Vince Gabriele & The Small Group Training Model Refined

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[00:02:04] All right, we are live. Vince Gabriel, welcome back.

[00:02:08] Thanks, buddy.

[00:02:09] Yeah.

[00:02:09] Appreciate it.

[00:02:10] Yeah, it's always a pleasure. And you are, when I would consider one of the renaissance men of the

[00:02:17] industry, you kind of have a lot of different angles that you offer value.

[00:02:22] A lot of bruises and scars. And yeah, I guess that would make me bad.

[00:02:26] Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, you've done everything at every level, right? From athlete to coaching,

[00:02:31] to gym owner, to scaling, to masterminds, to digital marketing, to authoring many books.

[00:02:36] Like you just, you know, you do a lot and you come at it from a lot of different angles and you seem to

[00:02:41] enjoy the variety, but yet focus that you have on the industry. And so there's a lot to be talked

[00:02:47] about today. You know, you got your book out right now, The Ultimate Guide to Small Group Personal

[00:02:51] Training. We'll definitely talk about that. But you know, when you and I started this pre-recording,

[00:02:58] I saw your shirt. I was like, what is that? Amor Fatati, right? And then we're like, oh,

[00:03:01] we both love, you know, Ryan Hall Day.

[00:03:04] That's the Italian version, Amor Fatati.

[00:03:08] Maybe. It's fun.

[00:03:12] But yeah, man, give me the story with that. Like, what is that? Why do you wear that shirt? What does

[00:03:15] that mean to you? You know, as a entrepreneur, as a business owner, as a father, as a human?

[00:03:22] Probably one of my most used and abused quotes is from Tony Robbins. And that's the,

[00:03:29] the number one chokehold on a business is the psychology of the owner. And I think it's like,

[00:03:37] there's so much aspirations for business success and business growth. And in every stage of a

[00:03:44] business owner, there's always going to be these sticking points in these kind of ceilings that

[00:03:49] you hit, if you will. Right. And a lot of times it's like the day, I think it's not Kennedy,

[00:03:57] but there's a lot. It's like we found the enemy and they is us. Right. And so I think a lot of the

[00:04:03] challenges that we struggle with in business are really just the challenges of in our own minds.

[00:04:10] Example would be raising price. It's like the challenges of raising price are not mechanically.

[00:04:15] Like if you really look at it, how to raise price. It's like you go into your price sheet,

[00:04:19] you change the number, right? It's so logical. It's like, but it's very emotional. And I kind of found

[00:04:27] the stoic stuff really helpful to me in that the number one thing I can do is to make good decisions,

[00:04:36] just to keep my emotions steady. And I was not a, I was probably a high emotion person when I,

[00:04:43] and I got the first, the first telltale signs of being highly emotional was when I played college

[00:04:50] football and I was, you know, an average player, but I was always like fit and straight and strong.

[00:04:58] I was always like better in the weight room than it was in the field. But I was, I was in a below

[00:05:04] average player because I had a very hard time controlling my emotions and anxiety out on the field.

[00:05:13] And, you know, that kind of led me down the path. I was like, what's going on? Like,

[00:05:17] why is my head all messed up? And it kind of led me down a lifelong path of personal growth and,

[00:05:22] you know, mindset development. And, you know, when I got into business owner, there was like those

[00:05:26] similar kind of things that would come up in a football game. It's just like, oh man, this is

[00:05:31] like a real challenging situation. And, you know, in football, you just get ripped off the field and

[00:05:37] replaced, you know, in business, you can't just run away. You know, you got to face it, you got to figure

[00:05:43] it out. And so this kind of led me down to that type of stuff, the Tony Robbins of the world, the, the

[00:05:50] stoic philosophy and a more, if, as you say, fatati or, or the Italian version, it's fati and it's love of fate.

[00:05:58] And it, what it means is to love everything that happens, even whether it's good or if it's bad,

[00:06:04] when it's good, it's great, but also not to get too high when it's good, right? To not like get all

[00:06:11] yelling and jumping and screaming around. It's just like, okay, we had a good month. Let's move

[00:06:14] and push to the next one. Or we had a bad month. Okay. What did we learn from it? So I've,

[00:06:20] I've taught myself through being a mental basket case, my own self to, to, to keep my emotions in check.

[00:06:27] And probably one of the best parenting books I've ever read was a book called Scream Free Parenting.

[00:06:36] And you don't have to read the book. I'm going to tell you what the book is about.

[00:06:39] Okay. Here's what it says. Keep your heart rate lower than your kids.

[00:06:45] And if you keep your heart rate lower than your kids, you are going to make good decisions

[00:06:50] and you're going to be in control of the conversation. And you're probably going to

[00:06:54] put a point down in the right direction versus, you know, whenever I lose control

[00:06:58] of my emotions with my kids and I yell and scream, I was like, I screwed that up.

[00:07:03] I screwed that up. So I've been a fan and a believer from my own challenges and my own,

[00:07:11] you know, shortcomings, if you will. And I found that the better control over,

[00:07:17] I have over myself and my own emotions, the more successful I am in business and life in general.

[00:07:23] So that's why I'm a believer.

[00:07:27] It's such a good start to the conversation too. I, you know, for, for me personally,

[00:07:31] I just hired a new coach. I like to hire a new coach every year or so just to learn something new,

[00:07:37] get some new insights. And this happens to be a mentor of mine that was like 10 years ago,

[00:07:41] he was my mentor and coach and we, we crossed again, Andy Patronic. And, uh, you know, it's,

[00:07:46] it's so funny as like when you, when you have a coach or you're coaching someone,

[00:07:50] especially in business, and I'm going to refrain from entrepreneurship because I think

[00:07:53] entrepreneurship is the sexy thing about business that draws people in, but I think it's just business,

[00:07:57] right? I think you can multiple streams of revenue. Everyone's got to help.

