaker 6:That's the hardest part, right? Like it, you could have the coolest product in the world that really does work, but like the marketing side is so hard to get it out there. Like that's the hardest thing, like so hard. That's the literally the hardest thing
Speaker 7:It's, it's I, I mean, you, I couldn't have said it better myself when I started this thing, my biggest concern was, are we gonna be able to build a digital product that works as well as what I was doing in the clinic or is seeing like Scotty seeing, you know, Troy Vann, I thought that would be the toughest part. That was the easiest part. Marketing is definitely the hardest part.
Speaker 6:Like how do you guys market then? Like just digital, I'm assuming like everybody else, word of mouth.
Speaker 7:Yeah. Digital was a, was the main focus of our strategy up until this year, really. But now with the physical product, you know, we're getting into retail stores, we're on Amazon. It's it's, we're on golf.com. It's opened
Speaker 6:Up. Oh, so you guys are on Amazon now or that just from the website,
Speaker 7:Correct. It's opened up a lot of new distribution channels. And our biggest, the thing we're most excited about is going into retail stores this fall. And we have some of those in the works right now. We're also getting a lot of buy in from clubs. We're, we're installing warmup stations, uh, with the swing trainer before people go out and play. And we've got the video, you know, on, on the screen that they can follow along with Scotty Scheffler doing the same routines he did and that he did for the masters right there at their club. Uh, and so that's, we started rolling that out about two months ago and that's been a big success as well for brand awareness and sales. I
Speaker 6:Really can't think of like, I mean, there's, I know there's brands out there that you can use to like warm up, right. There's product out there at warm up products. Most people don't warm up. Right. I would say like, they just barely make it to the golf course, five minutes for tee time. And then they're like, why my back hurt. If I had a golf forever product, like, how would I use it? Would I use it? Like, I'm use, I'd use it at home, but there's like images I've seen on your site where like people can use it at the course. Right. Like I saw like it's on the cart was I think<inaudible>, I saw a picture like that. Like, so how do people incorporate that in their normal play?
Speaker 7:That's a great question. So the, the vast majority of the use and, and the intended use case is at home to build your fitness, uh, using the application with your customized workouts, which, which I, I believe is, is as good as, and not if not better than working with a lot of fitness professionals, the secondary use I touched on earlier, which is, you know, you can use this. We have a ton of pre-round warmups in the application using, uh, the swing trainer and without it, and as I mentioned, this has two different weighted balls. The screen ball gives you a D three swing weight. So you can use this for warming up. And then we have a heavier weighted ball for speed training. But the, the general idea across the whole thing is to improve your body for golf. So I'd say, you know, the majority is the at home part, but then right, when you're walking out for that first tee shot, we give you five minute routines where you're really hitting the bit, the target areas, upper back mobility, core engagement, glued engagement, hip flexibility, so that when you get out there, it really makes it a tremendous difference. I mean, I, I speak for myself and countless others, the difference between just going out and hitting, you know, range balls versus taking five, 10 minutes to, to get your body moving and, and activating the right muscle groups and, and getting your brain ready makes a tremendous impact on
Speaker 6:Your game. Initially, when you came up with like you had your clinic. Right. And so, but then when you launched the initial before the, the hard, good, like, was that being shared with trainers like nationally? I mean, essentially like people you've already kind of knew that like, Hey, checked off this new program I've come up with, or like, how, like, how did you bridge? How did you bridge the gap from like, I have this idea and I wanna do this to like, actually, can you build it, but then how do you get it out there initial phase, right. To like legitimize the product, I guess, a better way of saying it.
Speaker 7:Yeah. Well, that's a great question. I mean, a big part of it was, you know, raising the money, uh, to get it launched and to get the marketing budget going. And our first push was, uh, we did, you know, kind of the normal standard PR things. And, and again, Justin Leonard being involved gave us a tremendous
Speaker 6:Push. Yeah. I could imagine.
