Building Culture to Generate Referrals - Vince Gabriele

Hey, I'm gonna go home today from the gym. I'm gonna leave your gym and I'm gonna go home and sit at my kitchen table for the next 45 minutes and think really, really hard of who I can refer to your business. Said no one ever. Right? People are busy, they don't care. But it's your job to give them the tool to be able to get them to do that.

What's up, fitness fans? Welcome back to the future of fitness podcast interview series. This is your host, Eric Malzone, and this is episode number 131. I talked to Vince Gabriel. So, Vince, uh, well, in this podcast, you just you get just a few decades of gym ownership experience uh chatting about all things fitness and gym. And and it was great. I mean, he's uh he has a highly successful gym. He now runs a mastermind group for gym owners. Um I know he's always expanding uh his influence and his impact within the industry. So uh great guy. Um his story is outstanding. Uh I didn't know some of his story and his background uh until I got this interview with him. It was awesome. Um and there's a lot of really, really high value content in here as far as like how to boost referrals, systems for referrals, right? He gives us a little bit of his secret sauce and how he does that. Um, you know, all the various options you have for marketing a gym or your fitness business. So uh it's worth your time. It's definitely worth your time, and I I thoroughly enjoyed it. And uh I want to read a review, actually. This is from my old friend Doug Hole on this show. It says, the future of fitness. I love how each interview flows and we get an intimate look at professionals in the fitness industry, like Vince Gabriel. What's working for them, where they are, where they think our industry is going, and a chance to view them as real people. Eric Style's a great combo of professional and conversational. I'm excited to hear more. Doug, thanks, brother. I really appreciate it. And uh, if you guys go to iTunes and subscribe to this podcast, uh go to our YouTube channel while you're at it, subscribe there, and uh leave a review. Uh I'll read it on air, just like that, just like Doug Holt. And uh I really do appreciate it. So before we get into that, I just want to make an offer to you. I am uh part of a great free online community uh of gym owners. It's a Slack community, it's called Elite Gym Insiders, and you can check out more at EliteGym Insiders.com and uh we talk about gym stuff, we talk about the future of the industry, uh, we get connected, and it's free. So why not? Right? If you're in the fitness industry, specifically to gyms, um, either you work in a gym, you run a gym, you own a gym, or you do stuff that gym owners need, uh go check it out at EliteGym Insiders.com. So without further ado, uh let's get into this. This is episode number 131 with Vince Gabriel. Enjoy the ride. I know I did. All right, Vince. Welcome to the show, man.

Thanks. Appreciate you having me. Yeah, excited to be here. Yeah, I'm glad to have you. And you're nice to be a guest on someone else's podcast. I spent so many hours on my own.

Yeah.

It's nice to be uh just answering the questions.

Yeah, yeah. Well, hey man, you're in uh you're in my world now, Vince. So buckle up, right?

Yeah, well, if your world is like woods and lakes and forests, like I'm there.

Like it is I've had enough of the New Jersey uh so it is, it is, and you said something really funny, and it's probably why I'm smiling, laughing as we start this, is you're like, well, we've been preparing for this podcast for 19 years because uh you have you have over 10 years of gym ownership experience, and I have uh over nine. And um, you know.

Well, we could also add our our our years in the fitness industry before owning a gym. So 10 plus years as a gym owner, but then six plus years as a personal trainer. Nice. You know, so it's like all right, been I've been in the industry since 2002. Yeah. So that's let's do this back back up, man. Give us give us your give us your biography, give us your story. The boring history. Oh, okay. So like I could go back a long ways till I could talk about Jimmy's superfly snook uh and you know how I got into the fitness industry. I I should tell that story because it's kind of funny. Yeah, I want to know about Jimmy. Yeah. So I know, right? It always uh so I uh there was a gym. I I I live in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey, and there's like a town, a couple towns over called Chatham, and there was a gym called Liberados Fitness Center. And it was like this, you know, the meathead, the chip, the typical gym in like the 80s and 90s, where you know, it was like, you know, they had the Smith Machines and the Hack Squats, and it was like a muscle head gym. And um so it was like my first experience in like lifting weights ever was this Liberados Fitness Center. And I remember my buddy Nick Gregorio, who's uh head football coach in New Jersey now, but his mom used to have this huge Lincoln town car, and she would pick us up like every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and we would go to this gym, Liberados Fitness Center, and it was filled, and um the the guy all of a sudden I look over and there's this guy with his guest hair like all the way down over his head, and he's like walking around the gym, like really slowly, like walking back and forth. And I'm like looking at this guy, and I'm like, this guy looks so familiar, and I was like a big WWF fan. And I looked over, I was like, that's freaking Superfly. Like it was like legitimately Superfly Jimmy Snooker, like, and then he was there all the time, and he'd walk by, and I was like an eighth-grade kid, and I'd be like, Oh, what's up, Jimmy? How you doing? Like he got to know Jimmy Superfly Snooker. So that was like the first uh and and you know, you remember the routine, right? Yeah, the routine was chest try, back by, and on Friday you did shoulders, and the following Wednesday, Monday, you were supposed to do legs, but then you always just did chest tries.

