Fitness Business University Podcast

Hosted by Vince Gabriele

Business Health Fitness Education

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501

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Aug 2026

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About the show

The Fitness Business University Podcast — The #1 Fitness Business Podcast — 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. 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, no B.S. approach — no fluff, no theories, just the proven, real-world skills you need to win in business and in life.

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August 9, 2026Episode 55249 min

Turn Dead Leads Into Buyers

How to make $865.38 per hour writing emails. Full workshop September 11th: https://www.vincegabriele.com/emailworkshop2026Here'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

August 2, 2026Episode 55154 min

Steel Cage Client Retention Secrets (Part 1)

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/

July 25, 2026Episode 55053 min

Fragile Gym: How NOT to Be One

Register for the Email Marketing Workshop on September 11th: https://www.vincegabriele.com/emailworkshop2026This 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

July 14, 2026Episode 54925 min

The Gym of the Future Explained

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/

July 3, 2026Episode 54844 min

How to Get Old Clients Back

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/

June 28, 2026Episode 54745 min

How to build a referral system that brings new clients every month without feeling like a beggar

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/

June 28, 2026Episode 54618 min

The #1 Driver of Anxiety in Gym Owners…and How to Smash It

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/

June 18, 2026Episode 54555 min

If you’re going to hire a digital marketing agency, this is the ONLY one Vince Recommends

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/

June 18, 2026Episode 54446 min

Lessons for Gym Owners from The New York Knicks NBA Title (Vince’s Birthday Episode)

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/

June 2, 2026Episode 54325 min

How to Get Unstuck in Business

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/