Speaker 7:And then, um, we relied a lot on digital and until, uh, the changes with iOS, the apple operating
Speaker 6:Dude, that's like, that's like tanked it for everybody. I mean, I don't run ads like ever, well, I do it once in a while, but like that's for small stuff, but like the brand I talked to they're like, oh, it's changed. It's completely changed the market space. Like it's the most impossible to like convert.
Speaker 7:It is so up until that Facebook funny enough was a major driver of, of sales and, and user acquisition to your point. It, it was basically destroyed last year. So it couldn't be more timely with the physical product, allowing us to branch out to other distribution channels.
Speaker 6:It's crazy. It's crazy. I mean, it just, it's just crazy. We
Speaker 7:Almost<crosstalk>, it was extremely difficult to deal with. I mean, it was like, nobody knew it was, I mean, we kind of knew it was coming, but not to the effect that it ended up being. I mean, it was a complete shock and it, I, I imagine there's tens or hundreds of thousands of people that like me were just scrambling, you know, to survive.
Speaker 6:Oh yeah, for sure. I, I mean, I was trying to run ads on this product I made and like my buddy set it up. Who's like a perfect, he's really good at it. Right. He does it for a big brand and we set it all up and like literally the cost to run, to get one conversion, which they even converted. I did it, but like one conversion was more than what a product sold for. And I was like, I'm like, seriously, like, no, thanks. Turn it off. Like I would rather not do that. I mean,
Speaker 7:It didn't used to be that way, but yes, that is
Speaker 6:The case. No, I mean, I knew brands that blew up because of just Facebook ads essentially. Yeah. I mean, I know there's probably ways of working around it, but so then are you guys, do you guys do like Google ads too? And I'm assuming probably yeah. You have to. We
Speaker 7:Do. Yeah. Um, you know, we do search, we do, uh, paid ads. We do
Speaker 6:Super it's. It's super smart for you to go to Amazon route too, because like they dominate the ad market. Like if you look up a product, like if they saw an Amazon, a Amazon's paying to run ads on you, Google. So it's almost like you're double dipping. Um, that's what I've been told by brands. At least
Speaker 7:You're, you're absolutely right. Couldn't have said it better myself. They are becoming kind of like the, the Def facto search engine and market.
Speaker 6:They really are like, if you type in, I bet you a million bucks, if you type in golf forever, I just make true. It was your, but Leslie, you did it. Like you're gonna see an ad from Amazon selling the golf forever, which I can tell you right now, Jeremy didn't pay for that ad. Like Amazon's paying for that ad because they just wanna get people onto Amazon to pay for it. So it's almost like you, people are so afraid to be on Amazon because it's like a big learning curve and it's a big pain in the and whatever, but like, you kind of have to, I mean,
Speaker 7:Yeah, I couldn't agree more and it's
Speaker 6:Time, but that's, that's what I think. And that's my
Speaker 7:Opinion. Yeah. And we,
Speaker 6:I love Amazon. Don't get me wrong. Like me
Speaker 7:Too, you know,
Speaker 6:I'll buy off. I spend thousands of dollars a week probably on Amazon,
Speaker 7:Same here. I mean, I live in a place where we're very rural. We don't have that many stores. And so, yeah, I used Amazon a lot, but you know, we didn't have an ability to be on there. And so we had a physical product. You can't
Speaker 6:Exactly right. Like what do you do when you have a digital product? Like they're not gonna sell that on Amazon. No, it's smart. It's almost smart. Right? Cause now you have hard, good that now you can sell on Amazon and like other places too, now you can go retail. Right. So you probably couldn't do that before either because it was intangible. Right. So when did the, when did the hard, good come out? You said this this spring, right?
Speaker 7:We debuted at the PGA show in January.
Speaker 6:So how was the reception on that?
Speaker 7:It was amazing. I
Speaker 6:Mean, was it,
Speaker 7:It was, it really did kick off. What, what has been an extraordinary year? We had, I think we were told about multiple people and I, of course can't verify this, but we were told, and it seemed like we were the most exciting booth there. We had one of our, uh, one of the co inventors of the device, uh, Pete Holman, uh, who's one of our instructors and he's just this big animated guy. He was former us TaeKwonDo champion, uh, team captain. And he's invented a lot of fitness products and he's, he's now become a, really, an expert in golf fitness as well. But he is just super animated and he swings this thing. Like you can't imagine. I mean, he's makes a spectacle of it. He looks like he's swinging a samurai sword. And we just had like, you know, five people deep circle around our booth pretty much the whole time. It was, it was really, uh, exciting and just overwhelming. It was great.