Yeah, and there was no there was no training, there was no strength training for performance back then. Oh no, no, yeah, it wasn't that it wasn't anything like that. It was just everything was bodybuilding, and it was great, it was simple, right? Yeah, it was it was fun, it was fun.

But um, so that was like kind of like my first thing in the finish injury. And I I I played football in high school and then went and played college football. I played at Temple University, was an offensive lineman uh there for four years. Wow, and then uh majored in business and you know, really how big are you, Vince? I was about 296 when I played. I think that was my highest. Uh no, I was I was four cheeseburgers, which was a normal meal away from 300. So I was 300, I just never saw it on the scale. How tall are you? Uh I'm like 6'3 right now. Wow, you're a big boy. Yeah, yeah. So well, I'm I was big then. Now now we're but uh you're a big boy, yeah. But uh so I was office line, majored in business, did hated all the classes I was taking, um, macroeconomics and all that stuff that I should have been paying attention to in hindsight, but um got uh injured many times, so I was like in the train in that yeah, this is the typical story, like oh, I was hurt all the time because I was a shitty football player and all that stuff. But is it alright if I curse once in a while? But yeah. But um, so I you know was always better at lifting weights than I was at playing football. And I um you know decided to get into personal training. And it's funny, we you talked about ISSA, you know, you mentioned ISSA before when we were talking before we started, and that was my first certification was ISSA with Dr. Squat and uh who's who's the other guy? Dr. Squat, and then there was uh Doc Creese was uh the other guy, and then my first professor, this is a grew another great story, but my first professor, my first mentor in personal training was a guy by the name of Tom Platt. And you know, you know him, you know who he is, and you're making a face like you don't. But if I showed you a picture, so yeah, yeah, I got the name. Yeah, so Tom Platts, and and if you're you know a historian in bodybuilding, you know, one of the most famous bodybuilders ever for the size of his legs. He always had these massive, massive quads. His nickname is Quadzilla. And um basically I he was my first teacher at ISSA out in San Diego, and in Redondo Beach, I used to go up and train with him once a month and work with him. So he was like my first mentor in the fitness industry uh when I was out in California. So I I moved from Philadelphia to New Cal to San Diego and lived there and got a job at a place called Fitness Quest 10, who's a guy named Todd Durkin, who runs it, and he's a pretty big name in the industry now. But I was an intern there, started there, and then I worked there for five years and then moved back to New Jersey, took my California Girl Bride with me, and then uh started Gabriel Fitness in 2007, I believe. And then we just celebrated 10 years. We started the the gyms, uh the first gym, the brick and mortar gym started in 2008, and then we just celebrated 10 years from there. Wow.

Congratulations, man. Thanks. Yes, it's been a it's been a fun ride. Yeah, but yeah, yeah. I mean, given given the general life cycle of most, you know, boutique or or owner-operated facilities, that's you're doing really well. I mean, that's uh that's impressive to make it 10 years. Um so why why gym? Why gym business? What was it was it for you the natural evolution of being a personal trainer? Um, what what made you want to start the actual business?

Yeah, not like I didn't like I've never dreamed of being a gym owner when I was a kid. Like my my whole family's in finance. So they're like, they're like, what the hell are you doing? Like you have this opportunity to to do really well and um you know in finance, and that's why I majored in business. So I I realized though, like I just I wanted to do something I I like to do. And I was a personal trainer in the first several years I loved it. I loved it. And then I started, I think I was like, you know, like 26. And I think at 26 years old, I made $37,000 a year. You know, so it's like that's not great. Like all of a sudden you're embarking on having, you know, getting married and having a family, and I wanted to live in New Jersey. And my wife didn't know this. My wife thought New Jersey was like really cheap. She thought New Jersey was like, you know, uh like Nebraska, and like housing prices would be really low. Like she had no idea. She had no idea what she was doing. She's from California. Yeah. So it's like California and New Jersey are the two most expensive places on the planet. But um, I don't know where I was. But uh so no, I never had these like kind of dreams to be a gym owner. I just said I found myself in this spot where I really loved what I was doing, and I really love the the change that I was making in people's lives versus and I was doing it on a on a on a pretty broad scale. Uh of I was working with um you know young kids, like uh like youth athletes. I was working with middle-aged moms, and then I had this whole other I actually found I actually founded the football development program at Fitness Quest 10. Like I was they have a combine program there, and I was the one that started the whole thing, but uh, which still runs today. But I um I and I was training a lot of pro athletes at the time, and I was just I was really loving what I was doing and I was making a difference, and I was like, I really want to do this. This is what I want to do. But then I was like, okay, if I'm gonna do this and I want a life beyond showing up and training 40 hours a week to hack out a living, you know, I needed to do, you know, run my own business. So for me, that was like, so, you know, I I come from an entrepreneurial background, and like, you know, my dad, you know, was an entrepreneur and started a business, you know, in finance. And so I had that, I knew I had that in me. I just took that and just created it in a different industry. So um that's pretty much why I did it, is like not out of like I wanted to be a gym owner, but more of like I was in love with the training side and I was in love with helping people, but I knew I needed to do something that was gonna provide for my future family at some point. And you know, that was the next logical progression for me. So there was never this like sitting in my bedroom at nine years old saying I want to own a gym.

