Fitness Business University Podcast

Speaker 1: All right guys,
welcome to the final episode of

Long Island Gym Tours.

I believe this is episode one,
two, three, four, five, five and

I'm on the way home back to New
Jersey from Long Island.

If you missed the first several
episodes, I was hired by the

great Anthony Bevilacqua, a
member of my mastermind for

several years, to come and do a
consulting day up in Long Island

and since I had so many clients
in Long Island gyms in the SPF

Mastermind, I decided to do a
day where I visited all the gyms

and hung out and talked shop
for a few minutes and then moved

to the next one very quickly.

So I am done.

I am on the way home.

I visited five gyms yesterday
and had my consulting day with

AB and now I am stuck in
gridlock on the way home back to

New Jersey from Long Island.

So that is my situation.

But I ended my tour yesterday at
the great TJ Lopez, who was the

SPF Gym Owner of the Year Award
back in March and is just a

phenomenal gym owner, phenomenal
guy and I got to visit his gym,

which was bumping.

I got there around 5 o'clock.

They had a middle school
session cranking, they had a

high school session going, they
had adult program going, they

had physical therapy happening,
there was consultations going on

and a lot going on at AMP, and
it was really cool to hang out

with TJ and got to see some
insight of his squad and what

he's been doing to lead his team
and everything like that.

But he's built up a really,
really good group of people and

I'm super proud of him.

Phenomenal, one of the best
gyms in the country, for sure.

So congrats to you, tj, not
only for the SPF Gym Owner of

the Year, which had the belt
that he won, as the owner

proudly displayed in his office
but just done a phenomenal job

of growing a great business.

And so that led us to a
wonderful dinner.

A anthony bevilacqua met us and
we had a really, really great

steak dinner out on some very
fancy, ritzy restaurant that tj

took us to.

So it was a wonderful meal.

And then the next day, I which
was today I got to spend a full

day at AB's gym.

Now AB, it runs AB Fitness in
Long Island.

Three different locations and
again, the story behind AB is

that he has been a client of
mine, I think since 2018.

He worked at Gold's Gym for
many years.

Left Gold's Gym started
training clients in his garage,

literally got a space, just took
his clients from his garage,

went to his first space and then
two months later came to one of

my seminars and he's been with
me ever since.

I've been with him since his
birth.

When he came for me, he was
doing all one-on-one sessions.

I helped him install the small
group model and he went from

training one-on-one clients for
30 minutes to small group

clients for 30 minutes and very,
very quickly scaled his first

gym and made a ton more money.

That earned him the SPF Gym
Owner of the Year award as well

back in 2018 and earned the
nickname Cash Room because he

was making so much freaking
profit that I basically said,

hey, there's got to be another
room that you bolt on to this

gym to hold all the cash.

So he earned the nickname Cash
Room.

But a phenomenal guy, phenomenal
gym owner, and since that time

he has scaled now to three
locations and one of the things

he wanted to do was kind of set
the plan for the future of

what's next for AB Fitness.

He wanted me to come up and
watch the session, see what was

going on, see what tweaks we can
make, go over the vision and

the future for it and really
just overall help him with

things like becoming a better
leader, becoming a better

business owner and everything
like that.

So we spent a full day.

I spent a full day with AB and
it was a great day I really

enjoyed.

I got to meet his wife, I got
to meet his sister who works at

the gym really good people.

But the day started with me
going to the gym and what AB

wanted me to do is watch the
sessions.

I kind of just stood there and
watched and I was able to

interact with some of the
clients.

I interacted with the staff and
you know, what they wanted from

me was to say how do we make
this better?

How do we make this better?

And that's that's all.

That's saying lot coming from a
guy that's got three locations,

that's doing really well,
that's making a lot of money.

To have a guy like me come in
and say, hey, I don't care about

my feelings, I only care about
getting better.

What do we need to do to get
better?

And so I kind of was watching
and I saw a few things that

could get better.

And now one of the first things
was they do the model always

needs to fit the market.

The model always needs to fit
the market and one of their

market is women.

Like, most of the people coming
through the door were women

between 50 and 65 years old it
was.

They did a very good job of
bringing the same type of

clientele and it wasn't like
there's one high school kid here

, there's a mom here, there's a
dad here.

It was almost like all women in
their fifties I would say

forties, fifties and sixties,
right.