Speaker 6:Was it nice because the PGA show wasn't crazy that, you know, like, was it wasn't as much attendance, so you probably got the more attention than you would've had the big boys been there. Now I've been told by a lot of brands that had been there, like that. We got a lot more attention than we would've in the past, which is a phenomenal, because it was like finally, right. Because essentially the big brands take on, take up most of the air time, let's call it. And then, then like, so I bet that was kind of cool too, because you have a new product, a new thing, you have a cool booth. It's active, it's lively titles is not down the road trying to sell putters or something like that. You know, I can't believe you went to the PGA show. I was all ready to go to the PGA show. And then I canceled because like COVID was going crazy. And I was like, oh hell no, I'm not going to get COVID. Yeah. That's why I didn't go.
Speaker 7:You know, I, I could tell you're gonna be really successful if you're not, not, I mean, I know you're already, but you're gonna be, I'm
Speaker 6:Not
Speaker 7:Successful. You're gonna be even more successful because these are really insightful questions. And these are the same things that my team and I have talked about. Like, that's another one you just touched on. We had that conversation after the show was over and we agreed. We all the consensus was, this was actually a good thing for us
Speaker 6:Because we I've been told by numerous, mid, the small, the mid-size brands, this would've been the best BGA show they've been to in 20 years. Like,
Speaker 7:It was excellent for us
Speaker 6:And well established multimillion dollar brands have told me the same thing too. They're just like, yeah, like we weren't even gonna go like, you know, and then only half our team went because of whatever. And it was literally the best show we've ever had because like we got, we were on, you know, TV, which we never get to be on. And like, like, but like you never, I dunno, I had my opinions on the PGA show, but, um, that's
Speaker 7:Only just second.
Speaker 6:I love PGA show. I've only gone one time. It was the best time I ever went. The reason why I loved it so much was because I made so many friends in the industry. Like I was just excited to see people. I knew like finally, like if I saw you'd be like, what's up and probably give you a hug and be like, oh, so cool to see you. Like, we've talked a lot, like, you know what I'm saying? Like, that's why it's fun for me. And the, the, just the vast expansiveness of it. You're like, holy crap. That's like, it's like, I got to my wife. I'm like, it's a square mile under glass. Like, especially I can describe it, like of all golf stuff. And you can, you don't have time to see every, it was fun. I enjoyed it. I was gonna go this year. I didn't even book my ticket. And then I canceled. Cause I was like, well, CO's blowing up and everyone's getting sick. And I was like, well, no one gets stuck in Florida, which I didn't really want to do. I drive home.<laugh> the Phoenix when freaking Florida, like that's no, thanks. Like I canceled it. Um, so the first time you went though, were you a, did you have a booth or no,
Speaker 7:No. The first time we went, we had just started and it was basically just like a, just like a reconnaissance mission and trying to meet people. And it was man, it was crazy. I guess it was 2 20 19. I think it was 2019. Could have been 2020. It was before COVID but obviously, and it was just a rowdy. I mean, it was just rowdy and you know, just parties every night you have to go to. And it was just, I was so exhausted by the time it was over. And this time was very, very different, but not necessarily bad. As I mentioned, it was still a lot of fun still. I probably met more people and had in depth conversations with more people. Whereas the first time there's so much going on, you know, everybody's just kind of like, doesn't wanna give too much attention to one person or one thing.
Speaker 6:So, I mean, it's kind of cool too, because I bet you, were you able to like walk around, talk to people and check out other stuff? Or were you and the booth the whole time?