Yeah, yeah. Well, I think that's that's a big part of it. I know um we'll get into what you do now because I know you um you work with a lot of gym owners, right? Yes, and you you do um, I don't know, whatever you want to call consulting, mentoring, running masterminds. Uh, but I know you you work with them is the point.

And I I think a lot of I help people get 900 leads in three days. Nice. No, I'm kidding. It's a joke, dude. Yeah. I was like that's what that's what's okay. Let's tag. I know that's the stuff that's got that. That's the stuff that's flying around. Yeah, yeah. It's not a good thing. No, it's not. It's not a good thing. You know, no one's able, no one's set to handle all this. It's like, so whatever, but I try and go the other way and help people build a real business that's gonna last for the long haul. Yeah, well, because that's what I've done, right? That's what I uh I'm only doing, I'm only teaching what I've done. Right. I teach in the my guys, you know, that are in my mastermind, like I teach them the stuff that I've seen is proven to work in my own facility, in what I've taught uh other gym owners that I've had success with. So that's that's really what I try to do. I test things out, I see what works and what doesn't, and then I go ahead and teach it. Yeah.

Yeah. And that's I mean, it's a key point. And I I don't mind diving into that at all. Because I mean we joke, you know, 900 leads in three days, but I mean it's not too far off some of the promises that you see, some of the marketing hooks that you see out there, and what um you know, since the advent of digital marketing, or even we can even just more specifically say Facebook ads, right? Uh which I think I started in 2014 running Facebook ads, and you know, right when it was like I I was shocked at the efficacy of uh of the early on. And then it just it just got crowded, you know. Um message didn't work, and and uh, you know, but you still have a lot of uh quote unquote business coaches which prey on the uncertainty of of business owners out there, especially I feel like the fitness industry is is very um a lot of noise with this type of thing, but it's predatory, you know. They promise certain things, they take a huge chunk of money up front, you know, in a 90-day program that's gonna get you to six or seven figures, depending on what the promises are. And uh you know, it's it bothers me at times. Um, because it's true, like you you and I know, like if you're gonna build a business that's gonna last, it's it doesn't necessarily happen overnight, right? Um it takes time and it takes great businesses practices that you have to tweak. But having people like you uh to help cut you know corners and show uh when people hire people like you or me for that matter, um it's not necessarily the wins that we've had, it's all the little failures along the way. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. For sure. Uh yeah, I'd be curious to get your your take on how, you know, from your inception of gene ownership in 08 um, you know, through now, you know, how how have you seen the whole business change? Like the ease of getting leads, retention, um, all of it. How how has it changed in your eyes?

