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Published by Vince Gabriele
<p>The Fitness Business University Podcast —<b> The #1 Fitness Business Podcast </b>— is the go-to educational show for gym owners, by gym owners. Hosted by Vince Gabriele, a seasoned pro with 18 years in the trenches of the fitness industry, this podcast pulls back the curtain on the real strategies, systems, and money-making wisdom that have helped gyms around the world grow and thrive.</p><p><br></p><p>If you’re a Gym Owner or Fitness Entrepreneur ready to get more clients, make more money, and free up your time to do what you love, this is your playbook. Vince delivers a funny, straight-talking, <em>no B.S.</em> approach — no fluff, no theories, just the proven, real-world skills you need to win in business and in life.</p>
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85% of your future customers are already on your list. I'm teaching how I turn one hour of writing into $865. https://www.vincegabriele.com/emailbuy I visited three gyms in one day and every single one was at a different stage of business. One was doing $10K a month. One was doing $25K. One was building an organization. And every one of them was asking me about the wrong thing. The guy at $10K wanted to talk about where to move his equipment. He has 20 members. He should be making phone calls, not rearranging dumbbells. I see this constantly right now with AI. Gyms with 20 members spending half their day building tools in Claude instead of going out and getting customers. It's the same thing I'm seeing coaching fifth grade football right now. We've got 25 plays installed and these kids can't get into a stance. We should have four plays and spend 95% of our time on the basics. Business is no different. Tom and I break down the four stages of a gym business and exactly what you should be focused on at each one. Nothing else. Just the fundamentals that actually move you to the next level. 5 Key Takeaways: Stage one has three jobs and that's it. Deliver an experience so good your churn rate is impeccable. Get to a critical mass of customers. And get yourself in shape, because your energy is what attracts people. Everything else is a distraction. If you can't afford to hire anyone, you're stuck doing every session yourself forever, and that's how gym owners burn out and quit. Stage two is a people business. Find good people, train them, and build a culture around defined core values. Every bad trainer we ever hired came from a rushed hire where we needed somebody so we just got somebody. And don't try to hire another you. Look for someone who shares your character qualities, not your personality. Get to 80% and make the call. Arthur Brooks took this from the Marines. The gap between 80% and 100% certainty won't change your decision, but the time you spend chasing it will cost you months. Same applies to training your staff. Shoot for them being 80% as good as you, not 100%. In stage three, you have to give up owning every seat. Mark O'Donnell put our org chart on the board and asked who owns each seat. The answer was Vince, Vince, Vince, Vince. That was the problem with the business. You can be responsible for results without doing the work, but you can't be the answer to every question and grow past $50K a month. Stage four is defined by your involvement, not your locations. Gabriele Fitness has one location and is a stage four business because I have almost zero involvement. Most clients don't even know I'm the owner. The requirement is one competent point person running the facility who owns the results and the PNL. No general manager, no stage four. 85% of your future customers are already on your list. I'm teaching how I turn one hour of writing into $865. https://www.vincegabriele.com/emailbuy
How to make $865.38 per hour writing emails. Full workshop September 11th: https://www.vincegabriele.com/emailworkshop2026 Here's a study that will change how you think about your leads. When someone opts in with a company, roughly 50% of them will eventually buy. But only 15% of those buyers purchase in the first 100 days. The other 85% buy over the next 100 weeks. Read that again. Most gym owners have a system for the 15% and nothing for the 85%. They hammer a lead for 21 days, get no response, and write them off as dead. Those aren't dead leads. They just haven't bought yet. In this episode, Tom and I break down what to actually do with that 85%. The short version: get in their inbox consistently and build the relationship until they're ready. Three emails a week, 200 words each, call to action in the PS. Bobby and Maria from Big Day Fitness did exactly this after taking my email workshop and got 12 to 13 new customers last year from emails alone. At $5,000 lifetime value each, that's $60,000 for writing a few hundred words a week. I'm teaching the full system on September 11th. This is my fourth email workshop and I believe it's the most important one I've ever done. I'm bringing in Doberman Dan, a legend in direct response who actually lived with Gary Halbert in Costa Rica and now coaches me personally. Ben Stocks is teaching Facebook ad copy. And I'm covering print marketing, because one newspaper ad at my gym has produced over $60,000 in lifetime client value this year. I chose September 11th on purpose. My dad, sister, and brother in law all worked in the World Trade Center. That day hit close to home. Stephen Siller was a 34 year old FDNY firefighter who had just gotten off the late shift when he heard about the first plane. He turned around, grabbed his gear, found the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel closed, strapped his equipment to his back, and ran three miles through it on foot to the towers. He never came home. He left behind his wife Sally and five children. The Tunnel to Towers Foundation his family created provides mortgage free homes to families of fallen first responders, Gold Star families, and catastrophically injured veterans. 25% of the proceeds from this workshop go to them. 5 Key Takeaways: Your dead leads aren't dead. They're just early. 85% of the people who will eventually buy from you do it over the following 100 weeks, not the first 100 days. If your only system is a 21 day follow up sequence, you're throwing away the majority of your future customers. Three emails a week is the sweet spot for a gym. 200 words. Curiosity plus useful in the subject line. Call to action in the PS. That's the whole formula. Commit to it for 90 days before you decide whether it works. Nobody is thinking about you as much as you think they are. Gym owners don't email because they're afraid of being annoying. When someone unsubscribes, they're not at home plotting against your business. They just unsubscribed. And they probably weren't going to buy anyway. Stop swinging for grand slams. Derek Jeter never hit a grand slam in his entire career. Most of your emails will get crickets and that's fine. You're hitting singles. Bobby and Maria got 12 customers worth $60,000 from consistent emails, not from one home run. Know, like, trust is the sequence and email is how you move people through it. Vince has never met Arthur Brooks but trusts him enough to buy any book he releases, all from consuming his emails and content. You can build that same trust with someone who has never set foot in your gym. 12 customers. $60,000 in lifetime value. From emails. I'm teaching the entire system on September 11th: https://www.vincegabriele.com/emailworkshop2026