And so they do 30 minute
sessions, which from a financial

standpoint, is really really
good and from a time standpoint

for the client it's really
really good.

So there's lots of benefits but
there's only so much time to

get people a good workout and a
good sweat and give them that

feeling that they are getting
that workout.

And that is a real thing.

I think that sometimes gyms
mislead that like, oh, you don't

have to sweat and burn for it
to be a good workout, and I

think that's kind of almost a
little BS.

But people want to come to the
workout and feel like they

worked out.

We went through this back in the
heyday of GFP, where we were

playing physical therapist and
we got so into corrective

exercise.

We started babying our clients
so much and we ended up doing an

hour of corrective with them
and they didn't work out.

And after a while people
started leaving and we're like,

wait, what are we doing here?

We're playing physical therapy.

We're not even training these
people.

We got to train them, we got to
push them, we got to train hard

.

They came to us to help us get
fit and get strong and lose

weight.

Like we can't baby these people
to the point where they're not

even getting a training effect
from it.

And so I, from that mistake that
we made, I created a thing

called the seven keys to a great
session, and basically it was

seven things that our trainers
need to do to make it a great

session, and one of the ones was
this check this out Do no harm,

which was stolen from Mike
Boyle.

Do no harm, but make them use
two towels.

Do no harm, but make them use
two towels.

That means we train them
intelligently, we use the right

exercises, we use the right
cueings, we train our staff

really well, we find good people
, we do everything we possibly

can to not do any harm to the
client.

We do everything we possibly
can to not do any harm to the

client, but we make them use two
towels, we make them work.

And two towels was a coin of.

I used to have this guy I forget
his name now a while ago.

He used to always go through
two towels in the workout and he

would always come to me and say
two towel workout, vince, and

that means he was sopping wet
and sweating like crazy.

And that's what we want.

We want people to sweat.

And I'm not saying just, you
know, run people in the ground

and be stupid and just make
people sweat, for the case of

sweating, but I am saying can we
make them sweat and make them

burn and make them feel like
they're getting a really good

workout and get them strong and
make it intelligent?

And I do believe good training
is both.

I do believe good training is
both.

I do believe good training is
both.

And so that's one of the things
I saw and I was looking at it

and I was like I have happened
to believe there are some people

that come to the gym and leave
after two months and they leave

because they didn't feel like
they were going to work out, and

some of that could have been
their training age.

Some of that could have been
maybe they had injuries they're

working on.

Some of that could have been
the programming and things like

that, but at the end of the day,
what I needed was they needed

to get more creative with the
programming to be able to step

up the intensity to make these
people feel like they were

getting after it.

One of the pieces of advice I
gave was a group warmup right.

And so they were just coming in
and they were starting their

program and doing it right away
and I said do a group warmup, do

something where they get
everyone together for five

minutes, move them through some
mobility, move them to get them

bumping, get them sweating and
then get them going.

That's going to set the tone
for the rest of the workout.

Remember, they only have 20, 30
minutes, so we got to do that

in five minutes.

Now, the second thing I did
they have room because they

trained one on six right.

They had room and they only had
about a thousand square feet,

but they had room to put two
assault bikes and two you know

skiers right.

And what I said was at the end
of the workout, do some kind of

finisher right Go from.

They're on the hour, so it's on
the half hour.

So 6 to 6.30, we trained, and
then at 6.30, you let them go

and on their own they do some
kind of a finisher 30 seconds on

the bike, get them huffing and
puffing, get them sweating, and

then to let them leave feeling
like they actually really got

after it and worked out, and it
doesn't take a long time to get

that, to make that happen.

But the product is really
important.

You can't have a good business
if you don't have a good product

, and that was one of the things
AB wanted me to look at was the

product and how can make it
better.

Now, the product.

The hard part for me was it was
already good.

He's already doing well.

These were just things that I
saw and little tweaks that I saw

that I think could have made it
actually even better.

There was other things that I
did, but it was very helpful for

me to start the day with him to
watch the things that were

going on, to talk to his staff,
to look at the things that they

were looking at, to really see
the type of clientele that we

were working with and everything
like that.

So that was kind of the first
part of the day.

I spent about two hours at the
gym and then we cruised back to

AB's house really beautiful home
that he's living in Tons of

dogs everywhere.

His wife was there.

She works at the house, so she
was there and hung out with us,

got us a cup of coffee and fed
us.

Really well, it was beautiful
and so, yeah, it was.