[00:08:00] You can be a run a bakery, right? Or you can be a founder of a tech startup. Like a lot of the

[00:08:05] problems you'll face, you know, a lot of them, there'd be a lot of different ones,

[00:08:08] but a lot of them are going to do similar. Uh, but I think as you, you hire a coach or you're

[00:08:12] coaching people that the first thing is people want to get to the tactical, right? Okay. Just

[00:08:16] tell me what to do, man. Like Vince, just tell me like that price increase, just tell me what to

[00:08:20] do. And you can tell them all the things to do. It's such a great example. Like, okay, well,

[00:08:24] let's list all of your clients. Let's do like, who do you think may, uh, actually drop off?

[00:08:29] And then let's look at the net, you know, once you raise the rate, like, is this,

[00:08:33] are you at a loss or are you to, you know, what's the delta here? Right. Very objective.

[00:08:37] And that's easy. And then you just write the email, you set it to go, and then it's done.

[00:08:42] It's actually quite effortless. Right. Once you look at, but that emotional standpoint, it's like,

[00:08:46] so getting into like the emotional and the mindset is so critical. And that's the first thing, you

[00:08:51] know, Andy, I'm working with now is like, we're going to take a deep look. I'm like, oh God,

[00:08:54] it's uncomfortable. I don't want to do that. Right. Oh, just, can you just tell me what to do?

[00:08:58] And, uh, you know, that's the first thing you want to do versus facing your thoughts and seeing those

[00:09:02] patterns and like seeing how they actually affect, because, you know, it's, it's interesting. I think a lot

[00:09:06] of people in business, I'm curious to get your thoughts on this too, Vince, because you're a big

[00:09:09] mindset guy, but we tend to repeat the same things over and over again until we get an interruption

[00:09:14] in the cycle. Right. Whether like, uh, you know, it's the type of business that we build or, you know,

[00:09:19] how we approach relationships, the type of people that we hire, how long people stay with us. It's like

[00:09:24] these, we can see these distinct patterns, but we need someone from the outside to look in. So,

[00:09:28] I mean, as a, you know, someone who runs a mastermind, you get to work with all these high-performing

[00:09:32] gym owners, like what are some of the key struggles with mindset that you see when you want to,

[00:09:39] when people want to divert directly to tactical or even strategic work?

[00:09:43] Yeah. I think a lot of it starts with beliefs, what they actually believe. And I I'm fortunate to

[00:09:50] have done a lot of close work with a guy named Ari Weinswick, who's the founder of Zingerman's Deli,

[00:09:56] which is pretty much a 70, 80 million dollar food business out in Ann Arbor, Michigan. And, uh, this,

[00:10:03] this is like, if anyone hasn't heard of it, uh, they should, it's like Disneyland for entrepreneurs

[00:10:08] and they are just, it's a phenomenal business. They have tons of business books. They have courses

[00:10:15] and seminars where you go out there and they run you through all these seminars.

[00:10:18] And he actually wrote a book called the power of beliefs in business. And it's, it is massively thick.

[00:10:28] It's probably like a 500 page book. Uh, it's huge, but he talks about like our beliefs kind of shape

[00:10:36] everything. And I think that this is something that not a lot of people talk about, but it's really the

[00:10:43] things that you believe are really shape all the behaviors that actually happen. And I think a lot

[00:10:50] of people don't tend to look at this from a mindset perspective. They want to go with the tactical

[00:10:56] things. They want to go right to meditation. They want to go right to all these other things, but

[00:11:01] they're not addressing a lot of the times, the root of what's driving everything. And that is the things

[00:11:06] that you believe. And I challenge a lot of my guys to actually like, what do you believe?

[00:11:13] Like, what do you believe about? And then the easy one I say is what do you, I always ask them,

[00:11:17] I was like, what do you believe about weightlifting? And they're like, well, I believe, you know,

[00:11:24] if weightlifting, everybody should do it two to three times a week. I believe that, you know, 12 reps

[00:11:29] is best for hypertrophy. I believe that if you're going to get strong, you should do low reps, right?

[00:11:34] There's certain beliefs and that those come very easy to them. What do you believe about nutrition?

[00:11:39] Well, I believe that carbs make you fat, right? What do I believe? And that's a whole,

[00:11:44] no. Yeah. Yeah. That's a whole route. It's going to go down. Right. But then I asked him,

[00:11:48] I was like, well, what do you believe about yourself? And then there's like these blank stares,

[00:11:55] right? There's these, like never even thought about the question. And I think a lot of it comes from

[00:12:00] the, the, the challenges in mindset come from the self-limiting beliefs, the things that we picked up

[00:12:05] maybe in childhood, the things that we picked up, you know, along the way, the, the, the,

[00:12:09] the bruises and the bumps that, that I said that I had. And when I started this call, so I think,

[00:12:15] uh, as, and as simple to get tactical, right, I always do this with them. It's just like this

[00:12:20] called the, this, I believe exercise that I learned from Ari. And you literally just write

[00:12:25] down this, I believe, and then you just write down all the things that you believe. And when you start

[00:12:29] to kind of get a glimpse of that on paper, you start to look at the things that you actually believe in.