Well, you make a good point about how Facebook used to be like it was so simple and so easy. And you know, there's some days where I wish it, you know, would just come back. And no, I that then, but then I don't want to because I think what it made everyone do is it made everyone get lazy. Yeah. And I don't think that a lot of people um that did Facebook, they they really under actually understood marketing. Right? They didn't really understand the principles of selecting target market, of having the right message. And it was almost like this spoiler type of thing where it like it worked so well and it was so easy to get leads that you never had to exercise that muscle, that marketing muscle. And I believe that that marketing and and sales is the number one skill an entrepreneur really needs to have. Um, for small businesses like ours. I mean, I do think that as you get in the higher ups and stuff, it really shifts to you know, building a team and leadership and stuff like that. But to get a business off the ground, you need to be able to have the skill to get to a critical mass of customers. And that's kind of like what people never really learn, right? Because when do you learn that as a gym owner? You become a trainer and you learn all the X's and O's and of training, right? And then you open up a gym, but you never were taught on how to acquire new customers. And you do things like, you know, and hire an ad guy, and you depend on that ad guy to run the ads for you, and then they make these promises, and the ad stops working, and then you have no idea what to do. You have no idea like how to actually do that because you don't understand the founding principles of uh of marketing. And it's it's funny because like I I found them out, you know, later, but I was doing a lot of it by accident in the beginning, just through like, and I think this is a lot of stuff that not, and maybe it's because I was born in 79, but it's just I I just like relied for many years on like just really, really hard work and going out, and it was good and bad. It was good and bad, right? It was good because it worked, right? Because I threw myself everywhere. I went and I did all the stuff like the grassroots stuff. Like I went and I I worked for free for sports teams, I went and I set up Boost at the 5K, I did talks at the local PTA meetings, I did it all. I did it all, and I was everywhere, and I was very, very rooted in the community. And that is like what got my business off the ground. Not a Facebook ad. My first Facebook ad was 2015. 2015. And we had been very, very successful before any Facebook ad. And a lot of it was that um the sweat, the sweat equity of um the grassroots marketing stuff, which I think that is was a bad thing for me because one, I relied on that, because that's all I did, and it was all dependent on me. So the problem with that was all right, if I got sick, if I stopped doing that, if I got tired, which I did, um that stops. And that clash in 2015, that kind of grassroots marketing, and I would lump like referral generation, which I think is another thing that people do not focus on and do not develop a system for. And the problem is this with referrals, a lot of people will say referrals are the number one way that I get new business. And the reality is, I asked the question in follow-ups, I was like, well, what do you do to get referrals? You're like, no, nothing. I just wait for them. And here is the number one thing that you could do to grow your business, the number one thing that's speaking to you. And I think a lot of people just try and find the next thing versus look at what's working now and how do I pour gasoline on that and make that even better. So if you're getting referrals, well, how about sending a gift to the people that refer so they continue to refer? And how about actually having specific events that generate referrals and how about and I I think that that that is, and I I teach something called the marketing glove, which is you know, multiple methods, and we want to try and have five if you can. And the marketing glove, and I look at the referral machine, and something I teach is called the referral machine, which is basically you have specific baked uh specific tactics baked into your business that generate referrals, and then you have a system to reward those referrals, and then a system to get people to be talking about you all the time called omnipresence. So it's like that's like a system I teach. But that is like what the finger of a glove, right? Of if you're gonna have five ways to generate leads, if you have referrals here, if you have Facebook here, if you have Google here, if you have grassroots stuff here, um, that foundation is that referral machine. Um, so that that that is kind of like the way I'm teaching it. But in 2015, when we found Facebook and I started at the same time to learn direct response marketing, when that combined, and I'll give you some numbers, but basically from 2008, I mean I'm just speaking adult members, we do have a whole nother branch of athletes, you know, that that has gone up and down based on the season for everywhere, for everywhere. But we went from 2008 to 2015, we went from zero to 150. And from 2015 to sorry, 2016 to 2018, we went from 150 to 300. Nice. And and and mind you, um, the average value of a member is we're in New Jersey, average value member is uh about 350 bucks a month. So we're not talking like, you know, $149 memberships. Um, this is these were so how did we go from $150 To 300. Well, we learned the principles of direct response marketing combined with starting to use Facebook, combined with continuing to do referral generation and strategies. And we had this glove. We had this thing where we had multiple things going. And that's what, you know, made our business just totally go to another level, which has gotten to the point where I now have all the time I need to teach others how to do it. And I literally, you know, I don't really do anything for my gym anymore. Like I'm not there. I do no work inside the business. Um, the last thing I did last year was a leadership team meeting where um I would meet with 90 for 90 minutes once a week, and I don't even do that anymore. Um and we're still running and still going strong because you know we have a good team in place, but we just have a good system. But I think that that's where um people end up going back to what we were saying before, people end up relying on an outside source to generate the leads and control the lead flow for them. And I believe that you can use those people. I use those people myself, I think they're great. The reality is you, the gym owner, speaking to gym owners here, you need to understand the marketing. You need to understand if someone puts out an ad, if it's garbage or not. And you need to be able to be the master and the creator of this because that's the the one thing that is inevitable is that there's attrition. There's attrition, that there will be attrition, that people will move away, people will get divorced, people will, things will happen. And I and I say if you have you know 80 members, right, and the start of the year in January, and you want to get to 160, you don't have to add 80. You have to add more than that because you have to account for the loss. Yeah, right? And the problem is most people's marketing is good enough to fill the loss. Right? They're they they do a good enough job, and and when I say good enough job, they they probably do nothing, but it's a good enough job to actually fill the people that they lost, and that's why a lot of gyms don't grow, is because their marketing is only good enough to fill the people that they've lost. And the goal is to be able, and because most gyms don't have a retention problem, right? Like most, there are some, there are some, and they they they can't be helped. The the people, it's I want to say can't, but it's very hard to help a gym that is bleeding members. Because from a marketing perspective, you can't fill a leaking bucket. So the number one thing that I look at too, and I look at my members, is like, what is your attention? And is that the first thing that needs to be fixed? Is that the first thing is do you have a culture problem? Do you have trainers that are on their cell phones during the sessions? That is that is things where you know that there's there's no marketing plan on the planet that can help that can fill a leaking bucket. So that's the reality, but that is the minority. Most people are good at what they do, right? Most gyms, they're good trainers, they do a good job, and they keep clients for the long haul, most people. And the problem is not being able to get past the natural loss. So that's kind of my spiel. So I just wrapped there for a while.