Losing clients faster than you can replace them? Book a free Gym Clarity Call and we'll help you stop the bleeding: https://gymclaritycall.com/ Your best marketing asset isn't marketing. It's your retention rate. Here's the math that should change how you think about this. A gym with 100 clients at a 3% attrition rate needs six new clients a month to add 36 members this year. That same gym at 6% attrition needs twelve. Same growth, double the work. Most gyms can get six clients in their sleep. Twelve means spending money, spending time, and praying you don't have an off month. And a 1% drop in attrition on a 100 member gym at $500 a month is an extra $23,000 a year. That's one less person leaving per month. Little hinges swing big doors. In this episode, Tom and I break down the critical event in your business and the two biggest levers that protect it: your staff and your training system. This is part one of two. Part two covers client relationships, which might be the biggest piece of the whole thing. 5 Key Takeaways: The critical event in your business is the exchange between your coach and your client. The CEO of Home Depot flies around the country to watch the interaction between the guy in the orange apron and the customer because he calls that the critical event. Ours is the hour a client spends with a trainer. Screw that up and nothing else matters. Not your marketing, not your Instagram, not your funnel. Hire people your clients actually want to spend an hour with. That's the simplest culture fit test there is. If a client is calling to find out when a certain trainer is working so they can avoid that shift, that trainer isn't going to make it and neither is your retention rate. Hire for character. You can teach someone to coach a squat. Burnout is the silent killer of good coaches. Split days six days a week, an hour long commute, and pay that doesn't match the market will destroy a great trainer's energy within a year. Manage their schedule like a pitching rotation. Pay them fairly and beat them to the punch on raises. The people who ask for raises are usually the ones doing a bad job. Your program has to do no harm first and match your market second. If you're training 50 year olds and your system is built like a college football program, people are going to get hurt and hurt people cancel memberships. Run every exercise through the filter: what is this actually going to do to this person? Are you really such a bad coach that you can't get someone strong without a straight bar deadlift? Measure the energy on your floor. We created something called the PEL score (Positive Energy Level) where we'd rate coaches on a scale of one to ten based on the vibe they created. This isn't about being a cheerleader or breaking it down at the end of a session. It's body language, tone of voice, and whether they're engaged or leaning on the equipment with hands in their pockets. Clients feel that the second they walk in. Losing clients faster than you can replace them? Book a free Gym Clarity Call and we'll help you stop the bleeding: https://gymclaritycall.com/
Register for the Email Marketing Workshop on September 11th: https://www.vincegabriele.com/emailworkshop2026 This is the full recap of the SPF Mastermind weekend. Over 100 gym owners in the room, another 50 on Zoom, two full days of talks, and a barbecue at my house. Tom and I break down every major theme so you get the highlights whether you were there or not. The overarching concept was the Anti-Fragile Gym. Not just surviving uncertainty but getting stronger from it. I walked through the Kintsugi model, which is Japanese pottery where the cracks are filled with gold because the value is in where you were broken. Then we got into the business side: eliminating single points of failure, financial fragility, differentiation in the AI economy, and why the gym of the future is actually a retention focused company, not an AI company. Devin Gage delivered a keynote on leadership that I called one of the best leadership talks happening anywhere in the world that day. Leo dropped a full AI toolkit workshop. Dustin Yancey taught his online newspaper column strategy that generates 50+ clients a year. And Charlie Weingroff closed the weekend reminding everyone in the room why the product is the thing that matters most. 5 Key Takeaways: The number one chokehold on your business is still the psychology of the owner. Thoughts create emotions. Emotions create actions. That's your life. There are two voices in your head: the boss voice and the bitch voice. The game changer is learning to hear the bitch voice and not believe it, not react to it. Like the final scene in Beautiful Mind where he sees the hallucinations walking next to him and doesn't flinch. The four quarter day will change how you handle bad days. Break your day into four quarters. If something terrible happens at 7am, you've got three more quarters to win. Win three out of four and you had a winning day. It's the same concept as "just make it to the next meal" that gets guys through Navy SEAL training. Stop writing off entire days because of one bad hour. The gym of the future is a retention focused company, not an AI company. AI is a tool for the back end of your business. It does not replace the critical event, which is the exchange between your coach and your client. The gyms that win in the next three to five years will be the ones that do real life community, real relationships, and real coaching better than everyone else. Be the company that doesn't automate the human part. If you can't explain what makes your gym different in 30 seconds, you have a problem. I asked 100 gym owners to raise their hand if they could. Seven hands went up and none of them wanted to get called on. AI is going to level the playing field on content, ads, and marketing. If you can't differentiate, you're just another gym. Pick one: a unique selling proposition, your three uniques, or a unique mechanism. Just pick one and own it. Email is the most underutilized asset in your business. You've already paid for the leads. They're sitting on a list. All you have to do is write 300 to 500 words, put a call to action at the end, and cast the pole in the water. You're not swinging for grand slams. You're hitting singles. Tom had a member sign up after reading his emails for three years. That only happened because the pole was in the water every single week. Register for the Email Marketing Workshop on September 11th: https://www.vincegabriele.com/emailworkshop2026