Speaker 7:No, we, we had a, we had a big team there. Uh, we had like, I think seven, eight people. So we, we took time off and checked everything out. We got to walk around it. It was great
Speaker 6:That I've been told too, like from friends, who've had booths, like, man, I wish I'd have a booth. Like they're just stuck in the booth the whole time. And it's like, I don't get to go mingle and stuff, but so it probably had great fan. Did that. So when you came out of the PGA show, I bet you were like, you had, you felt like you felt the sail behind you, right? The wind behind your back or whatever. Like, oh, this is gonna be a good year. Like people are already sort of take notice.
Speaker 7:It was, yeah. It, I mean, it was definitely, it was the first, it felt different. I guess I'll say that it, it did feel different coming out of that. And we, you know, we were so optimistic and hopeful and that ended up pounding out and it was just, you know, we, with the startup, there's always challenges, but this year has been, it's really been our brand.
Speaker 6:Here's the best part. Let me tell you the best part. Okay. Yeah. It's August. You're like what month? This is my opinion. Okay. I'm third party. Best team. Is that like, okay, we have August, we have maybe like one, two more months of golf season. Right. And then golf season starts going down. Then it's like, dude, your fricking product is like, yeah, you can do while playing. But it's more of like, you can use all season long. You can use in the winter, you can use your basement, you can use it like the train. And like, you're gonna, you're gonna blow up, dude. I'm telling you right now. Like I, so many brands, like, especially at Amazon, I know that all those swing trainers and all that stuff goes like, like super speed, you know? Like no pun intended, I guess like, it goes so fast because essentially it's like, people are stuck at home and they need to train how the practice. So it's like, I think watch, well talk again. Like, you know, and I'll be, I tell you and you're like, oh yeah, it was, it's gonna go even more than it is now. That's what I think. Because it's like, people are gonna be stuck at home and you literally have a, you have a cross product essentially. Right? You have a training aid, right? Like train your body, you have a fitness device and you have an app. Like, that's kind of like in my face, it's like a trifecta. And I mean, it's not like you're one trip pony. You're like, oh, I make a, I make a divide. I make a product. Here's how it works. Like, okay, cool. Oh, I made an app for it. No, it's completely flipped. It's like I made an app for a, a, a fitness program. And then we came out with a product that goes, part of it, make it even easier for you and more fun. And now I can actually open more doors because I'm in more places because I have a physical product. Yeah. This is nothing. I'll figure it out. This is like, what you see now is nothing compared to what I think it's gonna be like in six months.
Speaker 7:I hope you're right. And you know, I, I don't wanna lose sight of this. And this, this really is kinda why I do this a, a big part of a big side effect from treating people with pains that I got interested in fitness. And typically they were over 40 and it, it really is remarkable. It can't be overstated how much you can change your life with a, with the, with the right exercise program, with one that's focused on the right goals for your age and your place and life. I mean, where I live is a remarkable place and I ha I, I literally, this is no exaggeration have 70 year olds people in their late seventies that are as fit or more fit than most 30 year olds. I know I'm talking about people that are hiking the mountain every day that are doing dynamic ballistic exercises with, with relatively high weight. And they're doing it safely without injury. And they act and feel importantly, feel younger than they ever have. I mean, this, this is kind of like the magic ingredient and life. And I look at golf, yes, I'm passionate about golf and I love the game and I love golfers, but this is a way to get people, to get a segment of people, golfers, to experience that and to really change how they feel and to give'em much better lives, particularly in their 50, 60 seventies beyond, um, than they would about otherwise. So I see this as, as kind of like a partially a Trojan horse of getting golfers into this lifestyle of, of fitness and health and taking care of your body and being proactive so that they feel better and they can do yes. Golf much better. But