[00:12:34] One, you're gonna be like, Oh, I didn't even realize that, that that was a belief. And,

[00:12:37] and understand too, it's like, that is going to start shaping the way in their baby beliefs that

[00:12:42] you have now that you don't want to have, or you want to change or anything like that. So I think

[00:12:46] that that's like the root of mindset because that's driving everything. Yeah. How, uh,

[00:12:54] how have your beliefs changed over the last decade? Well, I think the first thing was

[00:13:01] clarifying what I believe and understanding that I, at a point in time in my life, I didn't really know

[00:13:09] what I believed. And I was kind of just running with the, like a chicken without a head. And there

[00:13:15] was not, not a lot of foundation to the things that I did. There was not a lot of consistencies

[00:13:20] to the things that I did. And, uh, I'll give an example of, you know, how a belief system can start

[00:13:28] shaping the things that you do. So when I was probably about five years ago, my wife and I,

[00:13:34] we were talking about our kids and how we wanted to raise our kids. Our kids are now

[00:13:39] 12, 11, and nine. Right. And this is probably about five years ago.

[00:13:45] And, you know, there's so many decisions to make, right? And, you know, do they get a cell phone?

[00:13:53] Do they not get a cell phone? Do we send them away for sleep at what camp? Do we not? Like

[00:13:56] there's so many decisions to make. And it was very challenging to make good decisions without some

[00:14:02] kind of belief system. Right. And then, so we came up with this acronym, uh, together called, uh,

[00:14:08] rice and, uh, rice stands, uh, for the, um, things that we want to instill in our children when they're

[00:14:17] 25, meaning what do we want? What as parents can we impact? We're not going to change who they are.

[00:14:24] This was not about like making them, you know, professional football player or anything like

[00:14:28] that. This was what are the, as parents, what are the decisions that we can make on a daily basis?

[00:14:34] And then what's, is the result that we want to have at the end? And so we came up with this acronym

[00:14:40] that we're working towards and the R is resilience. I, I, we can control that as a parent, right? We

[00:14:47] can make decisions as parents to help our kids be more resilient. And so we have made decisions

[00:14:55] sometimes consciously, but now I think it's starting to get a little bit unconscious

[00:14:59] of what are we doing to make our kids more resilient? And at four years old, this time my son,

[00:15:04] not for brilliant, Brazilian jujitsu. What a thing to do to make a kid more resilient. Sure.

[00:15:10] Have another kid try to choke your son, which was the first time my wife came to a, uh, uh,

[00:15:16] cause he's competing now. And the first time my wife saw the, we're at this match and one mat over,

[00:15:23] some guy is laying there unconscious, like unmovable, like, like totally out cold. And I'm like

[00:15:30] taking Vanessa and I'm like turning her so she can't see it or what, what's happening, but it's

[00:15:34] like, what a thing to do to create resilience. And then he started and now he's five years in and my

[00:15:40] daughter started and they're three years in. And it's just like decisions that we're making.

[00:15:46] And we've prioritized that over other things where I maybe have navigated him more towards

[00:15:55] jujitsu than other sports. Now he loves it. He loves going, but because of the R and rice,

[00:16:02] and because I want to instill that to him, I'm ensuring that I'm building that into my calendar to

[00:16:08] do that. Right? So that was the first one that I is independence. We want to help our kids be more

[00:16:13] independent. We can control that by the decisions that we make. We send our kids to sleep away camp

[00:16:20] every year. And so that's a decision that when you, when you, when you go to sleep away camp,

[00:16:25] you, you have to be independent for those two weeks that they're gone.

[00:16:29] Mommy and daddy are not there to fend. And then we make other decisions like for them,

[00:16:33] that they see his character, right? And so we want them to be high character people.

[00:16:39] So we're a family of faith and we, we bring that into our lives. And then the E is enjoy life.

[00:16:45] I read this once, don't teach your kids how to be rich, teach your kids how to be happy.

[00:16:51] And so we talk about that. We teach them about gratitude and stuff like that,

[00:16:54] but that before we were like a rudderless parenting ship, right? We were like,

[00:16:59] we didn't know what we were doing. We were kind of like making decisions here and we were inconsistent

[00:17:03] here. And as soon as we kind of came up with this structure and this belief system,

[00:17:09] it started to shape the way we, and then we, our decisions were consistent with what do we want to

[00:17:14] have happen? And so that's just an example of how defining it can really help shape the decision

[00:17:19] you make on a daily business. Does that make sense?

[00:17:21] Oh, it makes total sense. It makes total sense. And it's one of those things where it probably

[00:17:26] also gets refined bits and pieces over time, right? As you can, you know, you get a general

[00:17:32] direction of which way you want to sail and then you can attack here and there to get to where you

[00:17:37] want to go. And it's, it's really, I mean, most people walk around within their lifetime without

[00:17:42] having any kind of clear vision of like what their beliefs are. What's the goal here? Like what,

[00:17:46] what's my personal mission? What does success look like to me? Like, why am I doing all this?

[00:17:51] Like, why am I, you know, getting up every morning and training and going and running my gym or running

[00:17:57] my business? Like, and you can, you know, everyone has the, the Simon Sinek. It starts with why I

[00:18:01] would, I don't think anyone really understands it. They just say it, you know, so to go through the

[00:18:05] exercises and do all this stuff, I think is really, really important. That's great work, man. Uh,

[00:18:10] it's great work that you do. And you know, I, this, all this stuff is critically important. I

[00:18:16] think it's where everyone should start, but I know people listen to their life. Well, I want some

[00:18:18] tactical stuff guys too. So, you know, let's kind of divert to that. I mean, you run, I touched on

[00:18:23] the beginning here. You have a highly profitable gym you've had for how many years now?

[00:18:30] 17.

[00:18:30] 17. Okay. Who knows?

[00:18:33] Uh, wait, oh, oh, wait. Yeah.

[00:18:35] Yeah. Yeah. Good amount of time. Enough.

[00:18:37] 17. You run a mastermind. We'll get into like how many gyms and the type of gyms you work with.

[00:18:42] You also have the kiss marketing, right? Which is a keep it simple, stupid, uh, which is I believe

[00:18:47] digital marketing or marketing solutions for specifically for gym owners, right? You have a

[00:18:51] youth sports performance program. What is that one called?