It was a really, really awesome
day and some of the things that

we got into during the other
day was the vision.

You know well how many of these
do we want to do, and the

original vision was five.

And here's the thing At the end
of the day, sometimes you just

got to do the math to help you
make a decision right, and we

did the math on all right.

If I scale to five gems around,
this is what each one is going

to do roughly in profitability.

This is the typical multiple
right of ebida, which is how you

sell a business.

It's a multiple of ebida.

So basically you know it's
either two gyms or usually two

to four times ebida and we
looked at the numbers like if

you created five of these and
with a multiple, we use three

just as a midpoint right in
multiple ebida and at five gyms,

I, yeah, you can decide to sell
these five gyms.

There's multiple.

Sorry, I'm in the tunnel,
that's why you hear all that

background noise.

Apologize, I am driving, so
that's why you're hearing all

this noise.

But, and so, like, we looked at
the numbers, like this is what

you're going to make, and I was
like how do you feel about that?

Better, right, Really good.

And he saw it so.

So we kind of settled on you
know, 10 locations, right, so

that's like pushing towards that
.

We kind of busted through five
and just made the 10, because

sometimes you just got to do the
math and like it wasn't

exciting for him to do that.

And again the the point was not
him selling, it wasn't even.

We weren't even sure that we
were going to sell, because

sometimes it's a great, smart
thing to just run a really good

business and, you know, make a
lot of money and profit from it.

But you always want to be in a
position that if you want to

sell, that you can, right, and
so you know that's kind of the

vision that we worked on.

And you know, the cool thing was
he told me that he, after he we

, made some really interesting
tweaks to his business in the

last year.

One of them was he had three
locations, but he did not have a

lead person at each one.

So the first thing that we did
and this really improved

attrition was we put a point
person at each location.

It's called a facility leader,
right, and that was the first

thing.

The second thing we did to
improve his attrition was we got

really really good at tracking
attendance and they put

attendance reports together.

They were following up with
customers every you know time

that they didn't show up and
they got really really good at

that as well.

So those are two things they
did, and he dropped his

attrition rate by 3% just from
those movements.

I was really I was looking over
the numbers with him and I was

really, really proud of that.

We made those decisions back in
December.

Sorry, I just need a sip of
water.

We made those decisions back in
December and now it's just not

oh, one month of improved
attrition it was.

Now we're seven months into the
year with seven straight months

of improved average attrition
rate by 3% went from nine to 6%.

So it's like really really
solid and very, very happy to

see that.

I'd love to see it down one
more percent, get that thing to

five and 4%, which I think he
can, and we went over some

things that I think he could do
to do that as well.

I do believe the things that I
the second level of getting that

attrition from like six to like
five or four is that final,

those final few things that I
went over with him is taking

some tweaks and changes to the
programming I think will improve

attrition greatly.

So, really, really excited
about him and his vision in the

future.

He did a phenomenal job of
asking questions and this is

like I think it's so important
as a business owner to be able

to put your ego aside If you're
already successful, to be able

to put your ego aside and ask
for more help to get better and

better and better.

And that's what I love about AB
.

He's just like.

He doesn't be like oh man, I'm
not doing good, I don't need

help.

He's like no, rip this apart, I
can take it, tell me what I

need to do, tell me what I need
to do to get better.

And the cool thing about it,
he's a fast action taker.

He goes and he does it.

So we talked about a lot of
that.

I looked over his scoreboard.

He was asking me what about his
key performance indicators?

I looked it over.

Everything looks good.

He's pretty much followed what
we teach in SPF Mastermind.

But he was tracking leads.

He was tracking booked consults
.

He was tracking showed consults
.

He was tracking how many closed
consults, how many

consultations he closed the
usage he was tracking.

The one thing he did have that
I changed was he had holds and

cancels in the same tab and I
said separate those out from

those two things.

So anyone that freezes their
membership and anyone that holds

.

I told them to just separate
the two, even though they're

both are lost revenue and you
should be tracking both of those

because a hold is lost revenue.

So you do want to track that
because if that creeps up too

high, then that's going to drop
your revenue and all of a sudden

you're not going to be like,
well, how do I?

You know, where is that coming
from?

Right?

So we talked about the
scoreboard.

One of the things he started to.

You know what we started to
talk about was leadership.

He wanted me to help him, you
know, become a better leader.