Speaker 6:See, I think this is the hardest thing too, because I there's so many like digital products for golf, for golf training. I mean like training, like physical training or whatever instructional training. There's like, it's like, there's so many of it, but like nobody has a physical product that goes with it. Like nobody, they all have, like, you have the, you'll have the flip reverse right. Of physical product with like a, maybe an app or at least a website to figure out how to use it, you know? But like, nobody has it the other way around. And I think that's what differentiates you outta the gate, because it's a digital platform to show people like how to get better and how to get healthy. But like the physical product is what's really gonna like push it over the edge in my opinion. Because like, there's a lot of digital products out there's tons and tons and tons of them, you know? And they send, they spend a lot of money on ads. I can tell you that. And we all know they all are. That's true. Um, I mean, open up YouTube, you'll see'em and you know, I think it's kind of cool that like you're doing it differently and you're already seeing it and you have PJ player support, which is like, unheard of, because most of this is like, yeah, I have PJ player support, but it's like guys have played a million years ago and okay, cool. I don't know. I think it's and plus with, with the new generation of players, like that care about fitness and health and stuff like that, I think it kind of, I dunno, I think you have, you have a lot, you have a lot going that's cool, man. I honestly do. That's just excited to have you on the show. Cause I was like, this is cool. And I don't really say that often. Cause I, I do a lot of stuff, so appreciate that
Speaker 7:Very much. It
Speaker 6:I'm excited cause I wanna get one and I wanna use it on my back and I'm not, this is not a pitch. I'm just saying like I wanna use it cause I,
Speaker 7:I absolutely we'll hang out and talk after and get you set up for sure. Cause I want, I wanna see, I wanna hear back from you what it, what it does to that symptom pattern you were describing. Cuz I, we willing to make a wager that it will help it and probably significantly,
Speaker 6:But my back's always tight. Like I went, I was in the simulator three hours yesterday. Right. Cause I'm like, I'm really on my road to scratch. Like I'm like training and practicing and like trying to get good. I got new clubs, like the whole nine yards. I mean, I, I got refitted everything and it's like, okay. But my back still feels like at the end of the day, like my back is tight. My, my blood's tight. I'll roll it out on a foam roller. But that like barely alleviates it. So it's not, I mean, it's not as bad as it used to be. Don't get me wrong, but it's not like I don't have the rotation. I can feel it like, and so what happens is I'm gonna tell you a golf. I'm gonna tell you golfer's out there is if you lose the rotation, then you start like lifting your arm up and trying to like offset whatever you can do to like finish the swing. And I can see it on my video. I, from all my, I film my, what I'm doing at the course. Right. Essentially. And I can see it. I can like literally see where my body stops and then the arm comes out because I can't, I can't go back any further. So, um, yeah. That's my, that's my ailment. I've like a 90 year old man.
Speaker 7:<laugh> well look, I, this is really important. I can't overstress it. Like you're dealing with an imbalance and that's what causes the tightness and stretching is kind of like a very short term, uh, approach makes you feel better for minutes, hours or maybe days. But unless you retone, rebalance and retrain those movement patterns, you can't stretch your way out of that. So I'm
Speaker 6:I really, so you can never, so you can like, that's that, that's very interesting to hear that. So like essentially like for people out there, including myself, like even if I was out there stretching at the end of the day and like doing all this stuff, like yeah, you're stretching out the muscle, right. And a ligaments or whatever, but it's not like gonna fix the problem. I mean, it will fix it a little bit, but it's not like it you're gonna have the same problem the next time you go do it again, essentially.
Speaker 7:That's right. It's like taking an aspirin. I mean, there's a place for stretching, but for the types of issues we're talking about right now, where, whether it's been a traumatic injury or it's postural problems, cuz you've been sitting slumped over for 20 years. Um, if, if you don't address those muscle groups and the way that they function around the joint and the way that they perform, you can't stretch your way out of that. You can. I mean, I can't tell you hundreds of people that had come into my clinic and say, doc, a stretch every day, a stretch for an hour. And I feel like every day I'm starting back at square one. I I'm not improving over time. And that's because you're not addressing the reason that those muscles are tight to begin with doing that. Addressing that reason is the key to long term real improvement. And that's what this program does.
Speaker 6:No, I think it's cool. I mean, so what is like what's for the next six months, right? To the end of the year, like what is golf forever's plan? Like you have new product coming out, are you doing something special for the rest of the year? Like what's happening between now and Christmas, let's call it.