[00:18:54] Yeah. It's called grit grit and it's within the gym, right? So it's kind of a, just a,

[00:18:58] we just run it like a separate business, but sports performance training for kids.

[00:19:02] Awesome. You've authored with a mindset kind of component to it.

[00:19:05] Oh, I love it. Yeah. I love it. Uh,

[00:19:07] you authored what five books.

[00:19:09] I think it's more. Okay.

[00:19:12] The fact that you lost count, uh, that was pretty funny. And then you got a podcast.

[00:19:15] I actually have, I actually have lost count.

[00:19:17] Yeah.

[00:19:18] They weren't all good. They weren't all good.

[00:19:20] Well, I mean, you can't hope that they all would be right. Uh, and then you got a podcast,

[00:19:24] right? Which is a fitness business university. Is that right?

[00:19:28] Okay.

[00:19:28] Yeah. That's been going, that's been going now for since two, I think that started in 2018.

[00:19:32] So that's seven years now, the podcast.

[00:19:35] What, uh, what takes up most of your time? Like, and I think if, you know, they always say,

[00:19:41] if you look at what is someone truly passionate about, you look at their, uh, their checking

[00:19:45] statement, uh, or their credit card statement in their calendar, right?

[00:19:49] Yeah.

[00:19:49] So what, what's, what's the thing that, that probably you drive the most?

[00:19:56] So I think it's, it's such a great question. And, uh, I did a time management talk yesterday

[00:20:02] with my guys that we do a call every Wednesday and I did a time management talk. And whenever

[00:20:07] I do anything about time management, I always talk about the highest and best uses of your

[00:20:14] time, what is the few things you do that are very hard to delegate to other people that have a high

[00:20:23] value to your company. And so I think anyone listening to this, like stop the tape now, the

[00:20:30] tape, it's fine. It's like, yeah, I don't know why I say stuff like that, but hit pause on your VCR.

[00:20:38] Yeah. Right. But like identifying those three to five things that you do for your company

[00:20:46] and understanding what those are and trying to organize your week to spend as much time on those

[00:20:53] things as possible is going to be a really, really good decision. So for me, no one else

[00:20:59] is going to write the books. The book you held up before the ultimate guide, I'm the only one that

[00:21:05] could have written that book. I'm the only one that's going to go on stage at perform better

[00:21:10] and speak. I'm the only one that's going to plan these events that we have events three times a year.

[00:21:17] I show up, I plan the events. I speak at the majority of the events. No one else is going to do that.

[00:21:23] So for me, it's a lot of writing and speaking. That's the one thing that when I kind of got into

[00:21:29] this business, which is the coaching business, if you will, one of my mentors guy named Paul Goff,

[00:21:35] he said, you're now a writer and you're now a speaker. And before I was a gym owner, right?

[00:21:43] That's I didn't have those skills. And that's, I think another really important thing is that like

[00:21:48] every time you grow, the bottleneck is usually a skill set, right? It's usually just something you

[00:21:56] don't have that you need to learn. And for me, this business requires me to speak and requires me to

[00:22:04] write because I believe a huge, and I think one of the reasons why there's a lot of gym consultants,

[00:22:13] right? And there's like, there's some that are doing well and there's a lot that kind of,

[00:22:17] they do it for a year and they just, they fade. Right. And I think that one of the reasons why is

[00:22:22] they don't write books. They don't get the, they don't publish. And I think this is like,

[00:22:28] it's like a publishing business. I will tell you this, my business has grown because of my books,

[00:22:34] a hundred percent. And I think that that takes a lot of energy and a lot of time. And, and,

[00:22:42] and, you know, there are people that, you know, have written books that, you know, have gone on to

[00:22:48] be really, really, really successful. And I think one thing is too, about the writing of the books thing.

[00:22:53] Um, it's not about like writing the best book. It's writing the best book for your specific market.

[00:23:02] Right. And understanding that your goal is not to sell a lot of books. I could care less how many

[00:23:08] books I sell. That is not why I write books. I write books to build my authority in my small world of

[00:23:17] gym owners. Like, I don't care. Like I'm a, I'm a, I'm a famous person that no one's ever heard of.

[00:23:24] Right. Because like, I don't care if I'm, I don't care if I ever get into entrepreneur magazine

[00:23:31] because my clients aren't there. My clients are in the gym space. My clients are going to the

[00:23:35] perform better conferences. My clients are at these different fitness things. Like that's where they

[00:23:40] are. And that's for me right now, that's what I'm focused on. So the things that I do to answer your

[00:23:46] question is a long winded answer. Right. But it's, I write and I speak and the more I write and the

[00:23:53] more I speak, the more I write and the more I speak, the more the thing moves down the field.

[00:23:59] So, and I think what everyone needs to do is identify what that is for them. What are those

[00:24:04] few key critical tasks that one, you've got to develop the skills at those things, right? But two,

[00:24:11] you have to organize your life to spend as much time as possible. I will tell you this,

[00:24:18] I own a marketing agency and I'm going to tell everyone a secret that I probably shouldn't say

[00:24:23] on the air. And that is, I don't even know how to log into Facebook ad manager.

[00:24:31] Yeah. I don't have a password for it. I don't even know how to get in there.

[00:24:34] Yeah.

[00:24:35] And there are things that I have completely protected myself from, and maybe some of them

[00:24:40] aren't great decisions, but I've done it in a way of like, I know what I'm good at and I know what is

[00:24:47] going to drive this thing. And I know I have teammates that I trust that can do that. And I'm

[00:24:54] going to stay in my lane over here. And so I think that that is, it's finding those things,

[00:25:02] honing those skills, getting better at them. Cause I was a real shady writer when I started

[00:25:05] really bad. I was a terrible speaker. Go watch some of my old videos.

