When Evelyn Webster joined SoulCycle as the CEO in December 2020, the company was going through a rough patch. The boutique indoor cycling company had a failed IPO in the rear view mirror, and was trying to make the gym business work during a pandemic.
Add to it the company had tried to scale too fast, causing internal challenges, which led to some critical headlines.
But underneath these issues was still the cult workout space that attracted the likes of Beyoncé, Michelle Obama and Bradley Cooper – a space for working out on a bike to loud music with highly personal instructors that put the soul into a stationary bike gym.
As an active SoulCycle rider and CMO in the media business, Webster was not afraid of the bad press. “It was this extraordinary brand that offered a phenomenal experience,” says Webster. “Our community is our superpower. When you’ve had the professional background that I’ve had and you are all of a sudden experiencing a phenomenal brand and parallel experience with this community who are so invested in the brand, how can you not think about the opportunity?”
She knew that while the company was experiencing some challenges, underneath it all was a beloved brand with loyal customers. “Brands that carry the power of SoulCycle are few and far between,” explains Webster. “I wanted to be a part of the team that was unlocking that potential for the brand.”
Prior to joining SoulCycle, Webster was CEO of The Guardian US & Australia, and before that she was SVP Time Inc. Brand Innovators caught up with Webster to talk about changing the brand perception. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
How have you been working to turn around the brand perception after some of the bad PR?
Having spent 35 years in media, there’s the obvious realization that when you are a brand as powerful as SoulCycle – at the center of the cultural zeitgeist – you can’t be in that position without a little bit of controversy. I went in with my eyes wide open. I knew that there was a lot of negative press but also some very positive. The job for me was to understand what’s true, what is actually. I ended up talking to a lot of my colleagues from every single employee cohort, instructors, studio crew members, those working at HQ.
I was talking to them to understand what’s been going on. And then I spoke to our riders to understand what our community was thinking. What were the real problems that we needed to address versus the speculation in the public eye. Very quickly what became apparent to us in all candor was that there have been missteps. We have made mistakes.
It was, for me, a case of simply going back to basics. What are the values that we have today as an organization and how do those values translate into behaviors? Values have to be meaningful. We did a whole review, a cultural audit to understand the values that we aspire to embody. No company is perfect. Most companies have values, many of which either hang on the wall or sit in a drawer that people don’t really pay heed to. But we went through a very rigorous process to understand the values that we aspire to and what was getting in our way of achieving them.
What was the brand audit like?
We actually replaced the old values that I inherited when I got there and established a whole new set of values. But more importantly we did a huge amount of workshopping around what behaviors we expect as a consequence of those values. One of our values is integrity. What behaviors do we expect to see between the people that work with each other at a SoulCycle, in between the employees and our riders, that enable us to measure our performance and our progress against those behaviors and ultimately those values. It was quite an involved process that we went through where we were very clear on the values that we aspired to and the behaviors that those values then led to. It was about keeping ourselves accountable to those values and to those behaviors.
I often refer to this as a contract between me and my team that my colleagues contract between our riders in terms of the expectations, in terms of our behaviors and maintaining those values. If we fail to adhere to those values, what are the consequences? What is the accountability to ensure that we adhere to those values? And what are the consequences? I’ve done this before in a number of companies, the process of clearly articulating what it is you aspire to. Most companies are not perfect, but we are very very clear on what we aspire to be and we’re very fortunate because with such an engaged consumer community, they will hold us accountable.
Can you talk about those values?
Integrity is one of them. It’s not an abstract word. Authenticity is another that is not an abstract word. We all know what it means but when it comes to translating integrity and authenticity into behaviors, sometimes people really struggle to close that gap. So we invested at least as much time in defining the do and do not behaviors as we did in the values themselves. We help people understand how to behave in the way that supports the values. We made it very practical.
We’re not reinventing SoulCycle. We are reminding people why the SoulCycle brand was conceived. It is to bring joy, inspiration and fun through fitness to our community. As brands and businesses scale they get bigger; you open up more and more locations and sometimes, you lose sight of the message. The work that we have been doing at SoulCycle post pandemic is a retelling of the founding principles of the organization, the reason that we were conceived authentically. SoulCycle has always been more than a phenomenal workout. That is why we’re called SoulCycle. It’s very intentional. It’s not an accident.
Can you talk about the brand experience?
I often ask: Are we tethered to the bike to the cycle or are we tethered to the soul? SoulCycle is a brand experience that brings to life for our riders from members of our community that need to invest in your wellness across every dimension of wellness that is mind, body and spirit. It’s how you feel mentally, how you feel physically and how you feel emotionally. We’re not reinventing the wheel. We’ve always been about this, we just need to remind consumers what happens the minute you walk through our studio doors before you’re even clipped into a bike.
You are welcomed warmly. We often call our studio sanctuaries. We open up the doors to our sanctuary. We work very hard to protect the sanctuary of SoulCycle so that it’s a safe space where you leave the chaos of the world behind. You might come for an amazing workout but the reason you stay and keep coming back is because we facilitate community in such a way that you feel strong, empowered and confident. It’s a happy place.
Can you talk about how the employees make this happen?
All of the work we do is making you feel that we are living up to those foundational pillars, from the studio crew that welcomes you to the instructors, who are absolutely phenomenal. They’re the magic of SoulCycle. The experience that you have from the minute you walk into the studio to when you click into the bike and the work that we do afterwards to make you feel connected to SoulCycle as a brand. It has always been and always will be what moves beyond the physical experience but also the mental and emotional experience. Lots of our riders say they have had these amazing breakthroughs at SoulCycle.
We create the space for you to feel whatever those feelings are. Sometimes those feelings can be that you’re crying out your frustration on the bike or sometimes it’s just a mental or emotional breakthrough. We’re a safe space for you to feel whatever it is that you’re feeling. We spend a huge amount of time and energy reminding people this is what the brand is. We are a phenomenal workout, but we are so much more than that. The art of loyalty and building community is making sure that you feel seen and heard so that we give you a warm welcome, as well as the practical help that you need to feel comfortable in the environment.We invest heavily in our studio crews and instructor talent. The experience they give you is the art. That’s the magic of SoulCycle.
Whatever your level of fitness, SoulCycle is a very intense cardio workout. You will work hard and you will sweat a lot, but there’s no judgment. It’s making you feel welcome wherever you are on your wellness and fitness journey. It’s the art, magic and science of SoulCycle that makes sure that you come back, then we nurture you through frequency.
There’s this sense of feeling connected to something. There’s an enormous power when you all ride to the beat of the music. There are no metrics. Nobody’s measuring you except yourself. There’s real joy in the energy that’s created when people are riding in the beat to the music together. There’s a great sense of human connection. Even if you don’t know the names of the other 60 people that are in the room you feel connected to them by your shared love of music and movement and sometimes we’ll say meditation because sometimes it feels like moving meditation. There’s a power in that. It really resonates with our community and that’s what keeps them coming back.