Join us at the Gym of the Future Live Event on July 17th and 18th in Berkeley Heights, NJ. In person and virtual tickets available: https://www.vincegabriele.com/events/gym-of-the-future/ Quick episode while I'm waiting outside jiu jitsu. The SPF Mastermind meeting is a week away and I wanted to break down exactly what we're covering and why this one matters. The theme is the Gym of the Future. And before you think this is all AI and robots, it's not. My opening talk is about the things you need to stop ignoring and start doing better. Not what to add. What to improve. And the number one thing I'm going to prove with a full slide deck is that your retention rate is the single most important thing in your business for the next three to five years. A gym with 6% attrition loses 72 people a year. A gym with 3% loses 36. That's half the marketing budget, half the stress, and twice the growth with the same number of new members coming in. AI can't replace the critical event in our business: the exchange between your coach and your client. That's the thing. That's the whole thing. Everything else supports it. So we're going to talk about what needs to get better around that core. Here's the full lineup. Day one starts with me on stage all morning covering what gym owners need to focus on in the next three to five years to actually thrive. Then Devin Gage takes the keynote slot talking about leadership at every stage of business, from $20K a month to $100K plus, because the leadership your gym needs changes as you grow. He's opened nine gyms in three years and is on his way to 100. Then we do the What's Working Now group exercise where 100+ gym owners in the room share the best strategies producing results right now. Day two opens with Tom Leonardis going boots on the ground with a full AI toolkit workshop showing you the specific tools you can use in your business today. Then Dustin Yancey takes the stage to break down how he's gotten 50 to 60 new clients from writing a column in his local online newspaper. We close with a 90 day planning session and the day two keynote: Charlie Weingroff. If you're bringing staff, his two hours alone will make them exponentially better coaches. That's not an exaggeration. Friday night we do a barbecue at my house. Virtual attendees get the recordings. In person attendees get to meet Big Tom. Join us at the Gym of the Future Live Event. In person and virtual tickets available: https:// www.vincegabriele.com/events/gym-of-the-future/
Join us at the Gym of the Future Live Event on July 17th and 18th in Berkeley Heights, NJ. Charlie Weingroff, Devin Gage, Joe Hashey, and Vince on stage. https://www.vincegabriele.com/events/gym-of-the-future/ Your most valuable list isn't on Facebook. It's every person who ever paid you and left. And if you've been in business for more than a few years, that list is in the thousands. We did the math on Gabriele Fitness. 19 years, an average of 175 members, roughly 4% monthly churn. That's thousands of people who have walked through our doors, paid us, liked what we did, and left for reasons that had nothing to do with us. If we can get half a percent of them back in a year, that's a new customer every single month at zero acquisition cost. Tom and I break down how to build a reactivation system that runs consistently, the psychology behind why past members are embarrassed to come back, and the specific strategies that are working right now. I also share the exact letter my jiu jitsu instructor would need to write to get me to come back after quitting three times. 5 Key Takeaways: People don't leave because they hate your gym. They leave because life gets in the way, they got hurt, or things got stale. None of those reasons are permanent and none of them mean they wouldn't come back if you asked. The problem is you're not asking. Build a monthly process of reaching out to 10 to 15 past members with personal texts, not template blasts. Your past members are embarrassed, not angry. I've quit jiu jitsu three times. I desperately want to go back but I'm embarrassed to walk in the door. Your past members feel the exact same way about your gym. They gained back the weight, they fell off the routine, and they don't want to face the people they quit on. Your job is to take away that embarrassment and give them a reason to come home. Take some responsibility in the reactivation message. The most powerful thing my sensei could say to me is "When you came in last time, I put you in the wrong class. That was on me. Here's what I'd do differently this time." That acknowledgment changes everything. It takes the blame off them and gives them a new path forward. Don't let people go easily. Before someone cancels, have a real conversation. We created the Wall Street Program because guys were saying they didn't have time. So we built an 8:30pm session and a Saturday morning session specifically for them. Sometimes the solution is simpler than you think. And sometimes you just need to tell someone "If you leave, you're never coming back. I'm just being honest with you." This should be a built in system, not a panic move. Reactivation is not something you do when leads are down. It's something you do every single month regardless of how many new leads are coming in. Your defense should score points. These are the most qualified leads on the planet because they've already paid you, they already know your coaches, and they already trust your product. Join us at the Gym of the Future Live Event on July 17th and 18th: https://www.vincegabriele.com/events/gym-of-the-future/
Register for the 3 Hour Marketing Masterclass on June 30th at 12pm Eastern ($1 to reserve, only 50 spots): https://www.vincegabriele.com/june2026masterclass/ Most gym owners get referrals by accident. A client mentions your gym to a friend, the stars align, and someone signs up. That's great. But you can't run a business on things that happen by accident. Tom and I break down the difference between accidental and orchestrated referrals and give you every strategy that's actually producing referrals right now at Gabriele Fitness and across the SPF Mastermind. This isn't theory. One gym owner got 24 new clients last year just from doing Bring a Friend Week every month at zero cost. Our March Madness internal challenge generated 15 referrals in a single month. And none of it requires you to beg anyone for anything. 