[00:25:11] Like if you watch and someone listened to the first versions of the podcast and the first versions of

[00:25:17] like when I used to do videos, it is, it's atrocious. And I just think it's slowly, but the

[00:25:23] key for me was someone telling me that he's like, you won't be successful if you don't do these skills

[00:25:28] and you don't develop these skills. This episode is brought to you by our good

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[00:26:10] And I think that's the other thing too. I don't think enough people do this. And I'm not just saying

[00:26:15] this cause I do this for a living, but it's like, this makes so much sense to me. If you want to be

[00:26:21] successful at something, go find someone that's been successful at that thing and pay them money to

[00:26:27] tell them what they did, tell you what they did. It's just so simple. It makes so much sense. And

[00:26:32] that's exactly what I did. I had no idea how to run a mastermind. I had no idea to run like this.

[00:26:37] And I hired this guy, Paul, who was doing what I was doing. He was doing it for physical therapists.

[00:26:43] I was like, teach me, tell me what to do. I don't know what to do. I have no idea. I think sometimes my

[00:26:48] lack of intelligence is one of my biggest advantages because the only person you can't stop as a

[00:26:56] learner. Like I will, I will, I will do the work. I will do the work. So it'll take me longer maybe,

[00:27:03] but I'll step up and I'll, I'll, I'll do the work, but I'm not afraid to say, I don't know.

[00:27:09] And I don't understand that. And I'll do the work that needs to be done to, to learn it. And so I think

[00:27:15] that for me, I'm always like, I have no idea. Let me just get someone to find, to help. And I don't

[00:27:20] think enough people do that. I think people try to figure it out. And I think that's the,

[00:27:24] that's the hardest way trial and error. It's the hardest way to grow. Like, why would you try,

[00:27:31] if someone else has done what you did, why would you just try make all these damn mistakes when someone

[00:27:37] else? And that's like, so I look at some guys in my group, we have a kid in our group that's

[00:27:43] crushing it right now. He's got a gym in Philly. He came to us, he was doing $7,000 a month,

[00:27:50] barely can afford to join our mastermind. He, he now is doing like, he has five gyms. I think he's

[00:27:58] opened five gyms and he's doing like crazy amounts of money a month. And he's young. He he's, I think

[00:28:05] he's 30. Dude, when I was 30, I was throwing spaghetti against the wall and seeing what happened.

[00:28:13] Yeah.

[00:28:14] And this guy, like he got to success way faster than me. And the reason, because I told him what

[00:28:21] to do, because I knew what to do, because I walked the path before. And sometimes I look at him,

[00:28:27] I was like, you little punk ass. He's rolling in money, like rolling in money. And he got there

[00:28:34] way faster than I ever did, but I just told him what to do. Yeah. And so I think that's a big

[00:28:39] thing. I think that's a really important thing is just like, don't like try to figure it out.

[00:28:44] Someone has done what you want to do. Go find that person. I have a lot of people that come to me

[00:28:49] and ask me about business advice outside of the fitness industry, which is, which I love. I'm really,

[00:28:55] and I do it like as for friends and stuff. And I usually don't charge for it. But my, my number one

[00:29:00] go-to question is, what do you want to do? And they tell me, all right, who do you want to do it

[00:29:05] for? And they're like, they tell me, and they never have a good answer for that. No one has a

[00:29:10] good answer for that. They, they're like, oh, well, it's for everybody. No, no. Who is it for?

[00:29:17] And then the last question is, well, who's doing this successfully right now? It's just like, go,

[00:29:22] go find what they're doing. Like Russell Brunson built a whole billion dollar business around it.

[00:29:26] It's called funnel hacking. It's copying. Yeah. That's copying. Yeah. I would

[00:29:35] almost wholeheartedly agree. And I think the one thing, the contrarian point of view that I would

[00:29:39] put on that is that if you are consider yourself like disruptive or an entrepreneur, where you feel

[00:29:48] like there's a problem that needs to be solved and you want to look at it through first principles,

[00:29:53] right? Where it's like, no, no, no. I don't want to know how everyone's always done it because I feel

[00:29:58] like it should be done better. So I'm going to take a first principles approach where I'm going

[00:30:02] to wipe the slate clean and be like, okay, if I didn't, if I knew nothing and I had this problem,

[00:30:05] how would I tackle it? Which is a much harder road. Right. But I think for innovation sake,

[00:30:12] I think there's value in that, but that's not for everybody. That's for the very few.

[00:30:17] Yeah. I would agree as well with that. And, uh, there, I think, uh, Kennedy has a line and it's,

[00:30:26] it, if there's not someone doing what you want to do successfully,

[00:30:33] look at some, look at what everyone else is doing and then do the opposite.

[00:30:38] Right. It's just like, that's the, I do do. So break all the rules. I had to put a book out

[00:30:43] called succeeding in business by breaking all the rules. So yes, I, I, I do believe that that's true,

[00:30:49] but if there is for the most of us, there's a model right in front of you and the answers to the test

[00:30:54] are right in front of you. Yeah. Yeah. One of the questions I have for you as we're,

[00:30:59] as we're talking here, so you, you know, you need to speak and you need to write books. Those are

[00:31:03] drivers, right? That's like the, the key drivers for where you want to go within your business

[00:31:08] for most, like, you know, let's say Jill, the gym operator, right? Running a, you know,

[00:31:13] a group, small group training, personal training model. What, what are the things that Jill most

[00:31:19] likely Jill should be doing to drive our business? What are the most critical things that an operator

[00:31:23] should be doing? So I think in the first, very first stage, like when they first start out,

[00:31:29] I think you got to make sure that you have a good, I call it the soup, right? If a restaurant has food