We talked a lot about that and
one of the things that he needed

to start getting good at was
running meetings and at our last

CEO mastermind I taught him a
meeting structure called a level

10 meeting, which I learned
from Mark O'Donnell over at EOS.

But I basically taught him a
weekly meeting structure for how

he should lead his facility
leaders, and he says he's made

great improvements there.

But the one thing he was
struggling with was how to run a

quarterly off-site meeting
where you kind of go off-site of

the gym and then you start to
do the planning for the next

quarter.

And so one of the things I did
was I went through a structure

with him on how to run a
quarterly offsite for his team

and I've done many of these
myself, you know, hosted it for

four gyms, but also I've had
many consultants run these with

me, so I kind of know these like
the back of my hand.

But the main thing you're
trying to do with these

quarterly offsites and actually
I have a YouTube video coming

out soon.

Check that out on YouTube.

That explains a lot of this.

But what you want to do is a
quarterly offsite.

The first thing you do is you
want to review vision, review

goals.

You want to make sure that
you're clear on where you're

going and you're clear on the
outcomes that you're trying to

achieve.

The next thing you're going to
do is you're going to review

what actually happened.

So what are the key data points
?

What was the churn rate?

What was how many new clients
did we add?

Is there certain issues that
need to be, you know, addressed

and solved from a data
perspective?

Did we dip in profitability
this quarter?

So we basically do a full data
review, that, with the squad and

with the team, we'll do an org
chart.

We always do org chart where we
look at the people on the team,

we look at who's in the right,
who are the right people in the

right seats.

We will do set goals.

We will set review sorry,
review goals from the past

quarter and then set goals for
the upcoming quarter and then

the rest of the time is just
left for solving big key issues,

solving problems that we can,
on an offsite, have time to

discuss.

A lot of times when you're in a
weekly meeting, you know you

have an hour to do it and then
you got to get back to people,

got to get back to training
sessions and doing things, and

sometimes you don't have time to
get deep into issues.

That you need to get to.

A quarterly offsite where you
book a full day enables you to

get that right amount of time to
be able to put towards

important issues and things like
that.

So I found that they're really,
really important for clarity

for the owner, they're really
important for communication to

the staff and I think one of the
biggest things that you know,

the biggest knocks on a lot of
owners is they're just bad

communicators and I think a good
meeting pulse really helps.

Here's a good a good meeting
pulse helps bad communicators.

So if you're a bad communicator
and you're like kind of hold

things in your head and you
don't like to tell people things

, like a meeting structure
allows you just to kind of help

communicate everything because
you're kind of almost it's

almost forced communication.

So that was a really that was a
really eyeopening thing for him

.

So we talked about the
scoreboard, we talked about his

vision, we talked about the
leadership meetings, we talked

about his product and everything
like that and we talked about a

whole bunch of other stuff.

We went into his Facebook ads
and I reviewed his ads and his

return on spend and he seemed
very frustrated with Facebook

and I started looking at the
numbers and we just went month

by month.

I was like, all right, give me
June.

And he was like all right.

And I was like, pull up June.

And he's like, all right, I was
like, how much did you spend?

And he's like, all right, I was
like, how much did you spend?

And he told me what we spent.

I was like, all right, how many
new customers did you get?

And he told me what it was.

And I was like, all right,
what's the lifetime value of a

customer?

And basically I basically
showed him that when he was

fresh, he didn't really look as
deep into the numbers as he

needed to, and so what I did was
I said, all right, you got X.

You spent X amount of dollars.

You got X amount of clients.

The lifetime value of those
clients is X.

The return was.

It was a massive return.

I was like do this every month,
Don't ever stop.

You don't need to ever spend
less.

In fact, you could probably
spend more.

But essentially, like a lot of
times people get frustrated

because they feel like I'm not
getting enough from Facebook.

I'm not getting enough from
Facebook.

But when you look at the real
data, a lot of times you

actually are.

Now you do get there.

Sometimes you aren't.

So you do got to look at the
real data.

But the second thing I talked
about with him was I thought I'm

talking too fast, sorry,
there's something about being in

New York city traffic that
makes me talk fast, I guess.

But the second thing that I
told him was but the second

thing that I told him was let's
just say you get 100 leads from

Facebook and 10 of them become
customers.

Well, first of all, that's
amazing 10% of your Facebook

leads became customers,
especially at his lifetime value

.

That's like amazing.