5 Key Takeaways: Referrals are the thumb of the marketing glove. You need multiple ways to get new clients (Facebook ads, email, social media, website) but referrals are the strongest because they convert at the highest rate, cost nothing to acquire, and those clients tend to refer others. If you have 100 members, you should be getting at least 20 referrals per year. If you're not, something is off with your product or your process. People refer to elevate their own status, not to do you a favor. When your client sends a friend to your gym and that friend has a great experience, your client's status goes up in that relationship. They look like the person who knows the best spots. Stop thinking of referrals as asking for a favor and start understanding the psychology behind why people actually do it. Bring a Friend Week is the simplest orchestrated referral strategy you can run. Send three emails, put up some flyers, tell your members at class. Even if you get one new member from it, you spent nothing and gained a client worth $5,000 to $6,000 in lifetime value. Do it quarterly at minimum. The gym owner doing it monthly got 24 clients a year from this one strategy alone. Build referral generation into your internal challenges and events. March Madness at Gabriele Fitness is a point system where members earn points for bringing referrals. 40 to 50% of members participate. We got 15 referrals the first year and 11 the second. Themed bring a friend classes (nurses, firefighters, spouses on Valentine's Day) reduce intimidation and make it easier for members to invite specific people. The point of sale referral is your biggest window. When someone signs up, your business is on the top of their mind more than at any other time. Give them a physical card (we use a black metal card) with a free 30 day membership they can gift to a friend. They become the hero, not the beggar. The second window is the first sign of success: when they lose their first 10 pounds or hit a PR, that's when you ask. Register for the 3 Hour Marketing Masterclass ($1 to reserve, 50 spots): https://www.vincegabriele.com/june2026masterclass/
Register for the 3 Hour Marketing Masterclass on June 30th at 12pm Eastern ($1 to reserve your seat, only 50 spots): https://www.vincegabriele.com/june2026masterclass/ I just got back from hiking the highest mountain in Colorado at 14,440 feet. We summited, ran low on water, lost the trail, and spent three hours walking across the top of a mountain range with no path. And I didn't panic. That's not because I'm some tough guy. It's because I've spent years training my mind for uncertainty through meditation and experience. That's what being a business owner is. It's signing up for a long run of uncertainty. And the better you can handle it, the more successful you're going to be. After 19 years as a gym owner and a decade coaching gym owners, I know the number one thing that creates that uncertainty: marketing. Most gym owners started as trainers. They know their stuff on the floor. They can even sell from personality alone. But when it comes to lead generation, getting new customers in the door, and knowing where your next 10 members are coming from, that's where the anxiety lives. The fix is developing marketing as a skill set. Not leaning on AI to create slop. Not hoping referrals will carry you forever. Actually learning the principles. That's why I'm doing a 3 hour marketing masterclass on June 30th at noon Eastern. This is not a quick fix webinar. This is an immersion. Lead generation, conversion, and pricing. Plus two bonus sessions with playbooks: Carly Fernald is breaking down the Summer Slim Down campaign that just signed up 141 customers across three New York gyms, and Tom Leonardis is teaching his AI follow up system that reduces no shows and increases your close rate. 50 spots. $1 to reserve your seat. $49 billed 24 hours after the event. Show up, and if you think it wasn't worth it, email me and I won't charge you. Register for the 3 Hour Marketing Masterclass ($1 to reserve, 50 spots): https://www.vincegabriele.com/june2026masterclass/
LAST CHANCE TO APPLY: Vince's $25,750 Huge Giveaway closes June 19th at 10pm. Takes 7 minutes: https://vinceshugegiveaway.com/ GR Hoff has been doing this longer than almost anyone in the gym marketing space. He ran the very first paid ad campaign for Gabriele Fitness over a decade ago, wrote the copy on the back of the Cathy Balsamo book that's still our most successful marketing piece to this day, and now runs Gym Member Machine with 350+ gym clients worldwide and a 2 to 3% churn rate that is basically unheard of in the agency world. In this episode, GR breaks down how to actually work with an ad agency without getting in the way of your own results, why your website is probably costing you customers right now, and the three things he'd fix immediately on any gym website to increase conversions. He also does a live demo of the AI Caller, which follows up with your cold traffic leads, books appointments, handles objections, and is producing 40 to 70% booking rates without a human ever touching the phone. We also get into why paid ads should be one of the earliest things a gym owner delegates, why turning off your Facebook ads quietly kills your website leads, and why investing in client acquisition from day one matters more than buying another specialty bar. 5 Key Takeaways: Let the agency do their job. You have the right to ask questions and call bullshit on anything that doesn't make sense. But if you hired an agency with 350 gyms and multiple eight figures in ad spend, trust that they probably know more than your one campaign from 2018. Ask questions. Don't rewrite their copy. Your website is a tool that should produce customers, not a static brochure that makes your mom happy. Clear call to action above the fold. Images and copy that show your target market, not your equipment list. Congruency between who you're running ads to and what they see when they land on your site. If a busy 45 year old clicks your ad and lands on a page full of teenage athletes deadlifting with chains, you've lost them. One third of Gabriele Fitness's last 30 customers came from the website. And when we turned off Facebook ads in the past, website leads dropped too. It's all connected. Facebook ads drive traffic to your website even when the lead doesn't come directly from Facebook. It's a marketing ecosystem, not isolated channels. The AI Caller is producing 40 to 70% booking rates on cold traffic. It's not going to be as good as your best salesperson. But it's better than your lazy trainer who says they followed the script but didn't. It calls leads, qualifies them, handles objections, books appointments, and even asks for a commitment to show up. GR did a live demo on this episode and it's worth watching on YouTube to see it in action. Paid ads should be one of the earliest things you delegate. Before you hire a trainer to get yourself off the floor, consider hiring an agency. You need lead flow. You need a website that converts. You need a CRM that follows up. If you can afford a decent offshore VA, you can afford an agency. And the biggest mistake gym owners make when they open is spending every dollar on equipment and certifications and zero on client acquisition. LAST CHANCE: Applications close June 19th at 10pm: https://vinceshugegiveaway.com/