[00:31:37] that really sucks, it's probably not going to survive. And if you're a gym and your training sucks,

[00:31:46] it's probably not going to survive. I think you gotta have, and I'm not saying you need to have the best

[00:31:52] in the world, but it's gotta be good. It's gotta get people wanting to come back, right? It's got,

[00:31:58] the telltale signs are, do people come back? Is your retention good? And then do they refer? Do they

[00:32:03] tell their friends about you? And so you gotta, you gotta just check that box first before you start

[00:32:09] doing anything. You have to show up in this Jill girl. She's gotta be able to show up and she's got

[00:32:15] to get people talking about her like, Oh dude, have you seen this Jill girl? Did you hear about this new

[00:32:19] Jill girl that opened this gym? Oh my God. Yeah. I go there. It's amazing. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[00:32:23] Like that needs to happen. That's like, if that doesn't happen, we're, we're, we can learn all

[00:32:29] the marketing and all the skills stuff that we want. Right. And again, as I said, it doesn't need

[00:32:35] to necessarily be the best, but it's gotta be really good. So I think that's kind of square one is

[00:32:43] solidify the, the soup, the key things that you, the key service that you deliver to your,

[00:32:48] your audience. And then after that, the skill sets that really need to develop are around these

[00:32:55] two things, getting clients and keeping clients. Business is very simple. Let me tell you this,

[00:33:06] this, here's how to, to make a lot of more money. If you have a hundred clients starting in January,

[00:33:14] have a goal to have 105 in February and then have a goal to have 110 in March,

[00:33:23] and then have a goal to have 115 in April. And all of a sudden you're going to fast forward,

[00:33:29] you're going to be 60 clients ahead. And if you just like line up on the ball every week,

[00:33:37] every month and just get plus five net plus five every month, and you focus on getting clients

[00:33:46] and keep clients, that a hundred becomes 160. So you went from a hundred to 160 clients. If you're

[00:33:53] charging $300 a month, that's 18,000. Is that 18,000?

[00:34:00] No, don't ask me to do public math.

[00:34:01] Yeah.

[00:34:02] So we both won't do it. So it's a lot more money.

[00:34:06] And then if you do it again, right now, here's the thing, like as you get a higher number,

[00:34:13] understand your attrition number is going to get higher, right? So your 3% attrition or 4%

[00:34:19] attrition, if that maintains, you're going to, so I will do the math on this one just for people at

[00:34:26] home. But if you have a hundred clients and you have a 3% attrition, you lose three clients a month.

[00:34:31] Not bad. You won't feel it. But when you get to 200 clients a month, if you're still at 3%

[00:34:36] attrition, you're at six clients a month. And I do believe there's this period of like,

[00:34:43] I call it an oh shit moment where people grow their business and they start feeling like,

[00:34:52] this is why emotions are so important. They start feeling like we're losing a lot of people.

[00:34:57] I think we need to change our programming. I think we need to change this. What's wrong?

[00:35:01] What are we doing wrong? And the answer is you're not doing anything wrong. You just got more clients.

[00:35:08] You're just losing more clients. Your attrition rate stayed the same. Now it's something you should

[00:35:12] know. But if you lose six clients at 200 members, that's 3% attrition. That's exactly like using

[00:35:19] three at a hundred. You just had more times that people canceled on you. So now you're like,

[00:35:25] what are we doing wrong? So I think that's an important piece of it. But really it's like,

[00:35:29] if you simplify business, it's like getting clients and keeping clients. So what do we need

[00:35:35] to do to get clients? Well, you need to understand marketing. You have to understand how to generate

[00:35:41] leads and you need to set a goal for how many leads you want to generate. You have to understand

[00:35:46] lead conversion and know that there's three buckets to this. There's generating leads,

[00:35:51] there's converting the leads, and then there's converting the clients into memberships.

[00:35:57] There's those three buckets, and those are separate buckets and separate things that you as a business

[00:36:03] owner need to learn. Man, what a skillset to own. What a thing. I was saying this to my group last night

[00:36:12] or yesterday, sitting knee to knee with a new potential client is probably the best possible

[00:36:18] position for you to be in. It's like one, and someone asked me, it's like, is reading books,

[00:36:24] you know, in my core priorities? I was like, no. And I yelled at him. I was like, you know,

[00:36:29] when you read books 11 o'clock at night, because what I call it fake work, it's fake work. We do things

[00:36:38] that we think and feel like work, and we want to learn because learning is easy. I'm not saying don't

[00:36:42] learn, but at the end of the day, you reading a book is not going to get someone in the door. It's

[00:36:48] not going to get a client. It's not going to keep a client. It will help you do that, and it needs to

[00:36:53] be done, but not in lieu of the work. The work is sitting knee to knee with a client and selling them a

[00:37:02] membership. That is the work, and that is the thing that gym owners need to start prioritizing.

[00:37:08] And so Jill needs to be good enough and create a good enough product to be able to get,

[00:37:16] keep the client she's got at a manageable rate, right? You're not going to keep everybody,

[00:37:20] but a manageable rate, three to 5%. And she needs to create enough of excellence to be able to get

[00:37:29] people to, you know, refer maybe 20% of her clients refer to give you a number on it. And then after

[00:37:37] that, she needs to become a marketing and selling machine. She needs to understand lead generation.

[00:37:42] She needs to understand lead conversion, and she needs to understand how to get those people to

[00:37:46] sign on the dotted line to buy a membership. And the more you can simplify it, the better. And that's

[00:37:53] what I try to do for my guys is simplify it as much as possible. But those are the skill sets.