Speaker 7:Thank you. So we have, uh, a lot going on. We have a major improvement set of improvements to the application. Some of which will be out by Christmas, but I mean, I'm so excited about this and I don't, I don't wanna say too much about it, but it's gonna make it really fun and competitive, uh, with friends. So we have that, we're working on that part of it by Christmas, probably the rest will roll out in Q1. We're also, uh, in development of our second physical product, which very likely will be out for Christmas. And that's gonna also integrate into the application. And then finally, uh, for next year we're developing, what's going to make this really a, a seamless kind of plug and play all in one kind of home training system, similar to like some other things you can imagine that are in that category or that space. So we've been working on a lot of stuff. This is just the beginning of this kind of concept of golf forever with the physical product. We have more products and we're also bringing on a lot of new instructors, content providers. We recently assigned a couple of the, uh, couple more of the golf digest, top 50. Um, and you know, I think we'll probably bring on 10, 15 more over the next year of the top, kind of the top tier instructors who always bring a different and new perspective that makes it a better, better product.
Speaker 6:That's so cool. I'm excited for you to be honest, because I think like, I mean, I know much about you, obviously I didn't do my research or anything like that, but like I knew what golf forever was, but not really. And then I kind of seen, what's been going on with you guys at least since the beginning of the year. Cause we know a lot of the same people and like, I don't know, I'm excited to see like you what you're doing with your product, but also like the direction this is going, cuz I don't, I have not seen this before. Right. I've seen a lot of stuff. And then like, I dunno, I think you have some cooler, like this is gonna be more, I can almost see like this golf forever, almost being coming like a lot of physical products, right? Like different like seriously, like, you know, like with the application side of it. So people can just go learn how to use it at home and not have to like get a trainer or, or whatever it might be. That's right. Um, so I know that's really cool. You guys have to check out golf forever. I, like I said, where can people find golf forever?
Speaker 7:So you can go to our website, which is golf forever.com or go to the app store and search for golf forever. Uh, that will lead you to be able to just download the app and get started immediately. If you wanna buy the physical product, the swing trainer and then download the app, you can go to our website, golf forever.com and purchase it there.
Speaker 6:That's awesome. Well, I appreciate you being on my show today, Dr. Jerry James, I'm gonna call you that, like
Speaker 7:You were one of the most insightful, uh, interviewers I've had well done this, this
Speaker 6:Vibe for me. Like I, I just, I don't know. I, I like talking business with brands. It's like my favorite thing to do. Like, I mean just is it's funny cuz we all have the same thread. I feel like like we're all the little guy, right? Essentially. And so it's like, we all have the same problems. They're all just different facts. So it's almost like, I don't know. I just, you know, I saw this podcast to be honest, I was at the PGA show. The only one I ever went to and it was two o'clock in the morning and I just got back from my room and another guy who was on my team, we were sharing a room together and I was like, you know what? I should do. I should do a podcast. I have so many good conversations with people. I'm like, people should hear this. Like it'd be really cool. And like, that's literally how it started. And then the next day I went to the PGA show and I'm friends with the guys that see more putters and I was talking to them or hanging out and I was like, oh, I had this idea for a podcast. And they said, oh we have a podcast. And I was like, really? They're like, oh yeah, we can help you. And they're the ones that helped me like figure out what to buy, how to say like it was so like, I don't know, like that's just the, that's the thing I would tell you too, I've learned is the golf world is super teeny small. Like it's so small. And so like, that's why we, I think we, I don't know. I've always enjoyed it because it just, I like working with good people. So you guys have to check out golf forever. Seriously, this is not like a pitch. This is cool. I know I'll be getting one, hopefully, and we'll be reviewing it. This is legit. You guys, so check it out. If you have any questions, you can always reach out to Dr. Jerry James on this site and he will potentially respond back to you<laugh> or something about his team will. Yeah, I'm just kind around. But, um, but yeah. Thanks for being on the show and I will see you guys on the next episode. Thank
Speaker 3:You, Paul. Thanks for listening to another episode of behind the golf brand podcast, you're gonna beat me a golf stay connected on and off the show by visiting golfers authority.com. Don't forget to like subscribe and leave a comment. Golf is always more fun when you win, stay out of the beach and see you on the green green.