LAST CHANCE: Apply for Vince's $25,750 Huge Giveaway before June 19th at 10pm. Takes 7 minutes: https://vinceshugegiveaway.com/ This is my birthday episode. The Knicks just won the NBA championship after 53 years and Tom and I couldn't help ourselves. We broke down every business lesson we could pull from the entire run. Jalen Brunson turned down $100 million so the Knicks could build a better team around him. Think about that. He bet on winning over getting paid, and now his lifetime value is exponentially higher than if he'd taken the money. That's the same math we teach gym owners every single week. We also get into why Spike Lee has stayed culturally relevant for 30 years by doing one thing consistently, the EOS framework for handling the employee everyone loves but who's destroying your culture, the difference between Wembanyama's emotional rollercoaster and Brunson's "lowest heart rate" composure, and why Victor Frankl's three sources of meaning in life perfectly describe what it means to be a gym owner. Plus the Jim Cramer story from Gabriele Fitness, the Patrick Ewing Atlantic City story, and why I'm going to see the He-Man movie a second time. 5 Key Takeaways: Lifetime value thinking changes every decision you make. Brunson gave up $100 million and is now worth exponentially more as an NBA champion. Tom Brady did the same thing with the Patriots. When you think in terms of lifetime value instead of short term cash, you build something that compounds. Same goes for your gym, your pricing, and the way you treat every new member who walks through the door. Align yourself with something and stay there. Spike Lee hasn't made a hit movie in decades but he's still one of the most recognized people in entertainment because he's been courtside at every Knicks game since 1993. Find your version of that. Be the gym that sponsors the local high school team. Be the gym that shows up at every community event. Consistency of presence builds a brand that no ad campaign can replicate. Culture eats strategy for breakfast and your best trainer might be the problem. The number one people issue we hear in the SPF is "this person is amazing at their job but they're a terrible culture fit." Nine times out of ten the answer is to let them go. You can teach someone to coach a squat. You cannot teach someone to be a good person. Hire for character, train for skill. Keep the lowest heart rate in the room. Wembanyama celebrated winning the conference finals like he'd already won the championship. Brunson didn't crack a smile. He had four more games to win. The Scream Free Parenting concept applies directly to business: your job is to keep your heart rate lower than everyone around you. You'll make better decisions, handle conflict better, and your team will follow your lead. The hardest times will become the memories you're most proud of. Victor Frankl said meaning comes from three things: the relationships you have, the things you bring to the world, and how you respond in times of struggle. All three of those describe being a gym owner. If you're in the trenches right now, grinding, questioning whether it's worth it, understand that this is the part you'll look back on and be the most proud of. This profession is worth fighting for. LAST CHANCE TO APPLY (closes June 19th at 10pm): https://vinceshugegiveaway.com/
Apply for my $25,750 Giveaway: https://vinceshugegiveaway.com/ I'm walking outside the gym today with the birds going wild in the background, and I wanted to give you an update on the $25,750 Giveaway. The applications are pouring in and some of them are unreal. Some of them are also three words long. I'm telling you right now, if you are filling this out like it's a sweepstakes you are wasting your shot. This is not a random draw. I am reading every single application myself. The real reason I decided to do this all comes back to the giveaway I ran at my own gym in 2016. The winner stayed for years, became Member of the Year, and her whole life changed. That is what I want this version to do for one gym owner. The second half of this episode is for the owner who is stuck right now and not sure if it is worth pushing through. I get into why business is the ultimate vehicle for becoming the best version of yourself, why the hard parts are the point, and the Keith Cunningham line that has stuck with me for years. Hell on earth is meeting the person you could have become. Apply for my $25,750 Giveaway: https://vinceshugegiveaway.com/
Enter my $26,750 Giveaway and win a 2 hour private in service with Charlie Weingroff for your team: https://vinceshugegiveaway.com/ Charlie Weingroff is one of the most respected physical therapists and strength coaches on the planet. He has trained pro athletes, military operators, and some of the best coaches in the world for the last 25 years. I have known Charlie for 15 years and he is one of my closest friends in this industry, which is why he agreed to be one of the headline contributions to the $26,750 Giveaway I am running right now. On this episode Charlie tells me how he built a career at the top of two professions that rarely overlap, why most strength coaches stop short of becoming great, and what fitness business owners can take from how he runs his own work. He also explains why he was ready to book a flight and fly to New Jersey just to record this podcast in person, and what that one decision says about doing things at a certain standard. At the end we get into the story of how Charlie diagnosed Tom Leonardis' serious back injury inside of 15 minutes, just by playing with his toes and checking his foot, before any MRI was taken. That is the kind of operator Charlie is. If you have a team and you want one of the best in the world to spend 2 hours with them privately, this giveaway is the way to get it. 5 Key Takeaways: The standard is the standard. Charlie was ready to book a flight and fly to New Jersey just to record this podcast in person. He told me his win is my win, and if he is going to do something at all he is going to do it at a certain level. Most gym owners say they value standards. Few hold them like this. There is no championship belt for being a great coach. Charlie has trained pro athletes, military operators, and elite lifters for over two decades. When I brought up his reputation he said until there is a belt for it he is not worried about it. He just wants to work, train, and go to Disney whenever he wants. Define what winning actually looks like for you and stop chasing the validation that comes with the title. Expertise compounds when you stay in the work. Charlie did not get great from a course or a certification. He got great from putting his hands on thousands of people across two and a half decades. The owners who build the deepest expertise are the ones who stop bouncing between methods and stay in the work long enough for it to actually compound. Good, better, and best exists in every profession. Charlie made the point that good physical therapists and chiropractors are out there, but the ones who are truly elite are typically much harder to access. The same is true in fitness. The way to get to the right side of good, better, and best is to study the people who are already there. One 15 minute conversation can save you months of guessing. Tom drove down to see Charlie about back pain he could not solve on his own. In 15 minutes Charlie diagnosed L4 L5 just by checking Tom's toes and foot, and the MRI later confirmed it verbatim. Find the people who can shortcut your problem instead of grinding through it alone. That is what investing in real expertise looks like. Enter my $26,750 Giveaway and win a 2 hour private in service with Charlie Weingroff for your team: https://vinceshugegiveaway.com/