[00:38:00] Now, as you go and as you grow, the skill sets become a little different. It comes more about

[00:38:06] leading and managing people, which is a whole nother skill set. But to get off the ground,

[00:38:10] you need a great product and you need to understand how to acquire new customers. That's the most

[00:38:14] important thing to get off the ground. Yeah. And I feel like when it comes to gym operations,

[00:38:18] the fundamentals can't be talked about enough, right? Like it simplify it, keep it focused,

[00:38:26] do the right thing. And there's so many distractions. Like, I don't know how many hours I spent

[00:38:29] programming workouts, right? I mean, it didn't really, I mean, it mattered. You're right. It's

[00:38:34] got to be a good product. It didn't matter that much. I should have been out, you know,

[00:38:39] playing with new marketing ads or doing something, or maybe, you know, I don't know,

[00:38:42] something that was more business. So when we talk about the soup, Vince, you know, bring back this to

[00:38:48] your book, the ultimate guide to small group personal training. Why do you feel like small group

[00:38:52] personal training is such a good soup? I like small group personal training because

[00:38:59] one, it's what I've always done. So I'll just see you like, but I think it's a profitable,

[00:39:05] so a couple of reasons. Sorry, guys. So, so the first reason is I can make a lot of money with a

[00:39:10] small amount of people. I can make $300 in an hour with six people. And that's attractive to me

[00:39:20] to not have to have a very, very large marketing effort and a very large sales effort to be able

[00:39:28] to acquire the number of clients I need to fill a session and make a good chunk of money.

[00:39:33] The second thing is, I think that at this point in time, there is not a lot of competition,

[00:39:42] relatively speaking. Now there's a ton more that are happening. And I think if we're going to get

[00:39:47] into it, the time is right now. But if you look at all the box gyms or sorry, all of the, uh, the

[00:39:54] boutique gyms, that large group thing that the majority of those types of gyms, the orange series,

[00:40:00] the F45s of the world are all large group based. And I do think that there's a market of people

[00:40:08] that are totally missed. Now, I think the 58 year old person that walks into orange theory is going

[00:40:15] to struggle and they have the disposable income at that age, because a lot of times people that are in

[00:40:23] their forties and fifties, sixties, they've kind of hit their peak in their careers and they have the

[00:40:30] money, uh, to be able to spend on these things. So I think that the market that's perfect for small

[00:40:37] group also matches an economic profile that can pay the type of prices that most of the gyms are

[00:40:44] asking for. So I think it's a beneficial of, you know, you're putting yourself in a bucket of many

[00:40:50] or a bucket of few because not as many people are doing it as the large group model. Um, and I think

[00:40:56] economically, it's a very favorable thing to do. And it's, it's perfectly what runs with a more from

[00:41:02] less philosophy. You also don't need a lot of square footage to run a gym like this. You don't need a lot

[00:41:07] of trainers to run a gym like this. We have guys that are opening up these small gyms, 1500 square

[00:41:13] feet, you know, very, very minimal investment to open in terms of equipment and space opening with

[00:41:21] one trainer and maybe a half a part-time trainer able to get that thing to 130 members charging 400

[00:41:28] bucks a pop and doing 50 grand a month, 60 grand a month at 40% margins. It's a beautiful model.

[00:41:36] I love it. So we're seeing it. Uh, if I ever, as I taught my wife with the thought of opening another

[00:41:42] gym here, uh, yeah, it would be small group training. It'd be very strength focused. And

[00:41:47] I don't know if I would particularly go after the, that demographic you talk about may go after like

[00:41:53] the high school athlete type thing, but same, same thing. When you sat down and wrote this book,

[00:41:59] Vince, what is, what was like, what were the takeaways you want people to get from it? Like what's,

[00:42:04] what's the primary value that you want people to get out of this book?

[00:42:09] Um, so I think that there's, so I wrote it for a few different people. I, I wrote the book for,

[00:42:19] I, there's a very, very large marketing and sales portion of the book. And I wanted to do that because

[00:42:25] I knew that people that were doing consistently small group, there was a lot of kind of confusion

[00:42:33] on how to market it. And a lot of people would be like, well, how do I market small group? What do

[00:42:36] I say? What do I do? And I think I do a decent enough job in the book of explaining that. And

[00:42:43] I'll explain it briefly here. It's just like, nobody stares at the ceiling at night wondering

[00:42:50] when they're going to find the perfect small group personal training gym. So you don't like

[00:42:57] really need to say that. Like, uh, it was like bugs me when I see people say we train people in small

[00:43:04] groups and there will never be more than six people in a group. Just like, that means nothing

[00:43:08] to someone that's never done it before. Yeah.

[00:43:11] And they're using that stuff in their front end marketing. And it's just, I mean, it's not to say

[00:43:15] you can't say that when they come in for a consult, but we didn't even say that it's about solving

[00:43:19] people's problems. And so I go deep into that in the marketing chapters about your marketing really

[00:43:26] needs to be about identifying a clear person that you're trying to attract and then saying things

[00:43:32] that they're already saying in their own minds and then entering that conversation. And they're not

[00:43:37] thinking about small group personal training. They're thinking about how do I freaking balance my

[00:43:44] overwhelmed life and still manage to get some fitness in and thinking about how the hell do I lose

[00:43:48] this weight? I haven't lost before. I can't lose it. They're not thinking the stuff that a lot of

[00:43:53] guys are saying. And so I wanted to write the ship in terms of the marketing side of small group. So

[00:43:58] that I think the biggest benefit they'll get from reading the book, if you're doing small group

[00:44:02] is improving how you're communicating to your market. But I also wrote it for people that are

[00:44:06] doing one-on-one. I think there's a lot of people still doing one-on-one and I'm not like against

[00:44:11] one-on-one. I like one-on-one. We still do some one-on-one here at my gym. I just think it's a tough model.

[00:44:18] I don't even want to say it's a bad model, right? It's a bad model if you price it wrong.

[00:44:24] Right? So I just signed up for fighting lessons. And so I'm like learning how to fight.