But yeah, it was great, man. There's there's a lot of nuggets in there. I'm curious, you know, with an average client value of about 350. Uh are you doing small group training? What type of training do you do there?

So we do a we do small group training one-on-one, and we do it in a very uh interesting way, in that we set up uh in our gym, we've set up about five mini gyms. And we um basically there's like a rack, a set of kettlebells, a set of dumbbells, and whatever else we need for each area of the gym. So we'll have one trainer with four clients in that area, and they stay in that area the entire time. So it gives us a lot of good focus and gives people a really good high value, high touch point uh session. Uh, with that, they get large group as well. And large groups like the metabolic, traditional metabolic. Um, but ours is is very cardio-based because our market, it's very, and this is another really important point, is the program is you have to think about who your target market is, right? And then build the perfect program for the target market that you have. Yes. Right? So a lot of times we try and fit square pegs in, you know, to round holes, and we try and do groups of 30 people, you know, with doing very high complex movements with you know 75-year-old people. That could be an exaggeration, but the reality is you got to find about who your target market is, and your program needs to be built around them. So we look at all right, our target market, it's very clear. It's 40 to 60 year old, male and female. All right, people going through that area of time. Like, like it's funny because I'm 39 now, so like I am now just becoming my market. So like I have I have three kids, seven, five, and three. Like, I go to the school functions now. Like Vanessa and I, my wife and I, we went to the school thing where the parents are all there. And it's just like, it's like, holy cow, like I am my client right now. It didn't like when I started, I was like a 28-year-old trainer that had no kids. I had just got married, and like now I am my client. It's so weird. But the reality is um the very, very clear target market, 40 to 60. Um, and like I we we th we sat down and thought about what do they need. All right, what do they need? Well, they need to lift weights, right? They need to lift weights, and they probably don't want to pay you know twelve hundred dollars a month for a personal trainer. But they still want to have personal training. And so hence that's why we do it in groups of four. One, that they can get a lot of individual attention and make sure they're doing things well and safely, but two, that the price point is one of it's not cheap, but it's it's it's um it's not cheap, but but it's something that's sustainable versus paying $1,500 a month for a personal trainer. I don't know how sustainable that is over the uh $10. And then we have had clients that have paid us $350 a month for 10 years. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? That's a that is so so we wanted something sustainable. And then what else do we want them to do? Well, we need to train their heart, right? We need to make sure that they're they're doing cardio, if you will, you know, in that kind of term. And, you know, we what what do we do know for sure? We know that they're not gonna do it on their own, right? We know that if we just said come twice a week and train, that they're gonna come twice a week and train. And if we said, yeah, go do cardio on your own, go run and go to another gym, like why would you ever tell anyone to do that? Go to Lifetime down the street and go do your cardio there. Um, so that we started a program called Fat Blast, that's basically an interval training program that is not based on these like a lot of body weight stuff. Like, where I think that when you're 40 to 60 and you have all these injuries that you're coming in with, and all of a sudden we want to do all these, you know, high rep body weight, you know, type of workouts. Um, so we've kind of tweaked the program to be more all right, it's airdyne bikes, it's the road machine, it's skiers, it's you know, kettlebell work in terms of like loaded carries and really basic stuff that's gonna get their heart rate up and down. But the purpose of it is we knew our market really well, right? And this evolved over time. I'm not saying day one. We started like this, right? When when we got clear on our target market, that's when we started saying, okay, we know who we want. Now we got to make sure we have the perfect program for that person. And so now, like, so we will go and like when we go to a seminar, like our our trainers, our younger trainers will ask us, you know, um, to go to a seminar, and it'll be some seminar that has like 45 division one strength coaches. And I'll be like, okay, no, do not go to that. Because that doesn't help our client, yeah, right? That doesn't help our client. Who is our client? Our client is the 46-year-old male. Well, find a seminar that's gonna fill the needs of that person, and that's the seminar that you go to. Uh, the other stuff just makes you sound a little smarter, but doesn't actually help the people we're trying to help. So that's kind of when I when to answer your question of like the the really, really long answer to your question of well, it's small group and large group. Yeah, yeah.

That's great. No, it's it's it's important for people to see the hear the details and the why and what you said about you know, really honing in on the target lines of 40 to 60. And you know, I fall in that on 42. And uh I can tell you right now that you know it's not necessarily the year, it's the mileage for me, right? I I really need I need to be very careful what I do with my training because there's so many other things I want to do uh living in Montana, right? And um, I I think if there's something we can dive into if you don't mind without giving up your your secret sauce, but I think it's really beneficial to our listeners is referral generation, you know, practically because it is it's the best. I mean, you get a referral, it's not even a lead, really, it's just you're taking an order, right? You're you're just simply they're ready to sign up, right? And it's always the best. They they last the longest, they're the easiest to work with, um takes little to no follow-up because it's kind of just one meeting and they're in, um, one consultation. So, yeah, let's let's dive into referral generation, man.