CLICK HERE TO APPLY FOR VINCE'S $25,750 HUGE GIVEAWAY (takes 7 minutes): https://vinceshugegiveaway.com/ I'm giving away $25,750 worth of coaching, consulting, software, equipment, certifications, and financial auditing to one gym owner. We've done this twice before. Both winners are still with us as clients. One just opened a brand new facility. The other nearly tripled their revenue. Tom and I break down every single piece of the prize package and why I handpicked each partner. We also get into the full story of the Cocodona 250 where I paced Joe Hashey for 73 miles through the Arizona mountains. He finished the entire 250 miles in 98 hours. 6'6", 235 pounds, one pacer, and a lot of conversations about business on the trail at 2am. 5 Key Takeaways: The SPF Mastermind is the centerpiece of the package. Six months of coaching, a peer group of gym owners going through the same things you are, weekly calls, and access to coaches who have already solved the problems keeping you up at night. This alone is worth the 7 minutes it takes to apply. The consulting day is not a casual Q&A. You fill out a detailed packet covering your financials, your team, your marketing, and your goals. I build a custom agenda based on your actual numbers. Then you shadow Gabriele Fitness in the morning and see the systems we teach actually running on the floor with real clients and real coaches. Every partner in this package is someone I personally use or have fully vetted. Gym Member Machine for ads. GymSupps for private label supplements. Naamly for retention. Perform Better for equipment. Mike Waldron for financial auditing. Charlie Weingroff for coaching education. Mike Boyle's CFSC for certification. I don't attach my name to anything I wouldn't put in my own gym. This is open to any fitness business owner. Small group, boutique, Pilates, yoga, martial arts, big box. Whether you're brand new or doing seven figures, this package will move the needle. If you own a fitness business, you can apply. This is not a random drawing. I'm reading every application and personally picking the winner. Tell me your story. Tell me why you should win. Convince me you're going to take this and maximize it. Applications close June 21st. APPLY NOW (takes 7 minutes): https://vinceshugegiveaway.com/
There's money hiding in your gym right now. Book a free Find the Money Call and we'll show you exactly where it is: https://findthemoneycall.com/ This is the full recording of my live masterclass: How to Fix the Profits at Your Gym. This is the third in the series after Fix the Marketing and Fix the Sales. And this is the one that matters most because you can't deposit revenue into your bank account. You can only deposit profit. I taught over 60 gym owners the six levers you can pull to start seeing more money in your bank account. You don't have to do all six. Pick one, implement it, and you'll start seeing a difference. This episode will be much more effective if you watch it on YouTube so you can see the case studies, the math breakdowns, and the Testimonial Email Builder walkthrough. Click here to watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrX61hZLQZ8 5 Key Takeaways: Your value judgment does not matter. The chain linking your current product to your current price is bigger and thicker in your mind than in your customers'. I raised prices $49 across the board on members who have been with me for nearly two decades. It added over $7,300 in monthly recurring revenue overnight with zero increase in expenses. A gym owner stuck at $13K hit $20K in 2 months instead of 12 by raising prices . At his current churn and acquisition rates, it would have taken him a full year to grow from 50 to 75 members. Instead we raised prices $40 a month on current and new members and he got there in weeks. Speed matters. Switch to 28 day billing and you get a 13th payment every year. On 100 members at $200 a month, that's an extra $20,000 in annual revenue for changing one setting in your billing software. There are empty spots in your current sessions that are pure profit. If you're running sessions at 3 out of 6 and you fill one more spot, that's zero additional expense and 100% margin. Track your capacity weekly and you'll find money you didn't know was there. Learn the skill of generating a cash flow surge. When your water heater breaks or you get an unexpected bill, you need to be able to go out and create money. There are 6 things that need to be in place for that to work and I walk through all of them. There's money hiding in your gym right now. Book a free Find the Money Call and we'll show you exactly where it is: https://findthemoneycall.com/
Register now for the free How to Fix the Profits at Your Gym Masterclass on Thursday, May 21st at 12pm Eastern: https://live.vincegabriele.com/profitmasterclass So I just sideswiped a guy's car in the Jiu Jitsu parking lot. Totally my fault. I was dropping my daughter off, some guy got heated that I stopped in the middle of the lot, I pulled up to his window to say something, and my car started grinding into the side of his car. I didn't even realize it was happening until he's screaming at me and his door is dented in. It gets better. We exchange information and he goes "Vince Gabriele?" Turns out he was my landlord from the first apartment I ever rented in Berkeley Heights. So that was fun. About $2,000 worth of damage. And here's why I'm telling you this. One of the six levers I'm teaching at the profit masterclass is called a cash flow surge. It's the skill of being able to generate a chunk of money when you need it. Your water heater blows up. You get an unexpected tax bill. You sideswipe a guy's car like an idiot. These things happen. And they either crush you financially or they don't. The difference is whether you have the skill set to go out and create that money. Go get a couple new customers. Make a sale. Run a promotion. There are specific things that need to be in place for that to work and I'm going to teach you all of them on the masterclass. I'm not stressed about the $2,000. I'm worked up about being a jerk in a parking lot, but the money part doesn't bother me at all. And that's the whole point. When you own this skill, these situations stop breaking you down. Come to the masterclass. It's free. Although after today I probably should be charging for it. Register now for the free How to Fix the Profits at Your Gym Masterclass on Thursday, May 21st at 12pm Eastern: https://live.vincegabriele.com/profitmasterclass