[00:44:30] Like boxing or like?

[00:44:32] It's like MMA.

[00:44:33] MMA. Oh, cool.

[00:44:34] Yeah. And so like he does everything. But like he's charging me 60 bucks for the hour.

[00:44:43] And I'm just like, how's this guy making it? Like how's this guy? And this is my town. Like

[00:44:49] this is not like, yeah, this is my town. Like he's one, it's weird going to another gym in

[00:44:54] my, cause it's at like a gym, but he has, he rents space in there and he's like the fight

[00:44:59] guy. So I go to another gym in the same town as my old, my gym. But I'm doing fighting.

[00:45:05] Right. So I'm doing like, and it's great. Like I'm loving it. Like I'm learning how to like

[00:45:09] meet people in the face. It's like, it's cool. But I'm like wondering, this guy's got,

[00:45:16] I'm like doing the math of like how many of these sessions does this guy got to do

[00:45:22] to hack out a living? And it's, it's like, I look at it as it's like, it's, it's, it's

[00:45:27] not a bad model. It's a tough model. It's a high burn rate model. It's a high trainer volume

[00:45:34] model. You need, if you're going to have a lot, you need a lot of trainers to do it successfully.

[00:45:40] I, again, I do think there's certain markets where it's probably necessary. I think the LA

[00:45:44] market and New York, New York city market, I think it's probably a smart decision because

[00:45:47] you can get 600 bucks an hour for one-on-one session out there.

[00:45:50] Yeah. That's wild.

[00:45:51] You know? So, um, I'm not totally against it, but I think just as a model in general,

[00:45:57] it's, it's, it's a tough one. And I wrote it because I wanted to give some of those people

[00:46:01] hope that I think there's a lot of guys that have been doing one-on-one for the last 30

[00:46:05] years that are burnt to hell. And I think it's a tough transition after you've been done

[00:46:11] something for so long, you get set in your ways. And so I wanted to kind of shine a light

[00:46:17] on another option, another possibility that maybe would help them make more money and work

[00:46:22] less hours, which I think is a better life as a, as a coach. So hopefully, hopefully they

[00:46:30] pick it up.

[00:46:31] Yeah. Awesome, man. Well, Vince, I think, uh, you know, there's, there's so many more

[00:46:35] things I could talk to you about, but I know, uh, both got things to do today. If people want

[00:46:39] to find you, uh, there's, it's vincegabriel.com, right? There's also your, your gym, which I think

[00:46:45] is vincegabrielfitness.com. I'll give them all the stuff. And then where specifically they can

[00:46:49] find the book, because I think you're doing something a little wild, right? Aren't you just

[00:46:52] giving this way?

[00:46:53] Yeah. We're just giving it, giving it away for free. It's just small group, personal training.com.

[00:46:58] So I'll give you the, well, here's the thing. It goes back with my simplicity thing, right?

[00:47:04] It's just like I getting clients, keeping clients. That's a successful model. It's just

[00:47:09] like, well, what's the, where you're the book. It's just like, no, smogupersonaltraining.com.

[00:47:13] That's it. So I try to stay in that parameter of simplicity in my simple mind. Yeah. So smogupersonaltraining.com.

[00:47:21] That's where they can get the book for free. That's really the best way. I mean, if you

[00:47:27] want to connect with me on Instagram, I'm horrible on Instagram. I actually, I'm not as

[00:47:32] horrible as I used to be. I hired a guy that's been doing a shout out to Haas Media who's

[00:47:37] been doing my videos. So I'm putting out a video every day, a reel every day on Instagram.

[00:47:42] It's a new thing for me, but I don't even record the videos. They just record me doing stuff

[00:47:47] like this. And then they clip them up and they make me sound slightly smart.

[00:47:52] Everyone needs something like that in their life.

[00:47:55] Yeah. It's great. But cause it's like all it's, it's called unused capacity. It's like

[00:47:59] I had all these videos and I've been doing this for years and I have all this hours and

[00:48:03] hours and hours of footage and they're just ripping through it and creating. I was like,

[00:48:07] oh wow. And she was like, my wife is like coming up to her. She's like, honey, that was a pretty

[00:48:11] good video. It's like, yeah, they probably had to edit like 5,000 things. They make

[00:48:15] that one 60 second clip, but so V Gabriel 71 on Instagram.

[00:48:22] Okay. Awesome, man. Well, Vince, it's, it's always a pleasure. And you know, I've always

[00:48:27] enjoyed just your genuine, authentic approach. And I think you're definitely one of the good

[00:48:33] guys in the industry. So thanks for joining me today and yeah, keep up the great work, man.

[00:48:37] Ladies and gentlemen, Vince Gabriel.

[00:48:39] Hey, wait, don't leave yet. This is your host, Eric Malzone.

[00:48:43] And I hope you enjoyed this episode of Future of Fitness. If you did, I'm going to ask you to do

[00:48:49] three simple things. It takes under five minutes and it goes such a long way. We really appreciate it.

[00:48:54] Number one, please subscribe to our show wherever you listen to it. iTunes, Spotify, CastBox,

[00:49:00] whatever it may be. Number two, please leave us a favorable review. Number three, share. Put it on

[00:49:07] social media, talk about it to your friends, send it in a text message, whatever it may be.

[00:49:11] Please share this episode because we put a lot of work into it and we want to make sure that as many

[00:49:16] people are getting value out of it as possible. Lastly, if you'd like to learn more, get in touch

[00:49:21] with me, simply go to the futureoffitness.co. You can subscribe to our newsletter there, or you can

[00:49:27] simply get in touch with me as I love to hear from our listeners. So thank you so much. This is Eric

[00:49:33] Malzone and this is the Future of Fitness. Have a great day.