Uh yeah. So uh so I think the first thing is is that you can never just expect referrals. That that is a recipe to just like I kind of I said before, is you're really sitting and waiting for these referrals to come in. And you will get some referrals. Think about um, well, you said a really important, very smart thing that the highest qualified clients that you sit down with will be the ones that are referred. But you can't expect them, and the most important thing you need to do to be able to generate really qualified referrals on a consistent basis is to have actually a system. And I'll and I'm I'm okay kind of sharing it, but the first thing is is when you when you want to have a really good referral system, it's gotta be baked into your business. Like you can't just say, all right, today we're gonna focus on referral generation. Uh you need to kind of start setting your business up as the entire experience for the client is generating referrals. So, you know, for example, one of the things that we'll do, you know, we will um when we get a new client comes in, we'll always ask them, you know, how they got to us. All right, that's always the first question we ask. Because one that kind of builds rapport with people, but that kind of sets the tone, right? That kind that that that that question, and we also ask this over the phone too, um, that question kind of implies that people that come to Gabriel Fitness refer their friends. Right? So we're putting into the mind of the client that people that come to this gym tell their friends. So that's kind of the first thing is to start kind of building it into the culture and the language, and even going as far as like introducing clients to each other and things like that. So you want to kind of have this connectivity and built into your systems. The second thing is you must have very specific referral tactics that you employ on a regular basis that are tied into the system. And I'll I'll give one that's like the most effective that I have helped so many people just telling this with, so this will be a joy to your listeners. So um the have you ever do you know what the reticular activating system is? No, I don't think so. So so basically it's a part of your brain. So you know when you go and you uh you buy a car, and when you buy that car, and you're excited about the car, and then after like a few weeks after you're you're driving that car around, you see that car everywhere on the road. Yeah. Yeah right? Like that happened to me. Yeah. All right, yeah, exactly. So that's that's the reticular activating system in your brain where something that just happened to you a recent event you're happy and excited about is on your mind. Well, that's the same thing when someone signs up for your gym, right? And you want to take advantage of that special time because that's when people are gonna be the most excited when they sign up for a membership. Hey, I just joined this gym, I just did this because they're focused on these are the people that, and you might have already helped them if you did like a trial membership, but you know, this is the promised land, this is for me. I trust these people, they're gonna help me get to what I want to accomplish. And people, what gym owners do is they don't take advantage of that. And one of the best things that you could do is give them a tool to refer. Because the number one thing you got to know about referrals is there's hey, I'm gonna go home today from the gym, I'm gonna leave your gym, and I'm gonna go home and sit at my kitchen table for the next 45 minutes and think really, really hard of who I can refer to your business. Said no one ever. Right? People are busy, they don't care. But it's your job to give them the tool to be able to get them to do that. So what we do, and this is it, it's the most brilliant referral strategy ever. We uh when they sit down and they when they sign up for the membership with us, we will give them a black metal card. And and the black metal card, I mean, I'm telling you, this thing looks like it would stop a bullet. All right, and it is like it's black, it's sleek, it's great. And we pull this thing out, and when you drop it on the table, it sounds like there's a gun going off. It's really cool. But you pull out, and and the metal card is not the thing, the metal card just makes it that much better. But we give them this metal card and we tell them that hey, you know, we truly appreciate you becoming a member here. Um, I want to give you a gift. And this gift is for a free month at GFP. And and then we ask them this and we start talking about it. And the goal is to try and get them to talk about a specific person, right? So we're not gonna give them five cards, right? We're not gonna give them five cards because five cards implies, all right, I got five of these things versus one very high value, very, very special gift. And who is that first person that pops into your mind, right, that may want to do this and then start leading the conversation around down who is that person? And I use this in my own consulting business, and I took this to another level. So we had our mastermind down in Orlando, Florida, and I brought big, big bubble envelopes down there, big bubble envelopes for them. And when they come to the mastermind, I give them lots of cool gifts and things like that. But I I brought these big bubble envelopes, and every time in the mastermind, I ask for a referral. Every time. And I I tell them I'm going to do it, they know I'm gonna do it, and I do it every time. And one of the reasons why I do it is because I want to practice what I preach. Because my imaginary guys can see, all right, yeah, he's teaching referrals, but he's also doing it to us at the same time. Because it's kind of like this tongue-in-cheek thing. Like, here I am teaching them about how to generate referrals, and then I'm doing that to them at the exact same time. Sure. So I had them write down, I said, hey, think of one gym owner that would be really awesome to join this mastermind. And here's what I want to do write their name and address on a this envelope, and I had inside the envelope, I had a card for them to write a card to that person. So they uh and then what I told them was I had a flyer for this. I told them I'm gonna give, I've written four books. I've written four books. I'm gonna stuff all four of my books into this large envelope, and we're gonna send these people a shock and awe gift, a really awesome gift. And they're all like excited about, they're all thinking about, hey, who am I gonna give this to? This is awesome. Four of Vince's books all in one big bubble and bubble, and they're filling out the thing, and it's unbelievable the excitement of people wanting to refer based on how you do it and how valuable that gift actually is. Yeah. So going back to the metal card, it's that conversation about one that one person, right? Who is that one really, really, really great person? And if you sign up 15 new memberships a month, and you have 15 of these really good conversations, you know, about who they would bring and who they want to give it to, and then you tie in this is the recipe, this is the secret sauce of this, is a follow-up system for who you gave black metal cards to. Yeah. And then you're following up with people saying, Hey, you know, did you happen to think of that person that you want to give the black metal card to? And the front desk team, we talk about baking referrals into a system. The front desk team is trained to look at the list of black metal cards that we have out. We have specific little numbers on them on that we that went out, is now saying trained to follow up with people that have not sent in a referral. And then this the the second part, the third part, is what do you do once someone refers? Right? What do you give them? Well, the first thing is, you know, we will do a handwritten card. And that if you're listening to this and you don't have a large budget, like doing a handwritten card is the most basic, easiest thing to do, and I think that's the first line of defense. So if you're not doing that, um, if you're not doing any referral gifts, just start with that. Um, but we send like a yeti mug in the mail. A yeti mug. And the yeti mug is cool because the reason why I like the yeti mug, because it's like it's kind of like a cool gift. But what do you do with the yeti mug? You use it all the time. You use it all the time. And now every time someone fills up their yeti mug, who are they thinking of? They're thinking of us, you know? So even if your logo's not on it, we don't even put our logo on it because it doesn't really matter as much. Uh, there are other things that we do, uh, which I'll talk about that are very important to put your logo on to develop the omnipresence, but having a gifting system in place is important. Um, and a lot of times it's like, okay, it's $25 for that Yeti mug. You got the client for nothing. Like, you should be even, and we have a whole progression of a gifting system. Um, so we have like a uh it's the Yeti mug, and then our second gift is a cast iron pan. Nice. And uh the cast iron pan is like, well, what do they do? We're teaching them to cook, right? And we're telling them that to cook vegetables and cook eggs and things like that. And so every time they pull that pan out to cook, they're thinking of us. And that's and it's like, it's how are you gonna show up differently? What gym is sending freaking cast iron pens in the mail? Well, only me and the ones I've told to do it. So it it's it's just a way to differentiate yourself. Um, but the what the rewards do, the rewards reinforce people to continue to refer. Right? That's that's what the key is, right? Not the one referral. But then when you have a good reward system in place, then you get people to actually want to refer, want to continue to refer. You you were a great example of that. I referred you guys a client, and you did a great thing by sending me, I believe it was an Amazon gift card. And and since then, I think I've sent you two or three more clients. And not because you gave me the hundred dollars. I wasn't motivated to refer to you because I was looking for an extra 100 bucks on Amazon. I just appreciated the gesture, and I knew that Eric appreciates when I send him people. So now I'm gonna want to send him to people. And if you're good at what you do, you know, like you guys are, then in your mindset that the the gifting system is, you know, just reinforcing that continuation of referrals.