Register now for the free How to Fix the Profits at Your Gym Masterclass on Thursday, May 21st at 12pm Eastern: https://live.vincegabriele.com/profitmasterclass This is the third masterclass in the series. We did Fix the Marketing. We did Fix the Sales. Now we're doing the one that actually matters most: Fix the Profits. Because here's the thing. You cannot take revenue to the bank. You can only take profit. And in my experience, most gym owners are either treading water with the same bank balance that never grows, or they're watching it go down. That's not why you got into this. This masterclass came from something I've been running since 2019 called the CEO Mastermind. Every quarter, groups of 12 gym owners come to me and they bring their actual profit and loss statements. No chest beating. No "I hit 100K this month." Nobody cares. The only number that matters is the bottom line. I've done 516 hot seats reviewing PNLs. 117 one on one consulting days. And 20 years of looking at my own numbers running Gabriele Fitness. I've seen more gym PNLs than any business coach alive. I know what's working because these guys show me the proof every 90 days. So I took everything I've learned from all of that and boiled it down to six things that the most profitable gyms are doing. That's what I'm teaching on May 21st at noon. It's free. Although it shouldn't be. Here's what we're covering: Know your numbers. There are eight that matter. I'm giving you the formulas and making it simple. Get price right. I've never seen a really profitable gym that gets price wrong. I'm going to show you how to raise your prices and how to present them. Fix your billing. Are all your members actually paying you? You sure? Because most gyms are losing money they don't even know they're losing. Fill your capacity. The difference between filling three spots in a session and four spots is insane. You'll never unsee the math once I show you. Leverage unused capacity. There are six money leaks in your business right now where you already own something and you're just not using it. Learn to generate a cash flow surge. When your water heater busts and you need 10 grand tomorrow, what do you do? I'm going to teach you that skill. Register now for the free How to Fix the Profits at Your Gym Masterclass on Thursday, May 21st at 12pm Eastern: https://live.vincegabriele.com/profitmasterclass
Register now for the free How to Fix the Profits at Your Gym Masterclass on Wednesday, May 21st at 12pm Eastern: https://live.vincegabriele.com/profitmasterclass If you keep losing members after month three and can't figure out why, this episode is for you. And the answer probably has nothing to do with your marketing. Tom and I dig into the real reasons gyms have high churn rates and what to actually do about each one. We walk through the numbers: what a good attrition rate looks like, what a bad one looks like, why 90 days is a trend but one month isn't, and how a 1% improvement in churn can mean an extra $30K a year in your pocket without adding a single new member. We also get into why staff retention is the number one driver of client retention, how to catch the warning signs before a member cancels, why boredom and injuries quietly kill your revenue, and the one question you should be asking every new member on day one. 5 Key Takeaways: Staff retention is the number one driver of client retention. When key staff members leave, clients follow. Your job as the owner is to treat your team well, create opportunities for growth, and build a structure where the client has a relationship with the business, not just one trainer. Members leave when they feel ignored. If someone misses a session and nobody calls, they start to believe it doesn't matter whether they show up or not. Track attendance, follow up on missed sessions, and make it part of your culture that people know you're paying attention. A 1% improvement in churn is worth real money. On a 150 member gym at $400 a month, the difference between 5% and 4% attrition is $30,000 a year. That's money you earn without getting a single new lead. Boredom kills retention just as much as bad results. If your programming feels like the same thing every week, people disengage. Build in variety, give options, create internal challenges and events that members look forward to throughout the year. Ask "what does success look like for you" on day one, then follow up on it. If someone told you they wanted to lose 10 pounds and three months later nobody's checked in on that, they'll quietly cancel and go try something else. The 30 day check in call is one of the simplest retention tools you can put in place. Register now for the free How to Fix the Profits at Your Gym Masterclass on Wednesday, May 21st at 12pm Eastern: https://live.vincegabriele.com/profitmasterclass
If your show rate is broken, book a free 30 minute Gym Clarity Call and we'll find the fix: https://gymclaritycall.com/ If leads are opting in but never picking up the phone, or booking consults and ghosting you, this episode is for you. And the answer might not be what you think. Most gym owners assume it's a sales problem. Get better at follow up. Get better on the phone. And yeah, that stuff matters. But after sitting in mastermind rooms for the last several weeks hearing the same complaint over and over, I started noticing a pattern: the gym owners with the worst show rates all had one thing in common. They were putting all their eggs into one marketing basket. Tom and I break down a concept I picked up from a $4,300 phone call with Dan Kennedy called "fertile soil." The idea is simple. When you first start marketing in a niche or platform, you're digging in soft, loose soil. Easy customers. But the longer you stay on one platform without diversifying, the deeper you dig. The soil gets harder. The leads get worse. And eventually you're hitting concrete. The fix isn't to get better at sales. The fix is to find new ponds. We walk through real examples that are working right now: The hyper local newspaper ad that's pulling a 50% show rate and generated $60K in lifetime value off a $4,600 spend. The reactivation play where you text 10 to 15 past members a month with a personal message (not a blanket campaign). The local sports media sponsorship that just opened up 10,000 new email subscribers we've never reached before. The joint venture strategy that filled our post rehab program so fast we had to turn people away. We also kick things off with a story about a hibachi restaurant that has 9,300 Google reviews across four locations and the dead simple system they use to get them. There's a lesson in there for every gym owner. 5 Key Takeaways: Your show rate problem might be a marketing problem. If all your leads come from one source and that source has been drying up, getting better at sales won't fix it. You need to find new pockets of fertile soil where higher quality prospects are waiting. 20 to 30% of leads showing up for a consultation is a solid show rate. If your number is way higher than that, you probably don't have enough lead volume. If it's way lower, it might be your source, not your skills. Reactivation is one of the most overlooked ponds you already have. If you've been in business 10 years with a 5% churn rate, you've lost over 1,200 people. Text 10 to 15 of them a month with a personal message. Not a template. A real conversation. The best joint ventures come from getting the referral source into your gym as a client. When Dr. Hurley started training with us, referrals went from once a month to a couple a week. Give a free membership to someone who can send you customers and watch what happens. When you sponsor a youth sports league or local organization, don't pay for a banner. Pay for email access to their list. That's where the real return lives because those parents are opening every single email from that program. Book a free Gym Clarity Call and we'll build a plan specific to your business: https://gymclaritycall.com/