It's around what it was right.

No-transcript.

Those 90 leads aren't dead
leads.

Those 90 leads go onto a
follow-up process.

Those 90 leads go onto an email
, and he's been emailing his

list three days a week and he
told me he was getting customers

from his emails and I was like
well, where do you think those

emails came from?

It's like they probably came
from Facebook, and they probably

came from the Facebook leads
that you thought were dead leads

that actually just didn't
convert yet.

And so I think a lot of people
get frustrated with their

Facebook ads.

It's like, no, your Facebook
ads are also a beefier upper.

That's a terrible, sorry.

A build up your email list and
you know I'm an email guy, I

love email, and I believe that
one of the best ways to do it is

to you know, run Facebook ads
to get a bunch of leads on

Facebook.

You're going to get some right
away and then you're going to

get some down the road.

You know responding to your
emails and things like that.

So it's a really powerful thing
just to look deeper into the

number.

So that was one of the things
that we did and I think it was a

big eye-opener for him and he's
going to go back into and spend

more time on.

He runs his own ads, which is
cool, but spend more time on

making sure it's good and the
other things.

He's like well, what do I?

The other questions?

He asked me was a great
question.

He's like well, what do I need
to be doing?

I feel like sometimes, when I'm
in this position where I have

three facilities and I have
three facility leaders,

sometimes I just get impatient.

I want to go, just do stuff.

I want to just go make things
happen and do stuff and the, the

, the.

Really the issue is he's got to
stay in his lane.

Now he owns the marketing so he
can go do stuff from a

marketing standpoint.

So I told him go write an email
, go create a new video for your

Facebook ads.

Go build a new key relationship
in the community.

Go do things that the marketer
and the business owner should be

doing, but don't go and do
things that the facility leaders

and the people running the
company should be doing Just

because you're impatient.

What you really should be doing
is leading them to be able to

get the job done.

So at some point you need to
show some patience and instead

of being like, how am I going to
do this, how am I going to get

this done?

How am I going to push this?

It's like now, who do I need to
lead?

Who do I need to call?

Who do I need to manage to be
able to get this actually done?

So we kind of had that
conversation about it, which was

, I think, really helpful for
him.

But it was a great day.

I really love AB.

He's the man and he showed me
his gym in his basement.

He's got a really cool gym in
his basement and we just had a

great time and I had a great day
.

So I am still locked in
gridlock coming home from New

York City, but it was worth
every minute of it.

I really got to hang with some
good people, some great business

owners and very, very exciting
time for me to be up here in

Long Island.

So that is the end of the
journey.

I'm going to close it out here.

That's five podcasts down.

Shoot, am I going to exit here?

I don't think so.

That's five podcasts down and
hopefully one of these is

helpful.

I do.

I know I take some of them.

I was like stuck in traffic and
probably wasn't my best work,

but I apologize.

But I did want to try and get
you some real time stuff of the

things that I was discussing
with gym owners and everything

like that.

So hopefully some of the he
took away a couple nuggets from

these different episodes of me
yakking in between driving in

traffic in the middle of Long
Island.

But to all the people I visited
, I'm proud of you.

Great job.

You guys did amazing and super,
super excited about all you in

the group.

If you are listening to this and
you would like to book a

consulting day or are interested
in getting coaching with me or

are interested in the mastermind
, just go ahead and shoot me an

email.

It's my private email, vince,
at gabrielfitnesscom, and I'll

have Leo put the link in the
show notes for you guys.

But yeah, if you're interested.

If you want to hire me for a
consulting day, I'm probably.

Here's the thing I'm probably
not going to come to your gym.

I did this for AB.

He's been a client for a really
long time.

It is a lot of time for me to
do it and now he paid handsomely

for it to do it.

But at the end of the day I
only have so much time, so I'm

recording this podcast telling
you I'm going all around Long

Island and stuff like that.

It's unlikely I'm going to come
to your gym, especially if you

haven't been a client for a long
time or anything like that.

But I do have people come to my
gym a lot.

I am booked until 2026.

So I have no more time for the
rest of the year, but I do like

to fill the calendar in 2026
early.

So if you are interested in
doing a consulting day or

interested in getting some
coaching in the SPF mastermind,

shoot me an email.

It's just me.

It goes right to me, vince, at
gabrielfitnesscom, and hopefully

these episodes were helpful and
I'll see you on the next one,

peace.