Yeah. Yeah, it's it's so good, man. It's it's so great. And I, you know, it's funny is I had metal cards as well, and I had them numbered, you know, and we only told people we gave it to them, like we, you know, hey, there's only 10 of them out there. So if you don't use it in the next, you know, two weeks, I appreciate it if you dropped it back off. And uh no one wants to drop that card back off. No, right? That's like it's like a head down in shame walked into your office, and they're probably just like kind of hoping you're not in the office and throwing it on the desk, right? Kind of thing. Uh but uh yeah, it it does work. And I, you know, truth be told, I probably I could have executed it better over time, but I simply got lazy. And uh, you know, because my Facebook marketing was so good, right? Well and that's you know, kind of. Full circle back to that is like all these principles that we're talking about. And you know, when I first started um the gym with with Traver, who was my business partner, uh the way we got all of our first clients was we went out and we had to go talk to somebody new every week. And if we didn't, uh we owed each other 20 bucks, right? So on Friday, it would be like, okay, who's whose business card did you get? Who'd you talk to? Right. And you know, if we didn't, it's 20 bucks on the spot right there. And uh it was, you know, it was those little things that you over time you stop doing because maybe you start to get a referral machine built up, and then you get, you know, like I was talking about, I don't know if laziness, you get complacent. I think complacent is a better word. Right, right. Um, and uh you you know, so you you rely on things that um, you know, Facebook advertising, uh, you know, now I know Instagram stories as the Davis recording is pretty hot. Um, but it's all one algorithm switch away from from going away, you know, or doubling.