If your gym has been stuck at the same revenue for more than six months, book a free 30 minute Gym Clarity Call and we'll find the one lever holding you back: https://gymclaritycall.com/ If your gym has been stuck at the same revenue number for over six months, this episode is for you. And I promise the reason isn't what you think. Most gym owners blame their market, their competition, or their marketing. But after coaching 139 gym owners and running my own gym since 2008, I can tell you it almost always comes down to three structural things that have nothing to do with how many leads you're getting. This is the relaunch of the FBU Podcast with my original co-host Tom Langton back in the chair. Tom was the very first employee at Gabriele Fitness, worked with me for 13 years, went on to own his own gym, and now he's back asking the questions that gym owners actually need answered. We break down why so many gym owners get stuck under $20K a month and stay there way too long. I walk through a real case study of a gym owner named John who was stuck at $13K, working 60 hours a week, and on pace to take another 12 months to hit $20K. We got him there in about a month. 5 Key Takeaways: Price is the fastest lever you can pull. If your close rate is near 100% and your retention is solid, you are undercharging. We raised John's price $40 a month on current and new members, and even in a worst case scenario where he lost four people, he was still making more money with fewer clients. Do the math before you freak out. Write down the worst case scenario. How many people do you realistically think you'd lose? Do the math at the new price. Almost every time, you come out ahead. The fear is always bigger in your head than it is in reality. Block time for sales and marketing like it's an appointment. The number one reason gym owners stay stuck isn't a lack of knowledge. It's that they're spending zero dedicated time on getting new customers. Two to three hours a day on sales and marketing activities will change everything. Spend that time on the right things. Joint ventures, referrals, building a great website, emailing your list. Stop building system manuals nobody will read and start walking down the street to introduce yourself to other business owners. Get out of stage one before it breaks you. Training sessions drains 1.3 human energy hours per session, not one. A gym owner doing 30 sessions a week is really burning 39 hours of energy before they touch a single business task. The longer you stay in this grind without a plan, the more likely burnout takes you out of the game entirely. Book a free 30 minute Gym Clarity Call and we'll map out exactly what's holding your gym back: https://gymclaritycall.com/ Need help getting more leads, making more money, or buying your time back from your gym business? Click here to schedule a free one on one strategy session!
Want us to audit your sales process and show you exactly where leads are falling through the cracks? Book a free Sales Audit and we'll review your automations from lead to consult or trial: https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/masterclassbonuscall This is the full recording of my live masterclass: How to Fix the Sales at Your Gym. Over 100 gym owners showed up and I coached for two and a half hours straight. No slides. No pitch. Just the real stuff that moves the needle. Here's the reality that most gym owners don't know: only 15% of your leads will buy in the first 100 days. The other 85% will buy over the next 100 weeks. So the question isn't just how do you close better. It's what is your system doing with every single lead from the moment they opt in through the consultation or trial and beyond. We covered the sales mindset shifts that have to happen before any tactic works. The follow up sequence (speed, sequence, persistence) that maximizes the leads who are ready now. The preframing process that stops no shows before they happen. The one question from Strategic Coach that completely changes the consultation. How to present price using the good, better, best model. The exact math behind raising prices on current members. And how to generate more referrals and upgrades from the people already paying you. 5 Key Takeaways: You can't deposit leads into your bank account. You can generate all the leads you want but if your sales process is broken, none of it matters. The number one job of the business owner is to be able to stimulate sales when needed. That's not optional. People want to buy but they're afraid to buy. Every prospect walks in carrying every past failure, every program that didn't work, every trainer that let them down. Your job is to show up differently through attunement, buoyancy, and clarity. Not as a salesperson. As a trusted advisor. Speed kills (in a good way). When someone opts in, they are the most interested they will ever be. If you wait three days to follow up, you've already lost them. Text first, then call, then voicemail, then email. And do it seven to 12 times before you move them to your long term nurture. The magic question changes everything. "If we were having this conversation one year from today, and you were looking back on that year, what has to have happened with your health and fitness for you to feel happy with your progress?" Ask it word for word. Don't change a thing. Sell with lifetime customer value in mind. You're not selling a $300 membership. You're selling a $14,000 relationship. When you show up with that number in your head, you don't quit early, you don't discount, and you don't wing it. Want us to audit your sales process and show you where leads are falling through the cracks? Book a free Sales Audit: https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/masterclassbonuscall Need help getting more leads, making more money, or buying your time back from your gym business? Click here to schedule a free one on one strategy session!
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