And that's the only so I I have this quote. Um I have this, I have a really funny quote. Yeah. So I uh some of my talks, I've been doing a lot of speaking. I'm speaking at um, I speak at the Mind Body Conference, and I speak at uh Perform Better and stuff like that. But one of my I started one of my talks um and I said uh it was in quotes. I said, only assholes quote themselves, Vince Gabriel. It usually gets a good laugh. It usually gets a good laugh. But um, and I followed up with a quote, but um the quote is the only way referrals will ever go away is if you make them go away. Yeah, right? You can't control what's gonna happen with Facebook and and all this stuff, but you can control referrals. Like you you can control if you continue to deliver a really, really great, and here's the thing too, you can have a great referral system, but if you have a crappy product, it ain't working. You must you must be good at what you do, and then when you combine being good at what you do and getting results with a really, really well thought out referral system, um, that is that is uh and I you know I I've been doing referral stuff for years, but really um a guy named Jay Abraham is a guy that I follow, and you know, he takes it to a whole nother level. And it's funny, I talked to Jay on the phone, you know, once a month, and it's a very interesting, he's a very, very interesting guy, but uh just is just an encyclopedia of information on how to draw a good business. So awesome. Awesome.

Well, you um you have a few things that people can can find you, right? You have a podcast, you got some books. Um, tell us about what you have out there.

I do. I have the podcast. The podcast is called Fitness Business University Podcast, and it's on iTunes, and you know, we have I think like close to 50 episodes up. Uh it's my it's it's cool because it's a different podcast. It's myself and Big Tom. And Big Tom is the CEO of my gym. And he kind of runs the show there. He's been with me all 10 years, and he kind of brings like a great because you know, he's a trainer too. He brings that perspective of, you know, he's he's he's he was a trainer, you know, kind of doing that 50 session a week, you know, thing. Now he's getting into more of the business development side of things. But he's been with me since the very beginning. And he's you know, he's a very funny, witty guy. He kind of makes fun of me a lot. But um, but it's he and I together that do all these episodes. And it's like there's really not a lot of podcasts out there like it because we talk about a lot of our successes and failures in our gym and what worked and what didn't and things like that, versus like me sitting down as a consultant and just kind of talking about the ABCs of business for a gym owner. It's very, very relative because we're living it every day. So we talk a lot about that. So it's it's a very interesting podcast. It's not just me yapping, it's uh he and I together, and he asked me a lot of you know, sometimes probing tough questions on on why I think certain ways about certain things. He's he's a bit of a jerk sometimes to me, but uh it's actually it's it's really keep you honest. And and he thought I was big. Big big Tom is is six foot nine. Whoa, he's an absolute giant, and uh it's funny because people like people will say they'll walk in and they'll see me, and like, man, like everyone here is so tall. And then all of a sudden they'll look over at Tom and he's like six foot nine, his like heads in the doorway, and like, where are you people coming from? But uh he's it he's an absolute giant, but um yeah, so the podcast is one fitness business interview podcast, a lot of really cool stuff on there. And then I've written uh uh three books, four really. Uh two really very specific to gym owners. I wrote uh uh The Ultimate Uh Guide to Marketing Your Gym and The Ultimate Guide to Sales for Your Gym. Those are like my two core books. Uh are you gonna put a link in the show notes? I'm gonna because I'm gonna give away copies. Uh I think it's ultimate gymguide.com. Okay. You can go get the marketing book. And um, it's a free download. There's tons of cool stuff in there. There's been tons of people that have downloaded the book. Um, and yeah, if you want a hard copy, just email me Vince at GabrielFitness.com and I'll shoot you out a hard copy. But uh start with the download and then go from there.

Awesome, man. Well, Vince, dude, thanks, man. This has been great. I know we've uh, you know, it's funny, we've been working together uh for months now, but for me to get on and actually hear your story uh was really a treat. And uh man, you you delivered the value today. So job well done. Appreciate that. Thank you. Thanks for having me on. Yeah, man. We'll talk soon. Thank you. All right, Eric. All right, let's see you bro. Hey fitness fans, don't leave yet. It's your host, Eric Malzone, and I have a quick favor to ask. Actually, three favors. So, number one, if you're a fan of our show, I ask you to do something that takes under three minutes. Go to iTunes, please, and subscribe to our show. Please, please, please. It means so much to us. It's so important. And then give us a favorable review. We would really, really appreciate it. And uh, I can't tell you how much it means and helps us out. So I know it takes two minutes of your day, and uh it means a lot to us. So please do that. Number two, go to our YouTube channel, our fitness marketing alliance, and uh please subscribe to our YouTube channel there. Number three, if you like this episode or any of the episodes that we've released, share it on social. That's huge. That's a big deal for us. And where we put a lot of work into these episodes, uh trying to give you great actionable content uh for the fitness industry. So that would mean a lot. And that's it. So we have some big plans coming up for this show. I'll be talking about that in the next couple episodes. But thank you so much for listening. It means so much. And uh if you have any questions, please reach out to me. I'd love to hear from everybody. Eric, E R I C at Fitness MarketingAliance.com